 Hi everyone. Good afternoon. My name is Edward Henry. I am the chair of the chief of police search committee and I want to welcome the community to our Q&A session with our potential candidate for man-hosting chief of police. This is Captain Todd Ahearn. He's personally going to say something along the way for him, so be kind. He's making himself available to answer as many of your questions as possible and we want to give him a chance to also give a committee that he'll be serving should he get a job as well as have you a chance to ask him questions. So as a matter of house then we'll do some housekeeping. We have child care available on the second floor. Bathrooms we have two of them, one on the first floor just around the corner while we're in the basement, the ground floor just around the corner for people who don't want to. There's a restroom right around the corner for people who have lowly issues because they have the elevator. Everyone else if you could please go up to the second floor and then take a right. We're going to use those doors because it causes a little bit of friction with the door right there was open and that would be great. Thank you. Our exit here to your left, well to my left to our right and then behind us of course our second candidate will be moving promptly at 6.30 so the format tonight will be about 45 minutes of Q&A and one hour of Q&A and hopefully 15 minutes for some informal interaction with the candidate shall you choose and I think that's about it. Thank you. So you may ask questions by raising your hand. If you have any some people have cards or cards are available. Should you want to write a question down you can do so. The cards are also in the back and Melissa and Jen will get the cards as a questions if you want them to or you can ask the questions directly yourselves. We have microphones that they can bring to you. So with that I will give Captain Aherin a chance to introduce himself and we can jump right into it. Hello everybody. I just wanted to start off with my own housekeeping. I was thinking about this earlier but I don't know if it is a good time. Ever was kind enough to give me a promotion technically as a tenant. So I was functioning the same, same same. So I'm glad to say everybody here it looks like it's well attended. I know you're very interested in who's going next police chief in your town. It shows your commitment to that process that you're here and you're you know, My name is Todd Ahern. I'm born and raised in Charleston, Massachusetts. I've been a police officer there for a little over 30 years. Currently a lieutenant. I've held a rally of roles there. Spent a lot of time in the detective building. The last 10 years I've been a lieutenant in charge of the community wellness and outreach division. That mainly basically encompassed mental health, substance use disorder, homelessness, building social issues, things like that. And I can tell you that I probably learned as much in the last 10 years, doing some of the sort of jobs that you wouldn't think of as traditional policing as I did in the first 20 years. There's a lot of expected of the police now. It's not an easy job. It's very complex. But it's a leading career. It's something that I think what I like to look at is I've always tried to be hopeful to people and treat people with respect in the community. And if I was the leader of the Lander's Police Department, those would be some of the ideas that I try to incorporate in the department. I just want to go to the right of the machine. Treat them with respect. Probably be helpful, service-related. That's about it. We want to make sure everybody's safe and secure. That's obviously the top job. I feel like I'm a very collaborative person when I look with the community. I thought you could do it. Seek input from the people that work at the department. And my door is always open and the phone will be answered. So I'd be accessible. I believe that the police should be accessible and accountable to all members of the community and inclusive. And I'm sure I'll have more when you ask the questions. Thank you so much for your interest in this position. I'm curious what attracts you to Amherst, we're a special town. I'm just curious about what it is about us that makes you want to be here. I think that's what attracts me though. I think that you want to participate in the process. You want to have input into the way that the police deliver their service. Policing has changed a lot in 30 years since I started. It changed a lot in the last five years. And I think that we as police have to be ready for that change. We have to be willing to change. You have to adapt. You should always be analyzing what you do. You should always look for a better way to do it. I've said before that I think that we as police departments should run more as a business, right? You're the client. We have a service to deliver. We need to do a good job. We need to make sure that we leave you with some level of satisfaction. You should be able to participate in the way that we deliver police services. You should have input into what that looks like. I have a question on a note card. How did the Amherst demographics differ from Chelmsford? And how would you approach learning about Amherst? How do Amherst demographics differ from Chelmsford? And how would you approach learning about Amherst? Correct, yes. So I think demographically, there's probably some slight differences in racial or ethnic makeup. But as far as, I look at the community in sort of a holistic way, right? So it's not just who lives there. It's who drives through the community, who visits, who shops, who dines. Are we a welcoming community, right? So in Chelmsford, that's what we try to do. We try to make it a welcoming community, both as a town, as the police department. Demographically, there are a lot of, we'll be considered white people in Chelmsford. The people of color are probably more of Asian, Brazilian mix, something like that, if you're looking for strict demographics. And, you know, but I would say it's similar in that it's not all right. There are quite a pretty big senior population in Chelmsford that we do a tremendous amount of outrage, excuse me, outreach with the kids in the schools. We do a lot of work with them. So demographically, the age-wise, identity-wise, racially, it's pretty mixed. It's probably similar to Amherst, maybe just different groups. But as far as trying to learn about Amherst, I've already been doing some research, trying to kind of cram for my day today, and I'll just continue to do that. I think if I were to be selected, one of my first orders of business would be to reach out to the community as much as possible, have some coffees, engage just at a street level, try to attend meetings, meet department heads, department members, my own department, and just try to learn who everybody is and what makes them tick as early as possible. And then obviously we get down to business with sort of our vision for the way we're going to deliver service and things like that. Hello, hi, how are you? Good, thanks, how about yourself? Good, so my name is Leber Ferreira. I'm actually a co-chair with the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee, and before that I was with the Community Safety Working Group Committee, so we were the ones that actually recommended the creation of the Crest Community Responders Department. And so my first question would be, how would you, if you were to became the police chief, how would you work with Crest? Because obviously this is a department that will have very much focus on being successful and autonomous, independent, but collaborative with the police. So that's my first question. Second question, how would you work with my committee because we're a very active committee in terms of monitoring and making sure that a lot of the recommendations are put in place, which is focus on social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion. So second question, how would you work that? And third question would be, how would you foster an anti-racist culture within the police department? So I have an habit of talking too much, so if I would look too wounded, you can come back to me and tell me if I miss one of the questions, okay? I just, I don't wanna miss one of your questions, so please remind me. So first off with Crest, I've done some research on Crest. So in Chompsford, I've spent 10 years creating a sort of a social response policy for our police department, to mental health, to substance use disorder, to homelessness issues, to social issues. And in Chompsford, what we did was we incorporated a co-responder, and that was how we did things a little differently from the way we did it before. We always knew we sort of missing the mark with mental health. And so in addition to the co-responder, I want it, we pledged to the One Mind campaign, which it basically asked you to have 20% of your first training, crisis prevention team training was the 30 hour training, and everybody trained in mental health training. What I said was I think that every officer should be trained in that, because it just allows you to respond in a more educational, informative way. You display patience, you're talking to stakeholders, you're outcome driven, you wanna know that that person's gonna get help. And if you invest in the beginning, you get better outcomes and you don't, potentially you're not responding to the same call all the time banging your head against the wall. So as far as Crest goes, I understand that it's not co-response, it's an independent response. And I think there's room for, when we're talking about these social issues, I think there's room for anything that you can try anything to try to attack these things in the right way. I think Crest is definitely a worthy entity that is trying to do the right thing. And I think there's a place for it. And I think that like you said, it's gotta be a collaborative effort. I would never wanna compete with them. I don't think that makes sense. It would never work, right? So I wanna support that. I wanna collaborate that. And I wanna make sure that they succeed. There's definitely a niche there where I think that they're gonna have a different level of training. They're gonna be able to respond to certain types of calls. But I'm all about if we're not as prepared or as suitable as they are for a certain type of call, then I think that that's a worthy way to go. And this is not, it's new in Massachusetts, but it's sort of a wave of the future. Cambridge has started a similar program this month. So it's definitely something that's coming and I embrace it. I think it's a great idea. I've already forgotten the other two questions. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I wanna collaborate with any of these entities and any work groups. And you talk about social justice, like these are my core beliefs. I wanna make sure that we're treating each other with respect, with empathy. I think accessibility and accountability and equity are all critically important. People should be treated fairly and justly when we deliver services. You brought up anti-racist. For me, that's a non-starter. Like, we talked about this at an early interview. In my own mind, I think it should just be understood, but unfortunately it's not, right? So a lot of times you have to codify it and you have to put it in writing. I said it the early interview when I brought up Cress. If you think about the way, obviously the acronym stands for something, community responders for equity, safety, and service, right? And it says right in there, it's anti-racist, right? That's what, I would wanna use all those words for the way I want my police services, right? I want it to be equitable. Safety is our main concern. I want it to be service-based. I want it to be helpful. I want it to be respectful. But as far as anti-racism, it's a no brainer. So just to give you some context, and I'm not looking for extra credit or anything like that, but with diversity and equity and things like this, I think it's ethically what needs to be done from everybody. I think it's professionally what needs to be done, both in government and in policing. Personally, I have a very big stake in that. My wife is African-American, my kids are biracial. Like the people I care most about in the world could be dealing with some of these very issues. So it's also personal for me. Well, Carlos, I want to introduce myself to you. Hi, I had a different question, but now I have a follow-up question to that, which is, so you've made the point how important it is, and I guess the missing part to me is how would you try to instill it because it's not just everywhere, as you know. So how do you see making the community be the way you're talking about wanting it to be? Well, for me, it would start with the police department. So I think like anything, any organization, any business or whatever, it's about setting up a culture. So I would set up a culture at the police department that says, listen, racism is not gonna happen. We ought to be anti-racist. Not only will we not practice it, we will not condone it, right? We will stop it. We will get in the way of it. I just feel like, you know, I wished that was just easier and that was just a given or accepted, but for whatever reason, it's not. So if we have to talk about it, we have to make it part of the culture, then make no mistake about it and I will do that. That is a priority. And again, it's a non-starter, like that has to happen. So setting up a culture at the police department, again, what I've talked about a little bit earlier, my style would be helpful, service-based, respectful, right? Seeking input not only from the people in the department, but from community members, right? I want you to be active participants in the way we deliver police services. I talked to one of the earlier interviews about tapping members of the community. There's a lot of smart people in the sound. Probably a lot of people are smarter than me. I'd be foolish, we'd be foolish as a department not to tap some of that and find out, you know, what they think is important and maybe that can be incorporated into the next great police initiative. It may not be a police officer's idea. It doesn't have to be. Did that answer your question? For the most part? All right. Do I see my... Hello, my name is Hala Lloyd. And I'm wondering, it's connected to the last two questions, would you please share a time in your experience on the police force when you either engaged in or initiated creating or deepening an anti-racist lens in either policy, practice or the presence? Yeah, so I would say one of the things that I took very seriously and I thought was really important and I'm proud of it in that vein in my own police department was, I saw a really good training called fair and impartial policing. And it was sort of a train the trainer type of situation where I grabbed myself and one of my sergeants we went and got trained was a two day training and was put on by a couple of officers from Milwaukee and I thought they did a really phenomenal job and it was about implicit bias. And it really gave a really good picture of what implicit bias is and how it affects us and that it's not necessarily a policing issue it's a human issue, right? When you have vague or ambiguous stimuli when you see something that you don't understand you fill it in with what your experience is or what you know. And so I thought it was really poignant and it really hit home and I thought that it would do well with the people in my department. So we took that back and we trained every single officer, it was an eight hour training and that's not the be all end all. And what I tried to say there is and which I would preach going forward and this is with any type of training but particularly this type of training implicit bias training I think opens your eyes to while there are some things that I see that you make connections humanly that you don't understand that you're doing and it can be detrimental particularly if you're a police officer. And so you have to first recognize that it's possible and then you have to understand how does that affect me personally? What type of filters do I have? How do I see different groups and things like that? And then you have to have some education, some introspection, you have to find ways to expose yourself to other groups that you don't understand and hopefully gain perspective and context. I spoke earlier about trying to move away from perception towards perspective, right? And that means you have to expose yourself and you have to have conversations. You have to gain understanding of people and groups that you don't have a lot of exposure to or a lot of experience with. I hope that answered your question. I'm Martha Hanner. Hello. And my question is really a followup to Deborah's question. She referred to the previous committee that worked very hard to help set up across the community safety working group. And so my two questions, first of all, have you had the opportunity to read their report? They had two parts, part one about press and DEI and part two more into some of the changes they were recommending for the police and so on. So the first question is whether you had a chance to read them. And then my second question would be one of the things brought up in part two is the subject of traffic stops. We know how that is a national issue and it also is a local issue. And so the question would be whether you would have a plan to kind of review all the protocols about traffic stops in Amherst and have some community discussion about setting up a new set of protocols of how they're done and so on. Okay, so the first one as far as the report goes, I can tell you this, I've done a tremendous amount of reading the last month or so. I don't know exactly what things I read. I did read something about Crest and that creation. I believe it was the working group had sought out, I think a sort of an opinion from an outside group that yes, and they did a pretty voluminous report that talked about some of the recommendations. So I did read some of that and I understand it and I agree with a great deal of it. And again, like I said, I think there's definitely certain types of calls with especially social issues where that could work very well. Now, it's a new program, right? Like any new program, you want it to succeed, but you've got what you looked for in the beginning, the goals you set, are they achievable? Are they measurable? After a year or two, do you look back and say, okay, can we pivot? Should we put more resources into this? So those are all things you have to think about too after a year or two years, like anything, like any new initiative, like any innovation. As far as traffic stops, so I kind of said this earlier, like there's a couple of things with policing that we are not monolithic, right? So there is something going on nationally, right? Like there's information not all good about police and somebody asked earlier, well, what do you think about that? The few bad apples argument. Well, I don't subscribe to the few bad apples. I said that, you know, police leaders sometimes will say, oh, 99.9% of the time you're getting it right. And I said, that's impossible, right? Like Apple doesn't get it right 99.9% of the time, right? So yeah, we may be well mainly in those cases. I think that officers take the job because they want to help people by and large. You want to do a good job, but there's work to be done there, right? Getting back to like traffic stops, you have to have a very good anti-bias policy. Okay, again, you have to create culture, you have to set expectations. I would have to review the traffic data here, what does that look like? So before I could comment really on how we're going to do traffic stops, I want to see how they're done. What's the data? And you can measure traffic stops and traffic issues and traffic. You can put them in, interpolate the data. I'm not afraid to do any of that. You have to do that. If you're not looking at the data on anything, you're in trouble, right? It's all about starting with culture and expectations and then evaluating and interpreting what we're doing and watching the data. But if we were, if I didn't think we were making the mark or if we were going against the culture of anti-racism or we were practicing some sort of bias, I can assure you would take very quick corrective action. If I may just follow up with the traffic stop. So you've been a police officer for the better part of 30 years. Are there certain low level crimes, so to speak, that you've seen that you think, okay, maybe this should not be so overly policed? Can you identify any, I mean, that you think, okay, this is something that was this way, but now it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. So I think, I don't know if it's a matter of what's more serious or what's not, but I can tell you in my 30 years, things have changed. I think when we treat some things less serious than we used to. Some traffic offenses, shoplifting has gone, it's really very rarely treated serious. Sometimes nationally, sometimes, I can speak for chump sort, it's less serious. But I actually commented that in an early interview too, where it's sort of understandable if you catch somebody shoplifting and they're stealing food or baby food or something like that, right? Like, there might be other issues at play there that you need to help that person with. It's a whole nother thing if somebody runs out and grabs 12 Louis Vuitton pocketbooks and runs out the door, that's sort of a lawless behavior. So the two things are not quite the same and I would wanna see, we almost have to swing the pendulum back a little bit and take that a little more serious. But yeah, there's room, so there's room for discretion in how we treat a crime. I think we have to be careful with how we use discretion and you have to make sure it's applied consistently, right? Because when you get into bias areas, when you get into implicit bias areas, not everybody has the same opportunity and also it could lead to differential treatment if you have implicit bias. So we have to be very careful with that, that it's applied consistently and with equity. Steve King has my name. Hello. I may be mistaken, but I think one of the demographic differences between Chelms front and here is that we have a very large student population at least a lot of the year. And I'm just wondering if that's a new challenge for you or how you think the police department and Amherst might engage with students and also your relationship with the university police department. Yeah, so you pointed that. I knew that, I guess I didn't get that out, but I appreciate that you're 100% right, right? So that's a little different. It's not something we have in Chelmsford. There was a time where UMass Lowell had a West campus in Chelmsford and we dealt with them a little bit and we worked with the university police. Certainly not on the same level. This is like college town, right? You got UMass, Amherst, you got Hampshire, you got Amherst, so a lot going on there. I think it's like anything else, right? So I have to get the information but it's also, it's really about collaboration. They have some things going on at these places. I have to make sure that I know what they are. How can we help each other? I have to make sure, I said earlier, like my mission, my vision, our vision at the police department would have to sort of mirror the communities, right? Their mission and their vision. If it doesn't, we're not hitting on the same wavelength. It's sort of the same thing with the schools too. Like we have to kind of make sure that we're approaching these things sort of from the same angle and that we work together collaboratively. The better we do that, the better we all have a chance of success. One of the things I saw about the university that I thought was a great idea was probably thinking outside the box a few years back when it was put in place. Well, I think it was the Good Neighbor program, right? Where you sign up and it was probably, I'm sure it's a frustration sometimes, particularly in the beginning of September or when the good weather starts and schools and session. Some parties start up or some gatherings and I know there's some noise complaints you go to and disturbances and even the residents probably say, okay, to a point, right? And then it's disturbing and you want your peace and quiet. And so I know that there's a different way instead of like arresting every time or something like that, there's at least a way to work with the students. Again, if you seek input from community members, same as if you seek input internally, you bring people to the table and give them input and the ability to have a say in how things are gonna work, not only do they have a stake in the game, they have a stake in the solution, right? So I think it's about just getting people together and I'll have to study up and learn a little bit and speak to the chiefs and the departments. And I don't have any, I'm not worried about that at all as far as how we'll work together. What do you think the challenges and amourst will be that you did not face in Chelmsford? I mean, it's a good question. So I may have to learn a little more about the town before I can give you a clear picture of that. Every community is unique, right? And I'll be looking at this from a different rank structure, but I'm excited about that. I feel like at least an amourst, you know, when I collaborate or when I seek input or when I work with somebody, I have the ability to change the direction of the way we do things because it'll be what I say is the way it goes. Now, again, I would do that with input from the department. I would do that with input from the community. One of those challenges might be working with the schools and try to figure out that huge student demographic, right? That doesn't exist in a lot of communities. So that's a really great, you know, pick up on your part and it's not something I haven't thought of, you know, already, but that will be a difference, I think, but I don't think it'll be something that you can't, you know, I don't look at anything and say, wow, I don't know how I'm going to tackle that or that's really going to be tough or and I have all you to help me too. So. One of the, I think big things that a chief does is make new hires. So I'm wondering what your philosophy of hiring would be, what you look for in new officers. Yeah, so there's a lot of competition right now for new police officers. We're feeling that in Chompsford. Chompsford's a little strange because it's a civil service community. I really welcome the opportunity to come to Amherst because it's not. And so there's a lot more leeway in who you can hire. I would make it one of my top priorities to hire the right people, good people, smart people. I would wanna, you know, diverse candidates. I would pursue that. I would, that might be something I speak with your committee on and how do we find people that want this job, that wanna make a difference, that want input into, you know, that that's what, you know, in Chompsford, a lot of times if I was gonna go to diverse groups, I dealt a lot with the churches, the different religious backgrounds. And that was a good way to get face to face and talk about issues they were dealing with. So it's a matter of seeking people out where they are and letting know that you're accessible and you'll listen and you wanna get the right people. So we also have a lot of students here that some of them may be interested in that work. So I will leave no stone unturned to get the right people here. And they'll have to go, you know, part of my hiring matrix will be that they go along with the culture that we're trying to establish. Hi, my name is Alex Hor. Welcome. Thank you. I'm delighted that you told us who you're married to and about your children. That makes you unusual as a police chief. And I hope that makes you a very strong candidate. Obviously you're here. Would you tell us what you're experiencing, what you have experienced in your relationship, your marriage and your children, that makes you unique coming to this job? Well, I don't wanna get too far into my family. No, I don't wanna be in my personal life. I don't wanna get personal, but you will have a very different perspective. And when you say I will do this or I will do that with regard to racial issues, your words, you walk the talk. Well, I have a stake in what I say, right? You have a stake in what you say. So let me try to walk it by sort of through generalities somewhat. I will tell a story that I told earlier about sort of my own eyes opening, right? So, you know, people, whenever you bring up topics that it's good and bad, depending on how you read it in social media, but it doesn't have to be good or bad. It can just be the truth. It's just what it is, right? So did I walk through life? Do I still walk through life at times and all the time with white privilege? Of course I do. I'm the most privileged person on the earth. I'm a white, you know, English speaking male, whatever you wanna call it, right? Do I, can I acknowledge that? Do I understand that? Yes. I told a story earlier about when I've been with my wife over 30 years. And when we first met, she would tell me things like, oh, you know, we'd go shopping and we'd walk through a store. And she'd be like, this lady won't stop following me around. Like, I think she thinks I'm gonna steal something or whatever. And I'd be like, what are you talking about? Like, I wouldn't notice it either. You know, there's a reason why I didn't notice it because I wasn't looking for it because I had never experienced it before. Because I don't experience it weekly, daily, whatever the case may be, right? There's not a lot of speed bumps in front of me as opposed to her. So I understand a lot of that much better after years and years and years. I certainly, you know, again, the three people I care about most in the world run into those obstacles more than me. Now I do by extension now, right? As that familial unit. And these are people I'd run in front of a train for. And so I have to pay attention. I have to learn, I have to know. And I do, I know how it affects them. And so, you're right. I do have a different perspective. I'm a white male, I'm a cop and I'm part of a black family, right? Probably a unicorn, like you said, probably a little unique. But again, I'm not looking for extra credit, it's just the reality of who I am and it is personal to me. And I don't want that, like I feel like I'm an excellent candidate for the chief of police. Because I think that these are things I believe ethically and professionally as well. And setting up culture and doing a good job. And I know how to be a police officer and I know how to tap into the community. So you talked about training. That's good. How often? How often, like training in general. Training is critical. I had one of the notes I've been scribbling down in the last few weeks. You know, off the top of my head, little, one of them I put training, training, training, like some exclamation point, right? It's like, particularly now. Here's what I'll tell you. I don't think, you know, just like a government agency, a business, a sports team, a community group, can't, we cannot get it right 100% of the time. We're gonna make mistakes. It's our job to establish trust with everybody in the community, to work with everybody in the community. So if there's a mistake made, and I don't mean like something vile or racist, like something really bad. I mean, just, there's gonna be times when we don't get it completely right. Let's look at that, let's figure that out and let's figure out how we do better next time. If, you know, that's what, we need to work together. I said earlier that no matter what it is that we talk about, and I say this to my own people internally, but I would say it internally or externally to the community. If we have a conversation, if you wanna come to me and say, hey, I've got some issues with the department, or what, I tell my people internally, if you bring me problems, try to bring me some solutions. Like, don't just bring, I don't wanna just hear what's wrong and what the problem is, come with some solutions. If we sit down, let's have a, let's have good discourse, let's be respectful, let's come up with some possible solutions and let's understand that, you know, we may not get to that solution the first time, right? We have to work together. We have to respect each other and support each other. I guess it depends on what type of training you're trying. So I'll tell you this, for like, let's say use of force, right? Which is use of force, which is a big thing in policing right now, right? You have to get it right. It's part of the post mandate. I talked about post earlier in Chumstead, we were doing some things before post that I think helped us accomplish those goals. We were sort of doing a lot of the things already anyways. We had some progressive policies that were aligned with 21st century policing. We were accredited for a while. Amherst is accredited. I think Amherst has some good policies. You can always improve. Use of force in Chumstead, we probably train a half a dozen times a year. Now that might not sound like enough. It's never enough, never. But there's a financial component, right? So there's a trade-off somewhere you got to try to get what you can in there and do good training and think it out. Don't check boxes, we don't check boxes. I don't believe in that. But some places only train, okay, we have to make sure that we get a qualifying score without a pistol or something. And it's once a year. And it's just because of lack of resources or money. I think it's something I take very serious. I would tell you that implicit bias, things like that, they're so important. It's not one training. If that's not what it is, it might be one training to start and then it's ongoing. It's who you are as a person. Do you understand that that's a huge issue and can you improve yourself if necessary? And can you gain perspective? Everybody in this room could gain perspective, right? None of us are short on that. None of us understand everybody around us perfectly. It's impossible. So again, it's like implicit bias and cultural competencies and things like that. Those are human conditions. It's not a police matter. It is. And as police officers, because we have the authority we have, we have a greater responsibility to get it right, right? And to understand if there are issues that we need to get it right. So I'm in co-founder of the study circles dialogues on race and class. Over six years, we had over 350 people in the town of Amherst of all levels participated in weekly dialogues and conversations about race. Right now, there's a new version called the Stolen Beam that the Jewish center, the Jewish community of Amherst is working through. Similarly, it's a week long, several weeks long with readings involved. And so I wanna recommend that should you become the next police chief of the town of Amherst that you engage your staff on a regular basis, weekly, if you will. With a version of one of these two curriculums. So what I can tell you is, we do in-service training. Everybody in the state does in-service training, right? So there are sometimes some components of that that you can add sort of elective type of issues to. There's also, I know in Chelmsford and I would look to do this in Amherst, there's roll call training, right? So roll call training is sort of when you do roll call to talk about the day's issues, you may spend an extra five, 10, 20 minutes, going over a certain issue or a certain topic to help you understand that better. So that might be a good, some of these things may be a good candidate for that, like where we can split it up and do it at roll call. There's a lot of training to do and never enough time and never enough money, but I'm also not one that likes to make excuses. So I would certainly look into something like that and we could definitely try to implement something like that. Yeah, well, I mean, just for the personnel, you gotta catch them where they're at, when they're working at roll call, when you bring them in otherwise, it could be over time and stuff like that. So, but listen, I'm open to anything, particularly if it helps us understand each other and the community better, why would we not wanna do that? That's, we should be doing that. Thank you. I know this is in every community, but I can just speak to the Black and Brown community here. Historically and presently, we have had a lot of harm by the Amherst Police Department. Trust has been very impacted, severed, broken. Do you have ideas? Would this be a priority to build back the trust in the Black and Brown communities and repair harm and do you have any ideas of, have you seen that happen or do you have ideas of how you might start to work with us to begin that process? When you say there's harm, I have to take you at your word and I don't know enough about that aspect of town or of the police department yet, right? So, if I were to be the leader, I certainly would ignore something like that, right? We have to confront it, we have to figure out what that means. And building trust and legitimacy in policing is literally like the number one thing you have to do. If you don't have trust from people in your community, you'll never succeed, right? So, one of the, in the 21st century policing model, I've said this a couple of times, this was something that came about, it was sort of recommendations after Ferguson, right? The shooting in Ferguson, Michael Brown. And they put together a work group and they came up with these recommendations and it was sort of six pillars, if you will, and certain recommendations within each pillar. And the first pillar, the foundational pillar, is building trust and legitimacy, right? So, without that, it's like you can't pass go, right? And then you develop policy, you develop training, all of these things that support that trust and legitimacy. And part of that is engaging and getting together and talking about issues, sometimes difficult issues. So, yeah, I would always seek to work with any community about, certainly if they think there's harm being done, we have to try to attack that. Yeah, so I have a follow-up to that. So, going along what Heather just talked about, once we start getting into the nitty-gritty, is that a lot of people are intimidated by the police department and a lot of the action. So, for me, I really want to hear more specifics in terms of how do you change the culture of the police officers there for them to understand that you might understand it, but what are some, have you had any experience actually changing the culture of these police officers? Because people don't feel comfortable going to the police, they don't feel comfortable interacting with the police. The police, in terms of, in Amherst, they haven't been about outreach and communicating with a community. So, when I'm talking about, it has been the police chief and it has also been the officers, too, they're not out there outreaching and things like that. So, I want to get more concrete examples from you in terms of how have you done that? And I'll give you an example. Like, I went to a party in Amherst at a place where it was all us professionals, but it was all us black people, and there was a noise complaint, and then the police officers showed up and totally did not want to listen to us. We were like, well, put the music down, this, that. No, you better shut it down. It was rude, it was like, and if you all don't stop it, we're gonna arrest you, and we weren't college students. We were like, 30, 40-year-old people, you know what I'm saying? Which was, and we knew who had called the noise, it was a cranky person that calls all the time. But that was the response, right? And I was there, I felt it, you know what I'm saying? In terms of it. So it's not someone who went and told us third place. It was, you know, I was there. So one of the things in terms when I asked you about Cress was around the fact that right now, Cress doesn't respond to noise complaints. Why doesn't Cress respond to noise complaints? Why is it that the police are the ones that are still responding to noise complaints? Because Cress should be responding to anything that does not include violence, and noise complaints is one of it. So anyway, I want you to get into the nitty gritty of it. Okay, well again, I can't speak to right now why the people in Amherst, people of color, especially feel intimidated by the police. I don't have enough background on that. I can tell you that if I became the police chief, I certainly wouldn't want that to be the case, right? So when you talk about particulars, again, if I was to come into a new situation, it starts with building culture, right? This is what we're about. I talked about it earlier, treating people with respect, treating people with equity, meeting them where they are, humanity, right? Those are some of the things. Gaining perspective, implicit bias training, understanding why you feel the way you do, right? Recognizing you feel the way you do, and understanding why, right? And so it's also hard to answer when, you gave me a good example of you yourself, but it's also hard to answer a question when you say all of these people are a group of these people, you know, I don't, it's hard to conceptualize what that looks like, right? And I can only deal with the knowledge I have based on what's given to me. If I'm the police chief and I receive complaints, I can look at them and we can evaluate them, we can talk about them, we can decide is there ways we can do this better, right? These are tricky issues, right? Implicit bias is a tricky issue. Again, police officers are not just this one thing, we're not monolithic, we're not, they're not, they're human beings, they're people, like everybody in this room, that happen to have a job that they go to every day, lot of authority, a lot of responsibility goes without authority. So we have to, that's true. Yeah, that's true, ideally we don't want that, right? So more responsibility, right, because of that. But they're not infallible. I would tell any of you, go look at yourself in the mirror. Are you, are you practicing equity? Are you practicing, like, do you understand everybody around you? Do you understand the students? Do you understand seniors? Do you understand, you know, people with a different gender identity? Like, nobody's perfect. So we have to work together. I forgot about you, yeah. No, nobody, listen, nobody's perfect. Do you know what I think? I think if we deal with each other, we try to deal with each other with respect on a human level, I might talk to you and you might go, yeah, I don't really love the way you talked about that issue. I can learn from that. You know what I'll tell you? My heart is gonna be in the right place. I'm coming from a good place. Does that make sense? You can tell sometimes when people's heart is not coming from the right place. That's a little different. You make a mistake because you're filled with hate or you have bias that you, like, intentionally, that's a different story, right? So we can all get better and learn to get better. I don't want anybody to feel intimidated. So we would certainly have to discuss that and figure out how do we go about changing that, right? So changing a culture takes time. So you're this person coming in and you have great ideas about how to change a culture and you have these policies you want to implement, but you're running into roadblocks internally. What do you do? Well, so I think we talked about this a little earlier at one of the interviews. And, you know, if I came into this new situation, again, I've had an experience in 30 years where I think generally, I said this earlier and I'll give the example. I've hired a lot of people in Chelmsford, I've done a lot of backgrounds. We have the officer write a letter to the chief and I'll teach classes and I'll say, what do you think, what one word do you think is in every letter? And people will guess and usually, you know, be police officers, usually they'll guess within a couple of times and the word is help. I want this job because I want to help people, okay? So we have to figure out on any given call with any different group on any given day, how are we gonna help this person? What are we gonna do that helps this situation? How do we leave this person with some level of satisfaction? It's like running a business. They have to be happy, but you have to deliver a service that leaves them with some level of satisfaction. So I think that's part of it, like building that culture, a helpful service-based culture that it's respectful, it's equitable, it's accessible and accountable to all. I think when you say that's what we wanna do. And again, my friend here, I can't remember your name, but she talked about, I'm sorry, Kathleen, talked about, I'm sorry, Queen, that's right. I gotcha, I won't mess it up again. But she brought up a good point and she held me to it. A lot of us training, right? So if we don't know the answer, we have to get educated or trained on what the answer is, right? So I think that's it. When you say how would I deal with somebody that fucks the system or doesn't wanna kinda get in line with what we're trying to do, I've, when I redid our sort of our mental health response, our wellness response, our substance use response over the last 10 years, I trained and trained and trained CIT and I kept talking to people positively, hey, did a good job on that call, but try X when you make sure you're dealing with stakeholders. Just correct them, motivate them, inspire them, right? And what you see with something like that is eventually the canoe tips. And now more people are getting it right than wrong. That's changing culture. That's changing the way we approach issues. Oh, I think that's what it's about. You're right, it may not happen overnight, but I, you know, like certain things that help push it that way. If you say, if I went there and say, hey, I wanna make sure we all understand that we're an anti-racist department, hopefully they understand what that means, right? That should be pretty clear cut. Hopefully we can push it in that direction. So why are you the right person to be chief of police in Amherst? Didn't I already answer this? Again, people have brought up, oh, it's a special place and, you know, and listen, the room is filled with people that are asking questions about who this next person's gonna be, right? And they wanna know what I have to offer. And I hope I've answered some of that tonight. And I understand that you expect certain things and you're here and this is important. It's very important that you're here and you're talking and you're participating and choosing somebody in such an important position. And that's why, somebody said it's special, that's why I'm putting in here. Because it is special. It's, you know, I've put in for a couple of chief jobs over the years, come very, very close. I've usually been very selective of the places I put in. You know, I want community members that are involved that want a good place to live. That means it's easier to get the job done together. It's easier to engage with people that wanna talk. So I think that's why. Would you choose to live in Amherst or elsewhere? Yeah, I would definitely like to try to procure some housing in Amherst sooner rather than later. I commuted today. It's not a horrible commute, but it's, I don't know if I'd wanna do it every day. And I, you know, I feel like honestly, it would be nice to have a little more stake in the game. I can tell you that regardless of where I live, I will be, I'll be present. I'll be approachable. That will not be an issue. You'll be able to get a hold of me. You'll be able to get my year. I think we have a few more questions but we have to be very mindful of time. I was just gonna, my name's Kathy. I'm just gonna follow up on Alex's if you would live here or not. Are your kids of an age, they'd be, if you lived here, that they'd be in our school system or are they older, they're already out? Yeah, they're, we're sort of early empty nesters. Okay. So my son is in the Air Force, he's stationed in Germany and my daughter plays soccer at the University of Arizona. So they're kind of... Okay. Both ways, their flight's away. No, thank you. Yes, it is. I do wanna thank everyone for participating and thank you for being here. And you wanna say hello? Yeah. So Lieutenant's been with us like all day, so I'm sure he's like, happy this is over. Yeah. And so we can all just say hello and we have our next person coming in in a little bit. So thank you all again and I hope you guys stick around for the next session.