 Good afternoon. You are with the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. We are gathered this afternoon with Orange County Sheriff Bill Bonyak, and with Commissioner Mike Schirling from Department of Public Safety. We appreciate you being with us today. The committee is getting up to speed with some new members of the legislature and some folks who are newly transferred to government operations from other committees. So what we would like to understand, and I'm going to ask you first to do just a high-level introduction to the Law Enforcement Advisory Board. Then I would love for us to be able to dive in a little bit on the body-worn camera policy process that you are embarking on at the moment. Bill, I assume you're going to speak to us first and Commissioner Schirling's on back up if we pepper you with too many questions. Absolutely. So, Madam Chair and representatives, thank you for inviting me. I'm Bill Bonyak, Orange County Sheriff, Chair of the LEAB and LEAB, the Law Enforcement Advisory Board, just give you the higher level. Back in 2004, the Vermont General Assembly created the Law Enforcement Advisory Board. The purpose of the board was to advise the Commissioner of Public Safety, the governor and the general assembly of issues that affect all law enforcement in Vermont, i.e., the body-worn cameras, use of force, fair and impartial policing. Every year, there may be requests from the governing bodies to look at some of the items and that's what we do. We have a collaborative approach. The LEAB is made up of currently 17 members who are put together by our legislators, and it's everybody from the commissioner to the sheriffs, the chiefs of police, constable, members of the whole list. So, I'll just give you an idea from the Attorney General's office, fishing game, Vermont Leeds and City Towns, Defender General's office. So, we've got a wide variety of people with all different levels of experience with law enforcement. So, and then what we do is we'll look at something like what we're looking at today, the body-worn cameras. And back in the fall, we were requested by DPS to update the body-worn cameras. And so, on December 21st, we got the first draft at a regular meeting. And then what we did is we formed a subcommittee of three members. They took that and worked with Jen Morrison. She's a special assistant to the commissioner's office, to the commissioner. And they reviewed it. They looked at many different policies out there. They also worked with the ACLU and, I believe, a total of over 140 different, let's say, recommendations that came in. So, a lot of people have got eyes on this and it's very transparent. So, we just met this past Monday and we reviewed it and we had a couple more minor changes that we'd like to see. So, we're sending it back to the subcommittee for their review to make some minor changes. And then it'll come back to our February meeting. We'll review it. So, either our February meeting or the latest, there'll be March that hopefully the LEAB will approve it and then move it forward to the Vermont Criminal Justice Council. And then I just want to bring it so you know that once the LEAB approves this policy, this model policy, that will become the standard until the Vermont Criminal Justice Training, or the training out of it, the council, they'll take it, review it, make any changes. And they have until January 1st, 2022, to bring it back before the legislators. So, that's where we're at right now. And myself and the commissioner, we're both here to answer any questions. So, I appreciate the overview of the process. And I guess what I'd like to do is drill down a little bit into some of the considerations, some of the actual policy considerations themselves, just so that members of the committee can get a sense of what are you going for? What are you aiming at? What are the problem areas that are sticking points for you? What can you tell us about what you expect will be ultimately contained there? All right. Some of the, I'd say, if you want to, the biggest areas of some controversial areas, it's going to be, can an officer review the recordings prior to giving statements on a potential criminal investigation? So, that's one of them. Retention guidelines, timelines, most particularly with lethal force incidents. But in general, everything, the prohibitions of the use of body-worn cameras in schools or hospitals to work through to allow for recordings if the officer responds to an incident or use of force is likely or during a criminal investigation on site. The other thing that's going to be difficult and very expensive is the redaction. When you're talking about on a statewide level, I'm sure the commissioner will talk about this because we were taking around ideas. Currently, there's many police departments and sheriff's departments who do have body-worn cameras. And we're currently, some people are using the cloud for storage. Some are doing, like, I'll give you an example, for a sheriff's department. We're keeping, we have a separate computer and a separate hard drive, like a three- or four-terabyte hard drive that we store all the data on for one year. And then we just buy a new hard drive and store it all over again every year. The bigger picture, if we go statewide, if the state is going to, I don't want to take too much away from the commissioner, but we're looking at a new records management system that's going to go statewide, will everything be stored on there for all of the videos? It's, there's a lot of questions. Any, when we stop there and ask any questions or commissioner? I'm a. Public layer has a question. Yes, Samantha. Rob, unmute yourself. Sorry, you couldn't understand when my lips were moving. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't know if this is a question for the sheriff or the commissioner, but when we're talking about body camera policy here, we already have a fairly extensive and robust one for VSP, don't we? We do. And we have a, that's a good question. And we have a robust statewide model that was previously developed. However, as we learn more as the community standards change and as a number of other things intersect body worn cameras, evolution of use of force in response to resistance and a host of other topics, this is a timely point to make modifications and to take additional stakeholder feedback. As you'll see in the memorandum that we drafted, there's been extensive stakeholder feedback. And the areas that the sheriff has outlined, when to turn the camera on and off, retention schedules, what types of things need to be redacted, and review of footage by officers, and when that should occur, are the key areas where we've sought feedback. We've engaged professionals that can help us understand things like memory and how review of body worn camera footage can impact memory. And we're weaving all of those things together to create an update from that solid foundation that existed previously. But we do believe this will be a substantial set of enhancements. And I'm happy to go into more detail around those policy considerations that the sheriff was outlining, if you'd like. Well, thank you, Commissioner. And if we can wait for another day if it's appropriate, that's fine. I'm just curious. I recognize that this is one of those things that has to change as society changes to a certain degree. But for lack of a better expression, there's a part of it that sometimes it feels like we're just trying to reinvent the wheel. It would seem like several of those examples that you've pointed out, I would have thought we would have already, in some cases, have addressed them. Some of them were addressed, but the thinking evolves over time. And we are constantly looking for ways to improve policy and operations, not withstanding legislative action or interest. This happens with dozens of policies on an annual basis. We're working on a couple right now in the wake of a couple of events that we're learning, had to better handle certain kinds of things. And we're making policy alterations today over the next week or so on a couple of other areas of operation. So it's a normal course of business. Very good. Thank you, sir. One of the things that you're adding some definitions to the policy. And the ACLU has made many recommendations. And we have incorporated those into the policy. So we're making sure we're being fair to all parties concerned, everyone. And even with we're addressing the prohibition of the use of facial recognition. So the only time that can be used, you're going to need to search more. So there's a lot to this. It's not, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel. We're just, as the commissioner said, we're adding to it. And we're making it more of today's recent standards that have been going on on a nationwide level. I think we're getting ahead of the curve here in Vermont. So it may make sense to elaborate just a little bit on a couple of those areas where the policy considerations have been most robustly discussed and additional language added. Among them, when the camera should be on or off. Now, when you look at this from the outside, the initial reaction is, well, why would you ever shut it off? Well, if we're in a public restroom and we're not dealing with a violent event or something that needs to be captured, people have a privacy interest there. When we're in a school or a hospital, there are privacy interests that override the need to capture encounters with officers. And of course, if things go poorly, we turn them on at that point. Relative to retention, you're balancing the technology and how much storage the sheer volume with the need to retain footage. And it's important to note, when you talk about retention, there are two different kinds of retention. First is the initial retention period, where all video is stored for a period of time while you can assess whether it needs to be archived and that's that second level. Anything that involves an arrest involves a use of force or an unusual event or it's capturing evidence or something of that nature, it's gonna be archived and basically held forever. But for all the other encounters, the day-to-day things that are happening or it's capturing interactions, those are typically gonna be held for 90 days well. You can make assessments as to whether there's something that needs to be archived for a longer period of time. And then redaction is the whole area where the technology and processing things and altering video is a little bit dicey, but it's something that we're working through and I don't wanna bring us down that rabbit hole too far in this initial overview. The last piece is when an officer should review footage. Nine times out of 10, an officer's actions don't result in any kind of serious outcome. Someone's not injured, it's not a use of force where lethal force is used to superstition knock on wood. If I say that something bad could happen. Most of the footage is just of routine things and it's used to refresh an officer's memory as a report is written or something of that nature. And there are no restrictions in the draft policy relative to reviewing footage on sort of the day-to-day things that just happen. There are restrictions or parameters in the draft that are informed by memory science and the need to conduct an independent parallel investigation in incidents where there's death or serious bodily injury where a lethal force has been used, where the officer for a period of time becomes a subject of a parallel ongoing criminal investigation. And the best science we've been able to unearth and the best guidance that we've been able to draft so far and this is still in development creates a balance where an officer will write their report or give an interview without the benefit of their memory being aided by the video. Understanding that memory is fallible and that certain periods of time have to elapse before a memory actually sets in. There's a chemistry behind that. And then following that, the officer can review the footage and then make alterations or clearly document what facts were enhanced without modifying their original statement. So that's the balance that appears to be the best policy construct based on the current thinking around the use of video and those kinds of serious incidents. Thanks, commissioner. I've got Sam Lefebvre with a question. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you, chair and commissioners. So my questions kind of hit a couple of different spots. So the cameras that are already in use, how would those be used more if let's say like DMV does get them because what their work is is completely different in a sense like they're creeping under tractor trailers. Would those hold up or would be looking at different systems? And a couple, I'm grateful to have many friends that are in law enforcement and they consistently remind me that a camera is only good for proof if it or for proof for either person, the officer or the civilian if it's there. And so, you know, God forbid there's a horrible incident and some of the camera gets taken off the officer. And I don't think the state's in a situation to pay for the automatic upload of the recording. Have we thought about that also? I'm not sure I'm following the second question but let me do the first one first. The camera systems are hardened systems. They're designed for use in all kinds of conditions, rain, sleet, snow, extreme temperatures of all types. Underneath trucks, you wouldn't necessarily have to have the camera on by policy because it's designed to record or the policy is designed to direct the recording of interactions between an officer and the public. That's not to say it couldn't be used to document defective equipment or something that was found underneath a tractor trailer but that's not the primary use. And I'm sorry, if the sheriff followed the second question, I'll have him answer but if not, I may have to ask you to rephrase it for me. If Sam, can you just rephrase that please? So if you have an officer who's having a public interaction and the interaction goes south and the officer is injured and the camera is taken off of the officer, is there any way for you guys to track the camera or pull that information off if you don't have the camera? No, that's a great question. If the hardware is lost, the video is lost as well until that video is either, until the camera, the hardware itself is either docked for upload or in some instances, we have the ability to wirelessly upload from a barracks or a police station or a wireless access point. Because I know... We're not at the point yet where there may come a future time when it's streaming from the scene to another location but that technology is not available yet. And I don't believe the funds are either from just other department's perspective. The amount of funds it would take to automatically upload to a cloud is something the state of Vermont would not be that happy looking at the price tag for. So those are just points I'd like to just look at. And the couple of DMV officers I've talked to, they mentioned the same thing that when they were on their creeper, they wouldn't be necessarily recording but if they popped up and the trucker was unhappy with them and that moment of them setting up, they were caught in a scenario. It might be good to have that on camera but then it goes into when to turn it off, when to turn it on and distraction. So thank you guys for your questions, your answers and your time. Thank you. Yes, if I may just add a camera is a tool. It is not a perfect tool. It does require that you push buttons. You don't always know when you're gonna need to push those buttons. The buttons don't always work and candidly in under stressful situations, your fingers don't always work. So it's not perfect. There are going to be instances when a camera should have been on when it's not. It's going to happen. And the goal is for those things to happen as infrequently as possible and to strive for perfection as much as we can but we'll not hit that mark every time. The other thing too, most of these cameras they're set up, they're either recording all the time but when you hit that button record, it goes back either 30 seconds or a minute. It depends on what the camera is set up for. So like you said, if DMV inspectors underneath the truck and the guy starts kicking them, he slides out and that is recorded. And then when he hits record button, it goes back to that 30 seconds or 60 seconds. So like commissioner said, these are tools, they're not perfect but there's several different cameras, styles out there, everything from eyeglasses to worry on your shoulder, worry directly on your chest. And the technology is ever changing. We had some of our digital cameras in our cars but as soon as we pulled into the sheriff's office and you're in reach of the Wi-Fi, it automatically downloaded. You didn't have to manually download the camera footage. It would automatically do it as soon as you come in contact with the Wi-Fi. So the technology is out there and it's ever changing. All right, John Gannon. John, you need to unmute. I think you were unmuted before you just remuted yourself. I hate it when that happens. Thank you very much for testifying today, sheriff and commissioner. I have a comment and then a question. I just wanna remind you about Act 106's prohibition on the use of facial recognition except by drones. So you just wanna take that into consideration in your policy because even warranted facial recognition would be prohibited by Act 106. So my question deals with what recommendations of the ACL used you did not incorporate? I believe, I'm talking from wrong commissioner, but I believe we incorporated all of them. I think it's pretty close. I think there's a couple of fragments that may be different. I think on retention, we may be different by an incremental factor. I don't recall exactly what it is. I don't have that spreadsheet of all of the feedback in what's been incorporated, what's been partially incorporated and what hasn't been incorporated in front of me right now. Can we have that, please? Sure, we'll get it to you. Thank you. I think that was attached to a document that was sent to you, but I have to verify that. It may be the use of force one that's complete and that one's been submitted. We have an unbelievable amount of work that's in progress. So a spreadsheet was sent yesterday. It might be the use of force version. No worries, we'll be patient. I just want to reassure the committee here that this has been thoughtfully looked at and transparency, working with all groups, everyone listening, like I said from the beginning, I think over, there was like, I believe like over 140 inputs on this, people adding stuff or making recommendations. So, we're being mindful to everyone, everyone involved and we just want to make sure we are doing the right thing and we get this policy done correctly and that all of our monitors feel low on force or run the right track, we're doing the right thing here. And to answer your question on the spreadsheet, it was use of force that was submitted and the body worn camera version of that is not complete yet, but it will be available once it is complete. But if you want to know what it will look like, you can take a look at the use of force version of that. How custom. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good to see you again, Commissioner and nice to meet you, Sheriff. Could you speak to your process for soliciting feedback and input from Vermonters with lived experiences with body worn cameras, whether it was good, bad or ugly, what was your process to get those voices? Well, candidly, we don't have a way to identify folks that have lived experience with a body worn camera. So, there isn't a way to directly access that cross-section of people, but the overall engagement process included sending out press releases and inviting stakeholder feedback across social media platforms statewide and directly soliciting feedback from 145 known stakeholders and stakeholder groups. So, it was a wide net versus a, well, partially surgical net because the known stakeholders and stakeholder groups received it directly. But we don't actually have a mechanism for reaching folks that have lived experience with body worn cameras. I've actually never heard that population identified that way before. I've heard other populations with lived experience identified, but not relative to folks that have experience with body worn cameras. I guess I was wondering if there were community-based organizations out there who would be closer to the ground and in touch with people who may have had positive or negative experiences. So, that's what I was curious to know. You know, we went through a similar process with our effort to gather and put around social equity issues and we really made an effort to find those organizations that are on the ground that would be able to identify people who have had experiences, whether they were positive or negative. So, that's what I was curious for. Yeah, so good question. I'm not aware of any organization that's organized around folks with that particular kind of experience, but I guess I would start by referring you to that same report I just mentioned, the one that's already been submitted on the use of force policy that has a lengthy list of the stakeholders who provided feedback and those who were engaged. And it's roughly the same list because there's only a finite number of stakeholders in social justice and law enforcement matters in Vermont. So, I would expect that once this report's completed, it'll have a similar list attached to it. Okay, thank you. Any other questions from committee members? Right. Commissioner or sheriff, anything else you would like to share with us? That we'll continue to work on this and hopefully, like I said, either a February meeting or by March, we should be, hopefully, the LEB will be approving it and sending it on to the Vermont Criminal Justice Council. Great. And then we'll work on the next one. Well, I appreciate your good work and your diligent efforts on this. It's all, you know, these are tasks that we have been called on by our constituents to give to someone. So I appreciate that you're focused on that and putting your good efforts into it. Oh, you're quite welcome. And I just want to give kudos out to our special assistant to the commissioner, Jennifer Morrison, many of you know her from Burlington. And she put a lot of time and effort and research into this. So she deserves a lot of credit. It's not as simple as someone might seem looking at it from the outside. So I can appreciate that you have benefited from her research and hard work. Any other questions from committee members before we let the commissioner and the sheriff go? All right. Gentlemen, thank you for being with us today. You're quite welcome. Nice to meet everyone. Thank you. All right, committee. Thank you so much for popping right over here after the floor. The budget adjustment debate went a little faster than I thought it might. So it looks like we're getting into committee and getting done in good time. I don't know about you, but the break we had earlier did not give me enough time to get through all of the messages that I needed to respond to and all the phone calls I needed to make. So yes, tomorrow we are, let's see, what do we have? We have committee tomorrow after the floor. Carrie Brown will be with us tomorrow morning after the floor to jump back to the boards and commissions bill. And she is gonna come in and talk with us about the Vermont commission on women. And then through the first couple of days of next week, we will hear from other boards or folks who are aware of the workings of boards that the bill proposes to change and we'll try to get that bill out in short order next week. So tomorrow afternoon, we have a joint hearing with the Commerce and Economic Development Committee. This came as a result of requests by you that we look into the operations of our UI system and try to understand some of the challenges that it faced in the unprecedented wave of unemployed Vermonters when we shut down after the governor stay home, stay safe order last March. And so I would expect it will be a good, robust discussion and we will benefit from the experience and the wisdom of the Commerce Committee folks who we are doing this hearing with. And so I guess I would just say that we, this will be the first opportunity that we've had to have a larger, really large group meeting. And so please feel free to raise your hand and ask a question as you would. It's a larger group. So it might mean that we're moving a little more slowly but this is important information that we all need to be able to get on behalf of our constituents. And so I just wanna say right there that I want you to feel free to get your question in and if we run out of time we'll come back to it on another day. And that's all I have. Any questions, committee discussion? Everybody wanna go finish sorting through all of the endless communications that they haven't been able to keep up with.