 seminar on policing and mental health. My name is Madeline Mottar and I'm with the League of Women Voters and I'm your moderator for tonight. And so our format will be each speaker will talk about their background and experience and then respond to a general question and then specific questions will be asked of each speaker later. The last 20 minutes of the seminar listener questions will be answered. So why don't we get started without further delay? I want to introduce our three speakers tonight. Kareem Chapman is the Executive Director of Vermont Psychiatric Survivors, an independent statewide organization run by and for psychiatric survivors. Their mission is to provide advocacy and mutual support that seeks to end psychiatric coercion, oppression and discrimination. Founded in 1983, the organization offers patient representation in Vermont psychiatric hospitals and residential facilities and sponsors peer-led support groups among many other programs that we'll hear about tonight. Welcome Kareem. Welcome. And our other speakers are well is A.J. Ruben. He's a supervising attorney at Disability Rights Vermont for the past 18 years. Disability Rights Vermont is a private non-profit organization and designated as Vermont's national protection and advocacy system. Their mission is promote the equality, dignity and self-determination of people with disabilities. They have many important initiatives that we'll be hearing about tonight. Welcome A.J. Next is Brian Peake. He's the newly sworn Chief of Police in Mount Piliar, where he leads a staff of 27, which includes officers, regional emergency dispatch personnel and administrators in service of a daytime city population of over 20,000. Previously, he served as the Chief for the Alamo Gordo Police Department in New Mexico. And I'm hoping he's going to talk about his work in New Mexico on establishing a crisis intervention team training program. Thank you Chief Peake for being here. I know you're probably a busy guy right now. Thanks very much. So let's get started. The first here from Kareem Chapman from Vermont Psychiatric Survivors. Kareem, could you please tell us about your professional background and what has been your experience with police interventions with people experiencing a mental health crisis? Absolutely. Well, I want to first say thank you for this great opportunity to share a little bit of me to your group. And you guys have been doing some great work out there. My connection to this work and what I do as a young man, my father was killed by police while I was on my way to meet him with a mistaken identity. That made me a very angry kid and I began to make a lot of bad choices. And the system in New York thought the best way to handle that was to medicate me and to give me the miracle pill, so to speak, to make things go away. Well, that didn't work. I pretty much gotten into more trouble with making more mistakes in my life. But the speed forward, I was eventually able to get together with mentors and peers and some great family support. And I began to rebuild the community that I once destroyed. I started my own nonprofit. I ran the first gun violence program in Harlem, New York that was funded by the mayor. And I also began to work with women who were misplaced, young people were misplaced. I did a lot of work with police officers, organizations around the whole state really. In the speed up ahead to today, like she said, I'm currently the new executive director for VPS. And I've been doing this work for about six months for the job. Before that, I worked of a government to health for about two years while with their first peer specialist. And I actually created that program and it went well that we were able to help people to not go back into the hospitals. My interaction with police has been some good ones and some bad ones. I will say that I do have friends with police. And I can also say that there's a lot of work to be done as it pertains to police relations with people in the community. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Karim. Next let's hear from AJ Rubin from Disability Rights Vermont. Could you talk about your professional background and what has been your experience with or understanding of concerns about police interventions with people experiencing a mental health crisis in Vermont? I will thank you again. As Karim said, thank you so much for the work that legal women voters do and thank you for all the people who are watching us tonight and for your interest. And my background is I went to law school here in Vermont. My first job was I was the lawyer for the Abenaki Indian nation of Mrs. Koi for St. Francis. So it's always important to start these things with a recognition of the land. You know, we're in a place in the world right now where we're talking about truth and reconciliation moving forward with accountability. And so it's always important to remember sort of the first issue here, which is the indigenous people. Then I was a public defender in Rutland for nine years and for the last 18 I've been here working at Disability Rights Vermont and we do a lot of work with police. And you know, again, because of the time we're at, I gotta just say to Chief Pete, who I'm meeting for the first time tonight, you know, thank you and the goddess bless you and all the police who are actually protecting us from people who would do us harm. And that's an important thing to acknowledge that police are crucial to stop people from hurting other people. And that's what's going on right now. And in Montpelier this week and next week there's a lot of fear. And my prayers go out to Chief Pete and all the other officers who are going to be involved in protecting us over the next week. At the same time it's important to note that at the same time it's important to note that what we saw at the Capitol Building this week was some law enforcement officers doing harm to the people and democracy. And it was a real wake-up call for white folks that, you know, sometimes the police will be against you even though they're sworn to serve. And you know, that's something that people from disenfranchised communities, black, you know, BIPOC people and people with disabilities, they know that from a long history of being on the wrong end of the police baton. But we really saw that and it just underscores the importance of policing and the importance of police that are faithful to the society they're supposed to protect and don't have an agenda that is oppressive. The last thing I want to say before we move on is that I have a real fondness for the idea of universal precautions and that when we talk about policing and people with mental health conditions what we really want to be focusing on is universal precautions so that it's not putting people in boxes and having different practices for every box but universally making sure that the system works for all people no matter who's coming to the door. And the same way that curb cuts for people who use wheelchairs are, you know, are helpful to the rest of us when we're walking around downtown Montpelier if we're pushing something, you know, with wheels and baby strollers and everything, it helps us. The same thing goes for policing. If we use universal precautions so the police don't use unnecessary force against people with disabilities this will help all people and raise our civilization, our community together. So it's not really about putting people in boxes it's about universal precautions to make sure everyone is equally served and protected in our society and I really look forward to the conversation. Thank you for your time. Well I really like that idea of universal precautions. I hope you elaborate more on that later in the show. So I want to thank you AJ. And our next speaker is Chief Heate and if you could talk about your professional background and what has been your experience with or your understanding of concerns about police interventions with people experiencing a mental health crisis. Good evening everybody. It's really a privilege and an honor to be here with everyone today. Briefly about my background. I started off as a commissioned officer in the Air Force as an aircraft maintenance and then after 9-11 I was cross-trained into the office of special investigations which is the Air Force's version of the FBI and the NCIS. So as a special agent I was the assistant detachment commander and Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. I deployed to Afghanistan for operation and during freedom. Came back, did some more time at Nellis and then went to Langley Air Force Base as the regional manager for operations enhancement for the second field investigations. Regions would include the Middle East other areas in Southwest Asia, South America, continental United States. So our charge there was to make sure that we to oversee criminal and counterintelligence counterterrorism investigations and operations. After leaving the Air Force I joined the Chicago Police Department. I worked on the west side of the city Chicago and then I also served as a field training officer and then in the Fusion Center for the department. I did that for roughly 10 years, married late, became a father at a later age and then when my daughter was born I left the police department looking to relocate and I joined J.P. Morgan Chase to work in anti-money laundering and know-your-client operations. I did that for roughly a year then transitioned over to the city of Chicago Inspector General's office as a chief investigator and then when the DOJ Consent Decree came down for the Chicago Police Department I became the Chief Forensic Audit Investigator responsible for police accountability. After doing that for roughly a year I then transitioned over to as the Chief of Police in Alamogordo, New Mexico and worked there for roughly a year and a half and then came here to Montpelier where I'm currently working now. So you know as I understand this CIT and working with folks of mental who are dealing with mental health crisis is extremely important to me. My master's degree is in counseling psychology or in police psychology and I've got significant training in education and counseling psychology as well so to me I look at it as forging community partnerships and making sure that law enforcement mental health professionals addiction professionals peers and their families have the resources they need to meet crises that they may that they experience and how do we keep folks from rotating into the criminal justice system and instead to getting the help that they and their families need. Okay wow that's a lot. Thanks very much Chief. We'll get back to that forging community partnerships I think. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to ask some specific questions of each panelist that the League of Women Voters have put together and so why don't we start with you Kareem. Can you tell us what the Governor's Police Reform Council is and how you're involved with that? So I'm the newest one of the newest members to the Council. We've had our first meeting last week as an introductory. So I mean pretty much it's it's some brilliant minds law enforcement community people various organizations some elected officials and we pretty much are just trying to figure it out. It's a rough time right now and the community wants to make sure the police are being not only trained properly but are sensitive to what's happening around around the country. So again I'm very new. It's very exciting for me. I really believe in the mental health training when it comes to police I think it's very important to understand what's happened with people mentally and having some empathy and sympathy towards the people they serve. So again this is all new for me but it's a great opportunity. I'm looking forward really to making my imprint on the Council. So is it mostly about putting together trainings or? It's trainings, hirings, it's revising how they're trained and the diversity in hiring you know the the ratio between black officers versus white officers you know the term their terms you know where they go from here. So in the in the connection with the community is a really strong part that we're looking at for training. I imagine you're gonna get into I know in Burlington they were putting together they're still going to do it I think more of a community oversight board. Is that are you folks talking about will you be talking about different oversight models? Yes yes there are a few committees already that are directly going to be geared towards community input you know what if the community asking for what do we want to see again at the potatoes to train things and how people are hired and really police brutality you know there are a lot of cases happening right now where it's unexplained you know there's no positive feedback of how people are being treated. So again there is definitely a big component with the community. Absolutely. That sounds great. So could you just talk a little bit about what the role of peer support is within a you know within a crisis intervention model? Oh yes yes you know peer support has been proven around the world to work. Peer support if people don't know are people with lived experience people like myself who've experienced having traumas or challenging times in their life and learned and lived and dealt with it you know and really going against a system that has been oppressing people with these stigmas attached to their names. So the peer support specialists or the person or even the organization is really focused on the connection and relationship that we have with folks. A lot of times people don't want to talk to the clinical staff and to the hospitals and the therapists. Sometimes they just want to talk to somebody who can just relate to their story you know and that's the power and impact that a peer support person has. Now there's a lot of controversy around this topic you know a lot of the clinical field feel that peer support people may not be qualified. And again we're not looking to diagnose or play a clinical role with people. We just want to say listen we understand what you're going through. I've been here as well and that's the impact. But policing in peer support is a very sensitive subject and I think we'll get there later on in the conversation. But everybody plays a role. The peer person plays a role. The clinical person also plays a role and the officer also plays a role. So how do we find the balance? How do we how do we figure out where the balance lies and where everybody's input is valid? Okay I was wondering so I read about that the trainings you do they're called intentional peer support training and I'm wondering if that's the kind of same training that's being done in other states. Is there a standard that's used or do yeah just talk a little bit. Right so just to be clear VPS does not we don't do the training we actually participate in the trainings. I went through it myself the Copeland Center handles that. But yes but I will say I went through that training and it was it was really good to hear from other people who are survivors. People who have made it through you know and hear their stories and to really focus on how important it is to understand who you are the person. You know whether you're a peer person a clinical person or even an officer who are you what about you connects you to helping and supporting people because when you lose that you lose the work you lose the magic and that's where everything breaks down. Yeah yeah that makes sense. So I also read something about peer support workers there's a a moving or a trend to get them certified. What do you know are there are they certified in Vermont or is there any interest in getting certification for specialists of peer support specialists or peer support workers. Right so that is a great question. There are there are many organizations right now who are trying to develop that path to be certified. I mean you know I hate to say it but you know Vermont has not caught up to speed with other states as it pertains to peer support. You know there's not that much funding and peer support in the groups that are doing it you know we're doing the best we can but the the the support and the funding is really not there. But yes there are many organizations you know I see Kenneth there you know I you know we have pathways you know we have different groups who are talking about how we can figure out how to get to that you know so I'm also a part of that group and the question is do we need to be certified? Yeah to say that we're relevant you know that doesn't matter and that's part of the issue that peer people are not being looked at as relevant. Okay and that's a problem you know because I know the effect that I have when I sit on somebody's couch and I let them know I understand what you're going through because I've been there and again the state is getting there but they haven't arrived just right. Okay yeah I was wondering I was just curious about that some part of it it's tied to funding isn't it tied to? Absolutely it's not a lot it's not a lot of funding you know many many peer organizations you know some are bigger some are smaller but we we are all fighting the same fight just trying to be recognized and you know what even my staff at VPS you know we're a small staff doing a lot of work you know we covered the the whole entire state you know and it's under 10 people of my staff but we do what we can you know and we wake up every day looking to fix especially right now and it's very very rough challenging time during COVID it's really hard to connect with people so we've come up with creative ways you know we've created a phone program we actually have given tablets and iPads and to all the hospitals that we serve so we can be connected you know just be creative so yeah the funding is not there but you know we're fighting the good fight hopefully that things will change in the near future. Okay very good well thanks a lot Karina really clarified some things for you know that I've been thinking about thank you. Thank you. So AJ I wanted to have some questions about for disability rights Vermont so they do such great work in advocating and educating the public on what's happening or not happening in Vermont for people with disabilities so I'm just going to ask you a general question what what are your main concerns regarding policing when it involves people with disabilities right in Vermont. Yes of course well thank thanks again for the opportunity we also litigate I put in the chat box sort of a a list of the things that disability rights Vermont does and and we do have a broad waterfront that we cover but I also in the in the chat were some links to some documents that are relevant one is to a report we did many years ago about the use of a tazer on a young on a young boy in his bathroom in his underwear by state police that resulted in a change of policy and I've also put a link in there to one of the new tazer reports that is required to be filed by any police officer who draws a tazer even if they don't use it and what's relevant and what's relevant about that and and sort of how it fits in with my concerns about policing and people disabilities is you know basically people with disabilities like most disenfranchised communities have a bad experience with policing police often hurt our our constituents and our our friends and ourselves with disabilities and historically they've done that so sort of cut to the chase my biggest concern about policing and people with disabilities is that police interact with people with disabilities when there's no need for police to interact with people with disabilities in my opinion police are really good at preventing and investigating crimes and and and we need them to do that but I have seen over the last 25 or 30 years of practicing law in vermont that many times police interact with people with mental health disabilities when there isn't really a crime occurring or the crime that's occurring is so low level that it really would be better responded to in a therapeutic way and so my biggest concern is that there's too much interaction with police and people who are not committing crimes and those people are often people with disabilities and so we should we should work there people when police do interact with people with disabilities the law requires that they use reasonable accommodations reasonable accommodation so it has to be reasonable but and so we're still working on on all those issues but I know our concerns that people with disabilities get get killed they get traumatized they get into coercive situations like being taken to jail or to the emergency department against their will all unnecessarily because police are our main line of response and I think we should be moving towards a society where when you call for help you you don't get a police officer you get you get a person or a group that's really trained appropriately to to work with non-criminal situations so we're working towards we're working towards that I think that's answered your question yeah it does but are there times when police involvement is critical and appropriate can you give an example right I mean so at the Capitol Building this week or last week in DC the police were necessary right when a person is being beaten you know and don't forget that people with disabilities are are more likely to be victims of crime than people without disabilities and so we need police to stop our people from being hurt and so out there definitely necessary we like the police pulling over drunk drivers we really need them to stop people from hurting other people what we don't need police to do is to respond to emotional behavioral disturbances community problems poverty issues mental health issues excuse the dogs those kinds of things so I'm a big fan of police and and I certainly want them to protect me when I need them but I but I think there's a limit to what they should be doing and I think we asked them to do too much I'd be interested to hear from Chief Pete you know what percentage of his calls from the Montpelier Police Department or from from New Mexico what percentage of those calls were really you know bad guys and bad girl calls you know guns and abusive and what percent were not and and I think that's where there's a lot of room for improvement okay great okay and do you have any recommendations regarding training of officers has it relates to disability rights so yeah we we could talk about that for hours I I've been very fortunate to have been working with the Vermont criminal justice training council for many years years ago we many people on this call also work with them to create what's called the act 80 training which is police interacting with people with mental health conditions we went through a long process to develop that training we did surveys of consumers and families and law enforcement and you know what I've learned from that experience is that police have to be trained in things like empathy and civil rights history like the police have to be trained in the history of oppression of people with disabilities you know that and they have to be trained in how to contact the right community services to help support the person who's who's needing support those are all and they need to be trained in the culture of people with disabilities people I think officers should volunteer uh with with organizations of people with disabilities green mountain self advocates Vermont psychiatric survivors you know spend time with folks with these disabilities um and learn their culture so they're not so foreign so all those things are really important but I don't think it's appropriate to ask police officers to be mental health workers or even social workers because the coercion of a police officer is is not is not conducive to a therapeutic or a you know an uplifting relationship if you're in crisis and so we can train the police a lot and and the things I've just talked about are important training but mostly we need to train them to know when to say you know what this isn't something for me this is something for that group who's better trained and and more appropriate and of course as a community we have to have that capacity so that when the officer says this really isn't a crime this is really a social problem we have the capacity to respond and we really need that capacity a lot more so that's all stopped there well I guess I was thinking of also uh I have an FB who has a learning um disability and freezes when uh he gets approached by authority um he's dying to learn how to drive and um my fear is that you know he gets stopped for whatever reason he's going to freeze he's not going to be able to communicate and um he's a big kid and that would be perceived as being belligerent or you know miss there'd be a miscommunication there between an officer and and my nephew and uh may do something inappropriate like reach for something you know and we've had the talk with him he's Hispanic but um the onus I believe you know and I've talked to Karim about this it's really on the police officer you're not you don't want the police officer to be um the clinical social worker psychiatric social worker but at least recognize okay we've got uh uh something going on here you know that uh the child or the the adolescents having trouble responding you know the instead of like all right you're not saying you know get out of the car or whatever and so I think their training is you know at least some disability training is definitely important you know in terms of recognition of there's so many so many learning um disabilities and things out there in my I worry I worry for my nephew I really do so well you know I know that when I get pulled over by the police and I'm so cold sober and I don't have a significant mental illness or developmental disability I freak out right my I and I'm nervous and and I'm not doing anything wrong so it is it is very scary a good place to look for this training is the new use of force policy that I try to provide to folks I think you can get on the state police website there's a new draft and we've we sent some comments about that sort of the ACLU um that new use of force policy might be a really good tool to improve to protect against that fear of police brutality for people with disabilities because it's going to we're hoping it's going to require police to really consider disability before they use force um right now the policy asserts that the law does not require special treatment of people with disabilities when they're being arrested and we've pushed back on that in our comments asserting that clearly the law does require that as long as it's reasonable um and with the new um the objective reasonable force as opposed to just sort of the office there's a change in the law that just happened um that I'm sure uh chief Pete might be able to talk even more about that that should have a big impact on decreasing the use of force against all people universal precautions but especially against um just in franchise populations well yeah I think that's a great example of a universal precaution right there is is that would be that change yeah definitely well great thanks a lot hey Jay I appreciate this um so chief Pete um I understand you were recently appointed to the board of directors with the crisis intervention team international I want to congratulate you on that thank you um and so far listeners we have provided a link in the chat for the CIT international guide to best practices in mental health crisis response if you want to check it out it's in the it's in the chat uh and there are a lot of models there that are being used across the United States for um for crisis response and crisis um intervention so uh chief Pete what I I guess my first question is what are the guiding principles when it comes to developing a crisis intervention team programming in a community uh well the guiding principles would just pretty much be to um to stand up um to have a CIT strategic advisory committee to stand up a program group that will bring together all stakeholders which include police mental health professionals as I previously mentioned peers members of their family um legislators everyone to come in to to create a model that will meet the unique and the specific needs of a given community or a given state and then to then then from their guide responses again in the interest of safety to the peer but is the whoever's experiencing the mental health crisis but uh safety to the officers as well with the intent of guidance towards resources and guidance away from a criminal justice system so it's been long realized within um law enforcement circles that as funding and budgets are cut um and fewer and fewer resources become available especially in social services those tasks by default tend to fall to law enforcement and and I agree with a lot of it and a lot of us within the profession also agree that it's not the the place for us to be um so I don't think there's a significant amount of pushback in law enforcement to look at other models and how we can respond to that but but we do need to be trained and we do need to have an awareness and understanding of what mental health crisis is and what we're looking at if we experience it because in reality if there if someone's going through a mental health crisis um and say even if there with there have been times that I've gotten calls that that that particular person is getting treatment is is what their respective social workers psychologists or psychiatrists they're calling us if there's a significant event and and and our responsibility we need to understand and know what the crisis is what it looks like and how to de-escalate it so so um uh yeah it's it's a it's a very intricate and complicated process but it takes it takes all of us to figure out a solution uh with the best intent for uh the the individual and the family who are dealing with the crisis so I I was thinking more like uh one of the that that's good that falls on my other question but I was thinking more of like general tenants like um reducing harm and in trauma during the intervention or um engaging a person in their own care I was thinking about that are you I think you're yes I'm sorry yeah it was having a little bit of technical difficulty so you're talking about just primarily the what what the principles and the best practices for CIT look like yeah like the principles behind your programming like reducing harm when the interact when you're doing an interaction the guiding principle being reducing harm and trauma during that interaction and yeah so yes so no no the guiding principles are ultimately the safety of the person in crisis and the officers and everyone who's involved that's how everything came to be and understanding like uh the CIT was based off the Memphis model which is the first um that related to a to an unfortunate tragic incident and when law enforcement responds to somebody in crisis so so the the goal is ultimately safety and doing that and to under to have that safety we need an understanding of knowing what it is what mental health crisis looks like knowing what the elements are knowing what knowing what um uh yeah just what it looks like in general okay so it sounds like the goals and the guiding principles are kind of uh or synergistic synergistic so um so one of the things I don't know if it came from where I saw this but they talked about transforming the crisis response system to minimize the time the number of times that law enforcement officers are the first responders to individuals in emotional distress does that I mean I read that I think it came from trying to think where it came from does that I I think I read it in in the CIT international guide to best practices but um do you do you agree with that I mean I think is that a goal that is consistent yeah I think that that there are several goals and again ultimately they to me the goals are are are depend on on on the desires and the unique needs of the given community that's going to implement a CIT program what those priorities and the focus agendas are I think that uh yeah yeah it is it's definitely that and and with that to me it would be getting folks the resources and access to the resources that are going to help them throughout the crisis uh to me you know for that response okay so can you talk about the components of a integrated crisis response system you know uh you know like you know what I'm talking about emergency for instance an emergency nine nine one one first contacting the crisis line for a mental health uh crisis and instead of the police can you talk about the components of a response yes so so those components would be looking at help lines looking at peer agency lines working with partnerships and and trying to have somewhat of a flowchart if you will entriaging those calls and making sure that you know criteria based dispatching to understand to ask as many questions as possible to know what we're dealing with and seeing if we can can utilize other resources other than law enforcement to handle the situation a huge part of this is also a public educational component because sometimes folks are still calling nine one one by default other times there may be an incident that you know it may be a call for for a particular disturbance of you know maybe a traffic accident or or anything of light that would normally seem quote unquote routine but upon arrival the officers may realize that there is a mental health component to the case so a lot of times it's uh it's it's it's it's not as easy to ascertain what type of call we're going to until we get there until we can assess the situation okay okay okay okay um so well since we're we've uh we've kind of arrived here so I guess um one of the things we're interested in is is that there you know there are a few crisis intervention models in use in different states right now um do you think one model is better than the other for instance um thinking about first on the scene peer support workers first on the scene versus our a team made up of a social worker and a in a a policeman on the scene or a mobile crisis service consisting of a team of mental health professionals on the scene is there a person yeah no I'm sorry personally what I advocated for when I was in Alabama Gordo was to have a mobile crisis response unit and that was that was uh it was a team of of mental health professionals and other relevant stakeholders to respond to calls that we we were pretty sure or that based on the call that came into dispatch we we believed had a mental health component to it um in those in those teams sometimes officers are embedded in those teams and those officers have a softer appearance that they're not coming in uniform they're not coming with lights flashing everything to that effect to potentially escalate the situation but they may be there in a safety component so if it's a if it's a call that that that they're meant that there is you know a consideration for safety for those who are going to respond that that embedded officer can can help maintain that safety but that person is also highly trained in ways not to escalate in ways to understand what the crisis looks like so personally that's my preference but I think ultimately it depends on the unique needs and the focus um and the priorities of any given community now um would they come that sounds an awful lot like the cahoots crisis assistance helping out on the streets model in Oregon but uh i'm not sure they have a embedded policeman there though but um do they come in a van or I think it depends on the resources it depends on the on the resources ultimately so cahoots is separate from the police department but they work in partnership and to me one of the one of the one of the interesting things about how cahoots got its name to my understanding is when they came into being and because they did have a working professional relationship with the police department there were a lot of people who advocated that you guys are in cahoots with the police department so one of the things that I as I understand the name is uh so it's almost so in some cases it's a darn if you do darn if you don't um but ultimately I think that that the focus is you know and I don't want to dissuade anyone's experiences um but I think the focus is everyone involved uh in giving the benefit of the doubt and my experiences and what I've been doing since I've been in CIT was with the ultimate goal of helping people and not doing any harm to the situation uh so so um we just have to make sure that we um that we find those mutual ways to to bring about these changes and to to bring this about as we move forward okay and uh just a little different question is that one of the league members was interested in was uh what is the best practice to ensure accountability regarding the consistent use of appropriate policing procedures that's a loaded question I know yeah I mean I I guess it depends on the specific incident of what we're dealing with um I think the accountability is there to me when we talk about things like police accountability we we talk about transparency and that the police and previous things especially now what we're seeing is uh is we need to do more to to to get the trust of the public to to to rebuild our legitimacy um and to re-immers ourselves within the community it starts with making sure that we're transparent in everything that we do that we put information out there maximum information minimum delay that that's the only way that we're going to gain that trust that we're going to get that trust back and uh and so as far as accountability is concerned we have to make sure that um that we're answerable to the public and uh and for those departments that aren't um well you know that that's the way of the dinosaur for anybody who has that ancient way of policing and thinking um so yeah when I joined the police department and and what motivated me to get to where I am now is to make sure that we're doing positive changes moving forward um I was I was not a police officer all my life I've experienced other things my family has experienced other things people that I know and love friends and family have experienced a lot of different things so I think to change any organization we uh we do it from the inside and every organization has its challenges um um so it it's not just particularly our our profession although we do have to answer to the sense of what we've done okay all right um I think that's that's what I that's all I have right now um well I guess the last question I have is do you know what direction the city of Mount Pylio will be moving in in terms of or what's being what's the model oh what's the approach right now is do you have a policeman that if somebody's in crisis are you know what what is the approach being used right now so currently the the city of Mount Pylio has team two training so there's mandatory statewide training and mental health um to understand to look at you know to like uh to understand just an immersion of what mental health looks like um and but there's also team two training which goes beyond that uh to me I don't think it's enough um if that team two training is an eight hour training me personally I'd like to bring in CIT I plan on bringing it to my department and I plan on trying to bring it uh as a statewide program as it itself so um that's um that's something I'm I'm looking forward to and hoping to and and the appetite for for for those suggestions uh within the law enforcement community it is pretty strong so I'm I'm I'm hoping for I'm very confident here within the next year or so definitely you will see it for the city of Mount Pylio but hopefully we can also introduce a citywide or statewide CIT program yeah that sounds good I'm you know I'm curious I'd be interested in seeing what I imagine there are videos out there of police training dealing with people with uh who are in crises or disabilities and I'm there are videos training videos right I mean I know I know that there are for judges having judges how not to judge how not to to get off the bench and and chase somebody out of the the the core room so there must be those kind of I I think that would be one step toward transparency to make those kind of training videos available for people to see what yeah and you make a good point judge I think that uh one one of the most powerful things um with CIT training CIT training is is 40 hours and uh and and one of the most powerful things that it is is uh is interaction with with peers it's interaction with their family members and and and it's actually uh personal conversations and horror stories if you will of how someone may have had a negative interaction with with police and what that did for them how that made them feel and what that did going forward for their family and and and those are extremely powerful very deep conversations and they and they re-emphasize humanity they re-emphasize that police officers are for the community they should be embedded in the communities that they're sworn to protect and and it really hits back home so uh it's a it's a very good training it's one of the best trainings I've had throughout my law enforcement career and uh and and yes ma'am it there are lead by examples uh with that with that training and lessons learned okay that sounds great okay thank you just thank you uh chief p so we're at um 10 of 8 we're moving right along here and I guess it's uh I'll take a few listener questions that are up on the chat and some are directed to certain people and some aren't but um I'll make a guess at who should answer them perhaps if you allow me that um so the first question I have in the chat that I see here is my understanding is that the Montpelier police department has a shared part-time mental health professional working with the department how does that job function and is that person available for consultation or being present when the department is engaged in an urgent or emergency situation with a person with mental illness absolutely it's a very very good question and uh so it's one of those things that we again with resources so we are in partnership with berry city and with um Washington county mental health services so we um so so that social worker is part time if you will she spent half of our time here and half of the other time in berry and that's due to restrictive budgeting um but um she is she is tremendous and and uh she she comes out she rides out with us uh we do proactive work here in Montpelier so if if we've dealt with someone who may have been experiencing mental health crisis or who may have issues uh she will go knock on a door and and she'll knock on the door and ask you know hey I know that you've had this problem or you might have some difficulties what type of resources and she'll speak and work with families uh she'll assist us on calls for service as well but we try to mainly and she connects them within resources and because she's embedded with Washington County mental health services she has a a plethora of of access to information to help people who are uh dealing with mental health crisis so it's it's it's been very good uh but I'm hoping that uh we we can we can up that a notch as we move forward okay and I think the question goes on how does this work when the department is on duty 24-7 but one part-time person clearly can't be it's it's difficult and it's not only that if even if we did have a 24-7 that's why I like the mobile crisis response model um but even if we didn't have we have to look at resources also for like say for example Washington County Mental Health Services because they're not a 24-7 operation for the most part so it's uh it's it's it again that boils back down to what happens at 11 o'clock or 2 o'clock in the morning when someone is experiencing a mental health crisis who has to respond to that particular situation so it's it's you know police need to be trained to understand what they're dealing with but we also have to look at the opportunities and the resources that are available to help us with this it's again this is something that that we want to make sure that we get it right this is something that we want to make sure we're helping and not hurting the situation okay where is that funding coming from is that from your budget or from mental health it comes out of our budget one third from us one third from Barry and then uh then some from Washington County Mental Health Services okay okay okay that's what I was wondering uh thank you yes another question from the email is what is the best role for peer support or counselors in responding to mental health crises where police are called in and this is for curing yeah so um so peer support should be everywhere for one um just to kind of talk into what uh Chief Pete was saying I think part of the issue is that it is too normal that people initially decide to call the police when it when it as it pertains to mental health subjects and issues I think that that the re-education to the community that peer support is another way an effective way of how people are being helped today right and peer support not only is it effective people are not used to it okay and it's been around for a very very long time you know it's it's it's controversy right now even about the funding and that the money didn't go to the peer organizations you know and that goes back to what I said earlier about the state has not caught up to speed to understand that peer support is a very effective tool to help people now I understand the police department and the clinicians have their roles and I totally get it but I we're definitely missing the mark and not looking at what peer support does okay so to answer your question peer support should be everywhere we should be funded properly we should not be no looking for crumbs to help people because you know what people are traumatized people don't want to go to the police for the most part people don't want to go to the hospitals people don't want to sit and speak the clinicians now this this is no no no shot or shame toward any professions what I'm saying is that the state is not paying attention to the work of the peer world right so I hope to answer the question but we should be everywhere okay we we should not be embedded in every police department you know they play a role we play a role okay so I hope to answer the question for the person that sent that out I'm sorry judge if I may quickly piggyback on that I agree with everything that he said peers are peers make the difference in any program in any program and they are they are they are fundamental and I argue that they are most effective then then even in a lot of cases the social worker or the person who's giving treatment so I agree a whole heartedly 100% with what Karim is saying right if I can just weigh in real briefly yeah we issued a report recently called wrongly confined you can see it on our website it'd be in the chat and it goes to the issue of Vermont has historically not funded community support sufficiently to prevent unnecessary coercive interactions and so when police do want to call in peer support or when people do want to call an alternative to the police those forces don't exist in most corners of Vermont most of the time and so our report wrongly confined is a call to our state government and policymakers to put a lot more money into peer supports community mental health supports housing jobs mentorships healthcare so that people are not so stressed out and they have other options than to wait to get to crisis and then call the police and you know what and I have to say to me it makes no sense that certain agencies have millions of dollars to do some work for people right and if there's so few that have a peer support program okay and I know of one in Rutland but throughout the whole state that these the hospitals are getting all this funding and people are revolving in and out of these hospitals not getting adequate help but you know what they get when they go in they make it a diagnosis they might get told you know you should go talk to somebody but there's nothing happening and you know what that person leaves they come in on Friday and they come back on Sunday and then they come back and I can let me tell you the system has so much way to go it's it's it's kind of sad I know there are there are a lot of some of our elected officials trying you know and I'm working with a lot of them but again we have a long way to go and you know until the state understands the power of peer support it's going to always be the same thing I agree I think this is a good entree into um AJ what you were you're talking we were you know emailing about with that report that recently came out the Armstead initiative could you just quickly talk about that what's happening on that end of on the institutional end of uh you know um mental health treatment and what happens once they do get moved from crisis to treatment well I just sort of echo what what Karim has said which is that a lot of people wind up being hospitalized for mental health problems unnecessarily because the community supports weren't there and then when they get moved out they they have really not develop the kind of relationships they need in the community to stay strong and and they have a revolving door so um there is a concern among advocates um and and um and lawyers in Vermont that the state of Vermont is is more focused on building locked facilities than they are in providing appropriate community supports peer supports and the things I talked about earlier that you can find in the report for instance um the the state is committed to trying to build another 25 inpatient hospital psychiatric beds uh in Berlin that that plan is off the table for the moment but that is in the long-term plan rather than really flood the field with um housing and peer supports and respite and employment supports um and and jobs um that would help alleviate the need for these coercive um events um similarly the state is is planning on spending six million dollars or so to build a six-bed locked facility for boys to replace website even though there really hasn't been a kid locked up like that for months and so the question is why are we building more very expensive locked facilities like psychiatric hospitals and secure facilities for for boys with emotional disturbance problems when all the evidence is that if we work with these folks upstream and we strengthen the community um that we can avoid a lot of these problems so there is a law that the judge talks about the old state law which is part of the ADA which says that states have a responsibility to provide services to people with disabilities in the least restrictive setting um there are a flurry of lawsuits around the country right now including two in New Hampshire that got filed this week against the state of New Hampshire for the state not organizing itself appropriately to prevent people from being put in jail because they were arrested or put in the hospital because they didn't have the right care um Vermont has similar problems and frankly is exposed to similar liability um because as you'll see in our report our government is known for years that we're not funding the community adequately and yet they haven't taken reasonable steps to to respond they do a little bit here and there but it's not enough and so our goal is to again use the right tool to address people's suffering and sometimes that tool is not a police officer with a gun sometimes it's a peer support worker with you know with a place to live a respite house and maybe an opportunity to get some job training or or you know become a peer coach themselves so you know there are times when there we need police to stop bad guys and bad gals and there are times when we need you know doctors to fix serious severe life-threatening medical problems but we're using those heavy-duty tools way too often to our detriment both in terms of blood and treasure I mean so that's sort of our our position and we're going to be working with the legislature to increase community supports and decrease locked facilities going forward oh that's that's excellent I know that when I read the reporters rather disturbing how people are stuck in psychiatric units because there's not enough resources for them that the way beyond you know they've got their treatment they're ready to go but there's no place for them to go so they're in a restricted lock setting for ridiculous amounts of time because there's no place for them they're not enough community resources for them not enough beds for them to to get back into the community and that was pretty that was pretty disturbing to read that so yeah so that's great I like the I like where Vermont Disabilities is going with with focusing on yeah advocating for more community resources and services that's great so another question we got here is um what is happening and what is going to happen to get serious collaboration between Washington County Mental Health and the Montpelier Police Department so we don't have another incident like the killing of Mark Johnson where was his Washington County Mental Health case manager during this crisis why were the police there but not the mental health crisis worker where was team two which was on the front page of the times august days before the killing um anybody they don't designate who they want to answer this um this was this before your time um chief Pete probably yes judge it was before my time but the only thing I could comment on is what I understand happened at the case um that this was an incident that occurred at night this was an incident occurred that when uh Washington County Mental Health's services is closed um other law enforcement agencies to come to come by to to potentially help us were closed um so it's it's it's it's it's a very tragic and sad situation and uh so I I think that what we you know I can't answer that question I honestly can't answer that question all I could say is that going forward um we have to do what we can um to make sure jointly um jointly and that the police can't be all the they can't be the catch all that that uh that the resources are out there to help families and people in the crisis the direct resources um and that we move forward responsibly and trying to figure out ways what the gaps in our treatment and our response models are uh so um and so someone just put put something on here the white Washington County Mental Health uh is on call 247 yes they are but part of the policy is if we don't know this is the mental health crisis that's going on and the calls that come in are of an individual who's trying to break into an apartment building and unfortunately it's brandishing a weapon that the officers uh at the officers that that is going to change the policy and the response model for any social worker or any counselor or anyone else that's going to move forward um so no mr. Johnson was not the incident did not happen in the morning it happened at night on a midnight shift so so I we want to I don't think any officer wants to wake up and be involved into a situation like that I didn't join the police to have something like that or to to to to experience something like that um so I I think that you know we just have to figure out where our gaps are where we can be stronger at and those conversations are going to take all of us because all of us hold a certain piece to that to that puzzle to bring about ultimately what's best for the person in crisis and for their family okay thank you chief um AJ do you want to weigh in on that case or on you know I I'd be happy to have Susan Lemire who uh wants to talk about that um she's the crisis worker um you know all I'll say about that is is um no doubt it was tragic and no doubt we have to do better because because even though Mark had this pellet gun he was a known person in the community was not going to hurt anyone and it was a it was a it was a mistake and while we have to protect officers um we also have to make sure that officers don't kill people unnecessarily and and in 2020 a hindsight this was unnecessary while you're in the in the moment um you know officers have to protect themselves but again we didn't have the right response perhaps and if we had layers of response it might be different but again I'm very interested what Susan has to say hi everyone so I actually came tonight as a sort of a fly on the wall I wanted to hear what people had to say rather than be part of the discussion so I wasn't planning to to talk but I am the embedded clinician who is part-time with Montpelier and Berry City and also works for Washington County Mental Health and so I just wanted to clear up a couple of things starting though by clarifying that I was not um around during the incident that is being asked about specifically so I want to broaden the the discussion um Washington County Mental Health has screeners 24 seven um however there are two of them on a shift and it does occasionally happen that you have two screeners and both are tied up um you know screeners are screening people that are in the emergency department um and in their homes and sometimes at schools and a variety of places and so um I am aware that there are times when you know an emergency is happening and sometimes a response isn't instant because it can't be um in terms of the peace though um I guess backing up one of the reasons that I wanted to come here and do this job is I worked for 20 plus years in mental health some of that time in crisis services where we worked parallel to the police but not really in close collaboration and um that was too bad that was a loss I really felt like there was so much overlap in what we did that we could all do what we did better if we were working in collaboration. When I learned about this position and I came out and interviewed I found out that Washington County Mental Health has had a long-standing and very unusual relationship with very city police department and my pillar police department where there is frequent um communication and relying on one another in collaboration the team two trainings together um and that was one of the things that drew me to this position um I guess after saying that I wasn't going to speak about the the one incident in question I do want to say that doing my research before I took this job um I did learn about that incident and um I learned that there was footage and I wanted to take a look at it because I wanted to feel confident about the decision that I was making and I have to say honestly I don't know that if I had been on the scene that there was something that I could have tried that would have had a different effect part of what I'm saying is that I saw many attempts to deescalate to connect with the person to emphasize you know we want to help how can we be helpful um and honestly it was very moving to me to see that and so I just want to say that piece um a last thing that that I wanted to mention is that when we talk about calls that go to police it sounds almost as if people are calling and saying I have a mental health crisis at such and such address please send someone and police are deciding that they are the people to go um many times when calls come through you know I've been in the dispatch area where calls are coming through and all you hear is screaming and bang and banging um and it's clear that something's going on and that someone's in distress um and beyond that it's not so clear so um you know I I love what I do I also have great respect for what police do and I have seen some amazing special work like um interventions coming from law enforcement at the time that I've been here so I just wanted to throw that thank you thank you Susan that's very helpful thank you appreciate that okay um moving on I wanted I have another question here um asked chief Pete about Montpelier's police review committee chief could you tell us about okay so when I first arrived here one of the things especially in light of what we were um what we were experiencing as an institution um was uh again was a heavy focus on police accountability and transparency uh so I came in I did a in initial strategic assessment that information is out and I also saw something that came across the chat box um that you you could google that footage it's actually I believe it's on youtube but that you could google that footage um and and then that so that that that body camera information or footage was released um but one of one of the one of the things that I recommended for us was a was a was a police advisory committee to help us look at our strategic goals and inputs and the council uh implemented that and right so currently we do have a police review committee that is looking at our department our policies procedures uh and in any potential trends um and then going forward hopefully to to find ways to help us reimburse ourselves within the community I think that we already have a very strong relationship with our community as a whole um so but we're looking for ways on how we can how we can continue to bridge the gap and forge stronger relationships so so yeah it was it was something that our department asked for and something that our city council responded to and then that we're all moving forward because again I don't look at this as an island as far as I can only speak for the Montpelier police department um but uh we believe in 21st century policing I believe in 21st century policing I believe in transparency and accountability and I'm going to bring that here to this department and and I was fortunate enough in coming here that I think that the culture here the existing culture here is based on 21st century policing uh technology uh practices so we're just gonna we're going to move life speed into the next round we're going to find ways that we're going to continue to partner with our community and be part of our community and not absent from it okay who's on that review committee do you have a community members I assume or yes they're all community members the the the board was selected uh based on uh folks who had volunteered and they sent information up to the city council the city council reviewed them uh and then they made the decision uh well it's free from us they they made their decisions and who they were going to point to the committee and I believe that the committee is looking for folks who are for additional uh two people maybe so if anyone has an interest in uh and and being part of that committee um and working with the Montpelier police department I encourage you to reach out to Alyssa Sherman um to reach out to Mary Smith with the uh the city hall here in Montpelier and and uh find out how you can submit that information I don't have it with me right now but uh you can definitely submit that information and and we welcome you aboard because we want to to be with our community as we look forward and and how we're going to uh do policing. Are those public meetings or they how are they you know how many times them uh do they meet uh quarterly or monthly or around a crisis how does that work? No those are those meetings are open to the public so uh again on the city's website you can look under the uh the agenda in the minutes um and and they're they're listed right there with the um with the homelessness task force with city council meetings and everything else to the extent um and so anyone can can zoom in and they can do those and I believe they're roughly two times a month maybe the most recent one I think was was was this Monday was this past Monday. Okay great uh thank you very much uh it's good to know I also wanted to just mention that um up uh a link we put up was the Vermont Mental Health Crisis Response Commission which is a 2019 report to the Governor and General Assembly Chief Justice Supreme Court um and it's pretty much uh uh it's focused on the March 2016 death of Phil Grenion um up there I think he he resided up in the Burlington area and that's available as uh has a link and in there are recommendations for all sectors that of providers that were involved including um law enforcement and housing um all the needs that really good solid um list of recommendations worth looking at so I wanted to share that with you um so I'm I'm looking Michelle I don't know if you're still there but I'm looking for other questions and some of the ones I see I we've already answered um there was one I think that uh would be directed at Karim which was um what kind of training do peer support folks get for crisis intervention yeah so the the easy response to that um we get multiple trainings um but one of the most effective trainings that we get is understanding again who we are how are we connected to this work um what tools that can we use to make us a better listener a better understander a better person couldn't identify you know how do you identify so the trainings vary um again I I went through the IPS training it was very helpful um uh the team was very skilled and what they did um but again I will say as many not to go back and forth but as many police that we graduate uh at the academy I think it should be a peer person as well I think I think that same focus of energy should be geared towards hiring people with lived experience um that can do the work and I will always say everybody plays a role I worked on the crisis team in fundamental health I worked alongside of clinicians you know I've also worked aside with police and helped everybody once again plays a role but again when you when you take one role the peer support role and you you you diluted um to say things like you know they're not clinically trained so how could they be helpful you're already thinking the wrong way you you already left field so again I can't stress enough on on this this uh this event here that believing what the peer support work does and what it produces understand the power of it understand the power of people's story and people's testimonies and how that that can be the key for me I'm a I'm a young black male from New York City that went through a lot that because his father was killed by police I was very angry at police but it wasn't for a peer person a person that kind of had some of that live experience and that can sit me down and and say listen there's a better way and is there's a better way to handle your life that meant everything to me so once again you know I mean I guess I was brought here to talk about you know part of my my story and and and what the peer support work does for the state of Vermont again just and I'm I know there's a lot of familiar faces here and people who I've worked with before um you know but police they're humans as well I have friends today who are police and they are human as well but the approach has to be done very differently today the approach to how we approach people's illnesses it can't be an authoritarian it can't we can't stand without chests is poked out because people respond to that people who have who hear voices or people who who see things when they see a person standing in front of one of this this stance and I am who I am and you need to listen to me that is a trigger that will make most people in that state of mind reacting the way that is you can't understand if you don't understand so once again we have to figure out the balance of what the police role is what the peer support person is and what the clinical staff does and again the peer support is very effective and it's been proven around the world thank you Karim um I was uh on your website perhaps you could just give your quickly your website um address in I saw that you have you put out a newsletter it's it's quite comprehensive it's quite a few pages and I learned more about your organization going to yeah yeah yeah from my site candle survivors.org um we have counterpoint yes that is I will newspaper that we publish and there's a whole bunch of information there we highlight uh issues that are happening around the state um you know coercion issues we have some great testimonies we have stories about people who are actually saying that I'm surviving today you know because we don't always want to talk about all the gloomy things we want to talk about some success stories and how people who are who have challenges are surviving today you know so yes please look at the time go to counterpoint we have given out a big about five thousand copies uh throughout the state uh within the past two or three weeks so yes you can go on our website look at that we have a facebook page that we are upgrading currently but yes please get a chance check out counterpoint you have you can see the staff the support groups that we support and even if you have a story a survival story that we want to highlight let us know okay sounds great no it's a really great newsletter I was very impressed with that and um I hope people get a chance to look at that I don't see any more questions I want to acknowledge Jean she's uh Jean forgive me I'm going to try to compress your comments into what I think you're getting at which is um why don't we review all crisis situations as a psychiatric nurse for many years the deep brief is where strides are made and I know you had an earlier comment about that as well about negative feedback being processed but so there's there's a there's a question there about debriefing debriefing okay so who would uh want to grab that yeah so Jean you know Jean who is a psychiatric nurse apparently probably has sort of the best understanding of debriefing from a from a medical point of view and what she said in the chat is that the best strides forward in improving practice are often made after a crisis incident when everyone involves debriefs from the mental health clinical side and the federal regulatory side debriefing is required in psychiatric facilities after events but what's really important about the debriefing that's required by the Fed is that it has to include the person who is the subject of the crisis you have to get the patient's perspective because the staff really have to learn from the patient what was going on in their world so that the staff cannot have that trigger happen again so it's not about making the patient conform to the staff's ideas of what's needed it's about understanding what's going on with the patient and adopting for that that's going to be harder with police because I don't know whether the defendant is going to be that available to debrief and so that is sort of a problem when police debrief among themselves they don't have the perspective of sort of the most important voice in the room the person who was the subject of the use of force and so that might be an area to to work on to improve to try and bring subjects in if I may judge if I could also I think I think council's straight on point and there's a saying in NAMI there's a saying in the mental health area there's a saying with peers there's no conversations about us without us and if we're serious about tackling this problem we're not playing sandbox we're not playing we're the police we're going to handle it we're not playing any of that none of us should be the goal is help the goal is to get people and their families the help and the resources they need and and and and Korean buddy I'm telling you man I mean you're pretty powerful and and I'm looking forward to working with you with with with AJ and moving forward and figuring out how we're going to bring this change and how we're going to step Vermont into where we need to be and how we offer people help it's and I'm extremely appreciative to Susan too because mental health is extraordinarily personal to me as well I got family members personal issues that that I'm dealing with crisis times that I've been there too and and and and I've seen how not only law enforcement or the judicial system itself but even in how some of the the systems that are designed to help people who are in crisis have failed them so there's there's work that all of us need to do there's a lot of work to go around and and and and I'm pretty sure and I'm very confident that that that the people are here people want to get the work done and we need to get together and do the work period so thank you all very much for reigniting my passions again and and and I'm looking forward to being arm in arm with you as we move forward and trying to figure this out thank you chief I think Vermont if any place if you can't try something creative and innovative in Vermont which is a small population of people and small you know small villages I mean I I just think if you can't do it try something a pilot program I mean are creative in Vermont you can't do it anywhere and um yeah so I'm I'm really you know excited about about that too so um I think that's it for questions and I think we're at the end of our event and I want to thank our panelists tonight Kareem Chapman and AJ Rubin and chief Brian Pete and so you know I learned a lot of mental health issues in Vermont and look forward to future public discussions on as I said innovative policies and programs that could be implemented on the community level on the community level not um as we learned money going into more restricted settings and and you know going going back to institutionalization to deal but more peer support or uh more models that are really community focused community level local communities so I want to thank Michelle Singer of the Kellogg Hubbell Library and the League of Women Voters for cosponsoring this event I hope everybody stays safe out there and good night thank you very much bye everybody thank you all bye everyone thank you for the opportunity thank you God bless thank you thanks