 The next thing on our agenda was the pay act. And I don't think there's anything we really need to do about that I had sent out some feelers about the $1400 one time payment for season session only staff and it got very complicated around all seasonal employees for the state and what they would be getting And my understanding is that session only staff in the legislature is going to get the 1.9% increase, even though they don't normally get steps as such but they'll get the 1.9. So that's a little bit but it's not much but I was told that that was a losing battle. So the that Brian. Thank you madam chair. I just want to make sure I understood what Senator Kitchell said in the All Senate caucus I think I do. She said that the 1400 has been taken out of the bill, I believe, and will appear in a separate bill. Is that not true. Yeah, the pay act is is is still in play. No, I don't watch. I thought that what she said was taken out was not the 1400 but the stuff, the whole pay act he said is going to be added to this bill. Yes, they're going to add they're just putting the pay act into the into the budget. We don't have to pass it. We don't have to do anything with it they're just going to take the pay act and put it in there I think they're having some discussions around the $1400 but it was something else I thought that was put it being put in a whole nother bill. Then perhaps I misunderstood her kitchen. I think Brian, she was simply saying when you asked about the pack that that it's going to be in this bill but it hasn't been added yet. But the I checked with Luke and the I think the thing for the future is that that each department needs to be able to review the pay act provisions because he never got a chance to review that pack and lunch council never looked at it either. In future, it would be really useful for the bodies that are experiencing the changes and the recommendations to be able to actually weigh in on them. Yeah, well, and that would be a responsibility of the of the bodies that are dealing with them. Well, I don't know. Yes, but I think this happened, and it came to lunch council as a pay to complete. There was no ability for anyone to weigh in on it. So I think that is, you know, they should be reviewed by by whoever, you know, the bodies that are experiencing the fact should be. So we'll we can I don't want to get into a prolonged discussion about that now because we won't do another pay act for a while. But when we do another pay act we will make sure that everybody weighs in. If any of us are here to do it. Correct. But so I think that they, I mean, they'll have to deal with the pay act in as they deal with all other budgetary issues. And we're recommending full funding of the pay act, I believe, because we right agreed with it but the now appropriations will do with it as they see fit. Okay, so I don't think we need to do anything more with the pay act. That brings us to, oh, we're only 11 minutes late. That's not bad. Not bad. My internet. Oh, I know what it was. What, Alison. My internet is still having a problem, which is very frustrating. It reminds me of one of the things that Jane did say this morning that would be in a completely separate act and that was the broadband issue. Right. Randy brought up that there was nothing in the budget about broadband and that that is in a whole separate bill. Right. All right, so coming from the house. Yes. Today, we thought we would talk on our, and I did committee members get the note that I sent out to you about feeling overwhelmed. Yes. No, I haven't seen it yet. When did you send it? Sunday. She was too overwhelmed to find it. I was. I'm sorry I didn't see it. I'm feeling exactly the same way. I do think that this is a, if we look at this whole thing as a very broad issue that it is overwhelming. But I think that there are things that we've done in the past around, and this kind of conflates two issues that are important to all of us. And one is bias and race relations and the other is law enforcement. And this, they are somewhat separate issues, but they're conflated here and they're coming together. And I think that we, we can make some differences. We don't have to, we won't ever do as much as everybody wants us to do. But I think we can make some real differences here and some of the things that we've talked about so far. I think can do that. And some of the things that we've already done can do that. So, but I was hoping today we would talk about was kind of recruitment, training, hiring, promotion, all of that. And so I don't know who all we have here. I see charity smiling face. I see Curtis Reed, Michael Sherling, Diana, Wally. Oh, Thompson, Curtis, Gwen, Matt Birmingham, and Senator Clarkson, Clarkson way at the end on her little phone. And my little phone. My figuring it out again. Okay, so today, I thought we would start looking at this and knowing that we won't always get to everybody who's been invited or on the list. But the way we've been doing this for those of you who haven't been with us up to this point is, we're looking at this whole kind of issue that that has two. Well, probably more than two but two main components here one is kind of race issues and bias issues and the other one is law enforcement. And the in this particular moment there, they have kind of been conflated and we don't, we want don't want to lose sight of either of them. And we also want to try and deal with how they are coming together here. So what we've been doing is looking at. And the last time we addressed some of the. I can't even, I can't even think anymore but improper conduct issues and disciplining and the penalties and that and now today we're looking at recruiting, hiring training that as an issue and so what we've been doing is asking Betsy to kind of go a review of where we are on the particular issue. And then we're all keeping really good notes and hopefully by the end of the week we can come up with some ideas that could fit into some kind of a bill and we're not exactly sure what that's going to look like or where how it will be. If it's going to be along with judiciary or that's for better minds than mine to figure out so but that's that's what we've been doing and and we're have not Well, let's just jump into it. So the committee does anybody else have anything they want to throw in here right now before we get started. Okay, so Betsy and if you would just kind of give us a brief overview of where we are with training and recruitment and all. Okay. Hello for the record Betsy and Rask legislative. And I've been working on putting together a handout for the committee that lays out the information more clearly by just I don't have that ready for you today. I'm just adding on to that handout that I provided last time. So I'll follow up with a further overview. But a few things to mention in regard to recruitment hiring training and promotion. First, I'll just note, we already know the criminal justice training council is the entity that sets the training requirements for law enforcement officers and provides training to law enforcement officers and then certifies officers that meet the training requirements. And there are the council has rulemaking authority to establish what training is required for law enforcement officers. And so for example, the council establishes different training requirements for a level to officer, which has the ground scope of practice versus the level three certified officers who have full law enforcement authority. So there's differences in that training. In order to actually be certified as an officer and officer has to be employed by a law enforcement agency. So probably would make sense to hear from some of the law enforcement officers themselves about how this works in practice but to understand it, you in order to be certified you have to have someone who's willing to employ you a law enforcement agency be it one of our municipal police departments, or one of our state police offices such as the Vermont State Although the council has rulemaking authority to establish the training requirements for our law enforcement officers statute does require officers to have specific training in certain areas. And some of those areas are anti bias training that is required by 20 BSA 2358, which sets out the levels of certification, but it requires officers to in subsection e have in order to There was a date at the end of 2018 where all law enforcement officers had to receive a minimum of four hours of anti bias training and training on a fair and impartial policing policy that's used by their agency. And then in order to remain certified law enforcement officers are required to receive a refresher course on this anti bias training and fair and fair and impartial policing. That's approved by the council, and in every odd numbered year, so they get it every other year in order to be remain certified. And also a specific requirement for officers to receive domestic violence training on several two years that's 20 BSA 2365 As part of basic training officers also that basic training is what you need to take to get certified initially there's search and rescue training that's a requirement. Basic training is also required to include animal cruelty response training. And finally, another special training that statute requires is training on the use of electronic control devices, also known as tasers, if an officer will be using tasers, and that's 20 BSA 2367. So those are some of the specific training requirements but otherwise what that training looks like is established by the council. As far as hiring goes General Assembly already enacted the law that requires a potential hiring agency to contact the officers former agency. If the officer is no longer employed at that agency, so that the potential hiring agency can learn the reason that the officers no longer employed there. And this committee in S 124 proposes to amend that law, so that not only would a potential hiring agency need to contact a former agency. But the potential hiring agency would also now under this proposed language need to contact the officer current agency. If an officer still is employed at an agency. And that current agency, if it's in this state would need to disclose its analysis of the officer's performance at that agency. So that is another step of learning more about an officer, prior to hiring. So far as recruitment and promotion goes. I don't think there is that much in statute that really controls that language in the VSP statutes but that's not applicable to all law enforcement officers. So it might be better to hear directly from officers and agencies directly on how they recruit and how they promote their officers. So that's a high level overview. Madam chair, I. Are there any questions now up front and is there anything else that I can more details that you'd like me to provide either now or come back with further info. You're muted madam chair. Of course, thank you. Do we not also require mental health training and the basic. I think our sheriff used to be one of the mental health teachers. That does right. We did have mental health that there was. And, and while we're asking on that what I thought we had specific training on de escalation and stuff also. I think that's part of the, the basic training that happens as opposed to statutory requirements but Betsy. Well, then madam chair, it might make some sense for us before we do duplicative stuff like that. Maybe it would be good to just run through what basic training in large. Picked in a big picture way what basic training actually encompasses. Right. So madam chair, I can, I can tell you in regard to the mental health. There is language that is part of the electronic control device statute that's 20 vs a 2367. Where in subsection E of that section, the council is required to coordinate its training initiatives with the department of mental health related to law enforcement interventions. Training for joint law enforcement and mental health crisis team responses and enhanced capacity for mental health emergency responses. It looked like that was adopted as part of the taser language, the electronic language. So maybe the, maybe this is a question for Mark, or I don't think the chief Brachele is with us today, but Mark is part of the training council. So to look at, give us kind of an overview of what's involved in the basic training because I know we do use of force and de escalation and that that's part of the training. So if you could just kind of give us that big overview. I would be happy to madam chair. For the record Mark Anderson, Wynnum County Sheriff. I want to speak to two things. One is is and I'm not sure Betsy and if the language about mental health training, where it falls in statute but we know it as act 80 training, if that's the same as the taser. Taser law, then that's what it is. If not, it's been around for, for several years. Great. To speak about the training, there's two levels of training all training is coordinated and required by the training council and standards. The police academy is the delivery mechanism of that on the training council's website. And it's a extensive and exhaustive explanation of what level two and level three courses were required. So I'm going to speak about level two briefly, level two is what was previously known as part time officers, part time officers or level two certified officers. First undergo a two week Academy which gives a basic intro to criminal law motor vehicle law, basic patrol procedures, use of force including hand cuffing and firearms training that upon completion of the entire Academy where there's a variety of core core courses that are built into it, including ethics, search and seizure, constitutional law things like that. They're then given what's called a provisional certification that during that time they undergo a phase two training which is in service classes of which are required bloodborne pathogen training, crime scene investigation training response to domestic violence, parent and partial policing, fire extinguisher first aid, hazardous material awareness incident command structure, interacting with people experiencing mental health crisis search and rescue animal cruelty investigation and then the use of force tactics course which is about a 40 hour long course if I recall correctly. There's also the option for numerous elective courses at the Academy's choice and discretion. For example, my agency doesn't send people to fish and wildlife enforcement, and I doubt that the Department of Motor Vehicles sends its inspectors to how to transport prisoner from jail to court, simply because of the nature and unique operations of various agencies. So, there's a minimum requirement of 50 hours I'm sure many agencies established a number of hours they need based on their operations. And then the phase three portion of the program is where they're doing on job training with a certified, not only certified law enforcement officer but a person who's also undergone the training council's field training officer school. That is a rigorous program with direct observation and evaluation of the candidate on, I think it's over 40 different areas where they're evaluated. Those are based on the San Jose field training model which provides not only standardization on what the requirements and the grading for candidate would be, but also on to provide feedback to the candidate officer on what they need to be doing to be what we consider a solo officer. After a lot of that packet is submitted to the Academy with the justifying documentation in which finalized certification or non-provisional certification would be issued, and that person would then have a level two certification and capable to enforce law. The annual under Rule 13 of the training council, training council rules, there's a mandatory in-service training requirement every year in which a variety of things that Betsy and mentioned become part of the necessary courses to maintain that certification. Failure to complete those courses would result in decertification or other avenues based on unique circumstances. The second training or basic training offered by the Academy is the level three Academy, formerly known as the full-time Academy, and that is an in-residence 16 or 17 week long course. The only reason for the difference in lengths is if it's offered in the spring versus the fall because of holidays, but it's the same number of hours regardless. That is a far more in-depth and resource intensive program, which includes not only the collegiate portion of training, but also involves a variety of physical fitness training and what we refer to as a more paramilitary training methodology. The list is too long to read, but there's a total of approximately 800 hours for the minimum core instruction followed by another 124 that most agencies take advantage of, but again that's where we start to get into customized things. I don't want to speak for any specific agencies, but one agency might say because like maybe the Attorney General's office and investigators associated with their office might not require DUI enforcement training, whereas I won't require the Fish and Wildlife Certifications again because we don't enforce Fish and Wildlife Law. We turn that over to the game boarders. Within the 800 hours or approximately 800 hours of training, things such as motor vehicle law, criminal law, crash investigation, criminal law responding to people with mental health, fair and impartial policing, stress management, policing, defensive driving firearms, use of force, practical scenarios where they're applying the knowledge as they are learning it is brought in and applied in a very in-depth way. And is that enough of a top-level view, Madam Chair? That's helpful. Committee, do you have any questions? So far? I do. Is that, Mark, is that articulated on the Training Council's website? So, because you were going fairly fast and it's a lot of material. Yes, Senator, it is. I will post a link to it in chat and to the people in YouTube world. It's the Training Council's website, which is vcjtc.vermah.org. From there, you can dive into the Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. Just for note, Level 1 training exists in law, but it's not codified in any of the rules or curriculum of the Academy. So while it exists for a legal purpose, we've never developed it. And so to my, the best of my understanding, nobody in the state has ever been certified as a Level 1 officer. All right. Does anybody else, Chris? Yes, please. So the question I have is, it's a bigger picture question, but you are running through an impressively, you know, condensed version of your curriculum and I'm sure there's a lot packed in there. I was listening to some discussions about training for law enforcement this weekend and they were contrasting. So I think we have 16 weeks here. Is that right? And that, so I'm not holding this up as a standard, just I'm wondering what your thoughts are. They were saying in Europe, you're generally go through training for two years. So, which seemed like a remarkably long period of time, but can you say something about, I know that we're talking about what's in it, but I'm also thinking about if the box always stays the same size, we're only going to get to put one new thing in if we push something else out. So, I'm wondering if we need a bigger box to work in. The, I think that's a impart a philosophical question to answer. What is required, having been to Europe through through my military service and interacting with police officers there just had a curiosity of how other systems work. One thing I have found just through my conversations with them is that we operate in wholly different ways, good, bad and indifferent. There's just a significant amount of difference in culture expectations of what the government provides versus what the civilian public provides. And how all of those things work. It also has a difference on selection has a difference on methodology to, to the extent of your question though, for how big does the box need to be. It also comes in with different problem which is as we make the box bigger we make it even harder to accomplish and hiring and recruiting we've already witnessed for several years difficulty in recruiting. And retaining people losing people to other agencies because sign on both misses have become as Senator Clarkson will reference the poaching issue. So, as we make that box bigger, and I agree it raises the standard and expectations but as we make that box bigger it also makes us a step further and trying to get on to the streets, we already don't have enough. The, the requirements for in service training actually have gotten gotten bigger. And one thing I like to know is that the numbers that I provided are based on the Academy's basic training. And the in service training is the minimum requirement. I can't speak for all agencies in Vermont but I know several who do go above and beyond the minimum requirements. Even just speaking personally my training record many years I was over 100 hours of in service training on any given year, and it's not to say like hey let's give me a pat on the back but it's to say that we do things in different ways. I think I've been somewhat vocal in committee meetings to state that as some of the mandates for these trainings have been required is does start to push things out of our training budget though. I made reference that we used to provide the escalation training before the non lethal use of force curriculum was mandated on an annual basis. Now that it's mandated it's it is impart incorporated into the non lethal use of force but we were using far more in depth techniques and what was taught under the required course. Another thing that's that I'll note is one of the require courses that we incorporate into the basic trainings for level two and I believe it's built into level three is search and rescue training, but the Department of Public Safety is the agency responsible for that so why do I need to send a person to that and again situation awareness is important but as we try to apply a unified standard statewide, we start to isolate and ignore local and regional issues. So I can say hey in Wyndham County we have an opioid problem, but that's not necessarily as big of an issue and say Essex County. Well, I need to as Essex County might not that being a problem if I lose access to the control of the hours that I get to recognize as being county specific issues or regionally specific issues, then I, I mean, I only have so, so much resources to use. I think that if for people who don't know how it works that when Betsy Anne was talking about that you couldn't become certified as a law enforcement officer until you had an agency that had hired you so an agency hires you, and then they send then they get you signed up to go to the academy and you go to the academy. Meanwhile the agent, it isn't costing the agency anything to send you to the academy but they have higher. It's not costing tuition costs. It's costing because you're paying your salary and if you have, if, if you need 10 people and you're sending two people to the academy, and you have to hire subs to fill in for those other two. It's costing the agency some so as Mark said, if you're talking about a 16 week period of time. That's four months of time and if we expand, we could expand that we could expand it to their people who would like to expand it way beyond that. It means even more cost to whoever the municipality or the sheriff's office is that is hiring the person. We heard for those of you who haven't heard this yet. I'm sure you all have but we heard that there is need to look at the way we provide the training not not just what it is we provide but how we provided. Can some of it be online? Does it all have to be 16 residential weeks? Can some of it be more regional? Can we have more intensified regional classes on say mental health or de-escalation or whatever those issues are? So, does anybody on the committee have any questions right now for Mark or Betsy Ann? I can't see anybody so I'm just going to ask it. May I ask a question? Yes, please. Mark, at any point in this 16 weeks and I've forgotten what the cost is for the first 16 weeks, but I know it's fairly substantial. So, if you could remind us of the cost, that's one question. But the other question is, at any point are there personality tests taken by officers? I mean, is there any point at which they are their compatibility, their personality, and where we think up their skills and interests? So, they may be interested but actually maybe they don't have a personality that really is conducive to policing and that is there any point at which people say, thank you, we're delighted you're interested but we actually don't think you're a police material. Sure. So, I'll speak to my agency's hiring process which I think has mimicked fairly consistently across from our law enforcement. For a person who is not currently certified has an interest. The only way that they can go to either level two level three training is through what we call sponsorship by an agency which I believe the committee's already referred to. You can't self-sponsor yourself anymore. Many years ago that was a possibility but that's been eliminated. Right. It starts with, once you apply to an agency, the agency then as a sponsor assists you in signing up to take an entrance exam which is designed to be a 10th grade equivalency test. I will note that the training council is in the process of evaluating not only its entrance exam, but also the MMPI which is psychological. But those are the first two steps of the process. If you don't pass the minimum score for the entrance test, you don't move on to any further in the process. The belief is that if you can pass that test and you're going to be able to take in the knowledge that's delivered through the academy. The MMPI is effectively implemented by psychologist Dr. Bertol, who he and his associates had a database where the results of the MMPI are put into it and compared against current and past Vermont law enforcement as well as including the results and the expectations of their careers. So for example, my MMPI will be used to evaluate somebody coming in today with a belief that based on my psychological inventory as a person who has become an agency head that might have a similar trajectory for someone with a similar result. Not to say it's a crystal ball, but that's what's used. It also evaluates psychological risk, including if a person might have a mental illness, might be prone to a variety of issues on a mental health level. So those are the first two steps. Following that, most agencies use either an interview process or an oral board process. I think that's where you'll probably see the most variance among agencies. Some involve community members, some involve select boards, some involve just agency staff, whoever it may be. And so that would be a qualifying interview, so to speak. Following that, it's not a background investigation, which is then confirmed through a polygraph. The polygraph is required by the academy within, I believe it's six months to entry. So we have a fairly close window to when the training will begin. And then we have the basic training, which accomplish whichever the level two or level three program requires and then most agencies assume all agencies but I don't know for sure have will provide a field training program where it's one on one direct supervision where they deliver the training to that candidate. It's all part of a probationary process so if they're not, if they're not acting appropriately if they're abusing their power. If they are simply just not understanding everything that's been delivered they can't apply with the knowledge to the road. Then they could be dismissed without cause. So the entire training process all the way to their certified cut loose and their solo officer now. That's pretty much an entire hiring process and field training is considered part of the hiring process. I'm going to a couple things I'm going to ask Commissioner Sherling to talk just a little bit about his suggestion about testing and I Gail did you post the the list of questions that I had for today. It went out in the email invite but but it's not. I'm going to post that so that I can see what what I said. Sure. Okay, because there were some issues in there and then the other thing I'm going to say is just be careful about the MMPI MMPI stands for Minnesota multi phasic personality inventory. When I was a college freshman in Iowa everybody had to take the MMPI and I failed. So, I'm not sure what that says about me or about the MMPI but I thought it was one of the worst things I'd ever done. Anyway, I do want to be clear that are the councils implementation of the MMPI is not truly the MMPI, which is used in a variety of areas and pass and fail are. I can't tell you what that is I've deferred to a psychologist, but what I do want to say is that we're somewhat unique in that the pool that the MMPIs are evaluated against our current and former Vermont law enforcement either succeeded or failed. So we consider it on a slightly different population and pool, which is a deviation. So I didn't really fail, but they almost reconsidered their, whether they wanted to admit admit me to a free state college or not so. Before, but to net magic that's Mark, before we move to, to Michael, Mark, you actually have that whole process that you just outlined. Do you have that sort of graft out for people to understand what you know what I mean. I think I understand what you mean, but I will be breaking case that's wrong. I mean you have a roadmap of it written down or illustrated in some fashion. We do it's on our it's on our application that explains all the steps and I'll tell you, in my experience, a number of people who read that don't comprehend it. Okay, I'm not sure. After they pass the entrance exam, which we explained in depth. After that, we then explain the whole process directly to them as well. So we try to give it both in writing as well as verbally. So, Mike, I, Commissioner Sherling, I know that. Let's see. I was waiting to see if this got posted yet but there were some questions in there that had been raised and the questions I put in there that I really wanted us to kind of look at today in terms of this whole conversation. Those questions that were posed or not questions. They were suggestions that came from many different sources, and some of them actually came from the commissioner so, and I know that one of them was around testing and making and not just ruling out, not just looking for qualities that we don't want in police officers but looking for qualities that we do want. So, Commissioner, if you could just talk about that a little bit and then I'd like to go to Curtis and Diana and Julio and for some comments. I think, I think you largely covered that portion Madam Chair, what we're suggesting is a variety of updates to the to statewide hiring practice again important to know that what we're suggesting is that there needs to be a universal process, a set of suggestions on a model that people can work from but that we have to be weeding in and weeding out candidates on a statewide basis using the same criteria for both desirable and undesirable characteristics, but also that we need to update, model questions and selection criteria for a variety of the different components that the sheriff spoke to so what should oral interviews consist of. What should the written entrance exam look like it needs to be updated. Is there an update and we've taken a run at this a couple of times and haven't been successful in finding an updated psychological inventory to replace the MMPI. I do believe it. It is, it's time to do that. Those efforts go back. You know 15 or more years in Burlington we took a run at this and it's not as easy as it sounds unfortunately but we do need to work on that update the question bank for polygraph examinations. The background investigations are hitting on the same topics so that it's not sort of a free for all in what a background investigator might ask but that there are core topics. Similar to having core skills and abilities that we need in in folks, we should be looking to identify key things and to rule in or to rule out candidates and background investigations. To ensure that we've got a community based evaluation that goes with this, another one of many opportunities to engage the community and in part have the community drive who's getting into law enforcement. And, and then finally as has been mentioned, ensure that there is a full disclosure of any prior performance or disciplinary problems, and that we're, we're cutting through any legal red tape that may exist in someone's past that. Has them subject to a non disclosure agreement if they're subject to a non disclosure agreement. That should be a red flag in and of itself you can't proceed in the process if there's something that's so egregious that you can't talk about it. Thanks. Thanks. One of the things I would would throw out there is the kind of taking into account cultural differences. When we're looking at recruiting and training people and that the example that was given to me was by a new American in Burlington who really wanted to become a police officer and he probably would have done very well and was a good candidate, but when I'm given the written exam there were there was a scenario and then there were like five responses and which was the correct response that where how are you supposed to act. And the, the English was not his first language and the, the differences were so subtle in the five approaches that he was confused by which one because English is a very complicated and sometimes hard to understand language. When we use jury, both to mean partially done on sea vessels and jury to judge us in a crime. So we're, we have a hard language to understand so just taking into account cultural differences and language differences I think is important. That's a great point madam chair and many of the strategies here well I think in our haste we failed to actually call that out as one of the outcomes we're looking for many of these strategies are designed to assist with achieving that outcome. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for the commissioner Brian. Thank you madam chair commissioner I just wondered there are Vermont higher education institutions that feature criminal justice as you know majors. How many. Well, let me ask it this way. I assume you're looking at some of the ones, some of the folks that graduate from the Vermont institutions as well as from out of state prayer. Yes, and you bring up a great point that historically, if you go back a couple of decades, a lot of law enforcement recruitment was done from folks had military background, and then we migrated to folks that had criminal justice degrees. And we have over the years really embraced a much wider array of backgrounds and educational areas of specialization, because you know it sounds like a cliche when you say diverse organizations produce better results, but they absolutely do studies say that over and over again. And we're talking about diversity here, relative to race ethnicity cultural background, but it also applies to to what's your experience what part of the country you're from what your educational background is just diversity with a all in capital letters the more diverse the workforce the better results we're going to get across the board. So, we do not only look at folks that have criminal justice backgrounds, I would actually when I talked to folks that are earlier in their education whether they're in grade school sometimes junior high school high school. I actually tell people don't go study criminal justice. And the reason is the Academy will train you with the basics of what you need to know. Many other things you can learn that you can bring to bear in a public safety career that are equally in some cases more helpful to bring than criminal justice. Now, that said, they're also in favor of looking in the future at alternative training methodologies that could allow for two or four year programs to produce a certified officer to obviate the need to go to a professional academy except for a few, you know, key things that you can't get in a collegiate environment so I know it sounds like two sides to two different coins but it's actually two sides the same coin it goes to that diversity of training diversity of the types of people we're getting into the career and really widening that lens. Beyond many of the things we typically talk about when we talk about this topic. Thank you. Thanks commissioner of how many Vermonters versus out of state folks get hired. I know the colonels on and I'm going to take a stab that it is roughly 5050 our retention rates for Vermonters are much higher than they are for folks out of state. Thank you. That is, that is accurate commissioner on both. Thanks girl. Most people hire in the for local offices in the communities where they were from. I mean, I'm just curious, I don't know. No, that's actually pretty difficult here in Vermont because of our demographic challenges. Okay, I just wondered. Anybody else have a Curtis Diana Julio, would you like to weigh in on, and I know this sounds like this is kind of not very focused, but we have a lot of good really note takers and we're keeping pretty good notes and when we start to pull this all together there will be something positive to come from it I promise. There's something positive that's already come from it. So, good. Right. So am I on. Yep, you are. Right. Okay. For the record. My name is Curtis three junior executive director of Vermont partnership for fairness and diversity. I'm also the chair of the Vermont State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on civil rights. And most importantly, I'm a father of three children of which my daughter who graduated from Occidental on Sunday. In the area of critical theory and social justice graduated summa cum laude. Oh, all right now to the business at hand. That's fabulous. Thank you. The, the, the challenge before you from my vantage point is 50 different enforcement agencies across the state of Vermont. That have each developed its own culture. And oftentimes, there's no uniform standard or practice. And it's, it's, it's like the Wild West. And so I believe that over time, and maybe this might be the time to begin to address that is getting everyone under the same tent. Um, with either use of force practices with, you know, motor vehicle stops. I mean, I, I am still encountering local law enforcement when I, when I get stopped to say, do you know why I pulled you over as opposed to, and I'm not saying how often they get pulled over. They get pulled over by a state trooper. It's always introduced themselves to tell me exactly why they pulled me over. Then they asked me is there a reason for that. So it sends out an entirely different message in terms of maintaining one's dignity. And it doesn't start you off on this sort of narcissistic downward spiral. So what I see is an overarching vision for state law enforcement is that bit by bit, it gets consolidated so that everyone is operating off the same book and on the same page. And that currently is not, not what happened. So. I'm going to take a quick issue with the idea that diversity alone. And I am, I might be bastardizing the commissioners statement here about diversity in the workplace produces better results. Diversity alone does not produce better results. You can have a diverse workforce, but if the workplace is toxic, you're not going to get better results. If the workplace is not inclusive, it's not equitable. If everyone doesn't feel so they have a stake in the outcomes, the positive outcomes, then we're not going to find ourselves with better decision making. The three top issues. Within the context of, you know, how do we bring all law enforcement into the same book onto the same. And these are not necessarily in order, but the first it is where the training council is located. Right now the training council reports to no one. It is free standing is independent. It is, you know, a body that looks upon itself, but there's no external political pressure for it to change. And so, you know, I'd like to see the training council in the executive branch, some form of fashion, whether it is Secretary of administration, whether it's under an expanded public safety department or division. But that there needs to be someone with their with their hands on the lever. I think ultimately improve the product that the training council showing provides at the police academy. The second involves looking at citizen review, citizen oversight. And that there we have the, the challenge if each municipality creates its own civilian review board, and viewed with the powers given to it by local slept board, you end up with 50 different models for how citizens are living and involved in an oversight so I was strongly argue for a common set of of practices, regulations governing civilian review boards and I'm going to split the hair between community advisory boards and community review boards. Have the teeth to be able to overturn a decision by the chief. If the chief, you know, if there's an officer who's involved in some sort of misconduct, and the chief simply decides to give that officer a slap on the wrist. But citizen review board says no, the infraction is really requires much more of of a discipline disciplinary action. So, making sure that civilian review boards have the teeth to be able to do their jobs, but at the same time making sure that their policies and procedures and standards are uniform, as opposed to, you know, having a hodgepodge of of boards that ability to really pull together under unified same book same page. And then the third area is what do we do when an officer has been fired or relieved of duty due to misconduct. I think it ought to be non negotiable that that officer is immediately decertified. And then the third area is barred from, you know, position position and law enforcement, what's in the state of Vermont. So those are my three issues that I believe you should tackle. But understanding that the first overarching of, you know, how do we pull these 50 plus law enforcement agencies into the same book and onto the same page. And then the third area is the standards in terms of training in terms of recruitment, etc, etc, etc. All right. So I have a couple questions and then committee I'm sure you have some questions. So thank you Curtis. So I, I'm not going to comment on the location of the training council because I've had that question for some time and I think we've talked about in that in this committee before and I think it's not the end of the conversation. Mike, the two questions I have was, would you, in terms of a community review board, would you see each community having one or would you see them somehow being more regional, or that kind of take the immediacy, the personnel, you know, the immediate personal contact out of make a little bit farther away. And then the other question is around the decertification. I think I missed something there but if you're, are you saying that if, if a police officer is sanctioned for any offense, that they should be immediately certified or would it depend on the, the offense because they could be, they could be sanctioned by being without pay for a month on leave, because of a minor infraction but If they were fired. If they were fired, if they were fired for misconduct. Right. Oh, but I heard that's what I heard you say. Okay, I, I think I missed that. Okay, I was thinking about this community review board when you started on that so. Right, no, no, only, only, only if they are fired. Okay, so would you comment on the community review board on kind of where, what level you see that as I would opt for a regional only because it fits more squarely in the idea of, you know, how do we bring as many folks under the same tent. And, you know, could limit it to five or, or an odd number five or seven members. So, when I'm counting we have 23 towns, and so that those would be rotated over time, so that you know every town, or seven towns would send a representative and terms would be staggered. And so that you know you would have that sort of institutional memory that that would be there and, and that we would invest the time and training, the funds and training. Which really makes that the sort of transparent body that residents deserve and that residents are really clamoring for. There's, there's a. And, you know, as a review board, they would have access to internal affairs that have access to all information relative to the, you know, to a critical incident involving an officer and the citizen. Thank you. Alison, did you have a question. Yeah, I do. Kurt is just to follow up on that. Because I think a regional approach would be great and would build on what we're already trying to accomplish regionally with public safety. Do you have any examples of that working successfully now in the United States, or anywhere actually doesn't need to be just in the United States but it would of course be a little helpful to have any examples here but do you have any examples of that. Not right off the top of my head but I can get that to the committee. I think that would be helpful for us. Okay. I think there is a national board and I can't think of what the what it is but I think a ton talked about it, but I can't remember if I was here in judiciary that is a national board or maybe as Julio that talked about it's a national board that works with with community review boards and community advisory boards was that you Julio. Yes, it was an attorney general's office. Yeah, it's called the National Association of civilian oversight law enforcement. Yeah, we might be able to get some information from them on best practices. Yeah. And models current existing models because there wouldn't be this association if there weren't some civilian overs. I mean there's obviously some civilian oversight is just a question of the scale of it. I think that's part of there. I think I mentioned Friday that there are different models and hybrids and some some jurisdictions have two levels of civilian oversight and input some have to participate in policy, making setting or training revision or development, and then other ones that deal with complaints, or that may have a role in review of uses of force of a particular sort. So it's a pretty broad variety the other aspect of that that association NACL is that it provides training to both online training and through conferences or webinars, professionals who serve on those different sorts of bodies they tailor their training to the different types of oversight models. The organization again is, it's called the acronym is NACL N A C O L E. It's the National Association oversight and law enforcement. I'm a member and I've gone I've trained at some one of their conferences and I went to the last conference there right now registered their next conference is online it's in September registration information just went out last week I think I can forward that to anyone. Great. If you would do that. Chris. So, good to see you again Mr read question I had is about venue for these kinds of discussions. What. And that is, I'm low on battery. Can you give me the chance. I don't know where the battery situation started out there. The, so that one of the things we talked about last week was where do you get to ask these sorts of questions, who's leading the meeting, how does the, so that we make sure that the inquiries around. behavior or something I guess that's in dispute or of concern that you don't, in essence that it's the discussion is led by someone who's a neutral party, and that it's not in the building of any particular party to the discussion, you know so that the simple example I used last week was if, if you if the dispute was with a neighbor and you had to go to the neighbor's house to complain about it and be a little awkward to show up at their house and have that discussion in their kitchen if they run the meeting. So, what's the, what's the, the counterpart to that situation here that seems like we'd want to avoid. I think the citizen review review board. By its composition. You know they could rotate where they meet. They could be sort of centrally located in the, in the, in the region. You know, and, and the community, you know, I think residents would need to have a vested interest in the transparency and leadership of the, of the, of their review board. You know, the reason that we would have staggered terms so that you know, not any one member begins to accumulate. Quote unquote power. But that, you know, the, the, and what this, what the state can do is, you know, lay forth, you know, sort of policies and procedures and standards for operational standards that would minimize and enhance, well, they would enhance transparency and enhance trust and confidence as opposed to distrust and lack of confidence. And sorry, I don't know the answer to this I wish I did already but are we already doing this in Vermont and doing it well someplace. The short answer is no. It's not, it's not being done to a standard that I that that I feel really comfortable with. And I think there's a lot of frustration on the part of members of various police commissions and or community communication operations. And advisory boards, because they feel like they don't have the teeth to be able to follow up and follow through with complaints coming in from citizens. Thank you. Yeah. Mark. Madam chair, I'm just looking at title 20 VSA 2403 and 2401, which refers to the civilian review process of internal investigations and fires. Admittedly, it's a little, a little difficult to explain for a sheriff's department under current language. We've done our best to utilize the elected officials of select boards that we contract with. And so those are people who are, as I understand that people who are empowered to review investigations, valid investigations conducted under an agency's internal affairs policy. And they also are empowered to speak with the training council separately from the agency, which can ultimately compel these certifications. So, I guess my question is what the gap is. I'm not sure if I misunderstood something. I only heard the last, every other word of the last sentence. Yeah, you weren't coming through very well. I'm going to try it without video. I think Senator Clarkson's internet problems got pushed to Wyndham County. Yeah, yeah, the wind is flowing south. Can you hear me? Okay now. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm referencing title 20 sections 2401 and 2403 2401 defines what a civilian review committee is. And that is that they may be a select board or other elected or appointed body, at least for the conduct required to be reported to the council under the sub sub chapter. I believe the committee is familiar with some unprofessional conduct and the triple whammy's and all of those things. And then under 2403, it empowers both the agency head or separately the agency's civilian review board, the chair of the review board to approach the council to discuss and provide any documentation associated with it for the council's ability and processes. I think that that mechanism with the council being ultimately decertifying authority. I guess my question is what the gap is. Is it potentially education is a process is it. Is there something more to it that we're not seeing on the basis. Is this a another compliance issue in terms of people don't understand how to comply. The civilian agency heads, other chairs of the boards. Yes, to all of the above. And, Mark, what triggers the formation of that citizen panel and title 20, but what's the triggering event that, or, or. Maybe that's the wrong question, but what causes the review to happen. Right. So we, that's actually a question and potentially gap and in the statute, we convene ours quarterly assuming that we have complaints to be reviewed. One of the things of most recent in my agency is we're looking to form less to the extent of civilian review for the purpose of internal investigations but more for the purpose of the regional input and towards the development of our policies and procedures. One of the things that I've really, I guess as a personal point, come to terms with in the last three, three to four weeks is how much we, we haven't listened. And so, rather than try and review all of my policies and say I know best, I want to bring in many internal and external stakeholders to say, Well, this is what the effects of that policy as much like a committee brings in various people and perspectives to say that. So, I don't know. That's Dan. Hi. So that's civilian review board is a requirement because it's an element of each agency being required to adopt an effective internal affairs program. This is in the Council's unprofessional conduct sub chapter that the sheriff was just citing from. And so this is in 20 vs a 24 to every agency is supposed to have an effective internal affairs program, and then effective internal affairs program is defined to include five different elements. And one of those elements is having civilian review to have civilians, which may be a select board or other elected or appointed body to review officer discipline, at least the discipline the conduct that's required to be reported to the Council. That's where that comes from. And, you know, in many communities there's distrust between residents, and it's in the select board. So that there's where residents feel shut out of process. And so, you know, this would sort of put some daylight on a process that has been effectively closed to residents. Madam chair. I'd like to ask if that if this, if we've created this, this civilian review board opportunity, why are so few people taking advantage of it, why are there so few of them they're set up and are being effective in Vermont. What's the barrier to their effectiveness. I think residents have a lack of lack of confidence in their ability in the ability of the of a review board. Well, right now they're advisory boards. They're not review boards. They're established simply to advise the, the police department or the select board on policies and practices. They don't necessarily have power. Correct. They have no power, which makes it less exciting to be a part of. Yes, my question is, they do have power as permitted under 2403 section a to which grants them the ability to essentially open the door to the cookie bar to the Council. So if an agency were looking to protect and a review board felt that that was inappropriate, but an agency were looking to protect an internal for political reasons personal reasons whatever it may be. But let's just say, the board is still able to access the Council to say this is the investigation it was poorly conducted, or this is the investigation that clearly shows this conduct, and that conducts defined under the unprofessional conduct and we think the Council should act and act not only towards the officer involved but also towards agency head. I think that one of the, one of the other issues and this may not be an issue but we're small towns. And if, if you're, if you're the small town of 8,000 people, and you have a police department and you have a community. Even if it was a community review board that had authority and power. You know, in the legislature, we make decisions but on a select board, you make decisions that you have to deal with the people every single day on in your community I think it's much harder to be on a select board because of that. And, and I think that if we're looking at each community having their own review board that might be a mistake we might. We maybe should look at it at a broader level so that we have a county wide or a regional or five of them in the state or something like that so that it doesn't become so personal and so I think it's really, really hard to do that and we had a Wyndham County caucus meeting this morning and one of our, the guests that came and talked to us was on this very topic and talked about how you need to have the ability to review, but at a higher level than just community by community because of the, the interrelationships my, my kid plays hockey with your kid and so what am I going to do. I mean, it's really hard. So, I think that's true. Well, that's why the regional aspect is a good one. I would underscore that I think that's the way to go if we're going to put teeth in these to to do it regionally. And I guess I'd also just want to know what the trigger is I mean it can't just be a complaint there has to be something that rises to a level that triggers their engagement but but you kind of want them engaged, really on a whole host of things. Well, I think if, if they're truly a review board they're going to what I understood Curtis to say and Julio was that they would be reviewing decisions made by, by the internal investigate or the internal affairs or whatever that's called is so that it the complaint wouldn't come to them to investigate but they would be reviewing the outcome of that and whether whether the right decision was made. If it's a review board. Am I right about that. I might be heard on that. Madam chair. So, not necessarily, there are models where a civilian entity is another place where complaints can be received. And under some schemes that entity for certain types of complaints they might be things like lawful stops or seizures bias policing her or harassment and some and some models they have the authority to investigate those on their own. And either exclusively or in parallel with the department. In other cases they would refer it to the department. Later on review the department's own investigation and if they like the Las Vegas model for example if they disagree, or they think the investigation by the police department in Las Vegas is efficient they have the authority under their city ordinance to make their own hearing and call witnesses, make its own finding based on the hearing and then recommend discipline to the chief in other cases. It's simply a review of the, or the investigative file with a recommendation to the chief. So, this instance is it's an audit model where they look at a bunch of decisions and if they flood investigative processes of teachers, or inconsistent discipline they may report that to the applicable city government and, and then ask the city comes there or whoever the point of authority is to make changes to systemic issues, rather than, you know, a case by case basis and and some cities have, you know, they have different. Some have an auditor and a board, some auditor a board and an ombudsman it you know it's there are many varieties. So I don't, I don't think I don't want people to mistake to think that there's just one model where you can investigate or you can investigate. There really a lot of choices there and they call the organization is this kind of clearing house where there are lots of those, those different professionals who get together and talk with each other about, you know, carrying out their mandates. Good. Urban department might not work in a small rule state. Chris, did I see your hand. Oh, well, I moved it because I'm taking notes. Okay. So, anybody else want to weigh in on any of these things or any of the things we've talked about or any of the things we haven't talked about yet. Well, Brian, Brian and then Anthony. Thank you, Madam chair Curtis you really hit I think on a extremely important piece of this and that's the communication if you will the initial contact that a citizen has with the law enforcement officer and I just, I can't overemphasize how important that is. I have a real strong belief in the more able someone is to communicate with another person. The better the result is down the road. And I think you're absolutely 100% spot on with that contribution. Unfortunately, it is probably true that each time a citizen is pulled over by a law enforcement officer. It's not the same experience for everyone. I don't any standard sort of I don't believe in and certainly if I'm wrong the commissioner or Colonel or sheriff can jump in, but I've never been to the training academy so I don't know. And I don't know how much time is spent on that really crucial aspect of how do you present yourself immediately to whoever it is that you pulled over but it's really really important and I just compliment you for pointing that out because I think all too often it's just something that we don't talk a lot about we just assume that you get pulled over and they say can I have your license registration and endurance card but there's a way to do that that sets the tone for what might happen later on in that. I just want to add something there. You know, there's a difference between being able to train an officer. And when that officer makes his or her way to the culture of the particular department that they're serving. There's a wide disparity of cultures. And it's in Vermont State Police. I don't have that same level level of confidence with a lot of the smaller departments. And part of that has to do with, I want to say a culture of toxicity, where it's, it's not based on the humanity that we all share. And which is why a long term goal is really let's validate these let's move them all in the same direction and ensure that we're all operating off of the same. Anthony, did you. Sure, I think I appreciate the fact that Curtis brought up the preview board and the lack of oversight of the training council I think that's really important. What you just said about toxicity and the local police forces, I mean, you could call it that, which is fine but you can also hope that it's really a lack of education and about cultural awareness and I want to go back to what with the discussion that we have with and it's not necessarily something that needs to be answered right now but I was slipping through some of the curriculum for lack of a better way of putting it from the training council like never saw like how many hours are spent on the cultural issues and the training council how many hours are spent on mental health and how many hours are meant are spent on some of the other things that I think are important for police to really master before they get licensed. So if there's a way at some point of being shown what the curriculum really looks like how many hours do I spend on mental health and how many hours I spend on cultural issues how many hours I spend on the escalation those kinds of things. I'm just curious where the balance is and how much time is given over to those different topics. I want to know that now, but I'm curious about it. Senator Polina that is available under a heading under level three basic curriculum summary. Okay, short. Fair and impartial policing receives four hours. People with physical disabilities is two hours. I'll post a link into the chat. Okay, thanks. You know, one of I was just thinking about when you were talking about cultural awareness that. So, I grew up in a really little town, very farming community in way northern Minnesota. Most the only people who weren't Norwegian or Sweden were a couple Polish people. So that's that those my cult that was the cultural awareness that I had. And first, huh. And culturally diverse. Oh very culturally diverse. Yeah, there were a few Danes there too. I was thinking in terms of how do we make you, you can't really teach cultural awareness I mean you can, you can teach it somewhat but you almost have to to experience it so I was thinking. So if you have a police officer that is being hired by small town acts. They go out of the academy and they get their training and they are there with a bunch of other people who are getting their training. And then they leave and they go out and they get there on the job training. If they go right back to that small town acts, their cultural awareness, maybe they should get some on the job training in Burlington, or to, to see a different to be aware of. Of more differences I don't know I'm this is a very ill thought out thought but I just until we until we actually live in other places and experience other things I think that teach just teaching me about cultural awareness. It doesn't sink in until I'm actually confronted by it and I don't know how we do that in this instance. You're on to something very interesting Jeanette. I, I think that exchange programs within law enforcement would be a very interesting thing for our Vermont police to go and spend a significant exchange time with a an urban police department. And it would be that it would be eye opening if, if, if nothing else. I mean otherwise, people experience that only on television I mean they don't. You're right, an exchange of some variety might be a very interesting additional aspect to all this. It's my churling if, if you'd like madam chair I can give you a little background on some of these efforts historically. Okay, that would be great. Just briefly, the police executive research form which was one of the three large think tanks around law enforcement policing in the United States had started to work on a, essentially a residency program so mirroring the medical training model. Law enforcement and it didn't catch on a few years ago but as we explore alternative training methodologies that is one of the things that is on the list. And there's a wide array of things but basically how do you look at other immersive learning environments and how do we mirror more closely some of the best practice that exists outside of government. In those immersive environments to train our folks going forward. It could take the form of you go to the Academy for a period of time, maybe not 16 weeks in a row maybe it's just to get some basics. And then you go into the field as a resident or an intern or whatever you call it and then you come back and you get some more training and then we send you into the field at a, at a basic level to do certain things and then you come back to learn more. I'm very comfortable saying that the model we use now of drinking from a fire hose for 16 plus weeks is not a contemporary adult learning environment. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I just to, I didn't mean to imply here that only rural people should go to a more urban area but maybe, maybe the cops. Yeah, maybe the cops from Burlington should go to Essex. Someday to not Essex Vermont but Essex County to see how the difference in culture there than from an urban community so I don't know, but that's very interesting commissioner thank you. If I can add one other, another place is that a part of the challenge that that we've had is that we don't see how implicit bias is woven through the curriculum at the Academy, whether it's farm use, whether it's, you know, use of force, whether it's traffic stops, whether it's, I mean, it's, it's, it is difficult for us to detect where in the curriculum that manifests itself. Now we know post basic for state police that And know that the That supervision as they police reinforces and reminds troopers of implicit bias in a way that that other departments don't So if you don't have a supervision, you know, once you leave the Academy, then you're apt to lose whatever's whatever a little bit you might have gained there. And I think that that. Oh, go ahead. I think that that's one of the things that Commissioner Sherling had in his when he wrote up the thing on training and supervision and promotion is that we need to make sure that we're promoting promoting leaders who actually have the qualities that we want to be leading and supervising. Right. What if the council is left our town. Yeah, that's not going to happen. To go back to your first point. Right to go back to my first point. Which is there isn't over there is no one, the council reports to no one. That's correct. And we've talked about this in the past. I feel maybe even with you, Chris, but I mean we it is just curious why it is not under the umbrella of public safety. Right. It's only 17 years I've been talking about this. Yeah. Well, how many times does it have to be repeated before we hear the sermon. Right. So Commissioner, do we need an agency of public safety. Yeah. Is that rhetorical Madame chair. It was. But we'd love your. It was because it's not going to happen this year as we know it. I would just call out Curtis that he's only been at it for a short time the first study on this was 1974. Yeah. But maybe next year you know this could be first on on the deck for consideration in 2021 whoever is here to do it. Yes. And you know, well, you have given me a microphone briefly. I should just say there is value in a representative council that helps to guide training. It's important not to be dismissive of the great work that has happened over the years and the people putting effort into that. It's it's really modernizing as we keep saying and finding the right role for the council with requisite oversight added to this model as well. Yeah. Yeah, I. Yes. I agree. I think that. And but should it live someplace even with it with a council should it live someplace and I don't know if the executive branches or I place maybe it should live at Vermont technical college. I don't know where it should live. Allison. May I go back to a question Curtis asked. And if Mark is still on the line. I'd love to have Mark or Michael answered whoever knows the answer is how is implicit bias woven into the Academy's curriculum how how is something that basic woven in everywhere and is there an attempt to weave it in to every aspect of training. You mean the recognition of implicit bias. Yes. Because it has such. Yeah. No. Yeah, that's my question. I mean I'd like to go back. I think Curtis asked a good question which I think we need an answer to. I will have to defer the nuances of that. Well it feels like I've been back for seven years it only has been seven or eight months and so I was detached for a few years and I'm probably not fully up to speed on exactly how it's woven in right now so I'd probably give you some misinformation. Because at this particular point in our life in our world I think that's one of the immediate questions we need to have a better understanding of. I think that that's a fair question to ask and the difficulty in answering it is that the Academy relies on an extremely large cadre of instructors with different segmentations and subsets of what their curriculums are so to speak to 800 hours worth of how is it woven in is difficult I teach for the Academy and the master instructor for radar and light our speed measuring devices. So how is it built in we talk about race data collection we talk about how we interact with people we talk about our purposes for speed enforcement which in a very short nutshell it's to reduce motor vehicle crashes and fatalities on Vermont highways. So we. I think through the legislative mandate for a fair and impartial policing training through the the Academy's delivery of that we're starting to see the cultural shift of law enforcement I mean it usually takes eight to 10 years for any organizations culture to change and that law has been in place for about six I think you're starting to see the curriculum update as you see the cultural shift now is it enough to the commissioner statement we're on the football field somewhere we're certainly not where Minnesota is we're certainly not at the finish line and we need to speed up I agree that there's probably more that can be done. I also think that as old instructors phase out new instructors phase in will start to see new ideas coming that recognize that old practices need to go by the wayside and that is part of the cultural shift. So that's that's I can do to speak to it I think that that goes to the recruiting of all those different instructors. I mean because that goes to the core value of every instructor you hire. It does but there's also a bit of a nuance and minority of this conversation. However the the Academy's instructors are very high up there from agencies. So it looks like I lost you. We heard your last statement there and I think that what Mark is saying is that the we don't hire all the instructors at the Academy there are only a couple core instructors there and the others are on loan from state police or sheriff's offices or municipal police departments wherever there's that expertise so we need to rely on that very particular expertise for Mark does some training Keith Clark used to do a lot of mental health training at the Academy. There are people who do different types of training but we don't hire them. We rely on well that that may be an issue. We probably is but and we could and if we if we were not decided that we were going to go out and hire all the instructors that would never get past the appropriations committee. No I understand that but I think yeah and I have to say I applaud your optimism mark and thinking that it will be eight to ten years and culture change. I was thinking you were going to say eight to ten generation because for me this is such a long term project that it is. I'm glad you're optimistic about eight to ten years. And if you look at acceptance of cultural changes we've made just in my lifetime in the legislature same sex marriage of marriage equity. I mean I have hope to but on this we have been struggling for so long. Well if you part of part of it is because what Curtis was saying at the very beginning and he said 50 different agencies there are actually 82 different. There are enforcement agencies out there. I think that isn't that what we came up with when we looked at it. There are and the and the Vermont State Police have gotten along farther because they're one entity of the others. There is nobody that sits over them or that they report to except to their own local select boards or county voters. So it's the way we have law enforcement organized in this state makes it very difficult to to do those uniform kinds of and to make sure that we're we're gaining ground. But I think that with with the state police. I think that once they put certain people in certain positions and had an advisory council I think that the culture. It did not. It was rather rapid. Madam Chair just. If you will. I'm happy to wait for the sheriff to speak and then I'll. Okay. I will be I will be brief. Another thing I just want to point out is that when we talk about the state police and a lot of the progress they've made it's actually it's been extremely helpful in some ways because a path paved as one that's easier to easier to follow. The hard thing is is that most of us lack the resources to do what they've done. I mean Captain Scott has done a tremendous job with fair and impartial policing and I can't even have a person who's solely responsible for internal investigations I need to have him responsible for 15 other things as well. That's all I want to say thank you. Just to respond to a number of points that have been made in the last few minutes and maybe taking them in reverse order in terms of a civilian based accountability mechanism that centralized at least with respect to allegations of biased police conduct whether that's a biased stop a search or a biased use of force for example a biased arrest. All of those are currently and have for many years been subject to the investigative authority of the Human Rights Commission right which has an independent board of commissioners for every single police department in the state. That's stated local and they have the ability to take departments to court. So, so there is that I mean there is that there are other types of police misconduct because an unbiased but unlawful search is still a constitutional violation. Fourth amendment violation so there are there are there is an area that that isn't addressed but the issue of bias which I think prompted a lot of that is at least in the short term something that can be addressable by the Human Rights Commission that's that's always been the case or at least since I've been in Vermont since 2004. On the issue about the training I wanted to support the comments that I've heard from the committee and also from Commissioner Sherling about this sort of residency idea something like that. You began by saying you didn't know if you thought it was a, you know, a crazy idea to have more contact with people well there's a really rich literature in the field of psychology called the contact hypothesis that is exactly about that that you can reduce or you can see progress and reducing bias by having more contact with people who are different than you. And some agencies have done a number of things like a residency program or, you know, in larger settings, foot patrols requiring the officers to get out of their car. And pop them down in a neighborhood. Famously Cam Camden County, New Jersey, which has been all over the newspapers in the last couple of weeks as an example of a police department that really turned its way around and its former chief is the current president of perf the police executive research forum Scott Thompson he had when he became chief he dropped his officers in neighborhoods not in commercial areas and drop them in the neighborhoods and said we'll pick you up at the end of your shift. The officers he said that well where do we go to the bathroom and he said well you better make some friends because that's the only way you're going to get be be able to get to use the bathroom so contact area I think is very viable more experiential based on that's the fire hose issue. I teach a crimes at the Academy. I have since 2009. When I took over that program. It was death by PowerPoint it was over 70 PowerPoint slides and a video. And it was something that we really had to make much more interactive but experiential learning is the way to go and related to the issue of training something that has been mentioned that I think is really important and if folks contact other civilian review folks or they call you'll hear it from them and it's really an essential ingredient for fully effective and confidence building civilian input review or whatever you call it is they have some basis for training for those individuals so that they understand at least the basics of search and seizure the basics of the state police policy. It's pretty well documented that in terms of community dissatisfaction with those when you have an individuals who are volunteers who meet once a month. And then they review a case but if there's no one who is either, you know, on staff who can work up the cases for them in a way a law clerk might work up a case for a judge, or if they don't have training then their concerns that they go one way or the other either they seek realistic expectations on the police maybe because they're holding a standard that doesn't match the constitutional standard, and then therefore they lose credibility with the law enforcement community or the professionals there. Or on the other side they become too deferential to the department and the department says oh no, when we arrest somebody we can go through all of their, you know their entire cell phone contents even though people who are, you know current in the field know that because you can't do that, generally speaking when you see the phone you have to have reason to get into the phone. So, I mean having something like either resources a requirement. Some places have, and they call sometimes provide a civilian Academy where your, your non professionals in this area can get acquainted, so that they become better issue spotters, so that they can sort out the different opinions more differently, because it's competent civilian review. That creates the confidence not just the existence of right. That's all I had anything else anybody have anything to add here. I think we've heard some great, wonderful ideas, actually, and all all good things I'd love to be able to implement them all immediately. I think all the students that have gone all over the world through AFS or whatever that builds cultural awareness and and and empathy for other in a way that you know that, you know it's just so rich, and that we could employ that same experience opportunity. Sorry. Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. So, I don't know how we employ that here but it is an idea that we should consider. Well, somebody might be interested in in actually financing that that's something that I can see the community for my community foundation being very interested in as we do this work addressing the challenges and law enforcement, and I can see that somebody would be very interested in helping finance that. Well we'll look into that. So, where are we committee. It's getting very hot and steamy in my area of the state. It's glorious here and now the zoom is back. I know, I think we heard a lot of good things today. It was good conversation. So what I tomorrow I think we'll just kind of do a general here from anybody that wants to talk about any of the issues that we have. Just focus on. And then on Thursday and Friday try to wrap it up and put some ideas into a form. Does that make sense. Yeah, it does. Curtis, I'm just curious, have you weighed in on the other areas that we have been addressing in government operations. I know you've been the Senate judiciary. I've not weighed in on the others. What we did before was improper conduct. And but we could do we could, if you're interested, we could do that tomorrow too, because we can just do a kind of a general overview from people and just ask people to weigh in on issues that are of concern to them and suggestions. If that makes sense. Sure. Okay. Gail. I wanted to let you know that Lauren Hibbert got back to us with language. I'm not sure if you've seen that in your email. And no, we're paying attention. We're not reading our email. I did conversation. I did see that she sent an email. So if I shift. Yeah, let's do it now and not do it during lunch or some other time if, if people are willing. I think they do. Would you like me to ask Lauren to step back into the meeting. Yes, if you would, that would be great. Thank you. So does that make sense to tomorrow to do just kind of general invite people and hear what concerns are that we haven't addressed at all. Let people weigh in on anything they want to weigh in on and we'll do it more kind of like testimony instead of just a lot of back and forth because we'll just ask people to and we can have back and forth, but we can just ask people to make sense because I'm concerned that we, we need to make sure that we hear from what people's concerns are out there that we may not have addressed at all. I think that's good because we actually haven't heard from too wide and as many people as we might so that's good. Okay. So then with that. Thank you for this and you certainly are welcome to stay and everybody else is welcome to stay with us we love having people with us, but we're going to look at the ability of pharmacists to give vaccines. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And so,