 But I wanted to first and foremost tell you that I sincerely appreciate this opportunity to speak with everyone and to listen and to get your feedback. The whole hope was to comment and talk to the members of the Montpelier Police Department and to especially speak to the people of Montpelier and to find out what it is that we're doing right, what are some of the things that are some of our challenges and especially what your expectations are of me and of our department as we move forward into develop a strategic plan in partnership with the communities that we're sworn to serve. So what we'd like to do is I'd like to again open it up and definitely answer any questions and take any feedback. That way I can roll it into our strategic plan and once we develop the strategic plan we'd like to put it in there for put it out with timelines as well. So with these timelines we're going to categorize everything under the six pillars of 21st century policing and so like say for example if one of the well one of our I know one of our strategic goals is continue on with a social worker an embedded social worker between Washington County Montpelier and and Barry to service the entire county. So you know what I would do in that strategic planning is put that in there and say by such and such month this is what we plan on. This is when we hope our social worker to be here and fully trained and moving forward and that way folks can know and keep it as a living breathing document so everyone can see what we're planning to do and how far we are moving towards our desired goals. So with that I'd like to pretty much open it up to anyone who maybe wants to ask a question or give any feedback and I'm ready to go ready to write. Yes my question is what I mean you've been on that for a short time but what have you learned you've had a couple of other conversations and I'm sure you've been talking to different agencies and people in the in the community what have what have you learned and is there anything that surprises you about Montpelier. What I've learned so far is that everything that I thought the community and the department to be is exactly what it is that the Montpelier Police Department has a very stellar and strong reputation for being a leader in 21st century police and practices and community service and partnerships with its community nationwide and coming here and actually seeing it it's pretty awesome there are places that that I've been to that it's like hey here it is this is what we do and and then when you kind of get down into the weeds of it it's it's it's almost like a talking point it's like yeah this is what we're supposed to do but here's what we do and but in my one-on-one meetings with the members of this department so far it's been been pretty emotional because I can see and feel the love that they have to serve this community and and and that's that's extremely inspiring to me one of the things that I'm not going to say surprised me but I'd say was like it's like jumping into jumping into a pool was the level of involvement and advocacy that the citizens of this city have the very high levels of expectation that continue to push government and our agencies forward and it's and it's I was awestruck so it's um it's a place that when I came here and then the more I got the more I said a my game has got to be a game to be here because no one here expects less and no one here deserves less thank you thank you mr. Russell sir hi so um thanks for being here and I just um I I'd like I'd just be helpful to hear your thoughts about use of the force policies and de-escalation techniques and I think it's helpful to ask you because you haven't been involved with some of the history here but I know it's a big issue for any police department so okay so with um with use of force um I'd say that um that police departments must you know nobody wants to use force and that should always be a last last optional resort so there's there's a spectrum of a use of force cycle that you know starts with present and you know hopefully never ends to the other end of that that level but um so I don't I think that officers have to be extremely diligent in making sure that we don't allow our emotions to overtake what it is that we're here to do and um so that that does mean like what the current legislation that we have that's um that it makes it and it makes it clear that there's duty to intervene when an officer sees another officer going overboard no matter what agency um that we avoid uh things like chokeholds and to my knowledge Montpelier has never taught chokeholds instead of Vermont has never taught chokeholds but then it comes into a tricky area when you're talking about the use of deadly force so but I believe that um we we want to de-escalate instead of escalate and from what I've seen and from what I've known and from what I've heard from other departments that the Montpelier police department is known as the most polite department so mpd not Montpelier police it's the most polite and um and and I'll take that reputation within our community um because traditionally law enforcement has had a very type eight persona um very uh alpha male if you will dominated and we want to definitely steer away from that and I found that the culture of this department is is based on that it actually pushes people out that if they're not a fit to serve and to go through de-escalation so and the overall scheme of things while I'm at the training academy I've been there this week and and we just went over use of force today and then I have one more week of training but I think that the culture of law enforcement agency starts with the training and um and it has to be emphasized it can't be one of those things that we learn something in the academy and it's like you know you will go out there and you will respect the community you will be professional you will do all these different things that we're trying to strive for but then once you get out to the streets and somebody says forget what you learned in the academy kid this is the real way it goes and that's the kind of culture that we can't have but from what I've seen with the state of Vermont thus far there are there are improvements that I that I think that I could you know some feedback that I have but from what I see from the state of Vermont overwhelmingly does push a um a culture of professionalism um and and things that have been 20% repolicing practices and it's been doing them for years but it has its struggles with financing and and everything else like every other agency within the state but a very big advocate to make sure that we don't go overboard okay just or go ahead i'm sorry caroline no i joined late too and then miss uh then uh shana or may i call you shana okay great caroline yes um i have a couple of questions the first is how will the uh social worker be involved and the other one is i don't follow the police logs very much but when i see them i see things like um somebody's been on the sidewalk um there's a tree cat up the tree all of these really relatively minor nuisance of events in my eyes i mean to the person who's witnessing them they're not a nuisance but they don't seem like anything that should involve the police are you going to come up with some way of weeding those out and directing them to somebody else okay so very two very very good questions so regarding the uh the embedded social worker the current vision is to um is to have the social worker with uh doing some time and barry doing some time in montpellier so just uh moving moving that back and forth but to be embedded within the department have access to our records know our officers know our staff know everything and how we operate and then we get calls that are regarding um mental health services crisis to those effect that the social worker come with us to help um pretty much to help so if there's somebody that's identified they can um you know that they can use other social service resources rather than a police response that's the whole idea is to just do a safe handoff and and to uh to be there to uh just to facilitate to hopefully make sure nobody falls through the cracks um that's my uh understanding of the broad overview of it i believe that they have a washington county mental health is going to be the homestead for that position i think that they've already posted that position so i'm not sure how many people they have that may have applied for yet um and then with the uh with police law absolutely one of the first things i'd like to do is um i understand that the city is currently um looking over municipal codes the laws everything that are in like chapters 10 and 11 is what i'm what i understand um and looking at municipal codes and what what i guess enforcement measures if you will and and i'd like to go through that just to make sure that um what are the things that the public wants us to respond to and and because the presence of an officer unfortunately sometimes can escalate situations and we're aware of that we don't want to come into a situation that um that that may not require a level of enforcement because if it escalates to the point that so that that we go unfortunately hands on what we say in our career field it's like why go hands on for something that i guess would be minor uh would be um uh like say for i'm not saying this is minor but say for example if someone is it calls the police because uh someone in a in a in a business is not wearing their mask how do we respond to that what should we do is that is that correct for us because if that situation elevates that's not going to look well for the department it's not going to look well for the city it's just something you know we just plainly don't want to be involved in uh getting the potential physical altercations over something that's in the grand scheme of things uh uncontrollable at our level so um it is something that we want to take very good care of it's something that law enforcement has for for for decades been wanting to to do but unfortunately as society has been cutting budgets and other social service agencies um all of that's fallen back to us what i understood this today i was told that there was a mental health facility that had 160 something beds but when Irene came um already on a 16 and then they cut the entire facility down and now people who need help are out there on the streets and the first call that that's going to happen if you see somebody in mental crisis duress you may not know who that person is something may not may look a little bit scarier intimidating you're going to call 911 and we have to respond to that but on the other side of that we better recognize what we see when we respond so i'm looking at bringing in a full crisis intervention team training system here i don't think that we have one in the state i plan to have Montpelier be the first not only for this for the officers and civilians and dispatchers within our department but to offer this training for police agencies at no cost as best as i can so we can get other officers in our state trained so if we if um if they're lacking resources in other places i think it's incumbent upon our department for anything that we force the last one to try to spread that out to give that same level of training and experience to other law enforcement brothers and sisters in our communities um my experience with the police logs is that there's a lot behind those things you may see something that sounds really innocuous but there's probably something good-sized behind it when they code those things up it's not necessarily you know it it's it's we had one incident at church in february and the way it was coded it sounded like absolutely nothing but it was something um and the state's decision to get rid of um that building in waterbury was not one of their smarter things it's been happening it's happened in new mexico it's happened in illinois every other place that i've been to and it's unfortunate because now we're now as a society now we're we're going to end up dealing out if the concern for that is is money now we're going to end up dealing out a lot more money and unintended consequences and trying to fix the problem than if we would have kept the systems that we had in place and made them better so i'm a huge advocate for all that and to answer the other part of that question would be i want to look at trying to bring a board an online reporting system that hopefully can minimize it can document instances or occurrences but it would require less police presence but the thing about that one is it also costs money so i'm just working to see if i can find grants and perpetuity i just wanted to go back to your questions about what you were talking about with choke holds can i is it okay if i okay um yeah you just you said that um choke holds were not taught in montpelier and i didn't know that i guess i wasn't like how um like because i thought also all the kind of teaching and training happens at the state level right and so like our did they happen in montpelier i also know that they were recently banned in state legislation and so just like when that will go into effect and um you know kind of like what that means for choke holds in montpelier and um yeah and also you know just um you know heard i haven't been able to listen to last weeks these things yet but um did hear on vpr um about that choke holds like could be warranted if um um you know if officers are in an environment where they felt it was necessary um and so you know and we've seen officers use fatal choke holds to believe that they're really justified in using them and so just you know how do knowing kind of where things are at now ensure that your team does not think that these tactics are justifiable and in minor cases or petty crimes like um you know what happened with george floyd and erick arner yeah i'm very very good questions the um yeah it is a statewide training sequence that goes on so um choke holds aren't taught in the academy um as something that hey if if you get into a situation that you you you're required to use physical force for compliance or for an arrest um i they don't teach choke hold you know get a mythic i've only been there for coming on a week now but it's something i know that they don't teach anything that involves the head neck or spine any any any physical contact to either one of those three institutes deadly force and uh so so the thing with with current choke holds is it's it's one of those things that as much as you try to avoid it you hope that it never happens but with if it's a situation that that deadly force is is required is authorized to save the life of the officer or someone else um then to me i would say what's the difference in being able to shoot that person as opposed to putting that using a choke hold at least with a choke hold it once the fight's over it needs to stop it needs to go away now i'm not advocating that's the main go-to thing but um in those situations it's uh under the current law if an officer is fighting for their life then they go to use a choke hold and then they can be charged with with a felony crime even if they would be authorized or justified quote unquote to shoot that person or even you know hit him with a hunk of steel which is the ass so i think ultimately what it boils down to is it has to be culture it has to be um i know it's it's not going to be a popular thing to say but it it has to make sure it's a culture that that works on the institution of it um and that attacks what what traditionally has been personalities within our career within our profession that have given us the black eye and the come up instead we're eating right now and um it is incumbent upon people like me um to make sure that we establish that we hold ourselves and we hold and the public holds us accountable to make sure that we don't do things like that that absolutely choke hold shouldn't be used in a in a non-deadly situation why the hell would you use a choke hold on somebody if you're trying to gain control of them and put them in handcuffs and they're not fighting back you deserve to go to jail for that um but it there's some trickiness there when it comes to instances that are uh that may require the use of deadly force and yeah knowing that the state just voted on this right and um i assume that you know the state's going to become in the the legislature is going to bring up a lot of this stuff again you know and i think they're coming back in the fall or in the next year um you know if it comes up again i you know you're in mom peeler um you know would you lobby in favor of choke holds are you like moving forward it means sounds like you you know stand by stand by i i'd yeah i'd never lobby for the use of choke holds for an outright uh move but i would say that we need to be wise in how we apply it because if if it's in a situation with deadly forces authorized and at that point you're in a fight for your life um and you're gonna have to do whatever you can i'm sorry michael did you you raised your hand sir you're muted michael thank you um it's a different topic is that all right um i was just you you've probably heard that barry has just voted the barracks and council just wanted to create a citizen's advisory horde and i'd like to hear your response or your thoughts about having a similar kind of citizen oversight in montelior i i definitely would welcome a a board in which we have citizens that can keep an eye on the the the types of things that we're doing within the department for partnership how we develop strategic plans um what types of disciplinary things that we've found just to make sure that we're consistent across the board um when we get complaints those types of things to bring all these numbers and to bring all these statistics to the board uh to show them where we're at as far as how we're moving towards our strategic goals and what our plans are i think it's a little tricky when it comes into um boards that that outright control a police department um because there are certain aspects of the job this job is extremely intertwined so i think for something like that i think it would require a lot of uh a lot of discussion and understanding of what the responsibilities and roles of such a board would be and that would be in my opinion something that has to be discussed at the uh at the city council board because then also again that this even if the board makes a recommendation or wants to do something with the department it's ultimately going to fall on the responsibility of the elected officials so question of you know the sense of responsibility or who's going to be accountable uh for what happens within the department thank you yes mr steven sir hi good evening can you guys hear me okay it's great to have you welcome to montpellier thank you i'm really glad to have you um i read an article in the los angeles times um last week where they analyzed um 911 calls and they found that about 92 percent of calls to the police did not actually need um did not need a response by people who are authorized to use force so in other words only eight percent less than eight percent apparently were reports of violent crimes which they described as homicides assaults robbery cops fire and rape so that sort of sounds like 90 percent of calls to the police ought not to go to the police and eight percent of those calls really ought to go to the police to people who are authorized to use force that's a pretty stark statistic what are your thoughts about how going forward you might be able to to have dispatch that would be able to channel those 90 percent of calls to a social worker and also how are we going to deal with that if we've gotten one social worker 14 or 15 or 16 police officers when it perhaps seems like the ratio ought to be different i guess it depends on which types of calls for service that um and keeping in mind that even though you want to have the worker there's a lot of there's a that's a tip of the iceberg there has to be a lot of resources in place to uh to continue that mental health service for someone so a social worker may pick it up from the front but what happens if you have if the individual who's in crisis doesn't have access to uh from money to get prescription so how do you help them uh get get all of that information how how do you go through that entire system and that's not something that of course i don't think that the police should be dealing with it it's something we should be separate from um but at the same time these things have been going on for so long and police departments i don't think you'll find a police department anywhere in the united states and if you did you need to take a really hard look at who's running it that would absolutely insist that we respond to every call um because the truth is we don't need to and we shouldn't um but but unfortunately certain places might have certain policies which do require that so someone you know i think it's certain it's going to be at all levels it's going to be educating the public to let the public know these are the types of calls that we're no longer going to respond to but then what happens when the complaints roll in well the police ignored my complaint and they didn't want to come or or if the if a social worker is called the social worker may turn right around and say i think it sounds like a crisis situation from the call we got we need the police to go there anyway to de-escalate the situation because most social workers aren't going to come into the situation if they think there's a potential risk of injury so we would be called in to de-escalate the situation again so it's it's it's going to come towards a partnership uh to figure out what all our intertwined agencies to figure out who's where the boundaries are and to understand each other's points a few and move forward and i think my appeal here is pretty fortunate in the fact that it already does have very very strong relationships with like the washington county mental health so so those are folks that are extremely committed to doing their jobs and i from from what i understand they do their jobs extremely well what i know about mary malton man she's on fire and uh so but it's it's just one of those things that i think that it's going to take a long hard look and it's going to take some time and some patience on everybody's parts to find out where the good fits are um to make sure that we go forward with that and yeah i do think that um it will start with again us looking at some of the codes that we're we're responding to and trying to figure out what services if any may be more better suited to deal with i think in montpelier we benefit to some extent from the fact that we're small and the police get to know the residents and sometimes they know people and they know how to handle people because they know them it's not like they're coming always coming upon somebody that they don't know at all um they get as long as they're out and about and and you know checking in on people they get to know people and they get to know what what's up and what's well that might be the case but we still have one of the worst incarceration rates in the nation so five to one ratio so the being small in and of itself doesn't seem to stop black and brown people from getting sent to prison at a higher rate than 45 other states in this in this country well i wasn't talking overall i was talking you know just this city benefits from the fact that we're small i mean overall there is a problem and i would agree with you overall there there are it's multifaceted i don't think it's just one the police have to do its part in changing its cultural institution no no doubt about that but there are other things that also have to be done looked at and addressed to turn the systemic tide around in its entirety so um so yeah we need to be held accountable for what our responsibilities are but we also need to be um doing what we can to be in involved in those discussions to make sure that we look at our institutions as a whole and make sure that they're equal and fair across the board yes michael can you talk to us a little bit about um what you know about the recruiting process uh at the department and what your criteria are what you're looking for when you are interviewing and um and how successful that has been and what changes you think you might be looking at i know it's a little early to say that but but just what's what's going on in there in the recruiting now uh that you'd like to talk about well i i think for for right now Montpelier is is a lot it's uh it's it's budgeted for an authorized strength of sworn police officers for 17 i believe and so we are at our current maximum strength if you will um from what i understand about the recruiting process here is when there's a position that is uh a vacancy we we we put the information out within the community across the state but i also think i'm not sure if it's advertised nationally on places like the icp or the international organization or association of chiefs of police or linkedin or i'm not sure which media is that we're using to see what we can attract but i think that we need to start applying or start putting those um those posts in places like like noble which is the national organization black law enforcement executives there's a hispanic police officers association women in law enforcement institute there are a whole bunch of other diverse places that we need to make sure that we we span out and that we we look to attract officers to come in to our community so we can better diversify um once once we collect a certain amount of applicants uh to my knowledge uh then there becomes a screening process and then it's dwindled down to uh to individuals and then it comes to one-on-one interviews i think that maybe we should look at trying to get some type of uh a community involvement again if you will because i think that the public needs to see the types of police officers you know to pick and choose the police officers that it wants if there's one thing i've learned about this place again there are expectations and we want the best and and i think that the public should have have a have a say so in that so whether we do like panel interviews to bring folks in that's something that we should we should be looking at but once a person is selected there's a background check there's a polygraph check and if anyone's ever had a polygraph done on it is like the most uncomfortable thing in the world because they go back on everything um so i i think there is it there's a very stringent process but where what i've seen so far in the state that kind of gives me a little bit of pause is um how the state and i'm not going to put this on the academy because the academy is doing everything it's can it's extremely underfunded and it's extremely under under under but personnel there aren't enough people there to do to do that job but when you have a traditional police training is anywhere from 100 to 120 hours to maybe in some places 160 hours worth of training but you have a part-time position in which people who want to come in law enforcement that as soon as they graduate a two-week training course that used to be one week they're authorized to be out there and to uh to carry a weapon um to patrol and to respond to calls for service now that's not a knock on the men and women that step up for that uh that responsibility i admire them and i think they're good but i think that at the same time um the state is setting them up for failure and um and it's something i think that uh we should take a long hard look at and from what i understand in some of those cases um it's because of there is a there's a drastic need for a law enforcement um and especially the more rural areas so there are challenges in cost prohibitation or cost restrictions for for um sheriff's departments and other agencies in getting people trained and then getting them back out there on the road so it's um it's a it's a pretty intertwined system but i'm doing my best to learn as much as i can about it and then um it i'll do whatever i can to bring it up to the to the to the chief's uh groups to the commissioners and and uh to say these are the things that i've seen and from an outside perspective and hopefully we can all come together and if they if they are problems we can all come together to fix them thank you hi i have a question if i made i'm sorry can i ask a question i'm sorry yep i'm sorry if i stepped in on somebody i don't my camera is not on and i can't raise my hand no okay karen and then i see uh the icon varies okay um i struggle with police shooting to kill that's basically the short version of the the my worries i see so many people just dying like is how how do officers get taught when it comes to shooting at people can they shoot in the leg can they shoot in the shoulder does it have to be dead uh and no um it's it's it's difficult um officers should not be shooting to kill anybody they should be shooting to to incapacitate they should be shooting to a threat now i know that sounds cold but there are situations out there in life that we that we're the ones that are called to deal with extremely violent situations and and nobody wants to go out there and be involved in that i've never wanted to be involved in fights let alone arguments um but it's it's when those those scenarios happen um there is a tremendous amount of stress there is a tremendous there are there are split decisions made on little knowledge and little information and um so you know find motor skills tunnel vision sweating i mean i can the list goes on and how officers are dealing with those situations but it's a it's a trained to it's a trained to incapacitate just to shoot it's not that it's it's hard to shoot a target let alone a leg or an arm and in those cases especially if you have somebody shooting back at you um you're only shooting to incapacitate the individual you should not be shooting to kill and and if you are fortunate enough to win that gunfight the first thing that you need to do is is to render first aid thank you it just seems like so many of the stories that we hear are people that aren't shooting back they're people that are standing there you know and don't seem add um from what we get to see they don't seem like a threat and so they went up dead no i i understand that that that's put out there but there are also situations in which i've had friends shot in the back of the head and did nothing yeah so there's there there's a lot of there's unfortunately there's a lot of violence in the world i wish there were ways to cure it and i think that it is an incumbent upon us especially when we're dealing with things like mental health you know god damn it part of my language but we we we need to make sure that that we do our best to make sure aren't slipping quote unquote through those cracks because if i can on the front end deal with somebody who is going through a mental health crisis and get them help get them medication and do everything i can't assuming that they take it um but i'd rather have all that on the front then have them going through a crisis that if a family calls and says i can't control my son and my daughter um and we have to come there that's the that's the i'd be scared too because you don't know who you're going to get with that call yeah we'll tell you what the Montpelier police department you're going to get the best trained people that we can be uh the best training we can give them um the guidance in the culture that that tries to push our officers to get out there when we can uh to get to know the people in the community because i'm going to be very much less inclined to use physical force on someone who i know i know your father i know your daughter and and and that's again that's that's a cultural push that we need out there and that we need to make sure that we have happened and we're going to do that as best as we can in this department thank you and welcome thank you so much i'm sorry uh the icon varies hi this is susanne i can vary first off welcome we're really excited that you're here you asked a couple things at the beginning things montpelier has done right one of the things that's been phenomenal is that tony made this commitment to get um people into rehab who requested it and i really want to see that continue something i'm excited that you're instituting is this social worker i'm very concerned that two people in this community of 8 000 have been shot to death in the last two years both of whom suffered from mental health issues and that to me says that there's been a failure in the system um and then my third concern is the school resource officer um i want to hear your thoughts on that i heard um there was a young gentleman from montpelier who spoke at the black lives matter rally here in montpelier and specifically talked about an interaction with the s ro here in montpelier it wasn't didn't happen on the school grounds but it was it was a pretty awful interaction and when i think about eventually my son going to school and my friends kids who have you know suffer from from um different abilities i'm very worried about the s ro position i understand um first with with the social worker if i made that was i didn't that was not my brain child that was something that was in the works well before um they even posted the position so tony and mary and uh gordon uh and and their teams have it was something that they they recognize a strong need for i think i'm going to do my best to expound on that by adding to the team to concept which is um more like again training for crisis intervention to work to de-escalate the situation for the safety of the person as well as for the officers and for the community and i'm going to try to bring in the c it plan and actually in one of these these usb ports i actually have the class and i'm not going to go out to another place to spend four thousand dollars to do it we're going to develop that training and we're going to do it for free right here in Montpelier and invite other officers to come do that for um um getting help rehabilitation for people who are surf suffering from addiction that is extremely huge to me i would be i don't think there's i'm going to go out and on a limb and say i don't think there's one person on this call who hasn't been affected by addiction in some way shape or form whether you've lost an uncle or a nephew to addiction these are situations that people need help they don't need prison they don't need prison to exacerbate a problem to make things worse for that person or worse for that family so um i'm not after people who are suffering from addiction i'm doing my best to get them help i'm after the bastards who are pushing that poison in our community um and again if i offend anybody with that word i'm sorry but that's just how i feel um but we there are a lot of studies out there um that say the positive if there's a positive interaction with with somebody in law enforcement somebody who's suffering from mental uh from from addiction issues if there's a positive interaction the chances and the likelihood of them getting help are higher than if we just came in there oh you're you're an addict you're you're beneath my heel your scum of the earth or anything else like that you know Jesus these are people and we need to make sure we all understand we're that that these are people we need to not get lost in our cynicism our darkness or uh that that's the other huge thing that we have to bring in here which tony has done a very good job with which is officer wellness because if you're not taking care of yourself and if we have a system that perpetuates this type of mentality then we're going to have officers that are going to go out there and they're going to take it out on the people they're sworn to protect and we can't have that so i need to take care of of them and this is incumbent upon me to protect them and do everything i can for them and their families so so yes with addiction absolutely 100 i'm going to take the baton tony gave me and i'm going to run with it as fast as i possibly can and um and with the sRO program uh that's a that's a that's a another tricky situation because it all depends on people's experiences and what they've had dealing with sROs i've had mixed experience dealing with sRO myself growing up um but i but i do know what's possible and i think it depends on the culture and it especially depends on the person who's put into that position now there are some things i think that we can do to soften up those appearances have an sRO with an unmarked car have an sRO in regular clothes and have an sRO most importantly that's that is empathetic and understand patient enough to deal with young people not somebody who's going to fly off the handle not robocop not tackleberry not any of those other you have to have the right person there and and i think that sROs can be extremely um benefit of people the program is a very very very good program um if anything because it's another set of eyes they shouldn't take the place of a counselor they shouldn't take the place of a social worker or a teacher but we have to understand that teachers and and i don't think it's happening here in this school district but in other places it is if there are conflicts that are going on in the classroom some of the teachers the first things they say is i'm not getting involved call the cop to come in here now again it's a it's a cop that's coming here dealing with two kids fighting each other that not going to go well you know why call the cop to do that type of thing um but i think it's another set of eyes that you know we have to have the boundaries that we have to understand what it is we're going to get involved in and what we're not going to get involved in and and another set of eyes to realize that if for example if we had uh took to call for a welfare check on one house and we went there and there was evidence of domestic violence going on in the house and one of the officers notices hey and again that's where that community involvement comes from but that's that that's that's billy i know him and i know he's in the fourth grade and then billy can then that officer can reach out to the s ro tell them about the call that we've been on the s ro's can go to the teachers they can go to the principal they can go to the counselors and say hey our our department and keeping in mind any hippophyllations or or protecting the rights um that that that were required to do by state and federal municipal mandates but be part of a collective team to say that this is what we're seeing this is what we think is going on in the house and we need to focus all of our resources so if anything i think in s ro if done correctly and done properly which i have all the faith in our school board system here with uh liberty uh with liby uh who's the superintendent and with who we have selected for s ro i have all the faith in the world that these are going to be kind compassionate people who want to go in there to help and not go in there to push push kids around or to make the experience is worse did you listen to that story at the did you listen to the story at the black lives matter rally i was quarantined i didn't get a chance to listen online i will send you the link okay i appreciate that thank you i was on the um served on the the tazer committee that we had a few years ago and we discussed the school resource officers and stuff and i don't remember exactly when they first started having a school resource officer but i do think the first one we had was um mark moody and yes he was superb um he knew all the kids the kids knew him and um i think there it's been a long time since i was in school um i think there um there were some instances where because we had the school resource officer and because he was connected to the kids um extremely well that things were prevented that may have otherwise ended up in a bad situation um i think it's the training and the personalities um it takes a special kind of person to be able to do that it does and for i think that in for every bad story every bad experience with SROs there are some positive ones as well and so i think that's what makes it ultimately come down to um to again the person that's put into that position the level of training the level of empathy and everything else that goes into it i was was made aware of of a situation i think that happened a few years ago on which i think at the high school there was a senior prank something that um there was like uh i think they were paying stuff on walls or something to that effect or whatnot and then when the police got called to arrive or got got called to come out there to respond i think they thought they were responding to a burglary or something like to that effect and then they actually spiked all the tires of the police cruisers that responded oh i didn't hear about that yeah from what i understand that happened several years ago and it cost thousands of taxpayer dollars to wow i wonder how i missed that but none of the none of the kids were arrested yeah none of the kids were arrested they they they got it got moved to a situation that it was um for the uh the cjc and so there was a conference conversation there i think there was restitution involved and it moved forward no no no for for a prank like that nobody went to jail for it nobody's uh lives were upended or did it go to a to a pipeline now i can't say that happens all the time because for every story i give you like that somebody's going to say well my experience has been this but i think it what it ultimately boils down to is we want the opportunity to develop that trust and when when i was researching for this job i was looking for every bad thing i could find i was going through facebook posts front porch forums everything to find out any rumor i could about officers or staff and i never heard anything negative or negative experiences regarding that's not saying they didn't happen but with the sRO program so i just want the opportunity to continue a program that i think um so far that we've we've done a dog on good job of um of will we make mistakes yes absolutely but um but i have i have a process question i've been waiting to ask a second question and i see there are 25 people on here and i don't want to cut in front anybody else so it's just in terms of taking turns asking questions is um what's the protocol okay i apologize about that then yeah part of it's i've talked too much so let me shut up and then i guess if it's uh from what i'm understanding if if you're if you have a camera if you can do a hand raise or hit one of the the emojis to show so i think ken you said you had a question then i see uh carolin um then carolin please so ken you had a question yeah yeah and forgive me i just no no i apologize for that that's my fault um i just i just wanted to you know so i'm on the homelessness task force and one of the things we're advocating for are what's called peer outreach which is people who have lived experience homeless reaching other homeless people and it's a it's a model that works quite well and it allows trust for trusting relationships so we're we're going to be in conversation with you all and i have been previously with tony and folks on council about how the peer outreach workers interact with the social workers as well as with the department um and and so i i just wanted to just mention that in in the context of the social worker because there are a whole group of people who who don't react well when they know it's a social worker or somebody's from washington county folks have had been traumatized by the system had bad experiences so i i just and and there are um there is a police sergeant in berlin who does a lot of outreach work the homeless behind the price cadbasset yeah i don't know if you know these sort of policing techniques or or with these sort of work and and in your openness to learning how you know working with that absolutely uh yeah those things are the best work especially peer support agencies one of the other one of the best practices especially when you're dealing with again mental health crisis is is to not only have a social worker but have a peer somebody who also has that same lived experience that can be there to help um help with with the current situation that somebody's experiencing so yeah i am a huge advocate for something like that and anything i can possibly do to help push that forward um you count me in there i'll be the first one in line with you chad is the go-to person chad's fantastic cad and berlin i will put that down oh you gotta meet him he is incredible he knows everybody and he takes nobody takes care of the homeless and challenged like he does nobody in this in this whole area takes care of him like he does i will connect with chad i promise oh absolutely lauren you had something that you wanted to say i thought we were going to carolyn carolyn i'm sorry your picture moved from right there to right there that's it no i i i don't have any questions right now okay sorry different different carolyn you're not the only carolyn on the call okay um hi i'm chief beat i'm carolyn westley i wanted to introduce myself i live in montpellier with my husband and my 15 month old daughter i've lived in town for nine years congratulations thank you and your daughter yeah she's a hoot um and also want to start by welcoming you and your family to montpellier and you know i am getting involved sort of newly in community conversations around policing and i am drawn to that conversation because i feel really called to do whatever i can to help make vermont a place where people of color can thrive and certainly as you know we're hearing nationally and i think also locally that policing is one place where we have work to do to make that possible um but i also want to start by saying that one of the things i hear first and foremost from black vermonters and others about how we do that is the importance of representative leadership and um i have a acquaintance who is raised in vermont with black parents who is just posting on facebook about how she did not meet a black adult until she was in second grade and throughout her childhood could count the number of black adults she knew on one hand and felt um how different her kind of experience her own internalized racism her sense of comfort in her own skin would have been if she had had black role models so i want to start by just acknowledging the importance of your leadership position in montpellier and my deepest hope that um you find it to be a supportive work environment and that your family finds it to be a supportive place to live thank you so much you're welcome um and we do know that the uh criminal justice system is a place where systemic racism is showing up and there's work to do and i am sort of listening to calls um happening across the country around what alternatives to policing might look like that's a new area thinking for me doesn't come naturally but i'm also someone who hasn't had to have a lot of um interactions with the police in my life so i'm open to thinking differently about it and i guess my question for you is as someone who is working to improve police culture from within where do you see common ground with people who are calling to defend the police and what might that mean in our community um i i definitely see common ground in looking at and i wouldn't even say necessarily reimagining the police i'd say is redistributing what the responsibilities and the expectations are and and and again for for for decades people in law enforcement have been saying um we don't need to be responding to these types of calls for service we shouldn't be there um and again that's not to say that hey you know we've been telling everybody so it's on you because we got called to do it so you know eat it no i mean we have a responsibility to train and be the best we can to be versed to deal with any situation that we possibly may encounter so so that is huge for us um but i think um what with that calling i think it comes to um with those common grounds it comes to be it comes to redefining what the expectations are of a police department and and in a broad education of the public as to where you know who should be doing what when we're when we're dealing with these types of calls for service and um and and to find that funding and that's one of those easier said than things are easier said than done things unfortunately because every year you know my my my minor my major in college with sociology employment relations in a minor in psychology and then i almost got my counseling degree twice but 9 11 hit and then my daughter was born on the second time i almost graduated but i did get my master's in police psychology so social services is huge to me because it's every year just no matter what state you in it slash that's the first thing that you go to and um people need help families need help to to deal with a lot of this the struggle struggles are real um so but i think that um we we need to reinvest into our communities into our social service agencies and functions and healthcare can i um chime in uh yes lauren and then i think allison i saw awesome i have a kind of a few questions i'd love to ask you but just i'll pop one in right now um because there's a great segue there uh first i just want to say also welcome to town um this is this must be like the most difficult time in all of policing to um be chief at a new department uh no thank you but can i say something real quick about that though i feel blessed about that because of the level and i'm not saying this to suck up to anybody to be corny but i feel blessed about that because of the level of engagement and heart that i see in in everybody here so i don't to me it's not going to be difficult i got it better than other people because i i think i'm talking to people who want to hold me accountable and be honest and truth for what we what we need to do to fix so i'm grateful for it that's awesome um so i've kind of been reading some of your responses to all of this and i did see you say that you thought you know the funding the police would be a terrible idea and i know that um that language is really strong for a lot of people um but i also know that the main kind of ethos behind it is this idea of swapping out public safety from a system that prioritizes the management of crime to one that prevents crime through supporting social services um so that all communities can enjoy the the kind of um basic dignity and rights of everybody else right uh and you know just what you're saying about your passion for social service and how we just see they're the first thing that gets cut every time um you know when we talk about looking at these budgets and trying to put our priorities where our part is uh it just seems like we need to like we need to correct something really important there and until we do you know if we're prioritizing the management of crime that we've basically created by neglect um i don't know i don't see another way out of this problem and i'm just kind of curious to hear your thoughts on kind of what what's so terrible about a system that um put social services first and as such reduces crime and and doesn't need police in the way we need police now so i don't think it's i don't think it's terrible at all i think that uh what i what i'm what i'm concerned about is when i hear hear that ethos i'm in all in favor of um of of recategorizing calls for service and what the boundaries are and what police should be responding to i just don't want to get lost in that in that individuals who may be trying to label that movement there's confusion on my part that you know when when i hear it i hear people say no it's it's it's prioritizing funding and then there's another group they're saying no i'm talking about eradicate the police entirely so i'm just trying to avoid being part of that conversation but in just saying that when it comes to reprioritizing what we respond to absolutely but i think there's a there's a false sense of security in some cases when social services and everything it's not going to always be like the total fix you have it should be yeah we we definitely need more counselors and social workers and and folks out there to to do that type of work but they're always going to be instances unfortunately and it's not always people who are in mental health um or who are experiencing those crises who are going to commit crimes there are other people that are that some are inherently bad and and again we have to be able to differentiate who needs help who has an addiction issue and who's inherently bad and uh so i i am totally for that but in in looking at defunding the police it's in in in every agency that i've been a part of so far with the exception of chicago whose budget has always just kept going going up and there's a i can get into a whole three-day conversation about that but their budgets have shrank as well and and i just want to be cautious about that because um defund robbing peter to pay paul in this instance there's going to be an unintended consequence so there's going to be reduced police services and expectations uh a less quality um you know applicant if you will that may want to come come to the department so so they're they're risked there if you you take from from here to fund here it's not going to be enough to nowhere near enough to be to fund from here and then you're taking budgets from a place that's barely barely making it on its own that's how i that's how i see it yeah i guess it's not my impression that anybody's really talking about stripping the police of funding and and not doing anything else because that does sound like a terrible idea um but i think the the dialogue is really about doing both like kind of like what the burlington city council just did um in heeding the vermont racial justice alliance's demands by investing in communities of color and other underserved communities and also pulling funding from the burlington police um and that's something i would love to see here in montpellier i understand your point allison i'm sorry you had something you wanted to say yeah hi malice and i actually live in east montpellier um close to morse farm which you guys talked about earlier the maple syrup um welcome to montpellier we're excited to have you thank you um my question is about something that someone actually brought up a little bit earlier officer chad being fatally shot mark johnson in montpellier last summer and was back to work before the investigation was even concluded do you think officer being should remain on the police force do you believe these officers can continue to serve the people with trust and compassion given their past actions and how do you plan to lead the force in a way that reduces the likelihood of these tragedies i absolutely think that officer being should be on the force and officer that were involved in that situation and i i stand by the decision um and and what those findings are from what i understand them to be and i i yeah i would i have the utmost faith and confidence and not only officer being whatever your officer in this department haven't been fortunate enough to sit down and talk with them um i i believe i know where their hearts are and and i know that um those situations are unfortunate and uh nobody wins when when when something like that happens and nobody wants to go no sane person and i've ever met wants to go out there and find themselves into those types of situations because they're scary and then you have to think about how families are dealing with it everything else like that um so yeah i i i i i absolutely stand by them and support them and uh and but to keep it from happening again i would um but first let me say this as well uh to mark's family you know that that's tough to lose um um perhaps just for something like that to happen it's friends and family and it's tragic and uh and and as i'm sitting here and as i'm talking to the officers that were involved in all this and i'm thinking by god what can i do to make sure something like this never ever happens again is there anything that we missed is there anything that we can bring to make sure that this doesn't happen again so i i don't know what that answer is i i hope to god never happens again especially in montpelier um but i i know that what i want to do is just to bring in more more opportunity more exposure um and um to hopefully to make sure something like this doesn't happen again and and i'm sorry but i don't know if that answered your question i'd just like to chime in with uh with uh with chad bean i mean this wasn't the first time that he specifically has uh been relate that has caused or been somehow related to the death of someone in our community back in 2012 there was a domestic dispute that he responded to when uh his use of force uh resulted in or maybe not directly resulted but the death of one of those individuals involved in that disturbance happened on his watch so i mean this isn't his first time using force i'm curious what about people that have these histories of violence against people in our community why would you want to keep someone like that on the force i mean i think there's a level of there's there's there's a level there's the do you have to look at what these early warning systems are to my knowledge there's not anyone um that's on this department that is that has a has a repeated um issue i mean things happen unfortunately in this job we find ourselves in very very undesirable situations and um um so it's uh i i take all that into account and uh but i i have i haven't seen any anything here or any person that gives me significant pause is i think that their mentality is one to go out there and not to serve but to go out just to be the big bad know-it-all cop um that just wants to bully people i i haven't seen that personally since i've been here but if i do find that uh then we take steps to eliminate that position as fast as possible and i and i what i understand again about this this department is the culture ostracizes that that the culture is we don't stand for that and you know in other places it's you know it's hey you know what are you doing why are you being nice to that person blank that person or anything else like that this culture is one of why don't talk to him or her like that and if you do it the next time x y or z is gonna happen um and and but but unfortunately from what i understand and what i've seen that hasn't happened much because of the screening process and the hiring process that um has been in place here to make sure that we get the right fit in the right mode for our department right but would you actually have the power to to take that into account i mean the collective bargaining agreements are pretty strong for police officers and um you know usually collective bargaining agreements and police units stand in the way of institutional changes and and policing um so you know in our neighboring city of barry i think like someone earlier mentioned they're starting a police oversight board um and you know just to say i worked as a professional investigator uh at a police oversight board uh in my past i've got experience with that and you know with that experience i can tell you that those police oversight boards really don't have much power or really do anything because of the collective bargaining agreements so um what's your stance on renegotiating collective bargaining agreement specifically section six here in our collective bargaining agreement to make you accountable for there i'm sorry could you were could you were i don't have that in front of you which one is section six that's the one regarding discipline uh disciplinary actions would you be um would you renegotiate that and give yourself more power over that and be actually able to to discipline and remove officers if necessary and make those proceedings public and make the records of those public i gotta be very careful on how i answer that one because to my understanding that there are because because of those are those what i renegotiate them if i saw something and i don't have it i don't have it in front of me so i have to apologize about that one but i'd have to look at it to see which specific issue may become a hindrance to us fine you know if we have a problem here to us getting rid of that person so i have to read up on that and i'll definitely get back to you um on that one um so if there is a specific problem to that then yeah i'll make that known but i also have to be cognizant to work currently within the confines of what's already been agreed upon by law as well as any you know to protect the um the the rights of that individual who's going through because a lot of times um just as a lot of times if somebody does something wrong there's a there's a lot of other times that somebody's uh you know didn't do anything wrong at all um so it's a it's a it's a tricky situation on that one but am i am am i opposed of getting rid of bad people oh hell no anyone who's bad i don't want them to continue tarnishing um what we do here and i don't want them to have an to treat my wife or my daughter or my mother or my father um um you know the way they would treat anyone else well also what about having more accountability for them for example article 22 of the uh collective bargain agreement uh provides individual uh liability insurance and false arrest insurance for police officers which kind of makes them unaccountable for their actions it it shifts that that burden to us the taxpayers in the city for for any actions of the police would you um kind of renegotiate that and make them accountable for their own actions brian brian i'm going to jump in here i vowed i wasn't going to say anything but there are there are mandatory subjects of um collective bargaining that brian probably isn't familiar with he has never negotiated these contracts i have um that's pretty much a professional requirement in this profession because people could also be falsely accused of things that have to have to bear those costs just like most professions have you know lawyers doctors whatever have professional liability insurances um with regard to individual cases such as officer beans those are personal matters i think those cases the results of those cases have been made public and investigated pretty uh severely i'd also point out that vermont in general is a very labor-friendly state uh which is not necessarily a bad thing but public employment in general is considered a property right and to just dismiss someone samarily is against the law uh and police officers in the state actually have it uh an additional level that most employees don't there is a requirement for public hearing if they choose our contract actually allows for arbitration instead of that public hearing where it goes to an arbitrator but we cannot actually terminate an officer um on our own if they choose to appeal and it goes to a third party in which case we have to prove um basically almost a court standard that just costs standard uh so uh yes i understand all the concerns i would say that by a large art our police union i would say more than by large overwhelmingly they have supported the types of measures that brian and tony have talked about and do try to police their own bad uh bad pun there but um as brian said they don't tolerate and when there has been someone who didn't fit in um they've actually we've you know we we we've actually had officers testify against fellow officers in here in arbitration hearings um so i you know i can't really go into details because of the nature of them but it's not as you know it wouldn't be great if we just said hey sure let's get rid of them but it's it's there's a lot more legal real stuff so i'm not saying that to argue with you constatinos i just want to try to inform the conversation that that there are there's a larger universe of things and i'm going to go back to be no i understand that but you know in terms of the insurance you know doctors do pay for their own insurance it's not you know a lot of times they don't it's not employed provided by their employer because it's their own actions that they're going to be responsible for just want to make that point okay i don't totally understand i'm sorry vicki did i see you yeah um i i wanted to add a couple of things and i had a question from a long time ago um but i think that discussion you know the discussion of the um the powers that the collective bargaining or the unions have is is a bigger question and a bigger issue than just not pillier i think that's it's something that um that united states wide or nationwide is is something that that needs to be addressed um although i will have to say that i'm not a big union fan um so but i think um you know i think that that needs looked at um i mean we did hear a few chiefs over you know throughout the nation talk about how difficult it was to get rid of um and to discipline officers that just weren't appropriate um and it needs to be made more um it needs to be made easier for them to have more authority over i mean they're the ones and other police officers that have to work with these officers are the ones that are closest to it and um you know it doesn't do any service to anyone and i've i've heard stories of where the the some of the black officers um are being intimidated by some of the white officers and that's not right um and and the um and and the unions don't do anything about it um so i mean those things are not right at all um but the other question i had was on the on the school resource officer um do the kids have a chance or an opportunity or a a way to um to assess the performance of the school resource officer uh that's a very good that's a very good uh question um i can give you my off the cuff answer but i wanted to go back really quick to the to the union part um while i do understand that there are a lot of other places in the country that are experiencing these these these difficulties with unions i don't think Montpelier is one of them at this particular no i don't think so either okay and so yeah i mean they definitely do have their challenges and and yeah i think it's there there are some institutional uh conversations to be had about that um but uh i i think currently here here at home i think uh you have a very very strong department who's who's who's anchored well we sort of live in a little bubble in Montpelier and we'll i'll take it we're they did they did tell you that we're also known as Montpelier they most polite i don't care we'll take it all that you know to me Montpelier you have to be a little peculiar to be here trust me i am peculiar um so yeah with with the SROs i i think that's a that's a very good uh that's a very good question i think that that that's going to require some end to thought the the thing that gives me immediate pause about that is um i'm not sure if um that would i think that would be something more decided towards the school board or towards towards the schools itself but i'm a little hesitant about putting a lot of weight on what a child may may deal with when it comes to a police officer well yeah i think that there's to be some type of feedback or or some type of problem you know i i think that that would that should be baked into into currently what we're doing but um i i think would and i'm sorry but i think one of the conversations for the school board meaning was that the school board actually i mean they they wanted to to have a very in-depth discussion about and they wanted to find out what some of the other teachers and principals and especially some of the students especially students of color um were saying the current experiences so i give them a huge amount of of credit um for for trying to draw that conversation out and i think that's a that's a that's part of accountability and that's something that needs to be looked at i mean i think it would be nice if the especially the older kids i mean the ones that are in high school would they have the ability to you know think about that if they had a feedback form or something that went directly to you um i mean he's a police officer and it there's there was a large you know there's been issue there's been discussions on who should foot the bill for that police officer um over the years you know should it be in the school budget should it be in the municipal budget you know should it be 50 50 whatever um but i think if there's an issue um with the school resource officer that is an important issue it would come back in just a volume of you know things from the kids i mean they didn't it would have to be a confidential thing but if 50 kids said you know this guy's really a bully he's not good he's not listening to me then maybe there's something that needs to be taken that needs to have some look at um i mean the kids are the ones that are interacting with him if he's not meeting their needs that's that's a that's a that's a very very good point and now and next time i get uh you get the opportunity to speak with living um i'll definitely bring that up because he should be meeting the needs of the kids not just the needs i mean he's there for the kids it's my understanding i mean i growing up i never had experience with police officers in schools the only time a police officer ever came into our school um in Windsor was when one of my classmates um punched a teacher out and that's the things that we're trying to avoid we're trying to avoid to the point that we that we want to have that we want to have interactions when they're positive not always when i mean we never if the police were in in the schools that was a big deal um it just it never happened never i'll definitely get to work on that but that was in the 70s and the early 60s the 60s and early 70s it's been a few years Vermont in the 60s so are there any i am more than willing to stay on to to discuss anything with anybody who who wants to um but i know in some case it's 751 um are there any other questions or concerns or challenges or anything else that that uh that that anyone would like to talk to or if if you want to continue on some conversations that you know in uh more intimate settings um by all means i'm ready to to have these conversations or these meetings at any time and place that's going to be more conducive for anyone um there's a question in the chat if okay mr he can take a look at those okay i'm apologize about that i knew all that um it's a question which okay is it the institution of policing is necessary can i imagine the responsibilities and turd is that the question well there's several questions but yeah that's one of the ones that i was curious about your answer as well okay um is it okay if i go to collin real quick and then if there are no other questions then i'll go down each of these and i'll answer them to the best that i can okay i'm sorry mr keegan sir um first of all welcome um i used to live in montpellier i live in burlington now i still work there uh so you know member of the community in the day um i one of the reasons i popped on was to flag your attention to the chat so uh okay just feel free to spend some time on that i guess my other thing this is obviously bigger than montpellier um i just we're kind of within the conversation of accountability um what's your take on qualified immunity i know that there's been a lot in the news lately with the supreme court uh and judicial legislating in some way and uh between the collective bargaining agreements and the power within the department and then obviously the way policing is structured overall uh there there are multiple layers of protection for officers that probably shouldn't be on the force and then there's also different ways to hold them accountable so it's a long way of just asking your asking your opinion on what should happen about qualified immunity i think i think qualified immunity is is it needs to stay um it there are also provisions built into qualified immunity that um it's not just because hey if you if you've been involved in let's say for example a deadly force incident you've been involved so you're automatically um absolved of it you know there's no responsibility there's there's there's criminal and there's civil um liabilities that you're also looking at there's a four-pronged test um and and these are qualified immunity is something that's that's baked into supreme court law or so and basically on case law so i think that there there are provisions that are in there that that that do hold officers accountable um my my issue with what qualified immunity is is what are the accountability systems in place that make sure that the truth comes out um for an investigation so for example if you have a shooting and you know um you know are there accountability systems that are in place to make sure that the truth comes out that there's no that you know you're not manipulating paperwork or casework or things to that you know a egregious factor that's that's going to include those factors that you know those exception rules the the exceptions to the rules so i think that where where departments have to be diligent at is to make sure that it's a culture and a system of accountability and different layers of supervision and um you know because it's like that fraud triangle right that you know if you have you know you have motive and opportunity that that it can't just be incumbent upon one layer okay i'm the final authority know there has to be different layers and different levels of eyes to look at it um and with Montpelier we don't do our own internal investigations with officer involved shootings the state police does them um so i i think that qualified immunity is is definite must for the job but it had the system has to be fair in getting the truth out and making sure that that that those provisions are in place thanks um i just had one thing i wanted to thank you for your for your email of monday night or tuesday morning or whatever um and i also hope that um you'll still like vermont um during stick season and mud season stick season is between fall and winter and mud season is between winter and spring or spring and whatever anyway um because vermont is the very best state in the nation i'm i'm i'm maybe partial but i'm i'm digging on it right now and uh yeah i've already been told to get some muck boots i didn't know what muck boots were but i know what they are now they're varying kinds you can get the short ones or the for the tall ones yes mud season is every time it rains and my daughter comes inside the house so it's oh it gets worse i'm looking forward to that i could jump it out there in the mud with her stick season is kind of depressing well then if i could let me go to uh to some of the questions from the top there i used there used to be a rural screening team that was part of washington county mental health they went out on calls from mental health crises the escalation begins with the individual officer okay um project safe catch is what she's talking about good program people need drug rehabilitation yes absolutely and house locking up putting away um yeah no i agree with you shouldn't be locked up and put away i'm learning a more about rule three and the states and how the um how that um the state itself uh discourages um uh locking folks up to that extent especially in other places in some and a lot of other states uh you come across an incident there's uh there's two people fighting unless the officer sought um then then you know the only it seems like the only three courses of action are a citation um to be placed under arrest for photograph fingerprinting and then a citation and released uh or potentially a citation or uh the arrest and then incarceration but the incarceration has to be determined by a judge so from what i understand about the the state of vermont it's the judges that make the decision on if somebody's going to be held without bail for any significant amount of time and not the police department within this state as opposed to other states say like for example illinois i can arrest somebody based on the signed uh sworn statement of someone else uh let's see hope to learn the sRO learns to deal with bullying yeah make sure our sROs uh aren't aren't bullying but also make sure that uh we we adhere to training and that if and that we can provide some training to talk about bullying especially things like cyberbullying um because we're seeing a lot of that nationwide thank you all very much for your welcomes uh do i think the institution of policing is necessary yes i but i definitely would reimagine um what our responsibilities and what what calls for service that we go to um but it's going to be unfortunately i think um a slow transition because again everything's intertwined so it's going to be a matter of other institution or other agencies um having new policies new money new resources new new personnel um more personnel to enhance those um the services that they provide um i think there is a benefit of maintaining a police agency because unfortunately a crime does happen and um and somebody has to respond to it um it's it's not always situations that require social workers um or or other um community resource functions sometimes there there are some very real things out there and there are some people out there who are experiencing things like domestic violence or child abuse or child endangerment those things do happen and somebody within the community has to respond to those but again that means we should we we have to make make take a look at what we're responding to and then working on with the community to get that agreement that understanding that the police will not respond to these things but um here's what we want to go to from here um the drug dealers are in many respects no different than the characterization police often put forward a few bad apples for the most part okay structural organization yes it is structure so drug dealers in schools um that's something i want to make sure that we're not willing nearly and going in there and and uh you know we we want to make sure we're legitimate and what we understand and any suspicions that we may have okay thank you again for the welcome um again i think i answered that question about do i think policing is uh institution is necessary um let's see additionally i'm sorry chief yes we need more housing um so i i had i had had a chat on the side with the ira who posted that question um he he he he wanted sort of addressing of are are these people bad people because you talked about going after the bastards and i guess the point of his question was are they really bad people there's in my experience is you have people that are um that are that are making the wrong decisions based of because they're forced necessity you know you you you go into a situation a lot of times like for example in chicago i i don't know what it's like and not feel you're yet because i haven't been a chat a chance to go out there on the streets yet but um in chicago you're often dealing with people who are it's i don't i got locked up i can't get another job i wasn't able to finish school or i only have a high school education i don't have a car i can't do anything else um if i don't i would live on this neighborhood and and and if and if i don't sell dope they're going to shoot me so so there there are some cultural issues um within those places but there there is also that understanding that some people are forced to do things that they otherwise would not do if they didn't find themselves in very unfortunate situations so in those cases we have to we you know there is a responsibility um to uphold the law but at the same time i i think it's incumbent upon us as a society it can't just be the work of the police themselves but we have to identify that and send them up i did have the chance to meet with rory uh who is the state's attorney for washington county and he is a very strong advocate for differentiating what's going on with crime and what's going on with issues that aren't crime or necessarily something that can be solved it by other means other than than being pushed into the criminal justice system so i think all the elements are here um but uh yeah it's there are just we we have to distinguish these things and we have to um you know the answer always isn't locking people up so yeah when i say bastards i mean the people who are full out straight up you know i'm gonna i'm gonna do dope i don't care who i hurt i don't care whose children are addicted to it i don't care what i have to do to get more money because it's all about me me me and this is what i'm gonna do um those are heartless people but my heart goes out to people who find themselves in those unfortunate situations that they have to do something that again they otherwise wouldn't want to do i'm sorry stefanie yes i'm sorry we've got a few um sound things going on here he's gonna take the baby out of the way we're double teaming this conversation to one household two computers um my name is stefanie i live in montelier we've lived here for three and a half years we have a young child and it's an incredible community i welcome you too so it's really great to have you i will move away from that toy making annoying noise um my question is about well to be brief it's about things like blue lives matter and this inability of police departments overall to engage in this type of discussion that you're engaging in in such a great way and you know i find it incredibly upsetting that so many police officers take deep personal offense when the institution itself of policing is being critiqued and i know as someone who's very much committed to um creating a society where we do not need police uh my the issue would never be with an individual police officer or with you you seem very kind and thoughtful for example and um at a few city council meetings i felt that people um the former chief seemed to take offense at a few critiques of the system at large and we weren't addressing him as an individual i just want to tell you that we want to go forward and talk with you about these issues and really appreciate that you're that you're able to engage with us but how would you um how would you engage with with that culture here in montelier or in vermont overall given your leadership position and you'd probably be talking to different cops in different places at different times how do you think you could encourage them to to have these types of discussions and you know i've seen blue lives matter flags around here i've i've heard a lot of harmful rhetoric i just don't think that everyone is like you and willing to have these discussions which which is it is really upsetting and uh you know just the idea that someone's job would be such a approach just talking about an institution so large would feel like such a personal attack on people and i don't want that to be the case if we're all to move towards a better society talk together that that's an that's a very deep uh profile question and then thank you for the opportunity to answer it um and then first thank you for for that um for i for the initial trust i guess i would say um for for for um for this um but i think with um i think in some cases that yeah i mean well not in some cases i think that our institution has not had the best track record as possible and um so there's a lot of emotion and in some of these settings i've been asking people what do i say to the officers who are upset um because there's there's a there's a lot of there's anger on both sides there's there's there's there's folks demanding accountability and demanded the institution itself changed and our culture changed by rights so they're they're police and police to agencies that are saying you know yeah our our our culture sucks it must change everything else like that but i feel like i'm getting lumped into and painting with being painted with the same brush and uh and i think that's where some of that frustration comes out now is it the smartest thing to do i think um to to push a dialogue because it's going to force different things like just as my my misunderstandings or misinterpretations is what i learned tonight about defunding the police is not actually about defunding the institution or abolishing the institution in this whole i think as a society that's what all of us should be working towards but um so there's there's that frustration and uh and there's hurt um and and and officers trying to figure out like i'm not that a command man use a bad word a blunt word if you have children in the room um but i've heard from more than several people i'm not that asshole murderer in many anapolis why am i why am i getting hate emails or why am i getting yelled at or why am i getting screamed at because it's like everything that i've done to do right um it's just been forgotten about and i'm being labeled and painted with the same brush so it's trying to navigate that and bring that down and when you're saying blue lies matter some people you're you're missing the urgency of the situation of now nobody's not saying that blue lives white lies hispanic lives don't matter we're it's society's shining a light and saying right now i think i heard it uh last night in the uh in the city council meeting are you talking about the situation of right now there's an issue going on right here and we need to focus our attention right here of course everybody else's lives matter but there's something institutionally structurally wrong that's going on with people of color in the community especially when it comes to policing institutions so yes so we cannot move from that conversation but i think it it's just some people just getting very emotional um in in in a zeal in an effort to say i'm not like that and some people are doing it a little bit better than others um so so but but what i what i try to get folks um is to do is to push past the all the all the chaff through that and and to to really hone in on what what what the conversation is and and and i'm not going to lie to you there have been times that that uh that that i got upset there have been times that i you know got ruled out because it it does feel like a personal attack but i i talked to my wife and uh and i talked to other people and i talked to my my pastor and i try to try to get it put in perspective and i ask the same questions of people who are who want to hold me accountable where is this coming from um and and i think i i think i understand it you know i know i understand it but i know it's it's a difficult place to be and there there are a lot of folks that say uh it's not about any one individual person but i think specifically for Montpelier it is because it has to be about one individual person it has to be uh it has to be about me because i'm the one who's here um who's who's in this department and and if my if my morals my scruples my character and my sense of accountability um are wrong then by all means i you won't get me the get me out of here um because that's not what it's supposed to be but i think that while we have to have these national dialogues at the same time we can't be we can't lose focus to uh and we have to bring each other up to to realize that it's we need to focus on the institution as a whole and try to make sure that it's not you know i appreciate what this person's doing and this person's doing every day but we all have a part to play especially internally with our institution and we do have to push the culture forward and that's where i think Montpelier can excel at is to uh to make sure we do have these dialogues and to make sure that we come together with the communities we serve to find out what the solutions in the boundary should be thank you thank you are there any other questions um challenges ideas or anything else that i can i can answer okay well um i know it's a long night uh for a lot of folks and and and sincerely from the bottom of my heart i want to really thank you all very much for the tough questions for the ideas um and this will not be the last uh i want to have several more of these uh so i can again solicit more feedback and then then put our strategic goals and our plans out there um so we can do our best to to continue to reimburse ourselves within our community and move forward so thank you all very much for your time and again and if anyone wants to have any conversations offline or any other place please let me know and uh and i'll call you i'll meet with you uh doesn't matter when or where but i'm here i serve you thank you thank you and thank you for your time thank you so much yes thank you fantastic thank you thank you thank you all good night good night good night go white socks