 Yeah, anyway. Yeah, you guys should record this anyways though it's there's no decision making necessarily being made today but it is good conversation to have about things that are going on in the community so I'm gonna pop off and have a good meeting guys. Thank you. All righty. So, it looks like it's us guys still read the pursuit chapter 20 since we're not a quorum. Now. Yeah, we're not taking any votes right we're committing that we're not taking any votes while we're being recorded we're not going to vote on a. Yeah, right. We cannot. And did you hear from the other members that they're unable to attend. I know that Rick I've heard from earlier today, he definitely can he's a, he's running a practice. Okay. Then did Jen say that that Liz was having like technical difficulties is that what I think that's what she said about Jen, and then Juliana she said is not. Okay. So yeah, I, I think you should read the chapter but just state that because there's a lack of a quorum that you will not be engaging any decision making. Yeah. Okay. You want to read a better, you got it up or no. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. I was about to say I have to look for it. In pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 this meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone see instructions below. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological needs. And I will reiterate that we will not be voting on anything we have no action items today. Awesome. And it does look like we do have members from the public so we can have public comment and I just want to remind everybody that we cannot engage in any public comment they are just, they're just here are spectators. So if any members from the public wish to speak please raise your hand, we will bring you in. Hi, can you hear me. Yes, we can. Oh, hi, my name is Vera. Duong mini cage I live at 12 long metal drive apartment 21 and Amherst, and I go by she her pronouns. I wanted to share a Gazette news article that was published this week. The line is Amherst man victim of possible hate crime near Yale University. I was contacted through Facebook Messenger by one of the friends family about this incident. So, it involves. Also a go fund me in the article. And I wanted to see if the Human Rights Commission can look into it. An issue, a statement of support or solidarity or at least reach out to the family formally to to offer our communities support while they go through the healing process and the stages of, you know, repairing their body. And I guess there was some real major physical injuries to to the victim. And let's see. So, one part of the article it says, since being discharged from a hospital about a week after the incident Rosa has been recuperating at his mother's home. His sister Jocelyn like his sister and mother Rosa had worked at the one always on and Amherst, he graduated from Belcher town high school in 2015 and had been a member of its football team at the main street restaurant near the main counter his pictures on a poster along with the description of what happened and qr code along people to directly access the fundraiser and moving on to my other. I think that I wanted to raise with the commission. I did forward earlier today in late afternoon. Some information about open meeting law. Public violations. And when public bodies would be committing OML violations. And I think I had heard in the community circulating that, you know, if, if a public comment, and even in your notice to the public announcing this meeting. That you know that not responding to public comments in real time is something that is that's an internal decision and not something specific to any OML citation, because that's, you know, OML generally is not invite there's no violation of open meeting law. If there were to be discussions on topics raised in public comment that are not listed in the meeting agenda. If the chair co chair did not anticipate it. You know, 48 hours. So, so there's more to the email that I sent and I hope the committee reviews that and adjust your notices accordingly to follow along with the law. And I'll leave my public comment at that. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. I do just want to put on the record that Liz figured is now in the meeting and I believe that brings us to, does that bring us to a core. Yeah, we're technically supposed to have nine members, but we don't have nine members so that would be the problem. You're on mute. I believe that you're still required to have five members, because it's a nine member board. Okay. So you're, you would need one other person to be at that point. Got it understood that still at public comment of this meeting any other. People from the public would like to speak. Please raise your hand. I don't see any other hands raised at this time. All right. Then we will move on from public comment. We have HRC member reports. I have for sunrise Amherst or some get sunrise Amherst they are putting together. Know your rights workshop, but they have asked us to co-sponsor with. We're going to have that event on October 3rd after our retreat, not during. And it would be via zoom, but as soon as I have more information on that and a link, I will send it out and we will advertise on our Facebook and get it out to members. And like, as I said, it's a know your rights workshop. It's what they're putting together. And then for Latinx heritage month, we are putting together something. Victor myself and Jen have been working on for October 15th at Kendrick Park. I believe the time is still being determined, but we are working on that because we do have the Amherst. Market happening at that time. And then I believe a site or run is happening at that time as well. But we are looking to hopefully do it around 12 o'clock. And we're looking to have food vendors there performers and music and Amherst colleges. Cosponsor in that event so that will be good. Any questions there. Do you have a question or no, I just want to. Can you hear me. October 15th is also the ABC for foliage walk. Okay, do we know what time of that is. No. Okay, I'll look into it. Thank you for bringing that to my. You want to mute or something with. I think she's frozen, at least on my screen. Yeah, all right, some technical difficulties. Like that is the theme of the night. All right, well, Elizabeth, you hear us or get back on. Just, you can chime in or put it in the chat. That's all I have for member reports. Anybody else have anything for member reports. I have another shameless plug, like I do every time, but the school equity advisory committee, which I'm also a part of is still looking for members. We can never have too many folks speaking out about equity in our schools. So I guess I, and I guess I would be the point. I don't guess I would be the point of contact for that. If anybody was interested. If anybody else. Nope. All right, then that brings us to our first agenda item. We have the APD police police video. I sent out an email as it was given to me earlier today. In regards to. The family's. Response and kind of giving a place to give their. Statement out. To the public. And then there was also an attachment of quotes from how. The victims of this incident, which would be the children. Felt during that time. What. They perceived was happening during that time and. Just all kind of. Around that nature. You know, that came in. Earlier today. Then you there. Liz. Victor. Yeah. Any comments or. We lost Liz. Difficulties here too. Yeah, so I didn't have a chance to read it. Other than like specifics about their response. It's mainly a statement from the family put out. This is kind of our. Our. Only response that we have gotten from family. And from. I'm sorry. Trying to get it. And from the children's response to. How they felt during that time. And more so the reason why it's being brought up and put into our purview is. Because of. Our nature of being able to. File a complaint. As a human rights commission. And. The hope is to. Get. This document. Into some type of recognition. Either that be from the town that be from us that be from. The police report that. I believe still has not gone out. So that way. The voices are heard on. The other side of the incident. Have we gotten any indication from ATD as to like when we might see some sort of report. I have not. It seems like. This seems like a long time like July. It was. Like two and a half months ago. Yeah. So my understanding is that. Following the town council meeting. I'm not sure of the date. I think that was August 15th. I'm not again. I'm not sure, but the town council meeting. That the police were instructed to make contact with all of the families involved. And that they attempted to do so. By phone. It's my knowledge. To my knowledge, they were, they only. They only had two families. I don't think there were more than two families that responded to their attempts for further information and contact. And then they were directed to finalize their internal investigation. Was there, was there any other means besides directly talking to the police for the families? Like, was there any sort of like a mediator? There, there is not. So the way the town is really stymied because the only avenue for investigation of police misconduct currently is through the police department. So there's not another. Method by which families could, you know, file a complaint other than bringing it to the detention of, you know, the human rights commission. So, um, any absence of like a civilian oversight board or some other type of. A, some other type of. Avenue. Directly contacting the police is really it. And only. The police department has the authority to. Uh, investigate or, you know, make recommendations for discipline or any of those actions, like the only authority to do that rest with them. So. Yeah. I'm just thinking like as a parent. If my issue was that the. That a member of the APD had told my son that he lacks constitutional rights. I might be reluctant to talk to them, but I guess they did send us this statement, right? So is it possible to present that? Like, I know we're not in quorum, but can we get that on the public record? Is that a thing we could do? So I think that was, um, that. So Philip this afternoon did send me the two, uh, letters, but, um, and asked if I could attach them to the agenda. It's my understanding that in order for them to be part of the agenda, it needed to be the agenda needs to be posted 48 hours in advance of the, of the meeting. But I did say that, um, because that was already listed, the Emmer's police department video was listed as a discussion item that they could be discussed, but I don't, I think it was, I think we would have, we needed to have, um, posted them 48 hours in advance of the meeting, but they're because the topic is already open for discussion. I think they're, it's okay for us to have the car or for you guys to have the conversation. I'm just thinking like it's cool committee. Like if we have it on the agenda, as long as we have it in the packet before we get rolling it, it's usually. It usually works or I guess we could. I guess if we're going by the books, we could wait till number three or six. I mean, sorry. I don't know why I just made up the number three. No, so I think it's appropriate for, for, I mean, the Emmer's police department, Facebook video is listed as the first, um, action and discussion items. So I think that you're perfectly. Okay. Okay. Okay. To have the conversation about the information because it was listed as a topic. But my understanding is that. In order that the packet had to be posted, the agenda packet had to be posted 48 hours. I believe that that was, um, part of the, of the first public comment. So, um, as you all know, I am, uh, fairly new to this role. So I may be incorrect. But, um, I knew that it was certainly appropriate for discussion because it was listed as a discussion item. But my understanding there was that the agenda had, uh, impact should have been posted 48 hours in advance of them, of the meeting. So then are we able to share screen and put this up? Or is that basically. I, I don't know the answer to that. I don't know the answer to that. I think you probably could, um, share a screen and put it up, you know, because the meeting is being recorded and, um, and the topic has been listed. And, um, you would be seeing at the same time as any members of the, of the public or, or who are attending. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like the, I mean, that's like the most recent addition that we have to the discussion. I mean, you know, I don't have to talk about it blind, you know, right? Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. All right. This is going to be the statement by the families. Let's see if I can get it going. Is that sharing. Yes. Uh, Ben, do you mind reading out loud here? I think I can bear with me here. All right. So it has been a little over two months since two armed and uniformed Amherst police officers responded to a noise complaint at a working class apartment complex as many were settling in from independent state festivities. Police with their cruisers and flashing lights pulled into the apartment complex parking lot. Found a group of young teens to assert their power and responsibility and deprive them wrongfully of their constitutional rights. The teens were instructed to sit on the pavement in a row like suspects in a police lineup. Of the nine youth involved. Six are black and Latino. They are our sons. Try to put yourself in our son's shoes. They were simply waiting. And congregating in a friend's parking lot to provide a company meant and comfort in a distressing and unfortunate time when they heard a friend was stuck with a flat tire. This is what grownups call mutual aid. They weren't going anywhere until that friend's problems were resolved. Our sons. With the wrong color at the wrong time. Some who have lived here longer than the ages of our boys. We'll tell it like it is that our color has always been the wrong color for Amherst and based on our based on color. Have always and forever. In a target and will forever be a target. A target of unfair punishment, interrogation. Detention and harassment. Our children have been traumatized. Not by brutal police force. But by the blunt force of racism. And the suffocation of racial profiling. That they have witnessed. And now have experienced themselves over and over again. We look forward to continuing solidarity work. With the community safety and social justice committee to achieve our goals while protecting our children. Their identities in their future. A quote from the parents. It is just so unfortunate. I chose to live here and raise children because I thought it would be different here because of diversity. Our children feel unsafe regarding what they have seen in the U.S. With police and young people of color as well as adults. And they thought they were protected here. They took away the trust and belief of safety. They and we are supposed to have. While our kids are out there. Why didn't they make them feel safe as they waited for triple A. Parents teach kids to trust the police and call on them for help. And they took that away. The chief of police is chalking it up to having a slice of pizza with our children. To smooth out the harm. Let me run that back. Sorry. The chief of police chalking it up to having a slice of pizza with our children to smooth out the harm is offensive and disrespectful. Nothing close to that is going to melt away feelings of unease and unrest in our hearts and minds from the damage done. Thank you Ben for reading that. I'm happy I was able to actually see. I was not being used to being. So I'll open it up to the group for any. Anything that anybody wants to say right now. Not to put anyone on the spot. I'm kind of interested in what. What victors take on this is I know we discussed it before. But have you. I mean, you're closer to their. Age bracket and demographic. I know personally. I'm very. Not understanding of the situation, but I see where these kids are coming from and then. Reading the quotes of the. Young people themselves. It kind of puts myself in a shoe. What would I have done if I were in their situation. And in any other given circumstance, something like that could happen to me. I know I've been in situations where I've been driving and I've seen the police officer behind me and I'm like. You know, I don't know. I can't say that I'm, I feel protected. I feel like now, especially after this event, like there's a target on my back. I feel like. There's just so much that. Us as. Young people are often neglected for when we speak up for ourselves. As well as. I feel like the fight. That we have to endure. Is different from which the adults understand. And in a way. We sort of have to. Navigate and kind of go through this on our own. For like. At least in our school, everyone is very upset with the circumstances that has come from this. People are still not happy with the way that the Amherst police department has dealt with this. I mean, you know, I think when it's come to what an apology is, like taking them out to get food doesn't really. Correlate with. The actual. Words or actions that these kids and families really need. And it's gone to the point where we're not understanding. We just want something to actually get done. In a way where it's this will not happen again, rather than I'm sorry this happened, but there's nothing we can do. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point from over here. Did the chief of police actually, I know that they said the chief of police took the kids for pizza. But what about the two officers involved? Have they reached back or reached out to anybody? The. Pizza comment is from the August 15th. Town meeting that was a suggestion from the chief of police to have an outreach kind of circle. And then the chief of police. And then the chief of police engagement with the children. I do not believe that has happened yet. Kamala, do you know otherwise? Because it's. Police to go. And try to make amends, but it would be more powerful for the kids. And that we're involved. And for people like Victor and my sons. And my grandsons. And Miss. Children. Darius. Because I know the fear is there. For the people that were involved to express their wrongs, not to the newspaper, because apparently there was something in the newspaper, but why don't the people that were involved reach back and make some kind of a men's or apology or. You know, whatever. To the students and the families involved as opposed to the chief of police. I don't think that the chief. Or the officers have involved have spoken with anyone. Directly. So I think the only direct contact. From the police department has been from the. Officer who was investigating. And again, that's. To my knowledge, I could be wrong, but I, I don't, I don't think that any direct contact other than the. Investigating officer has happened. So. Thank you for that. I'm going to screen share the other document that was shared with me and sent out to this group. Just so that way that can be put on record. This is. Quote from the actual people. And I want to say that again, the actual people victims. Involved in this situation. And how it is. I think that. I think that. This incident happened. And. I just want to. Maybe pull out a couple of them. There are a lot of them. And I am sorry that we may not be able to read through them all, but I do like I am saying, I do want to put this on record. I do want this to. Be out there. For the public, but. Am I safe. To walk alone or with anyone really? Someone after that incident. Am I safe enough to even walk down the street? To what degree am I to be concerned with my own safety? Again, I'm only pulling out a couple. The police were yelling power tripping. They were yelling. We were detained. They were yelling. We had no rights. And so. Overall. When you go through this, when you read them all, and I do hope that every commissioner on this. Committee does have time to read them all in. I believe we will have access to. Share this out in some way, whether that be in. In any case, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why I'm posting of the. Meeting and or on our own website, because I couldn't see why that's not. Or why that is an issue or anything. It is basically. Over and over again. Saying. The interpretation of being told. That you have no right. By. Someone of authority. Police officer in this incident. I don't know. I don't know. For these individuals. To kind of just. Abide by whatever they're being told. And I am really sorry. I might get a little emotional. I really tried to read this in, but. This can be the defining moment. In these. Young. Individuals lives. Right. I think we can all think back up to when that first incident of racism happened to us. Or that first incident where we can recall. And it saddens me so much that this has happened in our town. And I really think that to Victor's point. The response has been not a great response. And that these kids are going to have to live with this. For the rest of their lives. For the rest of their lives. And I think that. You can't even walk down the street. You can't even drive your car with your friend. You can't even help someone in their time of need of getting a flat tire. Because I think we all have been there in one way or another with the car of. Hey, like, oh my gosh, like I need a ride home where I need something. You can't even rely. To call 911 in that incident. I think that that's really what's hitting it home for me is that. What it appears as a town, what it appears from the PD. Is that we don't care enough with these BIPOC individuals. I've gone through. In a defining moment in their life. Yeah. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. I mean. For one, I think about like. So my son. I mean, the majority of his friends look like him and live in like this. I live in a similar neighborhood, right? Like, so. To me, this kind of codifies. I try to let go of like, like how you talk about the trauma that's formed. Like. I recall having incidents when I first got my driver's license that I've not let go of. It actually like, like. This validates the fact that I tell my kid that like, that's. You know, Mr. Roger said in situations of. Chaos you look for the helpers. I tell my kid that that's not who you look for for the helpers. You know, and it's horrible that I have to say that even living here in Amherst. I moved up here from Hartford, Connecticut to avoid. This type of situation. Only to realize. And I'll be blunt. I did not realize as a result of. July 5th, 2022 that that's what we were dealing with here. I mean, I think. There, there is on this, this call she can. Vouch for the fact that like, like, even when I was running for office, I was waiting for my campaign manager. And I was waiting for my campaign manager to say, you know, I am going to be on this call. And I'm going to be on this call. And he's also there. But I got like ID check by Amherst PD by like young revved up cops or whatever, and like. So, I mean, it's our kids should be protected, right? Like that's, that's what their role was when they came there. Even in the report, it said that the reason that those kids could not leave. Was because they were in the quote unquote care. Of the police at that point, that's their job is to keep them safe. That's exactly what should have been verbalized. here to help you, anything like that, right? Like, I mean, I work in the schools and you absolutely do not put the punitive down right away that you have no rights. As far as I know, like our police department doesn't differ from every other police department in the nation, right? They swearing off to the uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, right? Like, so how do you do that? How do you hold that oath and then tell our little black and brown kids that they don't have rights under the Constitution? They are the authority. They are who essentially represents the law, right? Like the law in like an active way in our lives, right? There's a lot of entities that represent the law, but they are the direct first line representation of the law and that Constitution that they uphold. And that to me, that's the part that I'm like most incensed about that. Like, you're here to protect and serve. You didn't protect those kids. You didn't serve those kids. You threatened those kids. You know, you traumatized those kids. And so that's the part where I can't get over like the, I mean, even the notion that you would, the inference that you would sit down with these kids for pizza. If you're the boss of the people who treats my kid like that, there's no sitting down and breaking bread. You need to make this right. You know, you need to do things to make them whole. You want these same kids at some point, you're gonna want them to cooperate with you, to act yes with you with your investigation at some point. I've seen this recently, like without talking about the day job but they're not going to do that. You know, they don't trust you. You already threatened to them. You've proven that you were a threat to them. And your superiors upheld that. Even if passively, I'm not gonna say, I won't say that the chief Livingstone is walking around saying that these officers did a fine job and this is what we're training people to do. I also don't know that that never happened, right? Because there hasn't been any sort of public statement or no finality. And again, I mean, this is a very long drawn out investigation, you know? I mean, this is a long drawn out investigation for something that at least the segment of it was witnessed via video. You'd think that you'd want to wrap that up sooner than later. And I mean, I don't know. I think the responsibility is still on them to make this matter right. And it still is not right. I just want to say that firmly that this still has not been made right. So that's where I'm at. I'm gonna try to keep it at that because I think everything else I have to say after that is inflammatory. So thanks for that, Ben. Liz or Victor, do you have anything to add? Only that what Ben just professed is some of the things that we talked about when we first had the February 1st meeting after the video surfaced. And so it's unfortunate that this is now the third meeting in which we're talking about the same thing with no resolve. I also want to add that I think that the inability to apologize or at least just have some type of conversation with the victims involved has also impacted our community to believe that this will be a reoccurring thing. Or I know that unfortunately many people have asked me already kind of what the police officers have done in a way to say that this is not who they are or this is not what the APD represents. But everybody knows they have not done it in a manner for anyone to believe them. Or at least I know that many of the other BIPOC youth that are a part of my school feel all types of anger and fear towards the police officers in every way but also they themselves don't want to be victims of this type of crime. And even though I don't know what the literal I don't like consequences of this could be but to many they just don't feel safe where many of us grew up realizing that Amherst is not like any other city or town many of us grew up with our parents telling us that we live here because there really is no type of violence there's not too much that many of us can get involved in but it's scary to believe that the only thing we have to fear is being pulled over by a police officer being told that we have no rights and then being power tripped in a way where the only people that we're supposed to call on any emergency or in any time where we need help are the people that we have to actually ignore or be the last result to actually call. And it's just really, I'm trying to like calm down because there are many ways that I feel right now but like it's just so, I don't even know it's just I've felt so much I've talked to so many people and still no one is able to actually say oh I understand what they're doing or oh I understand why they're not saying anything because no one does, no one can explain why the officers aren't contacting anybody and I think that's one of the most vital parts that's missing from this investigation is the silence which is just ultimately adding to this irreversible image that the police department will have if they don't have this type of reassurance to the victims and our youth as well. So I just wanna be clear about one point which is that I believe that the police department has concluded their investigation as I said earlier. It's my belief that there was an attempt made to contact all of the family members and only two family members or two families responded in some way. I think that they have definitely concluded their investigation and Victor to answer in part your question about why things are not more apparent in part it's because of the way in which the discipline has to occur within a police department. So not to make this all about the law but the police officers operate under a collective bargaining agreement and that contract between the police officers in the town dictates how they will be disciplined in the manner that it will take place and what types of information would be shared publicly if any and in most cases of any employer whether it's a town or private employer most employee disciplinary actions are generally not made public. That I think is one reason why there has been such a strong push in the town to have a civilian or resident oversight board of police matters because that would allow for more clarity, oversight, transparency about the actions that were taking place. But we don't have that yet as a way in which to have the conversation. And so I think it will be really important in throughout this year to make sure that the board the resident oversight board is created in a way that meets the needs of the community members and drafting and creating that board so that it has all of the power that is deemed necessary to have these conversations. So recently discussed there was a case in Petsville of a man who was killed by Petsville police and there was an attempt by their civilian oversight board to have more investigation, more conversation about that particular incident. And unfortunately the ways in which they had created the board didn't allow them to. So I'm not trying to justify but I'm just wanna give you that as an explanation of about why things are happening in the way in which they are occurring. And I guess the hope would be that as the resident oversight board or civilian oversight board comes to pass that the transparency that you see would be created. Thank you for that panel. Ben, are you saying something you're on mute? I am, I'm apparently saying it to myself once of a dog in the corner. But no, one of the questions that I have with this in terms of not being able to contact all of the families involved. And like I said, if the police officer had wronged my son I'd be a little bit reluctant to go ahead and chop it up if you have a great conversation or anything. But like we also knew that Crest was going to come online September 6th. I mean, did they not have the ability to wait for them to come online? Cause we actually got the right people in those positions. Many, or I'll say at least some of whom are very familiar with folks involved, right? So I feel like that they would be more trusting or maybe they're looking at this as a lesson going forward but I'm not sure that that makes any of this feel better. You know what I mean? Like I get it, like I supervise people that are under a CBA and like, you know, I have to go along with certain things but like I don't think I've ever heard that I can't allow anyone to like make amends or anything, you know what I mean? Right. So I mean, obviously I can't speak to the actions of the individual officers. I don't know, you know, what they're thinking or what actions they wanna take or not take. And there was some conversation, actually I think from the CSSJC to, I think there was a call meaning a call for action to have the Crest responders have conversations with the youth that was involved. So I don't know why that did not occur. Yeah, I don't know why. And I, although the investigation is complete, I mean, there still would be the possibility maybe that the Crest responders might have conversations. Although I don't know, I mean, the information that they obtain, I don't know whether that would then be, have the ability to be a part of the investigation. Like it's not gonna, it's still gonna be external to the collective bargaining agreement at this time. So I'm not really sure. Yeah. I can get that and I understand that for the purposes of these statements and this draft by the family members involved, how can the Human Rights Commission, the DEI department take that information in and what can we do from this moment since it, and also I have a question on the police report. Are we going to get that since we filed a complaint with them? You would think that they would wanna at least full circle us into that conversation. And can that be public? Is that gonna be public? What's going on with that? So I, in my role as the DEI director did receive a letter from one of the family members that I immediately gave to the Amherst police department. So they had that information as part of all of the information that they obtained. And my understanding is that they did, although they only talked with the two families, that they did attempt to talk with every family. And some people were not interested for whatever reasons and having conversations with them. So I'm not quite sure about what the procedure would be. I was under the understanding that the police department was going to respond formally to your complaint. But I don't... There's a lot of missing pieces. I know that you haven't received anything, but I was under the understanding that you would would have were supposed to receive some sort of response. So I guess at this point, since that complaint is still out there from the HRC and you have not received a response. So that is still an open avenue. It is probably possible for you to submit this additional information to the police department. At least it will be formally a part of the records that they have. But I do believe, as I said, they've completed their formal investigation. I don't know if that report would be made public. I just don't know the answer to that. So I'm trying to figure out how to avoid this, right? But so even if it's not released publicly, shouldn't we get some glimpse or glimmer of what all that investigation entailed and at least what their findings were? So I don't think that's going to be the case. So again, I'm hesitant to speak because I just don't know the process. I don't want to say something is the process and then be incorrect about it. And to be quite honest, in the short term, I don't know if the HRC has ever submitted a complaint to another town department, regardless of what that department was, whether police or something else. The only information about that I have about human rights commissions, sort of complaints of inquiries have all been between private citizens in the town. And so one of the things that's up for discussion at the retreat is what should the procedure be for this body? And what I've been told in the past has been the procedure is that generally a complaint has come in by an individual against another individual or a business and that in the past, the Human Resources Director sort of served as the adjudicatory board or the person who was gonna hear both sides of that complaint and then try to really mediate a some sort of resolution. Because one of the things that Jennifer and I had conversations about when she was telling me how the HRC had worked in the past, it's my opinion. And if you have two lawyers, you'll have like five opinions, but it's my opinion that what the board is illegally able to do is very restricted. And if you go and look at the bylaws that create the Human Rights Commission, it sort of states in the very last sentence that basically this body has the ability to refer cases to other state or federal agencies. Like, you know, we can serve as a mediator, but we don't in the bylaws or by state or federal law really have the authority to hear cases come to a decision, investigate. Like it's not something that the HRC has the authority to do. And I said, you know, again, this is in my opinion, other people may feel differently, but if you read the bylaws, they're pretty clear about what the authority is for this body. We do have the right or authority to bump it up to the state level if we do not get satisfactory. Yes, so the HRC would, and as I said, that this is based on my understanding of what's happened in the past, is that, you know, the body would hear complaints from individuals against other individuals or other bodies or companies. And then they would have the authority to try to mediate a solution. And then if they were unsuccessful in that mediation, you know, the natural place for most of the complaints that would come before this body would be the mass commission against discrimination. But, you know, they could also go to an attorney general's office for consumer protection office or to the EEOC, which is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. I mean, there are other bodies that would actually have the authority to. So there's some very interesting not to get off topic sort of legal questions. One of the other ones that was raised is that, how do you have these conversations confidentially if you're a public body? And some of the examples of the other HRCs that I've provided for the board to consider state very specifically that the role of the investigator or mediator for the Human Rights Commission is to mediate. And there are state laws in place that would state specifically or whole specifically that mediation conversations can be confidential. So they would be outside of the public, you know, the open meeting law. And there was a hand raised if you want to return for additional public comment. Yeah, I'm okay with dinner, but before we go to that hand raised, I just do want to say or want to put on record here that I do want something to come from this other than I send an email to the police department for them to put on record to go, oh, thanks, we're done with our investigation anyways, but like thanks for trying type of thing. Because if the town has created this body and the town has created a way for a complaint to go through other than the police department, I do feel as if we do need to have some type of way to have a resolution that doesn't involve the police department, whether that be kind of this committee, now that the DEI department is created someone to in this particular incident, someone to basically look at it and be like, yeah, you know what that officer's comments really taken for what it is by the individual of authority seems to be something happening here. Take out the legal part of it, take out everything off of it. Otherwise, I feel like we are just a performative group in the town's eyes, and that's not what I want to be a part of and not what I think that this commission is about. I was gonna say, I think we should probably definitely put it on our next agenda, but we should exercise all of our options. Or at least we should have a discussion about exercising all of our options. Like I do like the idea of pumping it up the line. I also feel like, I don't know how anyone else feels about this. I also do feel like that we should probably communicate our frustrations with how this whole thing is playing out to the public. Like I've never been a fan of HRC making 50 million public statements, but I think if there's like an issue worth talking about, we should not shut up. Yeah, I agree. So Ben, unfortunately you missed the meeting in July in which we had decided and voted on making this a part of our meetings monthly until we were satisfied that we either got a response or had some resolution. So we did vote on that in July when this first came up our very first meeting. So this will be on the agenda until we say it's not. So I'm not being like an authoritarian jerk here by saying that I think- No, no, not at all. We are all on the same page there. Good, good, good. All right, unless anybody else has anything else that they wanted to add into that. Ben, unless you see otherwise, I think that allowing public comment is great in this conversation. All right, can we allow that person in? Good evening. My name is Pat Anani Baku and I wanna thank the commissioners for speaking through to the power. I know this is a very difficult conversation and I thank you all for the discussion. So I am the liaison of the BIPOC families and youth that are involved for the July 5th incident. And I know some of you or all of you know some of the kids involved are will just ask that we remember to keep them in confidence, confidentiality because these kids are their youth and whatever goes into internet will follow them the rest of their lives. I'm not saying anybody mentioned any names but just for you guys to bear that in mind. As I listen to all of you and I've been so worried about HRC structure, I think your group may wanna think about contacting the town council to revise some of the bylaw because I feel that this commission have talented commissioners that can come up with good ideas and advice and actually implement decisions but it seems to me that the way it's set up you guys don't have too much decision making powers and that's needs to be changed. And it has to start from the town council they need to revise the bylaw. And one thing that has not been mentioned during your discussion was about asking the kids what exactly do they want? What will make them whole? What does healing look for them? And as a liaison of some of the families what I heard from them is they want therapy, they want counseling. And as we know, it costs a lot of money. And that's why I've been pushing for justice compensation fund. I don't want people to confuse it with victim compensation fund but it was suggested to switch this to justice compensation fund. So that these kids can get the help. This will stick with them the rest of their lives. It's lifelong. They're going to need continuous help and even for some of their families. And we need to think about the personal healing of these kids and their family. And yes, it will cost money and our town needs to pay up. I'm sure if this case are like middle class families upper middle class, they will be lawyering up because I know that's what I would do. If it happened to my kid or my grandkids I would have hired lawyer long time ago. So anything without financial compensation isn't going to make these kids whole at all. Our community will not heal either. So we need to do that. For middle class families, they get settled robustly. Why should we have a different standard for low income kids? Thank you. Can I just say to Pat, thank you for your comments and thank you for being who you are. You know, she and I go way back. We have children who went to school together and now we have grandchildren around the same age. I to this day have no idea who any of the children I don't know who I don't know how many. And for me, it doesn't matter. It matters to them. If I know who they are and I can provide some kind of comfort I have not been able to do that because I don't know who it is. And if other people are doing that, I'm fine with that. As a commissioner and as someone who again this has been my third formal meeting since this incident if I can provide anything to any of these families I will definitely be willing to do that. And as far as I understand the direct impact to those children because I've had a situation with both of my sons at one point one with a new mouse poop PD and one with Amherst PD where I had to go to bat for both of them. And because of who I am, you know, things changed and things got different because I wasn't gonna shut up but other folks don't have the strength if that's a good word that I have that Pat has that Vera has that some other families have when these kinds of situations come up so I wholeheartedly agree that reaching out and seeing what they would like. And if I can be a part of that healing of discussion or whatever, please call on me and that's what I need to say. Thank you for putting that out there. I will say for an overall, I do hope that everyone on this call, everyone in our community fills up the HRC is a place to come to, to be heard and that goes back to my comments and to Liz, Ms. Heygud's comments about pointing out that this will be on our agenda until we feel satisfied that something has come about from it and not just the statement by the police that say we investigated it, we didn't see anything about it and let's all move on because that's not good enough. Yeah, there's a lot going on. It's not about what I'm thinking. So on one level, I think like how we do get the public to feel like they can come to us for situations is to be effective in this matter right here. This is kind of a tip of the iceberg moment for us as a commission and the idea of, so yes, I wanna speak to the one thing that the us petitioning the town council to explore that bylaw to allow us to be more effective. I think that's another issue we should probably have, we should probably try to get that on the agenda for our retreat, like how that advocacy looks to the, or that advocacy to the town council looks for us. But yeah, the idea of making sure that they're made whole after this, I mean, that has to be central to everything. And I don't just necessarily mean financially but I don't not mean financially either, but these are human beings, right? They have a lot of life to live. And like, I personally can speak to how these situations reverberate throughout your life, right? Like situations I had as a teenager, I mean, I'm 45 years old and they're still fresh. You know, I didn't have people to come in and intervene and make it right. And so like based on that, I feel like this is that moment in time that we have to do the right thing and make sure that other people do the right thing, right? That's kind of part of our charge here. Yep, so I will be submitting and I'll do that tonight after this meeting, that email with this extra statement from the family and the quotes from the victims of this situation to the police department. And I will also include in there to add that into the report and we will see what happens at that moment. I can't give anything else other than that. As far as from the human rights complaint, Pamela, is there anything that we can do on that end from the human rights likes that someone made a complaint to the Human Rights Commission? Can we get that in these documents in that way? Hold on. I believe that it's already a part of the police department because at least in conversations, they know that the police department was aware that a complaint had come in through the HRC because a letter was submitted. So my, I mean, I haven't seen their record so I don't know 100% but my belief is that that's already a part of their ongoing record of their record. Got it. And as far as the DEI department. Do you have any purview, any, I guess opinion about how to go about it in that way? So yeah, so I am somewhat limited in what I can do as well by the collective bargaining agreement. And what, as I said, what I did do was reach out to the police department, had an inquiry about the incident. I did receive some additional information. I knew that they were conducting more investigation by reaching out to the family after the, I can't remember, after the big town meeting that there was requests to follow up and have additional conversations. So I know that that has happened. I received the letter from the family that I provided that to the police department. The, you know, this role is being developed in, and so there hasn't been, I think to date, a lot of thought about what authority the director would have to investigate or make recommendations or, you know, any of those sorts of things. So that is also a question for this, you know, for this role. I think the, you know, the most important thing that could happen would be, and this is, I'll say, would be the creation of the resident oversight board. And to have that created in a way that really, at least for the police department, because that won't apply for other issues that might come before the HRC, but the most important thing that could happen as far as oversight for the police department would be the creation of the oversight board. There is an existence, currently, a state legislation that allows any person to report incidents to this newly formed creation called POST, is the short name for the legislation. And it's like the peace officer's safety training, I'm not sure of the name, but basically any allegations of harassment, abuse, discrimination for a wide range of categories is now mandated by state law that that information be submitted to POST. So I do know that the Amherst police department is in compliance with POST, the way the statute was written in order for the Commonwealth to have all of the police officers in the Commonwealth go through the process, they were sort of doing like a rolling startup where like a third of the departments go through and then another third and another third. So over a three-year period, all of the officers would have to submit information about it. And so that would be another possibility as a place where, as I talked about early, like the role of this commission as it's currently written is somewhat restricted, but you would have the ability to send information elsewhere and that would be one place where for law enforcement, you could send additional information. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. So I just have to say it is, I know I came late. I'm actually at another school and a district doing other work. So I'm happy to excuse myself for today. I will see you all on the 15th at some point. Hi, Liz, are you coming in with us? Let me back up. I will see everybody on the second. All right, just wanted to make sure. Oh yeah, it's already in my calendar. All right. It's 9 a.m. right now. For those on the commission and those in the audience, please have a blessed and safe week and till we see each other again, everybody, stay well. Bye, Liz, thank you. You too, see it. Then I had already spoke to the workshop and I will send out a reminder. This is the next line item on the agenda. I'll send out a reminder of the know your rights workshop that Sunrise Amherst is doing. And then we have Amherst presentation or preparation support for migrant families. Immigrant families, yeah. So Jen, I think places on the agenda, she just wanted the HRC to be aware of. You might be aware that there was a hoax call that came into Town Hall alleging that there were busloads of immigrant families coming from Texas. And in response to that, the town manager mobilized with Northampton to set up a protocol so that we do, that call turned out to be a hoax, but Amherst could be a target city because it is a sanctuary city. And just wanted to make sure that the commission was aware that there is a protocol in place and an emergency management plan that if the situation arises, we do have a plan in place that would be able to, come together to assist families if they arrive in the community. So. Yeah, I appreciate that. Do you mind, can you share that with the commission? Like send that out on an email or something? Sure, I don't. You mean the plan itself or just the self? Yeah, like the, what the response be. Just, okay. So I have not seen it, but I can ask about that. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. Okay. And also if you could send that to the CSSJC as well. That would be great. Yeah. Then we have updates. Do you have? Yeah. So the first one I think would have been from Liz, but she's no, that's the Amherst housing trust fund. So that's done. The African heritage reparations assembly was at the black party, had distributed a postcards so that residents of Amherst, who identify as from African heritage can now go on to engage Amherst and log into their portal and start to self identify. And they are in the midst of planning a number of different community engagement events to sort of continue to spread the word about the reparations plan and are also continuing discussions about what criteria would be and what might be offered in reparations. So that's the ongoing work for them. In the DEI department, we are still working on a strategic plan that would be rolled out for our department and for the town. We've gotten a little bit bogged down and sort of the narrative why story, but that is ongoing work. And I'm trying to think if there's been anything else that's been a big push for DEI, I would say just maybe doing some research to support the African heritage reparations assembly about what the content of their page might be. And I'm drawing a blank on other things. The CSSJC will meet next week. I did not attend their last meeting, but I believe there are ongoing conversations obviously about the Amherst police department and also about funding and the CBDG grants, those types of individuals. So you were there, you probably speak to that. The resident oversight board is a topic for discussion at the next meeting of the CSSJC. So that will be discussed there. I did send out to that group. And I believe did I send to you as well, Philip, the draft of what the timeline would be to share with HRC? I'm not sure, but so those discussions are, yeah, those discussions, I think you asked for it. So I'm hoping I sent it. Yes, yes, that does ring a bell. I'm sorry, I have to go back in my mind, that's good. So those discussions should begin next week. Cress, as you guys know, went live on September 6th in chats with Earl and Kat and the responders that I've seen, things are going really well in their first week. They had over 500 contacts with various individuals. They walked down, basically hit all of the businesses in the downtown area. And so they're feeling very, very good about their launch. And they've hired and a new implementation case manager, I can't remember the title, I'm like, it's tired, it's late and I'm getting tired. So I'm getting tongue tied, but they have hired a new case implementation manager. And I believe that she started either last, I think she must have started last week. So there's a new hire there, yeah. Yeah, I know you're not Earl and you don't know the ins and outs of it, but do we know if they're responding as responses met well with the community, kind of like how the hell all that's going on. I'm just interested in that as well. So my understanding is that the responses are going well. So Earl and the police department and fire department and dispatch together created a list of what would be the first types of calls that they would respond to. And that protocol seems to be working. I do know that they had one call where they spent five hours on particular individual in one situation. So some of the calls have been very time consuming, but I haven't heard anything negative about the way in which the rollout has gone. So I think he's very pleased with how things are going. Yeah, that's great. Thank you for all those reports. I know that was a lot of reports to lift on there. Next, we have event tabling. And I believe that that was put on the agenda to kind of go back to the discussion of recruitment for HRC members. I know that at one point Jen and I had just in passing had made a thought of an idea that maybe the HRC should create kind of like a pamphlet or something when we're tabling, because I had mentioned that it's nothing worse than tabling with an empty table and nothing to really engage people into coming with you. So, hi. So the African Heritage Reparations Assembly did create a postcard and also like, I wanna say like a token type gift for the tabling event and they tabled at the block party. That was pretty successful. I don't know how much traffic they've gotten to the engaged jammers. So I think maybe that might be something that could also be discussed at the retreat and although I know that they'll wanna really hold the time for the community engagement events that they're planning for their discussion of reparations, those events, if you had a postcard creative would be a place where it could be displayed. They couldn't try to take away from the time that they have for comment and for discussion around those issues, but certainly having a postcard, I think would be appropriate to have at those events. So that's something to think about, yeah. Yeah, I think that would be great. And hopefully we can collaborate on that in some type of way, all commissioners involved. So that way we can all agree on what we're handing out. The last line item on actions and discussion is retreat. Right. So the retreat is coming up as you guys know on October 2nd and I sent or a part of the packet you received a draft agenda that was basically, Jen and I thinking about what the retreat might look like. So it's very much a draft if you as a commission wanna do something totally different, just let us know we still have time to make changes. The one thing that I would maybe urge you to do is to take some time if you can to look at the other information that was sent out, which is the bylaws as they are currently written for this commission. And I included in hyperlinks to the affirmative action plan, the equal opportunity, equal employment opportunity policy, the town's DEI statement because one of the things I think would be important for you to think about is aligning the language among those documents. And one thing that we'll be doing from the town side for the department is also having conversations about aligning the language, making sure that we're consistent in what we say. So the bylaws are there. And then with links to live links to the laws and stuff that are referenced to it. In addition, I included links to human rights commissions from around the Commonwealth. The commissions work very differently in various cities. So Cambridge has a huge department. They have investigators. I mean, they really sort of act as like in a judicatory body. I think it's maybe Lynn where basically, they do like four educational events during the course of the year. So there's a wide range of how the human rights commissions operate around the Commonwealth. And if you look at those links, you'll get a feel for how different ones operate. I looked to the town of Arlington to look at their procedures for complaint procedures because the DEI director there has spearheaded a couple of different initiatives in the Commonwealth. And I think they did a good job of resolving the issue about having investigations be subject to the open meeting law or having commissioners involved in it by using that language and the statutes around the use of mediators. So again, that's just an example. If you looked at one of the other cities and towns and so I really love the way they did this year, all of that would be up for discussion. Jen has told me that in the past procedures for the town have been on the retreat agenda for many, many years and they've never really gotten completed. So if we could really spend a little time thinking about those proposed procedures, what you might think you'd like differently. I mean, it's just meant as a way to sort of get us started on that conversation so that we can hopefully have some procedures in place by the end of the fiscal year. The other thing that I think on the draft agenda, it talks about goal setting. And I thought it would be important for the commission to think about short-term goals, long-term goals and also legacy. So just the idea of like, what would you want this body to have accomplished over a longer period of time? So thinking about those sorts of things. And so having that information in advance hopefully will help activate. So the time that we do spend together will be a good start. We know that the work will be continuing. Yeah, I think that brings up a good point and I think it's relevant to the conversation that we had earlier regarding our bylaws. And so yeah, I think that that agenda item is a priority for the retreat. Yeah, I would echo that. And also I just want to kind of extend appreciation for the fact that like we're throwing in a long-term goal because so the last time we had a retreat, at least in-person retreat, I don't recall talking about long-term goals whatsoever. I think we really just, no, I don't think I'm trying to be cute about it. We really only discussed what we were going to do for the year. And I think having like that long-term conversation and then fitting in what we're gonna do over the next eight months, that makes the most sense and that allows us to be more effective, I think. Yeah, agreed. Victor, do you have anything about retreat? That's all right, if you don't, but I'm just, I'm giving you a second to attend my first retreat tonight. This will be my first retreat as well, Victor. No, it's not. I came on at the right time, too. The only thing I would add about the retreat is, what's for lunch? Jensen, in charge of lunch, I don't think you'll be disappointed. Yeah, yeah, she does well with people, so okay. That's the important part. You do have to put someone in charge of that knows their spouse in that category. Yep. Upcoming heritage and cultural celebrations. I spoke to Latinx Heritage Month again, just echoing that event will be on October 15th. Time pending place will be Kendrick Park. And as soon as we get that squared away, I know Jen is looking to create a flyer, but I know that she is out for some time. So I don't know what the timeline of that will be, but I will connect with her on that. Or the family, you know anything, that'd be great. Yeah, I think she'll be out the rest of the week, but I know that that was something that she was working on and she had a conversation with someone from the Emmer's Public Schools who has been actively involved in Latinx Heritage Month. So I know that the work is ongoing and I hopefully she'll be back in on Monday. Okay, great, sounds good. Man, our next meeting time, I guess, is the retreat, right? Yeah. That's October 2nd, excuse me, no one show up October 3rd, we will not be there, it's October 2nd. And 9 a.m. was that the correct time? Yeah, 9 a.m. All right, and location, I don't think I thought that. The location is gonna be the Manson Library. In the basement again? I think we're, I'm not familiar with the building, but I think that what I saw was that we're in an upper floor. Is there a large meeting room in the... Yeah, yeah, and it's all, so maybe I'm like weirdly nostalgic New English, but it's like, I think it's a beautiful space, but yeah. That's great, that sounds better than a basement, but I mean, we'll take a basement if that's what we got. Yeah. All right, and then other than that, I mean, it has any other topic that the chairs did not anticipate for, if anybody has anything? Yeah, I kind of wanted to at least briefly address the young man in Yale that was attacked there. What I was, I was wondering if anyone had any interest, like I'm familiar with the Human Rights Commission in New Haven, and I'm wondering if anyone had any thoughts about us reaching out to them at all. I think that that could be good, especially if this individual is an Amherst resident or even a previous Amherst resident. I think that connection is already naturally there, so that makes sense to reach out to them. Right. With that, I would volunteer to do that strictly because like my sister is involved with them a little bit, so. Yeah, I couldn't see why not. I know we can't take a vote on it, but I think that that's a decision that us as co-chairs can make just to reach out and anything else, any comment or anything like that, then we can just bring to the group at the retreat. Yep, definitely. So I'll try to get on that. It was sad, man. Awesome, that's great. Thank you for taking that on. Alrighty, well, then it seems like the next time we will see each other is the retreat. All right. Thank you everybody for showing up and stop recording. Yeah.