 Good evening and welcome to Montpelier Civic Forum. This is a special edition on the reopening. Basically, town meeting is not coming but we have an election coming up on August 11th. Please watch the show with John Odom where he discusses not only the primary election but the election in the fall. That is an extremely important show. We have other shows. We have Ann Watson speaking about the city's reopening. We have Bill Fraser talking about the city's reopening from the budgetary and operational perspective. We have Dan Grober discussing the downtown businesses. We have Carolyn Brennan discussing the Kellogg Hubbard Library. And a very, very interesting show on the final day of Chief Tony Fakos and the first week of Chief Brian Pete, we have the two chiefs together. And they discuss policing policy, community-based policing. And it's an extremely interesting show that presents our police department from the policy perspective. Now today we have another special show. We are addressing policing again, but we're addressing it from the perspective of the actual line policemen and how policing is done. And we have two very, very special people. We have Corporal Mike Philbrook here and we have our school resource officer, Diane Matthews. Welcome to Montpellier Civic Forum to both of you. Thank you. Thanks for having us, Richard. Mike, what does a corporal do? It's a form of first line supervisor. It's kind of a funny gray area where it's across between a senior police officer and a sergeant or a supervisor. So we have the role of a supervisor and we can run a shift if a sergeant is not present. But we also will work regular patrol hours as a patrol officer. So it's kind of a hybrid between a regular officer and a supervisor. Now you were and are what the kids would call the cop on the bike? Yeah, I've been a bike officer for several years and our ability to field officers on bikes just depends on staffing, weather. And then obviously with the recent COVID-19 situation, it's been safer for officers to be isolated in vehicles and not be having about riding a bike with a mask on. What's the theory behind the bicycle officer? I mean, it's exactly the opposite of what I just said is to get officers out of the car and into the community. You know, when you're wearing shorts and a polo shirt, a lot of times you're more approachable. You're on a bike, you know, a lot of people will come up to you and talk to you about your bicycle or there'll be another cyclist in traffic next to you and you'll end up having a conversation just because of the fact that you're riding a bike. But generally it's, you know, it's a software approach. It's an officer that's out in the community available, not surrounded by a steel cage. And so it's just much more positive and easier to approach duty or our situation for our officers and for the community. Now the bicycle officer's been around here for a long time and I know this for a fact. Tony Fakos was a bicycle officer at one time. Absolutely. He's been a big supporter of the program. You know, it's not easy to, you know, send an officer to a training course for 40 hours and provide that funding and time in addition to the additional equipment. But, you know, it does end up, I think, saving money in the long run with reduced emissions and gas usage from vehicles and some increased health options or, you know, makes the officers healthier to get the exercise during the shift in addition to all the benefits of being out in the community. What's the 40 hours of training to be a bicycle officer? So there's two different programs that are national, nationally based. One is called the Law Enforcement Bicycle Association, LIBA. And the other is IPIMBA, the International Police Mountain Bike Association. So there's two organizations that provide training for officers, police officers who are going to be riding bicycles, you know, at work. They provide extra training, you know, everything from conditioning and health and maintenance of the bicycle to defensive tactics with a bicycle, using the bike to, you know, defend yourself if somebody were to attack you or, you know, just learning to ride it with the equipment on, things like that. Have you ever chased anyone down on the bike? I attempted to chase a vehicle once. Then when I was- Dog chases car? When I was very, yeah, when I was very early on in my career and I'd first been certified, it was pretty energetic and maybe a little overzealous. There was a vehicle I tried to stop and another officer in a car had to end up stopping it, but I was able to keep it in view long enough for another officer in a vehicle to get there. Speaking of equipment and all, no, your vision is not wrong. The police that are on today are wearing bulletproof vests. Can you explain why? I mean, it's part of our, you know, it's part of policy for us to wear the protective vest when we're working in public. I'm sure there's a liability aspect to that, but it's also ensures that we're safe and that we feel safe when we're interacting and working sometimes in dangerous situations. Diane, in the schools, the resource officer wears the vest? Yes, at this time we do. We're full uniform. It's a different type of vest. It's underneath of a polo shirt, so it's less like a uniform on the outside, like a softer approach and khaki pants. How uncomfortable is the vest? How warm is it? They're very warm in the in the wintertime. Something you get used to. Yeah. The school resource officer, what's the theory behind that program? Having an officer in the schools, we have four in our supervisory union to be able to... Four schools, not four police resource officers. Correct. Yep. Four schools, one officer. To be able to interact with children on a day-to-day basis, create a community feel where we're approachable, be able to get to know the students, be able to get to know the staff in the school, administration in the school, help them out with any type of issues they might foresee happening with the children and just have an easier time interacting with children because you see them every day. Kind of like community policing. If you're always out in the community, you're more approachable. It would be the same in school. If a student were to approach a teacher and say that they've been assaulted by a family member, the teacher has a legal responsibility to report that. Is the legal responsibility to report it to the school resource officer, to the principal, to children's services? How does that play out? So they're mandated reporters just like we are. They need to report it to DCF within 24 hours. DCF being? The children and family services. So they need to do that. Frequently they'll be referred by DCF to their local police department or just take the intake information and go from there depending on what information was relayed to family services. When they go to the local police department, who do they go to? When a child, when a student is involved, who does it go to? Does it go to a person who's a peer of yours or a peer of yours? Or does it come back to you? Depends, I think, I would say on the time of day in the circumstances. In my experience, we've had DCF essentially contact us in the evening and say, this report has come in. We need you to investigate it. So we would then respond to the residents and interact with the family and there'd be a DCF worker there with us. Essentially, we conduct an investigation to determine what had occurred. The child needs medical attention. The child needs to be potentially removed from the residence depending on the circumstances and placed in state custody. What's called the chins or a child in need of services, but that's a pretty extreme circumstance. But that's generally the procedure. Once they would receive a report from a mandated reporter, then DCF would generally approach the law enforcement agency. I imagine that during the day, if it came in during the day and the child was in the school, then the school resource officer would likely take that case. That's one of the benefits of having the SRO there is that they generally have, in our experience, have built good relationships with both the kids in the school, but also their families. So whether it's an incident like this where there's a specific allegation of harm, essentially a domestic situation, excuse me, situation, or it's just simply something where officers in the middle of the night are interacting with a family or our child for whatever reason. A lot of times that school resource officer, because of their existing relationship, because they had the chance to build those relationships with the children and their families has been a huge advantage because the kids are comfortable with officer, you know, after officer Matt or officer Diane or whoever is in the school at the time. Matt and Isley was our last school resource officer. And so either them being more comfortable interacting with them, just generally whether we just happen to show up at their house or it's in the school, or if it's, you know, we have a call late at night where we go to some of these residents, there's a family or a kid there. And we've been able to contact the school resource officer afterwards and say, Hey, what do you know about this kid and his family? Can you give us some background, some history, so we can understand maybe there's other situations, there's other aspects going on, whether it be, you know, developmental issues or mental health issues or just family stuff or troubles with other children at school. A lot of times that information can be really helpful when we're interacting with a family. Child suddenly becomes acting out, starts acting out in school. That could go along with that too. What is the difference in school between a fight, a fight between two boys and an assault? What, you know, when does a fight become an assault? And when does a fight become something that engages our police system? Well, an assault, to me, they're one in the same, it's degrees of an assault and whether or not they're fighting with each other or if it's one person on where you're talking about children specifically. Yeah, I'm talking to high school students, the traditional fight between boys in high school. If it's one child fighting with the other and the other one isn't part of the fight or are they fighting with each other, you need to separate them and that will be a good reason for a school resource officer to be on hand, to be able to separate them where school, people in the school, administration teachers, they have a limited amount of hands on that they can do. They have different types of techniques for separating people and to be able to have law enforcement there to say, you know, this is beyond just two kids pushing each other. It's an investigation like anything else, but to be able to get the history from the teachers, have they fought before? Are they in classes together? All that information would come together with that as well. Does that ever become criminal in the juvenile justice system? I'm sure it could. They also have their own restorative justice system in place in the school like we do in town, the restorative justice center. Mike, what's the restorative justice center? I think the official name is the Community Justice Center, but it's a restorative justice program where a variety of different types of conflicts can be diverted either from the criminal justice system or just generally, you know, in the case of like a neighbor dispute where they would offer mediation, but it's a great alternative to placing whether it be juveniles or adults into the criminal justice system. A lot of times we'll take, as we do with every situation, we can use our discretion to take into account all of the circumstances involved in a situation, and a lot of times we'll decide that, you know, whether it's somebody who's a first-time offender or there's other mitigating factors, we can refer them to the Community Justice Center, either us directly as officers or private citizens can approach the Community Justice Center or the courts can refer them, refer case back to the Community Justice Center so that the parties involved in the incident can have the issue addressed through a restorative process versus through a criminal or penal process, and that can involve the parties writing letters to each other, that can involve mediation face to face, generally with the goal of having the aggrieved party be made whole and have their feelings and the effects on them acknowledged by the perpetrator of whatever the incident may be, you know, whether it's something very minor or something more significant. And that could be more impactful than a penal punishment. Are you a formal part of that in the schools, or are you just informally called in when circumstances merit their version of restorative justice? The school resource officer can be a part of that, referring to, you mean rather referring to their restorative justice, right? Exactly. Yes, yep, certainly inside the school. Does that work in the elementary school as well as the middle and high school? That I can't tell you, I don't, I'm not aware of that at this point. In terms of drugs at the high school, it's against the law. At what point does it become criminal? Is that a school referral? Is that, you know, Johnny is caught with pot on him at the high school? What happens? It's diversion. It goes to diversion first. So it's essentially a restorative justice process. So marijuana, because it's decriminalized, basically it's not decriminalized for children. Correct. Correct. So that's why there is essentially a ticket, a civil ticket would be the penalty. You know, I think it's something like a $300 fine. If they don't go through diversion. So they have to complete a diversion process or pay the ticket. Right. So initially, so essentially we would take the complainer or detect the issue, you know, some of these smoking marijuana on school grounds. And again, there may be a response from the school, a disciplinary response from the school for that. But if they're, you know, the school resource officer were to locate somebody smoking marijuana or an officer out, you know, on regular patrol, then we would essentially interact with the student or the juvenile, you know, whatever they had would be, you know, taken and disposed of. And then they'd be issued diversion paperwork. And so it's essentially a slip of paper that explains the process. You write down the ticket number on it. You write down our information on it. And then they're referred to Washington County Diversion. And then they're required to go through essentially a restorative process where that would be something like, I imagine with that type of thing, it would be an educational process where they'd be required to attend some sort of course and learn about the effects of, you know, marijuana on everything from brain development to operation of a motor vehicle. And if they complete that satisfactorily, then the ticket goes away. Jane was involved in shoplifting. And it goes through the system. And Jane has to go through the restorative justice. Does that get to you at the school? Do you know, does the school know that Jane was involved in shoplifting? Is there a connection between school and city systems? I don't think that, I mean, there's something of a criminal nature that a juvenile is involved in. I don't think the school is automatically informed. You mean information shared with the school? Exactly. Do they know that Jane is having problems outside of school? I don't think there's not like an automatic process. I think that, again, having a school resource officer or president of the school would allow that sort of information to be shared so that school resources, in addition to the officer, other school resources could come to bear to help that child without be counseling or other things. Is it a socioeconomic thing where the family doesn't have a lot of money, so the child feels like they have to go and steal the things that they want? There's any number of positives of sharing that information, but if it's something significant that doesn't really involve the school, then it's sort of a private criminal nature, especially as a juvenile, those types of records are sealed. Staying with juveniles, the long tradition of juveniles in Hubbard Park after dark, what's the police presence in Hubbard Park during the day and after dark? Well, we used to close the gate at nine o'clock, have the gate locked. We haven't been asked to do that this year, and honestly, we haven't had calls out at night to Hubbard Park this year. We generally do a patrol, a few patrols through there during the evening, just to make sure people aren't out there parking doing things they shouldn't be doing, making sure nobody's broken down up there and in trouble that way, needing a ride out of there. Lost on the trails, those types of things. There's any number of issues that come from the different park areas, but generally Hubbard Park doesn't create a lot of issues. Usually a lot of the complaints we get there are with dogs. What happens when you get a dog complaint? Usually that's after the fact, well after the fact. What happens? How are dog complaints in the park dealt with? I mean, the City Council just recently essentially rewrote the dog ordinance, which helped clarify the process to where if a dog owner is in violation of having a dog at large, which there's kind of a two prongs of that in Montpelier, where in the downtown area and public youth paths and sidewalks, dogs are required to be on leashes now, whereas at Hubbard Park, they just need to be under voice command and under control. So usually the largest complaint we usually get are dogs that are overly friendly or aggressive in some way towards another dog or towards a human. Some people will call and say, oh, this dog charged me, it jumped on me, or this dog came at my dog and they got into it. Does that go into mediation? So yeah, so there are different levels, again, with a lot of other things. We have a lot of discretion, but there are different levels where with a first violation of a dog at large, or all the way up to a dog being declared a nuisance and removed from the city, we go from essentially a verbal warning to removal of the dog from the city, basically where the dog's owner would be told, and this has to go through a certain process with the city council, the dog may be told the dog has to be removed and can't be within the city limits. But restorative justice, the community justice center has, that's a big part of what they would, the type of incident they would handle. I would imagine, and this is just simply me, that the toughest thing for you to deal with his police is a domestic dispute. Certainly one of the most dangerous. Dangerous in what sense? I mean, if you think about it, it's a situation that has gotten so bad that somebody essentially who cares or loves about somebody else was willing to call the police to make them stop, that they were so afraid or something could happen so bad that they were able to overcome essentially not wanting their significant other to get in trouble to call us to come and help them. There's frequently children involved, there's frequently children on the scene. There's a lot of emotion, it's a lot of passion in a lot of times. You two are driving up in a police car. A neighbor is called, heard yelling and just commotion in the household, or you've gotten one person on the cell phone saying, I feel threatened, they've called 911, what happens? When that call comes in from my wife, he's out of control, what happens at that point that they've called 911? First we get information from our dispatchers. If we've been out to that residence before, is there a background of that type of thing going on so we're prepared? Is this something that just happened out of the blue? If there's a history then we can get some data. We can get information about what has happened in the past. Who are we dealing with? Have there been drugs involved? Have there been alcohol involved? Which really affect people's behavior? Have there been weapons? You have no idea whether there's a weapon inside our house. We don't, but that's questions that our dispatchers are trained to ask. So the person you're calling out of the intoxicated, which a lot of times can lead to more violent erratic behavior, diminishing of their inhibitions about any number of things. So that'd be from language to physical violence. And then obviously if there are weapons, there's a firearm, or if a person attacked the other person with a knife, or it was just with fists or shoving, or something like that, or just verbal abuse, we get all spectrum of calls and it can span very widely at any time. What if there is a weapon in the house? When you're approaching the door, there is a weapon in the house. It's commotion. You can't sort out the emotion. What's the initial approach besides saying I am such and such from the police department? We want to have that information before we arrive, and if we know that a weapon's been involved, we basically would try to get both parties to come out unarmed or their hands empty. That's if the weapon's involved. What if the weapon is in a lockbox or just in the house somewhere? I just tell them to leave it there. We essentially approach as tactically as we could where we're going to try to make sure that we're safe as possible. We arrive quietly. We'll walk up maybe from a distance away, not come screaming up life and sirens, like you maybe would see on TV, so that we feel safer and we can get as much information as possible, give our dispatch time to get as whatever information they have, but we'll also walk up and listen, sit outside in the dark. So you want both parties outside? Not necessarily, but it certainly can be, especially that's something we've started to use with COVID is instead of going into a residence where everything from the whole breathing thing with masks and stuff like that, everything's more concentrated. We've changed our procedure to have people come out of a residence regardless of what the situation is. Are you in masks? To avoid infection. We always wear masks as a matter of policy when we're in public, just like the vests, to protect ourselves and protect the public. But we're essentially trying to collect as much information as possible before we get there. Obviously, if there's an emergent situation where we can hear somebody being assaulted, then we're going to move in and deal with that as quickly as possible. But a lot of times, the majority of the times, in my experience, what has happened has happened and now we're just doing an investigation. This batch of tussles, okay, the parties are separated, there's no drugs or alcohol involved, there are no weapons. And so we'll come up, listen for a little bit, see what's going on, knock on the door, separate the two parties, have an officer speak with one part, one group, have another officer speak with another group, and there would probably be multiple officers present regardless because of how dangerous it can be. And the other officers will either just observe and monitor the situation or talk to other witnesses. You have to get out there fairly quickly. Something possibly bad has happened. Certainly something with the potential of being bad has happened. Absolutely. What happens in the middle of the night? How many officers are on night shift in the middle of the night? So it varies at the time of day. I mean, during the day, we could have quite a few officers on between the regular patrol officers and a patrol supervisor to a school resource officer and our detectives, as well as a captain and a chief. So you can see that there are, even if the chief and the captain or these other officers aren't driving around, patrolling or responding to regular calls for service, they're still available to come to a significant incident. Frequently overnight, we call on other agencies. Maybe a Berlin unit might be available and they come back us up and just kind of hang in the background and help us out if it's needed, just to be a presence and be able to help us do our job. Make sure that, because a large part of officers, the bigger question of like officers use a force is making sure, just like when we wear our vests or we have other tools and equipment, the safer the officer feels, the less likely that we are to use force. So somebody may say, well, why are there four officers at that house? Okay, well, because it came in as a verbal domestic that we know there's history there that has escalated the violence in the past. So in order for us to ensure that everybody on scene is safe and we feel safe, we may go initially with multiple officers, but to go back to your original question. So during the day, obviously there's a lot of resources available because that's just kind of the way people are scheduled, especially in the administration and investigations. And then in the evening, we'll typically have between three and four officers on shift. And then after midnight, it will vary until like six or seven or eight in the morning, depending on other officer schedules, a lot of between two and three. So in the middle of the night, you know, you may, you may only have two officers to respond. And then there are other agencies around the area that aren't 24 hours, including the state police, the state police go off duty at 2am. So in the middle of the night, say like five in the morning, we may only have Barry City to call on or Barry town or Berlin and Berlin and Barry town may only have one officer on. So that officer may be tied up, you know, Barry City only has two officers on. So you can see that our resources at different times of the day may be more limited. So we're going to be more cautious during those times. You separate, what does separating mean? Does that mean that one of them is going to spend the night somewhere else or spend some time physically somewhere else so that they are allowed to cool it off? Frequently. That's frequently what happens, especially if it's a verbal. It's in the short term during the investigation when we arrive at the residence, but it's also in the long term. A lot of times it's just generally better to say like, you know, if it didn't rise maybe to the physical level or to a criminal level, we may seek to see, okay, you have somewhere you can go so that this doesn't happen again or so things don't escalate. But also in the initial, during the initial investigation, we want to separate folks so that we can get both parties statements and their take of what occurred without it kind of bleeding over into each other's stories, you know, because everybody's going to have a different perspective. And so if you interview two people in the same room at the same time, then they can feed off each other, you know, just as we can talk back and forth and contribute to the questions you're asking us when we're conducting an investigation, we want just your take, you know, just the victim's take, just the dominant aggressor's take. At what point might a women's shelter come into this? We almost always bring up Circle, I don't know what that is. Which is our local organization. The acronym for it. It's predominantly supports female victims of domestic violence. And we pretty much always refer them to that group because we don't know what the level is between the aggressor and the victim. But the history is, I mean, even if it's something minor, even if it's, you know, two people who are sitting in a parking lot, you know, a supermarket and they're in an argument, somebody calls and we arrive and we may talk to them and find out that they're arguing about, you know, finances or something, you know, relatively insignificant, but it led to an argument that caught somebody's attention, somebody was concerned. We may still refer them to, you know, it's something we do. We're kind of a clearinghouse for information and services, or whether it's a domestic situation or a dog situation, we may, you know. They might not know what's out there and they don't know who to ask. Right. Diane, you had spoken about children being around as children services notified? Yes. We're mandated reporters like the teachers are. We need to call and we call after hours frequently, we call division of family services, children of family services, just to tell them what we saw and what happened. We give them the children's information as well, how old were the kids? What was the proximity of the children while this was going on? Were they in the room? Was one of the parents holding one of the children as it was happening? They need to know those things and then they make their determination whether or not they're going to do their own investigation. So this might go on for, even if the parents feel it's over, it's not over. Because the children are impacted in ways that people don't even realize. What happens if the two of them say, wait a second, this is getting out of control, you know, we don't want this to be a criminal thing and you do want it to be a criminal thing? It's not their choice. If we see clear signs of an assault that's happened or it's not their choice to say, okay, I'm done, we're not, I don't want you to. I don't want to press charges. This is something we hear a lot, but in Vermont it's the state that presses charges, not the individual. So even if we have an uncooperative victim, we could still proceed with a case, although it may be slightly more difficult. And that's not uncommon in a domestic situation. Like I alluded to in the beginning, there's a lot of emotion there. You know, if you have just called the, you know, your partner has just done something so, you know, so bad that scared you so badly or hurt you so badly that you called the police for help. You know, our main goals are going to make sure everybody's safe in the short term. And in that process, it's, you know, it's not uncommon for our victim who called us to change, to totally change their attitude of their story, even become either, you know, verbally aggressive or physically aggressive towards us, you know, as soon as we make, you know, our attention known to maybe rest that, maybe rest their partner or their family member. So that's why it can be such a dangerous situation. You're not just dealing with one perpetrator of a crime. You're dealing with an entire family unit potentially that is emotionally obviously attached to each other. And when we decide to take an action, as a result of that, whether in the immediate situation where maybe we're going to put the handcuffs on somebody and take them into custody, it's not uncommon for that person who's forming the victim or other family members to, you know, to intercede physically. And then you can have other forms where they'll recant their state, you know, they'll recant their statement later on. So it's, it's a very complicated situation. And that's why it can be an volatile situation. Right. And that's why it can be so dangerous. What happens? I've had this fight with my wife. There is a firearm present. It wasn't brandished in the dispute. Is firearm taken away? It's a possibility. There's a recent change in the law that allows officers to remove firearms from a residence of somebody who's been charged with a domestic assault. There's also another form of an, what is it, an emergency? I don't remember what it's called. So I'm sorry, it's basically, it's an emergency order that a judge can grant. And in line with, you know, a restraining order, but it essentially is an emergency order that allows a judge to require that somebody's firearms be taken away because there's a risk to themselves or others as a result. Would that, the request for that writ be done quickly? It can be. And again, with the recent change in the law, it's part of our training. We have a domestic violence refresher each year that we're required to take because it's such a large, such a significant type of call that we deal with. We're required to receive training every year and be updated. And that was part of the update this year was that in those situations where somebody is arrested for domestic assault, we can immediately remove the firearms from the residence if we have cause. Diane, what happens when you've observed me and, and I just don't look mentally stable at that point in time? Will mental health officials be called in? We work with Washington County mental health frequently and we will call them and have a screener with the current situation. The screener frequently is on the phone with the individual. Lots of times the person doesn't want to interact with a screener and we explain to them, well, you could go to the hospital and speak with a screener or you could speak with them on the phone, but we really feel like you're not safe. If it's a safety situation where it's self-harm or they're harming others, we definitely get Washington County mental health involved. I'm really fortunate in Washington County to have them as a full-time agency. They're available 24 hours a day with recent conversations about moving responsibilities from police to other agencies. We do have some of those resources right now, but again it's the county-wide. Again, when you come down to staffing, we're in the middle of the night at four in the morning, there may be one screener on and maybe be dealing with something in Berry City. That ties our hands as to what we can do. There's exigency where the person is in crisis and a really significant harm or possibility of harm to themselves or others, then we may end up having to take action like taking the person into protective custody or at least staying with them wherever they may be, wherever we've been called to in order to ensure their safety and the public safety. That would be something that we would like to see. I know that there's, in the works, as a street-level interventionist. The social work that's coming in. The social work that we're going to be sharing. Berry and Vermont sharing, Berry and Montpelier sharing. It will be sharing with Berry City. I understand the attention is to have them be able to respond, to be riding essentially with us, and have them be able to respond with us or to other areas, I guess, between here and Berry, and to be able to be there specifically, which would be an incredible asset. We are not mental health professionals. We receive a lot of training on how to interact with people in crisis and people in alter mental states and with a variety of physical and mental ailments. So we're well versed in training. We understand how to interact with those people, but we do not have the ability to write a mental health warrant and have them taken against their will into treatment. We can essentially be the, again, be that clearinghouse, be the organization that provides them with the resource. Sometimes we're called by Washington County Mental Health to do a welfare check on someone that they're already familiar with. What is a welfare check involved? Maybe the agency can't get a hold of that person, or that person says some things that make them think they're going to do self-harm, or they've just disappeared, not shown up for an appointment. Then they're asking us to go out and make sure that person is okay. We'll check their residents, their known residents. If we can't find them there, we'll dig a little bit deeper and try to get an idea, do they go to work? Can we check their vehicle? Do they drive? Where do they frequent? Just to kind of get a beat on them and ask them, how are you doing? We were asked to do a welfare check on you because Washington County Mental Health said, you said this and this. How are you feeling now? Sometimes you transport them up to the hospital to speak with Washington County Mental Health or do a check-in and get a little deeper into that. This is one of the benefits of having a full-time agency like Washington County Mental Health and others that it's not like every mental health crisis is new. A lot of people suffer from mental illness, they receive treatment, they have caretakers or caseworkers through WCMH or other agencies that are regularly interacting with them. They get to know their baseline and us as police officers on the street get to interact with them on a regular basis as well. So we get to know a lot of the folks that we are interacting with in our community who have a dwelliness. Somebody may not know, in passing, you may live in Montpelier and not know who all these people are. You may just see them walking on the street or somewhere else, but we get to know them. So somebody will call and say, oh, this person is, it's a female that's screaming and sort of self-flagellating, hitting yourself, oh, that's so and so. We know that's her behavior, that's her typical behavior and that's her description. That's usually how she is. Okay, we know her, so, you know, okay, she doesn't react well to a police presence, so maybe we would seek out having mental health, either we wait to make contact whether until mental health can be with us or just let mental health know that what's going on and they'll interact with her without us. And so we do have a lot of these resources available already and having that, having the relationship, the already existing relationship with some of these community members is such a benefit because obviously their behavior is alarming enough or concerning enough to other community members to where they would call us, but we're able to triage it kind of and be able to determine if it doesn't really require a police response. And that's, again, a big part of the current conversation going on that we're already kind of doing. That's a segue to alcoholism, which is a segue to drunk driving. Do you guys know drunk, chronic drunk drivers and keep your eyes out for, or is that violating an issue of personal privacy? Well, I could tell you before the current situation with COVID, when the bars would be open, we would do regular bar checks and stop in and we might know someone who can't drive because they have charges against them and they'll talk about, yeah, I'm walking up the street after we regularly interact with some people like that. I think right now it's hard to interact with people regularly. Yeah, the interpersonal, that's one of my, one of my favorite and most rewarding parts of the job is the interpersonal relationships with the community. Like, you know, maybe we don't develop relationships, yeah, with the people that we interact with who are maybe being charged with something or who are suffering from mental illness or are in crisis. But there's also a lot of normal relationships that we develop, you know, whether that's, like Diane said, you know, walking to a bar in the evening, you know, just to make sure that, you know, everything's calm, especially if it's like the holidays or it's a really busy time, where there's a lot of drunk driving or a lot of behavioral issues. Alcohol is probably one of the worst drugs as far as behavioral issues. You know, or, you know, you're on a day shift walking around and going, just to get your lunch at a sandwich shop. I mean, you know, you, having those normal interactions are really important to us as officers, because if we don't have those and all we're doing is responding to really negative situations, which can take its toll on us. Including relationships with transient population, because they're the people who are out frequently in the same places every day. And we interact with them on a regular basis, whether that's because of their own behavior or because somebody else calls us, or we just see them in passing. I mean, I know Diane has sat down with a lot of our transient population and just chatted with them for like up to like two hours, just to, and it's great, you know, not everybody wants to do that and everybody's able to do that, but some people have the disposition like Diane does. It's been a huge advantage, just like a school resource officer can get to know the kids in the school or the families. Having somebody or those officers who get to know the folks that we interact with on a regular basis. Again, it's like somebody calls about somebody drinking in public or urinating in public. Oh, we know who that is. We'll talk with them later. We're a small town. Yeah, we are a small town, but even if we're a larger city, I mean, whether, you know, our beat happens to be an entire town. Other departments may have the officers assigned to different areas. Ideally, you get to know your beat well. You get to know the people in your community, whether it be the regulars that you interact with for various behavioral or other issues or just the community members. So, we're hoping to not be relegated to essentially being law enforcement firemen or law enforcement firefighters where we're just being called out to deal with big incidents and no longer having the normalcy of being a part of the community. While we're on drunken driving, I've got to ask these questions. I know I'll get to know, is there a quota for tickets in town? People have always felt that you guys are raising money for the city budget. Absolutely not. Most of us don't write very many tickets. I mean, it's more warnings than anything. I mean, the goal is education and visibility, you know, what better way to change people's behavior than to, you know, have a police vehicle and stop with lights on the side of the road in an area where there's a lot of complaints about speeding. I mean, that, you know, it's just the best way to change someone's behavior and perhaps you may stop someone who, you know, you try to talk to them about it and have a conversation like, hey, you know, we get a lot of complaints from folks who live in this area, you know, about speeding, you know, just be great if you could slow it down and pay a little more attention to the speed limit and somebody, you know, may not respond to that. Now, we track that interaction so that we know whether people are driving while people are being pulled over for driving while black. I mean, every interaction in that respect is tracked anyway. And so basically, if I stop a car, an incident is created and all the information from the location and date and time to the vehicle involved to the people involved is all documented. And now we're required initially as an agency policy, but now as a state law, I believe, to track race data. But there's, especially at night, there's permission and possibility to identify who's in the vehicle before you stop them. You're stopping a vehicle for an infraction? Or it happens so quickly that you don't have time to sort of see who's in there. But again, in a homogenous state like Vermont, I mean, even stopping one or two people of color can really essentially skew the numbers for the data. I want to go to an uncomfortable topic, rape. What happens when someone calls and she tells the 911 person, I've been raped? What's the procedure? So initially, I mean, they would take the person's information and it was asked between where they are, are they at the hospital, getting treated, are they at home, when did it occur? Did it just occur? Is it late reported, so to speak? And then depending on the time of day, they were at night, then an officer would respond, whether they're at the hospital or elsewhere, would respond and take their initial statement, collect any evidence, such as clothing, request that the hospital do what's called the same kit. What is it? What is the same kit? A same is a sex assault nurse examiner, I believe, is the acronym. But it's essentially a specially certified nurse or medical personnel who are trained to take samples from the person of the person who is assaulted, just to collect any DNA or other things that would be present as quickly as possible, because that's something that can be designated or deteriorated over time. And so that initial responding officer would take their statement, get as much information about the circumstances and the basics at the beginning and collect as much evidence, so that that is available for the investigation and for any sort of testing or evidentiary evaluation down the road. And then we have one of our detectives is part of the Washington County SIU, which is the Special Investigations Unit that is specifically specifically focuses on crimes of a sexual nature, kind of like law and order SVU, that's a TV show based specifically on that type of investigation to give it some context. And so our SVU investigator is one of our detectives, Matt Nisley, who has been doing it even back to when he was a school resource officer. So he has many years of experience, has gone to a variety of trainings nationally, because these are crimes of, not to quote the show, but crimes of particularly heinous nature that are very personal in nature, and it's very difficult for some people to talk about what happened to them. And so having somebody who's well-trained who can help pull out the details that are necessary and has the experience and training necessary to take those cases all the way through to, you know, to prosecution, you know, that's kind of the procedure. Initial reports taken, referred to a detective, and then the investigation continues on. Some evidence and other things may be evaluated. DNA will be, you know, taken and be compared to an existing database. And if there's any sort of a suspect involved, then a, what's called a TRO, it's a type of search warrant, is it a TRO, or NTO, I'm sorry, a non-testimonial order, which, you know, it could go through a judicial review of the facts of the case. A judge would determine that there was probable cause to essentially take a DNA sample from a suspect in that case. Now we've had her speak, her in most cases, we've had her speak to Matt. Is there any sort of ancillary help that we routinely spread this to? Again, it could be a circle, because frequently it's someone they know, or it could be a past partner, or that type of situation, for them to look for resources to maybe have an order in place that that person can't contact them in the future. It depends on if it's someone who's known or unknown also. But circle is just one of those organizations that can provide resources and everything from housing to counseling. Safe house, different things like that. Just depending on the circumstances, and then there are other resources out there, obviously Washington County Mental Health is available, people to talk to, but circle is an organization that's devoted to that, to that area, and has been a great partner in helping people after the fact. That's a lot of times where our job kind of ends, and that's something else that the Community Justice Center helps with, is reaching out to victims of crime and assessing the impact on them, with their, even down to their opinions of how we handle things, and if they need anything else, any other resources. So we do get feedback from that, which is really helpful. Because somebody will say, officer so-and-so is very helpful, and did this or that, or they'll say, oh, something else came up, and I really want to talk to an officer again. There's a way that the Community Justice Center reaches out and helps us sort of follow up on something after, maybe after an incident is resolved, or after a case goes to court. Would this be very similar in the case of a very serious assault or a murder? Would the family, the immediate family, their emotional needs be tended to? We can refer them to resources, and frequently we'll see signs that someone is in need of something more, and that's where we gather our resources. We have a great resource called the Washington County Survival Guide, which has been put together by, I guess, I think, WCMH, as the main, and it's just enormous. I carry it. It folds, yeah, we all carry it, I might have it in my pocket right now, but it's this little folded piece of Tyvek actually, so it's waterproof, that folds out and has a myriad of resources, everything from soup kitchens and sources for food and food shelves to counseling, to crisis hotlines for a variety of things, to numbers for police departments, numbers for medical and mental health resources. I mean, it's just a great resource to have because it helps us refer people, but also it's something we can really hand somebody and say, you're new in town, you're living out of your car, here's some resources for you, that while we can't do everything for you, we can at least give you some options and maybe change your situation, help you change your situation so that we're not responding to whatever the situation may be. When a citizen feels that the police response hasn't been what they would term proper, what can they do? What should they do? What's the procedure if I have a complaint against a police officer? I mean, so I guess there's different levels. I mean, some of these people just want to call and speak to a supervisor and let their, you know, be heard, but it can go all the way from that up to what's called a form. It's a form, it's a public, I think it's a public review form, basically somebody can either use it to make a formal complaint or they can use it to make a formal commendation. I mean, a number of things. A formal complaint has been issued against a Montpelier police officer. What's the chain of command that sees that complaint and adjudicates that? I mean, it would be taken initially by the supervisor on shift and then it would go to our administration, our captain, our chief for review and they would open up an internal affairs investigation. Is there any point in which the city manager might become involved? Or is it strictly an internal police department issue? As far as I know, it remains an internal to the police department unless it becomes of a criminal nature or, you know, or a civil nature. And the police department will get back with the person who made the complaint? Absolutely. And there'll be a complete paper trail? Yeah, everything would be in writing. They would receive a response in writing. What happens when during one of those rare circumstances when there's a police shooting? What's the procedure then? I mean, I was involved in one of myself, incident at the high school with Nathan Giffin. I mean, essentially from the officer's perspective, as soon as it occurs and the scene is safe, you know, the officer is immediately taken to the hospital and evaluated because obviously that's typically the best way. Evaluated in what way? Just for, I mean, because it's a very stressful, very traumatic situation as I can attest to. And so, you know, you go to the hospital and your heart rates up, your adrenaline's pumping, you know, your mind's racing. So just making sure that the officer, you know, is healthy and is supported. And then, in my circumstance, I returned to the scene and everything was documented for evidence. Everything that I was wearing, the weapon that was used and so on is taken into evidence. And then I was put on administrative leave while the investigation was undergone. And at some point I met with the state police detectives from Major Crimes Unit who were investigating the incident, provided a statement. And then they made the report and the journey general and the state's attorney made their determination as to whether it was essentially justified or whether criminal charges would be filed. So that's generally the procedure from my perspective from that situation. But that kind of outlines how it works, you know, a shooting happens, officers generally placed on paid administrative leave, different agencies have different policies regarding how long that is. I was, you know, away for 10 days or two weeks or so. Whereas the state police now has a policy where the officer is on administrative leave for the entirety of the investigation. Obviously, the state police has a much larger agency with several hundred officers versus Montpelier, which has 17. So, you know, whether it be the given shooting or the shooting on the Spring Street bridge, you know, officers will be taken out of service essentially for an extended period. But in order to function as an agency, you know, my situation, I was the only officer involved in the Mark Johnson shooting, there were two officers involved. And so again, you know, with a small agency, you start removing these people indefinitely from working. It makes it very difficult to provide police services to the town and staff regular shifts. But, you know, essentially the state police does their investigation. And that information is put to the Attorney General and the local state's attorney to, again, like I said, evaluate for whether it met the criteria for justified shooting or if criminal charges will be filed against the officer. Now, I don't believe that Montpelier requested surplus military equipment. Do you guys feel the need for our town to have surplus military equipment? Generally, no. I mean, the only circumstance where, I mean, there have been situations where the state police's tactical unit has brought their armored vehicle to town. And there was a situation adjacent to Hubbard Park with the suicidal male who there's a lot of social media posts by him with firearms and such. So we played it very safe. So the tactical unit responded and created a perimeter. And then they used the armored vehicle to approach the person's vehicle safely. And to be able to deploy some less lethal measures to drive them out of the vehicle and then take them into custody in a safe manner. And that is something that I think would have changed the outcome of the Nathan Given shooting because he was in the middle of a football field. In the middle of winter, you know, with no, you know, with a firearm was no- If I remember correctly, wasn't that on call and just didn't- Yeah, it didn't arrive in time by the time, you know, the shooting occurred. So it was, you know, either we'd ask for more time or for, you know, for that vehicle to have been closer and present because if it had been there, then the officers who initially couldn't, you know, couldn't approach across an open field safely without having to worry about, you know, getting shot at or get shot would be able to approach that person safely, you know, and be able to communicate better. At that point, you know, Matt Nisley was a school resource officer. He was at the high school when that happened, was the first to arrive on scene and essentially, you know, stopped Mr. Giffin on the football field and he continued, he's a training crisis negotiator, continued to communicate with them for almost an hour, you know, in the bitter cold from across the field, which was kind of difficult. Whereas an armored vehicle would have allowed officers to approach, communicate better, but also deploy some less lethal options as well that were, that he was well out of the range of for what we had at the time. One final question. How would you like youth, small youth, to perceive the police, you individually as police officers, how would you like to see small children perceiving police? Diane? As someone they could approach for any reason at all, a question or help or any reason at all, approachability, someone they could approach for any reason. You know, one of the most frustrating things that we see is when kids, parents, you know, you know, whether we're working, you know, an event like July 3rd or something, there's a lot of people who are out on foot patrol or bike patrol interacting with the public and you know, you walk by somebody and they say, oh, there's a police officer, make sure you do this or that so that they don't take you to jail. Like that type of thing drives us crazy because it's essentially instead of, you know, again, normalizing our relationship with, you know, young people with your child and, you know, like Diane said, we want them, we want us to be somebody that they'll run to if they need help. Not somebody they'll be afraid of, that we'll take them to jail because whatever the circumstances are. Someone who would take them to jail because they didn't eat their dinner. Yeah, I mean, part of that's on parents and now on society and what's going on around the country now. You know, I think that's going to be a very challenging thing to accomplish. But again, we want ourselves to be somebody that people will come to because they need help. Wherever that may be, as we've indicated during this conversation, you know, we are a clearinghouse of information and resources, whether that be mental health, you know, substance abuse, you know, we have a program through the department called Project Safe Catch. What is Project Safe Catch? It's essentially like a diversionary program where instead of arresting you for possession of drugs, we will take you immediately in the treatment. So, you know, if we interact with somebody, you know, a circumstance where maybe somebody is passed out in a vehicle because they just used intravenous drugs like heroin, the overdose, and then maybe that scares them enough to be like, I need help. I want help. We can, we already immediately have a program in place to say, hey, we have this program called Project Safe Catch. You know, you just, you know, give us any preference, give us anything you have on you just so that, you know, that you're safe and that wherever we take you will be safe. No charges, nothing will be filed, you know, you're not in any trouble. We'll take you immediately to treatment where you will be, you know, a bed will be found for you where you can go into inpatient treatment and essentially be taken out of the circumstances and environment that, where you were using and you put it into an environment of care and recovery, hopefully. So it sort of takes the, you know, it's the care, as a carrot, you know, versus the stick that has been, you know, great just like any of the other resources that we have where we can divert somebody and not have, be in conflict with them. It's just a great resource to offer to somebody who's, whether they're in crisis or in a situation where they're addicted to a substance. Can a neighbor who doesn't have documents who's in the country illegally call the police and report the same kinds of things that my wife and I would report and not fear being reported? Absolutely. We have a policy in place for the department that prevents us from asking the immigration status of anybody that we interact with. It prohibits us from interacting with immigration officials in anything but the most extreme circumstances. And in 10 years of me doing this job, I would have never interacted with ICE. Same in the schools? Absolutely. The goal behind that being that, again, these are people who are here in our community, you know, and if they're afraid of getting in trouble for just because of their status and think then they're, you know, they're vulnerable. They're very vulnerable. They're going to be easily victimized with no, no chance for help or justice. So that's the goal of that. And it's, you know, there are other populations that have similar problems. You know, it goes hand in hand with the safe catches. You people will be afraid to say, oh, my friend's overdosing and they need to get them help. I'm afraid to call for help because the police will show up and we'll get in trouble. No, I mean, there's a law in place. It's American law that prevents police from taking action against somebody who calls to help somebody. So someone's called, said, my friend's overdosed. You rush in, you see drug paraphernalia out in the open. What happens to everybody in there? I mean, essentially, we'll essentially ignore it unless it's, you know, something of a ridiculous nature, but you know, piles and piles of a certain, you know, of narcotics. For sale. Yeah. But again, with individual usage and with every scene I've gone to with an overdose, it's a needle on the, yeah, maybe a needle on the, on the, you know, on the counter or, you know, in the bedroom or whatever. It's usually really minimal amounts of the drug and minimal amounts of paraphernalia. And, you know, again, we're there simply because a lot of times when somebody is brought back when they administer naloxone or Narcan, somebody's they can come back, you know, be very violent or resistive to the medical personnel that we're helping them. So where there's, usually we're just there just to make sure everybody's safe. And as soon as they're back and they're cooperative and, and are loaded on the ambulance and, you know, there's a lot of situations where we'll stand on the periphery and we'll leave as soon as we know they're safe. So I assume that when we're talking about adults, you guys aren't driving down the streets checking to see if there's four marijuana plants in a person's backyard instead of three? It's just never really been a priority. You know, I mean, as I looked earlier, alcohol is a much, much more challenging drug than marijuana will ever be. And it's just not a priority for all enforcement, you know, in Vermont generally, but for our agency, especially, you know, if we go into someone's home for another reason and we see you have plants, I doubt that an officer's really going to be too concerned unless, you know, there's some enormous girl operation going on. But again, that's not, you know, it's more of a civil issue than a criminal issue. Realizing that we're not in an engaging mood, I'm sitting triangulating from you without the mask and you don't have masks because you're safely distanced, are people engaging you on Black Lives Matter and on policing vis-a-vis people of color? Are you on your level hearing the community weigh in on that? I hear a lot of people come up to me if I'm walking down the street or if I'm stopped at a light who just kind of wave and say, hey, I just want you to know I live in Montpelier and I support the police department. It must be really hard for you to be policing right now. That's the general feel I'm getting from the community. Yeah, we've gotten some great support in that respect, but we also are having good conversations a lot of the time, maybe not so good. I mean, you know, there's a rally early on, not the most recent one, but there's one early on for Black Lives Matter at the State House lawn, you know, and we provide a traffic control and shut down the street and so on, driving and crowd control or essentially on the perimeter out of the way, not really engaging, but there are a lot of people walking by with signs that say all cops are bastards and some are quite F-12 and defund the police and all these things that just don't feel very productive. I can certainly understand the defund aspect once you delve into that and understand that it's not just about, you know, removing the police altogether or what have you, but there's just a lot of, that's some of the most open hostility that I've experienced as a police officer generally. How do we bridge that gap besides doing television shows like this to get people to more understand what policing is about in our community and the ground level? Meeting your police officers, getting to know the police officers in your community, I feel like each police department is its own. Don't call it sure, its own family. That goes with its community. They can differ from town to town. We've tried very hard and that's one of the frustrating things with what's going on is that we've tried so hard over the years to listen to the community and adopt progressive policies and be respectful and be as sort of hands off as we can be because that's what people want. You know, people don't want an overly aggressive department. They don't want ticket quotas and marijuana arrests and things like that. People want us to be reasonable and approachable and to be there when they need us and to help regardless of what the problem is. Are you starting to get a feel for Brian's culture, your new police chief, rather than Chief Fakos's culture? Brian, Chief Pete is very energetic, very intelligent, very educated and his perspective comes from, he's basically been doing what was I guess called Inspector General in Chicago and I think also in the Air Force but he's essentially policing the police and that's what he's done in his career and so he's very supportive of us individually as officers. He has a master's in psychology so he understands how we think, how the community thinks, how people think and work and that's been very helpful. I think he's going to be just a force in his own right for interaction, communication, understanding because as you alluded to earlier, that's what it is. We need to have conversations with anyone who's critical of us. We need to have conversations with people who feel marginalized, people of color and other populations. It's not always easy because otherwise it's in the midst of when we're working or we're on a call which is why we need to create what we did. We have in the past with events like Coffee with a Cup and Chief Pete has continued to do. He's been doing virtual town hall meetings. He's been doing some in-person meetings on the State House lawn to try to elicit feedback from communities in a neutral open environment that's not us in the middle of dealing with some incident and having somebody walk up and start wanting to either aggressively criticize or just have a conversation. That's important. That's also on us. We need to create those circumstances which the current pandemic is not allowed for and that's again been a big frustration. Dan, what are your impressions of the new police chief? He right away made sure that he made time for each of us on staff to be able to speak with him which was an incredible opportunity. It was really nice to be able to get to meet him and talk to him one-on-one. I think he's very energetic and community oriented. He's very into having questions answered right away, right from the get-go as soon as he showed up here. It's definitely supportive. I want to thank both of you for your time and I'd like to say for your service, your police service, although I've known both of you forever. I want to thank you for watching this show. I hope that you'll watch the other shows because all of them on the reopening are interesting in their own ways, especially watch the one with Chief Pete and Chief Fakos because that's the compliment show to this one. Get out and vote on August 11th in the primary. That's important. And watch the other shows on Orca's YouTube channel, Orca Media YouTube. Thank you so very much. What you just watched was an hour and 10 minutes and Orca likes their shows either an hour or an hour and a half and I couldn't find 10 minutes that I like to take out. So what we did was we added 20 minutes and since we were talking about Chief Pete I thought we would borrow some footage from the show that we shot with Chief Fakos and Chief Pete on Tony's last day as an introduction to Chief Brian Pete. So you get some sense of who the chief is and what his priorities are and so we're just going to do some cuts from that and they'll fade in, they'll fade out but I would encourage you to watch the broader show, the one with Chief Fakos and Chief Pete. It's found on Orca Media on the YouTube channel where you're likely watching this because it's well worth watching. It gives you the broad overview of the policing that Mike and Diana are doing every day. So we'll go here to our new police chief, Chief Brian Pete. Welcome to Montpelier. Thank you very much. It's an honor and a privilege to be here. How did police chief, where was he born and how did he get into policing? Well, speaking of you and the third person. I was born in Chicago on the south side and policing is it kind of turned into a family business if you will. Both of my parents joined the Chicago Police Department later on in their lives and in their careers and so as I was going through graduating through grammar school and then onto high school is when my parents started coming into the law enforcement fold. And then seeing what they were doing was extremely interesting. So I ended up getting, graduating from college and getting a commission in the Air Force and started off an aircraft maintenance and but that pull towards law enforcement was really attractive and strong for me. So I ended up going into the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and then after doing five years, roughly five years there, that's when I came back, left the Air Force and came back to Chicago and then joined the Chicago Police Department. Was your brother on the force at that time? No, not at the time. I was the third and then my brother came a little a few years after. What Chicago seems like such a different world in Montpelier. First on the south side of Chicago, is that White Sox or Cubs territory? White Sox territory. My wife is a Cubs fan. So I had to eat that one when we first met. This is a very beautiful, smart, intelligent woman and I want to get to know her. So I had to make certain sacrifices and since she was a Cubs fan, I had to go to a Cubs game that was the first and hopefully the last time I'll ever go to a Chicago Cubs. And I say that in Jeff. The Cubs are a great team but I'm a White Sox person. What is the south side of Chicago? How many people live there? Oh, lots. The south side is right now because of what's going on in life and everything that's happening within Chicago. When you say south side, it's always synonymous with violence. But there are, speaking very honestly and frankly, the entire city is gentrified. So you have different colors, colors, backgrounds, ethnicities, even religions that are concentrated in certain areas and as well as socioeconomic status. But within the south side, there are pockets everywhere within it. So you could literally cross one side of the tracks and everything is great. You cross back over to the other side of the tracks. Things may not be so great. So it's just, there's a lot going on. Were you assigned to your own neighborhood as Tony? Was working his own neighborhood? No. In Chicago, it's everything's based on seniority. So when I got out of the academy, didn't matter how old I was, didn't matter what experiences I had. It's low person who just got in, newest person, you're going to nights and you're going into the areas that we need manning at. So I ended up going to the west side. Now what is the west side of Chicago like? It's another one of those places when you Google it and they say here where a lot of the concentrated acts of violence happen unfortunately. So they tend to be at the south and the west sides and I was in the 11th district in one of the more busiest districts within the city limits. Now the 11th district, how many police were assigned to the more than 18 probably? Yeah, we roughly would, if we were lucky, we'd do it at demanding issues. We would have 18, not even that many on one particular shift. So there are literally hundreds. Chicago's a department on paper depends on who you talk to, but 13 to 13,500 sworn officers for the department. 13,500. Yes. So you're sitting in a precinct, I would imagine, that's bigger than our police department. Yes, but and I'll also say to that is I think they're pros and cons with everything, but I think smaller agencies have a more, I think have more challenges, have a different set of challenges that larger departments do not have. And to me they're, because they're so personable, they're a lot more difficult, in my humble opinion. How so? Well, you can get lost in the crowd in Chicago. You can get lost, you can just be just another officer, you can kind of just ride things the way they are. You come to a smaller community, you can't get lost. There are expectations. There are, take Montpelier for example, there's a culture here in law enforcement and there are expectations. And when these discussions happen amongst supervisors, amongst leaders, you have to adapt to that culture. You have to understand what those expectations are and you have to act on them progressively and assertive. In this town, this is a town of 7,500 people and a lot of us do know everyone who's in that car. And if I didn't stop, my wife would kill me. Well, it's true and that too, but you know what else? The other thing is if you don't have trust, the only person who's stopping you or who's keeping you from stopping the car is yourself. And if you don't believe in legitimacy or the authority, if you will, or you don't observe that with the police officer behind you, you're just going to keep going. So to avoid those types of things, we want to make sure that we earn the trust of the people so that they know us so when they're pulling us over, or so if we unfortunately have to pull someone over for something like that, they understand that the person who is working is a professional values their dignity and honors and respects them. That's what legitimacy is, I think. Have we had a problem with that in the past, Tony? Oh, yeah. You know, it's, I wouldn't say, you know, it's in pockets. It could be in various groups. Sometimes even when it's outside external influence, you know, outside of my pillier, yeah, they can be problematic. And if I could tag on to what Tony had mentioned, there is, in the most recent city council meeting, there was an individual who had expressed a little bit of frustration and wanting to know what the council's thoughts on defunding, reducing the budget for the police department, abolishing the police departments in entirety. And it's a difficult spot for them to be in. And I want to put my hats off to them because the fact that they didn't come right out and give an opinion one way or the other to me says that they're taking their responsibilities extremely serious by looking at listening, absorbing, doing what they're supposed to do is like the officials and hearing from the constituency and then holding the department accountable and asking the department questions to see where it's going to go or just before they make their decision. So to me, it's an informed decision and it's easy to get weighed into that type of politics. But I think doing it recklessly is destructive and they have not done that. So I'm extremely, it's a hard job. It's not an easy job that they have. How many stops do we make approximately a year? How many traffic violations? If we're a full staff, we'll probably stop upwards of 3,000 vehicles, maybe 3,500. In the town of 7,500. Yeah, but that's residential population. The roads, when you look at who's on our roads and the volume. We have three oh two, we have two. Right. So in any given time, estimations of people in Montpelier can be well in excess of 20,000 people by day. Are we seeing any racial disparities in those numbers? We have not in Montpelier. And if I also may add on that, while we do have to look at data-driven approaches and intelligence like policing approaches, we have to make sure we apply the correct lens to filter it out. So you can look at that type of data and see what type of populations are being stopped by law enforcement. But you also have to remember that if we pull over, say if you're looking at a certain timeframe and 10 cars are pulled over, and two happen to be people of color, or five happen to be female or male, then there's a skew to that data. So automatically you've looked at, if by the just by being there, four people are pulled over and they happen to be people of color, then the numbers could be made to look like that well, we're disproportionately targeting people of color when in actuality it's just who we're stopping at, what times we're stopping. So you have to make sure that you have a correct filter when you do this, that you take everything into context. But while not ignoring what that could be, I mean, because if that becomes something that we're constantly seeing, then that deserves an in depth conversation within the department and within the community itself. Chief Pete, you are going to inherit, if I'm right, Tony, tell me if I'm right, I might be wrong. The state is going to be requiring body cams? Yes. So you are going to inherit a requirement for body cams. How do you feel about that? Every police chief that I've met in my career and all the studies and research that I've done, see Tony, if I can back up really quick to 21st century police, Tony was there, been there, done that, he got the teacher. I was studying people like Tony and moving forward in my career. So, but every police chief, I don't think there's one out there. If there is, there are times probably up as far as how this profession is going, but every police chief wants access to body worn cameras because it helps more, it de-escalates situations, it improves accountability. Now, it's not the end all be all, but it's another tool to add. And so it's just, but the problem with that is, is where you get the money. So you can buy. The state has said that, you know, I presume the state will significantly carry this load. That's to be determined. They will, they're already talking about for the public, Department of Public Safety. Exactly. For FY22, we're actually more hoping something comes out of Congress and some federal funds that could, that could certainly help spring Boris in that direction. Yeah, because we don't envy the state, because we understand the state's predicament too. It's even with the cities, COVID-19. So there's a huge funding lag, our, our, our falls shortages. So it's, you know, we're coming into a time that, that there's a lot more accountability being demanded and you do that and technology was one of the other pillars of policing. Chief Pete, on the same topic? I echo everything that Tony said that from, from me being here is the limited amount of time that I've been here. There is a true culture within the Montpelier Police Department of helping as much as possible, not just the people we serve for each other, but it's, it's our fellow, it's our peer law enforcement agency. So there, there is a strong desire within the department itself to do everything that we can to get on board and, and to, to, to look at regional models and to, to give the limited resources that we have, combine them with others and move forward for a stronger way to service our communities. Now one thing that you posted on an extensive Facebook that went around that posting, and in that you mentioned different communities that the police will be dealing with, including ethnic minorities, but also those with mental health issues. Can you two elaborate on the relationship between mental health issues and 21st century policing and community policing? I can, I can, I'll give a quick 30,000 foot view of overview that where we've come now, we can look at the history of it and there's, there's a lot of sociology in there and, and economics in there, but where we're at now is to the point that law enforcement agencies become the default call for a lot of things that require social service functions. So whether it's going to be shelter, whether it's going to be crisis situations, whether it's going to be, you name it, someone complaining that this person's not wearing a face mask. It's going to be law enforcement's the default call. That's just where we're at now. And police leaders for years now have been asking for, to have dialogues to talk about what is appropriate and what's not appropriate for law enforcement agencies to, to respond to. But in the meantime, the argument could be there that we're slow at doing it. It's a legitimate conversation to have. But law enforcement agencies have been working to try to to try to get past these challenges that we've had. So if you look at something like CIT or Crisis Intervention Training or what Montpelier did was took that, that concept and they localized it based on the needs and based on the resources that they have here, which is called team two. So it, we're still finding, we're still, it's incumbent upon us to find ways to do these things, to answer these calls in safe manners and we're working our hardest to do that. Law enforcement agencies partnering with folks who do domestic violence crisis on a daily basis, partnering with, with those organizations and learning from them. So like for example, one of the newest things that we're talking about in law enforcement community is that you look at the eyes. You look to see if there's evidence of strangulation because we know now what strangulation can cause strokes. It can cause a lot of different problems. So the things that we're learning from our partners in domestic violence that we apply towards the Investigative Avenue, but also in looking at how domestic violence tends to play out, the cycle of violence and where law enforcement can come in and handle the situation with respect and understanding and empathy of what it is, you know. So the more that we know about all the calls that we're dealing with, the better we can respond and serve the people we're sworn to protect. There's a national dialogue right now to pretty much tear up anything that's related to a police department. And I think that's, I understand the emotion behind the conversation, but I think that's unfortunate. Things that we've done as a profession, unitedly as a profession, and but we have to remember the good of the situation. And so I look at an SRO as, as the opportunity for you can't, we're all dealing with limited resources. You can't catch everything all the time. So my question to folks that are considering something like pulling an SRO would be how many layers of safety do you want for your children? And teachers aren't going to catch everything. School counselors aren't going to catch everything. It's unfortunate because there's a lot going on, but you have one more insular layer of somebody who cares and somebody who wants to be there and somebody who wants to help children, to help our kids. And I think as long as we understand and we have clearly defined roles and actions of what it is that we're supposed to be doing within law enforcement, within a school counselor, within the teachers, within an administration itself, you have a, you could have a very robust system. And in here in Montpelier, the system's working. And so I think we just need to make sure that we stay cognizant of it and we stay on top of what it is our training needs to be and what it is that we, as a collective team, as all stakeholders who care about the safety of our children, are needing to do to move forward. You know, taking a step back and once we kind of see where Montpelier wants to go financially and priority wise, where the legislature's going and where Congress is going with a lot of police reform and how it's a very strong department and we have strong community support, but it's going to be navigating what is the outcome of those. Please, please, Chief Pete, I want to ask one, what can my wife and I and the rest of Montpelier do for you? You've done everything. People in this community have already done it. It's my wife Natalie and my daughter Gabriella. We feel so welcome here and it's not a, it's not a facade. It's actual real. There's a sincerity here that just, that brings a sense of peace and we're just enjoying our time here and the only thing we could ask for is me personally, professionally would be just let me know when I'm doing wrong, let me know when I'm doing right so I can continue to serve because I take that oath extraordinarily seriously. And thank you so very much. Have a good evening.