 It was important for me, and it's timely, particularly seeing some of the reports that came out from sled this week to talk about crime across our great state, to use this as an opportunity to really introduce some of you to the amazing work and leadership that's been happening here in the City of Columbia on the leadership of Chief Holbrook, Deputy Chief Kelly and this amazing command staff that we have behind us. The City Manager Wilson recently, I was invited, many of you may remember I did an interview host of the forum with the Washington Post earlier this year with another mayor who also had a long force of background talking about the incredible rise in violent crime we saw in policy America during the course of the pandemic. As we walked our way through the panel, someone came up, why exactly are we here? Why was Columbia invited? The quick response was that the host had engaged and the Washington Post had engaged with the police executive research forum on the leadership of Chuck Wexler and asked which cities in the country saw an actual decrease in murders and violent crime over the course of 1920 and Columbia was at the top of the list. It's so important to take opportunities to push back against a narrative. We saw violent crime and murders go down over the course of the pandemic in our city. And I will tell you it's because of the men and women behind me, the leadership, good old fashioned police and combined with using technology as a force multiplier to try and dial in on the most challenging aspects of our community. This year gun murders are down in Columbia 31 percent, 31 percent. Again, pushing back against the odds, this wonderful police department continues to leverage modern day technology combined with data driven intelligence to reduce and prevent crime and particularly our focus is on violent crime in Columbia. So the day we wanted to spend some time opening up the doors, getting behind the curtains for the people, the reality is that this place, this building, this technology and all that we do here, this is the people's business. It's important that we open up to each and every one of you the Cities Emergency Operations Center, which also hosts our real time crime center. The we moved in here in October of 2020. And again, traditionally the EOC has been utilized as an all hands on deck approach for full scale emergency operations in the city. I'm sure I know Chief Director Tinsley gets his fill of us when we have floods and natural disasters and even sometimes protests. The goal next goes to transform EOC into a full time 24 hour real time crime center. Chief will talk a lot about camera upgrades and how we continue to consolidate resources into one prime location. Many of you know that the Metro Region's headquarters is upstairs here as well. Lots of amazing things happening in this space. I'm going to leave it to the professionals to walk us through some of the details and then we're going to be able to take some of your questions. Our goal is, and I will say it's tough sometimes to push back against the narrative. All you can do is present with facts. The reality is that the facts show that not only are violent crimes down, but obviously gun homicides are down in this city and it's not by accident. It's because of leadership. It's because of the fact that over the last several years we've increased the police department's budget by 80 percent. We continue to invest in 21st century policing here in this city. In addition to the cross and tease and dog devise and the hard work that these men and women do, they have committed themselves to a true commitment of inclusion and building the strong ties that bind with neighborhoods and communities, particularly those in which trust has not existed over the years. And I'm proud of these men and women. We get so busy sometimes it was important to me to come here and let them know how proud of the work that they do on behalf of each and every one of the people who live here in our great city. I'm going to yield a microphone to our chief, Skip Holbrook. Say some words and then we'll come back and we'll fill some questions together. We really want to thank, of course, Ms. Wilson's here with her amazing team that helps us do the great work we do on behalf of the people of Columbia every single day. Chief. Thank you, Mayor. So we're very excited about this technology that Ms. Wilson and our council have invested in. Before I began, I really have to acknowledge kind of how we got to where we are and really started back in 2015 after the flood. Ms. Wilson realized a need for an expanded role of emergency management. She selected Harry Tinsley from the fire department to lead that endeavor. And really, this is his vision and where we stand today is at his hands. And I think it's been instrumental as we've moved through very critical events post 2015. It has, you know, we've seen its weight in gold. So a few years ago, we also recognized a need within the police department to invest and concentrate more on emergency management and preparation for critical incidents. We hire Johnny Sellers. He's an inspector. He's a previous life use provost, Marshall at before Jackson. And he and Captain Earl Marsh were just hand and glove, really, to raise a bar on our emergency preparedness. And then as we arrive today, Inspector Sellers is going to lead our efforts with our real time crime center, which again is really us being an extension of our frontline officers, having our finger on the pulse of our technology and how that impacts day to day operations. Of course, this emergency operations center is for crisis, natural disaster, serious incidents, and it's ready to spin up at any moment. But we know that, you know, we're not in that crisis emergency mode every single day, but we are in a police response operational mode every day. And that's what this center represents. Um, I really like to just direct your attention to the to the board behind us. So what this represents is, you know, we currently have 600 plus cameras in the city. We invested about $8 million over the next five years. We're looking at about two over $2 million this this upcoming year as we take our camera capabilities really to the next level. We're adding 200 cameras. We're going to be transitioning away from some of the older technology. These 200 cameras will provide us greater real time connectivity. So what you're seeing here is some examples of of our cameras. We have facilities covered. We have key areas in the city. We're putting in layers of license plate readers and some of our choke points within the city where she have shot spotter technology. Um, our Alistar situational awareness platform that map of the city that you see right there. Right now you're looking at several layers. You're looking at police, fire, some cameras and sheriff's department. And this is our leadership and operational picture of what's going on fit by minute. You know, the mayor mentioned um, some of the crime statistics and we um, we know we've got a violent crime problem and we've we've had a violent crime problem for over a decade. Um, you know, we um, we are making progress. I think how we're leveraging technology is um, is what's allowing us to see some gains that really holding holding the line in a time where we're seeing unprecedented violence throughout the state and nationally. We're seeing, you know, 50% increase in the last five years statewide. Um, you know, we see articles after articles of cities large and small throughout the country that are experiencing unprecedented violent crime. So um, we do have a gun problem. We've never, um, you know, tiptoed around that subject. I'm encouraged by our gun murders being down, but I'm not encouraged by our non fatal hits. They're up and I want to show you a quick example of what our technology brings us in terms of evidence recovery and um, and review of an incident. Pull up on this, uh, about a 30 second video. It's a good example of some of the violence that we're dealing with on an everyday basis. As you can see, that's that's like something you see in a movie. Um, it's concerning this for for a variety of reasons, but, um, you know, you saw innocent people standing by, you saw just complete disregard for, um, the sanctity of life. You know, those rounds that didn't impact a person, um, they they landed somewhere property. Um, we have a lot of property damage. So we've got to keep our foot on the gas pedal when it comes to about prime reduction. Um, our prime, um, our shot spotter technology is, is at the forefront of that. We increased, um, at an additional square mile last year. Um, this represents the last seven days. Um, we've talked about this individually with many of you all that, um, this is, um, this is directly connected to our every officer. They get it within 45 seconds of the gunfire and they respond immediately to it. Um, so give an example of what it looks like when they get it, it pulls up and gives them a picture of where it occurred. It gives them a radius that they can strategize on what their approach to maybe intercept. Um, somebody that's responsible for the shooting and then they can review the audio if they choose to see it shows the movement around. We can we can distinguish between one or multiple shooters. Again, it gives them situational awareness as a response, but, um, I would also contend that it makes them much safer. They have a greater awareness when they arrive on the scenes. Again, that's that's seven square miles. We also are, um, participated in a project with shot spotter. Um, it's a predictive policing project and we identify our hotspots and creative box, essentially, and, uh, and we put officers in those boxes for particular times and we're, you know, we're in the process of monitoring the impact of that presence in that box where we know statistically it's very likely that a prime prime will occur. As I mentioned, the LPR is a licensed plate readers that again that'll be a force multiplier and it has a wide range of search capability and we'll be able to not only be able to see what vehicles maybe wanted in other jurisdictions, but we'll also be able to put vehicles of interest that we lean from our camera systems and for instance like this into the system. And again, it ups the likelihood of us being able to intercept the perpetrator and it also keeps our officers safer. We've seized, as a result of this technology and the work of our officers, we've seized over 700 guns so far this year and again we've got a few more months to go. So with all that said, we are extremely excited about this real-time crime center. We think it's gonna be very impactful on our efforts to reduce violent crime. I cannot say enough about the investment that Ms. Wilson has put into the police department and these efforts and the support of the mayor leading in charge with counsel to make sure we have the best tools and the best technology that's available to help us do our job.