 everyone we want to be respectful of everyone's time so we're going to go ahead and get started because we did say we were going to start at 6 30 thank you all for joining us this evening this is our the racing culture task force and one of our last town hall meetings that we will be having in order to get the information that we need from our communities and our citizens so that we can make the proper recommendations to the city of Fort Worth my name is Rosa Navajar and I'm one of the co-chairs and I'm gonna ask our my we are four co-chairs I'm gonna ask Rabbi Bloom to introduce himself hello my name is Rabbi Andrew Bloom and I am one of the co-chairs at a convention this past week I heard the term infrastructure of hope used and I think all of us here are trying to bring a infrastructure of hope to Fort Worth because once we build that infrastructure of hope we were able to have a foundation for our futures so I thank you all very much for helping both bring about the infrastructure and to help build the foundation so thank you very much hi I'm Bob Ray Sanders and welcome y'all how y'all doing good good what we're hoping for for tonight and I'm glad all of you showed up this is the second town hall that we've had but in between we've had scores of community conversations where people are given their opinions that we've all been writing down and we're right in the middle of the process the only thing I would urge all of you to do especially those of you who may be speaking tonight don't let this be the last time you connect with this group of people and this process we've got a few more months to go we're collecting a lot of data we're gonna be coming up with recommendations but we need you all the way through that process so we have a website one port worth that if you didn't get a chance to say everything you need to say tonight you can still speak to us we're available anytime so let us know if you need to tell me something or anybody on this committee something we want to hear from you and when we get ready to go to the City Council with recommendations we're gonna come back to you to make sure that we've heard you correctly so thank you for being here and have your say tonight and I too welcome you and hope that you will have the opportunity to express some of your concerns and and help us to form these recommended plans that we're gonna come up with so thank you for being here this really feels good I think this is a great meal you to have this kind of meeting so hopefully will you'll be relaxed and feel comfortable with expressing your concerns thank you I'm also gonna ask the task force if you can just introduce yourselves as well so that away they'll know who's serving on the task force and we'll go ahead and start from the right side and staff as well I'm Mary Kaiser I'm the city secretary for the city of Fort Worth Fernando Costa with the city manager's office and principal staff to the task force estrus Tucker local consultant for the task force Arturo Martinez I'm a lifelong resident of the far greater north side of Fort Worth neighborhood Terry Mossage member of the task force I'm Katie Sherrod and I'm a member of the task force I'm Charles Boswell on the task force Miriam Frias task force Yolanda Harper Ty Stimpson a member of the task force Corey session member of the task force Jennifer Trevino task force you all were giving it's you all were given a sheet as you came in with some of the questions that we'd like to see if you all can provide your comments based on these questions and it is to what extent do Fort Worth residents experience disparities in criminal justice economic development education health housing and transportation that are attributable to trace and culture can you provide us with a specific example of these disparities why do our residents experience these disparities and what should our community do to reduce or eliminate these disparities what on here we have said that we're giving you two minutes but we're going to extend that to three minutes and at this time I want to go ahead and ask estrus Tucker as he mentioned he's our consultant for this task force to say a few words we've given you some paper work to kind of to serve as a guide and you also have a list of six touchstones so that you can have an appreciation for how we sought to engage one another and engage our neighbors all over the city of Fort Worth so I invite you to reflect on those touchstones particularly as you leave this place and look to talk with your neighbors your co-worker your family members these touchstones help us to speak with respect and help us to listen well and that's what I want to underscore tonight we welcome all of your voices and and those of us that are listening to speakers let us listen to learn listen with an open mind to spend our judgment so that together we build a better Fort Worth thank you estrus Mary I would invite you to go ahead and ask for the first speaker okay our first speaker is Brenda Scruggs my name is Brenda Scruggs 8132 Hosterway and I live in Hulon High sedition and ever since my husband I moved there December 1st ever since we moved there December 31st 2001 we've experienced nothing but racism deep-seated racism for worse than I ever experienced in my entire life worse than I ever experienced in my entire life my husband works for Coca-Cola he'd been there since 1983 we would be married for 32 years in June and I would like for you all to know civil rights violations are the worst inhumane violation that I ever experienced on the chief Joe Fischer and some city officials that I've tried ever since we moved in to try to get some help but the NPO's don't help us and the worst thing ever happened to me is when I found some illegal drugs put in our car it's my vehicle on 1026 2017 I was furious trying to set us up you got us under surveillance what's more do you need we are innocent people living in a neighborhood that some people just don't understand when you have a husband to work we live where we want to live if we do on something arrest us but if we not chief fish jail send a million health team to my house officer William Martin is an officer that is psychological unfit for duty he didn't know how to take my report he refused to he refused to transfer the call and he lied as if you didn't call the police on 1026 2015 I go yes I did and I'm telling you we never have peace and I've contacted every city official possibly except for the two newly elected officials and on yesterday when I was cleaning my house here my hand to the father I found something in my house I go like Lord what is this and then I found something in the draw and you have to know we have changed our locks and forward police have been seen coming in and out of our house ever since we moved and neighbors the mental health team came to my house but there was nothing they could do they talked to me and I didn't even know that they had sent them there I thought they was coming to help me I had to find out by Star Telegram November 22nd to 217 as it was this mental health team crisis intervention was about I would like to really talk with this staff some of you I know like mr. Barbara Sanders mr. Estres Tucker I know him mr. Chris ball Charles Chris Bowswell I know him thank you Vincent Simon Gerald Bank senior Gerald Bank senior Gerald Bank senior when there's a wrongful arrest such as what William Martin did and Jackie Craig and myself case we all can learn and agree that some life-altering changes came about and some different differences fail short of what was to be expected we can understand that it will continue to happen as long as people are what they are people sir can you put the mic down so we can hear you a little bit better thank you and when people make mistakes on purpose or not oh on up to them and on up to their mistakes and settle with the understanding that it won't happen again but we all know that it will someday because we are only human to take a chance with S before that a mistake won't happen is a long shot that we won't learn about another wrongful arrest in the shadows so why would it take a body of people to tell a body of people to inform a governed body of people the city council what they already know and what to do in order to fix it we have to start with ourselves to fix a race problem with wrongful arrest police brutality and as before DACA dreamers and 287 G a smoke screen to stall and undermine the public into thinking something is really happening leaders picked by leaders that don't understand what's in the in their backyard need to take a good look and recognize by shortening and speak me by shortening the speaking time at City Hall and technical difficulties conduction in conduction the way a person should speak is not a way to ensure the public that you the council are with us as a body of people and forward I appreciate you on this thank you Robin Kelly good evening everyone I wanted to personally thank everyone on the task force for your time and effort I know it's like to be on commissions and boards and it's a lot of thankless nights a lot of crying nights and I just want to publicly thank you I am not prepared as far as having a note that I wrote down but I have opinions and I hope that I'm in the wheelhouse of what this is about I thought there would be more dialogue before I began to talk am I supposed to say my address no ma'am okay but I do live in United Riverside and this I'm gonna start with that when I'm talking about disparities of economic development I don't know if this let me just say this this is my philosophy things that are allowed to happen in my neighborhood wouldn't happen in West overland ridgely or things of that nature there are noted drug homes that have been called on several times and I know because I talked to the NPO officer officers along the way since I've been back first of all let me say this this is a home I grew up in so this is a neighborhood that I have a connection to I don't want to feel like that in the black community we get less than and they wouldn't and I feel that way I feel like in in ridgely if there were noted drug homes that have been hit several times and I've been devastated and see in the military style police come in how they come in and bust the doors down in reference to getting what they do whatever the phrase is when they're breaking down the home in their bust in the drug house I don't know what the terminologies the cops use that is something it's been it's moved from one street to another and I know somebody on this task force that's very familiar with this neighborhood to another now if I know and I don't know the game I never got hit to the game until I moved back to the neighborhood and I saw all the different people that come from different neighborhoods they not my neighborhood is not nice but you coming from another neighborhood to come up in my neighborhood to buy drugs everybody knows the house that you go into or park that you pretend to play at they bust these homes and they're still there why is it that I think when I when I believe racism is involved in ridgely one call okay I'll give you two maybe three but I guarantee you that wouldn't be a problem again I've talked to city council persons I know the NPO officer I try to be a part of these type of task force to make sure my voice is heard to it appears to no avail Kylie and I didn't even get to gentrification that's another thing and I don't think gentrification in and of itself is horrible I think there's a kinder as daddy Bush would say a kinder in general way to do that but there and some work that needs to be done thank you ma'am also if you do not get to hear all your comments because it is the three minutes please go on the website and document your comments there as well because we are we are looking at those and we do have a sheet that you've been given for your comment card so you can write those those comments down as well thank you Jim DeLong good evening thank you for allowing me to speak tonight as some of you on the task force of known you've seen me around to your meetings and I've gone to a lot of the community conversations and one thing that really struck me about the questions that you have asked us to be prepared to talk on all of them talk about disparities that are there I think everybody realizes that there are disparities I would say that me being the race that I am the age that I am and probably the neighborhood that I live in I don't experience personally the extent of many of you others here so one things I wanted to talk about tonight in the community conversations you encouraged us in your paperwork to ask what is possible not what is wrong what's the possibilities that we have as fellow human beings as fellow members and citizens of this great city even though we come we're different colors we come from different cultures different backgrounds what's the possibility of us coming together on a grassroots level to to only discuss as I've heard in the task force meetings and the community conversations about transportation energy housing as important as those things are they fail to hit and connect people heart to heart person to person where we could come together there was a gentleman Stan Fuller that came to one of the conversations we hit it off he's he's a black man I'm a white man and we hit it off he gave me his card I texted him and said hey let's let's have coffee together I live on the north side he lives south of Hewlin I said let me come down to where you're at we had coffee together and my intent wasn't for us to talk about the problems and solutions I wanted to connect with another fellow human being someone that that cares about our city and we got to know one another until you know until you can walk on my own someone's feet until you can come to know one another in the army when you're in the front lines everybody realizes that you have one another's back regardless of where you come from you have one another's back and I would like to see some direction from the task force and the National League of Cities as they lead this help us help us find a way to connect where we can have one another's back it starts heart to heart sharing values yes it's important to discuss the disparities because they are there but since the civil rights movement there's been hundreds of billions of dollars maybe trillions of dollars that have been spent doing exactly what you all are doing and we haven't quite seen the results from all of that time so I encourage you let's try to find some way where we can get in the trenches together and connect our hearts together and come to know one another thank you thank you sir Greg Hughes well good evening I am Greg Hughes I was weird by a mother who is a historian and so I was kind of steeped in learning history whenever we go places or just where we lived and something I've been struck by I think more strongly in the last year is how little well especially how little white people know of the history of African-Americans in this country you know we just went through Black History Month and what I always thought growing up when Black History Month was established was it was something for black people to do and it's only been recently that I've understood that I can actually learn a whole lot about the history of America all the way back to the history of Africa the reason I bring this up is because if I don't know someone's history then I really don't know them I mean I can know them superficially but if I don't know where they've come from if I don't know what their families legends have handed down if I don't know what their grandparents went through I have a hard time maybe understanding their reactions to events or proposals or whatever it's kind of brought home I think it's been popular enough I can bring up the movie get out you know watching that I recognize that there's a whole lot of history and historical things that it touches that most white people really don't know I can just throw out like the Tuskegee experiment and ask does everybody know what that was and why suspicions of medical community might arise from that you know there are examples of history of redlining of bank denials of federal policies of all sorts of things that got us all where we are today and it got us all who we are okay some of us got here better than others and there are reasons for that but I think the more universally we have an understanding of each other's history and I'm not trying to lay a whole lot on the black community because I think you'll get an overdose of our history but the white people really need more understanding of the history of our collective racial experience in this country and I think that'll be a foundation that can lead to as Mr. DeLong spoke of being able to connect with one another it just really helps if we're coming from the same baseline knowledge thank you thank you Doug Cuny hi I also want to thank you for your service and echo Mr. Banks comments about you've extended time to three minutes as opposed to the city council which doesn't produce the charm so that's a great thing state the obvious I don't have answers I pray to God you guys will come up with the answers I'm white I'm male I'm boomer I'm heterosexual I have experienced privilege to the point where I haven't even had to assert it it was just assumed I moved to Texas in 73 but I spent my phone to views in Georgia and I remember Lester Maddox being elected I was 10 famously he owned the Pickrick restaurant in Atlanta and the Pickrick drumsticks were were axe handles that the white patrons used to stop African Americans from entering and moved to Greenville during my Air Force Sprat Greenville Texas and famously the sign outside of Greenville was welcome to Greenville home of the blackest dirt and the widest people and I was told that that oh that means fertile soil and that means pure spirit but we know better and we hadn't fixed that and now we are deep but as a result of that because of my zip code I went to a better school than other people my father was never stopped for driving while white and he was a drunk he was in fact driven home by the police in Greenville Texas he was an Air Force pilot in a case he won 35 but if my father was black he probably would not have been driven home that night and probably my family would have crashed at that point it one of the things you're looking at is the first encounter with the police and that makes all the difference so I pray you guys and I and I hope and I believe you guys understand that this is not just a communication thing this is not an error this isn't we're labeling it wrong with this is a thing so we haven't fixed the African American thing at all and now we're adding SB 4 and 287 G we got to do better we and and the reason I'm here is because some city council appointed committees appear to be timid we need to be respectful we need to not offend people but I pray you guys speak truth to power what's right is right and the worst of it will be if mr. Sanders because I see him at the Albertsons all the time he I'm gonna be whining at him if he doesn't get it done thank you thank you sir Mindy of Whittier hi thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening I'm gonna follow the list of questions that you all asked us to respond to and the first was do Fort Worth residents experience disparities and in what areas my response to that is yes but not necessarily well in addition to the categories that you all listed with with transportation and housing and so forth I believe there is a significant disparity in government and municipal representation you also asked for examples so I'm going to give you a list of a few that came to mind to me and while I was sitting here first of all the fact that among the committees appointed by the race and culture task force there is not a committee appointed for municipal and government relations and I was given the response that that's because the government and municipal relations can be handled within the confines of each of those committees but the reality is there are some of the concerns about our elected officials that cannot be addressed inside each of those categories because they are not specific to those categories additionally another example is the fact that officer Martin is still employed by Fort Worth PD another example the fact that there was no opposition at all to sb4 they didn't have to be litigation it could have been an amicus brief it could have been an official statement there was nothing another example is that the city council at the time we were battling sb4 brought up the idea of an immigration resolution they couldn't even come to a conclusion on that because I was told by a councilman bird that they had fatigue on the topic of racism and immigration another example is the fact that our county has entered into a voluntary 287 g immigration agreement that is increasing deportations and I know that's a county issue not a city issue but we well know that the county and the local government work closely together so why do we have these disparities in my humble opinion it is due in part to cultural competency issues and inherent bias among some our elected officials that they are unwilling to recognize so should what should we do my answer is we need to hold our elected officials accountable so accountable for their actions like ignoring the recommendation of the human relations commission to do something about sb4 hold them accountable for things like the fact that two of our city council members voted against renaming Jefferson Davis Park hold them accountable for the fact that a city council member used his campaign funds to circumvent the freedom of information act hold them accountable for the fact that the mayor does not have a diverse direct advisory staff employed in her office hold them accountable for the fact that there is demonstrated partisanship among certain members of our city council as evidenced by situations such as the mayor doing interviews with conservative members of the media and not correcting them whenever they use terms like illegal aliens to discuss to discuss the immigrants in our community so one of the other speakers a few moments ago said that you all had asked in the community conversations for us to answer what is possible not what is wrong and what I would answer to that is we cannot have what is possible unless we truly address what is wrong thank you thank you DNC Monday good evening everyone my name is DRC Monday hello and thank you for allowing me to speak I had to go ahead and make sure that I was looking at the word disparities correctly so I did look it up and I found out that one of the words the synonyms that I like the most in order to use it tonight would be gap there's a huge gap in a lot of the areas that we are addressing tonight so disparities in every area specifically dealing with African Americans I am looking at the very idea something that I've gone through something that my friends who are trying to open up businesses have gone through is that when we do have immigrants though we largely are more they're more in the public conversation to the current due to the current presidential administration they are still allowed to receive more and assistance and business opportunities than our current residents both locally and nationally and that is very disparaging to a lot of my friends because at this point in time even though they're trying to move out of government assistant and housing situations by opening up businesses and being supported by their local communities they can't because they're not going to be funded because it comes down to who can we give money to that we believe that they're going to give there's going to be a rate on this in a rate of a return on this so when it comes to the whole identity issue the whole identity crisis issue it's going to continue on because it's not just in the neighborhood it's not just locally it has to do with who can financially give us something back for what we're giving so it's a it's a pocket issue as far as I'm concerned so it makes the American dream more definitively for non Americans in that aspect I don't have an American dream because I'm an American and there's no dream that I need to have for me I just need to be allowed to do what it is that I'm looking forward to doing and I can't do that because I can I get the support and funding that I need to go ahead and open up the businesses yes I have great ideas but that's what I am backed into the wall with just a lot of ideas because I get no support when I am out there trying to apply and get any type of funding that I need to open up any type of business that is out there to help and to help service our communities out there because at this point in time we're all dissenting and we're detached from one another and what that calls to mind is that we can't support one another and we can't get what's done because we have officials who are representing people who are not coming together so if you're here you got to make a decision because everybody can't agree and that's where I'm having issues somewhere else is education wise we're all suffering I believe because I've heard through the grapevine because I've been an educator I've been a teacher in both Everman ISD and Fort Worth ISD I have I was born I was reared here I went to college in Austin I came back a couple of times and I always wanted to make sure I left Fort Worth because I just did not feel like it was gonna be somewhere that I wanted to raise my child so when it comes to education I have looked around in different places even in the different states and so I guess I'll be putting the rest of this online thank you all right thank you thank you please please put your comments down with Sandra Huggins conceivably and believably as early as six months and I'm gonna say I'm a little bit disturbed when I first moved to Fort Worth my father was in the Air Force so I have experienced diversity and disparity I like to say from I learned since kindergarten since the top is level when I first learned what military what police force who has the right to defend themselves or their country mean haven't come from Texas to New York to California to Spain all our little border surrounding from here to California and you know just forgive me I don't remember what else it's just it is no joke you know coming coming here when I hear people say they've been discriminated against number one I can believe it number two I don't want to believe it number three when I have seen it and believe it I'm just like you know explaining as an American as I've heard one or two of you say yes this it's alright since since I since I can remember coming up then the top three choices is that you're an American you have the right to speak you have the right to bear arms you have the right to well dang I went through freedom of speech so that counts as being American you have the right to dream you have the right to believe that you can dream or be whatever you want to be or seek that knowledge or make of yourself that what you will or that which any group or organization that supports you I guess you raise you raise your money to it's like being brought up I'm from Mississippi to the Bible bell any I mean like I said these gaps that that encourage us as you look around your room tonight how many of you can save it I mean within the last 30 days it was African-American History Month but that's not the only culture we have here I mean look in a room and see I mean is this the first time you've been in a room this close with this this many people of this many color because I've been on the public bus I've been in the mall I've been at the city council meeting I'm here tonight I have come to this college I've been on base you know what so I said I'm always astounded and it does at times hurt my heart mainly cuz children I said that was the worst major for somebody to pick with me because I do believe in carrying guns and like I said when you have children when you have adults when you have people when you have a country that is supposed to be defending and upholding those rights that's a job and that is a job that comes with a lot of responsibility and a job that not everybody gets to get and not everybody ma'am you do wrap it up your three minutes okay like I said if you have any questions I'd be on Facebook please write down your comments so that we can have your comments with the sheet that you were giving I have written down some comments okay thank you oh I said I was not prepared to speak I was just here to see all right thank you ma'am Pablo Calderon my name is Pablo Calderon the city of Fort Worth needs a systemic approach to equity that includes policies practices initiatives programs and budgets regardless of citizenship all individuals in our country have a constitutional right to do process a person is not to be held without probable cause and a warrant for their arrest we should honor request from immigration offices for individuals for whom felony warrants have been issued but detention of possible immigration status based solely on the color of skin or language spoken is not probable cause the city's contract with the county for jail services merits consideration of equity issues all city departments have a responsibility to act equitably please consider the city of Seattle's rest racial equity toolkit equity considerations and questions should be included in request for proposals issued by the city for programs and services this includes community development emergency shelter home and crime control prevention district funded services this should also include RFPs issued in conjunction with key city partnerships such as the literacy partnership Reed Fort Worth the dollar a fount of fines should be examined the practice of using fines to subsidize our municipal court system disproportionately affects low income individuals I trust we do not jail individuals for inability to pay fines bond-setting practices also disproportionately affect those with low incomes care should be taken with juveniles when they first come into contact with the criminal court system prevention services should be increased both for youth and their families that initial first contact sets the stage for whether you the youth that's going to go down a good road or a bad road that first contact with the police officer is critical on how the youth are treated rehabilitation services need to be geared so that we get the youth in the right road and don't put them down into the jail criminal such pipeline Fort Worth used to provide training to all staff in the late 70s on another perspective seeing through the eyes of Hispanics and blacks sensitivity and equity consideration for all staff is needed thank you just Deza or Dex from eras and she'll be followed by Charles white good evening everyone I'm sure a lot of you know I'm the loud mouth of the city but I want to share with you all my first experience at the very first meeting on northside we were split into two groups and I had one of the taskmembers is actually in my group and it was really neat how we were able to see how things really do work in the city because in one group we were able to talk about and share all these bad things that we're seeing in the city and how they affect us and how we see that things might not be getting done or how things are being ignored and then the other group when they shared what they talked amongst their group it was different they knew that there's racism and they knew that there's disparities going on in the community but they didn't really have that firsthand experience they hadn't experienced it either directly or seen someone go through it and I honestly believe that that's the way it is here in the city of Fort Worth I've been living here for three years since my husband got orders out here and it wasn't until I got out of my little world and left more than 10 miles from my house to see the things that were going on in my city that I didn't know about because I was living in a bubble and to hear the stories from members of the community that I talked to on a regular basis especially in neighborhoods where these issues are going on like one of the speakers said today this isn't going on over there in your neighborhood but it sure as hell going on here in mind and those are the things that we need to know and I thank you all for taking the time to be here because it's not easy to sit up there you're gonna get criticized you're gonna get everything you say is gonna be scrutinized but I'm thankful that you all are there to listen whether it's something that I agree with or disagree with and along with the with the rest of the community that's here voicing their concerns I was able to take my son to that meeting that night and he participated he read some of the the dialogue that was given to us while we were there and afterwards I was able to have a conversation with him 12 years old and never in my life that I think that I would have to have a conversation with him about racism but the things that I grew up with I honestly thought that none of that was going to be going on when I had my own kids but I'm having that conversation with him and I'm telling him how to deal with it and I'm telling him how to act right what you say what you don't say if you see it happen you need to say something but that applies to every one of us here as well if you see it say something and don't be afraid or tell somebody like the people that have stood up here and spoken or individuals up here to share your story so that we can make a difference in our city thank you thank you Charles white will be followed by Vincent Simon I don't I don't know what reality they come from I don't think y'all job is hard because y'all don't do nothing we don't see y'all in the in the poor communities like stop six there's a multi-million dollar project that's going on in stop six is completely environmentally unsafe that the kids is being acts have complete access to a construction site with no high visibility visibility signs no barriers and the footwork that y'all live in I don't see y'all in the hood right well in the communities that I live in teenage prostitution is acceptable on tyranny road right now today you can find the construction workers specifically mostly Hispanic you don't see no black construction workers nowhere in this city so there's a disparity there right but teenage prostitution goes on and stop and stop six teenage homelessness see our prostitution isn't like the prostitution that the city promotes inside of the magazine Fort Worth weekly where the hotels off of 820 and Beach where all the hot dollar prostitutes gets to get their clients our young girls get to walk down tyranny road and Rosedale Avenue Street 24-7 and at times they get to walk by the kids in the morning time when they're getting on the buses for school but you guys sit on these committees so y'all don't get to see that and so we get to deal with the 80% of the violence that's taking place in this city right now that you guys get to so comfortably sit back and make decisions and take notes from so I challenge y'all to come to the hood go walk in the projects mayor price don't ride her bike through my neighborhood Gina Bivens we don't even know what she looked like Mark V sees Nicole Collier see I don't see no youth out here so y'all wasting your time because we want to deal with the future y'all still dealing with the past my people trying to survive so we don't care nothing about racism because racism is our reality and we don't care nothing about it we don't care nothing about school shootings because mad school shootings don't happen in the hood we care about surviving we dealing with children who who who is hungry they wake up and walk the streets at midnight to get something to eat their mothers have the highest CPS reported child abuse numbers in this county and only 33% of the kids in our neighborhood can read so we got a bunch of little dumb retarded kids who don't curtain under by black history because they can't even read thank you Vincent Simon will be followed by Malik Austin good evening Fort Worth is not the city I grew up in I grew up in stop six I just recently moved back to stop six about a year and a half ago and it's not the stop six that I grew up in with councilman Bert Williams miss Walton and those people I want to talk a little bit about the distrust that a black and brown citizens have in Fort Worth and it's because of the way events are handled with them vice the other part of the community in Fort Worth know the Jackie Craig incident and the incident with officer William Martin if it wasn't for the leaks that came from two police officers who were then punished for leaking the video so we could know what was going on we wouldn't know about miss Jackie Craig but yet the person who perpetrated the event got a three-day paid vacation he's back on the force and he's back in the same neighborhood to me that's a slap in the face to the neighborhood somebody who's abused his privilege is back in the same neighborhood for some reason Fort Worth tends to think that when officer puts a uniform on his built in presence as they had all his life goes away when he puts that blue uniform on we all know that that blue uniform is just a uniform and those same things that you grew up with stick with you day after day I want to talk a little bit about a SB for once again I think the idea task force are great but when you have a task force that makes a recommendation to the city and then the city ignores the recommendation of the task force what was that evolution for was it wasted time I think that these task force need to have a binding agreement with the city that when they recommend something that they're serious forethought put into accepting that recommendation you know we had the 287 G which was a voluntary agreement between Tarrant County and the federal government I say let the federal police do their own work we have enough problems in our jail right now that need to be handled without doing other things that the federal government should be doing and we're doing it for free I also want to talk about some anti-Muslim sentiment I've seen this city I'm Muslim I don't look like it so people will say things about Muslims in the city because they don't think I am my mask has had two bomb threats in the last four years we can barely get police protection they came out they investigated the young man ended up getting a charge with a misdemeanor let me go do that to a church y'all never see me again I also want to talk about gentrification I live in a stop six right now a block away from Audrey and Walton and the gentrification there is amazing I'm seeing neighbors I've never seen and they're not there to better the neighborhood that are to take advantage of low prices and people who can't pay for their houses and foreclosure sales and so they're moving on and let me in with this there's a food desert and stop six we have no grocery stores we have no drug stores you have to go five minutes away for any one of those things hopefully that's some of those things you guys can work on and fix thank you very much thank you Malik Austin followed by Cleveland Harris good evening to the task force I stand on the educational piece and early in February an article came out about 62% afro-american young ladies are being suspended out of 4 of sd at a high rate if you a task force where you at I got a child so I take it very highly impersonal 62% we count for 23.3% and our females probably account for 14.4% I hear all this dacotop but what about my babies we know the end result of putting our kids out of school I'ma say it is you see evil and you don't do nothing about it you part of it it's a ugly virus and we have data information about what they doing to our kids you couldn't get our boys fast enough so you coming for my coming for our girls the prison the pipeline is off the backs a young afro-american women starting early as pre-k how in the world do we have a task force and we don't see these type of deficiencies that's right there on channel for news and start telegram and we sit here what you afraid of we all adults what can they do to you if you if you be proactive and counteractive this is criminal very criminal that's being done to a group of people I'll go to my grave fighting on this one because they coming for mine and I take it personal so you know you can run back and tell the best of price that one you know so I have no fear in me you know call me what you want Malcolm Marcus you know Black Panther you know that's me I come from Highland Hills I ain't afraid to identify who I am I'm gonna fight every day but this type of criminalization of our children that look like me that are from an african descent and no one is willing to step up other than me and my friends are friends of car park and we gonna continue to fight this one I'm asking for a full thorough investigation this is criminal this is criminal this needs to be investigated I've addressed it through the school board and I'm asking for the task force to who a full fledged hardcore press and see why and how this happened within our school thank you thank you Cleveland Harris followed by Johnny Lewis good afternoon well good lady afternoon my name is Cleveland Harris I'm speaking on education being that we're in a situation that no one is taking the african-american community serious when we talk about disparities in our education system you have to look back at the time than when all of this was created and brought about since 1904 there's a documentary that talks about how Fort Worth ISD has been pushing our children through disparity in their communities and the education system is still the same all you have to do is just look at the school structures we don't get that the materials that we receive or hand me down materials that their books are still in the classroom that goes all the way back to the 90s or the 80s we're going through this timely and timely and timely again we talk about the situation of disparity in our communities and then we want to jump on the back on the bandwagon of diversity how can it be diversity if you have a people that don't even know who they are we get stuck in the situation of understanding great-gold Roman Western cultural ways we're not even allowed to know who we are because our our history is so rich and in a lot of men's ways so this country doesn't want you to know who the first president was they want to say George Washington but George Washington was the eighth president of this country they don't want you to talk about John Hansen who was the first president of this country they don't want to talk about that the situation that we're captured up into that we believe that Christopher Columbus discovered his country but yet though the Africans been here since 400 BCE we were here before the MacGone my goal is crossed over the the cross the ice ice of I can't think of it right now but anyway we are in a situation where our children don't even get an adequate concept of who they are and you wonder why we have behavior issues and we're holding back the true knowledge of who they are they're not dumb they pick up this this phone they can go on YouTube or or just go on Facebook and find out all the history about themselves but we're denying that in the school system and we're denying it because there are people who are afraid if you ever find out who you are what you are capable of doing and that's what we need to get away from because we're at all fronts of war being education being health being unemployment being job development we're at war at all fronts thank you Johnny Lewis followed by Mary Bailey Williams good evening my name is Johnny Lewis I live in Fort Worth Texas when I first came here I started working in a place called the Hattie Street Havens on the south side of Fort Worth on Hattie Street and while working there I also worked full time at Mellon's Grocer Store so I was sacking groceries then going to the neighborhood and working with kids now during that time working with those kids I also started work did start doing a little doing some reading and talking with some other people I was a part of SNCC when they were over in Dallas they used to come over to my apartment because my was a safe house so they come over there and they could sit down and drink beer and play cards and we talk well I got introduced to some people at the National Conference of Christians and Jews and in working with them we did this the same thing you're doing tonight we did back in 1969 1970 in the same problems that came up then are coming up right now now so let's let's let's let's start looking at it let's not play games and I don't jump on you people because I know y'all got y'all put on this panel okay I wish we could do like they did in South Africa and have a truth and truth and a true study and just really talk about what's happening when we start looking at development when we start looking at how development happens in this city it's no accident that we don't that stop six is about to get trumped over and you got to get gentrified the hell out of Fort Worth now there's no accident that on the south side of Fort Worth we came up with a plan came and it's then documented get your staff to pull the workers bought over a million dollars into this city had you have half of it to the city of Fort Worth for the police department but we still managed to come up with some decent programs they ended up still taking all the land we put together and that we had put together and and tried to make Evans Avenue back to what Evans Avenue was for those of you who grew up here they took that land took the money that you talk about disparity it's talk let's talk about development let's talk about why there are no businesses in the black community and why the city of Fort Worth comes up one of the things they tell you is that nobody wants to put a business in the south side of Fort Worth because they say we don't have a housing they say we don't have the money but then when my wife made them do a drill down we didn't get the information officially but we know the money is there everybody goes to Whole Foods everybody goes to Central Market everybody goes to Kroger because like the brother said we live in a food desert so let's get this let's go ahead we talk when we start talking about health disparities we asked for if we asked for restaurants and businesses on Evans Avenue what do we get a jack-in-the-box in my neighborhood in district 76104 in the south side we have the highest rate of diabetes we have the highest rate of heart problems we have all these problems we didn't ask for a jack-in-the-box okay thank you put all this online all right thank you sir Mary Bailey will Mary Bailey Williams followed by Madeleine Moore good evening I just want to talk briefly in my neighborhood where I reside in and district 8 the Renaissance Square project that has taken place in my neighborhood unfortunately if you Google right now that zip code which is 76105 area and 76109 you will see that that neighborhood that zip code has the highest number of sex offenders living in that neighborhood six months ago my granddaughter who is 14 years old telling my age but that's a good thing was on her way home from school when she was attacked the person attempted to drag her into some bushes that I reported to the city that needs to be taken down I don't know who property it is at this moment it's still there I am concerned we can build beautiful things we can put all the stores in the shops there but until we clean up what is around there it won't go away the neighborhood store that is in my neighborhood if I drive to some of the council's neighborhood they don't have those little cute little neighborhood stores where the drug dealers sit at we're in the process I serve on my neighborhood association we're in the process of getting a part that was taken away placed back behind that store why would should we do that I was against it even though the neighborhood was for it because if you pass through there right about now you will see tremendous number of African-American different people sitting on the side of that street hanging out there doing what they do I stopped an officer one day to ask him sir can you help us can you just drive through there he said he had something to do well at the church that our team the Potter's house of footwork we had a number of officers that's there I asked one of our local officers that's there that do not live here and I explained to him what was going on I am upset because this man does not live in the Fort Worth area but he came to my area to that store every single day for over a month guys to run these people off this man car does not say Fort Worth police it says another place but it is sad that we live in that area and the officers will not do anything sometimes it makes me wonder if they are part of the mess so I say to you why build something beautiful if you can't help us keep out or straighten up things I'm not here to talk about anything else other than my neighborhood because I can tell you about my neighborhood when they were in the process of doing renaissance where my mom has gone on to glory work tirelessly to see that come to fruition even though she did not live to see it happen when it open up she passed two days before it open up and before we had our black president she passed so I am very angry we need to stop these meetings and start doing something don't write another thing down do something thank you Madeline Moore followed by Joseph and I'm sorry I cannot read your last name so I'm Madeline Moore and I am 76104 area code so zip code I'm sorry but I just have to ditto what the lady said before me you try with code enforcement I need to have the elected officials listen to what I'm saying and others who constantly go to City Council meetings and call but you don't get any response cut my grass cut the grass so that I can see how to turn the corner because that's been a problem on Riverside Drive in Richmond for ever since July of last year just so ditto what the lady in front of me said thank you thank you are you Joseph okay what is your last name and I'll write it on here sweet sweet okay thank you hello I'm Joseph sweet a native of Denver Colorado I've been in Fort Worth for about 30 years I love Fort Worth and my experience here in Fort Worth has you know been somewhat different than what I've heard you know from from my people as African-Americans let me just start off by thanking the Caucasian people here tonight on their speaking about not understanding the history of who we are there was a man by the name of James Reeve if you look in history with who came down to Selma to March with Martin Luther King and he was Caucasian and he was he came for the purpose of equality and he lost his life in order to try to come for equality wasn't arrived he didn't come to March but he came for the purpose of solidarity and we need your help in our communities when you hear stop six that needs help when you hear these impoverished areas that are overlooked by the city it's going to take us to get the Caucasians in there to help us get and get the rights that we need to have because again it's called privilege somebody spoke to that earlier there is white privilege it is real racism is real it's not gonna go away we have to accept it but we have to fight it and continue to fight it so what I want to encourage everyone to do is is I think everyone here tonight in the city of Fort Worth is here to try to work together I feel that in this place I don't feel a drawn line to say you're this way or you're that way but I think it's important that we have the mindset of the James Reeve to come together to try to make a difference in the community our children I live in the 76123 area and again 90% of the kids and I tutor in the schools in the Crowley independent school district our own title one lunches okay everyone's getting free lunch why because there's areas out there that are under the section 8 housing where we don't have the assistance and these kids are not getting the education either and we as a people in that area 76123 must come together even though it's a higher income area and you have two family incomes we're still separated as a people so I want to challenge you that you got to go deeper than what you're doing I mean if we're sitting up here complaining and not putting a dime or attending any meetings we don't have anything to complain about we've got to make an effort in order to make the difference I thank all of you for being here tonight thank you thank you Olivia Williams followed by Walter Williams good evening the disparity I wanted to talk about tonight is just a disparity in really self-examination and in confrontation despite mounting evidence that the Fort Worth way doesn't work this is coming from all sides I work for the college district through my job and facilities I've had the opportunity to sit on a couple of I guess the moving and shaking committees and bodies and Fort Worth and makes these decisions and I'll call them out because this isn't anything I haven't told them but one is a real estate council Lily White I think I went to the banquet and I was one of I was four it was four out of four hundred because I count when I go people of color in that organization Tarrant Transit Alliance as well meaning as I believe they actually are same thing and again it's something that's been brought up but I need to plead to you to try to confront we have to confront the business community because they're the ones we live in America it's about money it's about jobs and most people in here don't have the ability to hand out either one of those but that business community has to be confronted about hiring our kids about promoting people you go downtown Fort Worth and it looks like I could be in Salt Lake City because we don't work I don't know where we work but I just had to get that one off my chest thank you thank you Olivia Williams came to Fort Worth I guess 27 years ago and I guess my thoughts sitting here is that is that when I think about inclusion and I think about the disparities I think about the fact that there's a lack of voices a diverse voices at the seat of the table I mean at the table it's nothing against people who go out to community and work but it seems like it's the same people that run the city that are on the same boards that run the city council all of it it's just the same people and it's nothing I applaud their efforts but if we're gonna have diversity of thought if we're gonna have people from 76 of 104 because I lived in 76 104 if we're gonna have people young people that have new ideas and gonna be the future of the city they have to have a seat at the table and I don't see that in the city I see the same voices raising you know their concerns but not including others and that's where I feel like it's not it's not making Fort Worth a forward-thinking city and I can say that because one of the things that really I guess made me kind of uneasy and really disturbed me is when I went to a city council meeting and there were so many young people there talking about the lack of transportation and you know I'm a 50-plus year old woman but when young people tell you what they need and what they want they're the future of the city black white blue brown whatever you want to call and when you got all of the 50 year old people or the and I'm talking about ages and but when you don't listen and you don't have those type of voices helping to shape what we want our city to be I think we all lose and that's that's where I'm coming from as far as I think as disparity and I think there's lack of diversity in thought when we come to dealing with the city the things that we want our city to be thank you thank you Kim Kimberly moey followed by Bob Willoughby Kimberly's MOIE hello good evening my name is Kimberly moey and I've been a resident for Fort Worth in Fort Worth for approximately 14 years I reside in Fort Worth and I also work in Fort Worth I must say I hadn't had any of the experience that I've experiences that I've heard tonight I've actually had a really good stint with Fort Worth but I'm not blind and I know that you know there are some disparities that exist so I have a few friends that are teachers that title one schools in Fort Worth and some of the conversations that we have about not just the kids and how they behave in class but how the teachers respond to the kids and so my concern is or what I would like to discuss with you guys is I know that there's I know you guys have put there's some great programs like the dual language program in the Fort Worth ISD school district there you know they've tried to incorporate STEM programs and STEAM programs and I think all of that is great but what I think is lacking is the teachers that actually care about the students and care about them learning one of my neighbors mentioned just today as a matter of fact on my way here she mentioned that one of the teach she's in a title one school and one of the teachers told her because she had a disruptive student that she should whisper in the kids ear and I can't I'm not going to repeat exactly what she said but she used foul language and mentioned to threaten the kid in order to get a four year old to cooperate I think that's that's a big problem so I really think that there should be a better screening of teachers in these title one schools because I know that there there is like a long debt forgiveness in these schools and I'm wondering if a lot of people are signing up to teach at these schools just to get that long debt forgiveness as opposed to really caring and teaching the children that's that's basically what I wanted to say about the education side of it. I also want to know how can I what can I do to help because I really believe I believe that the city you know they need to do their part as far as law enforcement and all of that but I feel like I need to do my part as part of the community. So I would like to speak to someone after this session to find out what is it that I can do. I am a part of the Potters House Church and we do do a lot of community services. I'm also a part of a women's organization that help develop women get basically help them to become a better version of themselves. So I just want to know what else can I do in order to make a change. Thank you. Bob Willoughby followed by Teresa Cortez. Bob Willoughby I live on the east side of Fort Worth District 5. I did go one of the meetings where they got grouped off which is different because I've been to a lot of meetings I've never been to one like that so I'm impressed on that that was good. The other thing I have a problem with a lot of the other meetings because we did have one several months ago in stop six for the city manager there and we told what we wanted. Everybody wanted what Chris has been pushing to that he had in his agenda was like an ARP board or a accountable review board. I know there's multiple reasons that we need to address address the kids teaching our kids to vote. Part of it's our fault really when we only got 3% voting. I mean out of 97% doesn't vote. Okay. So and half that only has their best interest in hard. Okay. The other half is this handful that slept out here doing something and that's kind of hard. So somehow or another we got to start teaching people to vote. There's over 40,000 registered voters in District 5 just flat don't vote. You know. So that hurts. That's when it's how we change. It's the same cycle. I watch it every every two years when we have it. Same amount of people vote same cycle. Okay. Same thing. But the main thing is that the city manager was there. There was a big crowd there. And we asked for a review board because part of the issue is not having no power over the city. We have nothing. I mean literally nothing. Matter of fact, they hire attorneys on our money to protect them from us when they make a mistake. Okay. And we're paying for it. This should be a sitcom. Really. If I was a rider, you could write how the system goes and it'd be hilarious. But I'm not a writer. I'm not even a good speaker. So. But anyway, that's what I'm going to want to say. I want you to ask city council. Why don't they do what we asked for? We consider a review board. That will help some. Like I said, there's multiple things we need to do. But that is one of them. They use the attention between the people and the city and the employees that are beyond. There's like a wall there. Okay. They live on a one set of rules. We live on another. We need to break down the wall that they're equal to us and not better than us. And this is not just sarcasm. It's fact. I appreciate your time very much. Y'all have a good night. Thank you. Teresa Cortez, followed by Monty Elliott. Good afternoon. My name is Teresa Cortez. And I want to say thank you to the panel and just thank you for allowing us the opportunity to speak. I want to speak on the disparity of the criminal justice system concerning the plight of the African-American community. And I want to speak because there is an just overabundant despair of African-American men that are being criminalized by the justice system. And I feel that that's unfair. But I feel that the way that we can handle that is to introduce some type of program or some type of policy or procedure that would allow policemen the opportunity to have relationships or some type of relationship with African-American men because it's very easy to criminalize and demonize people that don't look like you. African-American men are victims of deadly violence more than any other nation of people in the world. And I believe that that's because that they're very unique. We don't look like any other nation of people. But we're all created by God. So we should be able to have a relationship with each other. So I would put to you as to speak to your moral compass that you would invite some type of program and where policemen and all all communities of all nations but especially the African-American nation so that they some type of fusing of relationships can be introduced. This is my concern because we're losing a lot of a lot of our men. I have four sons and one of my sons is an officer. They all wanted to be officers but I was like no. But I you know I'm very concerned when any of them go out when any of them go out and I don't think every mother has that on her heart. And so that's that's my concern. And that is a disparity. And so I pray that a resolution will come. Thank you. Monty Elliott will be followed by Andrea West. Good evening Monty Elliott. I guess my role today is is as a member of the NAACP and serving on one of the committees. First of all I want to thank all of you for your efforts. I know it's not an easy task. And then I want to apologize for being late. So I really didn't hear the mission of the task force. So I did leave my email. So if you guys don't mind sending that information maybe you did it on the front end so I can just know what the what the mission is. Who do your findings go to. And then what are they going to do with the results. We've I've served on a lot of committees that went through these dynamics and I've yet to see meaningful results from anything that we did in the committee process. So I mean it's nice to hold meetings. It's nice to act like you're interested. But what are we going to do after we sit through get through with our gripe session tonight. What's what's going to who's going to get the information and then what are they going to do with it. Where's the mayor. Where's the police chief. Where are some of the council people. And I know they can't make all the meetings. But the honest thing my honest opinion is the people who are sitting on the committee are giving other time. But then they're going to have to take their information back to somebody else who's going to have to make the decision. So it's good. It's good to have the feel good meetings. But we need some folks who are who are going to say that there's going to be some results from what we do in these gripe sessions. That's really the those are the really the questions I had. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Andrea West. Hi I'm Andrea West. I'm new to the Fort Worth area. I've been here a little a little under two years. I got the notice about this town hall and I wanted to come and I thank you all for sharing everything that you all share tonight because I really educated me and I really got to know like what is going on in this community. I wanted to say that I left a few comments just like I shouldn't have to tell just me being me young and you know upcoming in this new I grew up sheltered. So when I got older and I found out about all you know life and go through and racial disparities it would really take me back. And so I shouldn't have to tell you how to treat my human being. After finding out and hearing about what happened with the the woman and her son getting tased and hearing that the officers who leaked the video were reprimanded more harshly than the officer who actually did the assault thing because it was assault. I was I was in disbelief and that would that's what made me come here to figure out. OK so me being me and feeling how I feel what can I do in this community. How can I affect change. So thank you so much for saying that because that gave me the courage to ask why to because you know we don't always have the answers. And so you say you know how can I help gave me the courage to ask how well how can I help because I know I don't know a lot and there's still a lot to learn. Sir Q. I also live in the 7176123 area code. So if I can get with you or we can get with each other and figure out how we can do this. I'm a second game around. And so I would love to touch base with you afterwards to see what I can do to help as well. I feel like that maybe to bridge the gap between the police and the young black community. Maybe like the police force could think about the coming up and hosting some programs for the youth in these communities and getting to know their communities and take some of that money that they're getting for those military and those militarized milk weapons. I heard the lady mentioned earlier about the military style grade that they knock knock in people's houses and doing home evasion. Well maybe I can take some of that money that's getting for all of that and host some programs you know build up the community instead of using it for this drug war that they say we got going on. I'm sorry I've been reading Michelle Alexander's book so I'm a little bit fired up. But yeah. I'm still in the you know the position of whether I stay here or whether do I go whether I go. I have a young daughter as well. And I would like to raise her in the community where I ain't got to worry about her where I know that she's being fed she's being nurtured. She's not being judged because of her skin color or her hair or none of that. She's just you know encouraged to be a kid. And so anyway I could help do that. I'm willing. So thank y'all for being on this task force. Thank y'all all for coming out. Me and my coworker were having a conversation earlier. He is an older older white gentleman. He. Okay. I'm sorry. He was just saying like he just hopes this is a diverse crowd because that's what we really need. We don't need all just one person being here. We need diversity. And this is beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Officer Bradley with the Fort Worth PD. Good afternoon. Or good evening. I am Officer Demetra Bradley and I am a Fort Worth police officer. I currently work in the procedural justice unit which is something many of you guys may have heard of. But I just wanted to say something. I just wanted to come as a citizen and listen to some of the concerns of the community and take this back to my department and say hey these are some things that we can work on. This is how the community feels. My current job as a procedural justice instructor is to teach or to provide training for police officers that involves implicit bias or trying to bridge the gap between the police department and the community. So we have taken a few steps. This was something that was created before the Jacqueline Craig incident. A lot of people like to think that oh she is here and we've seen her face over and over again because of the Jackie Craig incident. That's not correct. After the incident occurred that's when our training kicked off but we were in training before that incident. So the city has seen that there were issues inside the police department and outside the police department as far as bringing the community together and building that trust factor within the community and the police department. So we are taking baby steps. It's not something that can happen overnight and I am one individual. I am the procedural justice unit. So I do provide training within the police department as well as in the community when I get a chance. Just like something like this. I'm not in uniform. I have on my pants and my shoes and everything but I'm not in uniform because I'm not a decision maker. And I like to be here and hear things that are going on to present the information to the decision makers. I am a six year officer so I am the future of Fort Worth PD. This is something that I feel is extremely important because I am a product of Fort Worth. I grew up in stop six. I went to Dunbar. I graduated from Eastern Hills. I went to Sam Houston State and came back here to make a difference. So this is something that I know is needed and I know that the department is processing as far as how to help bridge that gap. So if you have ideas, if you have something that you can give to me for me to give back to my department as well as to the task force, please come see me. I have some information, a pamphlet that you can look over because I only have three minutes up here at the mic. But I have some information that you can look over. I have a website that you can look at trustinjustice.org and you can see natural initiative and what they're doing with the politics cities and what we're trying to help to reconcile the issues that we have in our community. So that's just a little bit on my three minutes that I know that I have to go sit down. But I enjoy this. I am so glad that this race and task force is here for this initiative. It helps push the message that they know that something is broken and they want to fix it. So let's work together and fix that issue. That's good. Thank you. That was our last registered speaker. Well I want to thank you all for sharing these comments with us and we are going to take this information. And as you are aware, we are broken up in six committees and so this information is going to help us to look at the disparities and also look at the recommendations needed. And one of the things I will tell you, the four of us as co-chairs and you've heard this from Barbara Sanders from Lilly and Rabbi Bloom and now me as well is when we were asked to co-chair this, we all said we would but we would not do it if it was going to be something that was going to put on a shelf. We want to make sure that there's going to be implementation and correct measures put in place so that we can bring our city together as a community and as a city as a whole. One of the questions I know was asked about the mayor and the council, one of the things is when we were first appointed and placed together as a task for us, they mentioned they would not get in the way of us trying to get the information we needed so that we could make the recommendations. We've also asked them to stay away because we want to hear from you all the community. We will report back to them. In fact, we will be giving a draft report to them in May. But also looking that we know that there is much more work needed to be done. We will probably at that time ask for an extension. We are supposed to report out in August. We will ask for an extension to happen until the end of the year or extend our time as a task force till the end of this year. I welcome my co-chairs to make any comments. Lily, you want to start? I just want to say thank you for coming out. You know, sometime we get home in the evening and we want to see change but we're not willing to get out and support change. So thank you all for being here. I'm encouraged by the group's size but I'm also encouraged by the conversation that's taken place. We've looked at several things and we've heard from communities all over the city in our brief period of time together. And I don't hear anything, haven't heard anything tonight that we haven't been talking about. So that's good. Which means we're listening and we're trying to learn and hear with our hearts. You know, it takes a heart to really get involved and do things. And it takes action though around that heart. So we don't hear anything that's new. We hear the same thing. So that's why the committee is a set up the way they are. It's because there's some themes going on that we need to address. I've heard too that people don't know what's going on. I'd just like to encourage you to look at the website that's been set up specifically. So we have one conversation going on. All of these meeting minutes are posted. Everything's out on the web. So if you really want to know what's going on, what progress we're making, look at one footwork. It's all there. And so don't want you to think that there's something going on in a vacuum or that there's some secrets out there from this task force perspective. It's all there and all of this is being recorded. You can see that the notes are out there from the previous download. So get involved, stay involved, and thanks again for being here. Hey, Tracy. As a theologian, I always think to all of our roots when it comes to issues of the heart, and I'm just reminded that we're all taught that every person has created in God's image. And if we could all see each other in that image, I think we would be taking a large step forward to be able to work together to build the bridges that all of us were intended to come into this world to build. So thank you all very much for being here this evening. I'll just say briefly that I heard what many of you said in terms of what happens next. And believe me, I asked that question from the day I was asked to be on this task force. Because as Rosa said, if we make recommendation and they just receive it and file it, we've all failed. But in order for that not to happen, you still have to be involved beyond this meeting. I can't make the mayor and the city council do anything. I can vote if they don't do what I think they ought to do. And so can you. I mean, it's going to be up to you to help us get through whatever recommendations come forward that we make sure that they are held accountable. So I think you may be surprised by some of the recommendations that for those of you who are concerned, we've had the police chief before us. We've had the district attorney before us. The criminal justice committee met last week, and they had the top staff of the top assistants of the police department. And I guarantee you I was there. They drilled them. They drilled them. This is not a walk in the park. We're actually looking for answers to present to the council, but nothing will happen if you don't stay involved. So I urge you to do that. And thank you, indeed, for being here. I get it. Madam chairperson, before we leave, I want to say something to everyone. We are products of our past. No one can go back to yesterday and create a new today. But everyone can start today and create a better tomorrow. There's a poem by Invictus. And the last of it says, I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. We are depending on you as citizens to do just that. We need your help. It can be done. We will not be products of the past. We will be in charge of our future. And that starts today. And it starts, and it's very encouraging to see a multitude and rainbow of people come out here. I've said it before, and I'll say it one last time. Our theme is one Fort Worth. We are one community. We are one city. We're one state. And we are one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Not some, but all. And we thank you for your time. Again, thank you. And this town hall is closed. Thank you.