Leading with Heart: Chief Steve Drew on Community, Crisis, and Courage

>> Iron Mike Steadman: Welcome to Frontline Voices, a podcast brought to you by Stanford University's Hoover Institution, where we explore leadership, service and real world solutions to some of our nation's most pressing issues. On January 6, 2023, Newport News Chief of Police Steve Drew received a phone call that would change his life.

 

A six year old student at a local elementary school had shot a teacher, seriously injuring her and sending the school into a full blown lockdown. Thankfully, the teacher survived and the situation was brought under control, but not before thrusting the Newport News community into the national spotlight and igniting a broader conversation about youth and community violence.

 

That incident first put Chief Drew on my radar nearly two years ago. Since then, I've been deeply curious about what it really takes to address community violence from the perspective of a sitting police chief. Having spent the past few years living in Newark, New Jersey, I've seen the headlines, the documentaries and the shows like the Wire.

 

But until now, I hadn't had the chance to sit down and hear the unfiltered truth from someone leading the effort on the ground. In this episode of Frontline Voices, I'm joined by Chief Drew, who shares his insights on the evolving landscape of school safety, the rise in youth violence, and the importance of community policing.

 

We dive into why building trust with young people is important, how empathy shapes effective policing and the crucial role of collaboration between law enforcement, schools, churches, and the broader community. As always, I hope you enjoy today's show and I look forward to hearing your feedback. Chief Drew, welcome to Frontline Voices.

 

 

>> Chief Steve Drew: Good evening, my friend. Thanks, man. Thanks for taking some time, letting me spend some time with you tonight.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: Well, thank you for making time to bring some insights for our audience on the work that you all are doing down in Newport News, Virginia. Like I told you, before we started recording, I have an affinity for your city because my best friend just so happens to be your mayor, Philip Jones.

 

And you guys have had, some challenges over the years, and me having a front row seat to be able to watch your response. I said I got to interview him and as soon as we had this opportunity to do Frontline Voices with the Hoover Institution, I knew I had to get you on the podcast.

 

I truly am humbled and honored, and appreciate you making time for this.

>> Chief Steve Drew: I'll tell you, it goes both ways and for you taking the time, I'm sure you're busy and could be interviewing a lot of more eloquent guests than me, but I, it's. You caught me right away when you said, let's have, let's have just conversation that's non formal, man, just a relaxed conversation.

 

And I can certainly understand why you're best friends with Mayor Jones. He brings a new energy and I'll tell you, man, he has some hard questions, but he has a true compassion for people, youth. He is a tremendous supporter of this department. He's always asked. We just had our dispatchers award ceremony and we had dispatchers from the seven cities, right?

 

So Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Newport News, Hampton, Chesapeake. And you know, he had a long day, man, he had a long day and yet he took time out just to come and wish them a great evening and tell them thank you for all that they do. And that stuff goes a long way.

 

So I can tell you, I can understand the relationship you guys both have. That's pretty amazing, that's pretty amazing.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: To set context for our conversation day, and it's funny because you and I just talked about the importance of having touch points every day, particularly with youth. I was raised in a single parent home in Bryan, College Station, Texas.

 

And over the summers my mom had to work and one of the things in our community, the police department had a youth camp. So this was before, you know, you get older and you get all the kind of division and whatnot, right? But just I just remember every year looking forward to going to that camp, right?

 

They had uniforms for us, right, t-shirts, they fed us and stuff like that. Wasn't until I got older that I realized that this really comes about community policing, really trying to get there, embed yourselves in the community and be seen, right? And I also remember, I can't remember his specific name, but I remember there was a police officer and he was African American, big, tall, six six.

 

He taught my karate class. He was one of the leaders in the camp, right. But he was just that kind of massive presence. So you would see him all over. And so, I just think that stuff is so important because I'm sure you're going to be able to give our viewers some insight.

 

But how do you lower crime in certain communities and especially with young men and women, that are plagued by violence.

>> Chief Steve Drew: Well, I will tell you first off, when you talk about youth, whether it's police athletic leagues and the different camps, I'm sure it'll come up later in the show, but spring break was here.

 

So please don't laugh at me, man, but we tried something new last year, and it was a big hit. We tried it again this year. So police officers did a pickleball camp with youth, and I wasn't sure if we'd get a lot of kids. Man, we had about 20, 25 kids that joined.

 

And I had officers come out of the woodwork, right, that wanted to play. And I'm like, man, it was just amazing. So your question about how building those relationships and the dress and crime. I think the first thing. It starts with knowing each other, being able to sit down and talk.

 

I will tell you, there's only in Newport news, there's about 500 police officers. There's not a crime that happens in this city that doesn't happen in someone's neighborhood. Individuals see things, they hear things, they know things. The challenge we have is, are people willing to come forward or are they afraid to come forward after we leave?

 

They still live there. I get that early in my career, that really frustrated me. This happened right in front of you in your neighborhood. Why wouldn't you let us know? But as you mature in this profession, you get to know people and you have conversations, and that makes sense to me.

 

Chief, when you guys leave, I'm still here, my sons are still here. So I think building that relationship, having those conversations, I think community policing breaks that down. And I don't care where you go to, if it's the FBI, National Academy or perf, all the different schools, Pells right up here in Richmond.

 

The foundation of addressing crime in communities is community policing. You've got to have that foundation where you can talk to each other mutually with respect. Individuals may not come forward and say, that's the individual who pulled the trigger. That's the individual who stole the firearm. That's the individual who laid the gun down.

 

They may not want to come to court and tell you that, but I will tell you the best officers are the ones that know how to talk to people to build connections. And they might pull that officer aside and say, look, the stolen firearm is underneath the bushes.

 

The car that was used in that is around the corner, parked on the side street. You might want to look at a particular nickname or particular individual. I don't want to come to court and testify, but I'll share that with you. And that is so much easier when you have a relationship.

 

So I might call and say, hey, Mike, look, I don't want to get involved, but I want to tell you, here's what I know about what happened. Those things go so far. The one that rings the bell the quickest is when we hear people doing some posts about violence in schools.

 

And the ones who know about that the most are the students. And they're reaching out to their school resource officers who are building relationships. I don't put officers in the school to how many arrests can we make? Is to protect those kids and to build relationships, to break down barriers.

 

And that, I believe, is the secret to police.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: Even hearing you talk about it, it sounds like you're coming from a place of conviction. This is something that you've learned in the trenches. And can you take us back to even how you developed this kind of philosophy?

 

Because you were in some hard cities, you know, raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. Now I'm a boxing fan. We got Aaron Pryor, Ezra Charles, more recently Adrian Broner, then by no means, is Richmond an easy city. And then you find yourself in Newport News. And then literally, like, was it two years ago?

 

You got the attention of the entire country.

>> Chief Steve Drew: Yeah, and I'm, I'll tell you, I'm not proud of that attention. I wish it was for something else. But I will tell you. So how I was raised, growing up in the Cincinnati area, I had a lot of influences on me, sports was always important to me.

 

I was a big baseball fan and played baseball and basketball growing up. And I learned very closely that team concept. People may look different and be from different areas or neighborhoods, but you're on the same team together. And I kind of took that same philosophy when I got to Richmond, when I started there.

 

My faith, that's important to me, how we're taught that we're all in this thing of life together, regardless of skin color, regardless of gender, regardless of zip code. And how you treat people matters. And I learned early on in the streets of Richmond, as a young patrolman, talking to young kids on the street corner, you remember the, when before cell phones, right?

 

All that stuff was on. One individual would have the cocaine, the other individual would have the firearm. One individual would have money, and then one individual would just run and like young officers, we just chased whoever ran, right? And all this stuff was. So I learned very quickly, talking to people, treating them with respect, having conversations, not just talking to them.

 

When something bad had happened, people got to know me, and they would introduce me to their friend. That's true, he's okay. And we'd shake hands. How'd you guys do in school, hey, man, I can't believe you got lost that basket. Who's going to be in the final four?

 

So just those conversations humanize us, who we are behind this badge and patches and it would get to the point where detectives in other divisions higher up than me would call, like, Drew, do you know so and so can you find out, have you heard anything about this?

 

And that's kind of how I made my bones, if you will, or how I got to interact with community. And that just carried with me. And the more I've done this job, whether it's parents calling you, youth calling you that are troubled pastors, I think that is a great segue into communities.

 

And it's not, Mike, I tell you, for me, man, it's not just one event. It's what you do as a fabric. Every day, whether you're going to high school, you're stopping, just someone saying hello. You stop and get out of your car and you bait myself now, but throw the Nerf football, or you get your baseball out of the back and you hand somebody a glove and you just play catch, or you're just talking, the community things that you do, it's showing up to the Boys and Girls Club.

 

There's, like, eight Boys and Girls Clubs here in Newport News. I learned that in Richmond. Just getting out and walking in and saying hello. Reading to kids in an elementary school, that can be challenging if you don't know what book you're picking. But that stuff, when you go to the grocery store and I'm in plain Clothes.

 

Chief Drew, you read in my class, my brother knows you or my sister took a picture with you. Can I take a picture with you? Those things matter, and I think it starts at the top. You've got to push that community policing and build those relationships. I had people that looked out for me when I was growing up.

 

Youth pastors, baseball coaches, basketball coaches. And I just learned early on to give back, interact with people and see people where they are listen to, understand, not listen to, just to make a response. And that's, I think, a lot.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: I think a lot of times we talk about crime, right?

 

For a lot of people, myself included, right. We tend to go back to the wire, right? And the scene and the crime stats and all the division or whatever they're called, their titles, they have to go up there and they have to report. And it's a big difference from, like, what's actually happening, like, on the blocks, in the streets and stuff, et cetera.

 

So what are some misconceptions you think people have about what it really takes to lower crime? And is that even real, really possible?

>> Chief Steve Drew: So I will tell you. I remember. I can't believe you've run up the wire, man, my gosh. So I remember in Richmond, that's exactly how it was.

 

We would have our CompStat presentations, and they would drill you, like, what happened here? What are you doing? What, so I think when you address crime, it's one. It's number one. It's breaking down barriers, people have to know you care about them, that you care about their neck.

 

You, and I'll tell you, the best people can tell when you're fake are you if you're there one time and they don't ever see you again, or you're coming through the neighborhood, you're hanging out with them, talking to them, you run into them at 7:11 and like, hey, I got his.

 

Just things like that. So when you, misconceptions, I guess that police don't care that they're just here to write traffic tickets and, and make arrests. And they're only here when bad things happen. I think you have to. And we have our skeletons from years past. Right. And I wish to God we could turn back the clock and do something different 30, 40, 50 years ago, but I think now you.

 

The first thing for me is setting that foundation and bringing in officers. Right, when I started Richmond, well, you're, it's pop. There's a lot of things going on here, a lot of opportunity. Now, when I see officers that wanna come to Newport News, I ask them, I'm giving my secrets away, why do you wanna get into law enforcement?

 

And they tell me, and then I change the question, like, why do you want to do it here? Why in Newport News? And What I hear, 99% of the time we see what you're doing in the community. We see you guys at all the youth events. We see you guys interacting and holding camps and interactions, so I think when we talk about addressing crime, there's probably three or four things that I think I would use as our platform.

 

When I talk to other cities or other chiefs, technology is huge, judges, juries, defense attorneys, they wanna see the body worn camera footage. They want to see the. They want to know what did shotspotter pick up. They want to know about cameras in the area. They want to see the DNA evidence.

 

So technology is huge in law enforcement. The second I think is building relationships. And I'm not going to put these in any order. If you got rid of everything you just told me the one thing you have to know your communities and people, the people who. Grandma who sits on the front porch, she knows everything going on in that neighborhood, I promise you.

 

Absolutely. So building relationships, technology. I think training. We have to train officers different. You can't just can't sit in a classroom and do death by PowerPoint and have a lecture, I'll share with you that about midway through our academy, we put the computers away and we just shut the classroom down.

 

I get no state credit for these officers. This is just a week that we add on and we take them out in the community. We interact with people that are homeless, people that suffer from drug addiction, people that we go to schools, elementary schools, and read the kids.

 

We walk into communities, knock on doors. But I'm trying to teach them community policing out of a classroom, right? Not in a book that you just read. I want you to feel it. I want you to knock on a door and talk to someone. Hey, I'm recruit so and so.

 

And I'm going to be patrolling this neighborhood in about six months. And how are you, how long have you lived? Just wanna introduce myself to you and you start those conversations. So training, bringing the right officers in, putting the word out of this is what I'm looking for.

 

Having extensive, whether it's that, the long background investigation, then does anyone in the department know this individual, the polygraph exam, doing an unannounced home visit, making up that individual wants to be a police officer, do a ride along, I shouldn't say make. Get them to do one so they see what this is, the type of policing it is.

 

It's not like 45 minutes on TV and we're solving every crime with commercials. You're going to see some bad things. I want people that think outside the box or creative, have empathy, but all of those things, bringing in the right people, technology, getting to know the community, training is huge and then making the community a part of the department.

 

If you wanna get promoted in Newport News, whatever, I don't care if it's sergeant, lieutenant, assistant chief, there's gonna be community members on our panels. I've learned very early on I'm going to ask some policy and procedure. How do you feel about individuals, what's your philosophy? It's very different when a African American mother ask an officer and it doesn't matter to me if they're black, white or Hispanic.

 

How are you gonna treat my son or daughter if you run into them and they have an attitude? I wanna know what that, that's a, to have a citizen ask that, we're doing two things. We're getting a response from the officer who wants to get promoted to a higher level.

 

Draw some blood, and the officers know if you're gonna be a supervisor in this department, you had better be community-oriented. It's having our use of force review board where five citizens and four officers, so a group of nine. There's a lot of departments that are doing the citizen oversight, and it always concerns officers because citizens may not have that training.

 

You don't know what it's like at 2 in the morning to get a call of shots fired. You're going into a crowd and your heart starts racing. You pull up, you get out. You don't know what you're going to run into around the corner. But I understand the other side that citizens, officers, or citizens, will officers really judge themselves?

 

So we put nine people in a room and we have an audience and we show the body worn camera footage every time we use force. And it's about seven or eight times a month, so always a month behind. What happened in January we watched in February in those nine, five citizens and four officers together, with the officer who comes forward and gives testimony.

 

Hey, this is a call I got. This is what happened. This individual had mental illness. They spit on me, but I chose not to arrest them. I just got them medically evaluated. And then you'd hear those citizens and officers ask each other questions. It's like coming together. And I think that's how you build relationships and trust.

 

It's attending your local churches, having forums there. And we don't have to run everything, man. We can just be a part. That to me makes the foundation in any city crime is going to happen. Nobody ever thought we would have a situation like you talked about at a elementary school, an elementary school.

 

But there's a video we have that we actually showed. An officer turned his body-worn camera on and he's driving to the school and he says a prayer. And he says, God, please help us respond the way we need to respond and protect those who we need to protect and please let me make it home to see my family.

 

And I mean, it's touching to hear it, but we see those things. So it's how you treat people all the time. When you hit those high points or those low points, you're prepared for it, but you can't, it can't be standoff, say it's black and white. You violated this or you were speeding.

 

You gotta get a ticket. You rolled through a stop sign, you're getting a ticket. Those things, it can't, It's not, life isn't black and white. It's I was speeding cuz I was trying to get to the hospital. My son got injured at football practice. Hey, be careful. Just drive safe and let me know how your son's doing.

 

Here's my card, boom. It's how you treat people that makes all the difference in the world.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: And I can definitely relate to this too, because in 2012, I found myself as a young platoon commander patrolling the streets of Afghanistan in Helmand Province. And you'd have IDs going off, right?

 

You'd get shot at. And guess what? You still have to go out there and treat people with decency and respect. And so we know that police officers are under a lot of pressure. Quite frankly, living in Newark, Harlem, domestic violence, right? You have youth violence, right, drugs, I mean, on a daily basis, too.

 

 

>> Chief Steve Drew: Yes, sir.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: Daily basis. These are things people with daily basis. So for you to show up, I know it takes a mental and physical toll on your officers. And you've been, you got to Newport News what year? 2019 or 2018?

>> Chief Steve Drew: 2018, the summer of 2018.

 

By the grace of God, it'll be seven years July 4th weekend.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: Okay, 2018. What happens in, pandemic hits and then the death of George Floyd. And literally overnight, it felt like the entire country just erupted, right? How was that crisis? Navigating that and basically protecting all the goodwill you have built up the previous two years.

 

 

>> Chief Steve Drew: So I will tell you, you're right. It was like, wow. So let's start with the murder of George Floyd first. So we started seeing protests in larger cities and eventually came to our mid-sized city. That summer we probably had about 52 protests. And when, I mean that, demonstrations, walks, you'd see some, usually on the weekend, but there'd be a few in the evening, during the midweek.

 

And I will tell you, well, I can tell you every one we would have officers at, some of it was out of the way, just off to the side. Individuals would take to the street and there would be some like, why are you letting these 50, 60 people on the street?

 

And I'm like, look, I'm not going to run into this crowd. Let's have some conversations. So I would bet, I would say, Mike, about 95%, I would walk with them and have conversations, and we had a good relationship. Like I said, you're putting a trust. So most of those people that were protesting and demonstrating, they knew me.

 

We had a relationship. I remember Pastor Swann from Ivy Baptist Church. There was a walk from the south end of our city, and we were walking through a community, and people on the porch would wave, and then they would say, hey, Chief Drew. And Pastor Swann said, these citizens know you, and he was taken back by that.

 

And we just had that conversation how important that is. We did, in those 52 demonstrations, protests, whatever you wanna call it, we didn't have any cars burnt. We didn't have any buildings vandalized. We didn't have any assaults, and we didn't have to make any arrests. Probably five or six asked us not to walk with them.

 

They wanted to meet afterwards and have a group conversation. So it does take your toll. I think you've gotta remember who you are in here. For me, it certainly was my faith and talking to different, Pastor Maxwell, or Bishop Riddick, Pastor Swann, Fossil Smalls, those things helped me.

 

But, yeah, I could see the exhaustion on officers, and I would just talk to them and like, look, if you need a break, take the day off. It's okay. But for me, I certainly got my steps in that summer, but I learned a lot more about people and their feelings.

 

And I would, hey, it's different here. There's a different feel in Newport News. We were called to Portsmouth at times to help out with situations over across the roadway in Hampton, which borders Newport News. But I will tell you, it was, I got to meet people. And some people weren't even from our city, but it was just the frustration that they were feeling.

 

And I get it. And I'm not saying we're better than anybody else, man. I'm just saying that building those relationships paid off for us. And I think we even became closer as a city during that timeframe of how we handle that. We don't have to, no, you can't be on the street.

 

You know what? I can block traffic. Traffic can go around for 10 or 15 minutes to allow us to get across an intersection. And that's how we did it. But it was challenging. COVID was certainly challenging. A couple of situations we've had at our, in our schools have been, have been challenging.

 

And I see parents that the situation we had at the elementary school, parents wanna see their kids, and everything that we're taught in the academy is we're gonna put up the barricade. Nobody comes in, nobody comes out. We own the, right, that's great in a book. When you see parents with tears running down their face and they wanna know that their five-year-old or their six-year-old son's okay, we have to do some things different.

 

You have to improvise. I think that becomes from experience and leadership and empathy and understanding. When I saw military men and women come there because their son or daughter was, I was like, my gosh, they're fighting for this country and they just wanna know that their seven or eight-year-old son is okay.

 

We don't have to be, no, this, talk to people. And I think that makes all the difference.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: What year was that that the shooting incident happened? And I would love for you, to the best of your ability, just kinda bring our viewers up to speed, because we keep referencing it, but haven't turned into the specific details about the incident.

 

 

>> Chief Steve Drew: Yeah, so Richneck Elementary, we had a young man, elementary school, brought a firearm to school, had some frustration with this teacher. He pulled out that firearm, pointed it at her and fired. And that was Mayor Jump Phillips. That was his. He'd only been in office, like, six days.

 

So it was, what, 20? We're in 25 now? 24, 22, 23? 24, 23. It was 23, 24. Yeah, it was 20. So I can remember, wait, did they say in elementary school? My first thought was we had a parent who was upset. Never in my wildest dreams would I thought it would have been a child as we got there.

 

And we moved classroom by classroom, we moved the children to the gym or multipurpose room, if you will. I'll tell you, there's images, there's things in this profession you never forget. Images that I saw, officers holding hands with kids walking down the hall, some officers singing to kids that were younger.

 

We knew pretty quick where the incident occurred, the room, the little boy had been taken. We had placed him in a police car and set him with an officer. We were getting medical aid to the teacher, Abby, to get at the hospital. Grace of God, she survived. No one else was injured.

 

But questions that came up, and I mean, man, it was. The first thing I did is, once we had the school clear, is to get out and tell the media, look, I can't talk to you about the case right now, but I want to let everyone know that everyone's safe.

 

Parents were coming. They were getting in lines. They were starting to get frustration. Matter of fact, Philip and I, the mayor, walked the line where people were waiting to see about their children and told them everything was okay and kind of gave them a little bit of a brief of what had happened.

 

But parents were like, how did this gun get in? And how did this happen? And why didn't we respond? And. And there's still a court case, you know, that are going on in lawsuits. But I saw officers react to kids just like they were their own. And I saw officers talk to parents like they understood where they were coming from.

 

And, I mean, parents that were retired, grandparents picking up their children, military folks that were up at Fort Eustis that came down, but the media that. Man, the media that showed up here so quickly, and what I underestimated was what the following day would bring. And, I mean, you had national media here, and that became overwhelming.

 

And, we started to talk about, how do we address this? And, it was kind of like let's just be honest with, let's just be open and honest and tell as much as we can without hurting the case of what the situation was and how officers reacted. I couldn't be more prouder.

 

I couldn't be happier with the way the officers responded to that scene and how they reacted while national attention was on our city. And I will tell you, it affected officers too. A lot of those officers have little ones, they have kids in elementary school. But that was a hard time and it really made us, let's reevaluate, strengthen our partnership with the schools.

 

And of course things have been put in place since then and God forbid, but I will tell you, you just never know what the day holds. So you always train you in the military know you're always training for when that day comes. And it's something that those images and that day that I'll never forget that.

 

Like the mayor showed up. I remember he came to the scene and we kind of walked into school together just to let him see the kids were okay. We addressed the crowd, then we talked to the media before we all went home that night. But yeah, that was, that was impactful.

 

But those, man, to see those kids faces, that was impactful.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: What are the chances something like that would happen too and bring so much national attention on Newport News? I only imagine the scrutiny that you all were under at that time, both within the school and then in the local community.

 

 

>> Chief Steve Drew: Yeah, I remember a lot of school board meetings I attended just to answer questions. We went to the school board and school administration and had a conversation with our community at a press conference right there. The outlets asked the same question, how did he get the gun?

 

Where did it come from? Who bought it? Who, who gave it to him? So we worked our way through that. Then you're working through the Commonwealth. Whoever thinks about a case against a six year old with a firearm and you know, what facility can even and Child protective services involved, all of those different things.

 

And then who would have ever thought. I have never had. We have training for a school shooting, but it's never at an elementary school and another child at that age. But I will tell you, when officers got there, they reacted, coordinating off the schools, making sure that people were safe, clearing the classroom.

 

And even when he was in, in with another officer in the police car, we still went through just like we would anything else and checked each room, those that were locked and unlocked restrooms. We did find some people hiding in closets that were afraid that they weren't sure.

 

But yeah, then we had the whole discussion about should schools have metal detectors? Should children on, on behavioral plans, how do they look that. And that's kind of the school side, but for me it was, when a kid would come out of that classroom and walk up to an officer and hug them or when you gave them to their parent.

 

And you'll see kids run to their mom and dad. I saw mom and dad run into their kids. And it just, it really hit me here. And still I get choked up a little bit talking about it because, I mean, those images, it was like the city coming together on something tragic and working through it.

 

So we've gone to other cities and talked about how we responded. I'm sure we made a thousand mistakes, there's no blueprint for that, there's no book for that. But you learn and how do we do better? And God forbid it never happens again. I remember went to Loudoun county and had a conversation about school shootings there and looked at after action reports.

 

We debriefed here and checked on officers. We even brought in counselors for officers here. When the school shut down for a while and it reopened, the officers who responded that day went back to see the kids as they came back to school, kind of giving high fives on school, like first day of school, like opening day in baseball.

 

You're just high fiving kids as they come back. And sometimes it's just picking up the phone and hearing a parent upset and they wanna yell at you. And then about five minutes in you hear them start tearing up.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: Yeah, yeah.

>> Chief Steve Drew: It's just having that understanding of how impactful something like that is too.

 

And Mike, the last thing I'll say is, again, an underestimate on my part, it happened at the school in that immediate area. I did not realize how big of an impact it would have across our city and our region. I just did not realize how quick national attention would be or for something like that.

 

I probably should have prepared for that better. So when we did some interviews, man, I was just trying to be open and honest about, heartfelt about. And we were on the tail ends of. Remember down in Texas, there was a shooting. Yeah, there was some criticism, and I've never compared us to that, but I think there was, we got some accolades about response, but it wasn't like that for me.

 

I was very thankful how the officers responded and God forbid that everyone walked away from that scene.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: Yeah, these situations are hard. And people ask me nowadays, they say, and I think I said this on a previous podcast episode, but what advice would you give to your younger self?

 

And I always say forgiveness, because the older I get, the more I realized that, like, we were kind of put in impossible situations. People think like, these are fixed things that like, you can just. The answer is right there. But like, at the time, you don't have those answers.

 

So as a young Marine officer, I thought we could win the war in Afghanistan, whatever that meant, you know, like. But you're in these situations, these schools. And when I was coming up in high school, even before high school, I remember when Columbine happened, right? And that was like the first major school, we're almost numb to it now.

 

 

>> Chief Steve Drew: Right.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: And, I don't know your thoughts on, kind of on the school as like this place now that has to be super protected because I go back and forth on the metal detectors because that's just a different environment that I grew up in. And I also wonder psychologically how it's affecting kids.

 

 

>> Chief Steve Drew: Yeah, I'll tell you, it feels like you're in the room with us. As we heard debates and questions, we kind of let the schools make that determination. I remember even talking with Congressman Bobby Scott about how he felt. You talked about Columbine back then, we surrounded a school.

 

We didn't let anybody in or anybody out. The gunshots were still going off inside that building. And we waited for our SWAT teams, right? The most. So the whole thing has changed since. And now the first two officers, and it might be someone from Newport News, it might be a state trooper that had court and the first two that respond are going into to address that threat.

 

So we do training for that stuff all the time. And we also do for schools and churches and even some private industries have asked us, will you come in and just talk to us about. It used to be like run, hide, fight. And there's different names for it now, but it's still the same thing.

 

Barricading in place, getting out. If you can prepare to defend yourself with anything you have. But the other side is, know your employees, know who you work with. And if somebody's that's really loud and cuts up all the time, begins to withdraw for somebody who is very quiet begins to voice out that their behavior changes.

 

I remember the schools talked about, let's make sure that what happens in the community that I'm making sure that I let the school know that, hey, we had this disruption in the community, it might filter over into the school or if somehow in the school. Make sure you let us know that by Phil over in the community over the weekend.

 

So it's always like, how do we do better? What are we not thinking of now we have access to school cameras immediately? That's not to watch like what they're serving for dinner in the cafeteria. But it's so much better if officers on their phones, we can flip a switch in our real time crime center, something's happening.

 

They can see on their phone what's going on in the school as they get there. So we just continue to evolve, making sure that we have that we're able to badge our way into schools and have entry into the schools if something happens. Not trying to get a hold of somebody that has a key or to come down the hall and unlock a door.

 

It's just those little things that, that we learn as we develop and get better and better. But yeah, I mean, I'm like you. We didn't even have an officer in our high school growing up. And I don't know what it would be like to walk through a metal detector, and have it beat because you have a pair of scissors in your backpack.

 

So, yeah, I'm sure that there's people much smarter than me that evaluate the effects of that. Those are hard decisions. And I don't, I pray to God that we never have a situation like that again. But, I mean, we see it across our country. And one of the harder things is being a chief for and in law enforcement 30 plus years, when I see new officers graduate that are 22, 23 years old, I know, just like you in the military.

 

Right. You know what people could be forced to see, what they're going to have to respond to challenges they have. And it, I just look at it much differently today than I did 30 some years ago when I graduated. And you make some great analogies with the military life in a country that may speak a different language.

 

You don't look the same, you don't talk the same, and you're there to protect some. And I just can't imagine how difficult and challenging that could be, I think there's a lot of things there. So maybe it starts with a smile and a handshake moving forward.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: You mentioned that you've been in the force for about 30 years now, right.

 

And we've seen this proliferation of shootings in schools since that time. What do you just, you know, not philosophical, maybe not we don't got the economic stuff on it because, you got smarter people than us that say, hey, why this trend is happening. But what is it that you're seeing?

 

What shifted? What changed? Why are schools looked as soft targets?

>> Chief Steve Drew: Yeah, so I think, I think two angles. I think one is, is that sometimes you get individuals that are so frustrated. You talk to my son, you talk to my daughter that way, and they come in and they erupt.

 

I'm not talking the adult side now or a young person that is bullied in school and this has nothing else to live for, that they're mad and angry and wanna lash out. I'm going to make you pay for how you treated me and how you made me felt.

 

And who would have ever thought, we planned for bank robbery since the 20s and 30s when we through history. But school shootings were something we never really focused on. I don't remember even having a class in the academy when I started about school shootings, right? You talked Columbine and how many years ago was that?

 

So, I think that those are the two things that individuals behavior, access to firearms. I think is much more prevalent today than it used to be. And we see younger and younger. You know, on a side note, we had a stolen car here. We got a pursuit with last week and they told me that it ran into a building, but they said, chief we did a tactical stop and we arrested the driver and the passenger.

 

I'm like, good. Is everybody okay? And they're, yeah, the only problem is chief, they were 12 years old. I'm like 12 years old, man. I was watching, I was sitting at home watching a baseball game with my dad at 12 years old. I was playing outside in the front yard at 12 years old.

 

So, yeah, I think the stuff in the schools, access to firearms, anger, frustration, lashing out, how easy it is to get a firearm. And I think the schools have always been, this is a institution of learning. We don't think we're going to see violence here. And some of those niceties I think are taken advantage of.

 

So I think you continue to put school resource officers there, not for school to prison pipeline, but for safety and relationships. But it's I will tell you, Mike, I don't have an officer at every elementary school. We do in high school and middle, but I don't have one at elementary.

 

I wish that I did the 26 that we have here, even if we just started building relationships. But that's one of the things that always keep police chiefs up at night. Is, is. Are people, your youth of your city going to be hurt? Those that can't defend themselves?

 

But I think it's that way that in churches are the two that I probably worry the most about. You get the entities that have, we have a disgruntled employee, right? But when you talk about churches and schools, those are the ones that I guys, when you're doing reports, park at a school parking lot so you're visible.

 

But that's why we're going to every football game, basketball game just to maintain calm and presence. But those are the two that keep me awake the most at night. When we talk about shootings or mass shootings, it would be schools and churches.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: So, when we talk about youth.

 

We've talked a lot quad about youth, and you know your numbers better than me. But are you the big perpetrator of violence in the community? Is that an assumption, or.

>> Chief Steve Drew: No, so we still do a compstep meeting. It's not as much as like the wire is. It's more information sharing and making sure that we're looking at that.

 

We track everything in law enforcement calls for service, two of the categories. How many individuals under 18 have suffered gunshot wounds? And how many of our perpetrators under 18 are the ones pulling the triggers? So we average probably in our city, we had a horrible year in 23.

 

We had a record low in 24. So in 25, we're starting to get back to that mean right back to that average. We average about 25 homicides a year. Not proud of that. This is kind of where we are the last 5, 6, 10 years. And we usually have three juveniles.

 

So what is that? A little over 10% or right around 10% juveniles that lose their life. I don't have people running around the city just shooting innocent people. It is 90% of our violent crime are people who know each other, who had a beef. You know, you and I might have got into it in high school and we're back on the basketball court tomorrow.

 

Today, that social media stuff lingers for like a month later. People. I think that attributes to some of the violence that we see in the community, in schools. But yeah, I think those things play such a bigger role today than we when we were growing up. And yeah, it's just, man, the youth.

 

I think it's harder today to be a youth than it was when you and I were young. I'm sure you're younger than me, man, but I just, I don't remember all the pressures and stress that young people have today, but I do think there's hope. I don't know if we have time before, but I tell you a story of a high school student who was.

 

She kinda texted and said, I don't wanna do this. I don't want to do this life anymore. And she made one call and she called her school resource officer and man, he went and picked her up. He took her to the behavioral clinic. They kept her for three or four hours.

 

And they said, we're going to release you to your mom. And she couldn't get a hold of her mom. And she called her high school resource officer and he said, chief, can I pick her? I'm like, man, absolutely. And she called and has talked to me. She's one of our young adult police commissioners, so we have a relationship.

 

And just to hear her talk about him that way, man, I can't teach at an academy. That's who you are in here. So bringing the right people in. We've talked a little bit about that. But to me, youth are just the foundation. And I do see it younger.

 

I do see the firearms in the hands of younger people more getting mad. And we do have some problems with individuals who get upset and will shoot firearm rounds into a house. They don't care who's in there, right? They don't. So that's an issue for us. But I would say probably, probably 10% what we deal with death under 18, probably.

 

We're usually about three homicides I think we had last year. But I do track what is our violent offenders are involved in violence and are victims, what are under 18. It's about 10, 12, 15%.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: And is the majority of violence concentrated in low socioeconomic areas?

>> Chief Steve Drew: Yeah, I do.

 

We do see it in our high poverty areas. But I will tell you, it's much more affluent now. You know, people move around. We get a, I'll tell you, we get a lot of violence. I see in some of our high poverty areas are individuals who come from other communities, other cities and try to prey on that community.

 

So I when we talk about, my gosh, neighborhood X is, is such a problem, but a lot of the problems aren't individuals who live there. It's individuals who come from other areas and try to pry or take advantage of people who live there. Whether it's, hey, this is my girlfriend and our family friend and I'm just going to hang out here.

 

This is an elderly couple and I'm going to try and stay in the community or hang out on their front porch. I do see it there. Traditionally, if we look back over the last seven years, matter of fact, we have, we're heavy in technology in our city. So when ShotSpotter came here, which is gunshot detection, we gave them our data just to have clear eyes on it.

 

And they looked at where we're seeing shots fired, people who suffer gunshot wounds, people just shooting a gun in the air or homicides. And the areas, they identified two main areas and they were areas that you and I patrolling would know that is where we have our problems.

 

But it was a third party taking a look at that and putting sensors on top of buildings that I don't even know where the sensors are at, but I know what areas they cover. So yes, traditionally you do see it in your, in your poverty stricken areas. Not to say that we don't have it in pockets in other places and that it moves social media, cell phones, I think has changed a lot of that.

 

But I do think that we see in our city's East End, which is the most impoverished, is where we probably place the most officers and have the most violent crime, if we look at it in the long term. You might have a spike here and a spike there, but long term, consistently we're in those areas.

 

And even though we've reduced crime there over the last three or four years, that's still the area that is so volatile, and it can kick off just if there's one incident, my number one concern is retaliation. Just make sure that. I'll tell you what's really benefited us is addressing shootings, where someone's just shot in the arm, addressing it the same way we would as a homicide.

 

So I'm bringing the same technology. I'm bringing the same 10, 12, 15 detectives out there to address that shooting, to try and stop anything in retaliation or address that on quicker end before we have a loss of life somewhere else. That's something we started about three years ago.

 

Chief Creswell is really behind that, that let's address these smaller shootings the same way we address a homicide. And I think. And when we had that year in 23 and 24, that really curbed a lot of things. Also, it's places that we go that if you're coming out to buy illegal narcotics and you have a child in the car, we're notifying child protective services.

 

I want to look at things in a different way. Not just long, we made an arrest. Now what do we do with this young child? But I need those home visits. I need to involve. Are there problems here? Is there something we need to be ahead of? This is an individual, let's say something's going on at home and something in the school.

 

I don't think law enforcement can do it on their own. And maybe that went back to the earlier question about misconceptions. I think we have to holistically, and we talked about Mary Jones, one of the things he's big on is what is police, what is fire, what is schools, what is churches, what is community organizations, what are outreach workers, what are we all doing in this community?

 

It can't just be, what's law enforcement doing? I think if we, if that's our goal, just what is police going to do? I think we're on our back foot already. It has to be a collaborative, if you will.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: I was in one of the roughest cities in America, you know, for quite some time, right?

 

I had a boxing gym. But I'm looking back, I never had a problem with the kid in my gym. And the reason being by the time they walked through that door, they had self selected and I had a little bit of leverage over them. Now, that doesn't mean they would come in and be all chatty Patty all the time, but after about that six month mark seeing Coach every day.

 

Good morning, coach. Good morning, coach. Good morning, coach. Now, you had that rapport with them, and out in the street, some of these kids could have been tough, right? And then unfortunately, we did lose a couple to juvenile detention and whatnot. But it didn't happen when it was inside my gym.

 

And so one of the things that. That did teach me, and I do struggle with. Now, is that the importance of that kind of community effort? And how do you build, like, a culture of, like, excellence in our own way? Like, right now, walking around Newark and Harlem, one thing that I worry about is the legalization of cannabis, because I see these kids smoking all day, every day.

 

Now you're throwing on alcohol. Now you're throwing on these kind of impoverished neighborhoods, bad food, bad water, and it just seems like a recipe of disaster for me. And I can only imagine the type of challenges that's presented for y'all while you're trying to lower community violence.

>> Chief Steve Drew: Yeah, some of the things that used to be legal are being decriminalized.

 

We've had kids that have overdosed on the gummies in school.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: Yep.

>> Chief Steve Drew: We see kids that go to school, and then take off, and get into trouble in the community, in the neighborhood, driving without a license. We have a big issue with young people stealing cars today, and they can't drive them and have accidents and get injured.

 

But it's just so much. It's so different. But you said it, man. When you talk about that consistency, okay? And I really think that's the key, it's not just, hey, we wanna interact with youth today. It's, I'm stopping in the neighborhoods that I stop. I want young people here, and I want citizens.

 

I know Chief Drew goes to Food lion on the weekends when he does his grocery, and he'll come up and let us talk to him. Or I'll see someone look at me and like, are you. And I'm like, yeah, how are you doing? Taking that time. It's calling a mother when her son has been a victim of a violent crime or her family, and asking her, are you okay?

 

I think that goes a long way. It's attending school board meetings. It's walking in the community on Fridays when the weather gets warm. I gotta be honest, when it gets warmer on Friday evenings, man, I. I'll go out for two hours and just pick a neighborhood and just walk.

 

And sometimes kids will come out and walk with me. Sometimes citizens will. Sometimes they look through their blinds and wave. But officers see that. And now officers will come get out of their car and walk with me. And next thing you know, you're talking to two or three neighbors, and you're just chatting it up a little bit.

 

But you're right, man. It's like, consistency. I might not be sure right away. And I saw you on this week, I saw you next week, and you're back here the week after. That's building relationships. So I think that investment of time and energy into our communities that we police, I think has a tremendous, tremendous benefit, a tremendous problem.

 

I know I got a call today from a mother that's frustrated her son has run away from home. He's a football player, 13 years old, and she's just having a con, Chief, I didn't know what else to do. And I'm like, what's he upset about? So she gave me his number, I've tried to reach out to him.

 

He's texting back that he's okay, but he doesn't wanna go home yet. He had some issues with mom and stepdad, so at least we're having conversations. And I was like, how does he know me? And she said, he was in your drone camp last year. So we're starting.

 

It's just. You never know who you meet, who you talk to, how that's going to pay off down the road. Sometimes it may be five years later, it may be. I'm sure you've met people that you worked with younger than five, six years later. Man, you really helped me out.

 

Just that time you spent with me. Whether it's your time in the military or time with boxing, the people you've mentored, that stuff comes back around and people see your heart that way. And so I think the investment in people, investment in our communities is really the secret, like we talked about earlier, it's a secret to community.

 

 

>> Iron Mike Steadman: Yeah, one thing I try to be very conscious of, cause I have so many youth following me, is the things that I put out on social media. I know it sounds crazy, but just like being adult, you know, I don't drink alcohol, so you don't see alcohol on there.

 

No profanity, no none of that, because I know that they're watching.

>> Chief Steve Drew: Make good choices.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: Yeah, right. But it's crazy because so many people don't want to be role models anymore.

>> Chief Steve Drew: No, we were just in a community meeting last week, and I was a little shocked.

 

But the organizer said, it's time for men to step up, fathers and stuff that happens. They should be learning disrespect in the home, not for firemen, or policemen, or other. But there's got to be that home structure. You've got to learn some of that at home. And if you don't have it, I think it makes it a little more challenging for other individuals to instill that.

 

And I was like, man, he's really laying it out. And he was a younger speaker, but he had just came out and he said men need to step up more in our communities and be leaders here. And we have got to instill respect and dignity in our homes, in our houses.

 

If you can get away with talking to your mom here, my gosh, you're not going to respect someone out in the community that says, please slow down or hey, what are you stopping me for? And, and hey, I didn't do that. Stop bothering me. And sir, we're just got a call here and it's, yeah, the dangers and just good choices.

 

Who you hang out with, where you go, what you put in your body. Things can change just in a moment. And that, it's just, it's good decision making. But if you don't have someone doing that to you, if you don't have your mom raising you. My mom and dad, my grandparents.

 

Your grandparents, the neighborhood grandmother, if you will. Right. You better stop doing that if you don't have that. If you don't get that on an early age, I think it's harder to Learn it as you get older. We use a lot of returning citizens to do community work.

 

And they talk about choices that they made that sent them away, that may cause problems in Richmond or in Newport News. And trying to tell young men, you don't have to go this light. You don't have to make these same mistakes that I made. You don't have to just because everyone else, to be strong enough not to.

 

You don't want to lose 20 years of your life. But unfortunately, Mike, I think some people we deal with, they don't expect to live past 25 or 30 years. That's like, what? I'm 17. What are you talking about, 25 or 30? I'm trying to get to 18. So it's just some real, it's just challenging mindset and belief.

 

 

>> Iron Mike Steadman: People have a lot of limiting beliefs. And I also think, to be quite frank, a lot of people are depressed. I just don't think they have the. We just haven't been able to kind of diagnose it yet. But that's what it is. You start thinking about, like, you grow up, you see people that are inside all day not getting sun.

 

Sometimes you have a parent that's there but really not present. She's depressed, she don't even got the energy to raise that child. I'm starting to see stuff that, you thought, it's. You thought it was normal to sleep on a couch. Now you realize that that's housing insecurity, that this kid is bouncing from home to home and I had a teacher, I had a high school assistant principal on the previous episode, and he talked about his school, 70, 80% of those kids need free and reduced lunch because they're going to class hungry.

 

That might be the only meal that they eat. So we're just dealing with, like, a lot of stuff. But I'm with you. I think it's a combination, right? People do need to understand the role that police play. But ultimately, I do think communities do need to take some responsibility.

 

But it's hard to do in this world where we're blaming and there are things in the ether that make things more challenging. Let's just call it what it is. But doesn't void our responsibility.

>> Chief Steve Drew: That's true. No, that I grew up. I was in church every Sunday. Sometimes I didn't want to go.

 

But, man, I'll tell you what, I. You learn so much, right, just being around people who talk about God and faith and hey, we love you, we're praying for you. And I think some kids don't hear that. I think some kids don't, don't feel that. So they hang out with or join groups, if you will, gangs, if you want to use that term, that provide that for them.

 

Hey, I get bullied, I get made fun of, okay, now I'm going to carry a gun. Now, I'm respectful just because I have a gun in my waistband. I may not know how to use it, but I carry one. So now any altercation I find myself in, there's always a gun in the equation.

 

Or that I don't, people don't care about me and I have mental illness and there's nothing worse than overdoses and individuals who take their own life because they don't think anybody cares. And when I was 22, why would someone do that at 30 some years into this profession?

 

I understand why people do that, I understand why people do.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: Well, Chief Drew, we've got people tuning in from all over the country, all over the world. You've brought us into kind of your philosophy and the realities of kind of some of the challenge that you're facing in a city like Newport News.

 

You got any closing remarks or insights you'd like to leave our viewers with today?

>> Chief Steve Drew: Well, first of all, I'd like to say thank you for allowing me to be here, spend some time with you. I don't take you do a great show and to allow me to spend some time with you.

 

I think anytime you have conversations, you learn from, you learn from each other. That means a lot to me. You just do stuff about the military and things you face in Afghanistan. My dad was in the Marines and Vietnam, he doesn't talk about it a lot. And just hearing some things you said, I'm like, man, what an analogy.

 

You're doing the same thing in a whole other country. What I would leave is that we're all in this together. This badge and these patches don't make us any different. We may be held to some higher standards in what we do, but at the end I'm just sure we're human.

 

We have kids, we wanna go home in our, in our families as well. But making our city safe and investing in our youth, that's our future. They're going to be taking care of us, Mike, when you and I are older, much older. And it's not just law enforcement, you have to have leadership and it has to be a collective effort in our community.

 

So I go back to saying it, it's our churches and our schools. It's opening up the schools after hours for kids have somewhere to go and play basketball. Like the mayor's got an initiative now where we're doing Friday night nets where a couple entities are staying open later on Friday nights, right?

 

There's tense of being on the street, they have something to do or somewhere to go. And sometimes they go in there and play basketball, sometimes they just go in there and hang out and that's okay. It's our firemen that instead of being in the firehouse and responding to a medical or a fire that I know they have to be in such a proximity, but it's driving that fire truck maybe around a three mile area of their fire station and just being in the community, their presence, interacting with people.

 

It's our schools talking with police. What happens at school may breed over into the community. What happens in the community may bleed over to school. Having those good relationships, not being so tight lipped, having good relationships with our doctors where they treat gunshot victims. And hey, this is what they disclosed to me, that they're struggling in this neighborhood, this community.

 

Again, our churches, the benefit that they bring, our commonwealth attorney's office, not everybody. You don't have to have a criminal record for everything. Bringing two entities to sit down and let's discuss what happened and hey, would you allow them to maybe work at your store for the weekend, for the window they broke as it stood.

 

Again, the criminal charge. I think all those things, the different out street outreach workers, returning citizens coming back in. It has to be a collaborative effort and I think. But it does take strong leadership at the top to bring all those things together. We have conversations about hey, what are we doing?

 

What are all these different entities doing in this one neighborhood. And when you start there, it's kind of like the military, right? You're winning in neighborhood and then you branch it out, and you're branching out, and you're branching it out. I think it can't be just one entity.

 

It can't just be police. I look at if I had a community and I had someone like you that could go in, like, hey, I'm going to offer kids to come here and do boxing on Tuesday and Thursday. You're investing in the community there, you're changing minds, you're opening the door to something that maybe they have never seen or been around before.

 

Taking them out of some of that environment and let them see different things. Investing, mentoring, all those things, giving back. And maybe it's cuz I'm getting old, Mike. I don't know. I think that stuff really matters, man. I remember a baseball coach calling me and checking on me, meant the world to me.

 

And an officer stopping by, just saying hello to some kids at a boys and girls club, shooting a game or pool. I think those matter. So if I was leaving one thought, everyone get involved because one person can make a difference. But we're so much better together.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: I got a quick follow up question for you too, since you brought up your dad specifically military veterans, you know, how can we get in the game?

 

Where do you see we can make the most impact in communities?

>> Chief Steve Drew: I was just sitting there listening. I know we have a large issue with homelessness in our city like you do in larger cities. So I see some veterans there and I enjoy talking to them. But how could veterans, I'll tell you, I don't know that many kids in middle school would know what it's like to be in the military, unless they're father, uncle, brother, mother, aunt, whoever, but to have a military veteran sit down and talk about, hey, I was in Afghanistan where I didn't look the same as the people who live there and I'm there to protect them.

 

And sometimes we had a hard time understanding each other and, and it was challenging with you had these, these things that would happen, bombs that would go off or mines or we'd bring in new equipment and they would look at us and not really sure, are we friends or not friends?

 

Are we sizing each other up and relate that back to, hey, maybe what's going on? Not saying that our communities are battlegrounds, but really that same philosophy that individuals are coming into your community, patrolling your community to try to keep it safe. And you're learning each other. I never thought about till I heard you make the analogy of, hey, you were in Afghanistan?

 

And we're trying to, man. And I'm like, man, we're in some communities, and I don't want to say that our neighborhoods are war zones. They're not. Our crime is down for the last two years now. But if I had a military, a soldier, someone in a military veteran to talk to young people about, this is what life was like for me in the military.

 

And the people that were in the military that wore the same uniform, we had a bond, much like you guys might do in sports or, hey, we're from the same neighborhood. Hey, we're in the same unit. And it just relate some of those life experiences and things you learned.

 

I think that could go a long way. I've never thought of it like that. Until you kind of hit on your time in Afghanistan. I mean, I think that could have a big, it might not reach everyone, but, you're in the military. You were in Afghanistan. Not here in Newport News or not Chicago, not Cincinnati, you're in Afghanistan.

 

What was it like over there? Well, we didn't speak the same language, and it was hard. I think that could be really beneficial. Could have some challenges that I would love to set some military folks, some veterans who live life, right, and seen some different things in other countries, talk about what lessons that they've learned and relate it back to individuals that we're talking about.

 

 

>> Iron Mike Steadman: Yeah, we got a lot of post 911 vets out there that are they grew up very mission oriented. They know what it's like to lead selflessly. But, a lot of them are just kind of sitting on the bench these days. And so, you know, one of the reasons we even have this program, the Hoover Veteran Fellowship program, is to get them off the bench and in the game, doing projects to make the world a better place in their own way.

 

So, again, we'll share this insight with them, and hopefully, this will even prime you while you're down there. Maybe you come across, a young vet and say, hey, how about you get in the game here? Come throw some footballs with the kids or something.

>> Chief Steve Drew: Yeah,, man, that's a great idea.

 

I've never looked at it that way. So, I learned something in our time together, man, that's, that's, there's a lot of opportunity there because, I mean, look, in Newport News, we have the Naval Weapons Station, right? We have the shipyard builds these aircraft carriers., we got Fort Eustis.

 

I mean, we're surrounded by military. We're sorrounded by them.

>> Iron Mike Steadman: And I'm ruling the bet they're probably already there. They might not be self identifying or people don't know because they're little league coaches, basketball coaches, they're out there. But we just got to do a better job, particularly now in the peripheration of social media and so much content.

 

And I want to give you congratulations. I'm gonna give you all those flowers. When we first started, I mentioned the content that you're all putting out, that is so important. Because you can't take it for granted that the messages that you all are putting out on your social media platforms and the content you're creating, they're not hearing that on a regular basis.

 

They're hearing the other stuff. And so there's a lot of noise out there and we do need to do a good job of creating signal above it. So I said you're doing a great job. Appreciate you coming on this platform. To all our viewers out there, if you haven't done so already, be sure to subscribe to Frontline Voices on your favorite podcast hosting platform.

 

And if you're a military veteran that's interested in being part of the Hoover Veteran Fellowship program, head over to hoover.org/vfp. Until next time, peace, love. Have a great rest of your week, everyone.