 We have a quorum. So I'm going to call this meeting to order. And are there any modifications on amendments to the agenda? Not seeing or hearing anything. To have a motion to adjust to adopt the agenda as is. So moved. Most motion by Stephanie seconded by Shareen and all in favor. Raise your hand to say aye. Aye. Aye. I think technically that's three yeses and one abstention. That is four eyes. So that passes unanimously. With that, we will move on to public forum. So if anybody in attendance would like a question or comment right now, please raise your hand and a little raise hand button thing. And we will call on you. Okay. If I can Jeff Nick is the chair of the marketplace. He was on earlier. He did unfortunately has an engagement with a family member. So he did send an email. And just, I don't know if it was to just you and commissioner Hart. If you would distribute to the rest of the commission. I don't know if it's public comment. No problem. I'll do so. I'm not seeing any hands raised for public comments. So I'm going to close that agenda item. Normally I would recess till six, but seeing how that's four minutes from now. I'm not sure if Kimmy is ready on that side on their side, but I. I think we can start the training. If they're ready. And if not. The whole title for four minutes. If I'm not mistaken, Milo can. Resume her. What she was doing at any point now that we have started the meeting with the quorum, correct. I believe that's correct. See how the only actionable items would be doing. Moving on out would just be ending the meeting. So yeah, I don't see how that. That would be your problem. Hi, Kimmy. Kimmy, we're ready to go. Sure. Let me just. Is being recorded. Well, let me start by saying good evening. It's good to be with all of you again tonight. For educational session number two of four. So this evening I have with me. Jason Wector. Jason, do you want to take a minute and just introduce yourself to the commission? Sure. Be happy to. So I'm Jason Wector and I've worked as an investigator for a little over 40 years. About half of that time was spent doing. Oversight investigations of law enforcement. And most of the other half was spent doing criminal defense investigations for public defender's office and private practice for. Public defender's office. And I'm a former board member of NACL and very active in the organization. Thanks for being here today. When we do training on investigations and reviewing investigations. Jason is always my, my go-to because of his time spent. Not only investigating, but specifically working in the realm of civilian oversight in those investigations. So thank you, Jason, for being with us today. So before we begin, does anybody have any follow up questions from last, the last session? And you don't have to. I just want to make sure that we are giving time. To questions that might be out there. Okay. Today. We are going to be talking about effective practices in conducting and reviewing of investigations. So over that will include characteristics of good and bad investigations. Issues and questions driving an investigation. As well as. What goes into the review of a complaint investigation. And as last time, feel free to jump in with questions as we go. No need to wait to the end. So, and with that, I will turn it over to Jason. Thank you. So first of all, I want to thank all of you for your service, for your work. I know you're doing this on a volunteer basis. You all have other commitments in your life. And you probably don't get thanked enough for the work you do. So. As someone who's worked in oversight for a long time, it's a privilege to be able to talk to you for your time and energy and efforts. I know this is often. Work that doesn't get a lot of accolades and gets a lot of criticism, but it's a privilege to be, to be speaking to you this evening or this afternoon here. So we're going to start off. Talking about the characteristics of a good versus a bad investigation. And then we'll move on to a very specific sample case. And then we'll move on to the next slide. And then we'll move on to the complaints summary and the police report summary. I know in the last session, you did ask for some homework. So I hope. She, she satisfied that desire. So if we can have the next slide, please, Cami. So I'm going to start with characteristics of a bad investigation. So you can see what you should hopefully will not be encountering. So the characteristics would have a narrow focus, and this would mean it would ignore other possible misconduct raised by the complaint. It would fail to identify all relevant allegations, violations of both department policy and law. It might overlook relevant facts or evidence. It would fail to obtain a complete narrative account from all parties involved when they're, they are interviewed. It would fail to address inconsistencies in an interview in a subject's account. And this might be taking what the officer says at face value without asking follow up questions. It failed to hold supervisors accountable. I think it's very important to always look beyond the individual action of a patrol officer. To see what influence their supervisor might have had on their behavior. And Nicole had an outstanding webinar just yesterday on the role of first line supervisors and law enforcement behavior. I think it will be available if you didn't see it, but it talks about how a sergeant of first line supervisors behavior has a tremendous influence on their subordinate officers. Jason, can I interrupt? Thank you. Yes, please. Thank you. Thank you. That was an interesting one to me. And in terms of supervisors, will you be saying more about that so that we could understand how that would be integrated into assessing. A complaint or officer behavior. Sure. I can talk about it now. It's, I think it's. To some, what they said is they analyze different supervisory models. And I think it's, I think it's, as well as Dr. Angle did, but they found that the one that seems to have the greatest effect on how officers behave is the behavior of the supervisor models. And obviously issues of accountabilities. The first line supervisor is the first individual who should know what their officers are doing. They will sometimes respond to the same scene that will receive a complaint filed by a member of the public. They should be reviewing the officer's activities in terms of their computer assisted dispatch record to see what they're doing. And in many agencies, they are required to periodically review an officer's body worn camera footage. At random, just to kind of get a sense of how, how they're doing, how they are interacting with members of the public. And they obviously also review all of an officer's reports. And should be seen, you know, evaluating the quality of the writing. It doesn't contain all the elements of an, of an offense. Do they need to send it back to the officer for rewrites? Do they have, have that see clarification. So, you know, based on that webinar and something Kami said in your last presentation about how training can. Poison how officers work. She talked about the officers who are trained incorrectly about using choke holds in Tucson where they're prohibited. I think it's very important to based on that, I think it's you would be useful when a complaint is received to document the identity of the supervisor. What Academy class that officer attended and who their field training officers were, because one field training officer can infect all the officers they train with improper procedures. They can teach them how to do things contrary to department policy or law. And that can have a fairly devastating effect. And you probably heard the dynamic where an officer gets out of the Academy and the field training officer says, forget everything you learned in the Academy. I'm going to tell you what it's really like. And I think that might be kind of an extreme example, I hope, but the field training officer has a tremendous impact on how an officer performs their police work. And it's a huge responsibility to be an FTO and a bad one can have repercussions for years to come. So I think it's useful to always look at. Did the supervisor know, or should they have known, of the officer's conduct? And if so, did they do anything? And if not, why did they do anything? One concern you get from officers about unfair application of discipline is they hold the line officers accountable, but the higher ups are not held accountable. And I think it's important in the police disciplinary process to hold higher ups accountable. They really set the culture and set the mode. And if the precinct commander, if the watch commander, if the sergeant are not enforcing the rules or being lax, that's going to lead to certain misbehavior. And it has to be addressed. Just to follow up on that. So what you're suggesting is that when we look at an investigation, a written report, we should also be looking to see whether there was an evaluation of the supervisor's role in this as well. In an ideal world, yes. You need to look at the type of conduct and perhaps the officer's record. Is this an isolated occurrence? Or have there been prior issues that could be reflected in complaints against an officer? It could be reflected in criminal charges that the prosecutor has dismissed. So for instance, resisting arrest charges are often lodged against someone who officer uses force against. And the prosecutor may say, this really doesn't meet the standards, the elements of the offense, and they will drop those charges. And that can be a sign that there's a problem in how that officer is making arrests, how they're behaving, the force they're using. Lawsuits are another indicator. They're a range of them. But I personally believe you need to hold higher ups accountable. And, you know, it's kind of a holistic viewpoint approach. Does that answer that? Yeah, that does. Thanks. That was great. Okay. So second characteristic would be the investigator makes assumptions. And these could be assumptions about the complainant, about civilian witnesses, about witness or subject officers, or about a situation based on their own experience, which may be limited. It can reflect bias. I very clearly recall. I was on intake duties at my agency one day. And the receptionist came back and said, this is a really dangerous looking man here to make a complaint. He was a very large Latino man. He had a shaved head. He had visible tattoos. He was wearing a leather vest. She said, he looks like a biker. Well, I went in there and talked with him. As I would with anyone, he was very soft spoken. He had a very valid complaint, which in fact, was a very serious complaint. But that was an instance of the receptionist on surface appearances, making a conclusion about this individual based on their appearance. And it turns out police also made an appearance and they stopped and detained him solely based on his appearance, which caused him to conclude that he must be a parolee at large. In other words, someone who had been in prison was now out on parole and was subject to certain parole conditions, including warrantless search. And, uh, which was against policy. It was a form of bias policing, um, based on, I think, largely based on ethnicity. Um, Totally improper. Um, so that's that. That's one personal example. Uh, I've had, um, potential bias, uh, this could be the officer's unaware of or ignore, ignores their personal biases. Or disregard or fails to notify superiors of real or perceived conflicts of interest. And I'm going to talk a little more. More about that later. Um, the investigator fails to secure perishable evidence in a timely manner. So perishable evidence would be if someone has injuries, they sustained through an encounter with an officer, not documenting those with photographs, not securing CCTV videos. Um, these might be the video cameras that a private individual might have outside their business or home, a bank, a department store, whatever. Those are retained for a limited period of time. And if you don't get them within that window, they're going to be gone. Um, interview witnesses who may become unavailable. Or whose recollections will fade if you wait too long. So again, if someone files a complaint in a timely manner, they come in that day the next day, two days later, um, they have, can identify witnesses or you can identify witnesses through the police report. Two or three weeks later, their recollections may have faded. It may be important to get to them quickly. Um, I live in San Francisco. We have a lot of people normally in normal times who visit San Francisco. So people could be tourists who are visiting the city and are going to be here for a few days or a week, then they're going to be gone. So the opportunity to interview them in person is very limited. Um, disorganized or unfocused. So this might mean, uh, an inadequate or no investigation plan. We're going to go through one, a sample one in a little while. Um, poor documentation of the investigation. Ideally an investigator should have a chronological log documenting almost everything they do. If they make a phone call, if they attempt to interview someone and that person declines, uh, if they do a canvas, if they request a record or when they obtain a record. And so someone who's unfamiliar with the case can look through it and really get a very clear sense of what was done, what steps were taken, what steps might remain. Uh, if someone had to take over that investigation, they could read through that. No where did know where the investigation is and take over with minimal interruption. Um, unjustified or unnecessary delays in the investigation. I mentioned those gaps, uh, failure to obtain perishable evidence. If investigation, if a case sits for a lengthy period of time, really need to have an explanation for that. And it should be justified. Um, the, uh, really done interviews. And this one include things like failure to establish, report and put the interview subject at ease. Um, many police officers are used to having a sense of authority. So when they knock on someone's door, they show their badge, they expect cooperation. Um, when you interview a complaint or someone who has witnessed police misconduct, there's a significant emotional content to that. And you can't just go into it like, give me the facts. You have to recognize, be sensitive to that emotional content. You need to take some time to talk to the person before you start asking questions, make sure they're comfortable. Um, John Alden and I did a Nicole webinar last year. Actually, I think it was for the conference. So I don't know if it's currently available. But I think we'll have a couple of questions for you. Thank you. Thank you. I think this is the one that talked about interviewing and went through this in a lot of detail. Um, We, Jason, we can make that available from the group. Great. Um, Another manifestation would be differential treatment of civilians and officers treating the officers with a certain level of respect. You don't show to the civilians. racism to the officers. And before I want to mention, if you haven't heard of it, there's a wonderful series of podcasts now on public radio and KQED that you can find on KQED.org and it's called on our watch California changed its laws regarding confidentiality of police records in 2018. So journalists around the state requested police files, and they focus these podcasts using audio recordings of the internal affairs interviews and I find it absolutely fascinating and then they have commentary on what was done right and what was done wrong. And it shows examples of them, just accepting what the officer says or asking leading questions like well you must have been in fear for your life which is the way you should not do an interview. Everyone should be treated the same the same level of respect, consideration, but also the same level of thoroughness, questioning, clarifying resolving inconsistencies. The investigator talks more than listens. Good investigators know they need to just shut up and let the person talk minimal interruptions you want to get a free flowing narrative at the very outset, particularly when you're interviewing a complaint or witnesses police trained to present information to testify in court, so they can be expected to give you a fairly clear chronological narrative members of the public or not, they may jump around, they may inject a lot of emotion. So there needs to be a lot of patience and let that come out then ask necessary questions to clarify things. The investigator unnecessarily interrupts or the investigator asked leading questions or close questions versus open ended questions like tell me what happened, what happened next. Where were you, as opposed to, were you afraid or were you fearful. You fear for your life. Things like that, and failure to obtain relevant details and for an officer this might be getting them to describe in detail their physical actions they may say the individual resisted arrest, and I use department approved control hold to take them to the ground. So, first of all, he says what is that department control what were you talked about how that hold should be done. Please describe each step of the way what you did you know which part of your body contacted which part of this person's body. How did they react, what did you do then describe for me how they went to the ground, where which part of their body landed on the ground I've asked officers could you please demonstrate on your representatives there and they typically will have a representative. Poor analysis for the findings. This would be a one sided or incomplete summary of the evidence that they've gathered. It could be lack of credibility assessments of witnesses, complainants and officers, and these would be based on established credibility factors defined in state and federal law. And again niggle as a webinar that john Alden I did on credibility assessment. There are certain factors. These are typically given to juries in state and federal court. And they use this as a basis for evaluating a witnesses testimony so these have tried and true approved by the courts. So, each, each report should attain should contain incredibly assessment I'll talk a little bit about that when I talk about reviewing investigations. Could you have the next slide, please, can we. So now we get to the good investigation. See, here we have the open flexible approach identifies all possible violations, including those not raised by the complaint. So someone who comes in to make a complaint is not familiar with police policy and rules. The investigator is so they need to ask them all the questions that determine was the officer complying with department regulations. So for example in California when an officer to tame someone doesn't make an arrest, the required to give them a document saying you were detained. This was not an arrest. And it's important that they give that because it documents the encounter. It prevents them from detaining people and not having a record of that. The investigator would ask did the officer give you a piece of paper and if they say no, not a law, then that would be an allegation that would go against that officer, or also in California many agencies are required to enter traffic or detention stop data in their mobile display information about the daytime location of the stop, the race, gender, ethnicity of the individual stop the reason for the stop. And this is very important doing statistical analysis to see whether officers are stopping and detaining individuals in a disproportionate manner, based on their population in that community. And there's whether they're stopping people more because of their race or ethnicity, whether they are requesting certain searches of people in a disparate manner. So if, if that had not been done that would also be an allegation. Consider as possible systemic issues such as those involving possible changes to policy training resources or supervision. Very sad example of this is about 11 years ago a barred officer in California shot Oscar Grant in the back claiming that he thought he had his taser. He thought he had his gun there was a similar case in this, I think in Minnesota recently in the barred case. They, it was a one sense a resource issue, not every officer had been issued a taser. The practice is you wear your taser on your weekend sides if your right hand it's on your left side. So you have to draw up with your weekend, as opposed to your strong hand which you use for your gun. The barred officer had a taser this officer had a borrowed holster. It was not on the right location. So that was an issue that of inadequate resources. That's an example of that. And again also supervision. Hold supervisors accountable when warranted. It drafts follows and updates and investigation plan identifying relevant evidence and witness this is witnesses this is something that will evolve as the investigation continues. And we're going to talk about that in detail with an example that identifies all the policies rules and training relevant to an officer's actions, such as the same this what's the law that applies. If a prosecutor charges someone they look at the facts presented by the police, then they look at the law and say which elements are apply here, which crimes can we charge this individual with. And he want to be very thorough about that. I mean, sometimes involves getting the training materials from the police academy, or sometimes talking to the subject matter expert the person who does that type of training to see what are these officers expected to do regarding this, this subject. What are they trained. What is the standard we can hold them to. And we have often sometimes sustain cases against officers because they did Nick, not comply with the training they received. There can also be an indication of the training is bad the example kami gave where you had the trainer from the other agency was training them to use choke holds which were prohibited by that agency. The interview the subject matter experts, as I said, and clearly documents the investigative steps. It's I talked about the chronology. They gather all necessary documents and evidence. This doesn't mean everything under the sun, but everything that's relevant and addresses an issue or question in this particular case. We're going to go through some examples of that in a little while and identifies and proactively locates and contacts relevant civilian witnesses. That means you make if a witness is going to be significant you make some affirmative efforts to contact that person. You might go out knock on their door, go to their workplace make phone calls, leave cards, send letters. In the private sector something known as due diligence, which means you have to make a certain number of attempts to a address where you know someone is located you have to have confirmed that through certain records. And you make verified attempts. You send a letter you make phone calls and that shows you've done your due diligence has a who would know attitude, and who would know something I get from the world of journalism I worked as a journalist before I became an investigator. And it's who the who could be a person. It could be a document. It could be a piece of evidence is something that's going to answer a question that needs to be answered. That's going to contribute a fact that's going to help you gain a better understanding of what happened and avoids assumptions about people or evidence. The assumption would be, someone is arrested for selling drugs, and they say the officer stole my money and these unnecessary force, and they invest the other looks at their rap sheets as they have 10 arrests for drug dealing. They're, they're bad person they're horrible person, I shouldn't believe them. Well, they may be a horrible person they may be selling deadly drugs, but their money may have been stolen and the officer may have used unnecessary force on them. I set those feelings aside and I'm looking at the facts, what will allow me to prove or disprove this allegation. The investigation should be timely. I mentioned you want to avoid losing perishable evidence interviewing the witnesses who may become unavailable. Investigators should be patient respectful and thorough in their interviews. So mentioned, recognizing the emotional content, including possible trauma issues of someone who has been a victim of police misconduct or who is witness police misconduct Open all relevant information. Gages in active listening listening to what someone has to say. Make sure they have an opportunity to tell the whole story, clarify everything. Make sure they're they feel heard. And when taking a complaint from someone. A really significant component of is say not just the factual component, letting that person feel that someone truly actively listened to and heard what they had to say, heard their concern, heard their emotions were respectful of them. They don't agree with their interpretation but say, I can see how upset this made you I can see how traumatic this was for you. And just being an active listener and letting that person taking the time. So that person goes away saying, thank you, I feel that you listen to me. That means a narrative account uses what we call the inverted pyramid format that's where you start broad narrow down getting the who, what, when, where, how, and lastly the why clarifying gaps and inconsistencies. At one point someone may say something during the interview later on that may say something that seems a little consistent so you want to say, I just want to make sure I understand you correctly here you said this but then you, you said something a little different. I didn't hear you wrong and giving them an opportunity to explain it and an interview I think it's always good. I don't want to make the person feel like you did something when I say, I maybe I misheard it I didn't note it down properly. I put the onus on me rather than them. I'm going to obtain that clarification. Often, someone may have gaps in what they recount. So you need to clarify, did they do they not remember that did they not perceive it at the time is this information they might have gotten from some other source from the media from someone else who was there, or from, did I directly experience it and obtaining sufficient details. And as the opening the door for future conduct at the end of every interview. Asking, is there anything else we haven't discussed you'd like me to know or that I should have asked that you think I should. I always say, we've all had the experience we talked to someone and might be a job interview a conversation with a friend. Why didn't I mention this that may happen to you it may happen later today it may happen tomorrow please call me, but also say is it okay if I contact you again if I have more questions want to make sure the doors open for future contact. Lastly, it's unbiased. It recognizes an individual the investigators personal biases. So an example I could give I love to go see movies. Now if I went to a movie and there were people in the front row yelling at the screen making a lot of noise, I would be upset I'd be unhappy. So if I got this case, I might think, if I was in that theater, I wouldn't be happy about that but then I say, I'm not in the theater. I'm at work. I'm doing a job of a professional my job is not to pass judgment on the behavior of these young men in the theater. My job is to investigate an allegation about how the police behaved. My focus on their behavior is only to the extent that the police acted in response to that behavior, their interaction with the police, whether they were being disrespectful being loud or not just whatever. I'm looking at the police officer's behavior. That's my job. Identifying real or perceived conflicts of interest to superiors and recusing yourself when required the Oakland police department where I just finished some contract work has a recusal form that the internal affairs investigator has to complete and certifying that they have no personal business romantic or strong work relationship with the officer under investigation that they have no involvement with the incident and that goes in the file I think that's a wonderful document to have because it provides a record indicating that this officer certified to the superior that they were not going to have any conflicts if they did have a conflict. Well that case will be assigned to someone else. This is the things we just discussed before we move on. Okay, so let's go to the Johnson complaint. And so I want to make this as interactive as possible. So I want to get you to kind of suggest some of the things that we would be looking at in this investigation. So first would be some of the legal questions and issues. Can you think of anything that might this investigation perhaps should focus on. This is just a minute point but I would want to know that the officer's representation that it's illegal to wear a hat in the theater that that is absolutely a law. Yes, we'd want to look at that law and see exactly what it says. And very important and then the assault on a officer what are the elements of that was that arrest appropriate. So you always want to start with what are the rules or the laws that apply to the behavior. And what about the police department's rules what are some of the policies or rules that would be relevant to this investigation. Think de escalation. Do they have de escalation and in terms of the interaction with the individual. Yes, absolutely rules on use of force and de escalation. We have the requirements for use of certain levels of force. So here we have several different levels we have hands on use of force. We have use of deployment of a taser. We have use of a baton. We also have possible use of a flashlight as a weapon. So many departments prohibit use of a flashlight as a club or weapon, except in very extras in circumstances meaning the officers in a fight. They don't have a baton. They're fighting for their life. That's the only weapon they have, but normally that can't be used so there should be very specific rules regarding each of those uses of force. What about some of the other rules or procedures that would have governed what the officers did throughout that entire incident. A couple of things come up for me, such as the officer cursing at Johnson and also threatening people with arrest for for videoing the incident. Yes, most departments will have a policy about courtesy, and they typically prohibit profanity require that you treat all members of the public courteously and professionally. And most departments should have a policy on right of the public to observe police actions, including filming with the police are doing. So that would be a separate pile. All of those would be separate allegations that would be brought and that the officers would be questioned about potentially could be disciplined. Also, reporting the use of force. Being accurate about the use of force reporting. What about some of the factual issues that would be that we'd want to look at. Some of the questions that arise that the investigation should seek to answer. I would be really curious to know if they have ever enforced this no hat policy before. And if so against whom is it in only certain theaters in town, things like that. I'm going to look at how often is this enforced. Who isn't forced against if there are any disparate enforcement based on race ethnicity other protected class. Had it been forced to this theater, have these officers ever enforced it before. And if so, against who and what were the characteristics of those individuals disparate possible disparate treatment disparate enforcement. It would be interesting to know what the other folks in the theater had to say about all of this. If there were any attempts. Not that it would excuse the behavior of the police but it would be interesting to know if this, you know how did this come to their attention. Okay, so presumably the record of the call to police calls the police typically to 911 or audio recorded. They're entered into a computer by an operator that's dispatched officers and both orally and in the computer so there would be what we call a computer assisted dispatch or CAD record a print out for that this activity throughout their shift, and also for that particular incident from start to end with all the information provided by the caller to the operator and the information the officers communicate to dispatch. I believe they called for backup so that should be there it should also be on the audio recording. So that would indicate what the officers knew when they respond to the call. When they arrive cool reporting party is was it's who they're particularly going to contact as a source of information about what, what the issue is what they're going to need to do there. So the officers told this young man and his companions they they had to leave the theater. And as I recall from this account, they said they'd be good they wouldn't be they'd be quiet and so forth but like where does the they arrive for the offices to require to eject these young men essentially from the movie theater that all seems vague to me. That's a great question. It would be the theater owner or a manager, and that would be the person they contact when they arrive and that would be the person who would tell them what the issue is. And that would be the person who would have the right to say I want you to eject this individual. I don't believe that unless the individual has committed a crime, the officer can force them to leave the theater. So I'll be one of the issues you would want to interview the theater manager and say, What did you what describe your interaction with the officers? What did they say to you? What did you say to them? Did you tell them you wanted them to do anything? Would they ask you any questions? And if he says, I didn't give them any instructions, then you got the answers. What was your authority for telling these young men that they needed to leave? That was one thing I was going to bring up because I think it says in there that they refused to leave and were threatened and they threatened an employee. So I think one of the first questions I would ask would be to the supervisor. Did this actually occur? Were you guys actually threatened? Right. Yeah, it's always critical to find out what information police have at the start of an encounter. And here would be the manager that they talk to the usher, the information they get from dispatch. You know, we've seen that very critically in a lot of incidents where officers get a report of someone having a mental health crisis. But the family member may say he's harmless. We just, you know, he needs some psychiatric help versus they say he may have a weapon. And that's going to call out how the officers respond and some localities officers can see on their mobile will display terminal information about previous calls for service and a particular address that will flag if they're known to have firearms at that location. Or if it's known to be a location where there've been incidents of domestic violence, domestic violence calls are often very hazardous for officers because they're so emotionally charged they can involve weapons, they can involve violence. And they want to be prepared for that. So the information officer has as they respond to an incident is really critical. And one of the things you'd want to ask these officers and it's also something you could probably might be able to determine from records to they have previous experience with this location have they been to this theater before. Have there been previous problems? What have their encounters there been? You also want to explore what's their relationship there? Are they going there all the time on runs? There's one of those officers work a second job doing security at that theater, you know, which which could create a possible conflict there. Other questions that we want to seek answer the facts we want to get. You know about the deployment of the taser and you know where in the policy that falls in terms of what steps have to proceed it. It seemed awfully abrupt. Yes, exactly. Every department should have a policy and use of tasers. Some specify that tasers can only be used in circumstances where deadly force would be justified because people have died as a result of being tased. It's a controversial issue. It's one of the reasons San Francisco police do not have tasers because the community has been very opposed to them because of the very real hazards they pose to people who are in a mental health crisis who might be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. You know, they are considered less lethal use of force but in many ways they can be a lethal use of force. One of the things we want to look at would be the characteristics of the incident scene. And here that would be the environment of the theater. What's the size of the auditorium what is the lighting like what film was being shown and did they stop the film. What are the auditory characteristics of the theater is this a thousand seat theater or does it seat 50 or 75 people. Question. Can I ask why that would be relevant how that would be helpful to know that it would give you a sense of distances so if there are 20 people in a thousand feet theater, they may not be sitting close together. If it's a 50 seat theater they are going to be closer they're going to have better opportunity to perceive what's happening. So if you want to get a sense of the sight lines. So if you're going to interview people who are in the audience, you want to have a sense of where were you seated, and at least have some visual sense of how far that was likely to have been. Could they have seen what happened. Was their view blocked in any way. What were the sight lines, things like that. So another characteristic of these would be the officers equipment and how it was deployed at the time of entry that they have batons that they all have tasers that they have flashlights, etc. And the interaction in the theater. So as you said, where they all in profanity. What was the initial verbal interchange between the complaint and the officers. That initial physical interaction. The force use while the complaint was in his seat, the officers report just really glosses over those things in very generalized terms. So you'd want a very specific description of, okay, where were, where was each officer standing. How do they grab his wrist, where were they how far was officer reaching over the seat. You know, is this a seat that has several feet in front of it, or is it a fairly narrow, you know, from one seat to the, to the next. What was the space like. What were the complaints physical actions. Did the officers use profanity. Everything about the taser use, and every taser should have built into it a tiny video camera that's activated when it is taken out of the officer's holster. And whether or not they fire the taser that video should be going so that's an important source, because it's going to show the taser view of that interaction so that's a video in addition to the body worn camera video that you would want to obtain. Can I just ask, so any officers so we're talking about the United States any officer that's using a taser. It has that video. My understanding is that they all the, all the, all the manufacturer by axon which is the current name of taser. Fun fact taser stands for Thomas a swift electric rifle. Tom was a character in a series of books written for young people. And I think in one of them he had an electric rifle. But taser changed its name to maybe disassociate itself with that particular weapon or also because they're also manufacturing body worn cameras. But I believe they are the primary manufacturer and I think it may be a requirement that they have that camera the technology is very simple. And obviously it's a good idea because it documents the taser usage. There are also documents in a print out when the prey, when the taser is drawn and when it's fired and the number of discharges and the, how long they last because there have been instances where an officer can make contact with the taser on someone. So to pull the trigger to send the electrical charge. Well they have sent multiple electrical charges in a way that found to be very, very, very excessive use of force, maybe bordering on torture. So that's all recorded within the taser. So we want to, I just saw Shannon's hand up. I don't mean to cut in. I just want to clarify our tasers that the department uses does not have cameras on them. They do not do not correct it. Do they record information such as the time, the number of discharges. I did just send a message so I'll let you know when I have the info. Okay, thanks. Okay, thank you for clarifying that. The physical layout of the area around the seat is really going to be critical to the officers are claiming he suffered the head injuries from hitting his head on part of the seat. So that needs to be documented and photographs need to be taken with a ruler showing measurements maybe even a sketch of the area. The cause of the injuries to his head of lacerations. The cause of the injury to his arm is going to be significant issue, as well as the possible injury to his wrists from the tight handcuffs, and that's something that could be documented at the scene with photographs. I've seen occasions where those marks will last for some period of time. Each application of two tight handcuffs for a prolonged period can actually cause nerve damage where people have gone to a hospital and got a medical diagnosis. Also the cause of the officers injuries. That's going to be a significant issue here. Actions outside the theater. The officers statements and behavior in the ambulance statements by the complaint and officers to medical personnel. You don't even want to interview the paramedics and you, they will not give you information unless you have a hippo release signed by the individual they treated. You want to ask them, what statements that that individual make if he is saying that officer just beat me in the head with a flashlight. That's a contemporaneous statement that's going to be relevant. The officer said about the cause of the complaints injuries. Did they say I'm sorry after you finished I have a question. Okay. You know, the statements the officers make about the interaction, maybe very relevant. The officers laughing where they, what did they say about their injuries those are all, you know, gives you a snapshot of what was happening around the time of the incident. So what was your question. Yeah, I'm sorry and it's based on your experience. It's beyond this. But I'm just wondering what's your opinion or your experience on tasers and whether you could have a tape someone who is a taser is deployed. Would you say that by definition there's an injury to the person. You know, sometimes you'll get a report or an affidavit or report saying, you know, a taser was deployed but then we'll hear that there was there were no injuries to the, the person. In fact, there was deployed doesn't mean that the barbs made contact, make connectivity, so that it conducted a charge. And that has often happened where we'll hit someone's clothing or they will move. And they just won't make contact with the skin. Now, I don't have a lot of experience with tasers because San Francisco police investigated complaints against them for 18 years do not have tasers, or they're often called electronic control weapons, or electronic control devices. But my understanding is if that the barbs do make contact with the skin and there isn't electrical charge, they're very well maybe marks. And those should be photographed. Would those marks be called an injury. I would call them an injury yes. It's a disruption of the skinny we're getting into a medical area there and, and I don't have medical training, but they are something that could be photographed and I would one expect that to be in the police report, whether it would, should an officer be checking the skin for that or is that really more on the medical end. I think that would be more on the medical end. And typically, if someone is booked into the jail they need to be medically cleared. So in San Francisco, there's a nurse at the jail who doesn't medically screening medical screening. There's an individual set of questions about medical conditions need possible immediate need for medications pre existing problems, and about any injuries. And if someone had been taste I think they might examine that. And again, because San Francisco doesn't have the tasers I, I haven't seen records of that. If someone has a, if they don't feel someone can be cleared they will send them to the hospital. Before they can be admitted to the jail because they don't want someone there who has a medical issue that might flare up and something that they can handle you with facilities to have as a jail. Thank you. And did you have something you want to add it wanted to add in just to follow up so to circle back. So our tasers do record when it is turned on records how many times it is discharged. And for how long it will also indicate if it was a good connection, or if the probes, or not if it was a good connection or not and if the probes were discharged or deployed, excuse me. And the way it works it has two barbed probes attached to wires that I think are up to 20 feet, maybe 25 feet long. And they each have to make contact with the skin and then they complete a circuit that will conduct the charge that will incapacitate someone typically make them fall to the ground. But if they don't make contact, if they both don't make contact with the skin, you want to have a complete circuit. So, other things we'd want the investigation to look at would be the comparative size strength of the officers and the complainants. And this is a factor that is utilized in, I believe it's Graham v Connor the Supreme Court case one of the factors to consider whether use of force is reasonable. The comparative size strength resources of the officer and the individual on whom they're using force. The tenure training and prior experience of the of officer rice. The complaint history or similar incidents involving both officers. You know we talked about had they cited individuals for wearing a hat in the theater, did they have have they had previous instances of removing individuals from a theater, or pretty good from this theater. You might want to look at their prior use of force. And again, I'm talking about the whole constellation of things that can be done because I'm this case is purposely made a little more complex than you would normally encounter because we want to be able to touch on a lot of things. All these factors will not be present, likely, and many of the cases you deal with but he wanted you to have a sense of what could be out there, what issues could arise, what records and evidence might be applicable. The complaint prior medical condition and the history, particularly if there is an injury, a fracture or break of his arm. Had he sustained any previous injuries in that area. Similarly, had he received any injuries to his head. In other cases where someone might allege unnecessary force, but you need to determine where they in a fight in any other physical altercation in the period immediately proceeding that they could have resulted in those injuries, because this is the sort of thing that you're hearing or to trial. The opposing attorney is going to ask is they're going to look for a way to say, how else could this have been caused what might be other possibilities that shift that take blame off my client, the officer. There's a lot of experience through litigation investigation I think we got to sit in on a lot of court cases that I participated and just see how the intense level of scrutiny. The adverse attorney would place on all the evidence. So a good investigator is going to try and anticipate those things, particularly if the case is going to be sustained to ensure that there are any questions that will come up later on that might compromise the the validity of the finding. So let's talk about some of the potential allegations, we did the little little bit about the officer ordering the complaint to remove his hat. What do you think of that mentioned the profoundly threat. Any other things the officer said or did that you think might be a violation of department policy. The injury to the gentleman's shoulder or arm. Yes. We talked about use of the taser. The injuries to the head. One thing that came up for me is what the policy is when the person is initially injured what should be the response when there's an injury it seems like there were successive injuries. And what the responsibility of the officers is to address that. I'm not sure if it's that clear but yeah. Yeah, typically if they're making an arrest until they have someone handcuffed, they really can't address injuries. In fact, we'll see as heavily in some officer involved shootings where they will actually go and handcuff the individual before they render first aid. It's how they're trained and, you know, the appropriateness of that in the shooting cases is debatable but it is typically how they are trained that they need to contain a potential threat particularly if someone has been resisting, they are typically required if there is an injury to immediately summon medical care it appears they did an ambulance was summoned to respond to the theater. Obviously if you want to look at how promptly they summoned the ambulance and what they reported. And again that would be in the CAD record and also in the communications audio. So what I'm saying about the nature of the injury which were reflect how quickly they want the ambulance to respond if it's you know they wanted to come code three is the person bleeding profusely, or is an injury that you know if they get here. Not with red lights and siren but you know in an appropriate period of time. Another possible allegation be the officer telling officer right on the complaint to show her some respect. That would not be appropriate. And that would also be an issue of are these police actions being taken because the complaint of the complainants attitude it's called contempt of cop. Someone mouth soft to a police officer is this courteous and the officer instead of behaving professionally. Besides, I'm going to teach this personal lesson and show them who's in charge here and decides to cite them or arrest them or use force. It's inappropriate it's not professional. And that should be a separate allegation. We talked about really all the allegations I can think of any any others you come to mind any questions before we move on. There's this notion of what was their end game and going in there. Right. So, if these folks are just offering to be quiet. What's really the ultimate goal here of this interaction just or is it to just take action against them physical action so I don't know how to embrace that notion but really you know what's a reasonable reasonable expectation going into that as to what should how it should resolve because it should, you could look at that and say it should have stopped right there. Right. And this would go to their interaction with the theater manager. And they should have asked what would you like us to do with the theater manager should have articulated that and say I'd like you to remove them from the theater, which they have a right to do at any property or has a right to say, I do not want this person on my property. And maybe they need me to refund their tickets but they a business owner does have that right. So, but if, if the, if he simply said go talk to them or did not give them any instructions, and they're making that decision then you need to ask what's the justification for that decision, and what law or rule is it based on. And the officer would have to articulate that. And if they couldn't articulate that then that would be. It could be couched as issuing an invalid order, telling them they had to leave when there was no just legal justification for that. That would be similar to someone is filming on the sidewalk and the officer says, you have to leave. That's an invalid order. They're not posing a threat to the officer they're exercising First Amendment rights to observe and possibly film. So their conversation with the soup the owner of the theater should have been part of the officer's report. Yes, absolutely. The theater. Well, we'll get to that in the investigation plan because we're going to go through some of the documents you can obtain is that is that another slide Kami. There's still on this one. Oh, okay. We, we had we had some of these on slides that we talked about. Can I ask about this one is interesting to me department rules on summoning backup. I didn't know there would be rules on that. Can you just give me an example of what a rule might be with that regard. Well, it would be training you don't want to summon backup if it's not necessary. But if they are able to restrain the individual and they don't, the threat has passed. They may not need backup, or typically, once that thread is passed, they will, they will advise the communications operator that everything is under control they don't need backup. You know, just as important as so many other officers letting other officers know it's okay, things are under control. You walk down the street and you see a police car with its red lights and siren. It may be responding because other officers have called, whatever the code is officer needs assistance has a resisting suspect. So they're going to get there as fast as they can. But once that officer need no longer needs officers they're obligated to get on the radio and say, okay, whatever the code is. Because those officers may be coming from other duties from their own sectors. So, you know, again, it would be breaking out of the incident, step by step what happened once he's handcuffed. That need really is, is, is gone away. We go to the next slide. And here just some of the factual question that we covered all these. And the next slide after that. Okay, so now we're going to talk about the investigation plan. So this is something I prepared and all the investigators I know prepared for every investigation no matter how minor. It's a roadmap. It's a documentation of what what's what the investigation is going to need to do. And it's a little bit of supervisor will review and approve. So it contains timelines. It enables someone else to pick up this case and see where it is at various stages and, and continue with the investigation if the original investigator has to go on vacation or otherwise unavailable. So, we're going to go through some of the documents to obtain so I think that's. So, I mentioned police communication records. And this would be for both officers, Peters and rice and the officers who respond that is backup. Written statements, we had leave officer. Peter statement. We also should have prepared a statement the officers respond that his backup may have prepared individual statements. So those are all things we want to gather. For many departments, anytime there's a use of force that has to be documented. Excuse me, sometimes it's in a separate use of force report, or sometimes it's going to be in the original incident report. For many departments, I use the force that results in an injury, which, which is the case here, a sergeant would have to respond and do a preliminary use of force investigation, which would mean taking photographs of injuries, getting statements from individuals that might include members of the audience the complainants friends and the officers there. So that would be a separate document. Names and contact information for audience members which could be in the original incident report or in the use of force report. The ambulance dispatch and incident records, the paramedics typically will prepare a report and again this is considered a medical record. So you need to have a HIPAA release signed but there will also be the dispatch record indicating what information they received as they responded in terms of what kind of call they were going to, what type of injuries, how, when they arrived, when they departed from the scene when they arrived at the medical facility, and when they indicated that they were back in service. So those, those records kind of form the framework for the incident for understanding the times, the locations, the parties that were involved. And again you have to ensure that the documents are reliable. You don't want to just assume it is. You want to determine where it came from and is it authentic. And it's medical records as I mentioned so jail medical records if you saw treatment in a hospital for any subsequent medical treatment he received. I have taken medical records to an expert sometimes to an emergency room physicians and I see the medical examiner, and asked them, based on these photographs on these records what can you tell me about the likely cause of this injury. And let me say it would be consistent with or inconsistent with. So in this case I want to know, could this be consistent with the individual falling. And then I say no it's not consistent with that well would it be consistent with an individual twisting this person's arm and say yes, it would be consistent with that. And that would be very important evidence reflecting on the officer statement about how the injury was sustained, and that could even bring in possible allegations of dishonesty of falsification of a report or possible criminal charges, or inflection of the injury, and for the falsification of a police report which in many jurisdictions are signed under penalty of perjury. The citations prepared by the officer for the offense. Prisoner transfer records, if he is transferred from one location to another with other individuals. He may make contemporaneous statements of those people about what happened. And that would be very important the booking documents, which will may reflect his physical condition may include photographs, same, along with the mugshot, many jails take a photograph of someone separate from the mugshot that will often be in the file and on their wristband. So they can be properly identified within the jail. So, photographs of the officers injuries. Now, if there's a use of force investigation this should take place. If the officers are documenting their injuries because they're charging the man with assault. That's going to be important evidence. Training records, typically officers receive refresher training periodically maybe every year or two years, and that will often include use of force training. How recently they have received that training training on use of taser. Because when you interview an officer you want to say and when we recently trained on this and what was that training. And if that training occurred not that long before the incident. Well, do you remember that training and what did that training say about X behavior, or why behavior. And at some point in the interview you can ask, was your behavior consistent with your training. And if they say, no, you know, well, why not. And they're going to have to be able to give an explanation for that. The dispatch records of police responses that theater in San Francisco we could enter in an address and bring up records of all police responses to that address for a given period of time. So again, we can see a place frequently responding to that theater. And that could also lead us to records of the disposition of those responses. Do they eject other individuals that they arrest them. Do they arrest anyone for wearing a hat in the theater. Just, you know, the whole range of previous, previous incidents there. Similarly, in San Francisco we could enter an address and locate all the police reports involving that particular location. It might also be possible to gather records, we're going to all the arrests for that particular fence of wearing a hat in the theater, either through the police agency, possibly through the county prosecutor or the city prosecutor. And if the district attorney says, I've been doing this job for 20 years and I've never heard of anyone being charged with that offense. I'm surprised it's still on the books. There's going to be a powerful statement about the charging of the complaint without offense. And also the records of arrest by those officers for assault on an officer or resisting arrest, and how that might compare to similarly situated officers are they charging people with resisting more frequently, and that can be an indicator that those officers are using force more often because they're charging people with resisting to the next slide please. Any questions about those records. So, physical evidence. I talked about photographs of the complaint's injuries. If he comes in to make that complaint and those within a period of time when he still has visible injuries or when they should be seen those injuries should be photographed. They should be photographed with proper lighting with a scale in the photograph. There's going to be evidence you may want to take to a medical professional. That's going to be very important evidence. If there's a sustained finding the body worn camera recordings, and these are going to be one of the first things the investigator should get big, you know they some agencies have immediate access to them. They can just go into the database and pull that up. And if those cameras were running, they're going to give you a good visual sense but also at audio recording of what happens so right away you're going to know. Did that obviously use profoundly what was the verbal interchange there. It may very immediately confirm or refute some of the complaint statements and may indicate the officer's report is largely seems to be correct or may indicate the officer's report is absolutely incorrect. Maybe we need to refer this for criminal investigation, because it clearly shows officers using force that is not described in that report. The photographs of the clothing worn by the complaint at the time of the arrest. This means for the clothing may show scuff marks may show damaged hairs, but also it may be useful when you talk to witnesses and again if this was a big theater. If you can know what the individual is wearing you can say did you observe that person. Someone might have been in it might be a multiplex and they may have seen officers leading someone away and say I remember he was wearing this and this. Then you know that's the complaint it's a way of confirming identification, though cell phone videos from audience members. And the batons and flashlights if they were used to strike complaint in the head. He's saying he sustained the injuries one way he's saying he sustained them from being struck in the head with a baton or flashlight. In that case you might want to seize that baton or flashlight and potentially have it tested for DNA evidence because again, we're talking about potentially serious criminal offense. Officer lies in a police report about how officers and someone sustained injuries and actually struck them in the head of a flashlight. That's going to be a serious act of misconduct. And then I mentioned some photographs of the theater to get an idea of the sight lines, the size and kind of the perspective. Any questions about about the physical evidence listed here. Okay let's go on to some of the witnesses. So obviously, the compliance two companions, they should have, we would hope a lot to say you want to interview them separately. You want to ask them clarify what they individually deserve versus what they may have heard from the other, they may have shared stories. And that's, you know, people are allowed to do that we try and prevent it. If we can control it, but you just want to find out how one individual's perspective might have affected the other's perspective. The theater employee who had contact with complainants and his companions. He was one of the members of the audience, potentially the projectionist who might have had an opportunity here or see what was taking place. I mentioned the paramedics. Medical personnel who examined and treated the complaint. Again, what, what did he say to them about what had happened. I did EO investigations for a time. Those often involve a situation where it's one on one about sexual propositions or sexual statements. And in those cases, contemporary statements made by the victim are very powerful someone calls a friend in tears saying you know my boss just said this to me or co worker said this, I don't know what to do. Those can confirm their account, they can buttress their credibility. So I always look for those and the same would apply for jail personnel who took custody of the complaint. Also show, you know, talk about his demeanor. The officers are describing him as very angry and threatening and aggressive. Well, if everyone else says he was docile that's going to kind of contradict that. So the next slide. Other investigation might be social media sites. The people who took those videos may have posted them to Facebook to YouTube to tick tock to whatever. So you'd want to look at those. You might want to see if anyone in post made postings about those officers because of their previous encounters and potentially you might want to look at postings by those officers. You've probably read about certain Facebook pages or websites where current and retired officers talk about their experiences about their opinions. Some agencies have done investigations because they found that officers have been posting things that reflect this credit on the department, sometimes racially or ethnically biased statements indicating a prejudice. That's an increasing area for potential investigation. I haven't done any of those but it's something that's out there. And we may see more of many police agencies are now adopting social media policies for their employees regarding what is permissible for them to post about their work particularly if it identifies them as an officer. And then also YouTube postings of the videos. Any questions about that? So, I always like to premiere when there are multiple witnesses or issues I like to prepare a matrix. And if it's hard to read, Kami's going to send you the PowerPoint so you can look at it more easily. But this kind of charts out a comparison after the investigation of what the party said about some of these significant issues here. Like, you know, whether the complainant is friends yelling, the officer statements about wearing hats, whether the complainant punched or kicked the officers, the cause of the complaint, the injuries of the complainants head. This forms a good basis for how you're going to outline and then write the report. It shows you what the evidence is and kind of, this kind of gives you a very good visual aid. So, I have trained people to use this. I don't know whether officers in Burlington PD who do internal affairs investigations use these but it's a nice graphic representation. Any questions about this? So let's move on to what you might look for when you're reviewing investigation. So we have the first slide. So, first is the complaint and interview. And was the complaint allowed to tell their story with minimal interruption. This is all relevant information obtained. So this would include things like contact information for witnesses. For the Johnson complaint. How can I contact your friends? What are their addresses, phone numbers, emails? Where am I likely to find them? Did you know anyone in the audience? There's much information as you can so you can make direct contact with those individuals. You don't want to say, oh well ask them, here's my card, ask them to give me a call. Now that's a passive approach. You want an active approach to say how can I contact them very directly. So we want to get a description of each officer and their actions and you may not know the officer's name. Sometimes you'll say officer one, officer two or, you know, the tall officer. The officer with a blonde hair, the officer who was bald or whatever. Documentation of everything that happened in the incident of the injuries. The awareness of any recordings, you know, was there anyone around there? Did anyone have their phone up? Are you familiar with that area? Are there any CCTV cameras there? Were they, if they had injuries? Were they asked to sign a medical release? Were they asked appropriate closing questions? When those would include, have you discussed this with anyone? And who, when, what was the summary of that discussion? Because again, those contemporaneous statements can be important. But also if they gave an account of this to someone else that's very different from what they're telling the investigator, that's also going to be significant. Is there anything we haven't discussed? Do you think I should know? Any question you think I should have asked? Again, if you remember something, will you let me know? Next slide. Could I jump into your question? So from our perspective, so this now causes me to ask questions about our role as commissioners in reviewing investigations of complaints. So that last slide, I'm sorry, complaint and interview, right? How would we know if all of this had been done? Would we be, how would we be able to ascertain the quality of the complaint and interview? Would it be, you know, that the chief or the investigator would write a written report? How do we know, for example, the complaint, whether the complaint was led to tell his or her story? Well, I actually looked at your, the rules of your commission to review complaints. And I think it says each commissioner shall have access to the written records of all complaints upon request to the chief, whose identification of all witnesses documents, evidence or other information obtained or consulted in the course of the investigation. So I'm not sure how your department and how your city attorney is applying that. I would see that for you saying, we'd like to see the transcripts of the interviews, the summaries of the interviews, audio recordings. Many, most agencies now are moving towards transcribing interviews because it can be fairly inexpensive. There's a service that the agency I most recently worked for used rev.com. There was really fairly cost efficient and certainly more cost effective than having the investigator listen to the recording and summarizing it. It really also gave you a permanent record. So a reviewer could see that. So that would allow you to see that. So again, I don't know what you're going to be able to access, but I would try and interpret that as broadly as you can get as much as you can. And one thing I was thinking about your chief or the Internal Affairs Bureau may say, we know our job, you know, you're really not going to aid us. And a response to that can be. I know it's a small department, I think it's budgeted for 105 officers and currently have 70 or 80 members of the commission are being exposed to a lot of information those internal affairs investigators probably aren't like this training. Other resources in the oversight community. So you're learning a lot about how effective practices for administrative investigations. So officers in internal affairs typically are there for a limited tenure, and then they're going to go out to other assignments, they're typically at least drank a sergeant. Meaning they probably have aspirations to rise up in the department or to be work as detectives. Well, if you're going to be a supervisor and manager investigating complaints against employees conducting administrative investigations is a really important skill. And you can help them become more skilled to that give them more hours on their quiver which is going to aid them on promotional examinations. Aid them as they rise through the ranks. They may seek management positions in different police agencies, maybe smaller agencies. So this is going to be a boon to their career to their trajectory of their career because you're going to have something to offer them that some trainings and insight, but they may not have. I believe that their investigations are more solid, which is going to reflect on their performance. If their investigations go to arbitration and I don't know if that happens when an officer is disciplined, and the arbitrator says, this is a very solid investigation very well done. It supports the finding, and I'm going to support the department's decision in this matter. You know, bolster their reputation. That's going to be something that will enhance their performance and their career path. So that's something you can offer them. Jason. Yes, in a review capacity. I guess our document is going to guide whether we could say when presented with the, the summary of the investigation if the complainant was never interviewed, for example, and and it's presented to us the completed investigation. I guess we are going to have to put, you know, this is where we would think about an MOU that would say the commission could ask for, you know, upon completion they could say well actually we would like these additional things done like we'd like to have the complain and interviewed, whatever it is. Yes, the complaint should be interviewed. I think almost all the time unless they have choose not to and they have provided a very detailed statement or unless they're represented by an attorney who is declining to make them available for an interview. And I, I suppose there could be complainants who might feel like it's traumatic to be interviewed perhaps, you know, even though they're willing to do the complaint they might feel like being interviewed by the police is just adding to it. And that is, that's a very good point and that's why in some cities that review investigations rather than having that independent investigatory authority. They're, they also have the ability to take complaints, so that there is a non law enforcement entity that can take the complaint and some of them do the initial interview with the complainant. And they, there's not that same fear necessarily if they are afraid or or they're reliving a trauma. It might be easier if they're doing that with someone who's not in support and law enforcement so something to consider. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, so. So, investigator assignment. So, is the investigator free of potential bias this would mean, do they have any involvement in the incident. Do they respond to that scene. Do they have a relationship with an involved party that could be perceived as compromising the investigation and I say, could be perceived doesn't mean there is a real bias but perception is very important so this could be a family relationship, personal friendship romantic relationship outside business relationship. Like I mentioned, does the officer have secondary employment working at that business doing security on weekends. You may remember Derek Chauvin worked security for a nightclub. So he might have had a relationship without business. And again, you have a small department. If someone really shouldn't be investigating someone who used to be their partner, or someone who they work closely with or might be working closely with in the future. If I, if I may that that was what I was going to ask about because it is a small department it's a small town. It seems especially important here. And I just wanted to note your comment that some agencies require that the investigators sign a document that says there is no conflict of interest is that something you think is especially advisable in a small department for example. So that's from the Oakland Police Department which has about 900 officers so it has a fairly large internal affairs unit. So if one individual has a conflict, it can easily be assigned to another internal affairs investigator. But as I mentioned I did EO investigations for a public agency, and I was the only EO investigator there. So we had a procedure where if an investigator involves someone I had a personal relationship with. We were going to hire an outside investigator, or if it involves someone in the human resources department which I was a part of, we were going to bring in an outside investigator. And I know that's something that came up through your last session with Kami and I have done a little research on that I hope to do more. But I found two jurisdictions in California that have contracted with outside investigators, and they have paid in the area of around $90 an hour. It's based on California cost of living. And in one of those jurisdictions. The court appointed rate that's paid by the county for court appointed investigators where the public defender's office has a conflict, they can't represent someone. So you have a conflict attorney, and they hire an investigator, a private investigator outside the public defender's office who's doing the same type of investigation. And in that county, they typically pay $75 to $100 an hour for court appointed investigators. So to gauge what it might be there. You could try contacting your county public defender office finding out is their court appointed program and what is the court appointed investigator rate, both for the county and in federal court whatever federal district there. And that might give you a sense of what an appropriate rate would be. So, did the investigator have adequate time and resources to conduct the investigation. So this would reflect was their case load to onerous that they could not get to it in time. Were they given this case, two days before they're going on a three week investigation, which means nothing's going to happen for three weeks. Did they have the equipment they need. Were there no cars for them to go out in the field with to go knock on witnesses doors that they not have a camera to go out and take photographs. Those are all relevant, relevant factors ensuring that the investigation is robust and effective. Can we the investigation plan. With the relevant rules, allegations raised and the rules that here too. So this would mean the allegations raised by the complaint. Additional allegations or violations not raised by the complaint but that the investigator should be able to identify. I believe that when you're doing an administrative investigation, it should be behavior driven and not complaint driven. It's to the benefit of that agency to identify rules violations and problem officers to avoid problems in the future and not just look at only those things that a somewhat individual complains about. So some agencies have a complaint withdraws the complaint will stop the investigation. I just agree with that. I think if that if there's misconduct there the agency needs to know about that and again I bring in some of my e o perspective to this, where the law requires that if an employer becomes aware of harassing or discriminatory behavior, they are legally obligated to investigate it. Whether or not the complaint wants to proceed. If they fail to do an adequate investigation they can be liable down the road and I think that should apply that same standard should apply to police agencies because the hazard posed by officers who violate the rules can be enormous to the community and to the police agency. So, we're all supervisory officers held accountable, and we're all relevant policies and rules identified, and that can be very important because often an officer needs to be noticed before the interview of the rules they might be held accountable. And if that's not done, then they can't be held to violate them. If they don't receive that notice I don't know what the requirements are and for Burlington Police Department. So, we plan identify the relevant records evidence witness is investigative tasks, didn't conclude a timeline to and did a supervisor ensure that that timeline was adhere to and if not, why not. Was it reviewed by supervisor. When we were informed in a timely manner. Were failures to obtain documents evidence or conduct interviews explained, was it because someone was unavailable because no efforts were made. No other reason but lack of documentation just allow someone to guess. And we're any gaps in the investigation because of the officer was investigating was involved with something else, or there had to be a halt for some reason maybe there's a court proceeding going on with those explained documented. So can the next slide please. Sorry, can I just ask a question so when you say did the supervisor review the plan. So, in our, in our role as commissioners, we could then ask to see the investigation plan. Who is typically, I know in larger agencies is probably different but who would be the relevant supervisor of a person who's doing an investigation would that be the chief. Typically in an internal fairs unit, it would be a lieutenant or captain, or for brilliant PD, it might be the deputy chief for administration if it's under their ages and the internal investigations take place. I think typically the chief is not going to receive the complaint until the report is concluded. They don't want to have a direct hand in it because they don't want to be in a perception of them influencing it because they're going to make the ultimate decision on any discipline. They want to be one step removed so lieutenant captain or deputy chief should be reviewing that plan approving it making sure it's adhered to. Yeah, as it progresses. Thanks. So the next slide regarding records. It's often helpful for officers to investigate to have a checklist of all the potential records and to document, you know, the data they were requested data received that goes in the file. Very graphically illustrates when they requested when they when they came in. There's a whole list of potential records and Kevin's going to send you this document and other forms you'll have them, I need to review them here. Next slide, we go to the next slide for interviews. So, where the interviews recorded and where those recordings transcribed. Typically, in California all piece interviews law enforcement officers have to be audio recorded. They don't have a right to refuse. So it was our practice to audio record everyone unless they refused. For more investigations if the party refused to be interviewed. We had a second person in the room who served solely as a note taker. So we want it's I do useful to have a second person so you can have some corroboration of what someone something was said if you just have to rely on written notes for civilian witnesses. As I mentioned was due diligence exercise to locate necessary witnesses. So the things that can be checked for that due diligence will be in the document can be will send you was a canvas for witnesses conducted. Was it done in a timely manner was it properly documented. For interviews thorough, where they was a complete narrative elicited with questions asked in a neutral manner with open ended and clarifying questions was all relevant information obtained, and we're inconsistencies addressed for officer interviews where they conducted questions about officers rights and responsibilities. Well they asked about their training experience, where they asked about their understanding of relevant policies and rules, whether no suggestive or leading questions. They were they asked to describe actions very specifically, and we're inconsistencies addressed. And then any questions about that. Next slide. And the report. So was all the relevant evidence summarized all the allegations addressed were relevant policies and rules cited. The investigator gather all the evidence that was really necessary to reach a finding. The investigator make credibility assessments. Was the basis for credibility assessments clearly stated in the report with the reasons for the credibility assessments based on evidence, not based on purely subjective factors. I didn't like the way he looked I don't trust people like X. And again they're very established credibility factors. Credibility assessments consistently applied to civilian witnesses and to officers. Officers should not be believed be believed more solely because they are officers, but whether they can credible because of the credibility factors with their statements consistent with other evidence with other witnesses with a plausible, etc. The investigator analyze all the evidence and testimony that they address and reconcile inconsistencies in the evidence. Did the evidence support the findings and was the preponderance the evidence standard of proof applied I'm assuming that's the standard for your agency that it's not clear and convincing preponderance of evidence means more likely than not. My agency directors describe that as you have a scale, it's evenly balanced and you put a feather on one side. And that's the preponderance. Yeah, that's because there are policy about this. You just asked if our agency has that particular rule. How would we find that out where with that. I didn't see it in the policy regarding internal affairs investigations but that's something the chief of police of the city attorney should know. It should be memorialized somewhere. And in workplace investigations nationwide the standard is generally preponderance of the evidence and investigation of complaints against police officers is the type of workplace investigation. So that should be the appropriate standard if it's not then someone should look at that and the department should explain why they want a higher standard. And Stephanie I imagine we need to look at the CBA on this as well. Uh huh, right, right. That's another thing. Internal affairs investigators can gain from doing administrative investigations. They're used to dealing with proof beyond the reasonable doubt which was a much higher standard. But the preponderance standards the standard they will have to use if they go on to be managers. If they go on to be a captain or chief of this department or another department which I'm sure some of them aspire to. They need to be familiar with that standard and know how to apply it. So that's a skill they're going to gain that you can help them gain it. So I did want to mention a good resource. And that is this book. It's called managing accountability systems for police conduct by Jeffrey Noble. And in the back it has appendices with 12 and 14 page outlines for all the questions you can ask a complaint and a police officer. And I'm recommending it because it is affordable as an ebook on a Libras you can get it from the publisher $15 for 90 days or $30 $32 to purchase it. And unfortunately the hard copy is somewhere between 40 and $75. Sure, it's managing accountability systems for police conduct, and I'll send the information for Kami with the name of the author and the publisher. So she can send that to you as well. But I highly recommend it has chapters devoted to the process of investigation to interviews to discipline. It's far greater detail than I did probably more eloquently than I did. So other questions. Yeah, I do have a question. You mentioned if a complainant, and I'm sorry I'm just blurting other. If a complainant said at some point in the investigation says actually I don't want to proceed. You've said, you know, you should just proceed with it. In the case that we, it's not uncommon for us to have complaints that are not brought by the individual who was involved, but by someone who may be captured footage on camera or whatever. I presume the same answer is going to apply if you contact that individual, and they say that they want, they don't want an investigation of what happened with them for whatever reason that one should still proceed. Well, if you have a complaint who is not the victim and, and the victim of the subject of the police actions does I don't want to proceed. Well then you can still proceed because you have a complaint. Now I don't know what your MOU says about whether it can investigation can go forward if the complaint withdraws that you need to take a look at that. But that's easy as we have no MOU. That's something we're going to be working on, but that's helpful actually. Yeah, you may, you may encounter resistance from officers about proceeding with an investigation if the complaint withdraws it. So I'm just giving you my personal opinion about the focus of administrative investigations and the benefit I think they give to managers of a police agency and to a commission like yours. That may not be applicable or feasible in your community. It appears that more and more oversight entities are gaining the ability to to receive third party complaints. That wasn't as common two decades ago, but it is more common now than it had been for that very reason. There are there's a lot of things that are captured on video that someone might not feel comfortable actually complaining. The other thing that has become more common is the acceptance of anonymous complaints that someone is is for whatever reason is concerned about whether it be for retribution. There are some people who are the victims of misconduct who also may have criminal complaints against them and are concerned about how that might affect them. That doesn't mean they weren't the victim of misconduct. But there is, when you accept anonymous complaints, there's a lot of work to be done to let people know what that actually does to an investigation. If you can't contact them that you have very minimal information other than the initial interview, it does make it difficult to come to an accurate finding. So, but still more people are accepting them. Yeah, that's helpful. We do accept them. That's fantastic. And some boards or commissions are now gaining the ability to ask their agency to initiate an investigation based on will address community concerns, even if there's no complaint filed. And that was something San Francisco recently gained that ability. And I think Oakland also has that ability that the Civilian Police Commission can ask the civilian oversight entity to conduct an investigation because it's an issue that the public has concern about. And one of the reasons is I when I served on a civilian review board. You would see things that happened in the community, you'd see video of them. And people would say, well, why are you doing anything about it? Well, you have to wait for a complaint to come in for that to actually initiate the process. So we are seeing more and more being able to, as Jason said, to initiate an investigation when they know that there has been evidence that something occurred. And they want to make sure an investigation is done. Can I ask, where would that agreement that the oversight board be able to request an investigation? Where would that lie in terms of policy or in written form? It was an ordinance passed by the voters. It was a voter approved initiative. Oh, and I can get that to you. And San Francisco's oversight entity is three years ago through a similar initiative gained the authority to initiate investigations on their own. If I'm not, I believe, sorry, I know, I know we can file complaints on behalf of people. So I'm assuming that we, if we have any concern or complain about something that we could make that complaint, even if there's not an official complainant. So my understanding, I think it should be investigated by beef PD anything we bring up. I had the same impression and I'll have to check our oversight policy on that because it might suggest that but it could certainly be clearer if it doesn't. Yeah, absolutely agree with that. And lawsuits are sometimes referred to as a complaint with a price tag. Some will file a lawsuit they will not file an official complaint, but some jurisdictions view lawsuits as a matter that should receive an administrative investigation. It's typically investigated by the city attorney or whoever is going to defend the municipality against that lawsuit, but their focus is what is the validity of this lawsuit and what is our liability here and it's not necessarily did the officer comply with the rules and what potential remedial action might need to be taken. So that's also something to consider. I've got a couple of questions. I'll just put them both out there and, you know, you can respond to them sequentially however you'd like. So one question would be whether you have any particular advice for small community like ours. In terms of investigations anything, you know, specific to us. And a second question is any thoughts or comments on complaints filed by parents of events that occurred to their juvenile child. So just the whole issue around whether the subject here under consideration as a juvenile, are there different issues that come up that we should be aware of. Does your department have a specific policy regarding juveniles. So far as what you're questioning juveniles outside the presence of their parents or notification to parents when a juvenile is detained or arrested. I can speak specific but I can certainly find out for the commission. I do want to say I believe that they do not question juveniles without their parents present. But I can say for certain. Parents certainly do have a right to file a complaint on behalf of their children. And obviously you would want the parents consent to interview the juvenile. It's often they the parent will want to be present. You know, there's another issue in San Francisco we did accept complaints from juveniles. And they did not have to obtain their parents consent. And I think that juveniles in San Francisco often have encounters with police and we wanted them to know their rights and to understand they could come to us to make a complaint. And I have said to everyone, the fact that a complaint is accepted and that or that an investigation is being conducted is not a judgment about behavior it's just an investigation. It's a fact finding process. So it doesn't mean anyone has formed any judgment about the allegations brought forth in a complaint and regarding the small community. I wanted to ask County Earl if you knew whether you have a dedicated internal affairs Bureau because the police department website mentions complaints referred by an executive investigator, implying a specific individual so I'm just a little little bit more clear what your the internal affairs unit if any looks like how many officers are in it and what other duties they have I know this is a detective Bureau investigates a wide range of criminal offenses. Yeah. There is statewide training as a statewide internal affairs investigation course. $600 and some odd dollars. I assume BPD has sent officers to that. But it largely focuses on the laws applying to internal affairs investigations maybe somewhat on the techniques. You know, as I've mentioned, interviewing in administrative investigations can be very different than interviewing in criminal cases. They're dealing with the hurdle of a complaint feeling mistrustful of police and they're in there talking to an officer who may have a badge and a gun on their belt. I mean, there's anything make some extra efforts to diffuse apprehension and concern and establish rapport make that person feel comfortable. And officers can be perfectly capable of that. But it may be a little different than what they're, they may be accustomed to, particularly when you're listening to someone who may have a lot of most negative emotion about the police. So I think all is in this training and just wanted to check and see Karen if you've had any questions. Well, if you do just feel free to unmute. I don't want to take it up anybody else if time if others want to ask questions. I just like for example, the last example that you gave Jason with regard to the demeanor of the investigator and so forth again, I think our challenge is as a review entity. I'm not sure how we assess certain things such as that for example. Ideally, it would be great if you could get the audio recordings of the interviews to review them and get a sense of what they sound like. That's why I mentioned that podcast the KQD pocket is it's really fascinating to hear the actual internal affairs and interviews done in a country where they had no idea these would ever become public and the law at the time made these absolutely confidential, but the law changed and now they're accessible. So it shows you know the good and the not so good in terms of how they question different parties. And they also have the audio for body worn camera videos of police encounters of incidents that became contentious. I was just googling that and so if you could give us more specifics about the title of the podcast because there are several from KQED that would be great. It's called on our watch. Oh, okay. And I will also send Tammy the link so she can forward that on to you they have new episodes coming out every Thursday. So when I finish this I'm going to go out for a bike ride and listen to it while I ride. Okay. Yes, Shannon did you just I appreciate you allowing me to to ask some questions to the chiefs who are not on the call and provide some clarifying information so they we do have a juvenile detective. The Cousy detectives so that's the Chittenden unit special investigation unit detectives have extensive training in interviewing interviewing juveniles and traditionally that unit is the one that would do the juvenile interviews. And then regarding the internals, we do not have an internal investigative unit would just are not large enough for that. So the lieutenants are the ones that conduct the internal investigations. And then the deputy chiefs, the deputy chiefs and the chiefs will review those interviews and that investigation. Okay. So there may be a somewhat, somewhat new endeavor for those lieutenants. People stay lieutenant for a limited period of time. I hope to move up. But it's new skills they can acquire and refine. And as I said, you're being exposed to information. And there are many other tasks may not have an opportunity to be exposed to so you can give them useful information that will help do their jobs better now and in the future, because lieutenants said are likely to rise up in this or another agency and wind up being managers who may have to review administrative investigations and make decisions about them. Does anyone. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Stephanie. Again, I thought if others want to ask questions, I don't want to take up their time. I don't know if Jabu or Shareen has other questions. Mine is more about the feedback that the oversight entity would provide in response to the department's report to us about the investigation, the kinds of feedback that we would give. I have a sense of that. And for example, I understand we could ask questions about whether certain things have been done certain materials interviews and so on and so forth. Just wonder if you have any other advice with regard to what feedback we would provide, given our role. Do you mean to jump in there, Jason. Yeah, I said I've looked over your rules. I'm not sure in, you know, practical basis, what you are allowed to provide. And can't can be actually has more experience dealing with different boards and commissions than I do because she's dealt with them all around the country. So, since what governs you now is fairly broad and in some cases vague. I know that we talked previously about mo use and a lot of that original conversation I think kind of centered around the exchange of information. And I think that you can look at that as a way to not only what information can you get. But it also can be what information you'd like to, what is the two way streets that you'd like to create and then and kind of solidify a process. So, sometimes that looks like for agencies that they might review an investigation, and there are certain things that they see that they see as potential deficiencies in the investigation and it could just be that you see that. Why wasn't this interview or this in witness and interviewed, and there could be a very logical reason for that but it's just not in the file. There's a list of questions that can be sent back and responses that are given to you. Some oversight authorities or entities have the ability to request additional investigation. Sometimes they can look at an investigation and not agree with the disposition of it. And they might say, Well, I'm looking at this and this doesn't feel unfounded to me or this doesn't feel sustained to me. And so that they can have that conversation, whether it is in many instances, kind of when there's information that seems to be lacking that might be a conversation with Lieutenant who did the investigation. If there is additional concern or a disagreement about disposition, then that might be a conversation with the chief. It just really depends on the process that set up in the specific jurisdiction. And so I think that as you kind of work on it an MOU that that you also think about that two way straight and one thing that I that isn't necessarily just tied to this but I think it's really important to think about is also timeframe. That when you have an investigation in front of you to review that that review should be done in a certain amount of time. But also that when you send a request for information that the response to that request should be addressed in a certain amount of time so also make sure, as you're kind of thinking about how you want this to be the process to be memorialized. And also thinking about those things because first of all, if you have a complaint and you don't want their investigation to sit there and not be addressed. If you have an officer, particularly if it is a valid complaint, if you have at the same on the same level, if you have an officer who has an alleged complaint against them. And you don't want them to have to have that hanging over their head for a period of time, whether it's founded unfounded. It doesn't matter. It just should be a process. I was sitting in a training with the city last night, where the head of their professional standards Bureau was kind of explaining the process. And he said that, you know, some investigations can take up to a year it really just depends on how complex they are. Normally, complainants and officers really don't want them to take that long. So there's, then you put into place that we expect them to take this long, unless there are issues that are put down in writing and explain why it's taking longer than the time frame a lot it is. So that you kind of give some wiggle room if there are circumstances that prevent something to be done in 90 days or 120 days, or in some cases 45 days in some cities. But that also allow kind of that wiggle room, if it can be done. So a quick question, and I just want to make clear it's not related to anything currently going on in Burlington, but just a general question. What if there's a complaint against the chief. And would you have a look, I guess in those cases you would have an outside entity do the investigation it wouldn't be internal. Okay. And that has caused some serious friction and some cities. Because I think what happens is there's normally not something in place, particularly when you have an oversight entity in a jurisdiction, there, there should be some kind of, if it's, if it's for the complaint against the chief, then it goes over here. If it's a complaint against anybody else that goes over here. And a lot of people, I think just don't really think about how that's going to happen it's not laid out anywhere I think there's a probably a process everybody's thought about. And in some cities, a civilian oversight entity does have the ability to investigate Denver is one of them they didn't used to have that that ability and that's that became a change in actually eventually in the charter I believe to say that they could investigate the chief, but in a lot of instances it's particularly I would say probably in a small smaller jurisdiction that that probably is an outside entity that there's there's probably way too many conflicts involved. Thanks. I would also say in regard to the materials you they provide you. I don't know how much training they've given you about the types of documents generated. But it's a really excellent opportunity to learn about the types of records and say you know this will help us understand your procedures and what police officers have to do. And if you've talked about ride alongs. When I first started in this field, I did frequent ride alongs, and every time an officer took out any type of piece of paper I'd say what is that. And can I have a blank copy of that. This is before computerization, right on the back, what it was. And in my old agency we actually had a loose leaf binder of all the forms so you would know, you could look up which one was what it was called. I get a sense of what it did so the Document Academy is going to send you list different types of forms so maybe applicable to BPD but some may not. You may have some forms that aren't on there because they're specific to its procedures. But it's good to know what's there and you know, you know, what should be in the file. Jason I snickered because I just had this picture of the officer saying, Oh, here's Jason, the investigator getting in the car with me on the right a lot. And actually it went very well, because the agency had been established, and I actually asked the speeds of the lineup to start the shift and say look, you may not be happy that we're here, but we are here. And I want to do my job as well as I can. I haven't been a police officer, but I'm here to learn as much as I can within the bounds of safety by experiencing what you experience I'm not here to touch anyone doing anything or judge anyone. And that impressed them that at least I was really open I said please help me understand the challenges you face. And please I was given the opportunity we'll like to talk about what they encounter. And that went a long way towards gaining some credibility. I mean, as you said, you know, before you get in the car, you're the big bad wolf. And once they once you sit with them and talk with them for a while and say, Oh, I didn't know that. And I'm really appreciate you telling me that are showing me how that works. They humanize you become humanized and they show you're interested and you want to do the job professionally and you can gain a lot from that. So, one more. Did you have a comment. I was just going to say that the chief did actually talk to the OIC executive assistant today about trying to open ride alongs again and think about what that looks like so hopefully that will be here shortly. So you have a couple of members from the public that have been calling quite frequently requesting so we have a callback list but I see you also have a citizens police academy. We do we do we didn't get to we tried to do a virtual this year and we didn't really have many sign ups I think it was just obviously a really rough year but we are hoping to be able to that starts in January I believe so we are hoping to be able to do that again because you have quite a good turnout. Unless she's Stephanie. I don't know if you have a budget but we were able to attend classes put on by post peace officer standards and training and I think there's something analogous in Vermont. That you might be able to attend. I don't know if they're doing any of their trainings virtually, or if the city would pay for that or if they might waive the fees but I found those very useful to always learn what officers learn what they are taught. And also get a sense of what the culture is like there. And maybe I think we probably should wrap this up it were a little bit over and don't want to impose too much on Jason and can be. Yeah, I don't have any questions but I, I can't express enough how helpful this this session was. Yeah, I honestly can't like this. This is extremely helpful and thank you so much for being here with us and helping us out with this because yeah this is honestly has been invaluable. So as I said, I know you're taking time away from your families and other things to do this and everything else we do as commissioners so I applaud that. And thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Well, seeing how we don't have a quorum. I think the meeting just ends. Hi everybody in the public that that signed in for this. I believe this will be posted to a YouTube channel. Within the next couple days so anyone anyone can replay the recorded part of this video in the future and I believe the next set the next training session is Tuesday the 15th. And public form will start at 530 and the training from six to eight. So, thank you everybody in the public that signed in with us. Have a good rest your week. Jason and can we thank you so much for being here with us and yeah everyone have a good rest your week. Thank you. Have a great evening. Thank you. Thank you.