 So I want to thank you all for being here, we have a few guests in our audience and some cameras here as well, but that should be Charles for doing what we're going to be doing today and discussing. So at this time, I'd like to open it up to our co-chairs for the opening remarks. I have no remarks. I don't have any remarks, but I want to say again to this group of people, you've all been doing an incredible job and you'll see that you'll get more work later. If you talk about this, so get ready for that. You will have more work to do. Also, this meeting tonight, it's in a way our reason for being here today, because we were formed because there was an action by the police department that revealed just how racially divided the city may be. So just keep that in mind and feel free to ask questions. And I would suggest to my co-chairs and all of you that if we don't get a chance to ask all of our questions, and I'm sure the chief would, I didn't ask him about this earlier, but if we have other questions that we need to ask of the chief, I'm sure he'll be willing to ask him to get them back to us at some time. Is that right, chief? That's right. Okay. He just said, okay. So that's all I have to say. And, Brad, can I call you? Yeah. First of all, I want to wish everyone an early happy Thanksgiving. May God bless you with much to give thanks for. This morning I was out raking the leaves with my daughters. They reminded me when the wind came and took the leaves, which I was raking, blew away, that each and every one of us are like seeds. Now, we throw seeds up in there. One of three things can happen. The seeds can be blown away, never to be seen again. The seeds of our trees can be blown up, land on dry ground, and in essence, after a time, never grow anymore. Our seeds, our individual seeds can be thrown up in the air, land on fertile ground, and later become a forest, a forest of trees, a forest of greenery, a forest of life. Each and every one of us here, not only during these meetings and during the community conversations, have a chance to throw our seeds in the air and to have them come and land on fertile ground. If we are able to build a forest of equity and community among all of us during our daily lives, not only will we succeed in making Fort Worth a better place, but even more so, making the entire community and our world a better place, not only for us, not only for those who live in Fort Worth, but wherever good people live. Thank you very much. Next item on our agenda is the approval of minutes for October 2nd and October 16th task force meeting. Has everyone had a chance to redo those now? Really? Do we have a motion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Next on our agenda is the update on community conversations. Armando. Thank you, Ms. Demarra. I think that most of all members of the task force have been attending our community conversations about race and culture. Some of you have attended one or more of the series of conversations and are therefore in a position to share with us some of your observations about those conversations. I had just a few statistics to share with you. I think in general the conversations are going very well. We're getting very positive reports from participants. We've so far held a total of 22 series of community conversations hosted by 29 different civic organizations from Fort Worth who have either singly or in partnership with each other hosted these events. We have three additional sensitive community conversations scheduled to be held starting in the next few days, going through December, sponsored by six additional host organizations. We have another host organization, the Potter's House, for which we scheduled the planning meeting sometime after Thanksgiving and there's one additional group which we've not yet been able to to reach a great commission at that discharge, which we hope will also sponsor a series. So the conversations are moving forward in full swing. Some have actually been completed already and we would welcome Madam Chair additional comments from members of the town. For some of you that have attended, do y'all have any comments of the outrageous conversations y'all participated in? I'd say I've been encouraged out of the month that I attended feedback from the citizens of the community and it's a little disheartening that the citizens have always wanted this and the city did not recognize it. It doesn't matter the age that they were or the color, race or background, they've all said we've been wanting something like this before anything happened. So it's very encouraging. I have a question. Did you share how many different people have been in these meetings? No, sir, I did not. I don't know if we have that figure. The reason I ask that is because from some of my conversations, I'm just noticing these are very few people that attend. I have a concern that at this point we may not be fulfilling our objective. To be quite honest with you, when it comes to racial and cultural challenges, heart changes is what really changes things. We can make rules all the time, but it has to be changing heart. Until I sit down with other, many other people and hear their stories, hearts aren't changed and we try to push things through and somebody may be happy, but it doesn't work. My concern is that are people from Northwest, Fort Worth, connecting with people in Southwest, Fort Worth, is that really happening because until we hear each other's stories, until we feel each other's pain and some people even know what I want from it, we remain precious because we all have a certain measure of that and I'm just, this is early in the process, but I have a concern that we're not reaching enough people, that they're too restricted. We can't tell people to come to certain meetings because they have to go to the screening process. People in my church have said they wanted to go, they called Fort Worth and said nobody contacts me. I'm concerned. Are people being profiled in order to attend? Why are there so many roadblocks for a person to be able to go and talk? Whether the black, white, green, yellow, you know, whether they lived here a day or lived here a hundred years. It's stories that people need to hear. That's one of the concerns that we had at the very beginning of when we convened this group as task force, we do want to make sure we are going to look at logistics to see where the voices are being heard today, but we also want to make sure that we reach out to those groups in Northwest Fort Worth or Northwest Fort Worth or South End Fort Worth, whatever side of town it is, that we're hearing from those individuals. Unfortunately we reached out to a lot of the organizations to come and participate. These were the groups that came up. Others, I think maybe our second task force meeting you gave us some suggestions of part of our house and so forth, and so we've reached out to those groups, but we agree. What I'm saying is could it be that the model we have needs to be tweaked? I know it's like that's what we've done, but because I have a feeling next year is going to roll around. Next summer people are going to say, what task force? What went on? And is the work really getting out? Can people really get into these meetings because I just have a concern that they're not? Because I don't think people in my church can because they've not been allowed to. No, we had said at the very beginning, anyone that signed up to participate, we're going to give the organizations an opportunity to reach out to those individuals. Wait, let me finish. So if they are not invited to go to those, we are going to ask some of the organizations if they would please consider doing other community conversations. So the people that are registered, that want to participate, will still be able to participate. You're still able to discriminate because an organization can look and say, I don't want this person, I don't want that person, but here are the only people I want, because why are certain people not getting into these meetings? I don't know. Michelle, you had on the notes for them to register that it would take a couple of weeks before people got back to them, because she's got to go through the process of, okay, and I hear what you're saying. We're not trying to discriminate against anybody. No, no, we're not trying to. I know nobody here would do that. I really believe that. But I'm thinking there are just so many barriers, so many walls, so many walls, so many walls, this, this, this, this, this, and I know it's dealing with people. I'm in the people business. You give people a place to walk through. I'm going to say, forget it. Michelle, I want to talk a little bit too to the process and what's happened so far. When we went out and met with these community groups, they agreed to organize the meetings, and so a lot of them reached out to their members. So a lot of these first meetings that were held were people that were contacted by the organizations who volunteered. People who have sent in and completed the form have not been tapped into as much as we thought at this point because the organizations have filled up the worksheets. That's broken up. Step two. We have the ability with the information that we're getting from the demographics to see from the people who are in the community conversations to see what those demographics are, what groups have we had representation, what parts of the city have not had any representation. We're now going to take that and target to try and get some activity in those areas of town where we haven't seen that yet. We are also, if we're going to reach out to some of these organizations who've already hosted to see if they would be willing to host another series, if not, the city will plan future meetings with the facilitators that Estrus has, and we will be sure and include all of those people who have completed the form. We recognize that a lot of people have not been contacted, but it's, and also I'd like to say that when the organizations have asked for, like they haven't been able to fill a meeting and they've wanted the names of volunteers, we have provided them name, email, phone number. We haven't provided the demographic information so that they could selectively pick certain groups that they didn't want to see. Well, I also have a general feeling, I'm out in the community, there's a general feeling that they're not being heard or their stuff felt through the cracks. I know this at my church. When people attend, you have a 24-hour window to get back in touch with them because we care about people. And if my staff members don't do that, they don't want to be talking to me four to eight hours out because our whole business is people. Why are we waiting weeks and weeks and weeks to reach out to a person who will at least say, we got your information, we're setting something else up, I'm begging us, let's respect the citizens of our city. I think you do send something out to them. They got something, but we will do a better job. It's an ongoing process, which I realize that if someone hears once and it doesn't hear again, that there could be that feeling that they've been left behind and that's not the intention. And we have talked about that in the task force meetings because we've made those same concerns that you're talking about. So it's also up to us to make sure that we're telling the community what Michelle's just said. And just another point, that the 29 different community organizations who all volunteered to be a part of the process, all of their structures are very different. Some is a group of volunteers, some it's a church, some it's an organization that has a professional staff. And so you're dealing with, within those organizations, a lot of different variables too. But we need to do a better job. I understand that. But Tim, also there will be at least one other town hall meeting in which the whole city is invited to. And maybe more than that, but you guys have to tell us. More than that. That's part of what you have to do. You have to tell us what we need to be doing. And we're not doing well. And we said that we could probably do one additional town hall meeting. We had the very beginning, we said we were going to do one at the beginning and one at the end. But depending on how much participation there was, we could possibly do maybe one or two more. The doors are not shut to people. We're still working through processes. So maybe it's like we're beating up on you, right? But let me just tell you that. The process that we're going to use, we will define that process. So we've started the process with a few. It has to get problem without that. And the good news is people are interested in hearing what's going on. So I would just say we're going to define that. That's what this task force is all about. And so we had to start somewhere. So thanks for the input on the start. And then we've had some changes. I am telling people that it's neat. It's new. That's right. Oh, this is just the first round. And I hope to come to the next meeting. Yeah, well, good. This is true. Just keep talking. Keep talking. That's right. And if you have a concern, don't wait until the meeting. Call one of us and talk to us so that we can get the answers for you. That's why we're here to help. Fisher Kirkland. Not as good looking as Dr. Bale. Pastor Tim, couple things out here. The one thing that involves me is that the people who are hosting the meeting have an opportunity to define the criteria who speaks and how. That bothers me. The next thing that bothers me is what do you mean, Pastor Tim, you said, that people who wanted to speak weren't allowed to speak. There's someone signed up and said they didn't pick. No. That organization's criteria. They are not. They signed up and they didn't get a response back. And as a little meeting, I had this few couple weeks later that said, Pastor, nobody contacts me. And then they say, well, am I, I'm serious. They're asking me, am I the wrong color? Am I the wrong age? And so that's not what we want out there in the community. No, it is that. But there's a perception. But again, we have talked about this before and passed me here in our group that this is the process we were going to take. And we were going to reach out to those that were selected in the first round, that we could have another round. We had talked about trying to have all the committee conversations done by December. That may and may not happen. It could be April next year. It could be June. And this task force is the only task to be together for one year. But again, it could be two years or a year and a half. We don't know. Don't say no. Because you don't want to stop. But what we wanted to make sure is that we do hear from all the voices and all the concerns. And we're going to schedule what we need to schedule so that we as a task force can make the proper recommendations to the city as a whole. Well, in my concern, thank you, Pastor, my concern is maybe someone among this committee has heard something new. I haven't heard nothing new. It's a different narrative, but nothing new. And one of the first concerns that I had was we already have all the information that we need to work with and understand we need to listen to the citizens. But my fear is that a year and a half from now, current events will no longer be current events. And we've spent a year listening to people and we haven't done any relative work. That's my concern. And our goal is hopefully not to do that. Hopefully we can get to work. That's the community. Well, I don't want to apologize. I won't work. The people in the community are on me. And I can handle criticism. But the people in the community are on me to say, it looks like we're spending our wills and they're losing faith before we can even begin. Let me just say this. And which is one of the reasons that you are on this committee is because you won't voice those kinds of concerns. But I guarantee you that my point to the mayor, and I've said it before in this committee, my point to the city manager, if this is just for show, if this is just for show, we're all wasting our time. I guarantee you I got a lot more to do than sit here and talk about problems already do exist. We want to present to this city council by next August some actionable things that they can do. Now, they may not do it just because we offered it, but we will be submitting actionable information to this city council of things that we want to happen in this city. I mean, not just with the police department, not just with, you know, economic development, but with every aspect that comes up before this committee. So it's on you and everybody else on this task force to make sure that we do that. And if we don't do that, I'll be right there with you when you go down to city council on Tuesday night and say, this was a sham. But until we do that, I mean, and again, we're still new. Yo, let's talk in August. This is still new. I've been pretty excited about the conversations. And I want to definitely piggyback on what my brothers over here said as far as the narrative really hasn't changed. We know the issues. It's been not just hardening to hear the stories that the people are experiencing, but one of the first feedback that I got was there is, if you think of it as three levels, the people who are taking the time out of their schedule to attend a meeting or a community conversation, those are the hard people. So what we're doing is we're preaching to the choir. We're just sharing our story with one another. There's a group of people in the city of Fort Worth who should be at these meetings, but they don't care. Whether they are key decision makers, whether they are CEOs, whatever level of government, whatever it is, there's a group of people in the city of Fort Worth that are not concerned about the meetings, concerned about race and culture in Fort Worth, so they're not attending. So again, the feeling is that we're preaching to the choir and then you have, again, the middle ground people who are at the conversations taking the time out, but then you also have this other group of people who are unable to attend because, like Jennifer mentioned, they don't know where the conversations are taking place. They're not connected to one of these organizations that they receive the email or the communication that, hey, this is taking place. So the hard people are talking to the hard people. And again, what movement are we going to get if we're not reaching, we're not hearing from those who are the voiceless? So how would you rearrange that? Yeah. How would you change it? Can we first let Estrus talk about why this process has worked? Excuse me just a minute. I wanted to point out a lot of things. How would you structure it? I believe we can go back to some of the conversations, some of the recommendations we had earlier. I know when we talk to the host organizations, we're told that we will limit that. If I guarantee you, you know, we just have to tell the host organizations, we're going to open this up. We're going to put those Facebook events out. We're going to publicize where these events are taking place. You attend where you need to attend. Even the recommendation or the requirement that you have to attend all three is really deterring people from attending one. So the fact that if I can't attend all three, if I can't commit to six to eight-thirty for three days out of a week, then I can't attend one. I think we need to do something about that. Whoever needs to show up or can't show up, let them show up and contribute. And the other thing is, again, like we've already talked, we don't know where the conversations are taking place. So if I'm not a part of the Women's League or the Hispanic Women's Network, how did I know that this was taking place at this location? And we need to do a better job and put it out there. So wherever you're a doctor, I'm a doctor. Wherever you attend is the combination. Wherever they want to attend, let them show up and attend. I know we have to have that criteria. We have to have it, but it's more of a deterrence than it is an invitation. We need to do something about that. Thank you. My statement is just simple. I agree with everything that's been said, especially what Reverend Tim is talking about, because it doesn't matter whether it's north, south, east or west, the problem is still the same that comes out of those conversations, that we already know what the problems are. What are we doing about the problem now? We don't want to wait another year or two years in to come up with a solution. We should be working on a solution now on at least those things we know about. One of the things that need to happen right now that's not happening, what's wrong with the city council going through cultural sensitivity training right now? What's wrong with something inside of the city itself? Just start dealing with the issues, whether it's social justice or economic justice within the city. Those are the kind of things that come out of the conversation. It doesn't matter which side of town it's on, it's coming out. And so we need to start dealing with that now. But wait for a year. We need to be seeing some results and have some victories along the way. And they're part of it. I mean, it's got to happen. Otherwise, we're just spinning our wheels and people are not going to believe or they're not going to support what happens in the very end. All right, thank you. Estrus, do you want to go over it? Because I know we talked about this at one of our first task force meetings of this process. And we all agreed about working through this process. But now that we know we've been through it, there are some comments and concerns about how we can maybe make some, you know, changes. So let me let Estrus talk and then rock that and I'll get you. Okay. So I think we're talking about a dozen different things at the same time. There's nothing that says that we can't act on what we already know. I say we. This body can't act on what it already knows. Now, there was no design that said you could only act or propose something once all the community conversations are completed. That's never been my understanding and that's not what the host organizations. The only focus, the main focus of the host organization, the community conversations, was to listen to people. To listen to people. And I would love, I mean, Reverend Woody proposes a great problem to have. I would love to open the door and we can, we can design something that whosoever will just show off. That's a design. We can do that without saying it's got to be one way or the other. We can have the host organizations doing what they do. That logic is sound. Most of them have been over 20, not fewer than 10. So they've been some good results. But it doesn't mean that one size fits all. So what I'm listening to is to incorporating this feedback and to proposing some other things. I think criteria is important when it comes to any healthy conversation. If you want to fight or an argument or debate, that's something different. But I'd be willing to propose something with less criteria to test it and see how it happens. One of many common threads around this country in Fort Worth is no exception. And that is this. This conversation is not about to build it and they will come. That's not the way this works. It feels like they've been omitted. Their voices have been signed. Walter mentioned that in one of our early meetings. The working poor. How do we engage them in a way that's legitimate? And the same thing, another aspect that's emerging are Spanish speaking only. There's a number of factions, populations that we can reach. So let's not try to make one size fit all with the host organizations. I think the host organizations, those conversations are working very well. Good feedback. It's just that we can't make them be everything. We have to do some other things. And I would love to design here's the dating time. If you're interested, show up. We have 50 neighbors that have volunteered to be facilitators of these conversations. We've got the people power. So that would be easy. I think what you will find there's some other things on the other side of that conversations that we'll learn when we do a few of those. Your best feedback I think comes from your town hall. The best feedback I think we got was that the first one. There needs to be more of those. And why isn't the city hosting at all these community centers something? There's a lot of community centers. It's free to show up. The people are right there in that community. That's one thing I think we hadn't talked about. That was going to be my point. Roxanne? That was going to be my point. We're expecting the community to come to us to come find these meetings. I'm involved in several of the organizations that are hosting. I look at the schedule. They're all the same days, the same times in the same places, the same areas. Nobody's coming into my community. So like what you said, the use of the neighborhood there are people who are not going to get out of their community. So why don't we bring it to them? To those communities. And it goes back, I was thinking one of our very first meetings when we did our little trio groups, one of the things that our group talked about was getting out into those neighborhoods getting out into those communities instead of expecting them to come to us. I mean it's hard enough to get people especially that's the voiceless to some of these public meetings. Let's go to them. City facilities all over the different communities are already there. So based on what I've heard just of these voices, we can design a menu of offerings that responds to every one of your ideas and suggestions. And then we come back together in 45 days and we see what worked and we see what didn't work and then we go from there. That's what you're here for. If we can offer suggestions for things that need to happen right now along for instance with the city council taking studying cultural sensitivity I think it would be great if we offered some workshops on white privilege explaining what that is. And the mayor should attend in every council. I mean if white privilege doesn't necessarily mean economic privilege that we define terms, help people understand this. And if they're neighborhoods we need to go out into I think we shouldn't overlook the west side of Fort Worth because they're afraid to come out of their neighborhoods too. So we have to we have a couple more people and then I'm respectful of time because we do have a presentation to go on to the long day you had your hand up and Bishop Kirkland? I think you need to explain what white privilege means but I think you need to explain to some people what that means. But what I was thinking we said August and October and November this four months. And that's my concern. Mr. Tucker I think what you said is excellent that there's no reason why we can't deal with current events to take this committee and form a subcommittee that is looking at we can't start that at month number eight and look at all of these reports everything I know I'm about to hear tonight by what I see on the screen already to let's look at the data that's already there and start to see what we're going to do about addressing some of those issues now. Just really quickly in addition to some of the comments that have already been made I think something that would help me as a task force member as attending all the community conversations that I did was also a better understanding of my work with myself as we are developing the process that we're going through between now and August but what does that kind of look like? If you can even give us phases I think some of the facilitating organizations the facilitators themselves have some insight that would have been helpful for me too just to understand we're in phase one of three or whatever we think they might be not to box us into anything specific but again to also answer some of those questions that we're getting where we head and I think that's what a lot of folks want to know That's good Yeah, that's good That's good Okay, and Rob up on you We have discussed at our last co-chairs meeting having subcommittees here so we could start moving forward in actual practical work. We even have them in different different categories we wanted to bring them to you before we started deciding because we want people to be in something that interests them where we all can make a difference. That is one I would also suggest you know, yes we have things that we can do we don't have to wait until the end of the year if we each have suggestions about something that we think could work now let me suggest all of us email it to the Fernando to all of us and we can start seeing where we can go and what we can do without having to wait because as Mr. Dan has said a few good wins aren't only actually wins, they're improvements for the city which is for the betterment of all of us. Now I agree about the neighborhoods but just want to touch for a second on what Yolanda said talking heart to heart if we really think about it, if we've had 22 series of community conversations and just let's say for the sake of argument 10 people have been in each one, 20 people that means we're touching 200 to 400 people correct if my math is correct and each and every one of us has our own sphere of influence so although we may have talked and touched 200 to 400 people the fact that we are having these conversations and we ourselves are going out in the community with our own spheres of influence means we have touched many many more should be the fact that just we are there not others are there if we aren't passing on this message if we aren't listening from what we are taking there and bringing it forward then we're not doing our job so I wouldn't say belittle our heart to heart because our heart to heart in one session continues on to another you know I always say to my congregates that we have the influence to influence other people and the way we act continues on because the way we influence people that also influences how they behave towards others whether it be a friend a businessman a stranger so if we act in a way we can reach so many more people while we're trying to figure out the exact way we go about tweaking in order to make things even better we shouldn't look down and say okay we're not doing our job we are doing our job but we can make our job even better we're going to go on to my number 5 update on conversations of uncivil officials okay I thought that last title was going to be easy no too much passion in this room it's all good I'm happy to report that two weeks ago the city council completed along with the various city appointed officials completed a set of three conversations about race and culture we had one series for the city council and appointed officials another series for department heads and a third series for assistant directors of city departments and I have to say that the response we've received from all the participants has been generally positive that is the first step we received comments just now about how we need to involve the city council more directly in training later this year in the next few months through the efforts of estrus tucker and the national league of cities we will be conducting leadership training on race and culture for the city council for department heads and assistant directors that is in the scope of the contract we executed with our consultants so that is very much a part of the scope of work for the initiative on race and culture but manager we've had good success with the conversations among city officials I don't think we have the national league of cities staff on the line to connect at this point but they were instrumental in facilitating the conversations on city officials and I think they will tell you that they were pleased with the results so with those meetings is it possible they can add this class that we're going to recommend on white privilege is that possible? that's actually part of that's in there it's in the training already we just need to let everybody know so that's already in the training was there any highlights of understanding or rethinking things from the city council anybody else through these conversations to give the presentations and how long were they? two hours each three two hour sessions that's a start because it's got to be something that's going on it's got to be something on one hand and if it's being done right you should not be seeing some policies within the city council too because some of those things have been institutionalized understanding the negative impact of what was going on I think it's fair to say that the conversations have succeeded in raising awareness about issues of race and culture whether they will affect action is something that remains to be seen but I think the awareness level has certainly risen as a result of these conversations well if there's a reason then it should it should did all the council did the mayor attend all of the sessions? most of the council members attended the sessions I don't know that there was 100% attendance at all the sessions did the mayor? yes well yes the mayor not only attended but provided effective leadership and all of a sudden I can't speak for a mayor price but I will say that she has taken her responsibility seriously to provide leadership on this is there any council member that has not attended not one of the sessions? I don't believe I believe that all the council members have attended at least one of the sessions Fernando my question is it sounds like the groups were were divided up to council and mayor council and appointed officials department heads assistant director those are the three different groups I would wonder if there's any wisdom in mixing those groups up well the NLC did recommend that we mix the council with the appointed officials so assistant city manager for example Valerie Washington and I participated in the same conversations with the council members and I think there is a lot to be said for that interaction because it provided conflicting perspectives on the same issue I don't know Valerie if you want to add you were involved in the discussion I don't specifically remember people missing and I want to say for the most part I know the mayor was at every session I would say almost every council member was there at each of the sessions did not maybe one or two had conflicts one or two had conflicts for any of the conversations but they were well attended and it was a good open conversation and dialogue really mixing up even within that group people kind of forcing different conversations I mean I personally found them to be really relevant and I think the dialogue has been healthy between the assistant city managers and the mayor does anybody else have any questions I'll put them on there so would you somewhere on the theme that the theme that does something on the theme of the more town halls yeah I was going to do better next is the briefing on assessment of disparities in service delivery and Linda Johnson do we have Linda? She's not here I can tell you that we have begun the process of collecting data from our various city departments about disparities in the delivery of municipal services this is an important part of the initiative on race and culture some municipal services are going to be easier to track than others with respect to the influence of race and culture upon the effectiveness of those services for example the police department and of course Chiefs of Gerald is with us this evening the police department keeps extensive data on how their activities affect residents from different races and ethnicities but not all city departments track data as thoroughly for example if you apply for a library card I don't think we ask you what is your race or do we necessarily need to ask you about your character but we're trying to track the extent to which race and ethnicity may influence the delivery of city services of different kinds across the city of Fort Worth we'll be gathering those data and analyzing them and bringing them back to you as a task force so you can help us to analyze and interpret those data and help us to form logical conclusions from them and we'll be coming back to you in the weeks ahead with that information well at this time I'd like to ask Valerie Washington Chief of Joe Fitzgerald and then also we have some distinguished guests with us today Dr. Michael Bale Bishop Billy George Pastor Robert Sample if you all would please come up here to the front we have some seats up here for you all and we'll get a briefing on the 3B and this was all emailed out to us so that we could have renewed prior to tonight so we'll have a briefing today Madam Chair I want to correct you and put a minute to say Robert Sample Bishop Sample now he's been promoted Yes future reverend Thank you so much Yes ma'am Valerie Washington I'll just sort of open this up quickly I was here maybe a month or two ago and just did a really very brief high level overview of the Coleman and 3B reports and more of just a heads up because a council member of Gina Bedvins had asked for a briefing about a year ago that we were slow to get on the council agenda so we had been working on that for the last several months and again when I met with you I said part of the process was me sitting down with the 3E report authors and really understanding the report also sitting down with the Chief and having the five of us all sitting down talking and making sure that we all were understanding each other and at least on the same page about conversations even just moving forward so we appreciate the opportunity today I'm really going to turn it over to the Chief and the 3D authors but I thought it would be helpful and I think they would appreciate the opportunity to again from their perspective talk about the report why they came together why they thought it needed to happen what their thought process was as far as coming up with recommendations and then how they've worked with the Chief and really trying to lay down the understanding that their recommendations but they were not trying to force anything you know to the Chief or anyone else here in the city that they really wanted just an opportunity to be part of the conversation and have everyone listen and understand what they wanted when they were putting the report together and I know that there's just the microphone so there's only one person who can speak at a time so I think so was it the Chief Chief thank you all I had the opportunity to work with each one of the members and bishops here to facilitate really a better communication between the police department and members of our community that are leading the charge for racial equity and forward can you speak up a little please sure as a result of our communications and a result of their persistence in making sure that we we were actually putting forth an effort to accomplish the items the action items that were on the 3E plan and within the Coleman report we put together a checklist of information that we bounced against each one of the gentlemen up here with an effort to determine whether we had made successful strides in a particular area some we agreed on others we didn't but I think the overall feeling is that we're moving forward and we have a better degree of communication so to speak between at least members of the police department and members of our community I'll let them all speak and then if value like go through some of the PowerPoint slides to update everyone as to what we came up with actually going through thank you all deferred now to our mission board do you want to talk about the history we're going to wise good evening I don't I don't guess I have to introduce myself I have I will my name is Billy George and we're here tonight I'm a little bit shaky because they had a meeting today and I didn't get to know what we were supposed to do tonight but as it relates to the 3e plan it came into existence because there was a need for some communication as it related to some of the things that was happening in the community and it didn't seem to be getting the attention of the powers that be among those things were tasing them and so many of our seasoned police officers were being retired early and that was a great deal from the reports we received of racial discrimination going on in the department where people were not advancing as they should and I as the representative of the Ministers Against Crime tried to begin a dialogue with the former chief as it relates to the items and others that I just mentioned I ever he didn't take it serious so we came together as a group of four and we we followed through and we discussed among ourselves what we wanted to present to the City Council we then proceeded to go to the City Council and talk with the Mayor and some people there and to be very frank we just asked the former chief to be gone because we had felt that it was just totally impossible to communicate and dialogue so as we left we were still sticking to that resolve and the Mayor asked us if we would just meet with him and the meeting took place not because of the fact we respected the Mayor and we felt that we was at the end of the road so I would just leave it there because it took several months it took a lot of hard work to bring about what is known as the Triple E plan because there was not equality there was not equity for everyone so we worked it out at the City City Council beauty and the rest of it got shared by others Thank you Mr. George Thank you very much I'm Reverend K.F. Tatum with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference I'm a native born and bred with Mrs. Barrett's bred right here in Fort Worth I was born premature but look at me now overweight but truly it's good for us to be here we know that we are dealing with some serious issues within the community and for those of us who have been involved in the issue of community especially when it's related to the law enforcement community this is a moment a time period in history that we have been waiting on for a long time because we would not even talk about it let alone do anything about it so you shifted from not doing anything about them allowing those who have the power to change to force them to bring their heads up out of the sand and so don't lose focus on that because had we lost focus in 19 in 2013 we would not have been in position to have any credence that happened to press our position that had you come to the 3E coalition and those who have put these 31 points of promise before you then we could have probably saved the city a lot of embarrassment because we would have been making decisions collectively and not in an isolated top down decision making process so thank you all your work is not in vain regardless of those who are frustrated by not being invited this is what I found out having traveled a lot in government government is for those who come to government if you want to be here Mr. Kirkland they will get here so I want to brother Tim encourage your people to get here you just got to get here you got to get here your job as leaders tell them to get here put down the phobias the fears and get here will be blessed when you do come in relation to our work my engagement in this whole enforcement piece since I've been back started with Michael Jacobs in 2009 on a summer day I received a call from community president saying he had just been killed by the forward police department in his front char in front of his mom and he had done nothing wrong so I went to see and everything they said was true what concerned me and concerned us is the isolationism of the police department not to work with us through this very tragic situation in fact until this day we've never really met about Michael Jacobs or his family but subsequently after Jacobs Rara Thomas Wayne Darden Lopez was before him you start having these series of death in the black community and no one was addressing them from a systematic standpoint and those of us who have been engaged continue to push and push and that family got some renumerations but not for the life that they lost but then some happened these same police officers who were not being courteous to the people in the community were not being courteous to the preachers in the community our ministers against crime which Bishop George spoke very well about there was a disconnect between the police chief and the black ministers and the police officers association and the black ministers until the mockery was we're not ministers against crime we're ministers for crime and that was the final straw Bishop George in his wisdom with Bishop Sample reached out across perspectives asked Dr. Bell to come asked me to come to the table and the rest is history we're here today because people were concerned about mistreatment from the police department and we had nothing in place to hold them accountable for their actions with this plan that the chief has worked dutifully on has put different pieces together not only our plan but the Coleman plan as well as the president's plan for 21st century policing in light of Ferguson and other places I believe Fort Worth has a potential to be a model for other cities to emulate but let me say this to you all those of us who have been fighting in the trenches our fists do not come unballed until we move beyond the talk if you want us to unball our fists then stop pushing back and talking about this in a concrete, candid way that irritates the process then come and work with us and we assure you we love Fort Worth and as an old football player I like to win in fact I used to cry when we lost Fort Worth can win we're losing now we just better admit it if we move beyond this and deal with what we have in fact and on paper and I assure you our fists will come unballed because we want to hug but until you stop hitting us we're going to continue to fight back so thank you all, thank this committee we're here to help, we really are but we can't help without you willing to accept the help Dr. King said this way in my seat he said we're all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny and whatever fist one directly affects us all indirectly for some strange reason I can never be who I ought to be until you are who you ought to be the rich man can never be who he ought to be until the poor man is who he ought to be and Fort Worth can never be who he ought to be until we deal with our race and our culture issues thank you thank you very much Dr. Bell my name is Michael Bell and I'm a friend of the truth and of justice the 3E plan was, did not start the initiative was taken by as a matter of fact the Latino Police Officers Association the LPOA and the BPOA the Black Police Officers Association they came to the community Dr. Shabir at that time was the president of the BPOA and Martinez was the president of the LPOA they came to the community because they were not receiving police officers internally were not receiving they were not treated fairly within the own department so police officers came to us and they needed the community to support them because they were being mistreated these are police officers by the Forward Police Department we eventually went to Mayor Price, Mayor Price encouraged us to talk with Chief Halstead who was, Jeff Halstead was cheap at that time when we talked with when we moved to talk with Chief Halstead we went through the city manager's office as well as through the assistant city manager Charles Daniels Charles Daniels was instrumental in making it possible for us to sit at the table with Chief Halstead just as Valerie Washington had it not been for her hand we would not be standing here right now that's just the truth I'm a friend of the truth and as unpleasant as it may sound we Chief Halstead had with him some of the meetings were contentious but because of the city manager's involvement as well especially Mr. Daniels involvement we were able to put together this plan which is a plan on basic policing and as a matter of fact Chief Halstead presented it to the city council the city council embraced it and eventually Jeff Halstead was walked out of the building for other reasons whatever reasons and eventually we had a there was a period when this city was looking for a police chief every and I was on that one of those committees every candidate had to embrace the 3E plan basic fundamental policing it's nothing complex about it you don't have to be a member of Mensa in order to understand it in order to implement and what happened is what occurred literally is that we did not hear from once we the police chief came in we did not hear from him until last September this is I'm a friend of the truth justice until last September when we heard from him if you look there are three components of the 3E plan first police encounters with citizens second police response to critical police incidents third police plan for increasing and respecting diversity within the department on the heels of the 3E plan you had the Coleman report after the Coleman report you had the national league of cities and they all came up basically when the same conclusion the conclusion is that neighborhoods of color in Fort Worth are being those neighborhoods are being demeaned and denigrated that has not stopped it continues to November the 20th 2017 now when we said if it had not been for ACM Valerie Washington we would not have sat down we had a series of all of us I think we had a series of conference calls and then eventually we had a conference call with Joe Fischjo and eventually we sat down the reason we sat down the truth the reason we sat down and had to sit down and kind of deal with this is because the chief had put on the initial paperwork on the 31 bullets that they were completed that did not jive it did not jive with the truth it was incompatible with the truth the truth is that we were not contacted we met last year as it says in the report you probably here we met last year when we got to that meeting the truth is we got to the folding center Bishop George Bishop Sample and Rev. Tatum were attacked verbally attacked that meeting was contentious it ended we had to abruptly end that meeting that was the only meeting we had to abruptly end that meeting because they were being demeaned by members of the chief's advisory board they were attacked immediately is that true? I'm asking those are true the truth doesn't matter is they were attacked that's the only meeting that occurred in 2016 there was no meeting that occurred until ACM Washington took the initiative and started dealing with it when we met if we had during the Jacqueline Craig situation and which continues to this day if we hadn't met with the chief, if we had followed basic police in this plan then a lot of things that mushroom would not have happened it happened because there was no communication there was no meaningful communication if the truth be told what happened was when we received the information the next thing we knew you and I were out in front of the police department is that true protest so as a friend of the truth and as a friend of justice I know how to act in a genteel company, I know how to do that I know how to respond politely and I know how to observe politics and procedures and all of that but the truth needs to be told this committee as a matter of fact in my neck of the woods this task force is being considered to be a joke that's the truth it's considered because no one really believes that anything meaningful and substantive is going to come up with this we are gambling I'm gambling tonight that you were here let me say this and I'm done if you go through that report really what literally happened what happened in ACM Washington knows this every chief knows this we came to that meeting and nothing significant had been done as far as the 3E action plan and it was said at Holy Tapernacle there was no one hiding I understand the need to project whatever it is that some folks want to project but I also understand the need because too many people are hurting I understand the need to tell the truth and the truth is that we have not made significant progress any progress we've made has happened since I think August of this year August of this year and what we've done is we sat down and since the meeting at Holy Tapernacle when I believe we will be in pretty transparent and candid since the meeting at Holy Tapernacle we have not had any we've received paperwork but anybody can write on paper anyone who has any facility in English and who is at least decently articulate can write and if there are words they can write anything but we need what's on paper to get off of the paper and my faith we call it to be incarnated to flesh it out but it has not been done that's why we still have pushback from our community that's why I'm here tonight to tell the truth and to let this task force know that people are looking at you to see if you're going to do anything or else is this going to be another Coleman report another National League of Cities report another 3E plan another load of paper that is filed conveniently until that is some kind of a uproar some kind of difficulty appears communally thank you before you sit down I pass the omnipotel today yes sir we're still out there we're going to be there yes sir we're there and my question is what will it take to not happen in all of us not to be downtown we're not just going to be at the steakhouse and everywhere else the reason the way it's going to take is for this city we went through the process what it's going to take is for this city to be honest and to respond to the 3E plan we put all of this before the city which is basic police for us to look at for the city to have a dialogue rather than to talk at us to talk with us if the city we sent this if the city we put several conditions and demands for visions however you want to characterize it before the council if they can't do it tell us why not until we finish our work no sir because you know why we can't call more and I'm going to ask you because is this going to be when you finish your work is this going to be any different than anything else can you give us that chance no sir no sir we cannot because and we would love to we would love to you know that we have a million more things to do but if this city decides that they're going to turn a deaf ear to communities not only to the african-american community but to the latino community and going to turn a deaf ear if this city continues to do that then we jump through all of the hoops and then through the process then what do we do thank you sir miss veil yes sir I assure you this is not a joke and there is no punchline your people protesting I need them to come to the meeting when they're not protesting they're not protesting please come and sit at the table I want to hear from them not as a group not as you speaking for them I want to hear individually what their concerns are that can happen you have got to be optimistic and not pessimistic you've got to be optimistic I forgive your saying what I've got to be I forgive that I understand that I understand the psychology behind it I'm cool with that I need you to be now having said that I hear what you're saying thank you well I had thank you for the opportunity we'll just say briefly I want to operate that when good intentions are putting place that you can see results so we all here because we have hope that something good is going to occur I might just flip back just for a moment because we would not have been here as stated by these men had it been that the department in which we were looking for safety and care from did not provide them in our first meeting I think we dealt with Chief Halstead and he was trying to give to us some reasons why things were not being done I said were you the chief did I not say that? and if you do not take action to bring about what your department represent as a unified city then we are all under attack and of course from that we had many conversations many things were done we had many tense moments and there had not been that again we had the support from the assistant city manager I don't think we would have gotten this far I want to say in conjunction with that phase forward I'm certainly happy that we have Miss Washington here tonight and she has been a start support and a link between the chief of police and us and I think we have come to a place at the table where the voice of what we are trying to represent as community it's not a multiple of us there are many communities but it's really just one community in one city I've been here for 60 years I look young but I'm pretty old and I turn it into that then pass it in for 40 years out where I am now and I do, people come from Plano Keller some people drive 40 miles to come to our sanctuary they don't want to come here and come to a city that's always in the rough road they can stop and dial up so any other place so let me conclude by saying I hope that from this meeting today with the good intentions that we have and the chief has displayed with the assistant city manager most recently we just said that in conjunction with Dr. Bell said some things although we differ in a lot of things that's not been for the grace of God we wouldn't even be here we've had some contentious moments you don't have to do with color you don't have to do with who's right and I say it does have to do with color it has to do with because it doesn't matter about its mission we're just in one world and all of us have to do this I say it'll conclude it's to see what we've done now come to this point 3 E Coleman report be utilized in unifying effort so we can get something done there you go we want to see it done and I'm a piece of that thank you very much I know I rambled but that's what happened on the end thank you all for being here that's your comments and then before the chief comes up I want to say even in hearing the feedback from the four authors you can tell that they clearly have different approaches different philosophies and that's why in sitting down with them and getting to know all four of them together I was impressed at them being able to sit down at the table and come up with recommendations that were reasonable and made sense but I will say as part of this too and we've talked that these conversations are difficult and not everyone is happy and so I think and I would disagree with Dr. Bell's perspective in that I too come from a place of hope and I feel hopeful that as we're moving forward we're having honest conversations I think when we're talking through the recommendations and even sitting down with the chief we talk nitty gritty what do you think of this would you change it and they're not always good conversations and they're not always going to agree so there are definitely personalities but I do think that everyone is here and they do want to move forward and be positive and these conversations are difficult when you're being honest and I think the chief can acknowledge everyone can acknowledge that there have been hurt feelings even when I reached out to the ministers I'm new to this community but I'm sitting in council meetings and having people come up meeting after meeting and they clearly have issues I mean I couldn't sit there and say everything is okay clearly there seemed to be a disconnect that I didn't understand in the 3E report and what the chief was doing and what they had wanted I do think that a lot had been done that just hadn't been communicated for example in the 3E report it called for doing a use of force a use of force evaluation and changing general orders and those things had been done however we had not communicated that those things had been done so I would just refute that I think that there have been significant things done in the recommendations I do think there's still more room to go and that's why we're in this forum to have it but I do think that we're in a positive place I know Dr. Bills he's getting there I think and he's he has me have these conversations and just like I said we're honest and are willing to work through the conflict I think we can move forward but there have definitely been hurt feelings between the chief and this group and I think that they're at a place to work through that and that everyone is focused on moving forward that we did spend time talking and not rehashing hurt feelings but we definitely spent time in our meetings working through that and I'm hopeful that we're at a space where they trust that the chief can move this forward and that we can midcourse correct and things that hadn't been done we can come up with an action plan where we can be held accountable to getting them done last question thanks just one question first of all I want to thank you guys for what you've done this past year I've just got a question too what do you guys feel about the city restricting the amount of time that you have to speak to the council the city Mr. Dansley Mr. Dansley the city continues to be reactive and the Bullhorn law is that response to our use of the Bullhorn in Tanglewood and Maravista the cutting down of the limiting that's something that they rather do than to try and work through these issues and to come to a conclusion that's going to be best for all the forward not just any particular community but that's going to be best for all the forward and in the interest of justice so if that's what they want to do then we bring five more people but and so we do 15 minutes with five different people rather than 10 minutes we want but the thing is this is that it's just the city doing what is normally the mayor and council I understand one thing because maybe I'm creative in my thoughts but the Chief County foreshadowed maybe have a difference of opinion of some of the successes of the 3E plan and I perceive that that's what this presentation is going to be about and I would ask all four of you gentlemen who I have great good respect for to pay attention to this presentation and maybe what the city see of you is the success of the 3E plan that you don't quite see so if you'll take mental note of those things I'd like to hear that alright you can advance the slide then it's not working alright this is just a basic overview slide on the 3E action plan some of this was spoken to already I'll try to be concise, reasonably articulate and I'll try to somehow communicate truthfully about what we had achieved with this plan and what we thought at least as a group you know it makes significant changes even before the August date that was spoken of so the 3E plan we'll go into why it was written we'll talk about some of the action items that were mentioned the 3E author's perspective I think you've heard some of that but we have a slide that may encompass some of those perceptions some of the strategic initiatives that we've done as an organization either before or during this process are delineated here as well and then the recent culture task force obviously where we are today in the presentation of this as I should say on behalf of this committee can you advance the slide please okay 3E's goal again was to bring forth some awareness of use of force issues some of the things were talked about some of the shootings that have happened police related officer involved shootings and the case of death and our general use of force not to mention the Jackie Craig incident is something more recently that we've dealt with our Coleman report dealt with the internal issues within the department some of the inequities so to speak some of the potential discriminatory conduct that police supervisors had engaged in and what our response to that was so the final 3E action items as stated here answers to potential problems or goal and action items put forth and again recommendations from this group as well please forward it okay as I just said the Taser deaths our clergy members here that felt that officers weren't adequately trained to work with citizens there is a there was a concern it is still an ongoing concern among members of this board about the level of communication that they should receive pursuant to an incident that happens in the city alright we we did come together at least for this group and the coalition in particular came together because there was a need for them to uniformly approach the city and I think it was described with Mr. Daniels and the former the former city manager made it possible for that to happen and they were brought to the table to construct the original 3E action plan so you can forward that before we do this slide we all know that 3E action plan authors they are seated here there is a tremendous amount of respect and experience for each one of these individuals in the city so what they say matters what they say matters to me I should say also here communication was an issue and we are working that is a work in progress but that should not take away the hard work that this agency has done between 2014 and now so the 3E plan is a starting point I say it as well as each one of the individuals here we have decided on it as a living document so that is something that we live in this department and something that we pledge to push forward please advance it some of this is just a regurgitation of information you have already heard so I will actually forward that slide you can forward the slide again here is feedback some of this was spoken to earlier the authors of the plan did convey that they were disenchanted with the implementation of the plan and the communication from the office of the chief I can tell you that again some of those concerns manifested themselves during the course of this we have talked and sometimes in an animated manner about whether we have actually made progress or not again I think as we go forward you will see that there was progress made and there were some on our part some acknowledgement of the fact that perhaps either progress was not made in certain categories or that mistakenly we viewed progress as being something that was not ongoing and we came to an agreement with members of the group that we would look at things as ongoing issues and not closed out problems I think that is fair to say we will move the slide forward the Coleman report I have touched on this already the main thing were allegations of discriminatory conduct within the police department some of you may remember also the snowman incident that was a part of this some of the members as a matter of fact that were complainants in regards to this plan are some really big supporters within the police department of the changes that we have made so far you can forward it here are the facts members of the Fort Worth PD complain they have been subjected to race based discrimination and they hired an outside investigator Coleman and associates to conduct an internal study please forward it Coleman as we said identified issues this is just a breakdown one is the first line supervisor in the department the second was the second line supervisor and the third was an officer actually of the Fort Worth Black Police Officers Association the Coleman report determined that there was tangential evidence of discrimination so organizational behavioral concerns which I can attest to are a concern and are things that we have dealt with as an agency just so recently as putting forth a new transfer policy that I included in some of the three action items that I presented to each one of the gentlemen here detailing how we look at the internal transfer process and tried to make it just based upon the demographics of our city okay the behavior is inconsistent with the departmental policies and guidelines existed and the Coleman recommendations as you see here have been addressed and the chiefs continuing to review and monitor perhaps that should be changed to just we have agreed that they are ongoing issues still at hand forward please so there were 31 recommendations divided into four categories as Dr. Bell stated those four categories police encounters with citizens police response to critical incidents police plan for increasing the diversity within the department and the specific Coleman recommendations so again we worked with each author to work on each of these issues which you'll see as we go forward please advance so the strategic initiatives one of our initiatives have been the open community forums up around the city many of you I've either seen or met at some of these different community forums that we've had literally we've had forums that have had 10 people but nonetheless we see the importance of opening ourselves up to meaningful interaction with members of our community I think that this is something that we could agree upon happened well before any of the incidents happened since I've been the police chief that's something that as Dr. Bell mentioned I mentioned during my interview process that it was important to work with members of the community and to listen so that was something that occurred well before we engaged into our discussions so recognizing the importance of developing relationships with the community is something that I'm dedicated to but it's internal and external because as we've met with people in the community we've also had community forums in particular the chief's forums with members of our internal department employees so they hope they happen as frequently as our external meetings the key items in addressing the actions that we saw in the 3E common report were procedural justice body-worn camera policies use of force and use of force major changes and de-escalation training which I think marries with this plan very well the national initiative for building community and trust I actually have a separate slide for that upon my hire I was asked if we would be interested in participating in a national initiative with the Bureau of Justice with the three topics in mind that's enhancing procedural justice within department and reducing the incidents of implicit bias and fostering reconciliation with the community I think we can all agree that we're in certain stages of this I don't know which stages we might as a group here say that we're in but I think you'll find that again the police department has been proactive in foreseeing that there is possible community problems and also now having worked in with the national initiative to try to bring the community together with the police department so procedural justice the definition it's basically our interaction with the public and how much confidence the public has in the police department all right what we do right now shapes our interactions with the community however as a police department and as a police officer I may not have been in Selma but I have to take on the fact that now as a police officer that happened to folks and this is something that we have to communicate up down and across the agency so you can imagine if I am a kid from rural northern Texas who's not dealt with people like myself from Philadelphia who are animated and speak very loud or speak very quickly that could be perceived as a problem we have to train our officers now to understand that not only do they sometimes represent something they had nothing to do with years ago but they also represent now how we are going to act and react to members of our community that may not look walk or talk like us evidence has shown that procedural justice perceptions can have a significant impact on public safety so again it was so important that my team at the time put together a team of people to teach procedural justice and to go out and liaise with the community to create better understandings as to why police do things and how to better engender community policing in a way that we do business you can forward our officer worn body cameras were an important component to the members of this board answering me for making sure that not only do we tell the story internally the best way we can but we keep everybody honest with the body camera it has been a problem for us to work through mandatory body camera where that problem is resistance that I got from our police officers association however we use the state statute excuse me the state statute now to govern our body camera use we have moved towards purchasing equipment that will facilitate making it easier for the body can to automatically activate we have upgraded the body cams in our police cars and upgrading equipment for each one of our patrol officers out there with the ultimate goal of having everyone from top to bottom in this organization wearing a body cam at all times that updated general order as you see was done in July of 2007 the new discipline matrix was done at the same time and several iterations of the body camera policy had been done prior to our meetings some of this is what I spoke to about the new auto activating cameras one other thing is critical to mention is some of the cameras that we're buying now I should say each camera that we're buying now has the ability to win an officer or the car basically an officer exits a vehicle it automatically engages the use of the body cam but the really great thing about this is it creates a bubble around that officer in that vehicle so that any other officer on the scene will automatically have their body cameras activated I think it's a real benefit to not only the citizens but the police officer again being able to tell what the story was in any given event that happens out in the street. Exxon's also developing a bluetooth holster that will be testing so when an officer disengages his firearm from his holster that would give a wireless activation and activate the body camera and also there's also advances where that will activate on the cad screen and show that that officer has taken his holster taking his gun out of his holster tasers are being upgraded with new batteries so that will also capture the event when an officer unholsters a taser the body cam or I should say the taser will do part of the taping as well de-escalation training perhaps the biggest training advance that we've had in the last two years perhaps in quite some time the de-escalation training we brought in the police executive research forum to teach our officers how to best handle situations or crises when a gun is not involved even if someone has a knife or some other object or an officer comes upon somebody with possibly a mental distress how can we best handle the situation by de-escalating bringing that situation down and hoping that we have a happy ending for everyone involved I think we can all agree that that's a necessary component of the soft skills that officers should have every day and this training was done from top to bottom in this organization that means I took it every officer from top to bottom had to take part in de-escalation training it was difficult there were some difficult conversations and officers asked why we have to take this training aren't we doing it already the right way well some of us are that are not they are now held to a different standard and that is one where de-escalation is written into actually our policy and use of force so our use of force policy was not only redone but de-escalation was placed in the policy as a means by which we can achieve safe results in handling citizens that are in crisis we can move it on this is just a description of some of the topics in the de-escalation training it gives you some important phrases here we use the critical decision making model it is just talking about some of the things again reducing the need to use deadly force we would like to mitigate as much as we can the instance that an officer may have to apply deadly force to any individuals out in our community there are six training models I will leave these for you to read here the six training models again each steps within the process that each officer had to take and we will have refresher training in de-escalation every year so that officers are maintain their awareness of what is expected of them in addition de-escalation training is now a part of the mandatory training within the police academy so we won't have to worry about retraining our academy recruits in de-escalation that will be something that they graduate with mentioned we've gone so far as to now as of what would you say Charlie early 2017 place body cameras on each one of our academy recruits to reduce the reluctance of our academy recruits to engage their body worn cameras we're now outfitting our recruits with those cameras while they're in the academy again another step in the direction of making this another critical piece of equipment that we give you we give you a gun, we give you other things to use on this cool looking belt but we want you to use that body worn camera to keep you out of trouble and to keep the story straight from everyone involved and we found that since we put this policy in place we've actually had some better compliance with our use of force policy tactical policy has been a big thing some of the resistance that I've received from the police association in particular is that some believe that taking a tactical moment and evaluating the situation may put an officer in harm's way I disagree I think that part of being a police officer is being able to communicate and I mentioned earlier having the soft skills to work on a situation and to bring that situation down or de-escalate and I think that's an expectation that we can place on each one of the people we put in uniform and put a badge on in this city we know that there's going to be instances where we have to use force there's no doubt but we can ask people to do so safely and effectively and this training has given them some of the tools that they need to do it so next steps here other than coming and having this presentation today we've pledged to have ongoing communication with the members of the board here we'll also use more data to drive what we do as an organization one thing that the gentleman here didn't mention is that we formed the policy advisory board that policy advisory report has brought them up to speed on many of the things we've done policy wise between the time I was hired and now that really educated them on some of the the actual changes we've made in this department so like Ms. Washington said there's some communication issues there's no way around that but the bottom line is we cannot allow someone to report that there has not been changes there have been changes and we've changed proactively not reactively we've changed the transgender policy we've changed other things that we've had no problems with over the course of the last two years so we're very much on the cusp of changing things prior to needing them or prior to being told that we have to change them another thing you should know is that we're in the process of TPCA recognition our police chiefs association we've made an application to be recognized as one of the top agencies in Texas in order to do that we have to go through a rigorous auditing process and we will be if accredited the largest police agency in Texas that have that accreditation that's something to be very proud of for our police officers so we don't always do it all wrong at the same time either and we are proactive about making sure that you can be proud of this police department and you can be proud of the young men and women that put this uniform on so I thank you yes, Mr. Sanders I have a quick question I know this time is running out but the community who are talking specifically about the culture in the department at the time kind of the informant chief particularly that the department were ridiculed and discriminated against by white officials in the department would you say the majority of Hispanic and Black police officers would agree with you that that culture has changed I think so I think one of the big tells was just last week at our city council meeting where the Hispanic police officers association president and the BPOA president stood up and were foray into having the commanders positions yet we're going to have ups and downs we're not going to agree all the time and sometimes we'll just flat out agree to disagree but the lines of communication are open and I don't think that our black police officers association or our NLEO or Latino officers association would say that the conditions are not better what about your relationship with the white police officers there's no white police officers association there's a there's a POA and there are members of that POA that are black, Latino Asian my relationship with that association has been rocky to say the least and I wouldn't come up and tell you anything different have I received resistance I have do I have people in the POA that have endorsed or look forward to some of the changes that I've made I have that as well so I just look to keep working with the association I'll never change the fact that I'm going to press forward and make this agency one of the best agencies in the country and I'll do that with the help of the association or without one last quick question how many sections of the department have no African-Americans in them I couldn't I have to get you that number but there are several sections that have no African-Americans in them including homicide and swat absolutely right there was a officer in SWAT but he was recently transferred from SWAT what do you suppose that is? I think that in the past that there may have been an inequity in the actual process of interviewing people for specialty positions again I spoke to a change that I made and one of the changes is now in the specialty position selection process we are expected to put a board together that is to diverse and to reflect the diversity of this community and it is my hope that that selection committee will now pick the best people possible and we will see a change in the diversity of certain special units just a couple questions real quick I know that the government's never hope but that the audio piece will it work on these cameras and does it have to be activated because in Mr. Craig's case the audio piece was the most important thing missing the equipment has audio working as well I can't account for some of the problems electronically I mean of course we are going to have problems just like anywhere else because this equipment is new the automatic equipment that is coming on is a new version but we will work through the kinks and make sure that it all works fine you know that is a good question I would have to get back to you and finally I know we have to go and this is not being reactive I looked at all of the dates of these implementations and they are extremely recent so it would lead us to believe July 2017 I think I saw all of them in 2017 the earliest was 2016 would lead us to believe that some of these are proactive I mean reactive vice versa some of the things that were placed on this slide are 2016 and 2017 is that there are changes to transgender policy changed in the first few months that I was here and I was hired in late 2015 so we have proactively made changes and I think that the gentlemen here that have been exposed to some of our policy changes in the policy advisory capacity will be able to support that the ones that have attended these meetings she is first and foremost to you and your officers thank you very much for what you do for the community we are disagree on one piece and on the other but all of you are out there putting your lives on the line to protect all of us first and foremost thank you very much I appreciate it I have a process question I read the interim status report from the treaty justice it was written October and I'm very happy to see that all the officers are undergoing training 16 hours of training can you tell me please tell us who is doing that training how are they chosen and what specific modules I saw the six modules up there but what specific who is doing it how are they chosen and how are the officers receiving it actually the officers that were initially assigned to the procedural justice training division were selected by the former assistant we got behind this and realized that we needed specific people that had the core confidence to relate this information to the 1600, 1700 pounds of less officers that we had it is a how can I put it it is a daunting task to facilitate procedural justice training you have to have the right people in that room and we had some really good people in that room and now we've even brought the former police officer and the president on board we brought in a retired police officer as well to help facilitate some of these training sessions and our community sessions it's difficult I have no doubts but who is training the trainers I'm sorry we sent our trainers to Chicago and other places across the country to receive their procedural justice certification so not only training across the country but they have now gone to other places in the country and have trained and facilitated training for other departments so the national the national institute they actually have created a training program we had a weekly phone call with the members of that of the members of the actual the national initiative and the training doesn't stop at them I have to attend sessions or assist the chief premier as well and then what we learn we bring back and help integrate into our training program thank you Chief I have a question of relation to body cam my life police officer of the different department when body cam evidence is available that department they make it available immediately why was there such a long delay when there was cell phone evidence I know what the DA's office Sharon Wilson would say when there was an investigation why can't it be released immediately we're seeing the point of view of Jackson Craig it's there we know he has a body cam why can't that be released immediately in that instance we had juvenile involved in that so that was a big hang up I mean there's no statute that says anything about juvenile yes sir there is what statute is that so there are two issues here name the statute I want you to name the statute I'll find it for you it won't take long but there are two issues here the first issue is that a police officer was involved and under the statute that passed in 2015 when a police officer is involved in the incident you cannot release the body cam until you end a human investigation what they call the procedure so who was in support of that was the city of Fort Worth police department supported that statute in Austin we did not actively support or oppose that chief are you in support of that I followed the law are you in support of that I'm going to follow the law the official marriage was illegal at one time would you have followed that please ask a question it was illegal are you in support am I in support of releasing the video just because something is the law does not mean it's right what I'm saying is I know you don't have to answer these questions just in the court of law but you are being judged are you in support I will tell you that on a case by case basis I think that the body cam could be released we have released the body cam that's what I want to know why was there a delay if it can be released there was a child there again if the parent sounds a way to say this no the second part of that is under the public information juvenile members are confident that the parent cannot assist the government there's no provision that allows us to get a waiver to release it however if a parent makes that request a parent is entitled to it and the parent can decide on their own to release it once they have it here it was two issues number one there were juvenile records but number two there was still a police officer that was being investigated and because of that you had these two simultaneous things going so even if we could have released it to the parent we still had this investigation and without the AG giving us guidance we didn't know which one took precedent did you ask yes sir we sent it to the attorney general and when the attorney general told us to the parent we released the records to the parent let me understand this one thing so if Jacqueline Craig had asked that body cam to be released even though there was an investigation of the police officer you're telling me it would have been released to Jacqueline Craig session like a meeting we had and Jacqueline Craig if she had asked for that body cam to be released we released it to her irrespective of there being an investigation with Mr. Morrow our normal policy is that we would still submit it to the attorney general's office saying that these are juvenile records but we believe that this meets an exception and give the attorney general to confirm that that exception has been met and allow us to make that decision you do know that the attorney general has 180 days to respond to any requests for an attorney general friend that's public information we would certainly consider looking at it but let me just tell you from our standpoint that puts us in a very precarious position litigation wise if we released a juvenile record to somebody who forced to be the parent without being able to or another agency without us being able to confirm this part probably would not have been that difficult and so if we could have we would have released it again it was the other issue that was involved in this sometimes if we are if we completely know that this is the parent we'll go ahead and release it sometimes we still may go to the AG office to ask for it it just depends how do you verify the parent that you clearly know that show me your birth certificate it could be that what I'm saying that's laborious and that's disheartening to hear that the city is purposely putting these stumbling blocks there that it's there she had the cell phones why was it not released I think the next next session the reason why it was not immediately released because we could verify that it was that she was the parent was that we still had the police officer issue and without any guidance from the attorney general's office we didn't know we could not know if the fact that she was the parent basically overcame the fact that police officers were still being invested so until the attorney general could say to us yes it's okay to release to her even though this police officer is being investigated we could not release that and believe that we were compliant with all the components of the law my sister was the city attorney for the city of Austin for ten years and they had plenty of incidents and they chose to be proactive get it out there we know what happened we're not covering it you can still do an investigation with the body with public opinions still out there that's just my I'm going to stop this conversation we've got two more briefings to go through so I appreciate the passion but Jesus Gerald my member talks about the briefing of the national initiative a building community trust and justice the chief's report left me warm and feeling inside tonight and I just wanted to know the opinion of you guys is these successes and advances of the 3A plane is it yay or not we have to get that from perspective there are no advances because we have not seen any data that's what we're waiting on and to answer your question it would have been healthy for us to have those conversations together about what should be released and what should be released because ministers against crime and these other groups are here to help us not to destroy us thank you very much the other question the other issue is this as the chief has said we agree that this is ongoing nothing has been done but that's that's what he says we're hoping to be done and a lot of times why we're hoping I said some things have been done I'm not there attacking you really you're not attacking you I can't but the bottom line is that what's going on is that the policy review board this is all I want to say there was a community advisory board the community advisory board was diverse they met in another program on El Paso street there were many people the policy review board attended it as the chief said great information it would have been better to have a more diverse racial ethnic ethnic board that was a little bit more diverse faith community wise as the community advisory board hopefully that's what's going on okay I'm again due to time because it's already going to be we're passing in our time okay what more Chief of General comes up I want to say this I think it's that we have agreed to accept all of those to ask us if they've been put in place that's an answer to your question it is all gone yes sir Chief of General please we're going to help you take the same information here we'll take the same information I'll go through it quickly for you alright these are members some members of our team have to deal with not only in the federal government but universities that are working with us to be sure we have significant achievement in our pursuit of justice and national initiative training a y'all law school professor here Tracy Mears in conjunction with the Chicago TV facilitated our training that's the training that the rabbi asked for so in essence this is in keeping with the president's task force 21st century policing the unification of the academic and research as a moderate procedural justice a certain definition as opposed to the definition I gave you earlier so procedures used by police officers citizens are treated fairly in the proper respect as human beings I think that's a more succinct and apropo definition our procedural justice one in two classes procedural justice is given in a three stage classroom environment pj1 and pj2 have been completed by all members of this police department we are now in the procedural justice three stage where we talk about decision making and how the brain influences what we do and why we do it why we have implicit biases this is a real critical piece to explaining to our officers why we make decisions we do and to try to overcome some of the misgivings we may have so officers are taught to recognize what inherent stereotypes and prejudices they may have and to really take an inventory so to speak their biases so this training is on and on 750 of our 1700 officers have gotten this training so far in 2017 and classes are ongoing I believe I include the slide with our classes forward so for example this is 2017 in October this is just one month's worth of classes this sort of message goes out to the entire police department and we allow them to schedule when this classes will be available to them or they will be available for the classes but each one has to manage it's mandatory that they take these classes so that is an example of a class announcement that goes out east of our police office another thing I'll mention and then you mentioned in the last discussion is another thing we change in our organization is all of our policies and procedures are tested so our police officers they receive a change in policy or procedure they're given that procedure electronically and they have to take a test when that policy or procedure demonstrates their understanding this really helps us when there's changes made in wording to any specific policy yes what that police officer has to do where you do that policy and discern where the changes are and be able to answer questions regarding those changes whether they be ESP4 related or anything that we have that we're attacking as a change that needs to be made in this department they need to demonstrate proficiency these are some of the community engagements when I say community engagement is part of Procedural Justice 3 the conciliation process is doing just what we're doing now having open and honest community conversations I mentioned having community conversations already but now with the backdrop of Procedural Justice training and having the knowledge that our officers have in Procedural Justice we hope to make better en route to one of these locations was an opportunity for our Procedural Justice trainers to go out and to interact with folks in the community and to convey to them what we've been doing so the goal here is to keep it going like I said all Academy recruits will have to have Procedural Justice training as part of their nine months in the police academy the reinforcement goes on not only as one electronic model that I mentioned to you called PowerDMS but at roll call training that means when the police officers come into work every day they start entering the sentence that facilitates their roll call this is the tendency of what we do as an organization and why Procedural Justice is part of what we do so we prioritize what the principles are in Procedural Justice every day as we move toward legitimacy we all recognize this setting one step in our way along our way to being better as an organization to being sympathetic and empathetic to members of the community is having that dialogue with residents and dedicated to it like I mentioned started it well before anything noteworthy happened here and we're going to continue doing it because open and honest communication is the only way we'll get through sometimes that we're standing I'm going to take every opportunity I can to stand before a post that are happy with us or not happy with us to create a sense of trust in this police department and in this city so whether or not everyone happy I know that it's impossible for everyone to walk away and be happy but I want most people to understand the takeaway here is that we're going to be dedicated to one going one going open and honest communication with all members of the community trying to be very succinct because it took up a lot of time for the last one you have one more presentation and this is on briefing on local enforcement to determine immigration all right I don't have fancy here high point sorry about that guys I'm going to take pictures in a second I'm Assistant Chief Charlie Ramirez and I'm over a personnel finance side of the opportunity to work on SP4 as we call Governor Abbott Soundless into law and it's SP4 Senate Bill 4 also called the show me your paper and paper's law or show me your paper and bill and when we first saw this and we had that concern Chief of Police along with other major city chiefs throughout the state got together and realized what is really going to be our response of course we're going to follow the state law but this was an unfunded mandate that was pushed down to us and so as Chiefs of Police as departments you realize the impact it really can have on our community not only the Hispanic community but all the other communities as well and basically in a nutshell what SP4 did or told us told cities that we couldn't create a policy that would prohibit an officer from checking immigration status during maybe a car or routine traffic stop and so with that being said we as an department along with the city legal along with Michelle Group developed well of course the Chief Order meeting really pressed to create a new policy this is an SP4 policy that was created and even though the state law told us what we needed to do with SP4 we were able to work around a lot of things so real quick in this policy as far as enforcement yes we cannot prohibit our officers from asking any type of immigration status by their on-call but what we did is create a policy so that we can track when and how the officer does that and so that way if we have an audit or we pick out an individual officer who may be overusing this so with this policy we not only require the officer to call out on a different call we also have the officer have to create an incident report if there's no offense to perform created they have to call the supervisor to the scene if any action is taken and with that we're able to track any time and all time that is spent during this immigration check and so I can tell you as of September 1 if you remember the injunction took place by Judge Garcia and San Antonio while that was over the term and it took away some of the punitive damages our punitive and potential criminal fines for the chiefs and of course the electric officials it took that out but it still gave the officers right to deal so moving forward we thought it was important that we created a policy that did not restrict officers per se but it did allow us as a police department to track and to be able to audit and to be able to make sure that encounters with our citizens are done properly and with this like I said we created a policy that I think is a model policy and I think we there are due diligence working not only with our city legal but working with the Michelle group to make sure we get this information out and what was great is we really moved forward we got this information out and we created with the Michelle group these pamphlets we got five different pamphlets and it goes to the Spanish and basically it tells you what it's before it is what your rights are what you can do to report and you think you're being even racially profiled but it answers every question you have and so Michelle just how many did you make so many we gave most of the way so we're going to have to report or something so every chance we get every opportunity we have we're handing these out and again we trained our neighborhood police officers or MPOs we trained our supervisors like the chief said we put this online for the officers and they had to be tested for this policy as of yesterday running the stats I'll see if any officer has done this we have zero calls when it comes to immigration stats we're not federal immigration officers officers know that our job as local law enforcement is to make sure the citizens, visitors and people who come and visit the city of Fort Worth are safe and we're available to answer calls for service with an immigration check it can take up to two to three hours before a federal agent comes down and takes custody of its individuals we've always had the ability to do the containers we've always had the ability to check immigration stats when we take some of the gel on class B and above are your violent criminals we've always had the ability to do that through 287G which is another program through ICE that we do and that allows us when we bring in a no offender we run their fingerprints, we run their names and we see if they have to take it or they should be before we've always had the ability to do that we don't want our criminals in the community like I said we created a policy that I think is a really model policy we've had other jurisdictions ask us for this policy and we're gladly sitting out anybody we can because unfortunately the way Fort Worth is actively addressing this before may not be the same what other jurisdictions are doing it may not be the same with what the county are going to be doing but we have we made this policy available and we really realized the impact of what it could have and in some cities it has like Houston where they're seeing under report of certain groups who feel like they can't report so this is one of the reasons these pamphlets are important to us because it really tells them in our policy and in the law if you're a victim of crime you don't take immigration status if you're a witness to a crime we're not taking immigration status the basic that tells you your rights in our policy so that's kind of it in a nutshell I can provide you with the actual Senate bill if you want I can provide you with the actual policy and of course we have handouts for each and every one of you and we can make these handouts available to any groups any needs you may have we're more than willing to get out in front of anybody and explain what our role is going to be when it comes to asking for it because yet we are here to serve the community thank you for the information have you seen as you mentioned Houston has already seen this line of certain types of reports how are you? actually a question because once the Houston chief called me and asked it I ran my stats and we've increased our yeah it's not a good thing but it did decrease we've basically seen non ego speaking Spanish speaking those reports are on arrival so it's a good thing because I think for the last 20 years we've been doing community policing we've been reached out saying we involved them and we do have Spanish citizen police academies all in Spanish we have citizen groups or blue groups all in Spanish they patrol on the radio in Spanish so those are the groups that are getting out to get some word out let them know that we haven't reached a status we don't care about them when they want to report something to the police department we have over 100 percent when a forward police officer arrests someone and takes them to the jail the sheriff is in charge of the jail is that correct? yeah the sheriff is in charge of the contract with ICE well after the intake we got the initial intake so we get them in our jail and then they can transfer to Mansfield from Mansfield once the case is accepted through the DA's office or Tarr County then it serves responsibility once they accept that charge so yes they ultimately end up in Tarr County but from our initial whole from our initial part we run them if they don't show a detainer they're not put on hold they're basically there because of the charge whether it be DWI FFT or whatever but we wouldn't run anybody through our unless they have a detainer that's already down for someone for PI we would not normally run someone for SHOP public intoxication so the minor offenses it's the class being above are they having a detainer already that we would hold them on so again we do the initial arrests the initial intake there's no hold or anything like that they're free to go once they postpone our main bill just like anybody else and I realize this is the city before we're a task force of the city but it sure would be useful to have the sheriff talk to us about how they are interacting I mean because our police department has the best policies in the world if they're going to end up in a county jail where the sheriff is in a very lucrative contract with ICE to deal with immigration issues we're bumping up against some hard stuff there that might be helpful just to learn more about Chief, do you have any comment on how you're working with the sheriff currently we have a good relationship with the sheriff I cannot speak for him as to whether he attended the meeting I can only ask but I will say this the backbone of our policy relating to SM4 is about one thing it's making sure that we do not engage in racial profile it's the bottom line so I don't care you mentioned interracial marriages everything else earlier is that but I can tell you my wife got stopped coming through customs coming back from vacation last year and was not pleased with being stopped and it's something that touches us all in many many different ways and the objective when we sat down and really wanted to carve out not just something to deal with SM4 but to deal with stops in general that means that someone is in a car someone to walk in I want every officer to be able to justify why that person is being stopped it's not enough that we have a video camera we need written justification and if that deters people from engaging in racial profile and so be it but the byproduct of it we're not sending unnecessary people back that are undocumented we have a we want to make sure that we still get the reports I think we're doing a really good job as the Chief Ramirez mentioned we're not seeing a decrease in the reporting sure there's been one off where somebody said that they would have called had they not been really descompetent however the reports are going up and that says that our community has some degree of trust in what we're doing and how we're pushing this forward did the City Council ask you before the Chief did they ask out what was did you even understand the law no no what happened was we knew from the legislature that this was possibly coming down so we started working very early on diligently to ensure that we had a policy that was our own that was something that could deal with the unique nuances of what this before means to everyone in the community so we weren't guided or told we got on this really really fast and really early and we worked with Latician and people from legal to make sure that we were dotting the eyes across the teeth because as it reads police chiefs and sheriffs and people can be fined and imprisoned so that's how it came out however I'm not going to sacrifice putting someone out there that would engage in racial profiling that would inconvenience or really break up the family or someone's life in this city but I don't think it's worth it so our crux and I'm emphasizing it is we don't want officers engaging in racial profiling and that's our stance on this and that's the way we're dealing with any of us people with related concepts so since you promoted yourself as an active warrant that's not an issue like maybe a mother with three kids a son just got assaulted that has an active warrant and all of a sudden that becomes a part of the play of the entire scenario so they don't have to worry about that well depending on what the active warrant is if they have a robbery warrant we wouldn't be asking them if they're a witness or a victim of the crime as before the law itself that we cannot ask immigration status on that and that way that wouldn't break it someone from calling fear in there so our policy prohibits that that part but again it says again holding those officers accountable and if there is a check then it's documented why and so again if they do have to call out they have to notify the supervisor and make a scene so again we make sure we pick those things in place but that's a real important caveat to what we're doing hey supervisors don't always get it right we know that but in this instance we have a we have a caveat in our policy that says we have the officers making that type of thing where we're pursuing to some type of you know immigration issue that they need to call a supervisor to see I think that that's a step in the direction of ensuring that that officer is not engaged and that's an important point are you working with the Fort Worth ISD to get this information out yeah matter of fact we have we've made several events I think PTA's of course our NPO's are really pushing out I know Michelle's group was going out and they're doing their thing with Fort Worth ISD as well so we continue I mean like anybody that needs any information that we have and we're willing to make any meetings any church any room that we're also doing that we've been actively pushing this out it was created again we knew it was coming down the chief directed us to get something in place and we had it ready September 1 ready to go luckily the introduction took place and so we rolled it out a little bit later but again working with the city and working with other folks to get this out of this it was very important to us and matter of fact we have James DeGraden who is our one of our officers in the Hispanic community this is a hit come thank you thank you any other questions I just wanted to put on the record your question about the chief was one of many chiefs across the state of Texas that even before the law went into place before the statute was approved in Austin was signed letter with other chiefs the state against us before because it was already going to add additional challenges to their difficult jobs so I just wanted to add this is a good policy I like this I go to Austin every session you gotta show up just show up down there just show up but this is a good policy this is really good I was really being facetious my question was facetious is there a video of this that you share and explain it for those who can't we're actually working on a video that would get the information out very short and sustained so that people don't have to read through the brochure so we tried to hit the rap part which has English and Spanish together and then the other two that have a little bit more detail the information that the video is our next is our next project that we're working on again the more they get the information out and now that you all have that information if you all can share that information with your communities that would be an added value for all of us so that we can get that citizens know it's not just the minority markets that you know it's all markets that you know because if somebody sees something happening to someone else they need to know what the law says exactly thank you Charlie well you're welcome if anybody needs me to speak to a group or something I'll be more in a little bit and trust me he will I'll be honest thank you we appreciate all the service and the leadership we appreciate going on to line that just let you know of all the future meetings that we have I'm not going to read them because you all can read it yourself so I'm just going to go on to the closing remarks and I do want to bring up we talked a little bit about maybe changing some of the things that we're doing in the process of these community conversations and I just want to touch on those you all can ask for more time hold meetings going out to the community centers and meeting the communities there where they live a workshop on white privilege defining the terms on that when people sign up we need to respond to them a little bit more timely and red and blue he had mentioned that and then I know that NLC is doing the leadership training with the city of Fort Worth mayor and council and some of the staff so we will work on these things and look at timelines and so forth so that we can ensure that we do here for every citizen that wants to have a voice in this topic it isn't important for all of us we've all said we don't want to put a band-aid on these we really want to work to make some change it's a good recognition we're not going to have something on the shelf along with other policies and procedures that may have been done in the past that's not what we wanted to do here we have questions we talked about future meetings a third Monday of each month a third Monday in January is Martin Luther King Day I believe are we going to be meeting that day? it would be a good honor I don't think we will move now we will change that we will take a look at that but it would be a good way to honor him it would be again, if you all have comments and since you've all been participating in these meetings and conversations and you wanted to do a change in the process, let us know because we don't know what we don't know and if you're out there in these community conversations you all need to be able to think that does and you don't have to wait until the task force we send an email we're all good at sending emails so we can all get it real quick I'm in too vocal this means my concern was that we would defend the subcommittees and we would address that we're going to get together to define those those communities but yeah, we talked about that in our last co-chair meeting so you guys are doing a great job alright, I want to ask my fellow co-chair I just had a couple of comments in the end you're here for a reason because of your position in the community and just bring those inputs in and don't hold back on those you know, because you're out you're out and about and you're in attendance I would ask though that everybody remember that this is the beginning and most of us have never done this before so we're all learning as we go the feedback that we got today will significantly change and that's what we need that we're bringing information to this room and that we're addressing it in a way that makes all of part of this conversation and a part of the solutions we don't want to be too fast though because all we've been doing is following what somebody else came up with so if you jump out and you take a stand now that this is what needs to be done based on what based on somebody else's discussion like in committee make sure that it represents these 23 people and then take your follow-up with NASA's action plans the committee's will be formed but we have to have enough to see how do we categorize what we're going to be working on you have to be able to put it under a category and then this thing so you know what you're working on so thanks to everybody for being here I had not been sure I thought this would be a fine meeting and if we were to say the questions don't stop in this room I mean I still have questions but I'm going to be getting to the team that I'll share with you because there are a lot of issues just dealing with the police department so that's all the other categories we have to remember so and I don't want to haul the conversation but I'll definitely be getting more questions to him that I'll share with you yeah as we all sit around our tables Thanksgiving isn't we go around and say what we have to be thankful for this past year I know I have to be thankful for being with each and every one of you because together we can make a difference in the city and I hope in Thanksgiving 2018 we'll be able to give thanks that we have made a difference in Fort Worth all right with that I don't even know who starts us off in a prayer but I'm going to ask for a closing curtain this is the week of Thanksgiving and Bishop Cremlin and we'll ask you to provide that for us thank you Father let us speak thankful of our ability that when we witness and see injustice that we don't look the other way make us conscious that there are others who are depending on our transparency do what is right for this city if all that you've done not for a day of thanks a season of thanks but a lifetime of thanks we offer up to you Amen Thank you all Happy Holidays