 All right, well, it's 4.30, folks, and we really want to hear from you, so let's get started. I will just do a brief agenda review and introduce some of the committee members, and then we'll get into hearing from you. So the agenda we have planned tonight is really just welcome you, introduce you to the committee members, talk to you for a couple minutes, just about the work we've been doing and our charge overall, and then open it up to hear from folks. So I'm Alyssa Sharon, I live here in Montpelier, I've been here since 2002, and I work, I volunteer as the chair of this committee. And just to give you a sense of the other members of the committee, we have Abby German, Michael Sherman, Dan Tau, Jen Duggan, Justin Draschler, and then two city council members, Councillor Lauren Hurl and Councillor Jack McCullough. For the committee members who are on right now, if you wouldn't mind giving away so people know who you are, that would be great. Thank you, thank you so much, okay, you can kind of get a sense of the committee. And the backgrounds of the folks on the committee really range from work in the disabilities and mental health communities to social justice work, to work with prosecutors offices, to criminal defense work, work within the legal system, to work with sex workers and racial justice work. So really kind of a wide variety of experiences, but also many perspectives and lived experiences we do not have on this committee. And which is in part why it's so critical to hear from you all. And I also want to just note that we are supported by Mary Smith with the City of Montpelier, Mary, we give away, thank you for all your work, and two Norwich interns, Morgan Edwards, who here are taking notes for us today, and Kennedy Mack. Also, I just want to recognize that this is recorded and ORCA is with us today. So people should be prepared that that, that there is this meeting is being recorded. A couple other details. So the city council created this committee, the police review committee back in October. And our charge is to understand current police practices, to define best practices for community safety broadly, to consider MPD, you know, the Montpelier Police Department strategic plan and desired state, and then to make recommendations on gaps. Can we make sure that people are muted, Mary? Would you mind just muting folks who, who aren't speaking? Okay, thanks so much. So then consider the Montpelier Police Department strategic plan and desired state and look for recommendations and gaps to the city council about where we, in terms of our research and stakeholder engagement might be areas to consider change or, or to replicate if something's going really well. Our, our final charges to engage stakeholders in this process. So we have been doing a data driven approach since October and have identified approximately 25 different policing related topics of interest ranging from the budget to use of force to oversight, you know, citizen oversight to arrest. And just, there's so much in this field that, that is, that we're looking into. And we've been reaching out to various constituencies through service providers and also directly through written surveys, meetings, interviews with the unhoused community, mental health and disabilities community, communities of color, downtown businesses, sex workers, the police, the LGBTQ community and others. And we have had the benefit of partnering with the Montpelier Social Justice Committee and their consultant creative discourse to gain insights through their affinity group work as well. So hearing from you today is part of our stakeholder engagement process. And we will also follow up this meeting with an electronic community wide survey that we're going to share really widely through the city's website on social media, on front porch forum and other ways. So for folks who can't be here today in this 430 to 630 window, we'll try to get feedback in various other approaches as well. All of the feedback that we're getting and the research we're doing is going to culminate in a report that we're going to give to the city council at the end of June. In terms of this evening, this meeting runs from 430 to 630. And it is obviously public and recorded. I'm just going to repeat, as folks are just getting on, you're going to all be muted during the meeting unless you're speaking. And if you'd like to speak, I would ask that you use the zoom function to raise your hand. So along the bottom of the zoom screen, you should see a button that says reactions. And then if you click that button, there's a raise hand function that you can put up that will move that will make you visible to me and I will be able to call on you and at that time. And after you're done speaking, you can lower your hand if that is challenging or if you're on the phone, you're going to be able to do that. There will be points during the public meeting today where we will just unmute all the folks on the phone and say, you know, does anyone on the phone need to want to speak because they won't be able to do the right hand function. In addition, if you're having any problems with this, go to the chat feature and chat Mary Smith directly and just say, I want to speak in Mary Smith. We'll get you into the queue. So those are a couple of different ways that you'll be able to engage with us in the hearing today. And we're going to, we're going to plan on how many people here with us. We want to give you as much time as possible because we really want to hear from you. And let me just see here how many are on the screen. I think we're going to start based on the number of folks here with a three-minute time approach. So everyone will get three minutes to speak. The committee members will then ask them clarifying questions of the speaker, perhaps, you know, if they have any. And then we'll move on to the next person. I'm going to go once through everyone. And if there are people who feel like they want to speak a second time, or, you know, they have other thoughts that have come up and want to share them, I'm going to try to go through again. If there are, just to make sure everyone can be heard once. If for some reason you feel like even after that second round, assuming we get to it, and we run out of time that you haven't had enough time to speak to the speaker. We want to hear from you. So I would encourage you, there are two different strategies that we can, you know, that we can advance here. One is in writing. If you have anything to share in writing, we would welcome that. And you could send that to Mary Smith at the city. And Mary, perhaps you can put your email in the chat so that everyone has that. And also, if you'd prefer to be interviewed by a committee member to have a conversation with, you know, one-on-one, that's also an option. And if that's your preference, please let us know. Because we want to make sure that we get your input. All right. That was eight minutes of monologue. I'm going to stop talking now. And move on to the process that we're all here for, which is to hear from you. So. Please. Just raise the chat, you know, in the razor hand. If you'd like to speak and we'll start the process. All right. Elaine. Let's start with you. And Mary, would you mind unmuting Elaine? Hi, can you hear me? I can. Hi, I'm Elaine. I live in Worcester, but I work in the city. And I lived in Montpelier for about six months. A couple of years ago. I wanted to express concern for a couple of incidents that have happened in recent years that. I know have been. Talked about in the community a lot, but I feel that the outcomes have been really disappointing. And disheartening. And that is the shooting that. Killed a member of the community with. A mental illness, a mental health concern. A couple of years ago. Others will probably. Remember the man's name. And the exact timing of that incident. But I remember that there was. I'm a more. A bridge Mark Johnson. Correct. And, and also more recently, an incident. In January. With protesters who came to the state capital. And attacked a young teenager. And she. Was a member of my church community. The Unitarian church of Montpelier. And. To hear from. Her and her mother. The disappointment that the chief of police. Placed blame on both sides equally. A group of. Men attacked a teenager. And that just seems absurd. To me that a teenager would. Be blamed equally for that kind of attack. And that no charges would be filed. Against the men who attacked her. So I think that there are ongoing problems. And I hope that. Others in the community may have. Better, more educated ideas for how we, how to address those. Thank you. Thank you so much, Elaine. Do the committee members have any questions for Elaine? Okay. I don't see any at this time. Thank you so much. And we'll move on. To Dave. Hello, everybody. I'm Dave Bellini. Nice to meet you. I don't know any of you. I'm a lifelong resident of Montpelier. And strangely enough, I know everything about state government. And nothing about the city government where I live. Partly by choice. I don't know who my city counselors are. I don't know who the police are. Disconnected. Maybe in a bubble. I just don't know. So I was curious. I thought I would meet the police here and just say, Hey, how are you? I am a lifelong. Well, a career, a 42 year labor advocate. 42 year state employee. And in my vast experience, I've had the opportunity to work exclusively with people. And there was a time when I worked with all the Chittenden County or a lot of the Chittenden County law enforcement. I just give you my opinion. Whether you're talking about police or anything else. If you want quality, it's who. Versus what or how many. If you hire the right, who's you solve a lot of problems. And as a labor advocate is my opinion. That if you want the best police force, fire force, anything, you have to attract the right people. How do you do that? You pay the most and you have the best benefits. And that's what I believe as a citizen of Montpelier and somebody who pays too much taxes, but I want you to know residents. I mean, workers in Montpelier. I will advocate for you. I will advocate for you. I will advocate for you. Because I think you get the best employees. If you become the employer of choice. I don't know anything that's going on in Montpelier. I just want to be introduced myself. I'll be retired soon. And maybe have a little more free time. That's it. Thank you, Dave. Future volunteer here. Tell me, does the committee members have any questions for Dave? All right. Seeing none. Dave has just added to a volunteer list. And thank you so much. Thank you. I see your hand is still up, but I think it's just a relic from when you spoke before. Okay. That sounds looks like it was. Let's go to. Bogdan. Hello. Am I allowed to do a follow up to Elaine's question? It is your, this is your time. You can do whatever you'd like. So regarding the shooting of the member of the committee, I think it's just a relic from when you spoke before. Okay. So regarding the shooting of the member of the community that had mental illness a few years ago, I would just like to circle back on that. It is my understanding that the community knew about his mental illness. However, it feels that we left away an important part that that individual had the fake gun in his hands. So I would just like to open it up to for conversation. How should the police active in that situation? Because from a distance, you cannot tell if a gun is real or if the gun is not real. So I guess it's a question for everybody how or what could have been done differently when that person had a gun, those officers, what could they have done differently in order to preserve life? Cause after all that is the, that is the ultimate goal to preserve life while they were looking at the barrel of a gun, even though the gun was fake. Thank you. Thank you. And we have been having robust discussions in our committee meetings around use of force. And so I think questions like that will continue to be wrestled with. Do any committee members have a follow up questions for. All right. Seeing none, we'll move on to Merida. Thank you. So I guess I'll just say I'm here. As someone who identifies as an abolitionist, I think of abolition as. The ways in which we can build life affirming institutions. It's a framing by Ruth Wilson Gilmore that I really appreciate. And I, I'm really interested in looking at all community models and how they might be life affirming. When I look at policing. And I think that I've lived in a lot of different places. Nationally, but also here in Montpelier. I'm not sure that's always. The outcome, whether intended or unintended. I think, I think that Montpelier, I've lived in a lot of different places. I've been in Montpelier about five years. And I think Montpelier has this opportunity to be a model. Nationally. I think we could do really creative. And I think that we can really change. I think we can really change. Change to the institutions in our community. And I think that could start with policing. I also know that city bodies, governmental bodies are. Not generally up for radical change. And when somebody like me walks in the room and says, you know, I'm an abolitionist, that's. Probably buddy puts everybody's, you know, here on the back of their neck up. But I think that. You know, I think it's really, really important. You know, I think it's really important to be towards a model. That does less harm. And, you know, so for me, it's like, it's things like. What are different kinds of responders? And I know we have a social worker now, but what are different? What are the different kinds of responses that are required when somebody from the community is in crisis or needs help and support. You know, I think that it's just, it's time to start thinking about how to take some of these steps forward. To really making real change in terms of how we provide safety and build communities of care and support. I also just want to mention too. My curiosity about this committee itself as a body and how effective it can be. Having lived in other places where I've worked diligently on other kinds of organizing efforts. It's, it can just be a plan that gets made and gets put on a shelf somewhere. It can also be a recommendation that's completely ignored by the bodies who are meant to take it seriously and put it into action. And so I would love to hear at some point, a little bit more about assurances that this, this committee's work and the, what they're discovering will be reported effectively and will actually be listened to by the council and by the mayor. And what kind of support. People like myself. Need to be giving to this body to put pressure on the body. And so I would love to hear at some point a little bit more about. Assurances that this, this committee's work. And so I would love to hear at some point, a little bit more about what we need to be giving to this body to put pressure on our institutions to make change. Thank you. Thank you, Meredith. I don't know if you had a time clock in front of you, but you were exactly three minutes on the dot. Great. It was really impressive. In addition, thank you for your comments. And I have, I do have a follow up question for you, but let me just open it up to other committee members first to answer that. I'm just wondering if you have seen. Meredith, it is not your job to do this work. You know, we're the committee members and it's our job to, you know, do the research that said. You seem to have information on the topic and also be very passionate about it. And I'm just wondering if you have seen. We have been looking at different alternative models for police response, particularly for folks in crisis or around use and, you know, we've been looking at it for a long time. And my question to you is if you have seen anything that you think we should be looking at or have anything to share, we would really welcome it. And like I said, it's not your responsibility to do this. We'll take your, your comment and we'll, you know, double redouble our efforts there. But if you did have anything, we would love to hear more or, you know, see the information that you could pass on. Sure. I can't. I'm a little hard pressed to share with you right now. I'd be happy to share some things that I have been reading and looking at. I don't know if there's a, an email that's for the committee as a whole or a way to disperse it to the community. There is Mary Smith put her email in the chat and Mary, would you read up your email because anyone who joins later will not have the benefit of seeing your email. So maybe you could just kind of drop it in a few times throughout the meeting for folks that come later, Mary Smith's email. She just dropped into the chat there and that would be the best place to send anything that you have. A couple of them, you know, models that I've looked at over the past week or so is just some dent in the city of Denver, some alternative response models have been just really interesting ones. I know I've looked at recently, but I know there's other ones out there too. And would love to hear from you. So thank you so much for your comments. And who else? This might be a great time while people are thinking if they want to raise their hand or not to move into. Oh, and is that a hand? Is that you and iPad? Are you waving your hand at me? No, okay. Okay. So why don't we go to the phones then and just I, Mary, if we can just unmute the folks on the phones to just see if anyone wants to speak from the phones, that'd be great. Anyone on the phone who'd like to speak? Steve Whitaker, but I don't need to go first. Well, Steve, why don't you take, why don't you take the floor? Okay. As opposed to getting floored here. I'd like to. Let's see if I can, I don't know about three minutes. So to serve and protect. I have, I work in an advocacy role. I have had plenty of personal experience with our police force over about 30 years. Many improper actions were brought to the attention of an internal affairs officer. Nothing happened. I later saw him and said, why did nothing come of my reports to you about internal affairs issues? He says I was about to retire. Why should I rock the boat? And that speaks volumes. I have been in contact today with an attorney who grew up here. He is today. He's working in the Dominican Republic. Last time he was off to Vietnam. But he and his friend were, you know, he was back to, to bury his brother who was, you know, Carver from the AP associated press photographer. And he shared a beer with another friend up in the national life trail, the trail from, you know, mobile station up to national life. And he recounts a story which I forwarded the complete details to Justin who can add them to the record with his permission that being accosted by four, you know, officers shining flashlights in their face and, you know, basically making stuff up about enforcing complaints on private property and loud noises. All this stuff was totally made up and that's not, that's private property, but it's national life. It's, you know, we're not in the security business for national life. Separately, been much more recently. Oh, that was back in, the same person had been arrested back in 1973 for leaning against the door of a restaurant. And the guy ran right up to him with coughs, throw him in the clink and break me overnight. And the judge just missed it the next day, but it really, that kind of stuff lingers lingering mistrust and us against them. I've told you last time about one of the homeless guys having, you know, he's drinking. Yes. It's the officers are within their rights, not duty within their discretion to confiscate the open. It's a sighted open container. Probably not the best constructive community building, but then to steal his other three unopened beers and claim it as evidence. He is due and I've assured him one way or the other, I'm going to get him an apology and a replacement of his three called Natty beers. So that's Billy that many of you know. The shooting of Mark Johnson. Mark Johnson was mentally distressed. He was in a panic. He was clearly, if you watch the entire video, he was trying suicide by cop as he got more desperate. He was being yelled out by officers with rifle with a rifle pointed at him. He was being ordered to get down. He was willing to jump off the rail bridge into the North Bridge, which would have been the best possible outcome because he might have broken a leg. He might have got a little water in his lungs, but he'd be alive today and he'd probably have been treated and have a new response for how it was handled. We could have waited for behind cover behind a cruiser, a safe distance. He clearly couldn't have aimed at anything in the condition or mental state he was in. He was just waving this thing in the air and they could have waited for cover until the beanbag shotgun arrived, which had to come because it wasn't in that car. I've learned since then they do keep it, I think, and have more of them and have them in more cars. Wait till Washington County Mental Health Counselor gets there. But within about eight minutes of arrival, they put two fragment rifle rounds into his abdomen and killed him, assassinated him right on the Spring Street Bridge. And that's unconscionable. And I've raised this issue with the same officer, broke a lady's ribs over a tussle defending her daughter. So, recently, an officer coming up and knocking on the window saying, you can't sleep in your car. This is just a state law, statute 0106. I'm like, pardon me, but there's no statutes that start with a zero. She didn't give her the benefit it out, meant 1106. But that's on state highways that designated lots, not in city parking lots down by the river, that are least from private party. So basically just going around harassing people for no reason. And then falsely claiming statutes that same officer later lied on an affidavit regarding the toilet signs that I've public toilet signs I posted around town. Both of these issues were brought. The video of that incident sleeping in the car was turned up missing. It's marked on the report as it was videoed, and now the video is missing. I've done a recent public record request. All these offices have been brought, these incidents have been brought to the attention of the chief. And what are you going to do about it? Not a thing, not a word, not a response, not a question, nothing. That is telling. The same chief when I said, are you going to ask for the full file on the marked tussle shooting so you would know whether you've got a dangerous officer who needs to be disarmed on your force. He hasn't even asked for that whole file. It's taken me over a year and I still don't have the whole file getting it in dribbles out of the Department of Public Safety. Even if you don't mind, we're about four and a half minutes in and I see other people have their hands up. If thank you for what you've offered so far, and I am sure we will be able to get back to you and continue, but I also want to make sure. I'll mute myself and await another opportunity, thanks. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much. I so appreciate that. And you're up. Oh, I'm sorry. Did people have clarifying questions or follow-up questions for Steven? I want to make sure. Okay. And I'm just giving a minute to see if I see anyone on my screen with a burning question for you. Okay. Seeing none, I did promise we would go to the next person on the phone before we got to you. And so I just want to unmute the phones for a minute. And because I see there's another person on the phone, if they would like to speak, this would be a great time. Okay. Hearing no one else on the phone. And now it's really your turn. Thank you so much. Thank you. Since you called on me, I do have a question. Would you mind talking a little about the formation of the committee? Are you appointed? Are you volunteers? And in what way are you, in what ways are you representative? Thank you. Sure. I would love to have the city councilors on the call. If you wouldn't mind talk about how this committee was formed, because I know you were, you were there. And, uh, and if you want to take the second half of the answers, that's great. Or otherwise I'd be happy to answer that. I can jump in. Uh, so I'm Lauren Hurl. I'm a district one. City councilor. And, um, really this committee was formed. Um, so starting kind of over the summer, the, the council had passed a resolution condemning police brutality. And we were hearing regularly from, uh, community members about policing and just, you know, we all know what's happening with the conversations nationally around policing. Um, we also had a new police chief who had done an assessment of kind of the state of the department and made recommendations for a vision and kind of values and, and state of the state. And so, um, the, the council, um, really working with city, the city manager, city staff, and the police chief as well was interested in a community group to look at these. This vision and values together and the, um, the, the charge, uh, Alyssa, as our chair probably has it right in front of her. Um, but we wanted to look at, you know, what were policies? What were, um, the whole kind of suite of issues that were raised in front of, um, city council, uh, to look at, you know, how the Montpelier police department is doing. And so the council established, um, established a committee and I think I would turn it over to Alyssa to, to walk through. Uh, cause I think she had prepared the kind of, uh, the range, but we wanted to have, uh, to, uh, counselors on the committee. So to, to one of the comments earlier around is, is the, is this going to go sit on a shelf or is this something that the council is going to be really actively engaged in? I, you know, my sense and I know that at least, at least four of the six counselors are, are with us tonight. Maybe more. Um, so I, you know, I think there's a lot of interest and a lot of, you know, really wanting to, um, to, to act on what we come up with as a committee. Um, and, and so, you know, we're obviously in that process of developing, uh, recommendations and have a report due at the end of June together. Um, but the people were, um, there was a whole application process and people were appointed by city council to participate. Um, trying to, um, you know, represent a breath of expertise and perspective. Um, and also knowing that we would need to get a lot more input from community members through events like tonight and a lot of direct outreach that is going on, um, beyond this evening to, to hear from a lot of people. So I'm happy to answer more details or different thread. If I didn't hit on what you were trying to understand and from the kind of formation of it, or Jack, if you wanted to supplement or amend anything I said, feel free. I think you did it. Gave a good, uh, good summary of how we got to where we are today. Um, I think that, uh, the council knew that, uh, we were asking people to commit a substantial amount of, uh, time and effort into, into this process. And, um, I'm quite confident that the, uh, council is not going to receive a report and, uh, ignore it once it's received. And in terms of the, um, the types of background folks have Dan, uh, a committee member, I see, uh, you have your hand up. Were you thinking Dan of addressing that answer? Or did you want to speak on something else? Cause if not, I'll answer the second half of the question and come over to you. You're muted. Actually, I would in fact like to address part of the second part of that answer, as well as. Address some of the earlier comments. Um, both, uh, Bogdan, Elaine, and Stephen all talked about issues relating to mental health. And I just, um, I wanted to just make sure everybody on the call was aware. That, um, there are people on the committee who are, who are very committed to, um, To exploring the intersection between, uh, the law enforcement and mental health. And looking for, um, Optimal ways of handling situations, particularly crisis. And I'll use myself as an example. I am, I'm an individual. I'm, uh, I do mental health advocacy work. I also do, uh, work and do volunteer as a peer support worker. I myself have dealt with a mental health condition for most of my adult life. And, uh, I am very passionate about this. The issue of trying not only for the, for the, uh, the mental health community communities, but all of the marginalized communities that intersect with law enforcement. And, uh, you know, I think a number of, a number of you have raised issues like the Mark Johnson shooting and, uh, individual interactions with police. And, and as Alyssa mentioned, there are a number of models and a number of things that have been happening. Um, here here in the United States that we've begun to look at and, uh, and I feel as a committee, we are definitely committed at look at looking at various ways to address those issues. And we have representatives on the committee, uh, with backgrounds and interests to, um, make sure that we do the absolute best we can. In terms of public safety and public health. Thank you, Dan. And then just to round out, um, that answer too. So there are folks here who also have. Done work historically and with the unhoused community or the disabilities community. I, we, we have done a lot of outreach, um, through partnerships and individually also, um, two communities of color, um, downtown businesses. We have folks here who have expertise, um, you know, engaging and supporting sex workers or, um, engage or being part of or engaging with the LGBTQ, uh, community. Um, we have folks who are, have worked with, uh, prosecutors offices and folks who've worked with crime on the criminal defense side. I, and, uh, so, you know, a real range and then folks who've worked on social justice issues for decades in, in Montpelier. Uh, so it's a real range of experiences that people are, people are bringing to this. Um, and thank you so much, and because I did call on you and then you did raise your hands for speaking up. Um, Donna, we're coming over to you and then we're going to go over to Michael. Uh, thank you. I'm also in the city council. And when you were asking for us, our response, I just wanted to add that there has been this attitude since Obama's 21st century policing in 2014 to really start creating a partnership for the community. And I see that from there, we went into safe catch in 2016. Thanks to chief fakers and really guiding us to become more interested in for drug addition, then, then punishment. And I think this is another extension of that. And it's a bold step, but I think it's a continuum of where the community has been trying to reach out and change. And so I feel this is an important. Essential step. And I really appreciate all the people coming to talk about it. And I would love to hear more from the committee. About what you have been hearing and discussing also if there's time tonight. Thank you. Thank you. I would love to talk about that, but I also feel like committee members have been sort of talking a lot. And so, Donna, if you don't mind, I'll put in a pin in that for a little bit, a little while. And so we can hear from more folks. Okay. Over to Michael. Hi. I just want to add that I'm a member of the committee and I just want to add that one of our goals is that we can look beyond Montpelier. So each of us on the committee has taken an assignment of one or two or more of the topics that we, that Alyssa started to mention. And, and, and in every case that I know of, we're really looking just, we're looking beyond Montpelier. We're looking for best practices around the country in, within the state. And we're not confining ourselves to just what we know about here. We are really trying to consult and look at and read and study and evaluate national trends, national reports, regional reports. So it is taking a broader view than just what we know of. If you're in first hand or second hand here. Thank you, Michael. Stella. Over to you. Can you hear me? Yeah. Hi everybody. My name is Stella. I'm a trans and gender expensive person. I'm white. I live with mental illness and chronic illness. And I grew up in Montpelier. And I want to start by just naming that I, it is concerning to me. That this committee is made up of people who claim to advocate for issues, but none of whom are members of impacted communities. And I think that it is important and critical and work for change and justice in our communities. We center marginalized communities. And that cannot be done when the committee is made up entirely. Or entirely. People who are not a member of any marginalized community. So I just wanted to name that that is concerning for me. And I think this committee should consider the impact that that's going to have on the results of your findings. I am, I would like to just speak about that. I would like to just speak about that. I would like for this committee to seriously consider divesting from police and investing in affordable housing, mental health services that are accessible arts, reparations, efforts to block an indigenous community members as entry points for true community care and safety. Rather than. Invalid. A 2018 FBI study reveals that 95% of crimes committed in Montpelier are nonviolent so called crimes of necessity. Police cannot address the underlying causes of these so called crimes. They can only react after the incident. will reduce the desperation that causes these so-called crimes, thereby improving actual well-being and safety. A significant divestment from the MPD and reinvestment and community care will still leave more than enough financial resources for the average of 15 annual calls for so-called dangerous crimes in Montpelier. In the past, Vermont has taken positive action with regards to demanding change in police behavior. In 2018, Vermont responded to calls of extreme concern from Montpelier residents and beyond about the deadly exchanges in which Vermont police were taking taxpayer money to travel on all expenses paid trips to Israel to learn tactics of maiming and loopholes in international law that allowed for extreme and great violence. They fully and formally ended the deadly exchange in response to community calls shift and chose to focus on fair and impartial policing policies in Montpelier and Vermont. We are being called to take long overdue action to divest from Montpelier police department and invest in community safety measures that are proactive, sustainable, and transformational. We can no longer lean on practices that are rooted in racism and colonialism during these times of crisis. We must creatively and effectively change our tactics to meet these times. I would like to suggest this committee take an actionable step now of looking at what is happening in Burlington and specifically the response the letters of response from council members and from Burlington police department accountability group that came out of Battery Street Park. They're letters of response to the public, the police commission that was made from Miro Weinberger to Kyle Dodson. I'll send those documents in the email as well. I just wanted to name that now. Then I also want to suggest that this committee seriously interrogate the history of policing in the U.S. which began as slave patrols and slave catchers and to consider whether we believe it is possible that reform and half-hearted responses are adequate in response to the centuries of colonial violence that we are facing. Those are two of the action steps that I would like to suggest for now. Thank you so much Stella. Does the committee have a follow-up question? Okay, so Ann I see your hand up but then I would be coming to you twice so I just want to give anyone else an opportunity first and I promise even I'd go back to him a second time so I'll do that and then I'll come back to you if no one else would like to speak at this point but let me any other hands? Okay seeing none. Oh we have one. I can I can see a hand but I cannot see your name so I it looks like Mary if you can see the name it's D-V-O-R-A-J-O-N-A-S could you please unmute her right now. Thank you. You have the floor. Hi I'm new to Mount Pelliers so I don't I'm mostly here listening but I do have a question that I want to ask which is why use deadly force rather than a taser? Wouldn't that have the same effect of immobilizing someone where there was a danger without destroying them? That's it I don't I don't know enough to ask more. Thank you. Does anyone on the committee want to respond to that question or you know we are not we don't work for the police so we're auditing the police practices and Michael Sherman has his hand up to answer this and he might be able to shed some light on that at this point. Michael. Some of you may recall that I think it was four or five years ago the police chief did come forward with a suggestion that they force the officers carry tasers. A committee there was a lot of disagreement about that and the council appointed a committee that brought in a negative report on tasers. The chief withdrew the request and that's where it stood now that's five years ago whether there's an appetite to reconsider that I have no idea it would be interesting to know but we are we have we have been looking at alternatives to use of force in some in in some specific things but just so that you know that it is something that has been discussed at least once in recent in recent years and could be discussed again. Thank you Michael and for folks who are just arriving the way that this is working is that people who would like to speak are using the raised hand function in zoom so if you go down to the bottom bar on zoom and you click reactions you should see a little button that says raise hand and then you will become visible to me on my screen and I'll be able to call on you to speak and for those folks who maybe are having problems with that you can just wave in the camera or you can chat Mary Smith and she'll help me get you heard. We are also periodically unmuting the phones so that folks can speak that way as well. Okay so let's move over to Bill Frazier. Hi sorry I wasn't playing to speak and I won't offer any comments other than to follow up with what Michael just said and I actually believe it was more like eight or nine years ago Michael I know time flies but Mayor Hooper was the mayor at that time and we've had at least I think seven or eight years of other mayors since she went out of office so I can get I can get the exact dates in the committee report and some of the information if the committee wants to take a look at that but but you are correct there was a proposal from the PD to have teasers there was a fair amount of community pushback we'll comment some of what we heard and the decision was made not to go forward. Thank you. Any questions for Bill on that? Thank you committee members. I have a question Bill do we have a current standing policy where we cannot use tasers in the city? Is there a policy? So we don't know but we don't we don't have them we had drafted a policy in the event that we were going to use them but we we don't have it now you know Vermont state police were carrying them I'm not sure if they still are and I believe berry city police carry them and some of the other so I you know there's a possibility if we had a major event and out of you know we had assistance from other communities that they would use a taser in accordance with their own policies it hasn't happened but Montpelier police don't own or carry them and they were the thank you at the time of that event I think just so people are clear there were only two officers on duty and only four in the entire Washington county the other two being from berry city so there wasn't really back up coming with other issues. Thank you. Any other questions for Bill on this? Okay let's move over to Stephanie. Stephanie did you have a question for Bill? Or did you want to speak? No well both I guess but I can do this first I think I don't know if DeVora was referring to this but it seems like she was saying instead of guns not like in addition to or not that tasers are so great but like at least as an option of non-deadly force and then I mean obviously that wouldn't really solve all our problems seeing as like you know George Floyd was murdered by someone's knee and that there was no weapon involved at all so it's not I mean I wouldn't advocate for like any kind of force that's deadly but I I just feel like tasers in addition to guns isn't really what we were wondering about or at least I wouldn't have wondered about that I would have wanted tasers instead of guns not that I want that I'm just saying it doesn't seem like yeah I wasn't sure if that's what she was asking or not. So if I um most departments that do have tasers carry them in addition to guns and they they're considered less lethal and they use them in times that are appropriate let them that they would diffuse a situation that's still a judgment call and they're still they have a range I don't know enough about this case to know whether that was out of range whether taser even could have been used in that situation but we do have what's called less lethal we have I think Steve referred to it earlier a bean bag launcher which shoots kind of bean bags which knocks somebody down or out but again you have to have it with you and again it has a certain range I'm not advocating for or against tasers I'm not you know trying to have a given I was just trying to answer the question about about the time frame of tasers and how it came to be that we don't have whether to have them as a debate for another day. Okay thank you Jack and then Aruna and then Steve. Yes thank you I just wanted to follow up a little bit on a taser question I think it is it's a complicated question it's it's not at all an easy one to answer the company used to refer to it as non-lethal forest there it's now being referred to as less lethal forest because it's very clear that the application of tasers can be lethal under a number of circumstances. We got a lot of study in the legislature several years ago when someone was in a crisis and was shot by a taser and killed because of it and it's certainly possible that that can happen particularly for someone who has certain pre-existing medical conditions I was not at the count on the council at the time it was being considered in Montpelier but I was one of the people speaking out against using deploying tasers and things can change things can certainly be looked at but it's it's certainly not possible to say as a as an easy answer that if we go to taser that that solves the problems that people are perceiving now. Do committee members any committee members have followed questions for jack okay hearing none we'll move over to Aruna. Hello good afternoon actually this is Suresh Murthy I'm Aruna's husband how are you? Welcome Howard thank you. Thank you thank you. I just wanted to kind of speak for two minutes to appreciate the great work from one of your officers Diane Matthews. She was excellent. I had an issue somebody vandalized my car and she actually called me herself reported the problem filed a complaint for me and eventually tracked down the suspects so I was really amazed that you know she took all this effort and without kind of me making the complaint myself because I didn't know there was a damage to the car until she called me herself she reported the matter and then resolved it and actually got me reimbursed for the damages so I think that was wonderful great work by her and I really appreciate some of the things and this is you know I lived in a bigger city before so I'm really amazed that you know the attention to detail and how the police department here has helped me actually I have nothing but praises for them. Thank you so much for being here and thank you for sharing your story. I follow up questions from the committee. Okay moving over to see we just need me there you are okay. Hey guys how you doing? Just to follow up with the tasers you know it sounds like so tasers work like 50% of the time you don't you don't bring a taser to a gunfight you don't bring a taser to a knife fight as basic police protocol one-on-one sounds like a lot of people haven't watched the video with mark johnson some people have I would say that with the guy you know they in my opinion watching the video multiple times you know he waved that gun around for five minutes straight over and over you know flagging the police over and over flagging cars that were passing by there's only so much you can do in certain situations you know and you know in many you know I've watched thousands of videos you know body cam videos over the years and they gave they gave him so many opportunities you know to drop the gun they asked them they pleaded you don't bring a taser to that kind of instance because they obviously didn't know the gun wasn't loaded it looks real you know I would just really you know I'd ask people to go watch the video if you haven't you know just educate yourselves on on uh exactly what happened you know I still know a lot of people a lot of people who think that he had a knife he didn't have anything in his hands things like that so I would just you know ask everybody to you know watch these videos watch thousands of police videos uh and start to develop an opinion based on a lot of different information versus just a few separate instances you know and again the tasers it's just one of those things where they you can't you can't ask an officer to risk his life over something that might work 50 of the time when it comes to a knife for a gun and uh you know there's a lot of other points that I could bring up but I'll I'll pass it pass it along for other questions thank you follow-up question by the committee I have a question on that one um to say that a murder was justified based on the video that you saw are you asking me if I think that or were you continuing yeah that's my question um absolutely you know he you know he clearly pointed the the weapon towards him at the end there when he when he did shoot that's even with the grainy footage that's clear his day and there was multiple times there was at least two times where they uh there was at least two times in the video where they talked about him flagging them and you know it was a dangerous situation there's no way around it um you know I've seen so many videos where someone didn't get that time of day you know where they didn't get five minutes to you know to wave that gun all over the place it's an extremely dangerous situation we all know at the end of the day it was unloaded or it was a faded gun but you can't know that in the moment and when police do get shot man it happens quick it happens in a split second you don't even know what happened um you know I would just again suggest that people watch a ton of body cam video uh video footage uh there's some good there's some bad there's some in between of course uh but just to get a better idea of how fast when things do go south how fast they go south and you know uh there's a lot of lessons to be learned on on all ends when it comes to watching you know all those videos when it comes to watching those videos to you know going on social media and watching a 15 second clip that's edited and clips does not do justice to a full 15 20 30 minute video as well um there's a lot of sites we can go to to watch this kind of stuff um yeah thank you any other follow-up Abby before I go to Jack for his follow-up question that was my only question thanks Alyssa thank you okay Jack thanks I would just ask if we could ask the speaker to identify himself uh it's helpful because we're making a record of uh of the proceedings my name's Colin any other questions nope go ahead Colin did you have something else no that was it I was just I didn't know if you heard me okay thank you anyone else okay well Stephen Whitaker I'm coming back to you can we please unmute Stephen and we will hear from him again and then Anne we're coming over to you after that and then I'll open it back up okay uh Steve Whitaker again so I had tried to enlist some of the other folks uh some young people who have been had many interactions with the police and feel harassed as well as Casey who is well known to most folks uh but a troubled and challenged homeless person you know would shout and drink and whatever lived in the park until the park's department demolished his his camp uh and part and couldn't salvage it before it all got thrown away in the dumpster in the city had done little to nothing to make make him whole but Casey was the victim of what I call collusion where his father very intrusive overbearing father uh colluded with the Montpelier police to trump up some charges and have him arrested detained and put it into a psychiatric involuntary hold and that does more damage I mean it was already a damaged relationship and now it's it's it's more damaged it's as well as more damaged the trust with the police department and and Casey so I think that's something that needs to be investigated further I think maybe Justin or somebody could interview them personally uh and and try to get more into that I want to make a point that I am not an advocate for abolition or elimination or defunding recklessly I think the police serve an important role it's just not right-sized for our community uh I think accountable transparent and right size should be our kind of operative principles in in in our investigation here um if we should be designing an intentional transition to a realm of public services and public safety services that are more tuned to the needs in the community the needs of the mentally ill the needs of the homeless the needs of the trans the transitory you know long trail hikers or whatever uh but instead what we've got is this overbearing you know overstaffed and overexpensive system but I do not think we should be I'm not pursuing this in a punitive I'm pursuing this I'm pursuing this more in a you know revealing and in kind of whistleblower no pun intended uh role um so I've covered Casey I was arrested uh for going to a meeting of the 911 board as we were designing the 911 system how ironic is that and I was on serving on two of the subcommittees and somebody tried to hold a meeting that should have been an open meeting and I entered the meeting and Sergeant Martin at the time came and dragged me down the stairs of the building where DMV is refusing to double lock the cuffs so they kept tightening on my hands that's just violent assault and the city really should have been have been uh held to account for that later officer long uh was stealing a shelving unit that M&M beverage had given to me and I had arranged to come back for it later when I get there officer long is putting it in his truck and saying possession is 90% of the law you know and I'm like this is a police officer working on a public salary so I was just shocked at that kind of um a decision was made by chief fecos to eliminate our uh call answering for 911 calls uh for years we had answered calls it's called single stage where the emergency calls are answered right where they're also dispatched and a decision was made I don't have the history of what how involved the council was in that decision but we basically gave up the the most safe and most important uh most efficient call answering system which is a single stage dispatch where the call the 911 calls are automatically routed to the local PSAP for public safety answering point and dispatched at the same place no delays no waiting for Williston to transfer a call to Montpelier etc we need to explore restoring that because the ownership of the the control the pride of being somewhat you know uh in charge of your own destiny and accountable uh is is important uh I believe we are currently operating something that's poverty is a is a bias you know we we talk a lot about a lot of folks talk about you know indigenous and black and Chinese etc but we've got a situation where someone's economic status is is used to justify a bias and a mistreatment by our officials and that's just that's unconscionable and uh so I've also noticed that since I've been speaking out about these issues especially since the mark johnson shooting that some of the cops that used to be you know friendly collegial cooperative you know could share intelligence with or you know something to watch out for something that needs somebody who needs help they've all climbed up it's like this blue wall if we're going to protect our you know officer no matter whether you know anyway you get my point but the idea that we're going to have loyalty to the force rather than to the public is is misguided and needs to be addressed head on and and not used as a as a shield especially when they know they might be covering up a reckless uh and dangerous uh officer uh thanks thank you steven i'm going to jump in because to move on to others but we'll come back to you again pause let's pause just here and see if any committee members have questions about what Steven just shared okay seeing none we are um moving over to Anne and then we'll uh remain that we're in the second round here so move over to Anne and then back to Colin and then over to Stephanie and if anyone who hasn't spoke is interested in speaking please do raise your hand and we'll come right over to you thank you um I'd like to um sort of underscore Stella's point when I asked in what way the committee was representative um I heard that you're making outreach to the LGBTQQ community and you're making outreach to communities of color but you really need actual constituents on your committee who belong to these groups um and I full identification I'm a white lesbian cisgendered member of the community and um my name is Anne Charles and I raised this point over and over because it's not good enough my guess is that you're all white cisgendered and straight and that's not good enough so that's my comment thank you thank you Anne I can assure you that that is not the case um but I don't want to identify I people should have self-identified if they feel comfortable doing so but it is not the case that everyone on the committee is cisgendered and not engaged you know I'm not going to fall sorry how people identify on the committee yeah so we'll just I'll just let I'll just let people self-identify and we'll leave it at that moving over to Stephanie oh no sorry Colin and then Stephanie and then we're over to you Bogdan uh I just want to comment on the uh police being overstaffed overused comment I think by the gentleman's name is Steve I think um I mean what do we have one two maybe three officers on at a time I think we usually have two and then if we're lucky you know on a Saturday night maybe we have three if we get one call and two officers show up to that and then get a second call you're calling in Berry City PD to come in and help that's taxpayer dollars as far as I mean that could be wrong here but as far as I'm aware that's whenever they call Berry PD to come back them up or to come take a call in Montpelier that's taxpayer dollars we're wasting um bottom line is having two or three officers on any shift is not not overstaffed by any means you know if I'm in need in Montpelier something happens I want to have an officer there as soon as possible I'm not coming from Berry and uh you know I think so that that point's pretty clear for for for me um and the other thing is I think the the police have been extremely transparent with everything they've done you know everybody's talking about the mark johnson shooting and what's happened since then um during that everything happened to a tee exactly how they reported you know there's nothing in that entire incident where they reported something falsely uh ever since then especially with Chief Pete coming on I mean Tony Falcos was very progressive uh he was a great chief Chief Pete I haven't met the the man himself but he seemed extremely uh committed to helping our community um I think it's delusional to think that a community can survive without police like the abolitionists in the group um I'm not going to be disrespectful but I think that's you know there's no way around if there's no police there's there's mayhem I mean even just looking across the country right now you look at cities like Portland New York City Seattle you're seeing with some of these with some of these new like uh Portland PD for example got rid of their crime prevention unit and you know murders violent crimes of skyrocketed over there ever since uh same in New York City they did the same thing crime is way up violent crime I should say is way up um we should look at the country and watch with you know if if say Minneapolis you know that's back firing too right now they just spent six million dollars to get more police back in their city um St. Petersburg is experimenting with some stuff the tri-state areas experimenting with uh I forget what they call the unit but it's uh say traffic stops are you know unarmed for unarmed traffic stops I forget what they call it the uh that unit but um you know I think it's great to experiment with doing up to mental health calls you know without police right showing up to traffic stops I think is extremely dangerous but there's places doing it and experimenting with it we should watch for a couple years and see what happens in these cities so far is not looking good but over a couple years time let's let's watch see what happens and then adopt good things and that may occur right maybe some of these things are great then we can adopt them but why would you jump on the boat with you know right out of the gate but before just watching and observing we don't have a problem here so why don't we watch and wait and see what happens in some of these big cities and adopt the things that do well and get rid of the things that don't do so well right but I think they've done a really good job in this town especially on Facebook and stuff of just being very transparent about all the reports that have come in how they're dealing with them I think they've done a good job their PR has been good if anyone disagrees you know that's go ahead and disagree but I think personally I think they've done a fantastic job I think that's it follow-up questions from the committee for Colin no okay one thing I will add to Ann's question because Ann everyone in the committee does identify as white and so I I did want to talk just for a minute or two about the outreach that we've done to engage folks of color and then we'll move on to the next person who is going to be the order of Stephanie Bogdan then Sheena then Meredith then Stella and when this committee was formed at the beginning we asked the city council could we do additional outreach to add add members because we were not representative of you know all constituencies we'd like to have at the table and we got the answer yes that we could and so we did outreach to multiple folks and asked them to join including a few different people of color and got and we're told no and so have engaged in other ways but the reason why the three folks we asked to join the committee who were folks of color gave for saying no was that this year of racial rescuing has been exhausting and for folks of color in Montpelier I the feeling was like we heard from all three people we are so overtaxed we are asked to join every committee again and again because there's so few people of color and we are exhausted and this might be a good opportunity for white people to do the hard work in service to us and to stay engaged with us as long you know along the way and so though we weren't able to secure someone from the committee I just want to say I and I think committee members share this feeling that this the work that we're doing has to engage with historically marginalized communities in a very deep way for it to be successful and so we have had to take other approaches to get that to bring that perspective in through individual interviews surveys and then also in partnership with the social justice committee here in Montpelier and through creative discourses really important work creating BIPOC and LGBTQ and other affinity spaces where people can speak confidentially and openly about their experience with the police as folks of color and so we're bringing those themes into this process as one and then in addition to that after we do our draft set of recommendations we will put those out publicly for people to react to and reach out to the BIPOC community as well as the unhoused community and the mental health and disability community and many other LGBTQ community to say like what are we missing because our identities color our experiences and given the committee can only take those identities so far so I just wanted to offer some of that additional context for for you and in your question but I will stop talking now and move on to Stephanie you know before well first of all the person Colin sounds like he is a member of the law enforcement and he doesn't have to answer that but that just seems really clear to me and it's kind of weird and I wish he would have given his last name as well the other thing I wanted to say was that yeah well Alyssa that's exactly that's a great point I was thinking like why would these people want to join the committee if they're so bogged down with these things in their daily life and I get that but what concerns me is if all this outreach is being done like are you going to listen to any of it and I don't mean like you personally sure you might think it's insightful and that's a good point but is anything actually going to come of this you know I'm not dismissing the effort at all I'm just really expecting something to come from it that's beyond just another report that goes to city council that city council could then be like we did research but now we're not ready like it just it's just really discouraging to think about how many committees in well across the country but in Burlington have been formed and here too and and how many reports have been written how many surveys have been taken and how much data has been collected but there's not a willingness to actually change anything I would like to hear from members of the committee like one concrete thing they actually think they could accomplish and convince city council to implement or just like one thing that they actually see being able to change because I'm not expecting abolition from this process even though I am an abolitionist and I do believe that if we invest in community services there won't be a need for people to commit crimes I do believe that and I don't think it's idealistic to believe that I think it's true and there are examples of this and we all know that this is true but besides that I'd like to know from the committee what do you expect is actually going to come from this I'd be really sad if this was just another empty process just another performative thing and yeah I don't have a problem with the fact that it's only white people on the committee because I get that like we should be doing this work and that's that's I think that's a good thing I just don't want us to then listen to all these people and not do anything with what they're telling us another thing is like we didn't need to gather data from anyone to know this stuff already you know like we already know we know because of what people are telling us who are our friends or family members we know because of what our friend from high school or our someone's teacher is posting on Facebook we know from social media we know from like around the country we know from in Montpelier what people are dealing with so we shouldn't need any kind of systematized data collection or or survey collection or or any kind of studies to just know like this outreach is kind of it's anyway we we know these things and why aren't we just listening to people when they're telling us and then I guess my third point other than being skeptical oh oh yeah I guess also like if you could talk a little to the process of the of this whole committee and and what will happen like does this then the report go to city council and then and what would happen from there I would like more clarity on that and the last thing was that I think there's this weird like dual thing where we have people are really exceptionalist about Montpelier like we don't have the problems of policing that other cities do we don't have racist police here we don't have these problems yet there's weirdly no exceptionalism around crime rates because like actually there aren't that many crimes here and I just think it's so weird that I'm not trying to undermine the crimes that do occur or I just think it's so strange that we're like we don't have any problems with policing but we have so much crime we need to be kept safe really safe we really need police everywhere there actually the crime rate is not that high here compared to like in New York City obviously but also why are we not willing to just believe one person who's afraid of the police or one person who's harmed by the police or the family of one person who was killed by the police but we have to just take into account everyone's feelings about potentially being in a crime at some point in their life when quite likely their conception of crime is like from law and order and isn't going to happen to them I'm just saying there's a ridiculous double standard around how safe Montpelier actually is and how unsafe it is for people in facing law enforcement that's all thank you Stephanie I see committee members want to answer and engage um on this topic so why don't I go to Dan and then I'll go up to Justin and if other committee members want to answer you or ask clarifying questions we'll open up to them as well yes uh Stephanie first of all I wanted to just thank you for all of your comments and questions and I have a comment but before I say something can can you provide an example Stephanie of something that you would feel would be meaningful change that that that at the end of the day if the committee came out with a report and implemented you'd feel like yes we've done something worthwhile committing to remove certain functions from the police and put them on to non-armed officers committing to reducing the police budget committing to remove an officer those are just some some of them at Burlington that's done a really good job well the city has not done a good job of implementing it but all the racial justice advocates have done a good job of proposing all these things and any of those three would be starting points I don't know I mean I've written quite a bit about this in various places but those are what come to mind at the moment yeah well that's great thank you Stephanie for that and your your first point was was the comment I wanted to make as as a a person with lived mental health experience as well as someone who advocates for the disability and homeless community um I personally am very committed in this process to looking at at the um the the most person-centered least invasive least violent least inculturative types of solutions to dealing with our our law enforcement issues and crisis response issues um you know the the example Steven gave of of uh of a member of the community being forced into you know according to the story forced into an inpatient psychiatric situation uh to me that that's not that's not an ideal solution and that we and as we've mentioned earlier there are models in Eugene Oregon program uh using social workers uh Denver all across the country there are a number of of solutions where either alternative police to response or co-responders can come in and um and take a much less or totally nonviolent non-coercive approach so um I guess you know what I wanted part of what I wanted to comment is I'll be very disappointed at the end of the day if if the report that we present if you Stephanie don't see see things in that report but you say yes there's meaningful change I'll be very disappointed if we don't do that um as a committee because I I'm looking at this as an opportunity for making some really you know meaningful change and looking at and taking a visionary approach and then figuring out what makes sense um you know given the realities of of uh the budget and and other issues um influencing um our ability to move forward thank you Dan let me move over to other committee members who might have follow-up questions or comments for Stephanie Justin hey Stephanie so I just want to address the outreach part and how important the outreach part is to me like I understand the point that yes we know all these things in the sense that like we have a lot of anecdotal and we just have a lot of data regarding the ideas the general ideas behind both defunding the police and abolishing the police for me and I know for at least one other committee member the importance of outreach has to do with the fact that policing most certainly is not a one-size-fits-all approach and it is if anyone who has worked within the criminal justice system my background is as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney you know that you see different challenges in different places in different communities and for me it's been very eye-opening the outreach because I've gotten feedback that I did not expect from certain individuals and some feedback that I did expect and I think it's really important that this particular committee tailors its recommendations to Montpelier because that is our charge we're not charged with saying oh what are best practices in policing in America in the year 2021 it's what is best in Montpelier and that's why the community the specific community member engagement is so important and the last thing that I will say for a lot of people here and I think hopefully this will resonate when we are able to release the report is I do think there is a very big disconnect that you're implying here about the exceptionalism in Montpelier and that everything is wonderful because I walk down the street and it feels like everything is wonderful to me but it is quite clear that it is not to everyone and that's that's been one of the big takeaways for the feedback or for the outreach lastly I will say sometimes you just learn things in the outreach that you wouldn't expect Steven has all these ideas around dispatch and then we talked to Ken Russell the other day and about um about emergency response and like essentially a triage point that would send someone other than the police to certain um to to certain mental health crises and like and there are challenges regarding like well who do you staff at that triage point like what is their training things along those lines it's a very complicated question it's a very very complicated question but I promise you that we are thinking about it and we are doing the work and that we're going to try so it's all enough thank you other do other committee members have questions or comments related to Stephanie's engagement here okay thank you seeing none we are going to move over to uh by then next and then to Shayna hey thank you so I just wanted to thank Collin for throwing some uh much needed facts into this conversation the last I spoke with the Montpelier police officer he told me that the phones are ringing non-stop so I guess my question would be or my curiosity would be how what percentage of those calls could be answered or directed to a non-officer like a social worker uh I think this would be really important before we you know before we judge if they are un overstepped or overfunded or understepped or underfunded uh the amount of police related calls that they are that they are asking also the the gentleman that said that there was a father that colluded the police to get their kid arrested I find this one of the worst thing a cop could do so I would I would really encourage this gentleman to throw to put some facts forward because if a cop did that they would definitely need to lose their job for doing something like that and lastly I totally agree with Stephanie that we should really invest in the community would this reduce crime most likely and most definitely however we would be remiss not to acknowledge that there's evil out there and there are people out there that will do harm and they will do harm no matter what the government would do for them and we will all be fools to to ignore history on this so thank you thank you follow up questions for Bogdan by committee members okay uh seeing seeing none we're moving over to Sheena then Meredith then Stella Hi my name is Sheena Casper and I just this is the first I've heard from Bill Frazier about uh the increase over the past decade or less of about four police officers to about 16 police officers and I was wondering if um if you could if uh how that number also you know goes with the population of Montpelier during that time and with the number of state troopers um who are you know out of the middle sex district or are based in Montpelier I'm not sure how the how the you know state trooper numbers work but that was just the first I've heard of that and I'm interested in learning more Bill are you willing to answer that question or Abel um I think so what she said there was an I couldn't tell if you asked there was an increase of four or what what you met Sheena no I think you said that in about eight years ago eight to ten years ago there was four police officers and now I believe they're 16 or 17 no I if you heard that I drastically misspoke what I believe I said so is I've been here in my job for 26 years and in my time the police department has ranged between 15 and 17 officers it goes up and down but it's never really changed drastically in size in that that difference we're currently at 16 and that and well assuming they're all full we've got some vacancies so there has not been what I said about four officers was at the time of the mark johnson incident there were four officers in the entire washington county on duty there were two in Montpelier and two in berry city and that was it there were no state police no other local officers on duty so i'm sorry if that was misunderstood is that you were referencing not the mark confidence in but in uh when you're discussing the tasers um and when so when I said what I said was the tasers it was about eight or ten years ago that that discussion about tasers happened and there was a decision not to be made I don't believe I referenced the size of the police department at that time if I did um must have been a senior moment because I don't remember saying it and I don't think I would because it certainly wasn't the case the numbers have been we have not expanded really the police department or cut it's been just stable the whole time and then do you know about the state police officers um I don't know well I know that in the evening there's typically one on duty till about 2am for the for the entire county I don't know what their day shifts are and you know who's actually doing patrol I also know some communities contract so with state police to do specific like speed patrols the same with sheriffs so there may be occasionally other people on doing certain work I don't have the profile of that there would be a good I mean that's a data point that committee could collect but I know in at night time there might be one so you know if you talk again I hate to get into anecdotes but if you talk to people who live outside of Montpelier who have to make a police call in the middle of the night they often don't get a response from state police for a day or two it's not that they get an immediate call I'm just you know if someone could be in playing field and the police could be over in Warren or Waitsfield and it's just that's the way the state police so it's just the way it works the other police departments um Berlin I believe goes off at 2am and I think I'm not sure about Barrie town I'd have to check that I don't think they're 24 hours or maybe they just are weekends or something like that we've had we have we have had cases and I don't want to take up time with me talking but we've had cases where we've got calls to these other communities in those off hours when no one else was on duty state police was unavailable and then we're in a situation of do we respond to a community that has not staffed their police department um and leave ours empty and it's potentially dangerous calls usually our dangerous calls when we get asked to assist at that time so those are tough decisions but anyway I'm digressing from the key point which is our department has been 15 to 17 people for the last 25 years and the taser incident was eight to 10 years ago and there were four people on duty in the entire county at the time of the march on this issue there I hope I've covered it I just have one more question about that does that include dispatchers well they're they can't respond no that doesn't include dispatchers so there's usually one or two on that time the overnight shift it's typically only one there can be three on it certain times as the dispatch supervisor obviously we try to staff to the busy times but they can't leave they can't they can't provide on-site assistance they would be calling for additional help um and obviously they're the lifeline for the officer but I think one of the questions was about the risk the number of people that responded who was available to respond to that call there were no mental health workers in those kinds of things so I think it's it's it's it's good to understand the facts on the ground in that case and I think one of the things the committee's been asked to look at is could that modeling be different so that there are more people available and different kinds of people available at different times of the day so I don't I'm trying to make judgments I'm just trying to make sure people have the accurate information hope that helps thank you a follow-up questions for Shayna okay thanks Shayna um so for folks who are just joining because I see there's a couple of new folks who have just joined I just want to reiterate how the process is going for you I so if anyone wants to speak people are doing that using the raise hand function in the bottom of the zoom bar where it says reactions just click that button and then you click raise hand and then you'll be visible to me on my screen um and and we'll get you in the queue for folks who are on the phone I know you can't do that so we're just going to open up the phone lines every now and then and say does anyone want to speak on the phone we're going through everyone who wanted to speak who hasn't spoken first and then we're going back to people a second time if someone wants to speak a third time and we do have a couple people who are interested in that I moved you down to the bottom of the queue so that we can get the new people who have recently come in time instead and then we will get well I bet we will still get back to you we're here until 6 30 but um but that's how this has been running uh Meredith I see you've taken your hand down so going once I can I can take just a second um I wanted to mention a constituency that hasn't been mentioned which is children and teens um the incident that happened at the state capitol in January where the young woman was surrounded by a group of Trump supporters um the ways in which that was discussed in the press as well as the releases that were put out by our police department seem to indicate a lack of understanding of especially the teenage brain and normal developmental behavior for young people of that age and how to um support them and I hope that part of what this community is doing is really looking at effective ways to be in community and support young people um in ways that aren't just punitive and that aren't persistently in this kind of top-down model which you know children are frequently marginalized by adults and I think it's really important that we think of that them as whole humans um and and have a real understanding of where they are in their development and how to be supportive of them in the community thanks thank you follow-up questions for Meredith or comments by committee members no okay um Meredith I completely agree and the SRO process and robust conversation in this community has really engaged teens in this issue of policing and how it intersects with their lives that's just one example you've given a couple others of how teens are in engaging with police but I do think it's an area we need to be doing um additional outreach around and our um and our planning on planning on doing that and using the work of the SRO committee to figure out the best model because of their robust engagement already so just wanted to share that with you we're moving over to uh Stella and then Al and then Sean and then Casey I've already gone so you can circle back around to me after the people who haven't spoken yet okay thank you Stella and we're and just for folks who who are just joining us we're doing about three minutes per person and and um you know I'm letting it go a little long here and there but I just I will jump in at some point and say all right we probably should move on to the next person if you go too much longer than that so let's move on to Al thanks Alyssa for facilitating I appreciate it um I just want to briefly introduce myself um my name is Al I live on Main Street here in Montpelier and um I come from a family where my great grandfather was the first badge state trooper in New Hampshire um and so my family is right now grappling with issues of policing and um how our family kind of approaches these issues um because we also have family members who have been have experienced abuse at the hands of the police including the Montpelier police um and who have been involved and been harmed by the prison industrial complex so just a lot there and um I just want to bring both of those parts of myself and where I'm coming from around it um I also helped found and on the steering committee of the Vermont Freedom Fund which is an abolitionist organization that provides bail and bond for community members who are put behind bars um with a specific immigration focus we were founded alongside migrant justice um to support their membership but have expanded to support as well the women's justice and freedom initiative um and so I the big thing that I want to say to this committee is that I hope that you all will take a broad view of potential alternatives to policing um and to not fall into the trap that Burlington experienced in the past couple weeks we saw that the you know report that was commissioned to the tune of seventy five thousand dollars came out with very few solutions unfortunately and did not take into consideration the community feedback they were receiving around ways to move forward together to um to deal with policing and so I'm glad to hear that you all are doing more community outreach to um the can to wrestle to many others I imagine and I just want to offer a resource around this which is the work of an organization called critical resistance which the Vermont Freedom Fund has um worked alongside um extensively and um so I just a few of the things that are offered here there's a they offer a great framework that I can share with the committee as a follow-up to understand ways that um further entrench dangerous policing strategies versus ways that actually um can help promote community safety through alternatives and so just a few things as it relates directly to policing and policy around policing um suspending the use of paid administrative leave for cops who are under investigation um withholding pensions and not rehiring cops who've been involved in instances of excessive force capping overtime accrual and overtime pay for military exercises um withdrawing participation in any police militarization programs or committing to not engaging in them in the future and prioritizing spending on community health education and affordable housing as well as overall doing what we can to reduce the size of the police force using creative tactics to activate community members to fulfill some of the needs that armed officers may be responding to right now um I am more than happy to speak with any of you or have a follow-up via email um but thanks for the work you're doing and I hope that this um that the work that you all put forward it will have much more teeth much more creative alternatives than we saw in Burlington so thanks for your work and um we'll be here thank you so much and I Mary's email should be in the chat but if you wouldn't mind sharing those resources with that email to Mary that would be really wonderful and if you could also just include your contact information in that communication to Mary well we would be able to follow up directly so um thank you for for speaking and then does anyone in the committee have I follow up questions for Al okay seeing none we will move on to Sean Sean Stevens hi thank you so yeah I'm Sean Stevens I live here in Montpelier I've lived here for 22 years and I'm here to advocate that we divest from armed policing and reinvest in community care and community health and affordable housing I'm just setting myself three minutes top watch there um I think that the problem that we run into with armed policing is that police throughout the country and in Montpelier have two forms of corrosive power that is the power to use violence and the power to arrest people and people use that power when they have it and it is it is definitely a corrosive form of power throughout the country and in Montpelier police use that power with impunity they use it and in the best of worlds they're restrained and they use it judiciously often they do but when they don't there are never consequences and I'm not saying that as an extrapolation I'm not exaggerating there are literally never consequences police are never found guilty after an unarmed person is killed they're never incarcerated the numbers are stark 15,000 people in the last 10 years have been killed unarmed civilians have been killed by police and there have been five police officers who actually got convicted so 15,005 convictions so that form of power means that they have unchecked power and that corrupts anybody regardless of intentions so that's one reason um I have I have four reasons number two the percentage of 911 calls that get dispatched to police that actually require response by a person authorized to use deadly force is miniscule even in Los Angeles which is probably quite a bit more dangerous than Montpelier the percentage is about four percent and that's after the LA Times analyzed 17 million calls only four percent actually required a response by somebody who has authorized armed and equipped to use force the other 96 percent would have been better handled by a social worker a community safety person so that's what that was number two the percentage of 911 calls that need an armed response is is vanishingly small number three the NPD unsurprisingly like all police forces engages in mission creep that all of a sudden they're the ones who get called when there's a stray dog or when somebody's neighbors are being too loud or when there's an argument or when there's a homeless person so that kind of mission creep is a form of of unacknowledged reallocating away from what we actually need which is community safety in other words an appropriate person to deal with all those problems and that money is instead getting funneled into the police who are not the right people to deal with those problems mission creep that was number three number four police are the biggest line item in the budget it is very expensive to have 17 officers all of whom getting paid quite a good salary compared to like teachers or social workers or other people so we can increase the number of people working on community safety we can increase safety for all members of the community and either lower the overall costs or at least not keep them any higher by divesting from police and investing in community care there are models for this Brattleboro Ithaca New York Denver Colorado Northampton Massachusetts we would not have to be trailblazing something brand new we can do this we can even also try it for a period try it for six months see what happens if bogdan is right and all of a sudden we were overrun by a zombie horde then I'll say oh bogdan was right there's a there's a crazy dangerous world and and once we once we divested from police all hell broke loose but I doubt that that will happen I think the community safety will be improved if we divest from policing and invest in community care oops I went over I'm done thank you Sean um do folks on the committee have follow-up questions for Sean I'd like to re-bottle Sean on that one um Colin I'm just gonna just have you hold there because we have a bunch of people who want to talk and you've been able to talk a few times now so if you wouldn't mind just holding it um we can get you we can have you in the queue um any other any committee members want to have clarifying questions for him okay Casey let's move on to you I know you haven't had a chance to speak yet and I notice that our time we're just running out of time so I want to make sure that we can hear your voice Casey you're on mute let's Mary can you unmute Casey please I think zoom disabled that feature I think okay there we go does that did that work yep we got ya go ahead all right well I am the one that Steve was actually talking about earlier um there was a little bit of a there there I've lived in Montpelier for many years there was a long standing situation between my father um essentially my father Washington County mental health and um Bill Frazier actually they had something of an alliance um to get me off the street in Montpelier because my father um he's extremely misguided in a whole lot of other issues that basically he was trying to solve a lot of problems somehow by creating more problems for me that's really neither here nor there but I I felt the need to um point out who I was maybe incorrect the record a little bit um because Whitaker brought it up anyhow um I believe that the police department in addition to maybe coming up with some of the some of the um mission creep um idea that I think it was Sean had brought up um I think that does obviously come into effect because I I think that probably is a lot of what happened with me um but at the same time I I there's definitely gotta be better ways where we can use our resources where we can separate things um to a more constructive place and I absolutely believe that that's true that it has to be and um you know I know there was a lot of things there was a lot of things said at one point over um when there was the homeless committee was um in effect and really doing more stuff and we were talking more about um um we were talking more about affordable housing and stuff like that I don't know if um anybody be more interested in going into that kind of thing I know that was brought up as an alternative um to policing I believe that was Al Johnson Kurtz who brought that up at one point um so I I definitely think that there's a lot of things that can be done and a lot of things a lot of positive things that can be done and also um um also wanting to um familiarize the committee with me if uh because I it's been a long time since I've uh been involved at all right now I'm incarcerated in um the state hospital Casey thank you so much for speaking up and being here with us today I really appreciate that and um Casey would you mind you you offered to continue to be in conversation with this committee about your experiences would you mind um sending Mary Smith a direct chat in zoom with your with your contact information so we could follow up directly I'm not really sure how to do that it's kind of the reason that I got like I there was a time I got muted and I couldn't really figure out how to unmute it for a while and stuff I'm just not very tech savvy okay no problem we'll get in touch with Casey and Casey with who I know who can give us your oh there's one okay what's up Casey with your permission I'll pass your contact information to uh the Justin who's on the on the committee yeah yeah if uh you've got a wastey absolutely thanks all right awesome thank you thank you so much um so let me just pause here we have about you know eight minutes left of this hearing has anyone not has anyone who wants to speak who has not spoken yet I interested in speaking all right well hearing hearing none or seeing no other hands I'm gonna go back to Stella then Steven then Colin then Bogdan and they'll close us out Stella um I just wanted to speak briefly to something that Colin said earlier I would like to say that as a person who has lived with mental illness since a very young age being called delusional is extremely harmful and this is an example of how the committee has the opportunity to make it accessible for people from marginalized identities to join these conversations so after he spoke and called people in this group delusional that would be a great opportunity for someone from the committee to speak up and say that that's not the type of speech that will be tolerated in this space that said I am willing to engage with you going forward um and I will send Mary my contact information as well because despite your apparently very widespread outreach I have not been successfully able to get involved with any of your efforts to reach the communities that I am a part of um so I'm just going to provide my contact information directly since none of those spaces have been available to me um I fill that application processes through the social justice committee and they never responded in any way so I'll provide that just directly um but I just wanted to name that that that's pretty harmful um and just share that with you all so that you can do better going forward thank you for providing your information and providing that feedback that's a great point I should have caught that I appreciate it um Steven okay I'm trying to be as brief as possible uh I want you to know that I have raised many of these issues over time recurring at city council meetings to no avail uh I can imitate uh Bill's grant take reach for the pen and write it down but nothing no discussion no follow-up has ever happened from any of these issues so I am thankful that the committee has convened and is taking these matters seriously I think we're going to end up and I want to recommend that we go we head towards an oversight board uh I think Burlington uh demonstrated the the potential and the pushback when the the the council uh was prop- was voted to create the oversight board and it was vetoed by the mayor uh I would uh welcome that opportunity to change mayors here uh Burlington I will witness an event on the waterfront where a person who behaved erratically loud uh not threatening but um minded me a little bit of Casey uh but the officers responded they kept their distance they engaged they let them know that they were there and available to talk otherwise they stayed at a distance and let this person you know process their own angst and and move along and without any incident without anybody being handcuffed or threatened or it was quite something to see and I commend to the officers on it um the I guess that's good that's that's enough for now keep us on time thanks I will follow up uh members as needed thanks thank you Steven and why don't we actually just do two minutes for the remaining folks so that we can make sure that we have time for follow-up questions if needed and I see another person's in the queue bill at this point so uh Colin over to you Colin going once going twice all right let's go over to Bogdan I just want to say thank you for organizing this forum for open discussion um I think there were a lot of great ideas out there some good some better some not so good um but I do think it's very important for the mind to to have these engagements where everyone has a different opinion and also there were some people that spoke about not knowing how they can get involved more so I I think you you guys really blew it out of the park with that so just want to say thank you and appreciate the the time that I had to to raise uh to raise some concerns and to to share my opinions on this thank you so much and for folks um moving forward uh just Colin I hear you're on mute I'll just come right back to you in a second but for folks who feel like they didn't get enough time to speak but want to offer more or want to stay engaged please do email Mary and just say like hey I'm ready for like I hear some written comments please interview me or I would like to be engaged and we'll follow up um Colin why don't I go back to you for a minute or two here and then Bill you can close us out all right thank you um hey I didn't mean to disrespect anybody by saying delusional I just met in contrast to um completely abolishing police I didn't know what other term to use met circumstance I wasn't in any way referring to mental illness and stuff um I think Bill made the best point of the day in this entire thing talking about how there's about two officers on board at at any given time and uh Barry police may have to respond which takes time so I think that's a huge point if you defund police if that's where any of this is going that's a huge problem um Sean I had a question I think his name was Sean I think he said 15 000 unarmed people are shot and killed by police in the last five years is that what he said and ten any could I clarify on it yeah ten that there's there's a hundred percent incorrect um so we should double stick our stats when we're talking about this stuff for sure but um I can send the the committee the stats no no it's a hundred percent wrong there's about a thousand people killed per year by police and then you know I'm gonna just jump in here because as we're winding down I would just ask this Colin provide your number to the committee and Sean provide your number to the committee we are totally open to that and would love to see that but we really don't want to debate this right now in the last two minutes of this time frame yeah so did you have any other final points Colin before we move to Bill um yeah I think uh I mean my question to you I guess is what is your what is what is your ultimate goal of this community are you trying to I'm I'm completely for reform when and where in my my terms of reform for police are more training better training right more firearms experience and more training which obviously costs more money uh jujitsu training every cop should be a purple brown or black dog and jujitsu for sure that costs a lot of training there's a lot of great uh uh programs out there right now like adopt a cop where you can you know the community gets together and sends the entire police department you know uh to jujitsu training uh there's there's amazing programs like that out there uh I don't think deep funding provides anything that we are looking for when it comes to reform I think the more experience the more training the better um that's the biggest you know problem people seem to have is inexperienced officers out there who don't know how to handle a situation right in certain you know certain circumstances um Colin let me jump in and answer your questions because we're basically at time and I want to let Bill Bill close us out so our our committee's goal is here's what we're charged with we are charged with understanding the current police practices defining best practices for community safety community safety really broadly looking at where the Montpelier police department is already trying to go comparing that to best practices uh and then making recommendations on gaps or changes that are needed we're trying to do that because there's so many different policing topics through the lens of what stakeholders in Montpelier really care about um so so Bill why don't I give it over to you to close us out and I really just want to thank everyone so much for participating in this process and you know it's not over yet we're we still want additional input moving forward go ahead Bill yeah thank you and thank you all for this and members of the public and the committee for this conversation I just wanted to make sure that people will wear um since obviously there's a lot of people on here that are interested in the police and their activities that they are in the midst of a their own outreach community outreach for uh crisis intervention training which is a new which is a a partnership model dealing with mental health and looking at best practices for that and those are ongoing now there is going to be one this Wednesday at five p.m. and another one Saturday at noon and they would like public participants there's a program there and so um they this is a sort of a new innovation we would be the first in the state to fully implement this if we go that route so I want to make sure that folks that have that interest have a chance to participate in those forums Bill how do how will people know about that is it going to be on the city website or like how will they find the information yes it's been on the website it's been on the facebook page I think it's been on front porch forum um so it's in all those places the zoom link so yes all right great hey thank you everyone I'm going to close this out and on behalf of the committee so appreciate your input and the next step here is please look for the community survey that we're going to send around that we hope everyone here and you know many others in the community will take and we look forward to following up with those folks who are reaching out to Mary thanks again so much for your time and enjoy the rest of your evening thanks folks bye everyone