'No one more committed': Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin calls for community change in sit-down with 米兰体育 13 Anchor Guy Rawlings
As part of our commitment to the truth and holding our elected officials accountable, 米兰体育 13 Anchor Guy Rawlings sat down with Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin to address the challenges and solutions that face his commitment to making Birmingham safer.
Watch the full sit-down interview with 米兰体育 13 Guy Rawlings in the video player below.
A fair assessment?
Birmingham is the fourth-most dangerous city in the country, according to the U.S. News and World Report.
We asked Woodfin if he felt like this was a true representation of his city.
"You know, as a brother who lost a brother to gun violence, as an uncle who lost a nephew to gun violence, as a son that still has a grieving mother, I don't think of this as stats and numbers," Woodfin said.
"I think about my own family. I think about my own family member, a first cousin who lost not one, but two children in the city limits of Birmingham to gun violence at two separate times in 2024.
"It's unbearable. The pain, the weight, the raw hurt and the emotion that scores of families have had to live with and have had to, unfortunately, join my family."
"That's awful for families in our community. There's nobody more committed than I am in making sure more families don't feel that way."
Finding solutions
Part of that commitment was to appoint a to find solutions to the city鈥檚 growing rate of homicides.
They came up with five recommendations to target the problem. We walked through each of them with Woodfin.
How do you get more cops on the street?
"We got to be real, Guy. We have to acknowledge that this is not a Birmingham problem. Nationwide, large cities have been short of officers. Officers got beat up after George Floyd for three years. They got beat up. And then all of a sudden, we expect that a new generation just wants to be officers."
"We have to reorient ourselves around how do we create a new generation of officers, no different than how do hospitals create a new generation of nurses who are short? How do superintendents and principals create a new generation of teachers who are also short? And so our frontline workers, first responders, etc., teachers, nurses, police officers, we've got to figure out a way to talk with them."
"We believe the $16 million package includes the best way of how to engage them. How to recruit, where to recruit, how to message, how to communicate, etc. We're encouraged by the fact that we ended 2024 with the highest recruiting we've had since 2020."
The $16 million retainment and recruitment package approved by the city council includes a signing bonus, quarterly bonuses, and a take-home car program for officers living within city limits.
What can be done to make them end Glock switches in Montgomery?
"These conversion devices harm and hurt people at the maximum level, and it ends up being a lot of innocent people. Because you can't control the gun and it ends up spraying bullets in a few seconds. That's not meant for our domestic streets. I don't care what you say. I don't care what your party is. None of that makes any sense."
"Therefore, we need a state law that bans them. What that does is empower local police, local sheriffs, local DA's state judges to have the flexibility to have the power to have the resources to go after the people that sell, manufacture and possess them."
Collaboration
As far as collaboration with county, state, and federal authorities, the mayor points to 2020鈥檚 鈥淥peration Nitro鈥� as evidence this is already happening.
"That was a coordinated effort to literally tamp down exhibition driving," Woodfin said. "They started making arrests. I know because you watched our reporting on it. The point I'm making is the success. That's an example of success. And that success is rooted 100% in collaboration with other agencies such as the sheriff's office. We partnered with the ATF. We partner with FBI, we partner with DEA."
"My position is nonpartisan. I want to be very clear when it comes to the matter of public safety, when it comes to the matter of keeping people safe. The only way to do is through partnership and the only way to do that is set partisan politics aside because no one cares. They just want to be safe, feel safe and that's what we need to provide."
What do you envision that will keep young people from doing crime?
"One, we need our parents," Woodfin said. "We encourage our parents, we impress upon our parents. Your child has to go to school. Your child has to be in school. They can't skip school. They can't miss school. School is not an option. We need butts in the seats. They have to learn. It's the safest places for the safest place for them to be when school is in, in the summertime.
"We need a better unified sports programs for our children, that they can matriculate at every level. We need more enrichment programs, whether it's not just sports, but, arts and everything else. We have to make sure we do everything we can for our young boys."
"And then when it comes a young Black man, I am very, very sincere in what I'm about to tell you. We got to employ them. We say, well, that sounds simple. In 2025, a livable wage for any human being, male, female to take care of themselves is $22 an hour. I want to create a robust job plan in partnership with businesses in this community. I don't care if they're small, midsize and large. That says if you employ these men, I'll split it with you. You pay them $11 an hour and City of Birmingham will match that $11. We got to get them gainfully employed."
How do you respond to people who say it's the same old problems with the same old solutions?
"We'll do everything we can," Woodfin said. "But let's admit, Birmingham, that some of this goes beyond policing and government. We need families to be families. We need parents to be parents. We need community to be community. We need the village to be the village.
"We need the culture to change. There's a culture of retaliation that exists in the city of Birmingham. We got to break that up. There's a culture of no snitching in Birmingham. We got to break that up. There's a culture of complacency and and not sending our children to school and just letting them roam the street. We got to break that up."
"Culture is always hard to change. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't fight to make culture better. It just takes consistent work."
"We end up doing the Spider-Man meme where everyone point at, the other person says, no is your job or no is your job. You you're responsible. I'm the mayor of the city of Birmingham. I'm a leader, and I take responsibility for the things I am responsible for. And I am committed to making this city safer. I need every adult walking alongside me to do that because it cannot be just one person. And I'm telling you, it can't just be the police."
How do you rate the job you've done as mayor?
Woodfin pointed to achievements like the Birmingham Promise鈥攕ending BCS students to any state college or university tuition-free, $60 million in infrastructure investment to repave roads and removing blight. And despite a record year for homicides, he pointed out that overall crime in the city is down.
Is that good enough for another term?
"I think that I have done everything I can and doing everything I can will continue and I鈥檓 committed to do more."
"Serving as mayor, of my hometown as a son of Birmingham is an amazing opportunity to make your city and your communities better," Woodfin said. "I grew up right here, a family that literally lives all over this city. There is a strong commitment to make it safer."
"We can do that when everybody keeps their head out of the sand. Everybody is in it and committed together."