 Who are in attendance. We are. We have a quorum. So I'd like to call this meeting to order. At the 306 p.m. on Saturday, January 16th. And like to do a roll call attendance. So there's Owen. Here. Ms. Walker. Here. Mr. Vernon Jones. Here. Ms. Ferrara. Here. Ms. Bowman. Here. Okay. Put up my screen here. I think I got everybody. To this point. Thank you all for being here and thank you working group for. The ongoing hard work and commitment you're. Bringing to this, this particular. Work we're assigned to do by the town. Through this group. And I'd like to just quickly go over our agenda for today. We will, as we typically do. Begin our, with our public comment in a moment. And then as we always do, welcome. Some opening comments from the community safety working group. Relative to their experiences between meetings. Any insights they want to bring to the meeting that informs our work. And then we'll go right into the action. Action and this discussion portion of our meeting, which today is the second. Community forum. And at that time we'll be opening up. Common, you know, opening and welcoming comments from the community. As well as as the. Community safety working group as needed. We will also go up. We'll announce any upcoming events. After that particular portion of our meeting is over. And we'll establish our next meeting date. In addition to. Identifying any items that did not come before the chair. Within 48 hours of this meeting. And then we will. Seek to adjourn the meeting at that time. So at this point, I'd like to welcome any public comment. From any of our community members attending. Please be reminded that we. Try to devote about 15 minutes to this process. So I would ask you to govern yourselves accordingly. With those with that request. And at this time, I'd like to open it up for public comment. Ms. Moisten will. I identify you if you have. Somebody just say before the, for the group. Yes. Hello. So. Demetrius Shabazz has her hand raised. Yes. Hi, D. Hello. Also the other Dr. Shabazz. Hi. So I don't know. If this is the time to present something or are we just during public comment? This is only time the public has an opportunity to share anything. I'm asking. Oh, so this is just the typical public comment. So it's just the typical public comment portion of the agenda. And then we will open up in a few moments for the community. To hear the community's lived experiences. Okay. That's what I was trying to, to understand. I came in, I guess a bit late. So I will wait and hold my comments until then. I do want to commend you all for the work you're doing. I think it's still a very tight timeline and unfairly put upon a committee such as yourself. That is dedicated themselves to this work. So I just want to express appreciation and I will wait for the time in which I can share my experience. Thank you. Thank you. And Sean, can you please move. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Shabazz over or Dr. Shabazz. Sorry. Over to the attendees and Jackie. Has her hand raised as well. Did she come over. Hi, Ms. Beers. Do you have a comment for public comment? And I'm certainly committed. I am unmuted. Oh, okay. Certainly committed to the, to the work. I don't know how to behave on this kind of zoom. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Can you see, you can. Okay. Could you hear me? Okay. Do I, do I keep my video on or turn it off? Whichever you would like. Okay. Thank you. I'm, I'm, I'm sorry. I'm learning the rules. But I'm certainly interested in committed to, to this work. And once again, thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Brewer has her hand raised. Yes. Thank. Chair Wiley. Yes. Thank you very much. I am here as I was on Wednesday, as many counselors were to listen to your listening session later, but given that this is a public meeting, I just wanted to put a plug in for two things. One is thank you so much for holding two of these in a week. Right. Because we know sometimes people could do a Wednesday or Saturday. And the other comment I wanted to make is as we're all adjusting, continue to adjust to the zoom reality. It is my firm belief that meetings should not be called to order before participants who have tried to get into the zoom at the beginning of the meeting are led into the meeting. So not led in as participants, obviously, just as attendees, but the meeting needs to be called to order in public. And the meeting was not called to order in public because many of us who'd been waiting for several minutes prior to three o'clock only were brought into the attendee list. Well, after you'd called the meeting to order and done the role. So obviously people go in and out of the meeting, but just when you start your meeting, people who are available should be there as well because it's a public meeting. Thank you so much. Thank you, counselor Brewer. So let's see here. So good evening and welcome to the second community safety working group community form for those who do not know me. My name is Jennifer Moisten. I am one of three community participation officers for the town of Amherst, as well as the staff liaison for the community participation. For the community safety working group committee. Working group. Here with me today is Sean Hannon, our IT director. And as always, I have a few logistics to go over. This is a safe place and here we will practice confidentiality, compassionate listening, respect, speaking from our own experience. No judgments and no shaming. This is a zoom webinar, only the panelists and the community member. Community safety working group members. Only the panelists and the community members will be seen. There is no community chat function. Please prevent background noise by keeping yourself muted. Click on the microphone on the lower left side of your screen or star six on your phone. Raise your hand if you wish to share your experience. Click on the participate. At the bottom of your screen and choose the raise hand icon or star nine on your phone. I would now introduce the community safety working groups. Paul Wiley chair. Brianna Owen, vice chair. Tashina Bowman, Darius cage. Deborah Ferrera pat on a Baku. Russ Vernon Jones and Alicia Walker. I would like to read the statement of the indigenous heritage of the land. We humbly acknowledge that we stand on nanotuck land. Acknowledging also our neighboring indigenous nations. The NIMP. NIMP Muck. Sorry, my screen's in the way. And the Wama Panak to the east. The Mohegan and the Pequot to the south. The Mohegan. Mohican to the west and the Abenaki to the north. I would now like to read the acknowledgement of the contributions of African-Americans written by Amherst resident Lauren Mills. Amherst recognizes that the generations of African-Americans that have contributed to the development of agricultural and historical academic preservation from past. From the past to the present. We also recognize the rich spiritual culture, artistic contribution and pursuits of justice that have enriched the communities in which African-Americans have lived, worked, persevered and achieved. I am now, we are now going to hear a few words from our chair, community safety working group member Paul Wiley. So welcome again everyone. To this community forum. We're happy that you're able to attend. Some of you were here on the. Meeting earlier this week and thank you for attending a second time. Thank you very much. It is our. Our plan to continue to. Work closely with this community in terms of gathering information, information. And to that extent, I want to just present an open and comment. I think that will hopefully guide the work of today and even our future meetings. So again, we want to welcome. A second of two public forums sponsored by this community safety working group. Or as we sometimes call ourselves CSWG. These forums have been planned and organized by our group. To provide a vehicle for our group to listen to the comments. Thoughts and ideas. Relative to issues of safety and experiences of community members. And we want to take a moment to talk about our purpose. With our Amherst police department. These forums are in keeping with the group's purpose. And charge to execute the following. And I want to take a moment to. Talk about our purpose. And the elements of our charge, which I want to say are also available for you to review on our. Our website. Our town website. Under the community safety working group. The purpose of our community safety working group is to. Do two things. Make recommendations. Alternative ways of providing public safety services to the community. And make recommendations on reforms to the current. Organizational and oversight structures of the Amherst police department. Our charge is very explicit and very detailed. We are charged with studying the complex issues of delivering community safety services. And we are also charged with examining. The projects that are currently provided through the public. Through the police department and other means. To ensure racial equity. The specifics under that. Topic ours follows. We are here to recommend reforms to the current organizational and oversight structures within our town. We are charged with examining existing town funding priorities for delivering community safety services. And we are also charged with reviewing. By doing the following learning from previous work. By the town through previous studies and committees. Examining current public. Safety services and how they are delivered. Reviewing policies, complaints and current training practices. Exploring models of resident. Resident oversight of police departments. Collecting data from people's experiences in Amherst. And we are also charged with examining. And we are also charged with examining. I want to say this is one of those opportunities. That for people to do such. Engaging the communities most impacted by policing to develop alternatives and identify solutions. To diagnose problems. And finally, we are investigating alternative models such as. And this is not. This is just a partial list because since the time I had the opportunity to do this, I've been doing this for a long time. And by my colleagues, we have certainly expanded our research into looking at different models. But the three we began with were the Eugene. Oregon. Crisis assistance helping out on the street. Called cahoots. Albuquerque community safety alternative. Denver star support team assisted response. To the city of Amherst. The city of Amherst. The city of Amherst. The city of Amherst. The city of Amherst. On Wednesday since the first week in December. With the exception of the last week in December. 2020 to fulfill its duties to responsive. And responsibilities to the town of Amherst. Our meetings are recorded. And open to the public. Following open meeting law guidelines. You can find our agenda and links to the weekly zoom meetings on the town of Amherst website. The city of Amherst is at. The city of Amherst. On the town of Amherst. The city of Amherst. The city of Amherst. Both forms that we've held. Are being facilitated by Jennifer moisture. Who we appreciate. The contribution of her time and expertise to this process. The CWG will present questions. We'll see in a moment. I'll being presented on the screen. To serve as conversation prompts for those who wish to speak. To broaden the arena of response responses and comments. They are not presented as a fixed list of specific questions to be answered separately. Our hope is that this open ended approach will provide a useful and supportive space for sharing. Miss moisten will keep track of each person speaking time to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to express their views to the group. Having said, we have decided to hear from BIPOC or black indigenous people of color voices first. Although we decided to hear from people of traditionally marginalized populations first please trust that we do want to hear and plan to take seriously input from everyone present today. We will not be responding to comments from the community. Our role will be to listen deeply and respectfully to what is being offered and to use this feedback to inform our work going forward. We have a lot of two hours for these forums. The forum will be recorded as as was the other and posted on our town website within the CSWG's portal where they may be accessed by the community. Again, we want to welcome you to our first forum, and we look forward to learning from you in the two hours we spend together and we all thank you for your attendance. I would say before we go to the questions and open it up for the forum. I would be remiss if I didn't recognize the expertise on our community safety working group and their ongoing efforts to be committed and show their commitment to the work that needs to be done in our community. We are here for the purpose of doing that work. And each one of the folks in on our group has made major contributions in the few weeks we've been together, although it'd be a short time. And they, I appreciate as the chair being able to work with such a fine group, and all the efforts they're putting forward, and I don't expect as they will agree with me, anything less than the best we can offer. Thank you to the group again for all your work and your commitment and thank you all for being in attendance today at this particular forum. And like they turn it back over to Miss Moisten, and perhaps we can maybe present the show people the questions and then invite people to speak. I still have an open mic here. I want to say these are the questions we felt would be important prompts for us to consider going forward. Again, they are not presented to confine your responses, but certainly allow you an opening or a broad palette from which to talk about what you'd like to, what your experiences are, and to share those with the community. So I'll give you a moment to refer to read those through. And then Miss Moisten, as soon as you see hands that want to be recognized, I would like for you to open the comments, perform. So, Mr. Ashwin, I'm so sorry if I mispronounced your name. Hello, I hope you all can hear me. Is that right? Cool. My name is Ashwin Ravi Kumar. I live in Amherst and I teach at Amherst College. So first of all, thank you all so much for your hard work on this committee. I also serve on the Energy and Climate Action Committee of the town of Amherst, so I know how much extra time goes into doing this work and the work that you're doing is tremendously important here. So personally, as a person of color living and working in Amherst, I do not feel like the police make me safe. I find the police to be a threatening force when I see a cop, I feel scared and I feel unsafe. And I hope that this committee will make really strong and really bold recommendations to the town to defund the police and to reallocate resources into peer led crisis responses along with other services that are accountable to the people who are most impacted by policing and also serve their needs. All right. And the good news and there's just a couple of things that I want to flag here. The good news I think is that there's a lot of work being done in other towns around the valley. Some of which I've been involved in, especially in Northampton, and there's a bunch of resources that I would be happy to share via email about mobile crisis response peer led resources and experts that might be willing to speak directly with you. So to name a few, I would encourage you all to check out mh first in Sacramento, which to my mind is one of the greatest models of how to do this kind of work. I appreciate that you're looking at cahoots and Eugene Oregon and the star program in Denver and Northampton organizers that I've been working with actually brought Vinnie Cervantes in from Dasher slash the star program in Denver to speak with us about his experience. And one of the things he highlighted was how if he could do it all over again, he would have made sure to never involve the police at all. So we've actually collaborated a lot with cops, but we've actually heard a lot of testimonies about how social services programs like service net and CSO. When they collaborate with cops end up deploying violent carceral logics against the very people that they seek to deliver alternatives to. So it's absolutely vital that the police be completely outside of any process that you recommend. So here's some great examples that I can point you to another great program is in Toronto Rachel Bromberg spoke with the Northampton Commission about her work I can send you a link to that talk I highly recommend watching it, because there's some great specific information there about how to build a program that does what the police cannot. So a couple just standards that I hope you will be implementing and I am, I admit that I'm uninformed about the like antecedents of this conversation I have not been following closely the work of this committee. So I don't know how much of this stuff you've already discussed but making sure that any program is not controlled by the police that it is truly independent is the first thing, making sure that peer led programs are emphasized over all other approaches because those are the powering. So peer led approaches to people for to serve people who use drugs on housed people and to address all kinds of other needs is kind of the gold standard. And finally, I would just say that it's absolutely essential and to answer the question of what changes what I like to see recommended and what would it take to build trust and confidence among black and brown people in Amherst that were being provided by the police in the introduction. For me the answer. The only way to build trust is by defunding the police and reducing the frequency at which I see and interact with cops. We have to reduce the footprint of the police all together. That means no more funding for extra training training doesn't work. No more funding for bodycams that stuff doesn't work. Instead, we need to absolutely decrease the footprint of the cops and replace some of the stuff that they that they are tasked with doing that they are tasked with doing with great with excellent pure led services, and simply eliminate a lot of the unnecessary criminalization that they carry out which is a lot of what they do. And just one final note I would make is serving on the energy and climate action committee we are tasked with decarbonizing reducing the carbon footprint of the town of Amherst. We have one staff person in the town of Amherst tasked with all things environmental sustainability. Meanwhile, while we have dozens of cops who are paid to enforce a white supremacist social order. That's obscene. We need to reallocate massively the resources that we have in the town, so that our budgetary priorities match our stated values. Thank you so much and I'd be really happy to talk with any of you more and to provide other resources. So, and Professor Tyson Rose. Hello, good afternoon. How's everyone doing today. I want to thank you all again for for doing this work for taking on an additional role in hopefully to transform this society right. And I know many of you this this is more than just a day to day thing that you do this is actual life work so I want to appreciate you all for doing this work and for those of you who are listening. I hope that you take a moment to listen deeply and to consider everything that everyone is saying. So, you know, I want to thank the previous guest on here. That was amazing. That was a perfect statement, and I am in full agreement with with everything that was stated. And so I'm not going to continue I'm not going to add on to those kinds of things but what I would like to do is really talk a little bit more about the experiences that myself and others have experienced with the police in Amherst. So, I live, I lived in Amherst from 2008 until 2020. And during that time I had many interactions with the police, I worked for UMass, I was a graduate student in UMass then work for us. I also worked as the assistant residential director for the a better chance house in Amherst and got a chance to witness firsthand the interactions that the police have with not only young people of color but also professional people of color in the city. I want to sort of give a couple of quick anecdotes but I want to wrap this together because I think one of the most important things that we need to do is we need to understand what is the purpose of policing. Where did it evolve from. And as the prior panelists mentioned it is intended to support a white supremacist society. When we begin to rectify and understand that we can talk about reform we can talk about training we can talk about all of these things we can throw social justice around for days. And nothing will change because we're not changing the culture surrounding policing. So all of these anecdotes these these individual run ins with police are grounded informed from that cultural context. So I think it's extremely important to understand that. So, in my time here I have had a lot of run ins with with police. You know, those that are that are okay and those that are horrible. I want to share in my time coming in coming to Amherst from other places. This is something that we need to understand that it doesn't matter what town the police are in there's still police. They are still cops, they are still intended to do something they are part of the, all that between, you know, in chaos in, in, in law and order. And as we all have seen very recently, law and order gets interpreted in different ways, depending upon who the person is that is part of the process. Right. And so, just to give a quick, you know, anecdote about that is, I remember being pulled over one night on on my way home, actually going back I was around the corner from the ABC House when I worked there. And I was pulled over. It was late at night. And while the end results of the of the encounter was was, you know, wasn't violent wasn't any of those things. What I what I remarked mostly from that is the police is the police officers inability to understand why I was nervous, why I was scared, why I would not move without asking him sir can I lean over and get my, my insurance papers over here, not taking my hands off the wheel and he continued, even though I was doing everything he continues so you don't have to do all of that stuff, you know, we're, we're community policing and I said sir you don't understand the context here, and he continue to keep on pushing, continue to keep on pushing, continue to try and sell me on the fact that they're somehow different, although my experiences of, you know, close to 40 years as a black man on this planet is that that is not the case. The problem that I really received from that is the fact that he continued to discount my experience to continue to continue to discount my beliefs, continue to discount nor here. As I told him you know what sir that's fine can I just, can we just move on can we just and continue to berate me about this throughout this entire time. It's problematic because he has a belief that they're somehow different that his experiences should define my experience. That's the problem right there. Right. And so that's only one of my own but what I really want to focus on is some of the experiences that some of the young people who I worked with and lived with in the ABC House experienced with the police. The first my first time when I did work at the ABC House, we, we have the majority of our students doing, they don't come, they don't local right and so they have to take the bus back and forth to their homes whether that's in New York or in Connecticut or even points further right. And one of our 14 year old students was trying to go home. For some reason there was an issue with the ID and him not being able to, you know, be on the, on the bus without a, you know, all of these kinds of easy issues that could have been handled right a phone call to us as the, you know, as his local parents his local guardians had been able to resolve the situation, but the police were called. They show up and the police officer decided that it was a good idea to threaten this young man and tell him go ahead take a punch take a punch. Right. Go ahead I'll let you take one, then we'll see where it goes from there, try and rile up this young person to do something that could possibly put his life into in danger. Right. That's real. That happened. That's on the record. These are the types of problems. And so going back to the person who talked previously is like, police do not. They don't operate for us. Right. The amount of times that I've been pulled over on campus or off for no apparent reasons and when I asked them, you know, why am I being pulled over they immediately go to the next thing of give me your information and I'm as a, as a person who knows his legal rights, then beginning to go through the process, I don't need to do anything until you tell me why you pulled me over, and then it escalates, and then guess who has to step back guess who has to suck it up, guess who has to be reminded again and again that you don't have the same rights, your rights go only as far as I tell you they go. Right. So the dehumanizing effect that this happens that that that occurs to to us is part of the problem. And that is part of the culture of policing in a white supremacist society. Right. They're not prepared to protect and serve us. They are here to protect and serve the others from us. And policing as a means of continued segregation of continued dehumanization continued intimidation is part of the culture of policing in this society until we grapple with that until we grapple with the fact that we just had a white mob attack the capital of policing, yet we all know that if those folks look like us, there would have been bodies in the street. There's no question about this. And so when thinking about what we may think of doing we do need to consider new structures. We need to consider how this system has worked. It is not redeemable. It is not recoverable. We need to do it in order to create something new that makes that old system obsolete. I think that is our task here. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Tyson Rose. And Next is Dr. D Shabazz. Oh, do you're muted. We're good. Yes. All right. I just want to preface with so we don't have to dial in from another room that the other Dr. Shabazz also wants to participate. So if you could bear with us and have a few minutes for each Dr. Shabazz is I'd appreciate it. So, first off, you know, this this group is really important in that it's the first step of this community it's in its initial step it's a very first step in hearing the voices of the BIPOC community, because we are the ones that the racial equity task force included that pushed for something as this working group. Obviously it's not ideally what we had considered, but you are here and I appreciate the work that you're doing still lots to do. I would say that what is missing at this moment, unless you all can clarify for me is a similar focus group, our focus groups to go where the people are, meaning in the apartments where folks live that might not have the same privileges of connectivity that we are enjoying right now. It's important in addition to have similar focus groups where translation is available Spanish language translation and Khmer and other languages that would be important in terms of populations for this community. Because certainly isn't the only folks who were being, you know, targeted or stopped in this community are many immigrant sisters and brothers and so I would ask that the same effort is put forward to those community groups and populations. I want to reemphasize what was said about the mobile units mobile crisis response units for wellness checks, mental health calls. I know firsthand within, you know, my community friends and family that this would be something if it were available and needed. People would be less hesitant to call upon these services as it stands now. I have, you know, been there for people in the community who have been deathly afraid of calling the EMS and the police. When a wellness check was needed and appropriate. And when mental health was the issue. And so that pains me to know that folks in the community that need these types of services that would benefit from these types of services. Particularly during a time of quarantine and cove it where we're all coister together. That they will not call because of the fear of what might result. Okay. So, you know, shifting money to from one of the largest budgets in terms of this town from policing into an area that we so desperately need. The five colleges, particularly UMass Hampshire College Amherst College would be able to benefit from and hopefully add to because many of our students are suffering from mental illness, or have, you know, drug addiction problems or what have what have you that this would benefit the community as a whole but I can tell you now people of color are deathly afraid of calling on the EMS and the police when it comes to mental health crises. Okay. The other thing, you know, I just have to tell you I fear for my sons. I have a son in his 20s I have a 15 year old, and when I send them out there. You know, even in this idealic what we see is this idealic community. I am always worried, are they going to be stopped just because of how they look who they are as as friendly and as sweet as my boys are and all the other young men I have encountered in this town have been just wonderful, wonderful young men. But I know, because they're again, my family and friends, these young men have been stopped because they have been targeted, they have been profiled. My son has been stopped, he has been profiled. So no matter how we send them out into the world as mothers and fathers and guardians. They come back changed because of their encounters with policing in this community. So I really ask, you know, is this a community that we want to remain. Is this a community that we want to have going forward, or will we create change. I myself and you can see how I look it doesn't matter I have been stopped. And I have been stopped not only by police that are part of the town, but I've been stopped by UMass so you know this isn't a conversation that needs to just take place within town policing, but UMass police needs to be a part of this. I've been stopped twice just trying to park in a paid parking spot at UMass. And once the policeman said he followed me from a stop sign that I that I didn't stop and not to say I don't make mistakes but my family could tell you that I adhere to, you know, to irritation of stopping at stop signs and stop lights. So it was very strange because the policeman got behind my vehicle, and in a crouching position as if I was going to come out of my vehicle shooting. So it was very shocking that happened in the parking space at you on UMass's campus another time, I was going to my parking spot, and the policeman stops me. He says, Why are you stopping me. He says, Well, your license plate is about to expire. So I, I asked him I said so you stop me because it's about to expire but it hasn't expired. He says yes. I've done this you do this as a service for everybody just to remind them or why you know, and then he asked me, your vehicle is it's registered to the mill car Shabazz who is he to you. Now he has my license in his hand he can definitely hopefully read it I'm Dimitri Aruzio Shabazz. So these things have happened to me. So, when I hear town council members who were on this zoom call, when I hear your colleagues say things such as, well, I don't believe those experiences. Let me tell you, these experiences are real. And if you really want to make change in this town and do what you've been elected to do. We need to change it now. Any other Dr Shabazz speak. I want to come at one particular thing that was just raised and wonder if you can incorporate it in your report and incorporate it in your activities, and that is the UMass police department. The topics here and the questions here are all directed at Amherst police department, but we're one town, and we pay taxes and one town, and if UMass is going to be as a part of this town. How do we get accountability about the UMass police. Since the death of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor. We get a number of calls, emails, contacts to me. And to be honest with you, all of the cases in terms of police issues, all of them involved the UMass police. Maybe one was Amherst police department, but all of them were UMass police. How does the town and how do, how can this working group also speak to the issues of that force, which is actually a larger force than the Amherst police department, so that we can all be safe. In these cases, I can tell you I followed up on all of them. I was asked to help and I did what I could, and I spoke with Chief Tyrone Parham on at least half of them on a number of them, and I got his side I got his view. Basically, he asked me if the person would step forward and come and talk to them. I got back to the people that I'd heard from. They were not interested in going down to, to speak with Chief Parham I said I'd even accompany them, but they had no interest. And these weren't all cases of African Americans one of them was specifically a case of a non African American woman that had had a negative encounter with new UMass police so I don't know what you can do or what you can include in your report. But again, we're one town, and if if this other force is also a source of problem how are we, how can we speak to the problems coming from that force as well. And I say all of this, knowing the chief of both departments, knowing them both as good professional people who are trying to do good jobs. But again, there are issues. And this is not my job. I have a job I have a very busy job I don't have the time to go and just because my name is out there as a public figure or whatever to to to run down all of these cases that come my way so anything you can do on the UMass when I'd appreciate it. Finally, I want to acknowledge that this is incredibly complex problem, incredibly complex work around the Christmas Eve toward the end of December. When I came from Atkins farm to my home. I collided with the deer, deer jumped out I could not stop in time I collided with the deer, not the deer to the ground but the deer got up and ran off. And that that the injury that the deer sustained something might happen it could be out in an attack or or whatever. I was concerned for the deer concern for people who might encounter that deer. I looked for a while a person stopped behind me looked as well. The deer was gone. So when I got home, despite all the concerns that D just were my partner just raised all the concerns I have personally, I did call Amherst police department I didn't know who else to call. I don't know no any other animal control was definitely closed. It was in the evening, and it was like Christmas Eve or so. So I did call. And I must say, the person that came out was very empathetic was very cordial. I felt put at ease. By the way they spoke to me. And by the way they responded to my call. They filed a report they had a crash gave me a crash number. So that they called into the desk to get a crash number so that I could file a use for my insurance purposes, very professional very cordial, and I will say as well, was a person of African descent was an African American police officer. Now, all of that being said, doesn't mean that I am speaking against what Professor Tyson rose just said or the previous caller. But in fact, it highlights how incredibly complicated nuanced and difficult these issues are. The force is the and the nature of policing is what Professor rose said. And within it there can be people and can be times in which the other persons wearing that badge and carrying that gun are not in are not in every moment and in every instance, trying to enforce a white supremacist culture and a white supremacist domination. So it is complicated, but the work you're doing. You cannot get it all done this has to be ongoing. You have to recommend a commission on police practices that is ongoing, because it's not it's this is not a one and done thing. You would like that and the and the racial profiling thing that I that Alyssa Brewer was supposedly on it one time, and that goes on for a little while and then it's one and done will be back here, or in this situation, a year from now five years from now, 10 years from now maybe even in worse context than now. So it can't be one and done. I have to recommend an ongoing commission on police practices and I say again, Chief Livingstone, welcome the creation of this body back in the summer. Why aren't we already on it is what I can understand. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your work. Thank you, Mrs. and Mr. Dr. Shabazz. And now we have Jonathan. Hi folks, can I am I heard. Okay, thank you. I want to say thanks to the committee members and the community members who've spoken so far. I know that movement fatigue is real and so I just, I'm just naming I really appreciate your ongoing work I know this is hard. I'm really humbled by some of the wisdom and the experiences that were already shared here by earlier speakers, and I want to echo calls heard earlier to sort of expand the scope of this body to looking into community relations with the UMass police and echo the call for an appointment of an ongoing commission on police practices. And then I want to speak more to kind of another specific issue and I'll try to keep it brief. I know that in the history of far right political movements, like the one we saw perform really agree just acts of violence in DC, last week, and ongoing all across the country throughout our history. In the history of these far right movements, complicity on the part of law enforcement, and others who are entrusted with our state monopoly on violence is a huge part of the success or failure of these far right movements. And also historically that law enforcement is applied much more strongly against leftist and civil rights movements, then against right wing or far right ones. I think Professor Rose spoke to this when he said we all know that if it had been people of color. If it had been the police on January 6, the police response would have been much more violent and much greater. And I know that leaders in our town, some of whom are here on this call, who mostly it, it has to be said share a higher level of class and racial privilege. I don't see themselves feel and perhaps their peer groups feel that they have good relations with the police. But I asked you this question, how well can the rest of us rely on that on those good relations. And for the leaders that are willing to listen. We've heard a lot of stories here today. You said this summer that you didn't believe the stories you heard. I want you to to try and appreciate the emotional labor and the personal risk that folks who have spoken on the call today have taken to come to the table to share their experiences again. And to educate you because you didn't believe the stories you heard this summer. And that connection to another part of what Professor Rose said about sitting the experience of sitting in his, his driver's seat with his hands on a steering wheel feeling that it was his job in that, in that moment to feel safe to do the emotional labor of making the police officer feel safe. And I want to I want to draw that parallel to what you're asking residents to do by coming forward and speaking to a body like this. I appreciate the courage of those who've spoken. So I'm going to speak to an immediate and urgent ask of this body right now. Off-duty police officers from all over the country, including officers from Boston and Saugus are right now under investigation for their participation in the attempted coup on January 6th. I'm going to talk about the caravan of bright wing partisans left Western Massachusetts from the Holy Oak Mall ahead of those events headed for DC. So I'm asking this body to raise this issue with the town manager town council. While I read and appreciated the statement from the town manager and the superintendent. I really feel they didn't go far enough and they were not strong enough. So I'm asking this body to ask the town manager and town council to conspicuously and publicly demonstrate Amherst's civilian oversight of policing. By releasing a joint statement with the chief and the APD guaranteeing that no Amherst police officers were present at the Capitol on January 6. Nor did any APD officers participate in any of the illegal and dangerous activity that happened in Washington DC that day. This ask speaks to, you know, I can't speak to the black or brown experience and Amherst is a white man. I'm not trying to do that in any way. But I think the ask that I've made here speaks to the potential to build trust. And there are so many and so many complex things happening and issues that need consideration as Dr. Shabazz. Dr. Shabazz spoke to, but this feels particularly urgent in this moment, given where we're at politically as a nation. Thank you all for your time. And again, I really appreciate all your hard work. Thank you. And next miss Lydia irons. Hi, can you all hear me. Yes. Hi, my name is Lydia irons and I just want to echo what everyone has said. Deep thanks for this working group and all of the energy and effort that you're putting into in looking at policing here in Amherst. I'm coming to this meeting as a member of Defund 413 Amherst to offer all of our information that we gathered this past summer before the budget meetings. So I want to remind everyone on this call that there was 52 people that participated in two different budget meetings calling for a reduce of the Amherst Blitz permanent budget. And we had took really detailed notes of all of. Hold on one second my toddlers. Yeah, I'm trying to find a place in my house that's quiet. There we go. So I wanted to just share a couple of quick things from those meetings. And again, I just would hope that this working group would take into consideration the 52 people that did speak out about their experiences with police. If the town does not have those. Those statements on record we took record of them and we would be happy to share them with you. One of the things that I wanted to share here on this call is that during those. During the calls over the summer for the budget meeting and defending the police one of the things that was really important was that we have a lot of data that shows where the police spend their money and also where the police spend their time, including maps of how they police different parts of Amherst differently. These maps show that they spend a majority of their time in the in and around the apartment complexes. And that they spend a lot of their time, majority amount of their calls are for mental health crises. And there's been a lot of research about that police responding to mental health crises to not the risk of anyone involved as Ashwin spoke to earlier. So I, like I said, we have a lot of this information written and documented this data that we have collected that we would be happy to share with you for this working group. But on a personal note, I have had a couple of interactions with Amherst police since I've been living here for over a decade now. And the, the thing that I feel like I would really love this working group to hear is to two things. My personal experience with Amherst police has been to be, let's see, about six years ago a friend of mine got lost in the woods outside of in the Amethyst Brook area. And when we did call the police to try to help find her. I was alone to go and meet them. And the Amherst police department officers were a lot of really painful things thrown around about women being alone, women getting lost in the woods. And there was also a lot of really harmful things that were said to me about my emotional response to my friend being lost at night in the woods. I was also called off looking for my friend after they found that her car was unlocked and that they kind of seemed to make a judgment call that oh she was a, you know, not taking good care of herself so we don't need to go looking for her. So that's one experience that I've had with the police here in this town. So that's one of the things that I've been working to my experience with working inside of working in the town council meetings. I've heard multiple times the town councilors speak to what good people, the police are that our police are above par. They are not ready to defund the police in our town that they are not ready to look at what policing could be different in this town, when there was like I said 52 Amherst residents came forward to say that they had had negative experiences with the police in our town, and that they wished that larger percentage of the budget was not spent on policing. And to hear again and again from the town council that they don't believe that they are not ready is makes me feel very disheartened. And also, the last thing I want to say is that this working group there. I can see already from the town manager and members of the town council, they're putting a lot on you. And I can, I have heard in town council meetings well we'll discuss policing again when the community safety working group comes back to us with what they have with with their report. And I am really, really hopeful that they will listen to your report. But I also, I would also, I want you to know that that either the town citizens and the activists and the people who showed up for this call, we will rally around your report so if the town council reads it sees it and doesn't take it into consideration especially around for budget, reducing police numbers, changing police practices, having more civilian oversight is concerned back away from that, if they waffle on that, that, that we can and will continue to mobilize for this cause. So, thank you again so much for your time and for everyone who's spoken. Thank you very much. And does anyone else have a comment. And I have another Lydia. Okay, can you hear me now. Yes. I have a Lydia Lydia Spiegel. And I want to thank everybody for their commitment and participation today. I'm coming here completely new no affiliation to to any group I'm coming as a mother and just citizen of Amherst and mother of two boys. One white one black and so having seen experiencing different ways and and connection with with experiences with authority and police around the town of Amherst directly through my children and friends and families affiliated. I wanted to, you know, just maybe come with an example of, you know, hearing about wanting to decrease the footprint of the police in town for sure and and and looking for ways idea solution on how to be more approachable and non-threatening police authority by the way they they appear or the impact that he has then on on the youth more specifically but on anyone hearing of everybody's experiences. I guess I want to bring an example of of middle school children playing around in town. Just two of them, maybe doing a little misdemeanor and and the police officer being called upon that in the center of town, coming with, you know, the cruiser with the lights on and stopping to probably try to just talk with these two kids that were maybe, you know, 13 14 years old. Next thing you know there are another cruiser another cruiser stopping in the middle of town. One of the children when my was my child. I haven't actually done anything wrong. I heard from that from my child not being called and this is just an example not parents not being being called in and a couple of other instances like that. I guess two things one of them seen that the impact it has on the on the victim on the child and then the impact that it has on the on the on-siders and people seeing it what perceptions are you know keep going on if something like that happened in town it makes a big spectacle what do people in control people are thinking how it's portrayed on a few times I went to the police station to try to explain the experience. I was talked to respectfully and the white woman I come in people listen to, but that piece of not of just knowing or seeing the officer would not just get it why this was just outrageous is there's no need to to deploy such a thing that there's no need to have other the level of intimidation that they bring upon in a level of threatening to to the people and and that goes you know with other examples of and I guess I want to address the way that just the officers look and appear and that goes on in the schools I don't know where that is now with the school system but officers moving along with all their attire so I guess a question there within the police within their service or a separate one how can that be changed there's a place also of the being able to safely report things it is it does take a lot to for one to decide to go up to the police station and go again through all that and talking with people and again I'm a white woman who's going to be looked at or listen to in a different way and strongly believe that but it brings that piece of where they can be or there's a need to whether we report that if not to Dr Shabazz who are saying he's not wanting to play that role where is there a place a safe place that's not the police that people can we just lose miss Lydia yeah looks like she got disconnected okay so we can call in the next person and then if miss Lydia comes back after our next speaker then we can allow her to come back in so our next speaker is counselor Brewer I'm sorry thank you I know that we were making a point I'm not having counselors speak if at all possible and certainly as a white counselor I did not wish to do so but I did want to just make one modification to something that was stated earlier there was a previous police stops committee as a representative town meeting member I assume I voted in the favor of as the majority of representative town meeting did back in 2004 to establish a police stops committee it had a fairly simple charge which was to create a single one page form that did some demographic tracking tracking the kinds of things we think are really obvious now but many people were not doing back in 2004 I was not part of the select board that set the charge up for that committee after town meetings action I was not part of the appointing authority for that committee that committee had a majority of people of color including representatives from the Human Rights Commission and as far as I can tell from town records which are often spotty in certain places basically nothing happened the committee was eventually disbanded the committee just eventually faded away and so I very much appreciate all the comments that people have made about the fact that this is not a once and done process this is an ongoing thing this is not necessary this is not one group of people's burden to bear for a period of time but it is all of our responsibility to ensure that it is something we look at while I was not responsible for the police stops committee I am ashamed of the fact that I did not press the town manager at the time to say what did you find out from that that I did not say please have the police chief come and explain to us how they have changed things because of that town meeting action instead I deferred to the fact that I had not heard from any committee members that they were dissatisfied I had not heard from any committee members that they were dissatisfied and I am ashamed to say that I let it go I have no intention at this stage of life of letting things go thank you thank you council brewer and next Mila Pavlava Gillam hello is this a good time to speak as not a member of a BIPOC community yep so we've asked that the BIPOC community speak first exactly yeah so can you tell us when it's time to speak when if we're not a member of the BIPOC community yes thank you Miss Angelica Castro hello can you hear me yes everyone I think Paul's hand was up I don't know did you want to say something okay so hello to the committee and I'm happy to see a lot of my fellow community members and friends here on the committee so I echo a lot of what's been said but I just wanted to just from myself recount a couple of stories personal stories and you know I thought about speaking as it would be be helpful would not be helpful but it just I can only speak for my surveillance so I have four children who identify as BIPOC children who the world sees as black boys and men and the first incident I can remember my 16 year old so unfortunately these two incidents I want to name is that I had to call the police on my own kids which is hard to say is a mother of color but I had a situation where my oldest who's 24 and I was 16 and there was some issues that he didn't want to go to school and he ran away and it was basically it was a hard time and so I called the school to see if they had a truancy officer because he was actually at that point refusing to go to school and they said they didn't have a truancy officer unfortunately and my dean friend recommended a police and they might be able to be helpful I did call the police someone came to my door we stood at like six six I was like whoa and it was actually really helpful he was very good conversation he had asked some really great questions I felt that was really at the time as a mom kind of had a loss of what to do had a great conversation he went to the back to talk to my 16 year old because he was outside I wasn't letting him in the house and he just I just felt like the conversation was really positive to the point where my child did end up going back to school part of it was positive but we also came up with some little bit of scare tactics like I mean like you know if you don't do this you know you can possibly you know if you don't continue to do some of the things you're on track to do but I think what you know this might happen but I think what I really appreciated was the police officer used really kind of positive a really positive tactic where you know I know that you're part of the basketball team I know that you're you know for your three younger brothers look up to you you don't want to do this and so they just had a really hard to heart talk that was really helpful and then again my second son who's 22 my second child actually who's 22 now when he was 16 same thing we had an issue he went outside really angry and I called the police just because I was scared he was going to hurt himself he was kind of a place where he was really angry and he was my couple of my car and ex-husband's car so I didn't know if he you know just don't want to hurt himself through police officers came and it was again another really positive experience I didn't at a loss for what to do I was scared they just really talked to him and a really I felt a really loving really kind of comforting way he calmed him down he said you know do you want us to just let you go back inside and will everything be okay or do you want us to stay kind of ask me my son he was fine he came in and we things you know settled I got a call back from them just to check if everything was okay and I said yes everything was fine one of the other situations that happened was or that I would name was there was a police officer that actually volunteered to coach my second my second child that I talked about coached their basketball team for I think three years and so sometimes he would come in uniform and coach sometimes he would just come in uniform because he was working and just wanted to check on the team my child that I'm talking about had a lot of respect for him we had a lot of times had talks about you know police officers and their role and so I think that was a really positive a moment to have a positive model role modeling and I bring those up just because I feel like you know when you think about community building like how to build community trust with authority and police officers I wish that we saw that more often right like more instances where they were present in a positive way and present in kids lives in a way that you can see police officers is not scary or things that people hear and so and I mean honestly again I've heard a lot of stories of friends and you know so this is not to kind of dismiss things that have been shared but I just say for me as someone who has raised my 24 and 22 year old were one in three when I moved to Amherst and I raised them here and so I have four children 24 22 16 and 13 and so and so I those are the situations I've had I haven't had any negative situations outside of that and so again I'm going to dismiss what anyone said but I'm just speaking from my experience so again I just wanted to bring that up to not to counter but just to also use that as you know again encouragement for the Amherst police department to have more opportunities that they show up in the community in ways that are really helpful in role modeling so those I just that's what I wanted to share and I think again the committee is going to be able to thank you for the work that you all are doing thank you Angelica and are there any more questions from the audience and did Miss Lydia was she able to come to get back on yes there I'll bring her back in now thank you am I on the floor I'm sorry I'm not here and also apologize for I didn't hear that piece about the member of the non-biopal community to to wait for a turn later so I forget where I was cut off but I think there was a place where I was bringing up the a need to have a place that can be other than a police for when somebody experience or witnesses incidents in town and that can be a place where things get recorded and kept and maybe help sort you through how to process it from there I think it's important to collect the data but also finding a way or not finding I wonder how there's a way to share it more we're talking about anecdotes and all these illustrations that talk so vividly when we hear people and yet people would say but I'm not being heard or the story is not being heard I don't know how there is a way to to be able to share more of those with the white community in town where I'm always surprised that if I bring up an anecdote or somebody's illustration how many times the still surprise around it or you know that's happening in my town and I'm sure work has been done around how to try to share it but how to reach the homes you know with somebody if it's not a workplace somebody is not connected with a group with people who are working and many of you are directly involved I'm talking for a greater population white population parents who are then talking with their kids to the point where you just hear and you're not questioning because there's numbers there's a lot of examples that are other than the one that might appear in the newspaper or that is a greater example but all those stories that are so important to share and to be known and to be that people can then need to be accounted for thank you thank you and are there any other attendees that would like to speak I'm not a member of the BIPOC community so I'm willing to step back until that time is available I wasn't quite clear on that and I'm going to refer to the chair for that I'm going to ask if the volume could be turned up on her response I'm getting a soft response I could hardly hear the comment my comment was just if this is not the time for someone who's not part of the BIPOC community I don't mind stepping down and waiting I think based on what I think in terms of the hand raising piece of the BIPOC person and then I would ask Ms. Moyston to invite you in right after that comment if you don't mind if that's okay with you as well thank you you would be next after this this acceptance of this call and Ms. Moyston I think there was someone else that was non BIPOC who had also loaded me that yes hey I know I already spoke but I just I feel I feel compelled to add something in light of a couple of the recent comments so this is this is pretty vulnerable for me to share I'm a non black person of color which is important for this for one of that to share but when I was a teenager I grew up in a suburb upper middle class relatively white largely white suburb and I would get into trouble sometimes as a teenager and my parents have had called the cops on me a few times for various things that kind of are similar to my mind for to what we heard from one of the speakers and when that kind of thing would happen I remember being terrified being scared and then sitting there quietly and nodding while the cop affected a supportive presence and then moving on with my life and even perhaps kowtowing to their suggestions because my parents had invoked the final violent authority of the state to bring me to heal they did so because they didn't have community tools at their disposal because they didn't have good alternatives that they knew about to bring real healing and real support to me and if my parents were to share that experience commission as a positive reason for why cops are like good despite all of the history that we know about despite the movement that has emerged this summer for black lives calling to not train cops do community policing but to defund the police and build real institutions for community safety I would be absolutely horrified and absolutely mortified based on how traumatic it was for me to have to deal with that as a teenager so I just felt compelled to share that counterpoint from my own experience and I will leave it there and are there any other members from the BIPOC community that would like to speak Miss Angelica Castro I would just like to agree with the point that I think there were no for me in terms of tools at my disposal as a mom who was going through it was going through I think again thinking about community policing or community tools when things happen and like I said when I call the school even a friend of mine who was the dean of the recommendation was to call the police so I think you know I would support that right that I think when something happens and there are no other tools what do you do and so I just wanted to I just felt led to agree with that so thank you thank you and any other BIPOC community members Lumia Pavlava Gillam oh you're muted and somehow sideways thank you very much for allowing me to speak I wanted to speak to the experience of my two children who both grew up as boys in Amherst my youngest one is 17 he is still growing and the older is 29 my oldest son was a hockey player very happy in the high school very happy with and appreciative of the work that police was doing in town there was one time when he got in trouble and instead of walking away from the trouble the way some of his friends did he walked toward the policeman who arrived on the scene and when he came home with the policeman we thought the police handled the situation very well and then as he got older and went to University of Massachusetts Amherst and grew a beard and was riding a moped his experience as a young adult with the police was different he was a security guard at Litt and one night there was an altercation with some students who were misbehaving one of his buddies who was an African American who lives in Springfield was trying to defuse the situation they ended up having to take a patron outside who was attacking the security the two of them as security representatives with a knife someone called the police the white person who was actually the cause of the problem and ran down the street in the center of Amherst and addressed the policeman and told them that he was being attacked by the black security person when the police came up to Cameron and his friend or colleague they immediately arrested the African American and didn't hear the whole story on the spot it took him I think a number of months to come out from under the suspicion that he was the one who was attacking a white patron rather than being in fact someone trying to defuse the situation and being put in a very precarious and physically dangerous position by a drunk patron so my son was traumatized by this experience that the Amherst police responded in this way obviously racist honestly and the way that they assumed the white person was telling the truth he I think since then he's been very careful driving through we live in North Amherst so he would drive back from Litt through the University of Massachusetts and I support what Mr. Shabazz was saying earlier that there really does need to be coordination between the University and between the town police because he was targeted many times watched very carefully stopped supposedly because he was crossing a line being a young man a young white man with a big beard driving through the University at two o'clock in the morning coming back from Litt he was always under watch and that the police were looking for a reason to arrest him rather than watching over him to make sure that he was safe I would like I appreciate a lot of the comments that I heard earlier and certainly would support the establishment of a board that could monitor and facilitate a changing of culture the police might address some of these issues in one other case he was stopped by a mass policeman he was on a moped and the law is different for a motorcycle than from a moped he had a registered motorcycle he was driving on the side of the road the policeman who stopped him and arrested him gave him a ticket he was on the side of the road he was on the side of the road he didn't deserve it he challenged it over the course of four months and it cost him to challenge it and finally he got clarity in court but the policeman didn't know the law he basically saw a young man with a backpack with a big beard on a motorcycle he was on the side of the road he was on his back pocket while riding his moped because he was afraid that he would get stopped and arrested again by the same officer so I think there are definitely officers who are problematic on the police force both in Amherst and in the University of Massachusetts police department and in the administration process my youngest son has lived with his brother's experiences both as someone who admired and truly appreciated the work that the police do as safety and guardians and then who lost his faith so to speak who got seriously discouraged by the practices that he saw as he became an adult and when we were talking about how he felt after the events over the last few months with especially after what happened at the Capitol I asked him what is the problem that you see and are most afraid of and he said toxic masculinity that's a lot for a 17 year old to think about so I would like to support and anything that you can do to facilitate improving the culture of police in town thank you so much thank you and Lisa thank you can everyone hear me great my name is Lisa Pierce Boniface I want to thank each member of the safety committee for being a part of this I know it's an incredible amount of time on your part and it says a lot about your dedication to this town and loving your community I'm hesitant on talking about my own experience just because I understand so deeply that this is nothing compared to what other people experience but I felt like when this did happen to me it was September 7, 2015 it was the UMass police so I do want to just speak to what Dr. Deesh and Amil Karshabaz spoke about about it being UMass as being part of the problem as well and I just felt like if this could happen to me and I took this all the way to court because I felt like if this could happen to me it could happen to somebody else and it needed to be stopped and I had no ability to say anything changed so for that reason alone I'm so glad that this committee is here and you are able to listen to these experiences because there isn't any place to go with these experiences except for to go to the UMass courts where you are already stated you've done something wrong and they really are not there to support you so I'll just explain the story I was on campus on the 7th of September it was a very hot day a lot of students had just come back to school so everybody's nerves were on edge and I can't remember who it was exactly who had been in the media for being killed African American being killed by the police department I was on edge as well and when I saw this police officer behind me I thought he needed to get around me or something so I saw him behind me and I approached cautiously this pedestrian stop and I stopped there I went to a blinking red light and I think I passed through that red light because I thought he wanted to get around me or he was going somewhere because he was tailing me so at that intersection you can actually have to turn left again on to Fearing Street I think it is and he was still following me very close behind and his light started to go off and so I was going to try to pull over but I couldn't pull over there was very little shoulder and so I had to go to the next street over and turn and at that point he wanted me to pull over there was no shoulder and I turned into the next street and then I waited and before he approached my car but I saw through the rear view mirror that he was talking on his walkie-talkie probably taking in my license number two minutes later he came over to my car and said driver's license and ID please and as I went to retrieve them he said you know it's mass state law and he wanted me to stop for emergency vehicles and pulled to the side immediately when they indicate that you should stop I told him I was unaware and I wanted to stop but I couldn't turn over because there wasn't a place for me to turn and he bellowed back I decide where you should pull over not you I stayed quiet after that I said I was sorry I didn't need any of these and he said he would be back in a minute at that point I called my husband he said just get the ticket don't ask him any more questions and I could feel his hostility very red faced man I have his name if anybody wants it his name is Professor Slaughter I had to ask him why am I being pulled over and he said failure to stop at a stop sign he came back five minutes later with my ID and registration turned the ticket upside down and warned me to stop immediately when an emergency vehicle wants to get passed otherwise you know what I would have to do to you you know what I would have to do to you I looked in shock was he saying he was going to take me or arrest me or convict me for fleeing from an officer I decided to stay quiet and get a ticket and I did go to court I went to court the first time and I was interrogated by two police officers who sat me in a room by myself and made me tell my story but they made me say I was guilty before I even said anything so I couldn't really say anything I felt like I was being interrogated the police officer was at the door of the courts and as I was walking in I had to pass right by him and he gave me this really dirty look and I went into the court and he started chatting with the court judge and sat behind where the court judges were sitting and then he came back out and sat down but you could tell he was chummy with the judge so all of these I ended up having to pay over $250 I never got the courage to tell the judge how I felt intimidated by him because he read his own prediction of what had gone wrong and he was kind of angry in the court but the judge just took what he said and I barely said anything so I just felt like this whole experience made me realize that this isn't fair for anyone I bet it's less fair for people who are of color and I just wanted somewhere to tell this story and I've never been able to tell it to anybody so thank you for listening I'm done Thank you Any other comments from the audience? And Mr. Temblest Yeah, everybody good evening Thank you for doing this Yeah, my first reaction is I'm sorry you had to go through that I just got a chance to hear the end of of the story and I apologize I'm on my phone so I can't see the name of the woman who just spoke the person who just spoke but yeah it's really sad I think the only thing I have to add to this conversation but a bunch of that I don't want to take too much time is what I feel I've experienced that I studied in going to school at UMass Amherst and graduating with a degree in legal studies and also having survived a police attack some years back is you know that this Mr. Blass I'm sorry about that is that better by any chance it's better a little better okay great sorry about that yeah I have a house full of kids here and everybody seems to be on wifi right now so yeah I don't know how much you all heard but I'll try to keep it brief by saying you know I went to UMass Amherst got a degree in legal studies have worked in the community as an activist and an artist have survived a police attack myself some years back and I really oh my god sorry I'm sorry y'all I just wanted to hop on in sorry for the technical issues but you know it's a systemic issue and I guess I just want to cut to the chase and to say that you know we got to remember that we're all human beings here we're all trying to live our lives and we all understand that police and court people and judges and all these folks are in positions of power and it's great that you all have worked hard to get in those positions but know that we're all human beings you're human just like I am the woman who just spoke earlier and is trying to tell her story like have some compassion man like you know like you know when I got charged and eventually you know all the charges were dropped and I was in the courtroom it became really apparent to me and everybody else that was going through this experience that did everybody knew what was happening everybody knew that these charges were fabricated by this police everybody knew that these police had assaulted me and they were they were wrong but it was almost like we had to go through this terrible movie this terrible act and the judge was there and you know the district attorney was there and they all knew it like you know they had been through this already so many times but for whatever reason there was a crazy point to them that you know like I guess I had to learn some type of lesson but years later the lesson is that you know police need to do a better job they need to have more compassion they need to have more training they need to be trained in order to be police and not have this chip on the shoulder and need to really learn how to de-escalate the situation because at the end of the day there's so many people that have to deal with situations that they shouldn't have to and luckily I had the words I had the support of my family I had the support of my community and I had resources but it cost me $12,000 you know I'll never forget that figure $12,000 for them to finally drop all the charges and it cost me a lot it cost my family a lot of time and anguish and I bet you those police officers still working there still continuing to do what they're doing and so the system has to change I'm thankful for each and every one of you all that are in this in this call to do what you all are doing and you know to any police that might be listening to this you know if you're a good cop like you know step up have the courage to arrest I'm waiting for the day when a police officer sees another police officer doing something wrong and actually arrest that police officer for committing a crime that that will be the day when I feel like you know good police officers have shown up and you know I'm not naive to know that I know that some police officers have tried to talk and say stuff and they get you know some of them lose you know I'm not going to talk to the system so it's a systemic issue I'll leave it at that because I know there's other people that probably want to want to speak and I just applaud you all for the work that you all are doing and you know I live in the community and I'm committed to changing the the system and changing the way because the way that things are done because I mean we deal with a pandemic we deal with a lot of police just honored their oath I think things would change and if judges would honor their oath and da's would honor their oath you know it's it's all connected so thank you I'll leave it at that thank you very much appreciate y'all thank you are there any more comments do we have other people that want to speak we don't at this moment I was waiting to see if someone was going to raise their hands so I was going to be able to speak to them I think we have a little bit of time as well and we have a hand raised Mr. Farrera hello everyone sorry I didn't know I had to raise my hands to tell you I should so I know it's almost five o'clock and the advertisement said it was five o'clock so I know mostly you guys here most of you guys know me and to be totally transparent I just you know heard a few folks and I'm not gonna change my name to Blast. I'm gonna keep it forever myself. And to be in transparency, Debra is my sister. So just wanna make sure that the transparency is out there. But all you guys, most of folks in here, I know them, well, I know of them. So, and Pat was my daughter's first, you know, babysitter. So he's good. And she's 29 by now, Pat. So to make a long story short, I would echo what my brother said. Thank you for doing this work. This is important work. And it's not easy work to do in my line of work at UMass Amherst, I do work with UNPD. And I know everything that is going on in the student realm concerning this piece. But to go quickly, you know, a member of the community, been a member of this community for over 35 years with my students at UMass, even though I'm only 27. So you guys do the math. And, oh, actually, I was also Jennifer Moisten's advisor. I wonder if there's a lot of connections in here. So, you know, I have to say that my experience with the police, personally, I have not had an encounter with the police myself in this town. But as my brother has so eloquently stated and a bunch of other people, they have had, right? And I know exactly what he's talking about because, you know, my social justice educator, and we know that this is a systemic issue that needs to be changed. However, talking from my own experiences, I think that one of the reasons why I haven't had any problems in the community is because I'm relationship-based, right? That's why I know most of you guys. So a lot of people know me, right? And most of the cops at UMass and in town know me, right? And I say that not to brag, I've said that because I truly believe in community policing. You get into know your community, right? Because it's a lot less, you're a lot less likely to harm someone that you know and you care about, right? A police force should be community-based with law enforcement powers and not the other way around, right? It should be actually serving, protect, not protecting, serve, you know? But right now they're not even, the way that things going nationally is that we don't even seem like they're serving anyone these days, right? As per a lot of what we see in the media these days. We have a police force, and I'm not saying this about MSPD, but I've seen it all around because I don't know all the training and the stuff, the toys that APD has, but we have a police force that is militarized, right? The police force that they're training is straight up out of military tactics and there has been going on for the longest time. We do also have a lot of times of police force that we do have for better for us a lot of veterans that come straight out of a military system, right? And then when you bring people that come out of a military system and then you train them in military tactics, they're gonna act like that, right? So, you know, training the way that the training has to be done has to change. We have over 18,000 police departments in this country. We have, I don't know how many, you know, people in the police department. And if you go over all these 18,000 police departments in the country, each one of them may have a different type of training, right? I've been involved in police interviews where it was straight up scary, some of the people who applied. And I turn around to another cop and I said, hey, you know, that person was pretty scary, but I'm afraid that he will get a job somewhere. And you know what he said? He said he'll write it, right? So for us to have people who are scared because there's no uniform standards. If you don't have uniform standards, that's what's going to happen. You know, it's every person for themselves, right? And that's what is happening these days is we have a militarized police force that the training is really not about the community, right? It's about, it's almost like survival, right? And we see that, especially when it comes to these shootings of mostly black and brown folks that we see out there, we have a lot of transgender folks that we know are getting shot in a lot of people that are in that social economic area that is very low than everybody else that are getting shot. And it's almost like a survival that cops are going into certain situations expecting that they're going to draw the guns and that they're going to defend themselves so much so that anything in their hands become weapons. But we all know who those people are, right? Because as we saw in the Capitol just a few months ago, there's a lot of people with a lot of stuff in their hands that did not get shot, right? So we know, we know that. So again, training, training, training. But for me, it's all about relationships based. Some of you guys who are on this call know that I'm a huge, huge supporter of having our police force. I'm pretty sure you guys are gonna make a lot of recommendation. But if I could make one recommendation here myself, would be for us to have outreach police to all of the communities that we have in town. We have, I'm Kay Verde. We have a Kay Verde community. We have a Cambodian, Vietnamese, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Leo Ocean. You Botanese, you know, Guatemalan. You name it? Yes, we need to have outreach folks from the police to connect with these communities. They need to get to know those communities. They need to get to know who are the folks that they can talk to in those communities. Because believe me, these elders who are here, I know a lot of you know, so I call you guys elders, but you guys are because I respect you guys as such. If Paul was to tell me something, I will listen to them. That was to tell me something I'll listen to. If Russ was to tell me something, I'll listen to him, right? Because they have, they have statute in the community where I know that if they tell me something, it's for my own need. They have street bread, right? And that's what we need. A lot of times is to have these police, community police officers go into these communities, figure out who these people are, who in the community could be your grandmother, it could be your godmother, it could be your mommy, your dad, your godfather, who has that street bread that can then, you know, connect with these police officers to make sure that we have a system that is working for those communities, right? I mean, I know there's a bunch of other stuff that recommendations that can be made, but that would be, you know, my SIDS personal recommendation for this group was to have outreach folks for all of these communities. And I know people are gonna talk about budgets, they're gonna talk about this, that, that, and that. That's all well and good, right? We have budgets for a lot of things. We need to have budgets for this stuff too, right? And outreach to our youth, you know, our youth is one of the most important things. I mean, if you talk to our youth, everyone is having different types of experiences in the high schools, in the middle schools, in the junior high schools, you know, most of you guys know I'm here at the ABC program. And, you know, fortunately, my young man who are here have not had any encounter with the police the last five years that we're here. But, you know, when we sit at the dinner table, they tell me stories that they hear from their peers that have had those encounters. So, you know, what are we doing with our youth to make sure that we minimize those encounters that those negative encounters that our youth are having with our police officers? I know it's five o'clock, not from you guys, your family members and all this sort of stuff, but I'm here. And I appreciate your time, appreciate the work that you're doing. Anytime you guys want to reach out to me and hear some more of my thoughts and ideas, I am more than willing to contribute anyway that I can. Okay. Thank you very much everyone. Thank you Mr. Ferrer. Thanks for your service. Cheers. And Mr. Wiley. Oh, I believe Tashina. I had something to say. Hi. So I just wanted to, you know, kind of just tell, just make a point to the committee that we now had, I don't remember if it's three or four people. I think four now have talked about their experience with UMass police. And I really think that we need to take that information seriously. And so I'm gonna just put that out there that, honey, can you not use your scissors please? Cause last time you messed everything up. Can you wait a minute? Hold one minute please. Please wait. Let me finish what I'm saying. Sorry guys. So I really just wanted to put that out there. Also, just in recognizing that there may be people within the committee themselves who have had experiences. So I don't know if we're, I'm wondering if we should make time to talk about those sorts of things as well. And I really wanted to commend everybody who shared today because it's really, really important for us to have all of that information and have all of those suggestions as we move forward on this committee. So thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, I also wanted to chime in to, like Ms. Bowman said, just wanted to thank everyone who took their time. We know it's a Saturday, it's a day that you could be doing other things but instead you chose to be here, be here now, be part of this community and try to make this community a stronger community. And I know that it's not easy. It's difficult to kind of get here and to be brave to talk about your lived experiences or to talk about how to make this community a better place. And one of the things that I wanna do as part of this working group is, and I'm sure my other community members, community working group members wanna do it too is to follow up with people because a lot of people said a lot of wonderful things and shared a lot of resources. And I think we need to follow up with folks individually and try to get a lot of those resources and links. And if you have other information, please feel free to share it with us, other ideas, ways to make things better. And the fact that obviously it's not, it can't be just with us, right? This has to be ongoing work, has to be everyone involved because a change needs to happen. So just thank folks again. And obviously we're taking all of this in to get it all to heart and ready to make some good changes. So Ms. Moisten, it seems like we've come to the end of the time that people have wanted to make comment with respect to the forum. I do wanna defer to the working group at this moment with respect to what Ms. Ferreira said and Ms. Bowman had to say. I wanted to see if anybody on our working group has any closing comments. I'd like to move to the next agenda item, but I don't want to miss an opportunity to hear from our folks here on the committee, either in response to this community forum or any thoughts related to the work that we have. And then I'd like to move on to upcoming events. So I'd like to open it up for a couple of minutes to our working group. Ms. Inonibaku. You're on mute. No, I'm on mute. Ms. Pat. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. I just wanna thank all of you for coming out to share your experiences and offer suggestions for us. I know your time is valuable and I really appreciate you coming out. That's all I wanna say. And like Deborah stated, we would like to follow up with you or if you have additional info you can give us, you can always also email us. You can get the link through the MS Town website, but thank you all for supporting us. I'm just gonna go around the screen just to make sure I don't miss anyone. Ms. Walker, any closing comments you wanna make, please? If not, fine, but... Yes, I just also wanna thank all the participants here today for their bravery and for sharing anything that they shared with us that anything that was said is greatly valued and will be used to inform work moving forward. Thank you, Ms. Owen. I also just wanted to say thank you to everybody that came out today to share different ideas and experiences with us. I urge all of you guys to continue to follow our work as we are being as transparent as possible with our packets on the website. And I just hope that you guys continue to engage with us and help lead our work. Thank you so much, Mr. Vernon Jones. Well, I'll echo everyone else. Your participation, everyone who was here today is invaluable to our work and I appreciate both those who shared and those who came to listen. I think it's part of building community. And I would ask that you all spread the word that we have an online survey and input tool where anyone can answer these questions, share stories and give us useful information. Please spread the word about that. It's available through the town website and we'd like to get more input even than this. Agreed. See, this is the very reason why I asked other people to speak so I don't have to say so much at the end. I think whatever they just said is exactly reflects my sentiments as well. I wanna thank everyone for being here. I wanna reflect again our appreciation for Ms. Moisten spending an additional time to help us facilitate this and certainly Mr. Hannon for his technical expertise behind the scenes here for helping us get up and motivated. And I respect to the survey. I mean, I'd like to maybe just maybe mention, yeah, I don't know if you wanna mention it Ms. Moisten but I think people are responding to the survey. I don't know if you wanna make a comment or a plug for doing that as well in addition to what was just said. Sure. So we do have residents completing the survey. It is important for us to have as many people as we can possibly have complete the survey. So if you know people who weren't able to come and they have some input for us we would greatly appreciate it. All input is valuable, none is too small whether it's positive or negative it is all very valuable and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much. And we're a little over our time here so I'll just move ready to in terms of upcoming events. Any upcoming events we need to know about relative to the community or what's going on in our community I wanna backtrack a little bit and thank again Ms. Moisten and others for promoting and advertising the events relative to related to the MLK celebration and all of those things I want to just encourage people to attend to the website announcements that are going on, a lot is going on in the town at this point. So I know there's a lot in the world happening so I both appreciate people's attention to it and encourage you to continue to pay attention to all the aspects of town government that are going on because I think they're not separate. These things are systemically related and I thank you if you can stay connected to all the different committees and what they're doing to whatever extent you can I appreciate that as well as with the committee. Any upcoming events folks? Not hearing it. Can we clarify when the next meeting of this group is? What a great segue that's the next agenda item next. Let me first throw my caveat in here. Ms. Moisten sent an email to me on Thursday saying that because of the holiday we had to have agenda items available to her to post on Friday. My systems were not working well and I notified her later today. All of a sudden got a barrage of emails that came in after the fact and one of those was hers. So I missed an opportunity to post an agenda for Wednesday's meeting, which I think we were speaking about, which begs the question of when would our next meeting be? And I'm asking the committee to possibly consider Thursday or Friday for a meeting simply because a lot has gone on in the past week. We've met three times. We've met on Monday. We met Wednesday. We met Saturday today in terms of our forum and we received a ton of feedback from our community. So if we could get a meeting in on Thursday or Friday of this week, my apologies again, but if we could make that accommodation, that would be great. We can get some more of our work done and do some updates into some things that we need to follow up that we've asked previously. Ms. Marcia. If it's easier, I can send a dental poll out on Tuesday if that helps at all. I don't know. Well, since I said what I said, I'm open to whatever the group would like to do if the doodle poll is something that would be easier for folks to manage at this point in time, given that it's like 515 on a Saturday. I think Ms. Pat had her hand up. Ms. Pat had her hand up. Excuse me? Yeah, I'm agreeing with Ms. Meistering because we don't have devils tonight. And he had come at the time, basketball or something like that. So yeah, I think we should go with what Ms. Marcia just suggested. If, does everyone else agree with that? If Ms. Moistick has sent out a quick doodle poll and we can give her a really quick turn around response to that, we can set up and perhaps Ms. Moistick, you could offer Thursday and Friday meeting times. And then I see Ms. Walker and then Mr. Vernon Jones have their hands up. Ms. Walker, first, please. So I'm okay with doing a doodle poll for our next meeting date, but I'm wondering if we have suggestions for things we'd like to add to the agenda when we should get them to the chair by. If we were to have the meeting on Thursday, I think Ms. Moistick needs them on Tuesday. If we were to have a meeting on Friday, we need to get those agenda items to her on Wednesday. I've already suggested a few items to her, but they were received late, unfortunately. And I'd be happy to share those with the group if you'd like to see what I've suggested. And I would absolutely welcome and encourage any other agenda items that are not on my list for the agenda on whichever day we have the meeting. And you can send those items to me now if you would like between now and Tuesday, Wednesday, so that I just have them. So we agree that we'll respond. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Byrne Jones, you did have your hand up. I'm just asking about timeline. If we were gonna meet Thursday, when would that meeting need to be posted? Tuesday. Tuesday. So a Tuesday doodle is... I mean, I have to send it out. I mean, I can send one out. Very tight timeline. It is tight, but, or you guys can just decide now if you would like it. I'm ready to decide now. We don't have Darius. I think Ms. Pat's comment about Darius not being here is significant because he is an integral part of our committee. Mr. Byrne? We could just have to see what most people are available, you know, and then Ms. Moison can check with Mr. Cage. Okay. Yep. So are we thinking Friday at 5.30? Fridays are good for me. Thursday and Friday I'm flexible. I'm available. It can also be really flexible. So whatever works best for you guys. Yeah, I can do Thursday or Friday at 5.30. Okay. Are we gonna keep the same meeting time for 5.30? Time-wise I think, and I'm speaking for people who are, you know, have seen 5.30 as an entry point for these types of meetings as being the sort of the standard. 5.30 either day could work for me. Friday is better for me than Thursday. Pashina? Pashina? Let me just... It doesn't matter to me. Okay. So let me suggest 5.30 on Friday and that we get our agenda items to Ms. Moisten. Ms. Moisten, I would suggest tomorrow morning and I will take responsibility for reading out, reaching out to Mr. Cage. Thank you. Does that sit well with everyone? Absolutely, yes. Yep. Okay. So I'm just keeping with the, so we'll do that. And in keeping with the agenda, so we've established our next meeting is to be determined and we already did it. We're going to say 5.30 on Friday. We'll get agenda items to Ms. Moisten by tomorrow morning. And that'll be posted. Any other topics that did not come before the chair within 48 hours? Okay, hearing none, I'd like to make a comment. Okay, Ms. Pat? Sorry. So I have a clarifying question around the view certificate that we're supposed to send suggestion and comment rationale around folks who come out to testify. I started doing that, but I felt that this is a discussion that needs to happen openly. Like if we send suggestions to Ms. Moisten, is that where it ends? Like we're not going to have discussion on it or... Let me just, I apologize. I didn't hear the first part of what you're concerned about. So what I'm concerned about is when we raise the, how much give certification we give to people who come out to testify in this open forum. And I thought about sending my input to Ms. Moisten, that I changed my mind because I just want people to, all of us to discuss it openly. This is a good opportunity. I would think at this point to send it to her as an agenda item for this coming week, because we do have to deliberate that and we should do it publicly. So I would encourage you to do that, Ms. Pat, to send that to Ms. Moisten. I think that's actually one of the things that was embedded in one of my agenda items as well. Okay. So just in support of what you're saying, I think it's important for us to know. Ms. Walker, you had your hand up. I was just also going to suggest that we add that to the agenda for our next meeting. I would say any agenda items and please certainly give some thought to that. I want to remind you too, that if there are other pieces of information you want to include in the packet for us to consider that those also should be sent to Ms. Moisten on a regular basis because they become part of our working documents going forward. I do want to say, I should have mentioned in terms of upcoming events. I apologize, I want to go back, but Ms. Owen and I appeared on the 12 noon community chat. What day was that, Ms. Moisten? I mean, Ms. Owen. I want to say it was Wednesday, the 13th, maybe, or it was a Thursday. Your day is emerging just like mine, aren't they, Ms. Owen? Every day since COVID has felt like a Wednesday. I'll tell you, but we were invited to represent the group. Oh my God, that's really strange. I can't remember. It was really moving so fast, but the two of us spent a half hour on the community chat, which is done in 12. What is that, Ms. Moisten? It was yesterday, wasn't it? No. No, I think it was Thursday. Thursday. That's what Mr. Bachman had said. Thursday at 12, because I knew like he had invited a bunch of us and I know I always have a meeting at that time, so. Oh my God. Well, I heard we did a good job on behalf of the group. And I would encourage you to, if you get a chance to take a look at it, please tell me what day it was. If you figure that out, I would be really happy to know that. But I was appreciative of the fact that both Ms. Owen and I were there together. I do want to let the group know, as well as the community, that the town council is meeting on January 25th. And both Ms. Owen and myself will be on that meeting as well to talk about the work of the community service working group. So perhaps at our next meeting, if you have any comments relative to that, in terms of our input, we'd be happy to receive that. And I want to just say we'd be honored to represent you all at the town council to give some more exposure to our work going forward. But just want to let you know that we're being asked by the town to be there and we've agreed to be there. And I just want to say, and Ms. Owen, you can certainly add into this at any time, of course. But I think the presence of both Ms. Owen and I have a very powerful presence in terms of representing the group. Let me just put it that way. And I think our combined contributions to questions and interfacing with the community has been very strong as a result of our collaboration together as community working group members. So Ms. Owen, I... Oh, I agree, Paul, I really, Mr. Wiley, I really enjoy working with you. And I'm just excited to be part of this group. And I thought the community chat also went really well. If nothing else comes out of this group, maybe more community engagement, I guess. Well, thank you, Paul. I'm sorry. I had to access the community chat on website, the community chat. The community chats. I don't know if there's an extra link for the... The website? We can send you the link. Okay. It was fabulous, by the way, Ms. Pat. Send it again? It was fabulous. Oh, good. Thank you, you guys. You don't have to look. You don't have to go look at it. I will. Thank you all for all your hard work. And I appreciate the time and effort you're making to be here. I would like to take a motion to adjourn our meeting for this evening. I move to adjourn the meeting. Thank you, Ms. Ferrer. Ms. Ferrer, you're in the meeting seconded by Ms. Pat. All those in favor, you just wave your hand. Thank you. Thank you for all your work. And we will see you on screen next week. Bye-bye. Thank you. Have a good rest of the weekend. Bye, everyone. So...