 Awesome. Well, we have a quorum. So I'm going to call this meeting to order. Um, we have, we have four of seven commissioners. Um, Any additions or modifications to the agenda? Not seeing or hearing anything. Moving on to public forum. And I'll give it to Shannon. Not receive any requests. I don't know if there's anyone in the public that you'd like to speak to. If there's anyone for speaking tonight. But I'm happy to, if there's anyone in the public that you'd like to. Absolutely. Yes. And when the public are really attendees. Um, What's the big public forum? Please raise your hand. I'm not seeing any hands raised. And. Seeing how. Yeah. No public form. I am going to close that agenda item. I'm going to close this meeting until six p.m. Um, decide the training. So thank you for everyone. Thanks for jumping on to, to let us start the meeting. And, uh, we'll see everybody in about 17 minutes. All right. It is a six p.m. Returning from recess. Um, Everyone in the public. Uh, joining with us. Thank you for joining us. This is the first of four trainings with Nicole. The next three being June 10th, June 15th in the June 17th. Um, yeah. So thank you for joining with us. And with that, I'll give the floor to Karen. Hi everyone. Thanks for, for allowing us to join you tonight. Um, to talk a little bit about civilian oversight of law enforcement. Um, as you had mentioned, um, this is the first of four trainings. Um, tonight. This meeting is being recorded. Get my screen. This, the presentation up and running here. Can you all see the screen? Okay. Okay. Perfect. So tonight, um, we're going to talk a little bit about civilian oversight. Um, in general, more general terms. Um, and about the principles for effective civilian oversight. Um, in general terms, um, we're going to talk a little bit about, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um. Before we, again, I also want to say, um, I'd rather this be a conversation than us, uh, we talking to all of you for two hours straight, that seems, um, So with that, I'm going to start by telling you a little bit about myself. I know I've had the opportunity to meet some of you on a meeting before. But my name is Kami McElhenney, and I'm the Director of Training and Education for NACL. I've been with the organization in one form or another since 1998. I started out as a board member for a civilian review board in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1998, and I served on that board for six years. One of the things that I realized is that I was appointed to a board that I knew the purpose of, but I had no idea how much I didn't know when I started. And so I have worked very hard over the last, I guess, over 23 years now to make sure that boards and commissions and oversight agencies in general have the training that they need to be able to perform the mandates that they've been asked to carry out. So now I'd like to hear a little bit from all of you. So we tend to ask, since we're going to be spending eight hours together talking about this and probably a little bit of time after that as well. I just wanted to learn a little bit more from all of you by asking a couple of questions. First of all, why you wanted to be, and I'm sorry, that says PCRB, but why you wanted to be a part of the Burlington Police Commission. And then also, what do you hope to get out of the training process? And I ask that second question because I have easily have, I could talk to you for eight hours about all things civilian oversight, but I want to make sure that we also talk about the things that really will help you in the work you're doing. So if someone wants to start answering those two questions and just kind of do it a popcorn style that works for you, just jump on in. Yeah, I'll start. I'll start with the first one here. Why do you want to be a member of the Burlington Police Commission? I joined in response to an incident that happened that involves some of my close friends and as a 30 plus year resident, I found it unacceptable and wanted to see how I could affect change and make sure that, like, A, this wouldn't happen again. And yeah, just kind of make sure this wouldn't happen again and just be more involved with the process and see how it works. Great. Thank you. Anyone else? Hi, this is Commissioner Grant, Mila Grant. Very similar experience that our Chairman just described. Just some things that happened that just really hit close to home. And Burlington is an amazing place, an amazing community, and it talks a really good talk, but it doesn't always walk the walk. Our city's currently facing multiple lawsuits, and I just wanted to be a part of change. And what I hope to get out of this is to have an understanding because as we're currently set up, we really can't, we're not really an oversight body. We can bring up things, but there are times where we're ignored, we refuse access to information. How can we improve that? How can we reimagine an oversight body, create something new? What would be the best practices, et cetera? Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Stephanie Seguino. I joined the Commission for similar reasons, partly also related to work that I had done previously with regard to racial disparities in policing in Vermont, and hopefully being able to offer some of my data skills to the Commission, but also to really want to participate as a citizen in rethinking public safety in a way that I think is maybe more modern in the sense that a lot has changed in the last 15 years with regard to our understanding of brain science, trauma, restorative justice, and many other mechanisms for public safety. And so I was hoping to be part of that conversation and to, as I said, lend my skills to any extent I could. Hi, Tammy. I'm Cherine Hart. So I've been on the Commission for five years. I've got one year left of my second term, and I joined it back five years ago when they were just wrapping up. The Police Commission had just done an extensive look at response to mental health crises. And that was what interested me because of some of the work I do has to do with mental health agencies and hospital EDs and responses to mental health crises and how often the police are involved. So that was what got me interested and made me apply. What I'm hoping to get out of this is that one of the big issues with something like the Police Commission is we have tremendous turnover. So for example, I'm the last one at this point from, well, there is tremendous turnover. And so it's very hard to have systems in place. For example, I've noticed people calling in with issues about mental health crises. And they did such a deep dive six years ago into that. But there's very little historical knowledge or memory for what we do. I also think we don't want to continue doing what we've done because we're largely responsive and responding to things. And it would be great to develop practices that we can document so that if there are seven new people in this position in three years, they at least will not have to reinvent the wheel, which it does feel like we're doing. I have no doubt in my mind that we are making improvements and that just this year alone, there's been tremendous improvement. I'd like to see us just where we can folks who are new to the commission don't feel like probably Stephanie and others have felt when they join, which is just it's like a minefield learning what we do. Could I add to this question about what I hope to learn? Some things have changed also. And that is that the role of the commission had not been entirely clear. I would say, but increasingly, especially since the murder of George Floyd and events last year here in Burlington, there's increased interest and I would say demand for greater civilian oversight over policing. And there's some question as to whether the police commission is the body to do that or whether we need a different body to provide some of that and really to be able to fulfill our role and to the extent that there's a desire by the city to expand it. We really need to understand deeply what what are the possibilities of civilian oversight? What are some of the structures and policies look like? So it's I think it's really helping us do our jobs better of civilian oversight as we gain more responsibility, which we have been gaining. Great. Thank you for that addition. Any anybody else want to contribute, Shannon? So I will say so hearing all of those all of those answers. I want you to know that you're not alone in that that some of the issues that you have faced some of the things that you're feeling about the process are things that we see in other cities, particularly as they work towards more effective mechanisms and I'm hoping that some of the things that you talked about today that are seen at this moment as challenges that some of the training that we're going to do in the next sessions and today will lead those leads you to a way that you can look at those challenges is also opportunities and and so I'm hoping that that that we can keep all of those as mine. I took some notes. I'm sure you could tell as you're speaking just generally not attributing to any in particular person, but I think all of those are very valid and maybe we'll talk a little bit more about how we can incorporate some more of those things in our discussions going forward. Yes, I mean, I noticed that a member of the public there were two hands at one point. Yeah, we're going to keep this discussion amongst the commission. Okay, so we should just make that. Yeah, we should just let the public know what our approach will be. So because I did see a couple of hands up. So so I guess what we can invite folks to do is depending on what they hear today, there will be public comment at the beginning of each of these sessions. Is that correct to boo? Correct? Yeah. Okay, so that would be the opportunity. Okay, sorry to interrupt. No worries. Thank you. So with that, I'm going to move on into the training itself. So today, what we're going to cover today are civilian oversight and law enforcement and some some general information about its history, models and an overview of some oversight mechanisms in the United States and how they operate so that you can have some information on what it looks, what oversight can look like. And then also we're going to spend some time talking about principles for effective oversight. And also what do we mean when we say effective oversight? So I like to start presentations with this slide because I think that a lot of times, particularly when oversight is established in a city following a critical incident that has occurred in in the community, people say if we have civilian oversight, and we have subpoena power or something else, everything will be fixed. And the thing is, is that civilian oversight is important. And I must say subpoena power when you get it is important. But there there are some other things, you know, how a community works to deal with a lack of trust between the public and law enforcement is very important. The most successful solutions include a collection of reform efforts and restructuring that impact law enforcement directly. And increasingly, it's been shown that civilian oversight is a very important piece of that whole process. So really, although there are many things that must be put into place to reform over reform policing, build trust. And many things need to happen to make all of that fall into place. It is very difficult, if not impossible to do it without civilian oversight, that community, non sworn involvement is critical to this process. So a little bit about civilian oversight and how we define it. So broadly, civilian oversight can be defined as the independent, external ongoing review of law enforcement and its operations by individuals outside of the sworn chain of command. Civilian oversight can entail but is not limited to independent investigation of complaints. And I say not limited to because we do have a lot of civilian oversight entities in the United States that this time review complaints that are are investigated internally in a department. But it can also involve auditing and monitoring various aspects of the overseen law enforcement agency, analyzing patterns or trends and activity, issuing public reports and issuing recommendations on discipline, training policies and procedures. Taken together, these folks, these all of these functions can produce or promote greater law enforcement, accountability, increased transparency, and a positive organizational change and improve responsiveness to communities needs and concerns. And I know that of all of those string of words that I just said, really, transparency and accountability and responsiveness to the community are three very key points and all of that. Can you can I ask a question? I'm going to take you at your word. You don't mind being interrupted. So that I believe that the stage that we are at is with regard to not investigating incidents or use of force, but reviewing. But I wonder if you could describe what you mean by reviewing what that would entail, what we in terms of decisions, inputs and so forth. Yes. So when I'm talking about reviewing investigations that are done internally, that means when a when an allegation of misconduct is made by a member of the community, the complaint is forwarded on to internal affairs so that they can do a thorough investigation of that complaint and come to a decision on whether sustained, not sustained, unsounded, depending on what your dispositions are. Some cities do it a little differently than others. And then so then once that investigation is done, typically what happens is that then the investigation and all of the elements that the the law enforcement agency had to make the decision that they made are then forward on to a review board so that they can review that information as well and see if they feel that the investigation was done adequately, if they would come to the same decision to see if there needs to be a further investigation. And in some cases, some cities do have the authority to then ask for an independent investigation be done, if they feel that the investigation was done inadequately. So is that helping answer your questions? That's, that's great. Thank you. You're welcome. Cammy, can I ask a question? How often do you, well, how typical is it for the investigates on the on the incidents to be in the same entity that's conducting the monitoring and the input on policies and procedures? Is that typically the same body that's doing those and in what you're seeing or cities or communities tend to separate those? So, so what and when we get to the conversation about models of oversight, we can I'll be able to explain this a little bit more. But what happens is that we see there are investigatory agencies that do investigations independently. But as a result, they often also are able to do data analysis and recommendations. Because they're doing all of this, they tend to if they've been given investigative authority, they tend to also have some additional authorities that maybe a just the typical run of the mill review board might not have. I would say that in what we are seeing is a trend in review boards, getting more authority to do things like data analysis, policy recommendation, recommendations for procedures, training, and then also doing systemic reviews as well. All of those things are things that we're seeing written in to new ordinances for just review boards that we had not seen in the past. Normally, we saw those types of things with an auditor monitor model, or with an investigative model. So although there are still a lot of review boards out there that might not have it. That is the trend that we're seeing particularly, I would say, everything that we have seen established in the last nine months has has had that kind of authority attached to it. Great. That's really helpful. Thank you. So one of the other things about civilian oversight is that because it's an independent and neutral body oversight, law enforcement offers a very unique opportunity to build legitimacy and bring transparency to what's an often very opaque process. Because oversight agencies operate outside of the overseen law enforcement agency and report to local stakeholders, the findings and reports of an oversight agency are free from real or perceived bias. So it really does help build that's that's the piece that builds that legitimacy is because people, whether it's real or perceived, find bias often in the reports that are coming out of the police department and so and an investigation of their own. And this helps add an element to it, that kind of that check to the whole process. So move on to the next screen. So a few facts about the field. So there are nearly 200 civilian oversight entities across the United States. So I will say in 2019, excuse me, in 2019, there was a study done where they looked for they verified, tried to verify the number of civilian oversight agencies in the US and they came up with 167 verified civilian oversight agencies. These were agencies that were established through ordinance. They were part of or part of the city charter. They weren't advisory boards. And so we do feel like that number might have been a little low. But we do know that by the time we get to 2020, we were closer to 200. And since June of last year, just Naco alone, and I know we're not the only ones talking to communities. Naco alone has talked over 130 new communities looking to establish civilian oversight. So we are seeing incredible growth in the field. And what we're also seeing is that communities like yourself are looking to find out more about what effective civilian oversight looks like so that they can make sure that what they're putting in place is effective and sustainable and can make a difference because in the end, that's what everybody is looking to do. So one of the and Stephanie, I think you'll probably appreciate this or be frustrated by this as well, since you are you like the research part of it is that no two civilian oversight entities are alike, which make them very difficult to compare. So and that comes about because people put together civilian oversight of law enforcement entities based on the needs of their community. And then we also know that many communities start way up here with the authorities that they think that they need to make this right. And it's not just that they think that they need. You know, through their research, they have this as their goal. And then there's the compromises that happen. And maybe a few things get knocked off the list or done a little differently. And then you end up with with something a little different. So everything's a little all of the oversight entities have their their little quirks or differences that make them very specific to the city they're operating in. One of the things that we're also seeing is that traditionally we saw civilian oversight mainly in large cities. In the top 10 cities in the country, there's only one that has no civilian oversight. And we're crossing our fingers that Phoenix does something in the near future. But what we're seeing in the last decade is that small and medium sized cities are really jumping on board, realizing that this is something that benefits the community as a whole. So we're seeing a lot more growth in that area. And then also traditionally back when oversight really was in its new phase, getting started in the United States. It was often have it often happened in reaction to a very specific incident of police misconduct. Now that still happens. However, we're also seeing more proactive establishment of civilian oversight in the country. People and cities or jurisdictions are saying, let's get something in place before we need something. Let's fix some of these problems that we know exist before they end up in tragedy. So I am happy to report that there are cities out there looking to either establish or enhance existing mechanisms because of that. So why do we have oversight? What are some of the reasons? Well, first of all, I mentioned before it builds bridges between community and police. There are very few mechanisms that we see that have that ability to do that other than oversight. And one of that is one of those reasons is because community engagement, which we will address in depth in one of our later section sections, really is one of the key elements of an oversight entity. Also ensures greater accountability. It helps limit the city's risks that come about when misconduct is not being taken care of or goes unchecked. Mechanisms should be put in place where good policing is rewarded and support is given to uphold good practices and constitutional policing. So it's not all about saying everything needs to be changed. There are things that are in place that could be working. There are officers out there that are doing good jobs. And so it also, in addition to making reforms to make policing better, it's also looking at policing and those officers who are doing good work and recognizing that it increases public confidence and trust in the police. And by giving civilians a means to address police misconduct and bring transparency to the process, you're helping to protect their rights and all those that come after them. So the next couple of slides are about common goals of civilian oversight. So you need to make sure that people feel really comfortable and safe accessing the complaint process. So that often means if the only mechanism to file a complaint is to go to the police department, that is possibly causing a problem and making people feel uncomfortable with actually making a complaint. We also suggest that people allow anonymous complaints. Now, I realize anonymous complaints are difficult because when you go to investigate them, if you have no information about the person who's making the complaint, the investigation may be limited. However, there has to be the acknowledgement that people sometimes do not feel safe in making a complaint or are very concerned about any retaliation that might occur because of the complaint that's being made. And so having that option provides a safe option for some. And also making sure that they can file the complaint, like I mentioned before, without fear of retaliation and making the process as uncomplicated as possible is very important. So are there multiple points of access? Can they file a complaint online? Are there some oversight entities have satellite locations where they partner with community stakeholders to allow complaints to be filed? Say, you know, if there is a community health center where a lot of people are going in and out and they feel safe there because they know the environment, then maybe that's a great place to have them be able to file a complaint. So thinking about some of those access issues are really important. If it's not a problem, I'm just thinking about this issue of accessibility and complaints. I'm much newer to the commission, so I'll just rely on my fellow commissioners. But I understand we have an online complaint system. We also have a community in which many languages are spoken. And so I'm not sure maybe if Shireen or Jabu or Milo can tell, say, if we have other mechanisms other than the online accessibility approach. Yeah, so Stephanie, we've always encouraged folks to be able to come to commissioners directly, right? If they would rather have a buffer so they could report to the commissioner and the commissioner could file the report. We also did what Kami just suggested, which is, I think it was about a year or two years ago, Jabu, if you were still on, if you were on the commission, then we can know when it was. But what we did is we took this complaint and we delivered them throughout the city to exactly what you're saying, to the high school, to various entities, so that we just, we put packets out there for this very reason. But we do have issues. I'm not sure what happened with translating. I can't recall that, but I could certainly look into it. But we would need to update it anyway, Stephanie, because that was, you know, who knows where those are at this point, especially with the new high school. I also do remember there are, my apologies, Mila, you can go. Go right ahead. Also, there were like drop box locations for complaints. I know there's one at the Boys and Girls Club and a couple other places, though I don't know the status of those since the pandemic started. But yeah. Yeah, some of the feedback from the consultant who is collecting feelings that the community has about public safety, some of the feedback that we received at one of the town halls, specifically about how to file a complaint. I guess my focus was on getting access to the information and getting more details about complaints because those weren't fully coming through at the time. But people brought up, like what was just said, translating that, you know, the online system isn't as convenient or easy as we might think. And that people really didn't know where they could, if they couldn't submit it online, where would they go to submit something via paper, that there wasn't a lot of knowledge about that. So, yeah, I think as a commission that we should probably put that on our to-do list to review. And I don't even know where they all are. So that would definitely be something we want on our list to review. Thank you. No, that all sounds great. And I'm so glad that some of those mechanisms are already in place. There are oversight agencies that have their forms translated in an incredible amount of languages because so that all of their residents can be able to read the forms. But I do realize that gets a little tricky. In fact, some, there are some agencies who work with the police who also tend to, because they have the money to invest in translator services, also have, they use them to access live translators and also sometimes work with the police to have the forms translated too. And I know the city probably has that available to them as well. But sometimes that's a point of partnership that can happen if you're looking for those. So other common goals of civilian oversight. So partying, ensuring that investigations are fair and thorough, making sure that they were conducted in a proper manner and that findings are reasonable and consistent with other similar cases and that discipline is being administered consistently, is not only a common goal of civilian oversight, but a lot of times we talk about, and I think we'll talk about this a little bit later in the presentation about, okay, so there are all of these things that oversight does to benefit the community, but it's also important to remember that there are benefits for law enforcement and civilian oversight. There are members of law enforcement who feel that discipline is distributed and doled out differently depending on who you are and what your rank is and having someone also kind of overseeing or monitoring that process and how it's delivered is also a common goal. Also, if it's done effectively and in a sustainable manner, it can increase public confidence in policing and some of those things, sustainable manner, you know, a commission that kind of is like this, depending on the political will of the time, makes it very hard to build that level of confidence, but when it's consistently supported then, and we'll talk about that more when we talk about principles of effective oversight, then it can build that confidence. And also, as we mentioned before, to enhance transparency in policing through things like public reporting, not only of what the oversight entity is doing, but also, you know, things that the police department is doing, either on its own or in response to the recommendations made by the oversight agency. Some additional goals to improve law enforcement agencies by analyzing patterns and complaints and other police-related data to improve policies, practices, and training, and also management. We are doing a lot of work to, and there are some academics out there doing some work on the role of supervisors in police reform, and about how oversight can also kind of work in that realm too, to help provide ways in which supervisors can change that culture in policing. There also is that piece where oversight can deter officer misconduct. If people feel that their complaint is going, if a complaint is made against them, it's going to be taken seriously, and that there will be a transparent, accountable process to that misconduct investigation and determination. It can also reduce legal liability for the city, and it also can improve public's understanding and police policy. So there are a lot of instances where complaints are made because there is a misunderstanding of the policies that are in place. I mean, no, there is no citizen that spends a lot of time looking at the general orders of their law enforcement agency, if they could even find them online, because there are many cities where that seems to be a very secret that it's difficult to unearth. But having you as a community, as part of the community engagement, helping understand, you have the community understand those policies and practices, the type of training that the department receives, can also help them understand why things, certain things happen, but it also can also make them understand that certain things are not supposed to happen. They have a full understanding of the policy procedure and know how things should have happened when things occurred. So, the evolution of oversight. So, as I mentioned before, oversight originally was very reactive in nature and reactive only. You know, agencies were created after high profile incidents. You respond to complaints. You have to wait for complaints to come in the door in order for something to happen. Normally reviewing policies, when one or more complaints came in, it in the past has been, you know, it emphasizes legalistic rules, emphasizes what can be seen as an adversarial administrative process by some and relies heavily on deterrence. Well, so there's going to be a reactive piece of oversight that will never go away because there needs to be that piece where you have an allegation of misconduct come in because you need to have that place where the community can come to let someone know that what has happened to them and have it investigated. But what we are seeing is that combined with that reactive process, we're also seeing a move towards proactive policing or of oversight, I'm sorry. So, this is more about exploring problems through investigation, collection and analysis of data, identifying underlying issues through things like systemic reviews. One of my favorite examples is about something that an auditor in Tucson, a former employee of NACOL actually as well, was conducting an audit and she noticed that there were a whole bunch of complaints about choke holds being applied and choke holder banned in the city of Tucson. So, as she was doing the audit she also realized that the badge numbers were almost in succession and which means that they were from probably the same training class and so she did a little digging and went in and found out that when they were talked about holds, they were taught by an officer who is not a member of the Tucson Police Department but another law enforcement agency where choke holds are not banned and so she was able to see that the whole class was trained as if it was okay that choke hold was something that they could do and so they were able to retrain them and the complaints nearly disappeared. So, that's something that being able to review patterns, look at data, are able to do, you're able to find out where the issues are and work to solve them and correct them before something horrible happens. It also focuses on organizational change, not just changing the behavior of one officer but the law enforcement agency as a whole. Something else that we're seeing is that oversight particularly when it's acting a pro active manner builds partnerships with law enforcement. Now, I often feel like I have to clarify that doesn't mean that you're working for law enforcement and that your pals with law enforcement, you are still an agency that is working, that you are working for the process, you're an advocate for the process not necessarily for the community or for law enforcement but for the process fair, transparent and accountable process. But it also allows to build that partnership so that changes are implemented. There's that there's a working relationship there that there is some trust between new and law enforcement and you and the community and then eventually the community and law enforcement which is that creating bridges piece that we round this out with. So, next I'm going to go over a little bit about the history of civilian oversight and I'll do this briefly. I don't want to this is not the part where I want you all to to phase out from the conversation while I go on about you know 1928 and civilian oversight so but I will start at 1928 and so that is when we see one of the first civilian boards formed in the United States. The problem was is that it was formed by the LA Bar Association so it had no actual authority within the city government to do anything other than review complaints and be a place where it could take complaints in. So the committee on constitutional rights did not last long but it was kind of that first effort towards building a board that would oversee complaints made against the Los Angeles Police Department. In 1931 things started to kind of pick up because we actually had someone say that there needed to be an outside entity to look at the misconduct that was occurring in within law enforcement. So the Rikersham Commission which was originally formed to look at the effects of prohibition it really ended up bringing light to light widespread corruption and unacceptable tactics in policing and said that there needs to be a disinterested party looking into those matters and creating change. So after that although it took some time we see the first civilian review board that starts to look a little bit like what we see civilian review boards look like today except that there really weren't very many civilians on the board it was a lot of NYPD officers or I'm sorry I'm sorry I skipped ahead to New York City. So 1948 is actually Washington DC. Now the problem with Washington DC is in the years that existed the first incarnation of it 1948 to 1964 they only reviewed 54 cases and I'm sure you can all mention that there were probably more than 54 issues or incidents of misconduct that should have been reported and investigated and reviewed during that time. It was seen as weak and ineffectual and eventually in the mid 1960s was disbanded. Then we have the New York City civilian complaint board which was made up of three police commissioners and operated completely within the department and it was expanded to include citizens in 1966 but then they disbanded it shortly after. In 1958 we have another board that then comes about in Philadelphia and it was it was a board of citizens who referred complaints to the police for investigations so starting to sound a little more familiar to what we know now. Tammy? Yeah. When you say in the New York City commission of three that operated entirely within the within the NYPD what do you we are often accused of being a part of the department and so I want to get an understanding of what that actually meant when you're saying they were you know operating within the department. There was no independence whatsoever. They were they met in the department. They they were not able to make decisions really in an independent manner and in that period of time in New York City they were all seen as friends of the police. So maybe maybe in the training we'll talk about how to make sure a commission is perceived as independent or not perceived but how it actually is independent what you know what one needs to do to assure that. Yeah well and I will say yes we will talk about that as the to answer your question and I will say it is very tricky when you're talking about police commissions because they often that is an off a very common problem because of their mandates so closely align them. Correct because we're working on directives together right so that's why I was asking that question about directives and investigations and I have to apologize I have to tune out for about 45 minutes but I'll watch the recording so I'm going to be no worries sorry no worries. Um so in 1969 really this is only um I mentioned this only because Kansas City the office of citizen complaints is the longest continually running civilian oversight entity in the country so rest of them have been there been disbanded they've come back maybe disbanded again and this has been continually operating since then not long after it was established we have the Berkeley model that was actually voted into place by voter referendum and that was the first time that it happened and they also had the authority to independently investigate miscompliance and misconduct so really we did not see that before 1973 at the same time the Detroit board of police commissioners came in on board and they um they have been in existence since 1973 and I will say we might um it might be great to have some connections so that you can talk to some of the members of that commission as well because they have gone through many incarnations and I think also struggled with that independence piece now how their board is structured is is a little different um they have many of their board members are actually elected um but um so they're they also have that problem with being part of the the elected officials um but I think that um one of the things whenever you have some issues that you're talking about I also like to connect over entities with other entities so you don't have to necessarily reinvent the wheel as you're working through issues um by 1980 there were a whopping 13 civilian oversight entities in existence but in the next 20 uh 20 years um we added enough to be nearly or maybe a little bit more than a hundred um I will say in the 90s one of the things that happened is that we saw a burst of this auditor monitor model San Jose Seattle um there was a an entity that oversaw the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department and so we saw this increase in a model that we really hadn't seen before um and it was often a reaction of kind of a compromise between this invest this independent investigation model and a review board model um but but what ended up happening is that now you have a model that's able to to be more proactive and do those systemic reviews um and audits of police um conduct and now in 2020 as we mentioned before um more than 200 oversight entities and adding all the time so it's a very exciting time it's billion oversight um it's it's exciting because a lot of entities like yourself who have been around are now um getting the ability to perhaps enhance better understand what the next step looks like um and and solutions to some of the the challenges that you might have faced so it's a very exciting time in civilian oversight so next we're going to move on to a little bit about legitimacy authority and civilian oversight models in the United States so first of all what shapes legitimacy so primary issue shaping people's views about legitimacy when dealing with the police is whether the police are exercising their authority in fair ways so when I see that then that immediately makes me think of procedural justice you know is there neutrality in the process is there respect do people have a voice do they trust the process and I think one of the things that's really important in civilian oversight and for law enforcement to understand is that procedural justice is often more important than the legal outcome of an encounter or an experience it's about whether you have anything to do with the experience that you have become a part of do you have a voice in it are you being treated fairly and with respect so it's about the quality of treatment and it's about the quality of decision-making our decisions made fairly and in a neutral unbiased way so I think that when we're talking about building these bridges one of them very much is about how oversight can help law enforcement be more legitimate in the eyes of the community but I also don't want to leave out the fact that it's important for the civilian oversight entity to build legitimacy within the community it's imperative because you have a very important role to play and people have to trust in the authority that you've been given and that also is very much a part of the procedural justice piece so when we're talking about legitimacy we also start to talk about so what are those types of authority so you have your statutory authority you know local ordinances state law state and federal laws and that authority is grounded in you know it's reaction it's authority driven problem driven focus on accountability and discipline or punishment and it's really about command and control what is the lawful use of that authority and measuring numbers as a result so statutory authority is very important because you need to be given the authority in a way that it can't be taken away from you need to have particularly for oversight you need to make sure that you have the tools and that you're able to use them but there's also this other piece the legitimacy based authority which is really about community expectations and values it's about it looks at a proactive approach it looks at it's often done through community outreach and engagement and it's again about the quality of the process is as important as the outcome and it's not just about numbers and results it's about success what is what are the successes that we're having and that builds that sense of legitimacy so i think something else to talk about at this point is what is legitimacy in policing so are the police trustworthy honest concerned about the well-being of the people that they are dealing with should police authority be accepted should people voluntarily accept police decisions and follow peace directives should they comply with the law and cooperate with the police if all you get to a yes on all of those questions when there is legitimacy in place and the problem comes when that legitimacy doesn't exist but also what's legitimacy and oversight so is the agency it's very similar to the policing is the agency trustworthy honest and concerned about the people they're dealing with should their authority be accepted should people accept oversight agencies decisions and recommendations and should they comply with the law cooperate with the oversight agency and and the way you get to yes on all of those questions is through the building of legitimacy by having a trustworthy neutral fair process and i also think to go back to something that was asked earlier i think as you're building that piece that independence piece i think legitimacy really plays into that if they see the oversight entity as a legitimate entity then that helps to build that trust because you're seen as moving away from being for the law enforcement agency and being someone that is for the process so now that we talked a little bit about legitimacy and authority i wanted to talk to you a little bit about the models now we can if you want to go more into these models at a later date we can absolutely do that but i wanted to make sure that you had a basis of information about the types of oversight that exist so first we have the review focus model which all of you are very familiar with um so it one of the biggest pieces um of the review model is that it allows community to be part of the process um it allows them to give input into the complaint investigation process it allows the community to review investigations and that may increase trust by the public in the process itself and an individual or board or commission authorized to review completed internal investigations can agree or disagree with those findings which means that there can be a point where there is a voice given when there isn't agreement so moving on to an auditor monitor focus model um it involves a full-time civilian or well let me back up a little bit full-time civilian investigators and auditors monitors they may have highly specialized training and they and they should they should they shouldn't come into it not without knowing what it looks like to go through data to analyze it and to come to conclusions um often and i apologize i think that these are um i'm reading through this and i think the second box here is really about the investigative model um so let's just pretend that at the top of that box it says investigative model um so investigations are conducted by people outside of sworn law enforcement um the agency doesn't rely on the investigators at all within the police department but they do have to rely on complete unfettered access to information and documents whether it is statements from witnesses whether it's uh body cam footage whether it is um uh dash cam footage the ability to interview officers um and see all of the reports that were made um it really is important for that to be able to be accessible um and civilian led investigations tend to negate that real or perceived bias that public often sees when the police are investigating their own now i will say one of the things that in but typically has kept cities from moving to an independent investigative um model is that well first of all that you tend to talk about independent investigations and law enforcement agencies and unions tend to panic and say no thank you we don't want that um but another part of it is that sometimes smaller communities it it's a large investment um it requires when you're hiring trained investigators um you need to have people who do have the training and you need to pay them um and have that enough staff to actually handle that type of work so it does it tends to be a more expensive model but what we are seeing in many smaller communities now is that they're having a review board focus model help but they have the ability in their ordinance to send the investigation back for additional investigation or they in certain circumstances can order an independent investigation be done they can also initiate an investigation on their own if even in the absence of a complaint so those two things have happened and allowed cities who might not be able to uh commit to the investment of a full investigative model they have been able to commit to the invest the investment of having say an investigator on contract who could come in when you needed them to so that's a great great development in that um a great example is Madison Wisconsin just implemented a similar a model that is exactly that they also have the ability to make policy recommendations and and analyze data so moving on to um what should be the auditor monitor focus model is that um yes so um just curious that was really interesting to me this sort of hybrid model with the ability to so to hire an investigator who would not necessarily be full-time got it yes what what typically are the qualifications of a person like that so um no not necessarily a lawyer but someone who sometimes it's former law enforcement who have an investigative background sometimes it's people who are private investigators and have that background there are sometimes that work experience for instance someone who might be hired with little experience say in a larger agency somewhere who then works for them for period time and gains that training and that experience and then goes to a smaller agency who who can't rely on someone who has less experience can be brought in our next session is actually an entire two hours on effective investigative practices and and reviewing and so the person who is going to be doing that training Jason Wector is um work has been investigator for over 30 years he's not an attorney and he can probably talk a little bit more about all of the training that's available and should be considered than I could great thanks so the auditor monitor models often has many more reporting abilities than any of the other models because what they're doing is they're looking into issues they're they're doing audits and they're producing reports which brings so much transparency to the process those are public reports that then people can see first of all that that those types of things are happening but also can see that where what the issues are and what the recommended remedies are to those issues it may be more effective at promoting long-term systemic change in an agency a law enforcement agency it's generally to go back to that cost issue it's generally less expensive than an investigator model but it does require someone who actually knows how to look at data it doesn't have to maybe be a certified auditor although many if not most of them are and be able to really kind of pull that information together and come up with conclusions it also this model also allows the agency to actively engage in many for all of the steps of the process like there are many auditors who although they may not be doing the investigation of a complaint they might be able to sit in on the interview of officers or complainants and ask questions or they might be able to submit questions to those doing the interviews so there are quite a few monitor auditor models who do have that ability so that it happened it's it's like you're being involved real time that way because then you don't have to wait till you get the investigation and say well but why didn't you ask them this and you can be part of that process and then you know Stephanie said the word hybrid earlier really what we're seeing in most cases now is that most civilian oversight agencies are one their combination of want two or more of of these models because communities are saying well I want this to happen but I still want to do this and we do see that the review piece of this is almost always part of the hybrid because that's the community involvement piece that's so imperative in the oversight process but then it allows the creation of something that also can do an investigation independently or maybe a systemic audit or a systemic review of something within the law enforcement agency so we are seeing that that kind of hybridization of the models and I would assume that eventually this presentation will change not only to have the correct headings at the top but also to say that really here's we have hybrids and this what these are the components of hybrids you know it's one model better than the other every model has strengths and weaknesses and so really what when you're deciding what model to implement the needs of the community really have to be part of that you know what is the history or narrative of the community or communities encompassing the law enforcement agencies level of support both financial and political for any of these models level of authority independence that's wanted and what are the expected outcomes one of the things that I think that particularly when we get to the community outreach piece that you're going to hear this word expectations a lot so I'm sure you all know that you know you come into the process with expectations but the community has a whole another set of expectations about what you should or should not be doing there and and so setting expectations is really important but also trying to meet some of those expectations where they are is also important particularly when you have the ability to establish or enhance an oversight mechanism I think a lot of times there becomes a point of disappointment by communities when they find out that the oversight agency that they might have been told is going to fix all of their problems may not have the ability to subpoena witnesses to to complete an investigation it may not have a law enforcement agency that gives them the documents they need to do the work that they're supposed to do like there are all of those things that kind of go into that expected outcomes pile that need to also be considered when establishing or enhancing a mechanism so next I want to move on to principles for effective oversight so I think that given particularly the things that you mentioned at the beginning I think that this piece may be particularly important to you so I'm going to kind of looking at my time I want to make sure that I spend the time here that we need and please feel free to jump in with questions so Naikul recently put together the 13 principles for effective oversight now I have to say that this was this is a compilation of pre-existing work and some work that we did working with existing civilian oversight agencies based on what stakeholders determined to be most important for the community that the agency serves so this is really it identifies the most important aspects of oversight and I would be remiss if I did not mention some of the people that helped develop principles in the past that we kind of pulled together to make a complete set so that includes Sam Walker includes Joseph DeAngelis Richard Rosenthal Barbara Tard Catherine Olson some of them oversight practitioners some of them academics and many others who have really looked at this over the last several decades to see what goes into effective oversight so first on the list is independence and independence is absolutely T it cannot be overemphasized enough because all of you know that when the community does not see independence then that becomes a problem and that could be a real or perceived issue in some communities it just depends but it's one of the most important concepts in civilian oversight it refers to an absent or of real or perceived influence from law enforcement political actors and any other special interests looking to affect the operations of of the entity I think an important point that we've that really has come to light in the last several months is that independence is also important because it means you need to have an ability to maintain that independence even in the face of high-profile events so you know there is a critical incident there's a shooting there is a death at the hand in custody being able to be seen as independent in even those times is really important and that goes back to the legitimacy piece because you're there to be part of the process and not necessarily on one side or the other and believe me you will be asked by all sides to be on their side whether it's selected officials or law enforcement or community and it's about you being independent from those influences and doing the job that you've been tasked with the next is clearly defined an adequate jurisdiction and authority so having adequate jurisdiction and authority are fundamental in achieving organizational goals and ensuring the oversight agency can be responsive to community so who do you oversee how do you operate can you make policy recommendations can you I mean what are your authorities and it needs to be very clearly defined I was looking at the policy that guides you and there when I was going through it I was like there were lots of well who who does this like you know who determines whether something is low level or mid level you know is there is there a matrix like who is in charge of trapping all of this who's in charge of the spreadsheet you know so there are questions like that and it's really important that it's laid out very clearly so that you know that you have the tools that you need and you have a clear idea of what the expectations are of you so if if as as you work through your process whatever that might be keeping that in mind that have this clear definitions and clear authorities is very important in doing the work the next one is unfettered access to documents or sorry unfettered access to records and facilities so the facilities piece there is because we do have a lot and a growing number of oversight entities that also oversee jails and prisons and some of those do it in conjunction with patrol some are just jail and prison but we do that that facility piece is very key for them but unfettered access to records so I always feel like it it seems ridiculous that we have to make this a principle because if you can't review records then how can you actually know what you're reviewing or making decisions on so but we all know that it still needs to be in here because that is not always the case so the ability to review all records relevant to an investigation in a timely manner is essential to providing oversight it allows you to provide informed fact driven oversight similarly being able to have access to those who you have questions for and as I mentioned before all of the elements that went into the decision that someone made after doing investigation if you're supposed to review that you need access to the same materials that they had now I realize that there are often I get a lot of questions around this principle about well what about confidentiality what about state laws well of course everything needs to be done in accordance with the law but there are also lots of agencies who you know who have board members commissioners who sign confidentiality agreements so that there is so that if they are not upholding that part of this piece that then there are repercussions for that but that there are oversight entities all over the country who have unfettered access without issue there it doesn't seem to be a large drive of oversight practitioners to release information that's deemed confidential can we just to you know to flag that this issue of access to records has been an issue for us and and yeah I think we'll be talking to you about that and how to ensure that we do have adequate material there was a complaint that we were asked to investigate and our access to some one of the body cam videos at least was denied and at least some of us felt it was germane to reviewing the incident and so it became clear that at that you know at that point that in our evolving role that we need to figure this out and to memorialize it in a way that allows this not to be negotiated for each incident but so when you say unfettered access to records you really mean that right does that the oversight body has the ability and where does that authority rest with that unfettered access to records so we see it a couple different ways so in some cases it's part of the ordinance that creates the oversight entity and in some cases actually New Orleans comes to mind they have an MOU with the police department that outlines how that whole process works and I I always I always feel like if New Orleans police department and their monitor could come to a memorandum of understanding about access then I I feel like anybody can do it but so and I'm happy to send you a copy of that because I a lot of times it doesn't get outlined in in an ordinance but it is so essential to be able to do the job that you've been asked to do that it's not in an ordinance a memorandum of understanding has to be put into place because you're right the amount of time that is is spent trying to negotiate the process every time it's a waste of of your time it's a waste of law enforcement's time there just needs to be a process in place so that you can can do the work and I'm sorry I think I cut someone off no no I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you I was just saying that that would be super helpful for us to see something like that because I think it's it's much needed here at our last meeting we asked for some additional data regarding use of force the statistics by officer and you know it we just kind of got like a wishy washy response when it should have been like yeah sure we'll get you that like maybe they'll want to discuss an executive session but to not just say yes we can give you that information which we know is should be out there um could we um you know I'd like to send you the report that we just reviewed with regards to data that showed still some disturbing trends with racial disparities in our area I would love to know what you think and how we can go about having discussions with our department about the data and a strategic plan to address some issues quite frankly we've been struggling to get some type of response to trends that continue like even through COVID these trends have continued thank you absolutely I might just oops sorry if I might just say Jebu we for all of my fellow commissioners we do our arrangement with Nicole is that they will give that we have funding for additional consultation around policy and so forth so I'm actually keeping a list and if any of you have things you want to add to that so for example an MOU or some kind of mechanism to give us authority to records your point Milo I'll add to the list so just to let you know that as policy issue you know these issues come up and we need further consultation with Nicole just let me know and I'll add it to the list and we'll work that out thank you I know a problem that I've run into a couple times and it's not in front of right now so I can't reference it but I do know that in the BPOA contract that's been bargained between the city and their union there are some things that are protected in there and like I said it's not all data things but I know there are certain data things in there would those would that contract be renegotiated before they would really set yeah so it is so when we say unfettered access to records so there are there's a little asterisk there that that are allowable by the the contract that's in place by state laws by local laws by officer Bill of Rights things like that there are lots of things that inhibit that unfettered access that sometimes you cannot control I think that when I mean there are contracts that prohibit civilian oversight in some cities and bringing that attention to that and trying to make sure that in the next round of negotiations that things like that are removed is just as important as the work that you're doing here and and maybe that isn't your role maybe that are that is the community's role to look at things like that that are inhibiting true transparent accountable mechanisms to oversee the police so those are important and unfortunately until things like that are taken out of the mix they are part of part of the equation yeah that's kind of the big elephant in the room with though I feel like a lot of things moving forward I know when our city was was trying to strengthen community oversight that that was that was potentially a big stumbling block had the mayor not vetoed it and it had moved on that was a that was a strong concern that it wouldn't jive with the current CBA contract with the department okay well definitely something to be aware of and as you're moving forward and as that contract negotiation comes around again to to look at hopefully hopefully particularly during this time elected officials are also looking at some of those things that have been put in contracts before that perhaps are no longer needed because there is the importance of building that legitimacy with the community which means access and transparency so one can hope that this that's this moment brings that kind of change as well any more comments or questions on that it's a big one I realize and if I didn't emphasize before it's not just the access it's timely access as well waiting for months for documents is that you have a right to is difficult as well so access to law enforcement executive executives and internal affairs staff so the effectiveness of an oversight agency can hinge on its ability to effectively communicate with law enforcement officials matter regarding matters of concern so being able to have those lines of communication is really important to the work and I realized that it is often something that takes time to build those lines of communication I know that changes in leadership changes in policies can then incidents that happen in the community can also kind of what you might have built up might change might you might have to start from scratch but that is always something that needs to be part of the process it is very hard to provide oversight and change to a department that no one's communicating with or one that refuses to communicate with an oversight entity so it is a two-way street but it is a very important piece to the the process because sustained dialogue promotes cooperation and in the end that's you need cooperation to be able to do the job that you've been given well and that leads us to the next one full cooperation so it really needs cooperation not only at the highest levels but really all officers and department staff throughout the course of your work it's necessary for conducting thorough investigations obtaining sufficient information and for any work performed by the agency such as data analysis or access so you can conduct audits I mean all of those things really depend on the cooperation of the law enforcement agency being overseen the next one is sustained stakeholder support so one of the things that oversight entities have really seen as beneficial is to maintain communication with stakeholders that constant outreach is needed to them to build levels of support because oversight entities you want them to know what you're doing you want them to have clear expectations for the work that you're doing it's one of the ways that you can show people the independence that you have and then also what oversight entities I'll use New Orleans as an example again they have worked very hard to build stakeholder support and that's not just with members just community members community advocacy groups your stakeholders include the elected officials you know members of the school systems it involve law enforcement is one of your stakeholders it is about having maintaining relationships and support from all of them so that when things get rough you have support so that is something that New Orleans has done a very good job of they constantly have communication with all stakeholders and when they came under they were originally under another entity they didn't have independence and they were getting ready to really have some of their office and independent authority demolished stakeholders came to their support because of the relationships that they had built up and people who knew what they were doing and the good that they can do for the community so that's very important and it's also to yes Sammy when you say stakeholders so I have an idea of what you mean but can you be more specific and my and my guess is that at a certain point in these trainings we're going to talk about how to build that rapport with stakeholders yes in fact we're going to spend quite a bit of time when we do that community and stakeholder engagement these we're going to spend I think in our third training we're going to spend some time with a woman who actually used to be the community ambassador in Denver who worked on community engagement and stakeholder engagement and she's going to kind of walk through all of those pieces with you but when we're talking about stakeholders we are talking about you know members of the community so of all of the different community groups that includes also you know that not only the advocacy advocacy groups the people who are sitting at the top of those those groups but also the people that they represent it includes law enforcement it includes your city council members so there are lots of select officials community members law enforcement are three of the big groups but there's also you know groups that represent people who have been just that have you know mothers who've lost children at the hands of police school administration officials like there are lots of different other groups that you can kind of pull into that process to let them know what you're doing you're give them clear expectations of your mandate and so that's that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about stakeholders okay thanks um and I think also a big piece of that sustained stakeholder support is that when there is a crisis or a horrible incident in the community it is politically expedient to support oversight everybody is all on it I mean the whole world saw that in the last nine months whereas normally it's just a community itself kind of in this bubble sees that and but what happens is that what we need to make sure is that once the expediency kind of falls off what kind of support are you left with and who is going to come and remind people of the reason of your existence so that's also part of that whole process adequate funding and operational resources so it's also really important that I mean when we're talking about some of these models that we talked about and some of the ordinances that I've mentioned and the authorities that people have that requires staff it requires ongoing training it requires budgets that actually fund operations that allow an agency to meet its mandate and it also you know there are some cities who have moved to kind of a percentage model where they are their budget as a percentage of the police departments whether that and in some larger cities it might be one percent and some small smaller cities we see a larger percent because of a kind of to kind of make up for smaller police budgets so they can actually meet the level of demand in their city so that can be five to seven percent in some cities that we've seen we've also seen you know one of the easiest ways to make oversight go away is to stop funding it to cut its budget and it tends to be one of the first like right now and we understand with COVID many cities they went right in and went into damage control and they started cutting all city agency budgets we have a lot of people who are still on furlough everywhere across the state or across the country but one of the first things that got cut in all oversight agency budgets was training and education and travel so they have no way of a lot of them are paying for things out of their own pockets right now so that they can get additional training there are we've seen with cities in the past Miami is a great example they cut that budget to almost nothing and they eventually went to a voter referendum to then be guaranteed a percentage of the Miami police department's annual budget so that they could actually have enough staff on board to do the job that they were mandated to do so that's very important to have the budget and operational resources needed the next is public reporting and transparency I cannot emphasize how important this is those annual reports um allow a look into the work not only of the oversight agency but things that are happening in the police department so it's not just number of complaints number of instances of use of force I mean it's also what kind of recommendations were made what was found and what kind of audits were done just kind of depends on what the oversight agency what their authorities are to what you report but the more information that you can give the public the better and of course there's always a lot of concern about well we can't put too much information in there because of confidentiality we're not talking about outlining every complaint with every officer's name we're talking about getting statistics so that police so that the the general public and I like to say the broader community because I also think it's important for for law enforcement to see these these numbers to see how many complaints how many are sustained how many community outreach events are doing or is an agency doing what are the the responses to recommendations that are made by by law enforcement all of that can be made public and it really makes a big difference in the time that it takes to build that legitimacy piece because I'm not sure how you build legitimacy if no one knows what you're doing so it's very important and we also will spend some more time on that piece as well what goes into effective reporting next we have before we move we move on from the reporting I also want to say special reports are also a really good thing to consider so if you have a like for instance there are a lot of agencies that did special reports on the police response to protests last summer and that really gave a look into the type of complaints that that came out of them some issues that they saw with the police response and some recommendations for changes so that's a good example also follow-up reports are to your reports are also important so like the the inspector general in New York for the New York police for department did a a review of use of force reporting practices and they made a ton of recommendations um one can hope that this this moment brings that kind of change as well that the department accepted those they implemented more comments or questions on that follow-up report so that they could look at impact those changes actually had so um and and once they put in the recommendations where people actually following them is their additional training needed so it's not just kind of a one and done it's there needs to be follow-up to that Kevin can I ask a quick question yeah when you say these reports were done for example they were the oversight boards had the resources to hire someone or have a staff person they weren't relying on on the police department to do the report but rather it was an arms length report um it was most almost all of them that I have seen were arms length but I will say and that's mostly because I focus on the civilian oversight reports that are coming out I will say and I haven't read it from cover to cover but there were some police departments um like Dallas who did a report on the protests that was actually they were very critical of themselves and made recommendations for how they could do it better next time so those also are coming out of law enforcement agencies as well but Dallas is the only one I've actually seen at this point so when you get a chance can you send us the special report on use of force reporting absolutely I would be helpful thanks yeah absolutely and then um just because I can send you but also New York City and um and Denver there are two of many cities that did reports but they did two very extensive reports on the protest follow-up so you can just see kind of what went into that systemic review and what kind of recommendations came out of it um next I want to talk about I'm actually going to talk about community outreach and community involvement together because it's really about the output and the input so it's very important to continually have engagement with your community and like I said before we're going to go into the the nitty gritty of that in a later session but you know you need to be able you need to be able to talk to the community and let them know otherwise it's very difficult to have effective civilian oversight it's where you build relationships it's where you recruit volunteers it's where you improve relationships build coalitions and develop a greater capacity for problem solving and when I talk about recruit volunteers I I just wanted to mention one of the things that comes to my noise when I say that is there are some oversight entities who have what they call community ambassadors who they work with members of the community to let them to talk to them they let them know what they're doing and then that person can go and tell the community members that they work with about the agency they can also tell them how to file complaints so it amplifies it's a way to amplify your voice and I it's Atlanta has a very good program of community ambassadors and so that's definitely one to to look at when you're modeling but the community community input piece is important too you know you need to find out do you need to get input regarding how how oversight should function which accountability issues you should be looking at what what is the best fit for your community to meet its needs and there's that word again expectations so it's very important to not only have the output and the talking but also the listening one community that I talk about a lot because I this seems so simple and but so many don't do it this way is that when they have a community meeting first I'll say how many of you have gone to a community meeting where you're sitting and maybe a church and there is a stage at the top in the basement and all of the members of you know you've got law enforcement you've got an oversight official you've got maybe an elected official sitting up there and the community is all sitting in the the seats down below well in the community I'm talking about they have a podium at the front but everybody is sitting in the audience there's no panel of experts now law enforcement oversight elected officials they all get up and talk but then they did the same way that the community members do after them everybody gets a chance to walk up to the microphone like everybody else and stay their peace and it makes a tremendous difference in how people react to people who are speaking it's really where you're putting people on the same level and it's just amazing how I mean I I would like as well I realize I'm sitting here just talking at you for two hours that how amazing that is to have that interaction with community in that kind of way next I want to talk about confidentiality anonymity and protection from retaliation so we did talk about this a little bit at the very beginning so oversight should function with the same integrity professionalism and ethical standards that it expects from law enforcement so you need to be protecting sensitive information as well as those who disclose it and all of that goes into the legitimacy piece and it also just goes into the building trust piece honestly oversight can't function when there's someone that is not following those the confidentiality and anonymity agreements in fact it will ruin the reputation of an oversight entity and even if it is one person acting alone I think all of you know that then that becomes to oversight entities issue and not just that one person's issue also there needs to be a level of respect and for those who are filing agreements or filing complaints there needs to be respect for confidentiality agreements and maintaining anonymity of those who have the courage to come in and file complaints and I also I don't know I didn't see it in the policy when I was reading and but perhaps I missed it a lot of oversight agencies have also become a place where officers can make complaints as well and that also is very important that their anonymity that they're the confidentiality piece are all applied equally to officers who come forward to make complaints and lastly I'm going to talk about procedural justice and legitimacy very briefly because I feel like I've talked about this I don't know for an hour and a half so to you throughout so it should serve as the core principle that guides the work and processes of the civilian oversight agency typically procedural justice centers on how authorities exercise as we talked about before and you know research has shown that procedural justice interactions between law enforcement and the community positively impact the public's compliance with laws and their willingness to assist in crime efforts or crime control efforts but at the same time we are seeing that people trust the oversight process more that they are more satisfied with the the complaint process when it is also seen as procedurally just so it's it's important to to apply those principles not only in policing but also in oversight so before I move on from the principles are there any more questions so next I just want to talk a little bit about framework for effective practices and oversight a lot of times what we see is or what we hear is people like well what are the best practices how how do we make sure that what we're doing is what we actually should be doing well so and it's natural to know want to know what works what doesn't work and and really this has been the term best practices is a term that's been used for decades trying to define what oversight entities should should do but there's some limitations in in using best practices and because of those limitations it's led us to move from a best practices or best fit approach to an effective practices approach based on the 13 principles that we just went over and serves as a foundation for effective and sustainable oversight the form that oversight takes in a community needs to be possible feasible and congruent with the community expectations and then also the the best form of oversight actually depends on the circumstances of the community that it's being implemented in so all of those things make it very difficult to talk about best and why we've moved on to effective practices um so the limitations of that best practices so it really boils down to there are a lot of complexities in civilian oversight and so that makes it very difficult to to really talk about what practices should be implemented to be what are successful practices it also is very difficult in how do we pick up the best practices that are being used in Indianapolis and move them to Vermont or Burlington or vice versa how do we determine what's working in New York City where you have agency with over 100 employees and 35,000 law enforcement officers and apply it to Kansas City, Missouri so it's becomes very difficult to measure there are a lot of academics out there who are very frustrated by civilian oversight because of its difficulty to measure overall best practices although I will say in the last couple of years we're seeing more and more where they're taking they're looking at pieces of it for instance subpoena power and what that looks like or that there's a lot or more examples of that than we have seen in the past the goals of civilian oversight don't necessarily lend themselves to comparative measurement there's a lack of standardized definitions in civilian oversight which I will say we're working on standards in general or something that we're working on but what makes that even difficult is that that comment that I made earlier that no two civilian oversight agencies are exactly alike and there's no standardization of what data is being collected in each agency so that makes it very difficult so that leads us to talk about this effective practices framework so it's still possible to use alternative approaches so that we can have some practical guidance on on what civilian oversight should look like so it's a really important to remember that in civilian oversight there are several possibilities or paths to success so just because you're in addition jurisdiction that's not doing one thing that doesn't mean you can't be successful but there are some effective practices that you need to consider because for effectiveness and sustainability the development of oversight has to allow for some flexibility but taken to consider consideration the criteria that is understood to be crucial to successful oversight and that's really where those 13 principles come in and when we're talking about the 13 principles being able to have all of those 13 principles fully enforced would be amazing but we also know that there's some realities that make that not happen and so it's about looking at them and making sure how do we what are our levels in our community is what are our priorities at these 13 principles where we can have implement them all and have them all under consideration but are we is it more important to be independent maybe our independence is here instead of up here but do we have enough funding to make sure that we can do what we've been asked to do so all of those things have to be considered as we're working and the best part is is that you have lots of examples of how civilian oversight is working in other communities effectively and so that's kind of how we eventually have brought in a list of effective practices that we hope everyone's able to employ because we've seen them work seen them work in other communities and it's not just about looking at a study about you know X number like if you have subpoena power then this is what happens and this is this is a measure of effectiveness it's about looking and valuing the perspectives of a diverse group of stakeholders to see what is working and what's not working and I will say even some of the agencies that we would deem very effective if you were to talk to them there wouldn't be something that they wouldn't say yes but this is something that we're lacking that would help us in our work that's why you see agencies like Denver like Berkeley, California go in and ask for changes to their ordinance so that they can operate more effectively even though they had some very effective practices to start with there was definitely room for improvement and they sought it and they got it so when we're making recommendations for effective practices we look at is this practice an appropriate fit for our local context not all recommended practices will be appropriate for every oversight jurisdiction oversight system recommendations under consideration need to be discussed with local state stakeholders and gather feedback none of these decisions of implementing practices should be made in a vacuum there needs to be community input and stakeholder input as a whole as part of that process you also need to look at how this practice strengthens civilian oversight in relation to the 13 principles of effective oversight evaluate strengths and weaknesses in relation to the principles does adopting a particular recommendation achieve its intended outcome in their jurisdiction does it does it cause any unintended consequences in the jurisdiction it may implement implementation might strengthen a principle in one area but it may not sufficiently address a particular weakness or other related issue or shortcoming of the agency so it's really important to look at it holistically when you're implementing any practice and it also that becomes very important when you're looking at negotiating different authorities that you want added kind of looking at how they all interact and what those outcomes may be and then again I mentioned earlier looking at the unintended consequences of implementing a practice what are the potential consequences and while practice may strengthen the oversight system in one area some may have unintended consequences undermining the oversight system in another for example the implementation of certain practices could have significant impacts on the existing or proposed resources of the agency if you have you want to have more access to data but your your budget is a certain level your staff is a certain level will you really be able to handle the additional mandates that you're asking for by being able to look at data and make recommendations and do additional reports and do audits like what all of those things have to be considered so I realize that I've almost run up to the time but that is the end of my slideshow I'm gonna Stephanie I know I sent you the slide deck I'm gonna make a couple changes to it since we found a couple errors in it as we're going through and then I'll resend that so you all have a copy of the slides and in that copy is also my email in case there are any of you that don't have it so that if you have any follow-up questions we're always available I want to make sure that there's a clear understanding of all of the information as you move forward that's what we're here for so with that I want to turn it back over to all of you to see if there are any additional questions before we close out by the evening Kenny I'd like to ask a question that has come up in discussions here and one of the arguments that has been made has been that community members and civilians don't really are not experts and therefore don't really have the expertise to weigh in on law enforcement matters and so I just wonder if you could talk about that talk about what kind of training other civilian oversight boards do have and any of your thoughts about that well I will say that is the number one argument against civilian oversight in every community when it comes up or even you know 20 years down the line it still raises its head you know the how how can anyone who doesn't do my job tell me how I should be doing my job or know how I should be doing my job so one of the ways that that's remedied is that training is really important so there's the training that you're getting from us that kind of is going to talk to you about you know civilian oversight how to do some of the mandates are given a little bit about some mandates that might be important down the line so there is that but there is also other training training from the law enforcement agency is also considered very important and working with them you know if you see a lot of cases that come through about use of force having training from the department to thoroughly understand how officers are trained on the use of force policies is is really important to learn about traffic stops there I mean the list is long of things and that doesn't all have to happen all at once I know that for instance in Indianapolis the requirements are 20 hours of training a year from the police department and 16 hours of ride-alongs with officers at a minimum and and that that's to be done every year by every member of the board not only does that help you understand the training that officers are also receiving but it also goes a long way because I have to tell you being able to sit in a car for a shift with an officer and have conversations allowed me to understand where they were coming from it also allowed them to understand civilian oversight because before I get in the car I'm I'm the big bad wolf I am someone that's coming to wreck their career or in that I don't understand policing at all but being able to sit in the car as two human beings goes a long way for building those relationships and understanding so there's a side benefit to the training as well so that's and then there's also you know learning from prosecutors and public defenders and academics who are doing research there's so much training that can be done out there to really give you a holistic view of the tasks at hand and and the work that police officers do so that's those are some of the starts are starting places and I will say there are some that will you will never be able to change their mind about that so it's about getting the training and then doing the work in a way and then it's kind of building that trust with them that you know that you are not there to be anti-police that you are there to build a better community which involves everyone and also once the community trusts the police more it makes their job easier when they're working with a community that actually trusts them and sees them as legitimate at an entity so thanks that was great thanks any other questions okay I don't have one for you but I do want to respond I know there's someone I think we should explain to folks who watch this or who are watching what kind of participation folks can have going forward in these meetings and we as a commission I think decided that one of our previous meetings that might have been with the Joint Committee and please correct me if I'm wrong anyone I think we the reason we did that half an hour at the beginning was to give folks the opportunity to provide public comment and made the decision that we didn't think it would work to open up discussion during the training to the public because of the volume of people we sometimes having haul in we didn't think we could get through the training am I mistaken Jabou Stephanie or Milo about that but that's why we designed it this way no you're correct okay because I don't want folks to think we didn't want to hear from them but it just I don't and I don't know Kami if you feel differently about how we set this up but we tried to do it so we could you know actually get the eight hours of them no I think I agree with the way that you did it I will add that for members of the community who are watching you know we are not a resource just for people who are practicing oversight that there is a lot of information on our website and there's also some trainings on basic civilian oversight that are on the website as well under our resources section so we want to make sure that everybody has the knowledge that they need to be part of the conversation and that extends to the everyone in the community as well so if there are questions from the community there's also ways to contact us on the website so if in the next public forum where they're able to ask questions if they don't want to wait and they have a very specific question that we're also available to answer those questions really at any time thank you so much of course well before we close that I just want to say I thank you very much for hanging in there with me this evening it's been a pleasure being with all of you and I'm looking forward to talking all about investigations on Jun 10th so and in the meantime I have a list of things here to provide you to give you some resources to to look at between now and then and if for some reason I've missed something on that list just let me know I'm happy to help Kimmy I want to thank you so much I for me this was I even though I've been reading a lot this was really helpful it stimulated a lot of ideas and I wanted to say that if you want to give us homework for something to read before the next training if that would be helpful that I'd be open to it and just to thank you this was really really helpful really learned a lot absolutely and I maybe when I send those oh I'm sorry Milo I was just going to say when I send those links I'll just maybe include a thing or two that might be of interest to all of you okay great thank you so much I just wanted to just say the same thing I do a lot of reading but you've brought up a lot of things for us to think about things that we definitely need really appreciate that and look forward to the future ones Coastal Paul um sounds to me like you don't go by Cameron sounds like everybody's calling you something else yes Kami is is well I'll answer to both but Kami's more common yes well I apologize I I had a neighborhood meeting we had a neighborhood meeting on homelessness this evening I thought that it would be done by around 615 and 615 led to 7 o'clock which led to 715 so I apologize I wish that I had been here at 6 o'clock after given all of the things that have gone on over the past year and a half NAICOL has certainly been a an acronym that we have all come to know and I will say I didn't know a whole lot about it for a couple of years ago but know a little bit more about it now and thank you so much for your time and thanks to the police commission for putting this out there for city counselors to attend and I see a number of people from the public that are here a number of people who want to serve on the police commission which I think is great that they are here and listening and well I'm grateful that you're that you're going to be sharing the slide deck so that I will be able to see what I missed and and we'll we'll we'll certainly endeavor to be on time for the next one so again thank you very much and thanks for being here just one last I'll jump in and say sorry I was going to jump in to say that we also recorded this entire meeting um so we'll be we'll absolutely share with you Councillor Paul great thanks so much okay oops sorry oh no go ahead let's go ahead I was going to say I was like a a motion to adjourn okay certainly um so was that were you making the motion or asking for the motion I was going to ask if you would like a motion to adjourn absolutely if Kami if you are all set then absolutely I am thank you awesome we'll see you June 10th then okay great thank you everyone thank you thank you so I'll make a motion to adjourn I'll second that motion go ahead all in favour of adjourning the meeting raising hand to say aye aye aye that passes unanimously at 803 p.m. thank you everybody in the public that joined in and we'll see you at the next training session June 10th starting at 5 30 p.m. till then stay safe have a good day bye