 operations to Wednesday, June 17th. So we've been talking about kind of law enforcement and the recent events and where we are. And Pepper, I asked Gail to send you an invite after, because you made some comments this morning in judiciary around disciplining officers and stuff. And I'd just like you to talk to us about that also because we were, we thought doing a bill that would have done things that judiciary was gonna deal with data collection and use of force. And then we were going to do the rest. So I don't know where we are now, but if you would just throw that in and anything else that you think of. And I, you know what I'm gonna do since you guys are the only ones here with us. I'm gonna, I tried to go through my notes this morning and figure out some of the things that we've been talking about and what might be ideas. And I will print them up and send them out to everybody. But just let me go through some of the kind of, there is in 20, in title 20, the ability to create community review panels, but maybe modifying that a little bit so that we could look at, consider regional review panels and have Human Rights Commission work with the Academy and the Attorney General to provide training to the citizens that are on those review panels. So that because you want competent people serving on the review panels themselves adopt statewide standards for model interviewing that could happen when you're hiring somebody, the criteria that we're looking for both positive and negative standards toward how you deal with stops. The release of information upon a substantiation of allegations, more training on initial de-escalation. Who is it from the council that reviews allegations? Does that include a citizen or is it just law enforcement that reviews? A review oversight of the Academy where it might live. Should it live someplace else? We heard that a couple of different times. All credible allegations reported to the council, perhaps investigate a statewide contract to purchase body cams and also for the storage of data because we know that that's expensive and if they did it in bulk somehow, would that be helpful? I'm just throwing things out here that have come up, review the mandated basic training. For example, we heard from Sheriff Anderson yesterday that why does he have to have search and rescue training because he doesn't do search and rescue. So every time you have a training that is required, it means less time for other training. So we need maybe look at what is required. The idea of not agencies not being eligible for funding for grants if they don't collect the data in a proper manner and that's been supported. But also it came up maybe an agency if they're not compliant with data collecting requirements and policies that they don't have the right to send somebody to the Academy that came up. Review the written exams, oral exams and psycho exams and that collection of data and I hadn't heard this one before but the collection of data needs to be uniform within law enforcement but it also needs to be uniform within all of state government because if law enforcement is collecting it in one way and DMV and DCF and DOC are collecting it in another way, it still isn't uniform. So we need to have some kind of uniformity around how we collect racial data and I don't know if you were there this morning when Susanna talked to us but she said it should be self-reported, it should be optional and if somebody does not choose to report then there should be a disclaimer and a perceived racial comment but that people often are reluctant to self-report because they're reporting to the very system that's been oppressive to them. Review public records requests for body cam footage, how do we deal with that? Define bias related incident reporting, more use of social workers embedded in law enforcement agencies, add Susanna to the training council and the idea of militarizing police. So those are the list of things and I'll type them up and send them to everybody so you can look at them but and if there's anything we can do, we will. And if so, anyway, those are some of the things that we've been talking about so far. So pepper, oh, Allison. Yeah, I mean, there are a couple other things like your very good idea of exchanges which actually would be good. I mean, some alternative training that would go to what Curtis and Julia were both talking about in terms of building cultural awareness and an appreciation of difference. Yeah, yeah and you know, it came up this morning with coach about having everybody be, it's called CLEA, it's the commission on law enforcement accreditation and having everybody in Vermont get accredited. And I'm not ready to go there to require that. It's slightly expensive to do it and to maintain your accreditation. So I don't know if that, I went on their website to try and find out what the standards were that you had to meet. And it just gives the titles. It doesn't give what the standards are under those titles. So I don't know how to find that, but anyway. So pepper, if you wanted to just talk a little bit about what you saw and any of those other things and anybody, I guess we don't have many people with us today so you can talk about anything you wanna talk to us about, including your kids. Sure. Yeah. I hope they're napping right now. They are napping, yes, they are napping, but they, you know, they're not napping nearly long enough for me to get through all those topics that you discussed. So I'll start and I'll turn it over to John for some of those issues that you raised. So for the record, James Pepper, Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs, and this is actually my first time, at least this year, I guess, testifying before the Judiciary Committee and so yeah, today in the Judiciary Committee, we were talking about police misconduct and of course, public confidence in law enforcement is really the cornerstone of our criminal justice system. It's foundational to community-based policing models and anytime that there's misconduct, not just improper use of force or deadly force, but also conduct that might not rise to that criminal level, but it is also very damaging to public confidence. It diminishes the role of the criminal justice system and it also sometimes even just the lack of confidence in the investigation of misconduct is also very much detrimental to our entire system. So at least as long as I've been part of the Department of State's attorneys, there has been a real conversation about changing the way, rethinking the way we do investigations, how those investigations are conducted, if the conduct is criminal, who's making charging decisions, who's gonna prosecute the case, if the conduct is not criminal, how does that get transmitted to the public and how does that get transmitted to the defense bar? And under current practice, there's independent reviews that are done by the Attorney General's office, the state's attorneys. If charges are brought by the state's attorney, usually that case is sent off to a different county prosecutor because of the working relationship that exists between usually that law enforcement department and the county state's attorney. And so there's an inherent conflict there and we've just been kicking around a lot of ideas and now with the commissioner of Department of Public Safety has his own set of ideas that we're trying to work with him about how to just inject more confidence, public confidence, transparency, accountability, consistency into this review process. There's a number of proposals on the table right now that also include how to recommend decertification. I don't know how ready they are to present to the committee. I'm really happy to hear that you've been taking this issue up because it seemed like it was missing from the Judiciary Committee and I just haven't been following what's been going on in this committee quite as closely, but I'm really glad to hear that you've been taking it up. John, I don't know if there's anything you want to talk specifically about this issue. Yeah, I can, again- Before you do, John, just let me, when we talked about it originally between Judiciary and GOV-OPS, what we were going to do is they were going to take up data collection and use of force and we were going to do the rest. Right, okay. So that, yeah. So maybe the data collection, okay, yeah, I get you. I'd be happy to speak about data collection if you'd like just quickly because it's an area that we've been very focused on in the racial disparities panel. That's kind of the cornerstone of our report is on data collection and also on the Justice Reinvestment Working Group, data collection was essentially, the observation principle is real. When you start collecting data and start telling people, say we care about these data points, then behavior will change invariably. And so, when we're talking about routing out implicit biases or explicit biases when we're talking about use of force, collecting the data is a very important first step to knowing how to eliminate those kind of implicit biases or finding out where those implicit biases are creeping into our decision-making. The Department of State's attorneys strongly supports data collection and the timely dissemination of data of use of force, every single high impact, high discretionary decision point, starting from that first encounter with police and ending when the individual is released from custody, whether that's at the end of the police stop or whether that's from DOC custody. What's very critical though is, we heard the racial disparities panel spent a long time with Professor Stephanie Seguino, who co-authored the report, Driving Well Black and Brown in Vermont, which showed racial disparities in traffic stops. One of the big takeaways from that conversation though was that the data that's currently being collected under, I forget the statutory provision, but it's highly variable from one law enforcement agency to the next. By way of example, Professor Seguino showed us eight different ways that the various law enforcement officers are categorizing Native American stops. Some are using I for indigenous, some are using NA for Native American, some are using FA for First Americans, and there's five or six other codings just for that one Native American. And some, as you mentioned, are using officer observation of race, some are using reporting, self-reporting, and some are just leaving it blank, frankly. And then another just kind of really important thing that she pointed out is there's this duplicate problem that she ran into where some law enforcement agencies are saying are counting one stop as one incident, no matter what the outcome is, whereas others are using, if there's multiple outcomes in one stop, as in if it's one person who's given a ticket, but then is later arrested or is given multiple tickets and then later arrested, that could be three, four, five incidents, all involving the same individual. And the law enforcement agencies don't have any consistency from one to the next, whether that's gonna be one incident or multiple incidents. So that has a way of exaggerating the data or just making it incomplete. And then my last point on this is one that you mentioned, Senator White, which is that, okay, so even if you got consistency among the law enforcement agencies, the state's attorneys are gonna be asked to report data as well, and we might have our own coding system that's totally different. And certainly, Department of Corrections has somewhat decent data, especially compared to our other agencies, but they have a totally different coding system and the courts do their own thing as well. And so when you wanna track one case from the initial police stop and see it all the way to the end of the system, the end of the pipeline, then you just can't track the cases because everyone is talking about a different thing. And of course, I really appreciate what was devised in Justice Reinvestment S338, which essentially said, and I'm paraphrasing here, and it was based on I think a Connecticut law that passed a few years back, is put all these players in the room together, including members of the public. I think that's important. And figure out which data points you wanna gather. Let's come up with a common definition of whether we're gonna self-report race, whether it's necessary at all, whether we want officer observation of race. And track, you know, have the same data points and the same definitions follow throughout the entire system, starting with law enforcement, moving to the state's attorneys, moving to the courts, including the defender general. And the attorney general as well, who handles these cases. And then through to DOC. And then also part of Justice Reinvestment is saying, what resources are necessary to do this? Which I think is a really important piece of this. You know, it's just VSP, who's usually considered one of the best at collecting data. They have one person who's essentially doing this on her overtime. Collecting all the data and processes for CRG. And that's fine. But you know, I just, some of these smaller departments and certainly the state's attorneys don't have, you know, a lot of extra time on their hands to be reporting data continuously on every discretionary point that they make. So I think that the Justice Reinvestment approach is the right one to do. Let's all get on the same page, talk about what we need, and then, you know, start the data collection. Is it important to also have the same standardized collection system for places like DMV and DCF and that aren't part of the justice system? I mean, within the whole system, I can see that that makes sense. But is it also important to have it for those others? I think, you know, anyone that can be kind of a deputized law enforcement agency, which I believe includes DMV and liquor control, I mean, it's in, what is it entitled, 24, which describes law enforcement. I think they all need to be on the same page. But I was thinking even beyond law enforcement, do we need to? You're thinking statewide. I mean, state government. Yeah, I'm thinking if we're collecting that kind of data for DCF, I don't know if we do or not, but if we're collecting it for other agencies and other departments within state government, should we be somewhat consistent? I know that, for example, I work for housing authorities. And they have, on their form, on their application, it's the categories. But I don't know that they're the same categories that every housing authority uses. So I don't know how you would. So is it important to extend it beyond just the judiciary, the law, that system, the justice system? It seems like it would. It's not something that we've really tackled in either my work with justice reinvestment or the racial disparities panel. What's important about the criminal justice system is, this is true of those other systems as well, but you're really dealing with people's liberty interests. And so when you're talking about that level of government intrusion, it certainly makes sense that we're not allowing disparities to creep into those areas. But I can see how you can make the same case for housing, employment, other areas as well. It's just not been outside of the scope of our review on this, but. Yeah, maybe we should ask them to look at that. I think so, because quite honestly, you can't fully have the whole picture of racial disparity unless you're also able to access impacts on health, impacts on education, impacts on zoning. I mean, a whole range of things. And so it would be great to begin with at least everybody in the justice system. And if we could get that organized and in one data collection system that was usable, then we could maybe expand it to the rest of state government, but it sounds like this might be a great place to start. I think Brian had to stand up and then Anthony. Thank you, Madam Chair. So James, I just wanted to try to understand what you said about that one state police person coding, if you will, she's coding for the entire force. You know, the data is being collected by the individual troopers and then being sent to her to, I guess, clean it up for, because they report to CRG and CRG makes it public. And yeah, it's just one person. And CRG is criminal records? Criminal research group or crime research group. She must have an amazing mind, because I don't know if I could sit day after day after day. But so to the chair's point, and I think Senator Clarkson touched on it too, I do think it's important that we get some uniformity. If we're gonna bother collecting data, we ought to at least be able to look across different agencies to see whether there's a pattern. I don't see how you could possibly understand what we're doing in terms of traffic stops and arrests, et cetera, et cetera. If you're using, it's almost like people using 26 different languages. There's no way to say, okay, here's the problem. And we can understand it because everybody's talking the same language. So to your point too, James, I think that's a great idea to get everybody together. I was familiar with the 1050 coding that a law enforcement officer used to say it was a fatal, there was a 1050F, the 1050I if it had injuries involved. I assume that's all gone. I know there are two different systems that they use in order to report back to headquarters, so to speak, but I do need to get some work done. And maybe it starts at the academy. Maybe as new people come in, they say, this is what we use for reporting certain data and then go from there. And I realize it's kind of hard because there's, what do we say, 82 different agencies in the state and it's hard to get everybody to do the same thing, but I really think it's critical if we're gonna be able to tackle this. I have, I don't wanna jump in front of Senator Polina, but I did have just two additional points, but. Okay, go ahead. I was actually gonna ask you about this poor person at State Police as well who's doing all the coding to tell you the truth, that was the first thing I was gonna say. I'm wondering when the different officers go out and have incidents, are they using the same codes or is this person actually having to differentiate between the various codes that the officer are using? Like, would they all code Native Americans the same way or do you think they're actually different officers or coding differently in the State Police? It's my understanding the State Police has one system in that it's kind of different depending on which department or local department or sheriff you're talking to. I just think this is, I think it's kind of really ridiculous that we should have this bad of a coding system. It's sort of a no-brainer. So I appreciate you for forcing this issue on us. All right. And one additional point that I would make, which was again, part of our racial disparities recommendation and I think is probably something you've discussed and I think it was on your sheet on your initial comments, Senator White, is that the troopers are collecting this data and it's really up to the next level of management, the sergeants and the lieutenants to ensure that they're doing it consistently and that there's no boxes that are being left unchecked or making sure, if that next level of manager that's really setting the culture for the people, the ground force, the troops on the ground and part of our recommendation is that anyone who's becoming a sergeant or taking any managerial role really understand the importance of this data collection not and it goes well beyond data collection. Also understand implicit bias and have cultural sensitivity and understand the principles behind community policing but as far as getting accurate and timely dissemination of data, if that's one of the tasks of the kind of sergeant level troopers or law enforcement officers, then it'll get done and that I think, our recommendation is anyone who wants to be a manager, they need to go and get trained on how to do that properly because they're really essential to setting the culture of the kind of ground level troopers and the only other point that I wanted to make with respect to either self in response to Susanna Davis on self reporting versus officer observation is we talked about this in our racial disparities panel and it seems like you kind of want both because honestly like the way that an officer responds implicitly or explicitly is gonna be based on his or her perception of the race of the individual and so you kind of wanna know what the officer was thinking, the race of the individual was and then you also as Susanna noted, probably wanna know what the actual reported and race of the individual based on the report, the self report. It's probably a good idea to have both and I know that it's a complicated issue. I don't know all the contours of it, I just wanted to add that in because we did talk about that at the racial disparities council, we heard from another law enforcement kind of the senior echelon of VSP talk about why they used officer reported. So I think that, but there is a section in the justice reinvestment as 338, right? That deals with this, that getting people all in the same place and getting them all to do it in the same way. So yeah, okay. And the kind of resources and personnel that's gonna be needed to do it the right way. So we're not kind of getting 35 different types of data and we have the staff that's needed to do it correctly. Okay. All right, any other questions for Pepper? And Pepper, we've been doing our committees a little bit differently than we did in judiciary and that we do when we're in the room, especially when we have fewer people, it's more kind of conversational and give and take rather than you testify and then John testifies and then so feel free if you have something to jump in and add, just raise your hand and let us know. Cause I think we've felt that we're getting more done that way using this method. Of course, yeah. And if things come to, you know, your committee members minds, I'll just be right here. So. Okay, thanks. So John, do you wanna? Yes, John Campbell, executive director for the state's attorneys and sheriffs for the record. Thanks, Senator and also the committee we're having us in today. You know, just, I think most of you all know they're on the committee now, but let me just refresh your recollection that one of my former professions was, aside from disc jockey, by the way, as the problem was as a police officer and I was down in Florida at the Broward County Sheriff's Department. Sheriff's Department is down there where the chief law enforcement areas we handle most of the unincorporated areas criminal action and activity. So I have a little bit of experience in that. And, you know, I can tell you, having been in that profession to see what is happening across this country and what, you know, how some, first of all, how some police officers are acting. It just makes you sick. You just wanna, you know, be right there to be with the community and to say that, listen, you know, not all police officers act like this. Not all police officers do things that you're finding. I mean, I was thinking earlier today, you know, of all of the different professions or stations in life that someone might go to where you see that there are a number of people who are bad actors and, you know, they've done terrible things to people. You know, they've gone into areas of religion and to, you know, priests and ministers where they have actually, you know, sought out that type of job because they have a, you know, a better opportunity for them to come and contact with the people that they would like to victimize. And, you know, so I think when I was trying to decide how I was going to start here, I think what I would recommend, what I feel that we should take a look at is always starting with like the hiring of folks. Now, you know, law enforcement has been pretty much a quasi-military type of profession. That's why it's been geared and the training goes that way. In Vermont, actually, they have lived at the academy for, you know, full time. In Florida, we didn't, we did a part time. And I know that there's, and I've talked to officers who support that full time and they feel that it gives a better feeling and understanding of some stressful situations, whatever. But I can tell you, then through a daytime academy, we were put through many stressful situations and we've handled a lot of things. And I just think that when you're putting a group of people together, what happened? My curtain fell down. Okay. So when you're putting a group of people together in a closed quarters and they're living with each other and they're constantly being trained in a certain way, I think they develop almost a group mentality, which to me sometimes is not a great idea. Now, again, other police officers or former police officers might disagree. I just see that. But I also look to, you know, who are the people we're getting in? Who are the ones that these departments are hiring then and then putting them through the academy? One of the things that I was really kind of shocked when I found out when I first came up was that not every department does psychological tests. I know, I believe Vermont State Police does and also the polygraphs. The psychological tests to me, and I can tell you that I know several occasions, certain people who didn't pass the psychological down in Florida and for a good reason. Some of them I knew when they were in high school and they were some of the guys who were bullies. And I think what you try to root out is you try to find are there reasons why people are seeking this type of profession number one or are there deep-seated anger issues? Are there people who are seeking positions of power to get into organizations like that? Are people there for bias that they feel like they're gonna be able to go into a certain ethnic community and take their personal hatred out on those people? These things I think all can be for the most part discovered in a good psychological exam. And so I would urge and recommend that that be part of any hiring process. Now the problem is just like with all the data collection and we're talking and this is a universal problem and that is the cost. These things are not cheap. It's the same thing with the, when you talk data collection and you have to realize that it takes added personnel to do these added tasks. So that's going to, if we don't fund it properly and completely, you're setting the whole thing up for failure and then what's gonna happen, it's going to, as far as I would say, if I was in the community of color, if you guys really mean that you're going to take some positive steps to end what we're saying, then you need to properly fund it. Don't do it halfway. If you do it halfway, then it's not worth doing at all. So I think we have a good chance to do this both nationally and of course in the state. And one thing I also might add is that we've been pretty fortunate in the state. I heard the, I think Commissioner Schirling or Secretary Schirling had mentioned about the number of interactions of Vermont police officers had and then how many of them involved use of force. And it's a pretty impressive number that we did fairly well. So then let me get back, getting back to the hiring. So the hiring, I think that not only should have psychological, you should have also the polygraph. One problem that, and this will go into decertification, one of the problems that we have found and I've seen it on several occasions here in Vermont is that we have had officers that were, they were allowed, some of them were allowed to quit rather than get terminated. And then they went to other departments. And if you're going to a, if you look at some of these smaller towns or some of the sheriff's departments, they don't really have the money to be sending a lot of people through the academy. So if they see someone certified, they're gonna take them. There's one department, which I will not name but one department and that actually I was still in the Senate at the time. And I heard that they had hired an individual who had made some racial comments that were extremely disturbing. And they were, he was let go for that one department. But the other department hired him anyway, knowing that, but that's because he was the only person they could afford because they couldn't afford to send someone through the academy. That's really disturbing in my mind. There's another, there was another officer who was down in your neck of the woods who the, I'll just say the allegations were being involved in drug use and drug sales and covering things up. And he went to three departments and he was fired from each one, but that again, there was no decertification. So I think that a review, I think what we started and what you all, what you did, Senator White is with the certification in Act 56. That was great start, but it wasn't, it's not properly honed. I think you need to go back and look and see what's working, what's not. To date, I understand that since Act 56 came out, there've been 10 investigations for decertification and nobody's been decertified. And as I said, there's several, there's a few people that I've seen cases that again, from confidentiality standpoint, I'm not gonna, I don't think it's proper for me to be using who they are. But I think that these officers probably should have been decertified because not only do they try to find jobs here, but they also go out of state. And if all of a sudden they call and they said, yeah, he worked here. All we can tell you is that he worked here and he resigned on his own or resigned to her own abolition. That doesn't tell the whole story. So we have to make sure that those people who are certified police officers who not only do things that harm the public, but also bring discredit upon the police department and police agencies, those people should not be in that job. So I think that's real important to look at. I think once people get onto the job, everyone thinks that they learn things all in the academy and that you're not gonna change. And that if you get all that training, all that sensitivity training while you're there, it's gonna stay with you for the rest of your career. That's not true. I can tell you that when you go into areas and especially high crime areas, and you may be the most sensitive person coming out and feeling that things are you wanna handle things just right and do it without any type of personal bias or personal prejudice, then all of a sudden you get into a situation where five, six, seven days a week or five or six days a week, you're constantly in a stressful situation environment. You're dealing with people sometimes necessarily who don't like you. You're doing things that if you're arresting somebody, no one likes to be arrested. But sometimes that you all of a sudden develop and you get desensitized into certain things. And so whatever we do, whatever we find out, I think it's gonna be good to continue to remind people and to refresh their training to understand that yeah, you are gonna be in stressful situations and you need to understand that. And then when you do, here's how you need to handle it and don't forget these lessons. So it's just to me repetition, repetition and it's training that to me never is wasteful. One of the areas that and I think all of you on the panel on the committee know this is that so many of the issues that come up, especially in Vermont where we've had some of the shootings that police evolved shootings have not all, but some of them have involved the people with mental health issues. And whether it's a police shooting or a trying to control someone who has having a mental health breakdown or let's say it might be from drugs whether it be PCP or something, those are having dealt with someone with PCP who put four of us, four officers in jail. I know what a very small person on a very bad drug can do. And you get a person who later found out this person was probably a really nice person until he got involved in drugs. But when you're confronted with that and you're having to defend yourself or to try to subdue somebody, if you don't know how to handle those situations or if you don't know when it's time to, okay, let's back off. Let's try to see if there's another way we can do it, then it's not to your advantage. So what I believe we need to do is and you did mention it on your list is we need to start getting more mental health care workers or counselors working very closely with our departments. I'm on the mental health advisory board that deals with, that has dealt with interactions involving death or serious bodily injury between law enforcement and people with mental health injuries or mental health incidents. And I can tell you that it happens a bit. And one of the things that we are, and you'll hear is one of our recommendations is the fact that we do have our departments adding or that departments should add those individuals to help the law enforcement determine what's the best way for us to de-escalate or what can we do? Can we walk away and let them calm down or her calm down and know that that person will not hurt themselves or won't hurt someone else? So because the law enforcement, you can't be everything. We often are out there and you're the priest, you're the absorber, you're trying to protect people, you're doing all these other things. There's so many hats that you have to wear as a law enforcement officer. You can't be everything, at least not everything and do it really well. So in those areas such as dealing with mental health, folks with mental health issues, there should be somebody specifically trained and assigned to the departments. Again, I have to say, because I know if anyone's watching from a police department, they're gonna say, great, well, how are you gonna pay for it? And that is, again, the problem and it's gonna be the underlying problem of everything you do. Every choice that you all are gonna make is I assure you is going to put pressure on departments or agencies that they're going to have to add personnel and they're gonna need to have funding and knowing what's happening in our own department where we're down six deputy or six prosecutors, this is not the best time to be looking for additional funding. So however this is done, I think that's a foundation that I would hope that you all consider before making the actual choice to start something. Because if you can't finish it, as I said before, it's just not worth doing. It'll hurt more people than help. I'm just looking at some of the other, one of the other things you mentioned, Senator White, was about the panels, the community panels, reviewing things. And I think they can be good, but I would urge and you moved from what you said, which I really liked that instead of local, you went to regional. I'm not sure if that's what you support, but I can tell you, I think a regional would be far better because you take out the conflict of a local person or even the biased. It could be conflicted because they may know the affiliate officer or it could be biased because they have gotten a ticket from that officer or something along those lines. You wanna have something that has, that there's the appearance of impropriety is just not there. There's no appearance of impropriety. So I think that that is something. One of the person, before I forget this, one person that I serve with on this, the mental health board, who I've had found to be a quite incredible person. He's the deputy commissioner of mental health now. What we got? Morning Fox. Morning Fox, morning. Yes, morning. Because morning has a very interesting background. Most people don't know is he trained law enforcement. And I think believe he trained some people from FBI also with de-escalation techniques and some things to do. He's got a really interesting background and he would be able to offer, once you get down the road a little bit, I think he would be able to provide you with some good direction on certain things that you might want to undertake. So I guess I'll stop there and just see if you have any questions. But this is a problem on a situation that we in this country are facing that it's almost like what I call the case of the yucks, to the point where every time you turn the TV on and you see that another person who because of his or her race or their color of the skin or their religious preferences is being singled out and being hurt, being killed. I find it as a human being, I just find it so patently offensive. But we have to understand that these highlights while they're not really enjoyable to watch, we have to see that that is happening out there if we're going to expect any type of change. And there was another thing and I wish I had said this myself, because I often had made the mistake of saying what I'm about to say and that is I don't see color. I used to say, when I make a decision, I don't see color or I don't see, and Senator White, you've heard me say this before, I don't see whether you're a man or a woman. I just looked at the person and you're doing something. And then I heard that this person who was talking about said, but you know what? I found out and realized and I was told that it doesn't, that's not the way to look at it. You have to see color. You have to see the difference is there. You have to see what that person, the mile that, you know what they've walked, you know, as far as walking mile on my shoes, you have to see what they experienced and know that. We're never going to be able to understand me as a white person, you and all in the committee are all white folks. You're not going to know what it's like to live as a black, as a person of color. And there's nothing we can do to change that, but what we can do is we can understand that there are differences and that there are changes that need to be made in order for us as a race, as a human race to actually further ourselves and become what we would all like to be. And I guess I close and I'm not saying this jokingly at all, but I still remember very, very, very vividly when Rodney King was when he said, I consider them to be incredible words. It's like, yeah, we all just get along. And that will be great and it would be great if we can live together harmoniously, but in order for us to do that, we have to understand that there are differences and that we all need to do whatever we can to make amends for some of the things that we have let happen and change. I saw Allison had her hand up. So thank you, John and Pepper, both. Yesterday we did talk about hiring a bit, John. Thank you for bringing that up because I think it's so important. And we, Mark Anderson talked to us about the MMPI psychological test that I thought he implied every officer took no matter what the agency, but clearly that's not necessarily the case that everybody takes it. And so I just, it somewhat would love to chat about that because I think hiring is critically important, all these, how you evaluate if somebody's appropriate for the job in the first place before we invest all that money in training them. And the second is, speaking of data, do you guys have any data on the mental health workers that have been embedded in barracks and in different police departments? Because I know in Windsor and Windown counties we've embedded HCRS people in Westminster, in a couple of the agencies. And so I assume they're embedded all over the state in some capacity. Do we have data yet on how successful that's been? We don't. However, we have spoken, all I have is anecdotal information that we've received and we had testimony of some of the, well, right now we finished up one investigation that it was a death that happened in Chittenden County. And clearly that was one we wished there was somebody there at that time who could have done, I think, de-escalated the situation. But from that, and from the changes that the Burlington Police Department made, we understand that they've, you know, are using that. And so I think it's wider spread, but again, it comes down to, Senator, it probably comes down to a resource issue with some of the smaller departments. And the worst part about it is you can't, you never know where it's gonna pop up. I mean, will it be here in Montpelier? It could happen, which we know it already happened. What could it be at Hardwick? Could it be Ludlow? You know, something, you know, or if you find a small town that just doesn't have the ability. And of course, because the state police are so spread, you know, they're thin, they're spread and they don't have enough people that could respond in time. So I don't know. I just, it's really worthy to have. I think that the commissioner talked a little bit about that because there is a social worker embedded in the Westminster Barracks. And he talked about how successful that has been. And Bellows Falls has, or have, has had, I'm not sure if they still have it or not they seem to be gutting their police department, but they had an embedded social worker and it made a huge difference. And the social worker didn't necessarily go out on calls, but the social worker was there to help them work with around cases where they might be able to, de-escalation isn't the right word here, but intervene at a point where you don't need to have police involvement then. So it isn't just having a mental health worker go out on a case where they can help de-escalate, but it's way even before that. And also working with the police officers around how do you recognize things and how do you respond to them? So the embedded office social workers, I think are absolutely crucial. You know, it's interesting we have, in Montpelier here there's, we have obviously a number of homeless folks that I hate to say that we're choose to be homeless, but because I don't think everybody consciously chooses, but due to either mental health or substance abuse issues, they would rather stay in the woods. Anyway, some of them are very scary looking, you know, that they have appearances because they haven't showered, they're scruffy looking sometimes because they haven't had the opportunity to have, you know, be cleaned up. So there are citizens that are, once they see them, they call the department and expect that they're concerned that crime may be happening, whereas if you had somebody that was like a, and I think Montpelier does, they know that's Joe Jones, he's okay, he's got some mental health issues, but he is safe, you are safe, and you don't need to have someone come out and you don't need to report that there's, you know, somebody lurking around your neighborhood, so to speak. So, so those, you know, those are other, other advantage. So one of, I'm gonna ask you to elaborate a little bit on one of the things that you said, John, but when the commissioner was with us, all these days run together, so I'm not sure what day it was, but he talked about the way the academy is run and the training and stuff, and he talked about potentially even looking at something like, so you're at the academy for a while, then you have a residency, so you're out, you're out there doing, then you come back to the academy for more kind of training and applying what you, and looking at what you learned out in the field, and then you go out and have field training on the job training, and then you go back to the academy for a while, that we don't need to look at the kind of... 16 straight weeks. Yeah, yeah, and so I think that they are looking at, and we've encouraged them in 124 to continue to look at alternative ways of providing it. I think this, I really like this idea here of kind of doing it in chunks and having actual service and residency, like they do with medical school kind of. Well, you raise an interesting point here, and I'm just thinking about this. I would almost like to see them taking this week, or forever how long, you're gonna work at the mental health facility, and you're gonna be right there with them, with people who you were gonna encounter. So you can get, you will be able to see a different side of those individuals. You'll be able to see those, the terrors that they go through. You're gonna understand how they might react in certain ways, what are stressors for them. That to me would be interesting. I think any amount, any way that you can get somebody to, that has more understanding of, especially when they're gonna be dealing with people, that you have more understanding of the people that you're gonna be interacting with. In fact, just one last example, which was for a long time, you had the typical LAPD or NYPD with the guys with the glasses, the mirrored glasses, and they have to come across, and a lot of these guys now, they're big, big guys. And they, I think they all went out and they feel like they have to be tough, they have to look tough and be tough. And certainly they're, and I don't make light of this at all. I mean, these are dangerous situations that police officers find themselves in. But because it's hard for them to let their guard down, because when you let your guard down, you expose yourself to potential danger. But yet there's times when you should be, take off the glasses, and if somebody talks to you, you're like, say hi, wave. It happened here in Montpelier. And, you know, I now walk every morning like five miles and I see a lot of the officers and I'll sit there waves, most of them wave back, but then there's some that just still make it look like, you know, I can't do that. And that's part of the mentality that I think we need to break through. We've tried it and it's half worked with community policing, like police officers get out of your cars, get into, get on the streets. And that's, I think that's been, you know, fairly successful, but we can take it a little bit further. And I tell you what, your idea that I just keep going back just a few seconds ago to what you were saying. And, you know, like an internship almost, I almost think that that, I think that would be probably one of the more interesting, progressive things that could be done. Now I don't know how it can be done. And I don't know who's gonna pay for it, but. I don't know. But I, it's another example is, you know, in Montpelier they had the Black Lives Matter sign that was on the street. And as most people know by now that it was defaced by somebody who was really more, I think more, you know, upset with the government than necessarily, but it was clearly racist also because of what he did to one of the letters. But I had called Rory Tebow and I said, listen, if you ever get this guy, you know what you should do? Because I was down there and Patty was down there and Patty was actually cleaning off the stuff later that night. And I said, you should get that person and that person should come there and be on the ground cleaning up next to the same people who painted the sign and to people of color. You understand, you know, maybe something can wear off to realize that, you know, the people that you think are so bad and that are so, that you hate so much, maybe you have more in common than you know. So it reminded me of Chris, Bray has a question I believe, but this reminded me of, there was a Minnesota judge a while ago who decided that he was gonna make the penalty for whatever it was, relate to the crime itself. And so when he had DUI cases, especially those that had been involved in an accident, they had to volunteer, they had to do community service on a rescue or with a police officer to go to DUI accidents. And he, the judge said that it, those people never did it again. So Chris, did you have a, oh. And Brian had something too. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Down there in the corner. Yeah, so no, actually I did not have a question, but it's nice to see Senator Campbell. Senator Campbell. Hello Senator Bray, good to see you. I see you have a question, Brian. Oh, I thought I didn't know if Chris was gonna keep going. I didn't either, but. So I know outgoing police chief Tony Fakus had someone in the department that was a mental health, I don't want to say expert, but who had experience in mental health. And from what I can remember, and I think he came in and testified to us a couple of times, John. It was extremely successful in reducing the tension level of certain calls that the law enforcement folks had to make. And I know from being in the wetland area, I have a chance to see this project vision operate from time to time. And they also have people, I don't know if they're embedded all the time or whether they're sort of like a doctor on call if a situation comes up and they're able to get to a particular location quickly. But it does seem to make a huge difference. I don't know how Tony funded that. And I don't know to be honest, how project vision funds it, but I do think it's an important piece that we definitely need to look at. Yeah, you know, and that's one of the problems is the fact that they're not available, they don't have round the clock. And actually we don't have round the clock when law enforcement is also, but you'd like to think you would have them available when you need them, but you never know when that time is gonna be. And thinking more about that, I really think you should have morning come in. Maybe you wanna talk to him center-wide beforehand or I could, but he's got just an incredible, a unique look at these things. And I think he could be very helpful in this. I mean, I was just absolutely blown away when you talked to him about his background and the number of different hats he's worn in his life over his ponytail, you know? Yeah, it is a ponytail. Ask him about it. You got an interesting story about that. Would you comment a little bit on the, a little bit more on the process of de-certification or of sanctions about either of you or both of you and around how, who it is that should be doing those reviews and how they should be conducted. And then if we've had 10 investigations this year and no one has been de-certified, have there been other sanctions or did they not reach the level? I mean, I don't know what they are. So would you just comment a little bit more on that process and how we could improve that? Yeah, the way it's currently goes on, I believe this is the way and I can be, I'll stay and correct it if I'm wrong but that they have levels of the different culpability. And so if you could have a, you know, A, B, I think it's A, B, C. Right. If you have, you know, let's say you, you have an attorney reports in on time or you're told your commander that you were gonna have it in by the morning and you know, you decided to go out party that night before and didn't get it in, that's a lower level offense. And then you could, you know, there can be responses to that. It's the higher level ones where you would see the de-certification. And actually they've de-certified, which I've found interesting is, because I always thought it just started, de-certification only started in a couple of years ago with Act 56, but I went on the site today and they had de-certified other officers back in 2011, 12, 13 for criminal activity. And then, yeah. So, and then some for not keeping up with your, you know, with the mandatory training or something. But anyway, getting back to your main question, I think number one, you have to have some civilian on there in order to have transparency. Without it, it's just not there. Number two, you need to have professionals and people who are, you know, that are well-trained law enforcement officers who've been there, understand the intricacies of the job and understand that where there's a person who does not know the intricacies of the profession or what it takes, might say that should be, that person should be fired for that. And you'd say, well, there's a reason for this. Again, I'm not talking about behavior that is harmful to other people, but, you know, something internally that they may have done within the department. You know, we face the same thing on what's called Giglio Brady information, most of Giglio, which is whenever, if we find that a police officer has done something, whether he's lied in a report or heard she is lied in a report or anything that could be impeachable material, we have to disclose that. And that's when I really open my eyes a lot more in this past two years because I've been trying to get that policy up and running and we are currently, as the state's attorney's office, we're trying to get a list together, but we also want it to be, you know, there are things that police officers do in their private life, in their private time, which are not criminal. They're, let's say, stupid things that they might do, but ones that should they be public, and as far as publicly embarrassed by, let's say they have been out at an event and drank too much or maybe got drunk or maybe there is something, well, we did, we have one situation where somebody thought that, and I'm not going to be making my judgment here, but if somebody was having an affair, they thought that that should be disclosed because it's, you know, and that's topic because it doesn't really, doesn't go to credibility that a person's not going to tell the truth about a case or about a person he's arrested. So there are those fine lines that you have to take into consideration and ones that that's when you need the expertise of an officer. So I think that, but then again, you don't want to have a paper tiger either. These certifications should be there for a reason. I think that, and I don't know if it's for a fact, but I believe they may, there might be that a situation where if the person resigns, then they don't have to go through the certification process. In other words, they resign, fine, you're gone, you're somebody else's problem. But that's quite frankly, that's when you need to have the certification process. The other thing, if I know that you, especially with smaller departments, it's really tough, because I can think of three separate situations right now where it was very difficult for a chief or commanding officer of a two or three person department to do eternal affair investigation. And most of the time, they'll give it to another department, which that's what I would absolutely say you really need to. But still, you even have the problem where does the chief say, you ever do something like that again and you're out of here, I'm gonna send you into IA. I mean, they have to understand is that if there's a complaint or if something's brought to their attention, they have to do it. This is not a, it should be a mandatory situation, which I believe, excuse me one second if I can just, so without knowing all of the answer with how the program exactly runs, I think it would be wise for your committee to take a look at what's happened in G certification since act 56, calling some people that have, maybe some, especially smaller departments, like how have you handled it? And what do you think should happen? One thing that has, I think has made, we've made leaps and bounds in law enforcement is what used to be the old blue line theory where police officers would never, they saw another officer do something improper, they would never say anything. And this went on for a long time. And I think that we are absolutely seeing great strides in that area where there are some great officers and one of the ones that was, that actually I touched upon earlier was where an officer was making racial comments about someone and it was heard by a trooper and that trooper reported that. And that does cause friction. I had a situation when it's not like, I guess this is a war story, but where it was my first issue in a racial situation, I get called, it was a new area that I was patrolling and there was a shots fired and it turned out it was a domestic event where it turned out that this woman's husband had been beating her for years and she finally cracked a broke and she shot him. And so the report was shots fired and I was the, we didn't really have back, we didn't have two people to a car. So I was the first one there and from the sheriff's department and I found the woman in her car in a parking lot and a gun on her dashboard. And I said, ma'am, just stop, because she was crying, she goes, I shot him, I shot him, she says, and she was going on about how he had been beating her. And I said, that's fine. And I said, just keep your hands on the steering wheel. And at the same time, a for a lot of real police officer came up and he was on the other side of the car. First I'm upset because I really didn't see him coming up. I was so concerned about this woman and it could have been anyone behind me, but the next thing I know, this guy took a shotgun and shoved it through the other side, the passenger side and put it and hit her right on her temple and said, move one inch and I'm going to, something you'd see on TV. And I looked over and I'll never forget, as I looked over, I said, and I mouthed, what the, and he said, just shut up. This isn't your zone or whatever. And I said, I've got this under control. Anyway, I was able to de-escalate. I was able to get the guy to pull a shotgun back. The lady was more hysterical. So I ended up reporting that. And as a result, the Fort Lauderdale guys around that area were not gonna be, they got around that they were not gonna be giving me backup if I needed it. So it was an area that I was temporarily assigned to anyway, but while my folks in the Sheriff's Department said you're not gonna be on back there anytime soon. And those were the things that you really get worried about and then if you think as a police officer, if I turn somebody in that I'm not gonna have someone to have my back, then that's really concerning. But now it's evolved to a point where I believe that officers, not that it happens all the time and it clearly hasn't happened in the last few weeks in some of the national things we've seen. But there are many times where police officers are in fact reporting activity such as what I experienced or reporting activity that's just, they know is not right or is criminal. And those people are the ones you need to really get behind and support and say, this is a good cop. This is a cop that understands what his job is all about or what her job is all about. So anyway, I don't know if that addressed it if I just kept on going on too long. It's just enjoyable talking to you guys. Yeah. Start a painting. You've been cooped up for too long. Yeah, I have. Well, we hope John- You did, yes, Allison. So I think we hope that some of the work in our bill S124 will help them moving around from department to department issue because we're changing that the moment which those get reviewed by the training council. And there are a couple other things in S124 which we hope will help this situation in fairly substantive ways. But I think we don't fully address the de-escalation. I mean, we don't, that's a... It's a tree. The certification, de-certification issue. Are you talking about de-certification or de-escalation? I'm de-certification. De-escalation is what we want to train them in but de-certification, we haven't done. I think of what you've done in the past two years where you've come and to make sure that what I've said to you about the 10 examples are in fact the case. So just make sure that that's all accurate. But can I say, can I make just one last recommendation is that I know that there's a lot of pressure on you and this in your committee and also legislatures around the country to do immediate change. And the thing that I think I learned the most while I was in the legislature is that sometimes when we act in haste, as I said earlier, we get things wrong. And this is too sensitive and too important of an issue to get it wrong. We'd like to get it right the first time. There are issues like let's say your internal affairs investigations. I know that some people just want to make that totally transparent and open. And there's reasons that they're not always open. Now there's, I believe in transparency but there are certain things that officers who are conducting the IAEA investigation are able to get from the person on the other side that you may not be so willing to discuss if they do it was somebody outside. And then the department is able to deal with this person whether it be through dismissal or training or health, things like that. So just whatever you do, I would urge you to make sure that you've heard from all of the people who actually are involved in the activities that you're either trying to create or that you're trying to change. Well, I think we've tried to be, to remove as much as possible ourselves from the rhetoric and the emotion so that, because I think that that, you're right, whenever we pass legislation in response to a particular event or incident, we almost always get it wrong. And I've seen that happen over the years. And this is a series of events clearly, but I think we need to, and in fact this morning in judiciary, Susanna Davis said that very thing. She said, this should have happened a year ago or a decade ago, but it's better. We need to get it right and we need to hear from the communities that are affected in getting it right. So I think that whatever we do, I'm not sure what we're gonna do, but I think that we could do, make some steps in terms of creating forward movement without making absolute decisions if that makes any sense at all. I think you're hiring, which Senator Clarkson had mentioned and you also talked about is that the hiring, if you can direct makes certain changes in the hiring process and the things that are required. And again, maybe there are departments, maybe other departments do do the psychological, but I would, that's one of the ones where I'd say, you got your best spot at keeping out those people who do not belong in this job. Well, I think that the commissioner was very clear about that, about having some sort of statewide model for how you interview people, the questions that you ask, the both positive and negative characteristics that you're looking for to either bring people in or keep people out. So I think that I'm very, I'm pretty confident that we could direct them to come up with some kind of a statewide hiring policy that would make it so that everybody, every department or agency uses kind of the same, the same process and the same questions. Because that is a problem. So the federal government would decide to provide some actual funding. Well, that would be nice. I mean, more about the administration, not the, we're very fortunate to have our local delegation, but the administration, if they want to actually ever do anything, especially for race relations in this country, it is to invest in it and to invest in your towns and your municipalities and your states and let them hire and acquire anything they need to make sure that we get as close to, not as close, but let's get to racial parity. So I'm just gonna, because you weren't here the other day when we talked about the psychological tests, but I'm gonna tell you that they've been using the MMPI and he said, Commissioner Shirling said that it's probably time to look at a different tool and for your information, every freshman where I went to college in Iowa had to take the MMPI and the results of my MMPI almost got me unaccepted to a state college. I can't imagine why. I can't imagine why. I guess they thought I was a little crazy. Oh, no, no. Alison. I think that was a good test for that. Actually, it's just as we break down silos, one of the things I've loved about this, the silver linings for me of some of the COVID responses as we have been working together and really trying to row in the same direction. And it's a great opportunity for the Agency of Human Services, particularly the Department of Mental Health, to partner with the justice system and our law enforcement agencies in particular and work with them either administering this, whatever tests they end up coming up with and figuring out grant funding for that. I mean, there are all sorts of ways we could work more productively together and use the expertise in one agency and apply it to law enforcement. Yeah. Yeah. I, Anthony, did you have a comment? Well, I was just gonna say, I think that what we talked about before about integrating real life experience into the training is really important. And it goes both ways. The potential officer would learn from working with mental health folks for a week or whatever it might be and they would learn more about him as well. So I think I really like the idea of doing kind of like internships as part of the training. I don't think it should be costly or difficult to do. I think it's, I think it could be really important. One of the most important things we've talked about. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I mean, look at Northeastern. Right. Body model. So I'm gonna just let you know here that at four o'clock, I have another meeting and you can keep going here, Anthony, if you wanna keep on or... Chris had something. Chris had something. Chris had something. Chris had something. A question for John and that was, we talked a little bit yesterday around the amount of training and we know it's expensive and it's a bit of a hardship. People have to be away for residential training, et cetera. But we were talking about how sort of big a box that is to do your training in and that one of the concerns was if you start adding training sort of in response to things where being sensitized to particularly right now, will we end up sort of pushing out of the box other things? Do we need that are equally important but just maybe not from page issues at the moment? So do we need a bigger training box and this internship seems like a creative way to maybe expand it? Well, you've just identified one of the major problems and that is like during the last five years, I remember we added like two hours here to or five hours for domestic violence training and then we had added more training hours. And if you talk, I'm sure when you have the folks in from the Academy to tell you that there's only so many hours in a day and if you're continuing to put this training on and so if you only do an hour training and two hour training, what are you getting out of it? So, but I don't know the answer to that. I mean, you could make a longer Academy but that would be tough obviously on the folks that need the people out there in the street. It would also be tougher on a candidate. That's why I don't know if you were here when I said when I went to the Academy, it was in Florida. We did not, the only ones that stayed over were the state troopers, they had the 24 seven. We had the Academy was like five days a week from seven o'clock till four. And then you did extra stuff afterwards that you wanted. But I think in fact, some of the folks in the Academy probably be better at answering that question but it is a problem center that you have identified and that's another one. Like I said, if we just throw things at it and we act in haste, right? Do you know? I'm gonna take off here. I'm gonna take off here and Anthony, would you keep doing this as long as you want and I'll send out a list of some of the things we've talked about with Betsy and we can get our list together so that tomorrow we can actually deal with some concrete ideas, okay? But I have a, thank you. I'm sure. The question that my follow up was gonna be do you happen to know, Senator Campbell on how Vermont 16 weeks compares to other states? I mean, ours was 16 weeks also but I don't know how the comparison, Cindy Taylor Patch from the Academy it probably would be the best person to talk about that. And I know we've had a discussion and actually Pepper might be able to want to join in on this also because this was spoke, discussed in the redap or the racial disparities board also about racial training and racial sensitivity which is extremely important. But when you think about all of the other things that you got to put into a 16 week box it's like legislation, you know? We come here, we used to have, from January to when you expect that by May 15th you had to get all those things squeezed in and sometimes things just fell through the cracks. So, and these are now so important of issues that we've got to figure out an answer to this. It's just not one that we can, you know try to do it on the fly and or expect it to work out just because you're telling somebody to do it. Any other questions or comments before we go outside? Yeah, that's it. That's a good idea. So, it was really good having you here. It was great. Thank you Pepper too. Yeah, this was really good. Really good conversation. Well, thank you. And if I can be of any help and again I certainly, I told you some things but you need to hear from the folks that are on the street now. Sure. These are old stuff so. But I just thank you for recognizing the importance of this and these issues and I also want to tell you that the police officers that I've spoken to in the state and I've spoken to many of them since this is all started and they are equally ready to have things to understand and I hope the Vermonters understand that Vermont policing and police officers are not the same as what you're seeing across the country in certain areas. Not all police officers are bad. Right, I hear you. Thank you. Yeah, I think we all get that part. I really do. All right. Well listen, thank you guys and you all have a great day and if I can do anything else, let me know. All right, we'll be in touch. Thank you Pepper too. Thank you. Thank you.