 Good evening everybody. So wonderful to see so many people out here tonight. And on behalf of the City of Durham I'd like to welcome you to the public forum for the Chief of Police Selection Process. I'm Beverly Thompson and I'm the Public Affairs Director for the City. This is a very important part of the process, the entire selection process, which began back in January. As you're aware we started with 42 applicants and now are down to the final two. So we've done a lot of work, okay? These two candidates have undergone every step of the process. From telephone interviews to writing exercises and an intensive interview process that we call an assessment center. This process enabled the evaluators, which consisted of police chiefs and city managers from other cities and community members, to observe their interpersonal problem solving, conflict resolution, and community engagement skills. They were also questioned about their technical knowledge and their policing philosophy with respect to key issues such as leadership, use of technology, justice, officer training and development, and organizational change. Now let me tell you a little about the format tonight. Before you are the finalists. They're ready to answer any question that has come from the community so far. And tonight our goal is to present and answer as many questions as possible. Thanks to you, the community, we've received more than 65 questions. And we're ready for them to take a stab at hopefully at least 10 of them. However, audience members still have a chance to submit a question. And you've been handed cards as you walked in. If you would, if you have a question, take a minute to write those questions, print it actually, on the cards that you were given. And a public affairs person standing there will be on the side to take it up. So feel free. Again, print your questions. And as they are picked up, we will look at the questions. And as I present a question, I will read the name of the person who submitted the question, along with a Twitter name if someone submitted a question via Twitter. And that's in the interest of transparency. So candidates have not seen the questions in advance, and they will have up to two minutes to answer the question. Following this session, there will be a meet and greet opportunity for each candidate. And I'll tell you more about that a little later. I'd like to remind you too, depending on how you process information, you may like to complete your feedback form as you listen to responses. Again, your feedback is very important to helping the city manager choose the right candidate for Durham. So let's get started. You ready? Okay. Okay. I'd like to begin the forum by giving each candidate a minute and 30 seconds to tell us a little bit about themselves and why they should be Durham's next police chief. I'll start with Ms. Sarah Lynn-Davidson. Here to be here in the city of Durham once again. Your city reminds me a lot of the city of Atlanta as we began to go through economic development and development and growth throughout the city where it impacted our police department to a degree. Well, we had to change the way we think about law enforcement and how we enforce the law in our communities. As most of you have read our resumes, I won't tell you everything about Mike, experiences in the city of Atlanta police department, but I will tell you years of experience has afforded me the opportunity to be at a place in my career where I can offer the type of leadership, the type of experience, a multitude of training opportunities and initiatives that I have spearheaded in the city of Atlanta to make the city of Atlanta a greater place to live and to play and for our tourists. I am currently the commander of the strategies and special projects division. I started our community-oriented policing section and also our homeland security section. In those two particular divisions, it was very important that we as a department establish very positive relationships with our community. I believe that it is critical and it is certainly one of the most important aspects of a leader in law enforcement to ensure that there is confidence in the citizens that we serve. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I am Mike Smathers and I want to let you know what an honor it is to be sitting here in front of you. I appreciate this opportunity to speak to you and share my heart with you about policing and my police department. I want to share my heart with you about policing and my passion for policing and the opportunity to be your chief. It honestly does my heart good to see this chamber as full as it is, full of people that are engaged and wanted to be a part of this process and it speaks to your level of engagement and your commitment and your dedication to this fine city. As Sarah said, I won't read off my resume to you. I have a breadth and depth of experiences in Charlotte that runs the spectrum of professional policing and consider myself an innovator and one that is a strong proponent of community engagement and transparency that I know is so important to developing the relationships that are key to success in policing in this city. So I thank you for being here. I thank you for the opportunity and I'm looking forward to having this conversation with you tonight. Thank you both. Now we're ready to go to the questions and as I said earlier, you'll have two minutes and we'll wrap up the questions at about 7.55 and allow both of you two minutes for closing remarks. The first question comes from the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People and Twitter username at Abert and they ask, what is your definition of community policing? What steps will you take to implement your philosophy and how will you measure your success? Ms. Davis? My definition of community policing is more than the textbook definition. Community policing has been around for many, many years and the concept of establishing relationships with the community has to be more than training our officers on what those various principles are. We have to make sure that they embrace those principles, that the relationships are sincere and that they are sustaining relationships and that our officers understand the very specific needs and are empathetic to different types of communities whether it's African-American community your Hispanic community your LGBT community your business community. It goes much deeper than being able to say that we checked the box we completed the training and there has to be certain measures. The measure is how satisfied is the community in the police department to determine whether or not community policing is effective. If you aren't satisfied then that means that we have not been effective in our community policing initiatives but the police department has to be proactive in establishing those relationships. We can't just exist and expect the community to love on us. We have to do the right things we have to ensure that we are supposed to be when you have concerns and that we are there with answers and we are service oriented to make sure that you feel confident that your police department has embraced a community oriented policing concept that is beyond just the classroom is how we act is what we say is what we do is the policies and procedures that we are complying with and putting checks and balances in place not just with our officers but with the supervisors that are there to ensure that the officers are fulfilling those requirements. Thank you. Mr. Smathers? I almost hesitate to use the phrase of community policing because it means so many different things to different people. To me we are talking about a heartfelt commitment to be engaged and have relationships with the people that we serve. Community policing for using that phrase is we need to hear from you how you want us to police in your community and we need to be responsive to that. We need to be aware of that. What gets measured in this line of work is what gets done. We need to have that internal expectation. We need to ensure that we evaluate the men and women of this department and how we are serving you and we need to hear that. We need to hear that from you as well. I don't need to tell you how you need to come police in your community. I need to hear that back from you and hear your concerns and hear the things that are driving fear that you might have or driving the crime that you are experiencing in your community. So it is a commitment. It is a heartfelt understanding that if we don't have relationship and most of that relationship is going to be driven by transparency means to an end to earn the trust that we have got to have from you to be successful in policing this community and providing you those police services if we are not transparent with you we are not going to have that relationship and without that relationship we are not going to make inroads and have progress related to the crime and the quality of life that we all won't hear in this city. I will let you go ahead and applaud this time but in the interest that we can I would like to ask that you hold your applause. All right. Thank you. Thank you. This next question comes from Patricia Lang Kent Fletcher and Dennis Stacy. They want to know what experience have you had in dealing with gangs and do you have any solutions to gang violence that might be effective in Durham. We will start with you. Absolutely. One of my assignments one of the units that fell under my command was our gang today's gangs we sort of call them hybrid gangs they are one name one week and then they are a different name another week. Sometimes they are girls sometimes they are all boys sometimes they are Hispanic gangs what we have found that has been very very effective is that we have to continue to educate our young people early on before they become influenced by gang activity you can't save every child but at the same time there has to be preventive measures I want to add that in so that it doesn't appear that we're just enforcing gang types of initiatives because we can't arrest crime away we have to put in proactive preventive measures in our schools and also in our various recreational facilities and incorporate other individuals what like concerns to try to help educate our young people to stay from that type of activity we use a system called excuse me Geo GeoGov no not GeoGov I can't think of the name of it but it is a gang type of intelligent software to help us track gangs and to help us to identify those particular individuals that are associated with gangs it's almost like a connection type of software that we go after those individuals that are actually the heads of the gangs so that we can try to intercept type of activity from the folks that are most influential in those particular gang types of groups thank you I have extensive experience related to gangs and in the 21st century there's a technological component to their activity and the things that they do that cause a rapid shift in how we address them in law enforcement the traditional enforcement methods trying to keep up with them trying to identify them is practically impossible I've got extensive experience using the gangnet system that's in place in this state to work through and identify those folks and take aggressive enforcement action against those that just choose not to go into a different lifestyle the preventive component of that is where you're going to achieve long term success with that you've got to give these young people opportunities to see a way other than the gang relationships that are so powerful and impactful on them they see that as the family or the connection that they perhaps don't have in their life and if we don't provide them alternatives and a way to see a different path for them then you're going to lose some of those young people so my heart is certainly addressing those that choose to pray and commit violence on this community you have to be aggressive and deal with that behavior but that doesn't need to be where your heart is and your primary resources need to be on the preventive end, on the front end on the pipeline that deals with that and you need to be creative in how you do that by using social media and by using the various social media platforms that young people gravitate to and be robust and reaching out and partnering with the faith community partnering with your school systems to have a systemic, long entrenched method to deal with them again it is a marathon it is not a sprint related to having impact on the gang problem and the gang activities and it comes from a heartfelt commitment and a partnership with different service providers here in this city alright thank you the next question comes from Fade the Fade Coalition and the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People racial profiling has been demonstrated statistically to be a problem in the traffic stops and surges by the Durham Police Department what would you do to address racial disparities I'm aware of the RTI study that just recently came out and I'm aware of the concerns that exist in this community related to disproportionate policing in general throughout this community and how it impacts the trust and the relationship that we have with the community we have to be willing to take a critical eye and look at how we do things I've had training and exposure to understanding racial bias and how it impacts the delivery of police services my entire career and it's impacted me and it's made me a better police officer and the component of that and that has to be ongoing in the sense of it's not just a one-time snapshot where we do it and we indicate that we've done that we have to have a heartfelt commitment to identifying that we all have a set of biases and life experiences that we bring into any encounter that we have with the public as police officers and the decisions that we make with the power that's entrusted to us so we have to be willing to say and I know and recognize that there is a historical fact that police officers and police departments in this country especially in the southern part of this country have done things that were inappropriate and illegal in minority communities and that's not a historical thing that is not present today I've seen that video just like every one of you have of the shooting in North Charleston where that man was just murdered so those fears and concerns and those realities are real and they are present today so we have to be aggressive to be committed to saying that yes it can occur when it does occur that we hold ourselves fully accountable we're transparent with you I'm not afraid of the data I'm not afraid of looking at the data I'm not afraid of standing up and saying there's things that we can do better we need to self-assess and we need to look at that data in non-traditional ways we need to compare our own selves to shift and work unit to work unit so it's a multi-layered approach but one that I am fully committed to is a way of doing business here in this city Miss Davis Yes I share the same concerns that many city officials and leaders in the law enforcement industry share as it relates to vice-based profiling it's not a good feeling being profiled it's not a good feeling when you are afraid that your relative is not going to be able to drive the streets of a community that they live in without being harassed and just being real about it it's the responsibility of the department to look internally and to on a regular basis set up checks and balances to ensure that you don't have officers that are participating in bias-based profiling sometimes that action can be with one, two, or three officers and sometimes it can be with an entire unit but when you put checks and balances in place and you're complying with the standards that your accreditation status holds you to and this department the city of Atlanta police department we are accredited we have to comply with in order to keep our accreditation in order to do that you should be doing internal checks on a regular basis and identifying individuals who are making stops of your LGBT community of your Hispanic community of your African-American community or any other minority community that's not supported by data or not supported by probable cause and to take a very close look in strong action against that type of behavior is very important because what that does it sheds a light on the entire police department that the department is not fair to specific demographic groups sometimes it's only certain individuals in a police department I would venture to say that most of the officers that wear guns and badges are good officers is dealing with those that are not complying with policies and procedures that make the rest of us look bad thank you I'm going to follow up and this question again is from Fade the Greensboro police department recently stopped all regulatory traffic stops such as seat belts and expired tax because of high racial disparities in those kinds of stops it seems to be effective in reducing racial disparities in traffic stops in Greensboro would either of you consider implementing such a policy here if not, why not let's start with Mrs. Smathers my philosophy related to traffic enforcement is centered on focusing on the moving violations the driving behaviors that you're doing the things that we all do when we drive that lead to traffic crashes that lead to traffic fatalities as well as the behavior and the driving behavior of individuals that are unsafe I support not having an emphasis on equipment violations that doesn't make our community any safer I think it has a negligible to no effect on traffic safety as we all want it to be and then what does it do it does create opportunities and the situations where we have think about from an equipment violation standpoint and the expenses and the difficulty that many have of keeping a vehicle up in operating condition and then now I'm going to stop you because you have a minor thing wrong with your car and where's a lot of that going to occur it's going to occur in communities that might be predominantly minority or struggling financially and then they end up with a ticket and then what's their contact then with our officers in this department and are we safer as a result of it we're not safer as a result of it and traffic is not safer as a result of it and then our relationships are fractured and it causes a level of distrust that's palpable and it's real and it's meaningful so my emphasis will be on moving violations, it will be on traffic I support the premise of that in the sense of that's not meaningful, it's not helpful to focus on the equipment I think it's detrimental to community relationships I think it's detrimental to the trust that we're trying to generate and I think there's no value to it Ms. Davis My sentiments are very similar to my sentiments are very similar to major smithers in the city of Atlanta we have consciously without implementing formal directives to our officers sort of change the culture in that petty stops are not important to the Atlanta police department many times when petty stops are made it leads to hostile kinds of encounters, it leads to pulling over an individual and sometimes even an elderly individual that is just trying to get home because of a book and tell light that they probably can't get fixed that's not what's important to us what's important to us is dealing with violent crime issues dealing with property crime issues just spending their time focusing on what our main priorities are I would certainly be receptive to looking at how we could sort of accept those same types of principles as it relates to petty stops and not enforce seat belt violations unless it's in an environment where there are other conditions that would have one to believe that the car is going fast and the person doesn't have a seat belt on and the child in the car isn't strapped in appropriately then you've got safety hazards that might amount to something different but enforcing laws that relate to just simple minor violations observed, violations like tags and broken tail lights those are things that I think we would be looking at ensuring that our officers aren't spending their time in that way great thank you we'll move ahead to another question BJ council asks some communities and the black lives matter movement are consistently saying that the institution of law enforcement needs to change as law enforcement begins to make changes what do you think the community could do to enhance the movement toward relationship with law enforcement law enforcement most assuredly does need to change and stay flexible and stay fluid if we don't we're behind and we're not going to be as responsive and capable as we need to be with you so I do accept and understand that that feeling does exist how we do that needs to be driven by the folks in this room and by the community members here in the sense of having relationship and having you directly tell us how you want us to perform policing services in your community that's what needs to drive the policies the direction the mission and the mandate of this department to where we're successful in doing that I can think I know what the priority in a particular community would be I may think I know what the drivers of crime will be but if I'm not communicating and having that relationship and being flexible to hear that and react to that I'm not going to be successful with you I'm not going to have the relationships and the transparency that we need I want to talk briefly about transparency it's a word that gets used a lot and I can tell you as your chief I'm going to be blindingly transparent with you because transparency is a means to an end and that end is the trust that we absolutely have to have with you so I will be transparent with you willing to self-assess and be self-critical about the way that we do business willing to admit to you when mistakes are made to human beings and we do make mistakes and when we do we need to stand up and say that and then we need to let you know how we plan to fix it when we do make errors and we need to be honest and accountable to you in that way and our policies and our procedures and the internal ways that we determine whether an officer's behavior was appropriate and we need to share that information with you on a regular basis as far as the manner in which we use force the number of times we use force on the graphics of that arrest and be willing to tell you that we can do better and adjust and adapt accordingly I would yield to rely on the recent publication of the president's task force on community policing to establish guidelines for how we build legitimacy and trust in the community legitimacy and trust in the community has to come from really understanding the community that you're serving we are public servants we are guardians and not warriors and police officers in today's platform of policing have to understand that we have to extend the olive branch to understand the communities in which we serve and to do that is to make a deliberate effort to sit down and meet and not just train within ourselves we can train all day long but if we don't train with the people who are helping us to understand what the problems are and how are you being impacted then we can't be successful so there has to be an open dialogue especially with groups that feel that they have been underserved, groups that feel harassed I would have to have personal one-on-one interface with those individuals so that we could get down to what is the problem what have you seen our officers doing how can we be better servants to you so I think it's critically important that we look at ourselves first and we examine ourselves and make sure that we provide an audience with those various groups that feel that they have been underserved alright, okay this next question comes from Amanda Smith and Howard partner they want to know what is your experience in de-escalating tensions in police community member interactions rather than using force are you familiar with guardian training in which officers who treat people who mainly show them respect and explain their actions can improve the perceptions of officers and their department Ms. Davis will start with you this time yes one of the recommendations in the 21st century policing publication talks about de-escalation of force and the de-escalation of force and how you communicate to different publics in a way that we achieve a common goal anytime that you are encountering a community member or a citizen and there is the potential for an arrest or there is a potential for an encounter our officers are trained in conflict resolution so that they know how to de-escalate a situation and avoid the physical contact avoid escalating the situation to a level where it becomes a very adversarial situation where an individual may be hurt or even fatally injured so yes training is critically important conflict resolution training we have what we call verbal judo which is something very similar to what you are speaking of verbal judo is a way of talking to an individual to keep them at a level where we can accomplish a common goal and investigate without escalating to a physical situation bravado is not important in police work and our officers across the country sometimes the gun in the badge gives them a sense of bravado that is not necessary in certain types of situations that could be reconciled with just common courtesy, respect and an investigative method that is very strategic and very respectful preservation of life needs to be the driving goal of our interactions when we deal with people and having that at the heart of what we are doing when we are dealing with people needs to impact every aspect of what we do talking about de-escalation and the commitment to it and giving our officers the tools to do that and again once again you have to be willing to teach officers again the guardian mindset versus the warrior mindset and the situation down it is okay to stand there it is okay to back up and allow a situation to diffuse itself we don't have to always rush in and always take control and always do things even though we might be lawfully able to do that it doesn't mean that it is the right thing to do that is a culture shift in law enforcement that is difficult that is a systemic effort that has to take place and the chief they are the driver of that I am not expensive personal experience in my department as being the commander of our SWAT negotiation unit whose sole purpose was to de-escalate situations and de-escalate the tensions to allow a peaceful resolution so all those gentlemen that were behind me wouldn't have to make a tactical entry into that home wouldn't have to use force to take that individual in crisis into custody we could resolve that that works you will save lives with that emphasis you will have lower use of force with that and that is a commitment that needs to be that is perpetual that we are constantly looking and following best practices related to how to de-escalate and equipping the men and women because they are making split second decisions in high stress environments so we have got to equip them that in those heated moments that they are making that decision that they feel comfortable to stop, take a breath de-escalate, move back as opposed to always moving forward alrighty the next question comes from the fade coalition and twitter user name at bull city and twitter user name ac oliver a thorn and they want to know how will you assist in implementing a fair transparent and accountable police camera policy miss davis will start are we speaking about body cameras body cameras the city of the city of atlanta is currently going in the process of procuring body cameras we started doing our research approximately a year and a half ago on different types of body cameras and the experiences that other agencies were having across the country not just with the body cameras with their policies and how to roll out those various policies one one particular important aspect of that has been to make sure that we had engagement not just from community members but also from various interest groups to weigh in on what the body camera policy should look like it's important to get that level of input from legal advisors from community members from city officials from legal up from the city's law department as well so that when we develop a body camera policy it's not just a policy that serves the police department it's one that the citizens could feel relatively confident that officers are filming that we can have an accurate and transparent account of interactions between the community and the police department I believe that body cameras are going to be positive a positive aspect of policing body cameras have a tendency to make everyone pay closer attention to their behavior the police and also the citizen it's what we call the Hawthorne effect when individuals are being recorded they have a tendency to be more conscious of their behavior officers as it relates to policy and procedure and citizens as it relates to what the consequences will possibly be of their behavior as well so body camera policies and transparency I believe is very important and I will be totally engaged in making sure that there is a collaborative effort in making sure that policy serves accordingly Mr. Smethers Body cameras have been fully implemented in the city of Charlotte and they are an incredible, powerful tool for police accountability and accountability to the public because they're that independent capture of the events that took place and I understand that the primary driver of concern is the transparency related to that information and how do we share it with you to allow you to have the confidence and to give a full accounting of what took place and whatever incident is relevant I'm a full proponent of allowing an individual who considers he feels like they've been aggrieved in some way to have an opportunity to come in and watch that video and talk to the police department and go over that video so where they have that opportunity to see that footage and have that interaction with us to look at that independent footage because it has no agenda and it has no motive other than just capturing that information on a larger scale for the incidents and I know the public's appetite to see a lot of this footage is you work through the statutes that exist in this state and the complexities that they create related to the desire to be transparent but yet adhering to those statutes which can be a very difficult and thorny issue I'm a proponent of what I call the Boston model the city of Boston when they have a critical incident which is captured on a body camera they have a representative sampling a representative group of citizens and faith members and community leaders that come in and they watch that camera footage and they have that in-depth discussion with the police department related to that and then they're able to go forth and talk to the groups that they represent and their constituencies and share with them what the police are saying is or is not accurate the information that you're getting is or is not accurate and at least until statutes are changed and I do think there needs to be some statutory clarity to work through this issue because this technology seems to have eclipsed what the current laws allow us to work within that that is a a good interim step to thread that needle and allow you some awareness and confidence that we are not holding information back and you can have confidence in the information that we're sharing with you related to the cameras Thank you So these next two questions are specific to your respective cities so you won't get the same question but it has to do with criticism that may have may have happened in your city or to you this question comes from twitter username CFD356 and Chief Davis they want to know Atlanta has been heavily criticized for its proposed body camera policy what did you learn from that process what we learned from the process and the criticism really came from the RFP process not so much from our citizens our citizens were involved in the development of the standard operating procedure and so on however much of the criticism came from the actual request for proposal and having individuals to be able to compete in that process so what we did learn from that process is that the competitive process for certain types of technology is very complicated there's so much new technology out there that is hard to have a fair and competitive process when you're looking for certain types of features in technical equipment that only a few companies may have say for instance a 30 second pre-buffering type of feature on a body camera to the Atlanta Police Department was very very important because what it did was that pre-buffering feature gives you the footage 30 seconds prior to when the officer actually activates the camera so that we are able to actually see what occurred 30 seconds leading up to 30 seconds is a long time to see what led up to that body camera being activated that was a very important feature for us there weren't that many vendors that had that capacity and so during the RFP process there were some very discontent individuals that they weren't able to be able to bid based on the scope of the work that was requested thank you major smithers this question comes from user name twitter user name at meredith clark and twitter user name cfd356 what was your role in the department when a charlotte mecklenburg officer shot jonathan ferrell and how did your standing on the matter affect you amongst your fellow officers i at the time of that incident was the commander of the criminal investigations bureau so i led that investigation into that incident i was responsible for every aspect of it the quality of it and the depth of it an incredibly difficult time for us as a department but the facts led us and led me to believe that there was probable cause to shoot excuse me to charge that officer for the shooting death of mr. ferrell and the lesson i learned from that that accountability is difficult it can be painful but it's no less important that it get done the community expects that of us the impact on me is i lost friends in my organization it was very difficult for our organization to accept the fact that we were charging an officer that made it no less right and it made it no less the thing that we needed to do at the time i followed the information and followed the facts as we knew them to be and was comfortable with that decision and i guess the thing i would like to leave with you is if that is a tangible example of my willingness to go where the information leads and the facts lead no matter how painful and no matter how difficult they are because that was that fractured our department as you can well imagine it was an unprecedented an event in our city to charge an officer in a shooting but a lot of people disagree with me and i'm okay with that and i accept the fact that there's a wide spectrum of opinions on that issue but it's difficult as it is i felt it was the right decision then i feel it was the right decision now and i would make it again and i'm willing to make those hard decisions as your chief because those incidents come into the life of every department doesn't mean that the outcome will always be the same you pray it's not the same you pray that anytime you have to use deadly force that it's the correct decision but if it's not you have to be willing to stand up and hold yourselves accountable okay we're going to move on to another topic Dennis Stacy asked Durham's inability to maintain a full staffing level of this police force has become a critical need what are your ideas on how to both slow the shrinkage of our police force and recruit and retain quality police officers after we've trained them Stavis we'll start with you yes the city of Atlanta and other cities are having problems with retaining officers because nowadays the whole training process and going through academies is basically for some officers to get two or three years of experience so that they can move on to other federal entities or move on to some other agency what we've done is we've instituted in the city of Atlanta police department it has a lot to do with budget no we didn't give folks raises to keep them there but what we did do is we implemented a signing bonus for our officers a one-time bonus that after five years that you sign on as a contract to remain for another three years that has worked for us the other thing is to make your working environment a police agency every day to work in we have officers that are proud to be Atlanta police officers we try to create an environment where they have input where they can utilize their creativity their technological skills we have very bright folks that come on to police agencies these days when I came on 30 years ago mostly everybody had a high school diploma their master's degree was rare nowadays they have master's degrees law degrees, PHD's and so on they're smart individuals in order to embrace your agency and make your officers feel that they're a part and have ownership in your agency you have to utilize their creative talents you have to put your talent where it's most effective allow them to express their passions in their work sometimes it's a matter of moving individuals off of one shift to another one so that they say that I have an opportunity to advance I'm going to stay here they move me to a better shift I'm not having as many family problems it's a matter of providing those incentives that sometimes don't cost anything it's the low hanging fruit thank you Mr. Smithers turnover is expensive and it's expensive and far more than just tax dollars it's expensive in the relationships that you lose when those experienced officers leave it's the connection with the community that you lose when those officers leave and move on and you have to restore and renew and redo a lot of that work so the impact is substantial and a monetary cost but I think the greater cost is in the things that you've lost when those people that know your community and that work in your community leave you've got to be deliberate to try to incentivize folks to come work for your agency and then stay with your agency and you need to try to incentivize that for them to live within your jurisdiction we incentivize people to live in the city of Charlotte where they work through home loans and through loan forgiveness and through take home cars as perks for those decisions you're able to incentivize some people to stay and to commit to being in the city and to commit to tenure of time with you career development, especially with millennial officers these young men and women coming in are highly educated so educational benefits are tremendously valuable to them to allow them to increase their education and their skill set it's very meaningful to them on a personal level and it certainly makes them better police officers and able to serve you as well they need to see a different path for them many of them want to change careers I don't want them to change a career of policing I want them to perhaps move throughout the entire police department itself and you've got to be deliberate to give them those opportunities to do that or if not even unintentionally you'll keep an officer in an assignment perhaps that it's not suited for them or that they don't want to do and the beauty of this profession is that it is so multifaceted that you do have those opportunities but you've got to be deliberate to do it the cost as I mentioned is prohibitive financially but it's also prohibitive related to the service that we deliver and think about it for every officer that you leave the recruiting training and academy process you've lost that capacity for a year so think about the capacity to fight crime and have relationships with this community when those folks leave our agency thank you major Mr. Smathers let's start with you on this question it comes from this member thank you for submitting this question first responders do not always know how to address victims of domestic violence or sexual assault how do you plan to address this problem previously I was the commander of the robbery and sexual assault unit in my city so I have commanded and led and am intimately aware of the dynamics that take place in sexual assault investigations and we have a program in our city where we've partnered with the medical community to provide very specifically trained medical personnel to come alongside the victims of sexual assault and to participate and provide emotional support and physical support to them during what can be a very traumatic time of evidence collection in and of itself that is so vital to the case but it's so difficult for a victim that has just gone through that and you have to come alongside them with that separate professional to assist them because many times they don't want to talk to that police officer right then and you've got to be willing to adapt and adjust and give them that emotional support we have partnered with a variety of organizations within our city to provide ongoing counseling and ongoing emotional victims support to the victims of sexual assault as well from a child sexual assault perspective we have a very robust partnership that allows forensic interviewing of children in a way that at least minimizes the trauma of recounting what they've had to go through to where we are able to capture the information that's critical for a successful prosecution of somebody that would prey on a precious child but also minimize the damage that's done to that child as well whether it's on or not the answer to a successful sexual assault investigation you've got to be in conjunction with those partners to provide that emotional support and that capacity to where they're served emotionally and physically as well as us able to gather the vital information that we need to successfully prosecute the people that are committing these offenses Stavis our department has a very similar process in referral groups in place that help us with these types of investigations they're very sensitive investigations and sometimes it's important to train your officers to just use common sense sometimes when they're doing on scene or crime scene types of investigations as it relates to special victims for example if you have an individual a female individual that has been raped sometimes it's more effective to have another female there to do the interview you get more information and you may even get a higher level of sensitivity in that type of conversation sometimes officers don't know why people shut down while a child might shut down and not give the information that is required perhaps the perpetrator was an individual that looked like that particular officer sometimes it's very important to make sure that officers are trained to use anatomical dolls with children to utilize those skills and techniques that make sure that we can do an investigation that doesn't further traumatize that child we have a psychological services unit in the Atlanta police department where our staff psychologist goes out not just to support our officers in very difficult types of situations they also provide the necessary on scene support emotionally to those victims of various types of violent crimes and sexual types of crimes so victim witness processes are very critical and it's important to have the necessary follow up with a victim to make sure that that victim is getting the support they need during the investigation that prosecution is forthcoming and that they are kept aware of what it is that the police department is doing in order to resolve their particular issue victim witness is essential in community policing as well it's not just about taking the police report and arresting the perpetrator it's also about establishing a long standing relationship with an individual that happens to be a citizen victim thank you we have time for one final question to the audience and this question is what do you see as the most challenging aspect of our diverse culture in Durham North Carolina Miss Davis we'll start with you well here in this city is very similar to the city of Atlanta and I think one of the most challenging aspects is understanding your audience understanding what the needs the specific and unique needs are of the different cultures that happen to exist in your community in order to do that you have to identify liaisons and individuals who can go and effectively communicate with those particular communities not just in your police department but also to have those liaisons in the community to help spread the message about the police department I think it's important that along with your regular citizens academy that you have citizens academy for your young people they need to understand the processes and procedures of police work they need to understand the why's of police work and they need to understand what their rights are as well when you speak of a diverse community there are different elements of a diverse community you have an elderly community you have Hispanics you have LGBT there are so many different publics in the city of Durham very similar to major cities the success of your police department is how deep we engage how proactive we are in being sincere in establishing relationships and understanding how our service delivery impacts those particular groups it can't be that we wait for people to come to us we have to take a sincere step in an effort to try to establish better relationships in establishing ways that we can incorporate and engage the community so that they can support us give us information help us to resolve crimes but we can't do that if we don't take the step to better understand the various diversity and the different cultures that we serve on a daily basis thank you the richness of the diversity of the city of Durham clearly matches the city that I would be coming from and it's one of the things that drew me to being interested in this position when you talk about how to effectively communicate and work with and provide policing services to that that dynamic can be ever changing and it's critical that we have the cultural competency to understand the various needs the various concerns of the spectrum of of people that we we deal with and we give services to so we have to be very deliberate to have our officers understanding that and that's an ever changing our communities are ever changing and so our awareness and our abilities and our training need to be we have cultural competency training in the city of Charlotte to help officers be equipped to understand how the things that they do the things that they say even though it might be innocent to them could be offensive or could somehow drive a wedge between them related to that contact that's an ongoing issue because officers even just may not realize that the thing that they said was offensive or inappropriate to that population or to that individual or to that group so you have to realize that that exists you have to realize that you have to be intentional to prepare the men and women of your department and equip them to where they can do that that the expectation is that they are sensitive and aware of that to where the services that we do provide to you are as professional and unbiased and appropriate as possible to do okay thank you at this point I would like for each candidate to take two minutes for closing remarks take a deep breath I know you've been talking but I'm going to start with you thank you Mr. Smith first again I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear and be here in front of you I want you to have confidence in the process that has been in place for the selection of your chief it's been rigorous it's been arduous it's been in depth and I want you to have confidence in that in the sense of I want to congratulate Miss Davis as for being a competitor with me in this process and I want you to feel comfortable in the efforts that this city has undergone to select your person who will lead this organization for the next few years and what a critical decision I know that that is for this city I have the skills and abilities to be your police chief I have the breadth and depth of experiences to be your police chief but to be really candid and honest with you what is more meaningful to me that you take away and understand about me is the passion that I have for policing excellence the heart that I have for transparency and the heart that I have to be engaged and have the men and women of this department be engaged with you and not police you but police with you and to have a relationship with you and to understand what you want from this organization so that we can improve, restore the trust and the relationship that is absolutely critical and vital to being successful today so I thank you for that opportunity I thank you for the honor of appearing before you thank you for being here tonight I hope I have the opportunity to meet many of you at the end of this forum and give you an opportunity to ask questions and meet my beautiful wife that's here as well so I look forward to that and just thank you once again Miss Davis Thank you I can also echo that you should be proud of your city government for the process that they have put in place I'm very familiar with various types of assessment centers and as Major Smather said this has been a very rigorous process they have paid very close attention to the needs of this city and to what your heart's desires are in a chief of police I have 30 years of experience leadership experience and I feel that with all of the various types of opportunities that I have had in the city of Atlanta all of the challenges that I have overcome and all of the various challenges that I continue to have to face with the city citizens and visitors I believe that I have that acumen to lead our department here in the city of Durham and take this department to another level we have full understanding of what the gaps have been we have full understanding of what the needs are from the police officers because we have been exposed to them as well so it's not like we haven't had an opportunity to understand the city of Durham in which direction we should go you should be proud of this city this is a very progressive city we both have had opportunities to apply to other agencies and other cities there was something very attractive about the city of Durham from the outside this is a place where you could easily call home so as a candidate in this process I am pleased that I've had an opportunity to engage tonight to be able to share with you what my aspirations are as a leader as a person that is willing to move from a place that I know as home and make my home here I thank you for your attention and I too look forward to speaking to the rest of you and I don't have a beautiful wife I have a handsome husband who is sitting over there and we look forward to meeting each of you thank you very much thank you both the next step of the process will be for the city manager to review your feedback that you're going to hand to him tonight or hand to our folk taking up the feedback forms tonight and he'll review all of this all in preparation to make a job offered by the end of April with the new chief in place hopefully by May also all of the questions submitted will be given to the new chief to give them a better understanding of your concerns the final part of tonight's agenda is the meet and greet I know you're looking forward to that and that's going to give you a chance to see it individually I'm going to ask Ms. Davis to move to my left and Mr. Smathers to proceed to the back of the room there and receive the audience and please remember to give your feedback forms to our public affairs people by the door so that we can look at what your thoughts are about the candidates thank you so much