 Okay Tom where did you go? I think he's up. Yes, better lighting You hear me yes, yes, I can hear Tom. Can you hear us? I can Cannot okay Okay, can you can you hear us? Tom I can hear you hear me. Yes Perfect, and we can hear Jessica. We are not going to have executive session because we don't have a room So we'll have to cancel it and do it. I think that might be the best thing Commissioner Oskie we are going to cancel the executive session And because we don't have a room and we are going to schedule it at a later date and we'll do it via zoom that's okay with you and We have nobody So I think yeah Susie Cumberford is saying that she she needs a link the one online does not work According to Susie Cumberford Are you's the one in the email that Keaton sent So I should I'm replying to her saying the the link is on the agenda The link was sent on 10 19 1205 The way just like minutes ago He sent his chiefs report just two minutes ago because he was away on a conference so So chiefs report is there, but it won't be available Commissioner Oskie the chiefs report will not be available and I apologize dr. Nolan for that as well It will not be available on screen shared screen correct on the so But each of you receive the chiefs report and we'll be able to see it on your computers Six minutes ago seven minutes ago refresh your screen and see and Dr. Nolan you may want to look at the chiefs report when it does become available it had it refers to a speaker that they had in August of 2021 That spoke on police reform and it's somebody who's a national I can share it with you dr. Nolan National person I can do that right now chief. We're trying to get your We are all like I have not received the chief Okay, so I'm forwarding it right now now you should have it. Yes You guys have asked do you have it? Yes Okay And I send it to you dr. Nolan as well before we get started. I Didn't get it. All right Good evening. Thank you for joining us for the October 2023 meeting of the Burlington Police Commission Time is 6 o 4 and we're going to start all commissioners are here and we have a quorum The chief is present as well First item is 1.2, which is the adoption of the agenda. Is there a motion to accept the agenda? Second, is there a second? Mr. Garrison any discussion? Hearing none, please say I to agree to adopt the agenda. Oh Hi. Oh, yes, there is a change. I'm sorry. I stand corrected. There is a Change that is that we are going to cancel the executive session the lack of a room And we will hold the executive session at an appropriate time in as a zoom at at some point when we can come together Chief did you have anything to report to the executive session? Yes, I did I had a couple of personnel matters involving Disciplinary issues. Okay, so I think we will have to find a different time because right now we have no room where we can meet Confidentiality so it goes right. We'll try to do it soon. I think that's the these are Primarily at the notification stage. I don't believe any is at the stage of me requesting for for your input Okay, so well, I mean I always want your input But I mean at a stage where I am about to make a determination and require your input prior to my ability to do so so Just for our information and trying to schedule a meeting moving forward How quickly do you want us to organize a meeting or is there a deadline or you I know how busy all of you are and How much time you give to this? I would love it if it were in the next two weeks Okay, I think noted noted. I think I think we can do that and we can work With your office to organize something so that you are able to attend. Thank you very much So that is the change for today's agenda. So we Can we accept the change? Any discussion or we can we accept the Accept the agenda with that change and any discussion Hearing none, please say I to agree to the adopted agenda with the change of cancellation of the Executive session hi The next agenda item is 2.1, which is the approval of minutes of September 2023 monthly meeting is there a motion to adopt the minutes? Is there a second? Any discussions or changes? Hearing none all in favor of adopting the minutes say aye The minutes are you know one abstain commissioner garrison The minutes for September 20 23 are approved The next agenda item is 3.1, which is public forum. I don't see anyone here physically present anyone online Having said that We can move to the next agenda item, which is 4.1 report from the chief Thank you so much and apologies again I I try always to get this to you by Thursday Friday the very latest I prefer to be able to release it over the weekend But also that is what is required in order to post it on board docs and I was not able to do that this week I was gone for two weeks a week in Normandy, France visiting D-day sites with a friend And then a week in essentially a week in San Diego for the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, which I'll discuss in this so here is our October police chiefs report and a lovely photo of autumn and moving on The IACP so the IACP stands for the International Association of Chiefs of Police They hold an annual conference. It is a huge event upwards of 18,000 sometimes 22,000 attendees They come from law enforcement agencies around the world They come from vendors and nonprofits that are affiliated with the policing profession And this year's was held in San Diego and we were very proud to be a presenter So there are in excess of 225 to 250 Educational sessions that are outbreaks during the week So it's a it generally starts on a Saturday and it runs Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday And across those four days, there are multiple multiple sessions Obviously at any given time, there's three or four or many or more In each in each sort of hour block hours was one and a Vermont agency hasn't presented in quite some time to my knowledge I was very proud to do it. I did it with as you see there Lacey Smith our community support supervisor and Anna Wagling our community one of our community support liaisons And we were talking about bridging the gaps the gaps between policing and law enforcement as a first responder and the systems that exist downstream of us To help people in ways that often prevent those people from coming back upstream of us And Anna and Lacey did a really terrific job I intend to take the presentation that we made and make it public But the tweaks that would be necessary for it to be sort of a public presentation It would be understandable without the presenters Aren't accomplished yet. So I wasn't able to put it out But I will and when I do so I will share it with this body and with the public Next please Here's just sort of a photo montage of lots of the The things that are on the floor so in addition to all those educational breakout sessions There is a massive massive like multiple football field size Indoor space where they are displaying all the the tools and the toys that policing enjoys And also the technologies that we need in order to be safer and more efficient You'll see their you know body armor. You'll see a trike Device that is used for for sort of doing foot patrol Without being in a cruiser although down in the lower right hand corner You will see a cruiser you'll see a boat If if the Burlington if the city of Burlington were to decide to buy us one of those that'd be swell But I'm not anticipating it anytime soon In the upper right hand corner is a huge truck that Verizon uses when it when when every system is down That truck can basically Recreate systems at least for first responders in an area struck by a hurricane or another natural disaster or God forbid You know a man-made Destruction of the local telecom services So a lot of different things The you know one thing that's that was very popular this year was drones I couldn't drones are terrible photographs when they're on the ground. They don't look very good at all But the thing in the center there the D drone is this huge tower that actually Will cut drone service in a in a certain radius and vicinity so you can protect an area like a super bowl site For example a large football stadium if you're concerned about drones whether they're going to be used for photography or for No more nefarious things you can cut it with that device. So a whole bunch of the sort of neat things here Next this is a less pleasant part of the job. We had an encampment closure recently. I Was with a number of officers that did this this was a Determination that was made the necessity for this was made after an assault occurred at this encampment There were allegations of drug production at the camp and the encampment the assault was confirmed The allegations of drug production were not able to be confirmed although there were a lot of Certain tools that could be used for it But it was nevertheless something that the safety at that site had become compromised Our a number of different stakeholders at the city level made the determination to Notice this in accordance with our Our encampment policy and that encampment policy was created with the ACLU. It's linked here You can click that link and get to the policy the special assistant and homelessness Was the the lead on this determination along with the Department of Public Works because it was a Department of Public Works site the property As well as Parks and Recreation Waterfront their ranger is somebody who works a lot with houseless populations and of course the police department from our CSL's to our CSO's to the police themselves All of us do work with people who are unhoused at various times This camp was pretty pretty bad. It was a lot of trash and as you see there That's a whole pile of bicycle frames. We recovered a couple bicycles that were Posted on the bike the bike theft site on Facebook that were still in extant condition and could be returned to owners those You know, I found one frame with a serial number that belongs to somebody That I that I knew had made a complaint about the loss of that bike It had all its parts when it was stolen and it was merely a frame when we recovered it So we're working to return items to owners if that can be determined And then in the meantime that in Camin area has been closed Yeah, of course that is an an area that is called Colloquially the flying a it is at the far far far north end of Lake Street. It is in other words past where the Train goes under the tunnel beneath North Avenue It isn't it is well, it's alongside the bike path, but not necessarily visible from the bike path It's on the other if on the bike path as you pass the sailing center But before you get to North Beach, there is a dead-end train line where they often stack up cars for that are fuel carriers, right? It's on the other side of those Thank you, so yes speakers on reform this I was intrigued by this Professor Neil Gross came and and spoke via zoom in front of this body back in 2021 invited by then Police Commissioner Saguino and recently published an intro a very interesting article in Time magazine called the myths Holding back police reform and I think that article is worth a look here. I look it's a 3300 word article. It says a lot. This is a summary. It's my summary. There's tons in that article That's not contained here including a lot of nuance But I hit on sort of the the main ideas here And I think it was worth noting that the Commission invites thinkers of this level, you know the people who do Get national attention and you know you've got another one tonight for the first time in a while, which I think is great But this I think is worth looking at both the the meeting itself is clickable on that YouTube link And then the article itself is also clickable in the title of the article So for anybody watching or looking at this once we PDF it and put it up online. It'll be something they can go to Thank you Our headcount we're at 69 where we bumped up at the beginning of this month You'll see on the next slide. However, and you can go to the next slide We're at 68 right now and that is because one of our officers Has transitioned into a CSO role. I hope temporarily I'm hopeful to get that officer back into a police officer role But is is a CSO we're currently at five CSOs although we just hired one But as of the 15th when this slide was current we were at five, but we're at six now and we're at five CSLs but the other Roles etc are listed there. So we were at 69 we're at 68 I believe that by the time I report to you again in November We'll be at 69 again because I have a line on another lateral coming in I in the very beginning of the year sent a memo out to the police department stating that I believed we would be at 69 by the end of this calendar year and We're on track for that right now It would have been swell if if the one officer hadn't transitioned to CSO and I were we were at 70 instead of 69 but I do feel like I'm confident we'll be at 69 by the end of the year and I'm That puts us in a place where we meant to be yes I'm not sure if I just have missed it in previous presentations, but the market marketplace officers Is that something new or that was I just like no that's been all summer. We've had those marketplace officers I pulled them out. I think in the last two presentations. I think I did it in the September presentation Just because I pulled them out of the patrol numbers because they're not technically on patrol They don't they're not supposed to leave the marketplace So for example our ability to use them to answer calls for service in other parts of the city is minimal Yeah, I did I mentioned it in the September report I don't have the July report and for excuse me the August report in front of me So I'm not sure if I did it there, but yes So this is a fit patrol like I'm sure affirmative that those two officers are assigned only to the marketplace We're probably going to reassign them to patrol once the weather really turns. I mean it got a little cold this week It was chilly yesterday and this morning, but somebody told me it might actually be in the 70s by the end of the week again There's Vermont for you, but Yes I Yes, so the both of the marketplace officers You may recall that we had a pretty terrible, you know a very sad situation I mean a dangerous situation a person went into a home on Kilarney Drive in the New North End Thankfully the homeowner was not home that person was armed with a gun that person barricaded himself We negotiated for quite some time when we attempted to make an entry that person took his own life with that firearm that he had Two of the officers who responded to that as members of our emergency response unit were our marketplace officers And they are both trained in that so they left their marketplace assignment And the marketplace wasn't covered in that way during that time While we put our resources up there and for the initial period of that I would say almost every single resource that we had in uniform on duty at that time was on that scene Then we were able to call in off-duty resources who are trained as members of the ERU or emergency response unit And as we did that we were able to take other officers who were on duty and in uniform and put them What we call 10 8 10 8 is the radio's call sign for going back sort of being generally available for calls for service So we don't want everybody at a single scene if we can't if we don't need that Initially a lot of times that's what you get even for things that aren't as dire as a barricaded armed person But we want to be able to put as many people 10 8 as quickly as possible Whenever we can so yes the marketplace in this right now one of the marketplace officers is thus trained And the other one I believe is not an ERU officer But again, both of them would respond in a capacity of backing up that barricade situation Until they could be relieved by us calling in off-duty officers or we're using for example Detectives who need to get into their gear and put on their equipment and drive up to the location And then we we take the folks who are there on scene immediately and say okay It's time for you to go and we do the same with our negotiators attempt to spell them out So it's not the it depends if they're if a really great rapport has been made at times It's bad to separate a negotiator from the person with whom is we're communicating But at other times we want to make that spell because it's it's emotionally draining to be on a scene like that Our airport officers know for the most part our airport officers would not be brought down here And at any given time there's only one or two at the airport anyway, and we can't leave the airport unattended look if we you know I'm gonna reserve the right for something really really horrible to take any resource I can get to bring that to that thing and even if that means leaving places and you know the TSA can Can slap me on the wrist after or something like that, but we've never gotten to that point. Thank God with an operation Supervisors supervisors are gonna be on a scene like that as as necessary Detectives as I said are gonna suit up and go to a scene like that The special assignments one is our DVP oh if her skill set is necessary we bring her in the other is our Recruitment officer a lot of times. She's not in uniform in the work that she does But if you know if something were bad enough we would go all hands on deck right? And the trick is of is making certain that all those deployments are intentional and purposeful You know it's not as much of a risk here But in New York one big thing that that we were Concerned about was self deployment that if a big enough thing happened close to your precinct But not in your precinct the risk is that officers from other precincts are going to go in Out of a get out of the best of intentions and the kind of impulse that drives cops to be cops But can often get in the way if they're not part of the intentional response to that incident There's also a there's also the potential for Someone to set up an event over here as sort of a decoy and more something even worse is gonna happen in a different Yes, so so the the use of distraction events is is a real possibility Certainly that was a big factor in the Mumbai attacks It back in golly. What was that 20? I don't remember 2008 2012 2008. I'm sorry. Thank you and those there were they put devices in Cabs and then just let the and then sent the cabs away to other addresses Knowing that they would explode in various places and cause horrible havoc and horrible confusion Terrible terrible thing the other piece that we've seen before we saw it with Eric Robert Rudolph Who was the millennial part of the millennia park bomber in the Atlanta Olympics and then also bombed some Clinics women's health clinics He would set up secondary devices that were designed to get the first responders who were coming for the first device So they would be placed in a perimeter in places where it was assumed First responders would gather in order to address the first these are terrible terrible things But we do have to be aware of them when when we're working Commissioner Oskie has a question commissioner Oskie Yes, just briefly How often do supervisors respond to calls and how does our ratio of supervisors to patrol Compared to best practices or other communities of comparable size Terrific question. So last month I presented a there was a page on in the chief's report that showed the actual Roles that we have and the current numbers in each role and the current authorized number in each role and You can see that you know, we are we have the the correct number of chiefs We have the correct number of deputy chiefs. We have the correct number of lieutenants We only have half as many sergeants as we need and we are down by about 40 percent on police officers And the part of police officers that go on patrol is down about 50 percent. That is not the correct ratio It's not the best practice ratio, but you know, we don't have we can't I can't demote people To be supervisors, you know from supervisors to patrol similarly The the the the structure is somewhat determined not by the span of control Which is the term we use for the number of supervisors versus the number of subordinates But rather by the shifts so span of control is what you're really aiming for you Want about one in eight is a healthy as a healthy ratio one sergeant and eight officers underneath that sergeant One in six for a specialized unit And then you know, you want generally one lieutenant in charge of two to three sergeants But then there is also the fact that we determine these ratios not merely by persons Subport you know supervised versus supervisors, but by the shifts We've got three shifts and those three shifts are divided into two teams each so that's six We have a minimum therefore of six supervisors that are necessary for patrol at a sergeant level and Minimum a really of two actually four Lieutenants that are necessary at the patrol level and that's just dictated by the fact that that they work in order to work around the clock Seven days a week 365 days a year you got to have a certain number of shifts and they got to be broken down in a certain way and right now We don't have the number of officers necessary to Staff those shifts healthily And this too was was a concern that we articulated at length During the discussion about whether or not to reduce the size of the police department You know one option we would have had my ratios would be better right now if we had ended our midnight shift But in the long run despite talking about that a lot and seeing that as sort of the most logical decision I couldn't do it because I thought that it was an Unconscionable risk for the public and as a result You know we field one to two officers on midnight shifts Which is not optimal by any stretch of the imagination not for them nor for the public But it's better than having shut off the midnight entirely the way the Vermont State Police does I think the Vermont State Police goes to bed at 2 a.m. And nobody's on again until 7 30 I think it is maybe I might be a little off in those those times They cover and they are available for call-out, but there is not an on-duty officer You can't do that in a city like ours. So, you know, we're not staffed properly right now with regard to ratios Continue and sure. Thank you. So next next slide, please Thank you the revised priority response plan One piece of this is that we are we have changed the way in which we respond to overdose I talked about that a little bit last time I felt frankly that the consensus of this body was sort of an approval of that I did speak with the fire department and worked closely with the fire chief in making this determination and with the mayor But we are only going to Calls for service of overdose when they are in a barricaded situation When the person can't be accessed but police need to make that access if the person's in a vehicle Or if there is some other criminal element associated with that overdose beyond the mere presumed possession of narcotics that caused the overdose obviously title 18, which is the Vermont statute section that deals with narcotics remains in effect. It is unlawful to possess narcotics. It's criminal but we don't treat that as a crime in this city anymore for good or for ill and Therefore going to overdoses with police at every turn racing through the city To go to something that is a medical call since we've chosen not to treat it like a criminal call Isn't the best use of resources that are as thin as they are So my question is can you explain this to me as a citizen? Yeah, so I call I see on King Street somebody who appears to be Odin they're lying, you know on the sidewalk so I call 911 right and But there's there's there's nothing else happening except that person is Apparently overdosing. Yeah, apparently, you know, this is just my guess. So you're saying There's no bit nobody from BPD would Be sent to that to attend to that person. No not nobody from BPD No sworn officer from BPD as part of the prior response plan it will be a BFD call and Fire will come and medically assess and assist that person if that person wants assistance and A CSL if possible will make a follow-up as well either at the time of the call if available In order to try to make a connection with the individual and help them into service The fire department is also making some of those connections now particularly its new team Isn't that the CRT now the CRT does that as well, but CSL's do it, yeah But you know those referrals an effort to get that person help for his or her substance use disorder is Is the you know the primary goal is is is this person actually suffering an overdose and does it need to be reversed? And does medical attention need to be provided that's goal one Which is not something police can do we used to be first on scene almost all the time And that's because our officers were more often than not out on roving patrol and weren't absorbed by other calls for service Now they are often They're almost based at the station the way firefighters are and and they deploy from that station to the priority one calls that they go to And we're not first on scene anymore So our the fact that we've carried in our con and we've carried in our can now for I believe almost a decade and we were among the first agencies in the state to deploy it and We are you know every officer has it every officer's got supplies of it We are have always been been generous with it But the fact of the matter is that Narcan is saturated through the community now Most people who are active users do in fact have access to Narcan and so do their friends And so we often get to scenes at this point where Narcan's already been administered So the need for us to be first on scene because we are our first on scene with that Narcan is diminished Furthermore Narcan isn't really the device the drug You know that the reversal of success that it once was because the poly drug combinations that a lot of people are currently using Often not by their choice, but just because that's what's in the marketplace Are are not as susceptible to reversal through Narcan Narcan is an opioid reuptake inhibitor What that means is that it basically you know, they're great cartoons out there that demonstrate How it works it it puts in a thing that kind of you've got this look imagine You've got a hose, but it's not a hose that shoots out It's a hose that sucks in and it's supposed to suck in the opioids the Narcan comes in and basically plugs that hose and Then the opioids gather around going wait I want to get in and they can't and the person's high wears off now If there's enough opioid in the system the Narcan may wear off before the opioids are fully flushed And that person may suddenly go into overdosing again That doesn't happen very often, but it is irrational for taking people into custody when they are overdosing We don't do that. However, we don't have the legal authority to do it and When once the person is initially revived he or she is capable of making choices According to the law about what he or she wants. I don't you know, I thanks for the Narcan you ruined my hide I wasted my money. I'm mad. I'm mad at you. I don't want to tell you who I am goodbye I'm leaving and 15 20 minutes later. They may overdose again when that Narcan wears off and whatever is still on board goes into those receptors It would be best if we could take people into custody I mean we should maybe not should but at one point we would have arrested any given user And then taken that person to the hospital in the context of that arrest That is not where we are anymore. And that's why a deployment of police isn't necessarily the best use of our resources I actually agree with that. I think that's a that's a that's a very good Process I support that and I think what I've noticed from my part is quite often People don't want either the BPD or the fire department to be there Yeah, that's what I've overwhelmingly heard from even within the neighborhood. Yeah is quite often people reject The the help which you know lack of a better term But it is So but thank you. Yes commissioner. I I just wanted to add That you're right a lot of folks don't want the police there and they don't want the fire department there and Don't like they usually take care of each other, you know from my experience of what I've seen But their last resort is to give somebody an arc and because it's just what chief said because it ruins our buzz You know, it's the only a little bit of money they had So, yeah Next slide, please Thank you. So our incident volume we passed last year. We finally got past excuse me 2018 We passed last year a long time ago. We finally got past 2018. So we are now higher than we've ever been in the past five years And again, that is with a drastically lower number of traffic stops And we which we'll see on the next slide, but it is with a larger number of overdoses But overdoses even with the, you know, just astonishingly terrible number of overdoses that we've experienced so far this year doesn't come close to Equating with the number of traffic stops that we used to do even as recently as 2018 So our numbers are back where they were higher in a lot of ways And yet we are facing that with 50% fewer police officers on patrol so the We are still stacking calls for service about 13 percent of our calls for service are stacked about 12 percent of our calls For service are going online. I've recently directed that we the priority response plan says that Certain kinds of calls are not supposed to be directed online. That includes retail thefts that includes larcenies Those are supposed to be stacked not pushed online And for a while they were being pushed online I think that engendered a lot of frustration in the community our community and frankly We've got a stack these numbers would be even higher if every single online report had yet been accounted for because they haven't been This does not count like there's a stack of anywhere from 500 to 700 Onlines that accumulated over the summer that we're trying to figure out how we're gonna sort of dig into that stack So we'd be even higher with this number if those were fully accounted for You know an online is is is a terrible thing because it takes that long right? I'm talking about calls for service that came in in online reports rather not calls for service online reports that came in in July and a person gets an automated response and then does not hear much and that is a Terrible feeling for members of our community neighbors don't want that so I think we are actually better off Stacking a call letting them know that that call is stacked, but at least getting to them within 24 or at least 48 hours And and being able to say here's a person speaking to you Even if we may or may not be able to address what the situation is and many stackable calls aren't necessarily Addressable with you know 12 hours later They're there of the moment kinds of things where people wanted a police response Where we used to default to responding to everything and we just can't anymore So I also added a new clarification in on this slide that talks about the fact that the calls for service Or these incidents are not automatically crimes And I certainly never have wanted anybody to associate that like when I talk about our numbers being up this year You know 20 percent above last year 40 percent above 2021 back in line with 2018 I'm not saying that crime is although some categories are and some categories are not This is about incident data and they are essentially calls for service Next please Thank you So here's here are some of those incidents the ones that we track every single month These are all year to date as of the 15th of October And you can see where we are with some of these categories and where you know with some are up some are down Larson aggregated Larson. He's not quite as bad as it was last year, but it's way worse than anything We saw over the previous years mental health issues are you know back to the upper edge of normal but not as bad as last year Overdose is awful is awful. It's almost twice as high as it was in 2022 And then stolen vehicles are slightly down, but those numbers last year were you know double almost triple what they'd been in previous years Traffic as you see is is down Not as down as it was last year our traffic numbers are picking up a little bit That's partly a function of new officers We you know we did not have a large class any large classes of officers in 2022 But we've had two large classes now in 2023 and new officers have to do car stops So they are more likely to go out and do car stops than than existing officers are That said, you know, we do still see that crash with injury is up. It's up quite a bit from previous norms 2020 is an anomaly nobody was driving in 2020 and so the roads were very different But the other years, you know, we're supposed to be in the 70s high 70s, and we're at 97 So our traffic crashes with injury and or fatality are are concerning. That's do you think that's anything to do with speed? I think it has a lot to do with speed. I think it has a lot to do with speed I think it has to do with reckless driving that is not ameliorated by car stops I think people in Burlington know that Burlington cops don't do car stops And they feel like they can get away with with driving behaviors that are not overly reckless because obviously if you are going if you're going 80 miles an hour on North Avenue a cop is still going to stop you But if you're going 40 Probably not and it's supposed to be 25 or 30 depending on the zone, but chief I did read somewhere and correct me if I'm wrong that this is a this is definitely a national trend and it started with Am I correct that it started with the empty streets of Pandemic it did and it's never reverted back. Are you hearing that I am here? Yes That was a discussion at ICP. That is something that we're hearing I think you know I've used this anecdote before but if you don't believe that people know when police are or are not present and then Behave accordingly I will point you only to the exact the existence of the real honest-to-gosh Gumball rally or the so-called cannonball run right and the cannonball run where these you know these these cheesy movies with Burt Reynolds and Dom Delouise two of them in the late 70s early 80s But it is a real event for and it's named after it actually I believe it's a Vermont her named whose nickname was cannonball Who did the first coast-to-coast drive in this in like the 1920s in a big old car? But since then there have been lots of efforts to set the record and in the pandemic during the early days of the pandemic in April March and April of 2020 that record was reset five I believe five times maybe four times by teams that just kept outpacing each other because they knew that they were never going to see Roadways as empty and they were never going to see roadways as unpatrolled by cops So you take a car you tear out the seats you put an extra gas can in the trunk so that you can maximize the amount of Fuel in the vehicle and you and two friends eat junk food from New York City all the way to Los Angeles or in the other Direction and you go as fast as you can they did it in 24 hours 24 hours in a car from LA to New York City straight Drove down the time by like five hours the previous record was like 30 Great story, but here's my question. So at when you went to the conference. I'm just curious to know what are the Thoughts that people have shared about how to deal with this because I I Personally feel like one of the things that I'm I've become really afraid of and I keep a watch of that on reddit People getting hit. Yeah by cars pedestrians now here This is not a huge issue because cars just cannot on our little tiny streets They cannot go very fast, but they can possibly injure us and as you know recently And this is not the first one in the last year we have at two And the first one was of course not about speed But I'm just curious to know what you are hearing from people around the country on how to address this Well, so, you know other other municipalities in Vermont aren't doing what we're doing They're there their car stop numbers their traffic numbers are not nearly what you see here on the last column This last column is you know it goes from two thousand one hundred in 2018 to five hundred this year That's a massive drop. That's an intentional drop It was driven almost entirely by our desire not to interdict narcotics via car stops and thereby reduce racial disparities that we were seeing in traffic That said it does have an impact on driving behavior Other municipalities are not doing this and they are instead, you know The state's attorney basically put out a memorandum stating that many cases of what might be considered pretext stops That is lawful stops based on driving behavior, but that were driven in fact by the officer's suspicion of the driver for other crimes Will not be accepted by her office for prosecution That memorandum didn't affect the Burlington Police Department at all We've been doing that for years beforehand and it was really irrelevant to us But it definitely bothered other agencies in Chippin County because they do a lot of they still do a lot of traffic And the Vermont State Police still does a lot of traffic agencies across this country are getting back in the traffic business They're still seeing these kinds of upticks It is it is greatly concerning But it is affected by though by even though there are agencies that still do it There are many agencies that don't or have been told in effect Stop in the way frankly that the Burlington Police Department was earlier than many others But that over the past two years that's become a much more pronounced issue and we do have to decide for ourselves whether or not Where the balance is? Okay, thank you. Thank you Next our good old advertisement as always We are hiring and we are a great place to work I certainly think so and I'm proud proud to work here and then the last Just beautiful leaves in Burlington, Vermont And that's that's what you if anybody watching this who is outside our beautiful city and wants to come work here This is what you get beautiful Leaves in the autumn and a lake in the summer and it's it's a gorgeous place to be Couple of questions one from commissioner Cox and then one from commissioner Rasky Hi, I was wondering on the for the Val core chart on the number of overdose Incidents now that the fire department is going to be responding to many of the incidents that the BPD used to respond to Seems like that number would drop Like implying that there were less cases, but there's not actually less cases Actually less incidents that the BPD is responding to So so the calls are still going to come in and we're still going to record those calls We're simply not going to send a resource to them unless they meet the parameters that we've worked at or we get a specific request from the fire Department, but we're absolutely going to continue to category to track them Additionally dispatch because our dispatchers work in the same dispatch center with the fire department dispatchers They are instructed to listen to determine whether or not the call gets changed many times What passerby see so what I discovered recently is that none of our surrounding municipalities are seeing this commensurate rise in Overdose they are not seeing this spike in overdose. They are however Seeing a spike in fatality in fact a worse spike than Burlington is and I think a component of that is they're farther away from UVMMC They don't have a full-time, you know medical transportation service But I also think that the reason that our overdose numbers not our fatals because again as I've said in other reports and for anybody Who's watching for the first time. This is not fatal overdoses. Good God It would be insanely awful if we had 376 deaths in this city. It's nowhere near that number, right? I mean, I don't know what it is off the top of my head right now But I think it's it's a dozen or 17 which is awful enough and each of those is a life lost But it's not this this is overdosed most of which are Reversed and many of which are not overdoses Officers go to the scene and recognize that the person in fact was was drunk or or was sleeping and and you know doesn't actually have the signs of having overdosed And is it says, you know, leave me alone Some of those calls are changed by officers or firefighters or CSL's on the scene or after the fact to Reestablish them as welfare checks or intoxication calls And so we're still trying to work We're making certain that our dispatchers communicate with the fire department dispatchers to assess whether or not a call has thus been altered After the fact so that we keep our numbers as accurate as possible But I'm not it's something that I'm thinking about and and monitoring for but I'm not all that concerned that we're going to see Those numbers artificially dropped because we're still going to record them Commissioner Oski Thank you This wasn't from your report, but we received an invitation today, and it was also posted on front porch forum About the community Academy. I think it's called and I was just wondering In the material The it said that if you have a recent misdemeanor or felony that you wouldn't be able to participate And I was wondering why Because of access to Our criminal justice systems which are a component of being in the building and also component of the class So the criminal justice information systems governed by the DOJ and the FBI Seegis makes those requirements and so You have to go you have to do a background check to be able to access the information and be in the building Okay, thank you. It seems like a missed opportunity For people to Engage with the police department learn about what they're doing, you know learn about all the systems and everything and just because they've had Some criminal justice involvement To be prohibited from that opportunity seems like a missed opportunity, but I hear you that it's a requirement of DOJ or others. Yeah. Yeah, it's not an arrest. It's it's convictions. So I mean, it's you know It's person who's but people get convicted and they Hopefully, you know, they they learn a lesson and they redeem themselves That's what our system is about. So it's not like they're forever shouldn't forever have a black mark on them Agreed for for very many things but not necessarily for access to criminal justice information So the Thank you so much though for reminding me about that. I meant to include a slide about it We are doing that citizens Academy. It's a terrific experience and terrific opportunity I'll be it I with your caveats commissioner around around who can access it But anyone who can I would encourage to do so and and in so far as members of this body and certainly members of the City Council We recognize how absolutely busy you are. It's a big time commitment to do the entirety of the Academy Normally, we really want people to attend the entire thing But for members of this body for members of the City Council will certainly, you know, be be very Understanding about not being able to make every single I think it's Wednesday nights for three hours I'm gonna try making a few of those but yes, Commissioner Cox. Yeah Well, I'd say attended it the year before the pandemic and I'm yes Yeah, I found it super useful in terms of just understanding why why the police do what they do Um, but uh, first of all, um, so I just wanted to say that that I do highly recommended to my fellow commissioners And then second of secondly, do you think it would be useful to like re-attend it? Like do you have like new sufficient new things to talk about where I would get something out of I mean, it's a big time commitment ma'am. So I don't know if you you know, you'll have to sort of Make that determination. I do hope that it's a different I hope that we are updating it and keeping it current. I'm going to be talking at length with Constance crisp who is our training coordinator who is the one who really puts it together? I I have already told her that one thing that I really want attendees to understand is The nature of what we can and can't respond to at this time and why we make the determinations that we do not just sort of what it has been in the past, which is almost a Condensed version for laypeople of the police academy itself I want us to be a little bit more explanatory and and I'd like dialogue a little bit more about what we do and what we maybe can expand on doing or Improve on doing so in that way. Yes, I hope that it's different But I don't know how different it's going to be and I it is a time commitment So perhaps there would be a way of like finding out what your agenda is and it just may be attending If we get a career as soon as we have a curricula I'm happy to share it with this body. In fact, it probably would make sense to share it in general Thank you any other questions from any of the other commissioners Commissioner Comerford, I don't know if you have any questions. Okay. All right. Okay Thank you chief. Thank you very much The next agenda item is five point one, which is public presentation by Dr. Tom Nolan Dr. Nolan has been very patient Besides the fact that he has been patient He was also a Boston police officer for 27 years his last 10 years as a uniform Lieutenant and shift commander in the patrol division and I'm going to read a brief biography of him You received a copy of that in the agenda Dr. Nolan has been a professor in criminology and criminal justice at Boston University State University of New York in Flasberg where he was my colleague Merrimack College and Emanuel College He was a senior policy advisor at the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties In Washington DC and the is the author of a recent book Perilous, I hope I'm saying that right policing criminal justice in marginalized communities He's a regular contributor to the Boston Globe and has appeared on NBC ABC ABC CNN and Many many media outlets around the country and the world a more Intelligable biography is available on his own website today He will speak to us about balancing the narratives of public safety with civil rights Dr. Nolan joins us from Boston. Dr. Nolan Hello, thank you for inviting me. I hope that I can share some information with you that will be Helpful as you go forward. I've heard from the chief some of the issues that that he's confronting and some of what I see On a national level, I guess that might be what's most helpful to you because I'm not familiar with the workings of the Burlington Police Department although I have gone through much of the available material that's online that's on the BPD's website as well as some of the It's the reports that have been commissioned over the last couple of years, so I've looked at a lot of stuff and what I see Nationally that is of concern and oftentimes I comment to the media. They seek me out for whatever reason Because I have this experience and I also have this academic perspective and background So for example before I came on the zoom meeting with you all I was Interviewed by the Boston Globe for a story that's running tomorrow and issues that That plague and have plagued the Boston Police Department and I don't see that it's necessarily present in Burlington but issues around Transparency and accountability so the story that is going to be an extremely bad look for the Boston Police Department is one where numerous internal affairs complaints have been made against a particular police captain including excessive force complaints Race-based stops those kinds of fairly serious issues and the story is that The complaints are over four years old and it took over four years For the Boston Police Department to investigate these allegations and there were numerous allegations most of them had to do with Black Lives Matter protests and the involvement of this particular captain in interacting with the people who were on the street protesting so what I see and this is by no means unique to Boston but Issues that involve transparency and accountability and I will say kudos to this chief because when I began Looking at available information online about the Burlington Police Department I was very favorably impressed with the amount of information that is contained in various Websites iterations of the website that are online. So there's a plethora of data That are available to anyone who is looking at What's going on in the Burlington PD all of these reports that we just Were just shared with us by the chief are available online as well as a number of other Relevant and I think timely documents that really point to a level of transparency That is not commonly observed in police departments across across the country Most police departments and I come from Massachusetts. We have a notoriously Reputation for notoriously opaque police departments that are reluctant to comply with public records requests and so we have weak public information laws I'm not sure if that's the case in Vermont But it really Provides for a contentious relationship between the media and many It's certainly all of the largest police departments here in Massachusetts Is evidenced by the fact that they often take six months to respond to public records requests? that said what I did observe and what is of Concern and and maybe I looked in the wrong place, but I was unable to uncover reports on the Burlington PD website of Internal affairs complaints the nature of complaints that are made against Burlington police officers. I was able to To discover information that was contained in a report that was prepared I believe in 2021 by CNA associates. I think it was commissioned by the city it's a very comprehensive report with a lot of Really pertinent information as well as recommendations And I did become aware that the collective bargaining agreement between the Burlington police Officer's union in the city of Burlington has language that I've never seen before and I've seen a lot of collective bargaining agreements I participated in negotiating many of them over the years And what I saw was language that prohibits the police department in the city from releasing information about any pending internal investigation releasing any information and so My read on that was if an officer was involved even in a deadly force incident And that involves a killing of a human being by a law enforcement officer that information None of the information relating to that would be released to the public in my read is at any time So the department is really hamstrung on the one hand with being able to release information about particular internal investigations, but What I could see and what was only available and observable to me was the CNN CNA associates report that contained Information about internal affairs complaints that I think went back to get the year wrong maybe 2018 And so I could see the numbers of complaints. I could see the nature of the complaints I could see the Disposition of some of them I believe but that kind of information I think in the interest of transparency Might appropriately be Included in the BPD's website so that observers could see for example I saw that the rate of sustained complaints and that refers to instances where An individual makes a complaint of officer misconduct or wrongdoing it could be excessive force It could be respect the treatment or whatever But in the case of Burlington PD they sustain meaning they believe the complaints As as reported to them and that they Are in fact a violation of the rules and procedures of the Burlington police department They're at 26 percent which is impressive because the national trend and average is in or around 10 percent of Complaints that are made against police officers are sustained so 26 percent is fairly impressive I would want to get that out there To show that in this department that we take these complaints seriously and that we sustain over a quarter of them So there's that that issue in terms of accountability. I Think it would be prudent To let the public know that not only do we investigate complaints in a timely fashion Be it 30 60 90 days or whatever But when complaints are sustained against police officers that they are held accountable for Misconduct and wrongdoing in the following fashion and whatever that might be It could be a suspension or could be Some kind of a punishment duty or something like that, but a sanction is imposed So I think that In compliance with the union's Provision in their contract a collective bargaining agreement that no information be Be Released pertaining to a particular investigation. I think that aggregate data Could be released saying that we have had X number of complaints in 2023 We sustained X percentage of them They involved these types of allegations and when complaints were sustained These were the sanctions that were imposed on officers that kind of information. I think would Inspire confidence on the part of people in the community people in the city of Burlington As well as outside observers like me who know nothing about the inner workings of the city of Burlington But can certainly make an assessment like I'm making for you that there's there is a process and that the process works because As I mentioned earlier the the globe story that's going to come out tomorrow And it'll you know, it's going to be a story that is not going to be flattering For the Boston Police Department because of this and in another thing I should mention too is part of the story is that Initially the complaints against this officer were sustained meaning yes He did these things and yes, they violate our rules and procedures and somehow in a change of administration That the current administration decided to revisit these investigations and basically Not sustain the complaints so they change their minds over the period of four years So what that does is to in part of what I said to the reporter is it inspires little confidence in the process So the people who are waiting who made those complaints in 2018 and 2019 See that they haven't been resolved until five years later They may choose to no longer participate in the investigation or voice any kind of You know concerns about the behavior that they That they witnessed or that they were the victims of so it really unravels the whole process. It goes against transparency There's it goes against issues of involving accountability and it undermines the public confidence in particular police department. This is not uncommon I'm not seeing it here in Burlington as I said There's a lot of there are a lot of data that that are publicly available except for this particular area So I have this Just to switch gears because I know you your time is valuable And here is Yeah, citizen. This is the report. I'm sure that you folks have seen this this was commissioned in Oh, excuse me 2021. So it's two years old And this is a very comprehensive analysis of issues confronting the Burlington pd I could share the screen with you to let you know Yeah, I can't share the screen with you but the report is on their website and Any am I is this It is that we we have seen the cna most of us have actually read the cna report. Yeah That's a good report. There are a lot of really legitimate valuable recommendations contained pertaining to the internal investigative apparatus in that process. I don't know if they've been Implemented it doesn't appear as though from the outside looking in since 2021 that they have And as far as the issue that Commission of row and I spoke about earlier Later last week Issues involving racial disparities and stops and traffic stops and stops in general. This is something that Does plague policing in the united states? We certainly have got issues with it in boston and and I'd say that The the figures that I've seen and I've seen the rationale behind The discrepancy in stops where 4.4 of the population of burlington is black and I believe it's 8.8 percent of stops were of Of black people That's a obviously a disparity Twice in numbers to the their pop in their representation in the general population But I will say That other departments are far worse That the norm and and I'll use the the example of boston and I hate to beat up in my own police department, but That's what I have the most knowledge and experience of the boston police department has Has many issues involving racial disparities in how policing is enacted in this city they maintain a gang database with Depending on who you believe or depending on who's testifying at a particular day They say there are three or four thousand gang members in the city of boston I've heard numbers of over 300 gangs, which is just it's actually Just not credible Or a hundred gangs my point being I'm sure you don't have a gang problem In burlington romant. I don't know maybe you do but in boston Over 90 percent of the people who are including in that get included in that gang database are people of color men and women boys and girls Also the stops that the police conduct in the city over 85 percent of the field stops and traffic stops That the boston police conduct are of people of color This figure Was not publicly released or available until the american civil liberties union of massachusetts filed a lawsuit Against the boston police department compelling the release of these these data And then the data being released in 20 i think 2018 the following year and of course the police department is going to say We're going to clean up our act. We didn't know about this. We're going to implement training We're going to make changes and you're never going to see this again And they weren't lying because the next year when the aclu went back to ask them for the data For 2019 i believe it was it could have been 2020 the bpd boston police department said we no longer keep those numbers So they said we don't record demographic racial ethnic origin group data on people we stop which is simply not credible Should i stop for a minute here and let people answer questions or Commission around how do you know how to proceed? That's fine if you have you have a few minutes if you want to wrap it up with Some of the recommendations that you and i had talked about perhaps for us moving forward Yeah, so Part of it was the the internal affairs process. I think a little bit more transparency there Would be helpful I think i've seen the movement toward having a non-police response to 911 calls is is commendable. I think that's the direction A lot of the directions that i've seen This chief articulate in his report tonight as well as some of the reports that i've looked at From past monthly meetings that you folks have had Show that burlington pd is definitely moving in a lot of the right directions Departments nationwide are experiencing recruiting issues I do have a report and i don't know if the chief has seen this that perf the police executive research forum um an organization that conducts research on a national level In assisting law enforcement agencies in coming to solutions to problems and the recruiting problem Is not just a problem in burlington verman is a problem nationwide And perf came out with a report just this august. So two months ago august. Yeah two months ago 70 plus pages some very helpful Information a lot of surveys that were conducted nationwide a lot of strategies That departments are considering across the country in increasing their Recruitment numbers and some of the strategies are counterintuitive not typically what Strategies that we've used in policing to attract qualified candidates And I looked on the recruitment website for For the burlington pd, and I think it would be helpful To have a look at that perf report going forward with recruitment because there are a lot of really innovative strategies to attract qualified candidates to policing all police departments nationwide are having this and it has to do Certainly, you know the the instances of police violence and excess that have come into the Republic awareness And it's not just since george floyd it goes back to 2014 and michael brown and even Before that And so there have been instances where law enforcement has had a bad look We can't disagree with that But there are also other reasons why recruitment in law enforcement have Seen challenges that don't have anything to do with that so So that's a great. I think resource to take a look at to improve recruitment numbers Some of the other issues. I think in terms of the For example, the the disparity in stops the racial issues. I think certainly Acknowledging this issue and and not Resisting the temptation To the extent that one would to become defensive about it. It is what it is the numbers can be Explained to an extent. I think that When I heard the chief say that that traffic stops have been curtailed sharply because of A sensitivity to this issue in terms of drug drug interdiction policies that have historically targeted People of color by law enforcement for better or worse So I think that that's a step in the right direction I think when I heard that I was I was you know, impressed that this is at least something that There is an awareness of and a sensitivity to so that kind of I think That kind of acknowledgement publicly that we may have a bit of work to do in this area While listening from someone like me Who follows these issues nationwide saying that yes, it is an issue here in Burlington, Vermont But it is not as significant or And I know that's difficult to hear for the people who are getting stopped But in other parts of the country this this issue is significantly More serious and consequential than it might be in a city like Burlington. I hope that's helpful Do do any of the commissioners have any questions and the chief is anyone has any questions? Was that helpful? Is that something that there is a value to you folks and? Commissioner Cox. Yes. So, you know, I had a question. Um, so like in the in the General category of marginalized communities um, I often think about them uh people with serious mental health diagnoses Um, that in Burlington anyway, I think a hundred percent of the deaths at the hands of police So where the police interaction occurs and the person ends up Dead at the end of the transaction. I think a hundred percent of the cases over the last Eight years have been with people with a serious mental health Uh diagnosis or tbi in one case and So i'm not always sure that uh, I know that there's um In in black communities often the numbers of like mental health diagnoses are less than in white communities And I think that that's because of reluctance to seek medical care for that or a lack of available medical care for that but But there is uh, sometimes like overlaps between Uh, you know a person might be black and have a mental health condition or might be Recent immigrant and have a mental health condition and it may just be from trauma from where they live before but I was wondering sort of um In your bigger thought about policing and marginalized communities If you've seen anything in other in other communities That we could consider here to add on to all those steps that they've been doing here Well, I think the alternative response, uh, in the use of Police professionals, I think you all refer to them as that the professional cadre As opposed to the sworn officer group Certainly here where I live in in Boston. I live at the area that's known as mass and cast I don't know if you all are familiar with that up in burlington, but this is a an area of homelessness of addiction serious mental disorder and and oftentimes All of the above that are congregated in a specific geographical area That has been a vexing series of problems for Not only law enforcement law enforcement initially came in with a law enforcement response Which is going to include arrest and prosecution. I think that we've learned to move away from that In massachusetts, we have we recently passed the law I'm I'm certain you have something similar to it in burlington where you have alternative response An alternative response mechanism and system for people who are in mental health or behavioral crises Who are not armed who are not a danger to themselves or other people? And who might not merit a response from sworn law enforcement Um, and and I think that's the direction that law enforcement is moving in Nationally is to seek alternative responses that don't involve solely police police response that oftentimes results in In unfortunate and tragic outcomes and I think you describe some of them that may have occurred in burlington But we certainly have got an awareness of it. And I think When the the chief is describing community service officers and community service liaisons And I think you have I think I saw on one of your board charts that you have registered nurses available And maybe even social workers who can respond to situations where people are in crisis who may not be armed Moving in that direction And in terms of marginalized communities I mean we had a situation maybe three years ago around the corner from where I live Where a young black man who was in mental health crisis What his mother called 911 and asked for an ambulance to take him to the hospital, which is two blocks away And the 911 operator keyed in a police response That necessitated the police Responding to the scene with ems And according to the police This individual who was having mental health crisis picked up a knife and his family disputes that but he was shot and killed tragically and I think Learning certainly from those kind of situations that these are not The appropriate responses in many of the cases that That call that entered the 911 system we have in in massachusetts We passed a law recently that any municipality that wants the availability of state funds to hire social workers To respond instead of or alongside police officers For these individuals can can avail themselves of those monies and and hire people to do that So this is I think where it's it's heading In terms of disparities between responses in marginalized communities And communities that you know that we would not consider marginalized I think the the community that i'm referring to this this young man who who was killed Is a marginalized community and so Do the police? Resort to the use of force more frequently when they are confronted With these types of mental health situations in marginalized communities Then they do in communities who would not consider marginalized I would say that the data would support that contention So yes Someone else had a hand Yes, commissioner oski had a question to commissioner oski Thank you dr. Nelson. Uh, your presentation has been really helpful I'm really glad that you came out and look forward to Staying in touch with you I wanted to ask you a question similar to the one I asked the chief about the ratios and I understood the answer that You know they that there are a number A large number a disproportionately large number of supervisors in the burlington police department now because um, we lost A lot of patrol officers And you can't demote people I'm wondering this, you know if this is if you've seen this in other departments and if there are creative ways to Um read to adjust Based on those ratios or if you have any advice or recommendations for Based on the numbers and the ratios that we have I think I heard the chief say that supervisors and detectives are available to respond to 911 calls as needed in emergency situations Or the situation that he described where there was a barricaded suspect in a house Um, I think in many departments when I was a sergeant Um in the boston police department and a lieutenant I responded to 911 calls. I would patrol the street um for a portion of my tour of duty And respond as needed to calls not only to to supervise the the police response But in cases where there were no officers available. This is not an uncommon situation burlington is experiencing is entirely Um got commonplace situation And what the chief referred to a span of control and and the necessity of having supervisory presence on all of those shifts Um, I'm in total Understanding support and agreement with that. You do want to have Supervisors on the on the street even on the midnight shift where I think you mentioned that they were often only one or two police officers available I don't know if there's a mutual aid situation in the in the burlington Metropolitan area where officers from outside agencies can come in on the midnight shift if if needed but I think if if recruitment Can be successful and those numbers can be improved in terms of officers available for patrol As well as officers for example, I think I saw the number of nine detectives Um, is that correct? That's a lot of detectives for a department the size 10 we have 10 10 that's a lot of So and but I I understand when chief said you you can't demote people so you you can't do that But what you can do is reimagine and reconfigure your response protocol to include Um, for example in situations special events, for example, or other types of Unusual situations in in boston detectives are going into uniform. You're going out in the street. You're going to answer calls Because we don't have and I I mean, I don't know if the extent a problem nationwide to backfill Officer numbers for patrol as to hire mandatory make mandatory overtime compulsory for officers So you're working double shifts. That's what they do in boston That's not the best solution But in response to your question, there's no reason nationally what I've seen and in my experience why Officers other than patrol officers can be used to respond to 9-1-1 calls as needed. I know you've got the airport. You've got a contractual obligation there I know you've got two officers assigned to I think it's called the marketplace There's no reason why those officers couldn't respond to 9-1-1 calls in that area certainly you've got a It's a recruitment a recruiter Who's taken out of patrol? I don't know that you I'm not second-guessing the chief But do you need to have a full-time? Recruiter where your numbers are so low Maybe it should be Part of the ethos that we are all recruiters that we want to put our best foot forward and have people I mean, there are strategies in the in that perf document like having Having a police cadet program or a police internship program. I know When I was teaching undergraduate students, they are all looking for internships So it's I think the term is referred to as going upstream So you identify police officer candidates at an early age It maybe you have a cadet program where it's a guaranteed path for a police officer position You there's a another movement initiative It's called 30 by 30 to increase the numbers of women police officers to 30 percent by 2030 They're on the average net nationally at about 12 percent Those numbers should come up. I think Any chief will tell you that hiring more women officers is better for the department in terms of internal affairs complaints in terms of the use of force in terms of civil litigation so And you know just benefits that can be offered for example The Los Angeles police department is offering a three-year benefit where they will pay a thousand dollars a month Toward rent to get officers to come out to LA I don't know what the you know, how high rents are in Burlington But if the issue is that officers aren't coming there because they can't afford housing I mean, you've got a 15 thousand dollar bonus. Maybe reconfigure that to say we will pay your rent Or we'll pay a thousand dollars a month rent. I mean those kinds of strategies Another one is child care opportunities To attract women into policing and this is a benefit that the private sector offers These kinds of benefits are what's being looked at Because it's not so much other law enforcement agencies that are luring our potential candidates away It's the private sector just as much Because we've got this work from home situation. Obviously you can't do policing from home but That's a long winded answer To your short question the numbers these officers can be in the the organization I know that the the department has recently been reorganized. I saw that chart But certainly there's no reason why sworn officers At all ranks cannot respond to 911 calls as needed Thank you. And if the chief is still available, I would like just clarification on that I heard him say that That officers came from the marketplace To respond to the barricaded house situation And I imagine that indeed the Supervisors also respond when needed, but if the chief is there and could clarify that that would be helpful to me Yeah, that's correct. The officers do handle 911 calls on the marketplace But they also in a case of a major emergency will leave the marketplace and go to that major emergency Supervisors. No, I mean do super do supervisors do supervisors respond to 911 Supervisors go to major emergencies They do respond to 911 But a supervisor on a 911 call taking it as the primary officer can't be a supervisor on the other scenes So we do minimize that you can't do both if you're a sergeant and you're picking up warrant arrests You're now with that person for four hours plus to get that person processed transported up to st Albans it is a waste of that supervisors the money that we pay and the supervisors You know main role which is making certain that the other officers on the shift are working On the midnight when you only have one police officer and one supervisor Of course, the supervisor goes to calls with that officer But the supervisor isn't going to be the primary and and if there's seen if there are calls for service that do require You know if a call for service happens while they're both on a say domestic violence call that requires two officers Then that other call for service is going to be stacked Um, and we there we do have a certain amount of mutual aid, but uh, the the efforts to Change staffing in this city that amounted to Defunding although it was defunding through attrition Compelled other police departments in the region not to uh to want to assist Other police departments are very leery of coming into burlington in order to assist They will when they are not the primary on a scene, but they will not take primary on a call So, uh, if we for example have uh two officers on the midnight We have a domestic violence that pops up and then another domestic violence occurs One of those officers what we need to do is we need to get one officer from colchester and one officer from south Burling to join us at the two different scenes while our officers split up But now the supervisor the sergeant is the primary on that second domestic violence call and that is going to render him in unable to be a A supervisor it's not a good situation for us to be in Thank you And in so far as the staffing in the detective unit It's partially determined by contract which does require 10 But the fact of the matter is that like every single entity in this city has been demanding more and more of our narcotics unit They want more narcotics detectives not less if we are not fewer rather if we were to reassign Uh detectives out of the bureau a we would have experienced a greater headcount loss than we did One of the few things that kept officers here was the possibility of career path and the opportunity to do things other than merely patrol And b we would not have been able to tackle the 26 gunfire incidents and five murders and 12 shootings that we experienced in 2022 without that detective unit We clear every single homicide over the path. We've cleared every single murder over the past 25 plus years We cleared a murder from 1971 the longest unsolved in the state to my knowledge Actually, I think there may be one or two that are longer than that in the south part of the state They do exemplary work and uh, they do assist with patrol in the sense that they do they go to untimelys When available they certainly assist with bear with emergency situations like barricaded persons or other things like that But in so far as answering typical 911 calls for service That's just not something they can do while maintaining their caseload I think that we don't have enough detectives. Uh, we normally we used to have when we were When we were authorized to have 105 and routinely fielded 97 police officers The number of detectives that we had was closer to 12 Or 14 People who were assigned to the detective bureau both as detectives or as the the street crime team The absence of the street crime team is a significant factor in our Decreased ability to address public open open air drug use and public order issues And the decrease in the detective bureau is a significant part of why we have not been as successful Against burglaries as we were in 2017 and 2018 Any questions from any of the other commissioners? Yes i'm interested in How our salaries compare to other places of our size for beginning starting officers and also top pay Thank you. Well, you're your beginning salary is higher than boston or new york So I commend you for that. I was even trying to talk One of the young women who work in my building. She wanted to relocate to burlington. They're painting You know, this is a competitive salary And the bonus is one that's very attractive. And so that's why I urge you and again I don't know if the chief has shared this seen this document from perf. I'm happy to share it with him But there are a lot of really good strategies here You're paying, you know, your top salary at a hundred thousand dollars. I mean boston police get to Exceed a hundred thousand dollars, but they do that by working paid private details. They are base salary I believe they're starting in the 60s here So you're above average in in what you're paying what you're offering for starting starting salaries for police officers And and to get to a hundred thousand fairly quickly early on in their tenure I don't think the salary is the issue. I think people would it's definitely competitive and You know, I'd be surprised if any other department in vermont was paying as much as you folks are I could be wrong there Thank you for saying that no, we are We do have the best straightforward compensation If you factor in things like take-home vehicles at the vermont state police, etc You know, there are different ways to make the calculation, but straightforward compensation We are the best compensated agency in the state It takes 15 years to get to that hundred, but that starting of 74 is is terrific Um, and and i'm i'm glad to hear it We did send our deputy chief of administration brian labarge to the perf conference in washington dc that led to the production of that report And and I i've spoken with chuck about that and about what our agency has been going through with regard to both our Headcount and with regard to our desire to rebuild You know, I think some of the things that you've brought up tonight are really interesting ideas Including the notion of, you know, rental Rental subsidy Childcare is something the city really wants to work on And there has been Excellent effort by our marketplace director Well, actually she's the director of business relationships with the city, but uh on on establishing childcare for the city And you know, I do think that that's a component of being a strong spot We're we were as early signatory a first signatory with 30 by 30 I I sat with evan roman at dinner on on monday night in san diego Excuse me on on sunday night in san diego At a dinner for the center for policing equity, so Spoke at length with evan about what they're doing with 30 30 We signed on to that even at a point where we weren't being allowed to hire our city council had prohibited us from hiring Until we had tritted down by 30 percent. We fell much much lower than that 30 percent But I joined it even then because the goal of getting Female employees women employees is is incredibly important My my daughter my wife and I named our daughter, uh, katie elizabeth after elizabeth katie stanton The the idea that the what was begun at senica falls still isn't finished is is a key part for me And and very important for our recruiting goals Some of the issues too Sorry, go ahead dr. Nolan. I had a question for you. This is the last one before we wrap up Just to sort of understand what you were saying About the complaints. It seems like you are suggesting and correct me if i'm wrong You're suggesting that making these public complaints citizen complaints Open for You know sort of kind of anonymizing them and and making it available to the public because Can have a positive impact Am I understanding that correctly as opposed to just seeing it as a negative thing right kind of I think that's what Chief may correct me on this one historically in the last few years That sort of has been the focus that you know kind of all the complaints are Against police officers and therefore It's you know kind of it creates a negative energy Within the community as well, but I think what you're suggesting is really turning the narrative Into a more I mean it's really kind of a radical rethinking of what's been going on right kind of looking at complaints as a way to Promote the department. Am I am I understanding you correctly? Yeah, absolutely, and it's I mean I know the chief will Will agree that it's a useful training tool as to what kinds of complaints we're getting if we're getting complaints Come to a consistently of respectful treatment Then there may be a training issue there if we're getting complaints of excessive force There may be a training issue there as well But um, you know, I would put front and center the fact that we have a high Sistension rate and you do and that's something that that is not commonly observed in police departments You know, there's this window this curtain that's drawn across this whole process Where I think if it's And I have no reason to think that it would be anything other than a straightforward process that this is what our policy is We investigate complaints within an x and we resolve them with an x number of days Whatever that should be 30 60 90 or whatever And you know and oftentimes I think the the public needs to be aware That many of the complaints that police departments across the country in burlington is no exception receive really have nothing to do with violations of rules of procedures Sometimes it doesn't even have anything to do with the particular police department Sometimes it's it's a complaint about something that really Is a is a policy issue? And not an individual officer Conduct issues so putting that information out there I think would educate the public that you know that our people are doing a pretty good job here and that when Mistakes are made that we investigate them in a timely fashion And if sanctions are warranted that we will sanction people and and have that you don't have to put You know officer Joe jones got suspended for 30 days because he used excessive force It's simply that in the aggregate We have this number of complaints per year And they can they consist of the following and when we receive these complaints we investigate them in a timely fashion This is our our Investigative period and then we come to a decision and if sanctions are warranted we impose those if they are not And and I noticed too that you also have a spot on your website for commendations Which it doesn't appear to be widely used Just people being the way that they are but I think the internal investigative apparatus Could be a bit more transparent within the confines and restrictions imposed by the collective bargaining agreement with the the officers union, but in the interest of of Sharing that information with the public then when on the rare occasion when our police officers engage in wrongdoing We take it very seriously We investigate it in a fair and timely fashion in the interest of all parties involved as well as the police officer And then we conclude this investigation So you don't get a call from you know the boston globe to some you know college professor Who used to be on the job saying hey, it took four years for them to investigate this complaint. Is that a long time? Yes, it is And and you know to avoid the bad look that the boston pd is going to get tomorrow morning Thank you. Dr. Nolan. It was great unless some people have anything else to say I on behalf of the commission. I thank you for your time and on appearing on such a short notice I gave you like a week But thank you so much and anyone else has any thoughts. Thank you. I just want to say thank you for your information tonight. It's been helpful And you can continue to watch the rest of the Meeting which we should be wrapping up pretty quickly Otherwise you are free to leave. Thank you Thank you Okay, next one Next on the agenda is commission business 6.1 is reviewing user force report. Um, and I think we have august 1st to 31 and then september 1st to 16 uploaded for the september meeting packet And we were told by city attorney hailey mclanahan that we could request Any of the user force videos with a short rationale So I don't know if people have had a chance to look at The reports both from september. I personally haven't seen the reports from october because they just arrived So if go ahead commissioner cox you had a question and then commissioner oski So I was just going to say that I guess my plan of attack was to if I felt that there was a cause for scenes of one of the incidents videos that I would articulate that and then send it to Our commission attorney to Get his advice on whether this constitutes sufficient cause Um in that sense of it needing to be for a cause at this point I'm not aware that that was a requirement to consult with the attorney I think if you can articulate a reason I understood that the the chief and the deputy chiefs would be willing to to share if there was a Articulated reason jack. I'm not saying you need to do it. I'm just simply saying that's what my plan is. Thank you Commissioner oski It would be helpful if we It'll be helpful if we had a plan that we all Went by the same process But could you repeat to me? I didn't it wasn't in the loop on what? This the attorney's office said could you repeat what you said about? Is it just that if we have cause we can okay, so watch this yes So the issue that I'm not asking you to repeat it. I'm asking the chair to repeat it I heard your question. So I'm a co-chair Um, I'm a co-chair and she's a co-chair Sorry. Yeah I'm asking what she couldn't a lot. Yes. We both received the email so From what I understand from hailey mclanahan's email that Essentially, she was saying we could request any of the use of force videos as long as there was a rationale Attached to it. So Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Uh commissioner cox Which has a very specific you want to you want to turn that on please Share that email with us. Yes What what hailey mclanahan said Was that if it was for a cause which has a very specific legal meaning as you know And so because this is an area that's somewhat unfamiliar to me That's why I intend to send my Request just for a quick review by the commission attorney Maybe you have more Feeling for what for a cause means in this context, but I don't And so what I think is a good reason may not in fact be a sufficient reason So that's why I'm maybe we could maybe we could ask Attorney mclan to Give a little more information because I don't know that cause has I'm not aware of any legal Re definition of what cause means in this circumstance. Um, I did look at the um The use I didn't get through all of the september ones because there was quite a few Use of force incidents in september. I didn't get through all of them. I looked at the six from The first three days of october And there were a couple in there That I was interested in um, I would be interested in watching the video for So maybe you maybe the two co-chairs could lay out a process and share it with us about how we would go about All of us doing it the same way going about Requesting the video commissioner oski. I just forwarded you the email in fact I forwarded it to everybody all the commissioners the email that I received from Um And from what I'm understanding and this is I'm going to read that sentence that I Took to mean That you know, we could continue We could at least request Is she writes I would suggest when the commission requests to bpd to view the video That the request be accompanied by the rationale for the request to review and how it relates to a commission priority At least until the commission gets a policy in place that can address this So that's the one I underlined And That's up to commissioner cox if she wants to talk to Anthony or not I was going to take that sentence to heart and write a rationale Based on the priorities of the commission And that would be kind of you know I would go back to some of the documents and I think commissioner cox you are saying that's what you want to explore I believe that that we should ask haley to clarify what she's saying because I know that For example a priority of the commission has been to see all of the use of force videos And I don't think that that's sufficient cause to ask to see all of them And so I think that that isn't what she meant. I think that what she meant was That it needs to be something for a cause at this point until we resolve the other issue of not for cause viewing Anyone else has any questions? No, I I took the time to read every single ufo today. So I do not have any Concern with any of them or cause but if another commissioner does I'd be willing to review the body cam for the record So is commissioner oski asking that we have to um We should come up with some kind of a process today or we can further ask Haley mclanahan for clarification Is that kind of what you are hoping? I would I think it would be helpful if we had a shared understanding of what the process is to request The use of force videos And it could be simple that you know, here are the reminder of what our commission's priorities are and uh, you have to Say which video you want to say and you want to see and what the Rationel is and how it relates to the commission's priorities and I don't I would it would be great if we didn't have to involve attorney time In doing that, I guess if we were denied A use of force video that maybe then we'd want to engage with our attorney, but That's expensive time for reviewing this stuff Okay, and it sounds like you have a few videos that you would be That you do want to see and so do I actually so I think we at least between the two of us we have a couple of And I don't know if anybody else has any other videos that they wish to see If so you can just forward them to me and commissioner cox and then we'll we'll we'll proceed from there 6.2 is officer and staff commendations to be read by commissioner cox You just have a few So and let me ask you a chief Uh, I have like a on on something that Uh Sarah Hernandez Tim sent me she mentioned a an Aaron Bartle And then on something that was a written commendation received from a member of the public They mentioned Uh in connection with something that seemed to be a victim advocate As being officer Bartlett Is that two different people or are they both? Yes, they are two different people. Aaron Bartle is our domestic violence prevention officer or dvpo Annalise Bartlett is a patrol officer. Oh, okay, perfect. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure they're so close. Okay so the first one is I'm an accommodation a group of female college students came to bpd To support their friend who is being harassed Officer Bartlett was able to strike the perfect balance of being professional concerned knowledgeable and relatable I imagine was difficult for the victim to come to a police department Considering the personal nature of this complaint However, the victim left the department feeling supported and empowered all because of how officer Bartlett approached the situation The next one is a thank you Wanted to reach out and express my deep appreciation for the opportunity to participate in a ride along friday I had the chance to meet a few of the officers And can truly say each and every one of them were kind and Clearly incredibly dedicated and proud of the work they do for our city Specifically, I was immensely impressed with the work of officer. Yay I spent much of the day with him and it was clear he exemplifies good policing If every community had police officers like officer. Yay, we'd be much better off The next one is combination I meant to do this sooner, but I wanted to pass along my personal thanks For all the department officers did to help make the event possible that the excerpt that Shannon sent along didn't say which event this was or what the date of this note was but One of the major events the police helped out Um so And especially to those officers who were present from set up at zero 600 hours Through to the end at 17 30 hours as which is 5 30 in the evening as the fencing Fencing vendor for the race of some some race So it might have been the marathon unknown Yeah, I'm not it was the marathon was quite some time ago. Although this may have come in later It perhaps it was the criterion. My guess is it was probably the bike race criterion, which was Recent enough that I think I used a photograph of it in the september report. Okay. So, uh, yeah So the cover um those officers provided gave me additional protection From vehicle and pedestrian traffic and better protected my equipment during set up and takedown Again, we recognize the effort and appreciate Those officers and the department support. Thank you Thank you The last one from the public is I want to thank the burlington police department every single person involved Was incredibly responsive and helpful. We are so grateful We know your system is taxed and I'm struck how different and dangerous burlington is now You are all so professional. I can't imagine doing your jobs in the world. We live in today Please pass on our gratitude to all involved So again, it didn't mention the incident, but I think a lot of people in the community feel the same way a lot of the time um, there's also two just quick things one is the um today we we received the BPD press release for the domestic violence awareness and prevention month And um, I had sent a note to sarah tim, uh, her nana's tim Saying that I really thought it was very well written It really moved me And so I thanked her for that and then she sent me a note back saying that she had worked on it with The domestic violence prevention officer erin barthel on drafting this I wanted to say thank you to both of them publicly that they did a really good job And it made me see that there is ways that all of us can do Just that one thing. Um, so hashtag one thing to um to help prevent Uh violence and and domestic violence um, the last thing I want to mention was um, I I guess this all happened during the two weeks that you were gone But as we know, there were events in the world that made certain places in our city Worthy of protection or special attention or special protection And so what I noticed is close to where I live, there's a um, uh, a place of A community center and a place of worship that that may have been vulnerable Given the worldwide events and there was a police cruiser there with an officer in it Just standing watch just sitting a standing watch and I I know from from my service in the coast guard That standing watch can be incredibly difficult because it's incredibly boring But at the same time you need to be on the alert and ready to do something in in what could be very dangerous situation or or need sudden Response and so it's very hard to stand watch like that and um, I just wanted to say this uh This really quick. They're saying a little saying that they have like for the maritime services um, that they say it's a poem that was written in 1860 by william whiting about um sailor standing the watch and so one Very quick little pair part of a paragraph said he stood the watch so that we our families and our fellow countrymen could sleep soundly in Safe in safety each and every night knowing that a sailor stood the watch and that's important for those sea going services, but I Seeing the officer there made me think so much that that's really how they made me feel by being there And I know that the the people that they were protecting in that In that community center place of worship that they felt the same way and I I did go over and talk to the Talk to the police officer in the car and thanked them personally But I just also wanted to say that I know that the community was thankful Thank you. Thank you very much for mentioning that um, you know, I sent out a communication to all of our officers around these issues because of the the absolute horrible things that are that that was the terrorist attack in israel and now the the great Terribleness of of the nascent war that's evolving from it I said that we have to treat all of our neighbors with compassion and do our best to assure all of them That we're here to provide safety for everyone But i'm particularly grateful to deputy chief lebrek for engaging with ojave zedek synagogue and chabad of vermont in my absence And at such an important time Thanks to to lieutenant win and officer johnson and others among you who stopped by or did posts at the synagogue or the chabad I'm also grateful to those who were at both the rally and support of palestine and the vigil for those Murdered or kidnapped in israel Both ojave zedek and chabad would probably appreciate a bit of extra patrol attention in the coming days And there is a bpoa contract available and as chief drake who is the the chief of police in uh, in nashville And I I had quoted him earlier in the email Around the the need to reach out to both parts of our community are all parts of our community But as chief drake mentioned you must keep our muslim neighbors in mind as well The main mosque or masjid in our area is the islamic society of vermont in south berlington So stopping by is not a routine part of patrol But when you encounter muslim neighbors, particularly those with ties to the middle east Recognize that this nascent war affects them as well. Thank you Thank you chief. Thank you commissioner cox Deputy chief wade lebrek is on zoom and has his hand raised Is he still there and has his hand raised and does he wish to speak to us? I don't see him. So i'm not sure Um, if he's there No, I accidentally Hit the No, that's fine. That's fine. We will ignore your, uh, hand okay, um There are some brief announcements and i'll these are the last few announcements. I'll try to keep them brief. This is Agenda item 6.3 Um after mohammed ibrahim left we have had limited staff support even though Keaton knows has been very helpful Um, we in fact, this is their last meeting. Am I correct keaton? This is your last meeting in time with us Um We have been assigned no more than two to three hours per week of staff to do all of commission work And so this is a public notification to the commissioners the police department and the public That the commission's work must adjust to the limited support staff for the time being And sometimes information and responses might be slow to come And decisions might get delayed. However, we are working with the mayor's office To see if we can find support staff somewhere else and the news the preliminary news has been encouraging There will be no november meeting of the police commission. We will reconvene for our december 2023 meeting Commissioner cox and I sent a letter you may remember in august to the burlington police union requesting That they reconsider their decision and release all use of force body worn camera footage to the commission In compliance with what the city council and the mayor had authorized The the letter is still Available in the on the civic clerk site. We have not received our response And I think well my plan is that we can discuss if we don't hear from bpoa By our december meeting that we can discuss with the city attorney's office on how to proceed on that On the matter at that time Commissioner oski has her hand up Um, we we I did draft a policy that we could discuss right. I have that next Okay, a subcommittee comprised of commissioner oski and commission attorney anthony arrapino was tasked in the august meeting of revising the body worn camera footage Release policy of the commission Commissioner oski has shared with us a rough draft of the policy And I have forwarded a copy to chief mirad for bpd's input as well commissioner oski. Do you have any additional thoughts comments Not at this time. I I want to wait to get input from the bpd and from Attorney arrapino And then we can discuss it at the next meeting. I don't know if all commissioners have received a copy of it yet either You have everybody should have So um, so can we decide that we will wait to hear back from anthony arrapino and chief? You have a copy of that as well. So I do. Thank you so much for sharing that And uh, shannon and I have reviewed it and are discussing it with jared pelrin perfect Um, and we also have a subcommittee comprised of commissioner cox commissioner keith and commission attorney anthony arrapino Who are working to revise the policy document titled role of berlington police commission in reviewing complaints against bpd employees And at this point, you don't have do you have any updates or any thoughts commissioner keith thoughts? my thought is it it I think it would be a better approach to wait for the ordinance committee And then it would be tailored to Whatever they draft and that would then need to be very closely coordinated with uh, berlington police department because It really would have to be sort of dovetailed with any revisions to dd 40, which is the internal investigations Process I do Following on the presentation today feel however We could make progress in discussions with city attorney and the commission's independent council About animizing complaints and having more transparency in our work on the complaints process So I think that could uh be something that I think we maybe could move forward with While the ordinance is being drafted okay Commissioner cox, do you have anything else to add? okay Um, shannon tremel has am I saying her last name correctly tremel tremel. Yes tremel tremel tremel shannon tremel has Updated the bpd complaint form and circulated a copy. I don't know if any all of you have received the updated copy I will send you a e copy I have personally gone ahead and made 30 hard copies and planned to drop them off at migrant justice peace and justice center burlington electric parks and recreation and burlington high school and hopefully I don't know ketan if you're still around for the next week I was hoping to get some help With circulating them here in different departments of the city hall just kind of drop it off of the mayor's office some hard copies Okay, uh, and that concludes our meeting The last agenda item on the agenda is a Motion to adjourn any seconds All right all in favor of say aye The meeting is adjourned and I'll be in touch for a special meeting on the executive session. Thank you everyone Thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you