 we can call this meeting to order. Are there any modifications or amendments to the agenda? Hearing any, moves us on to public forum. Shannon, I'm not sure if anyone emailed in for public forum for you. I did not receive. In that case, then, if there's anybody in the attendees, that would like to put a question or comment out there. Now is your time. Please raise your hand and we will acknowledge you. And I see one for Brian Corr. Shannon, if you wouldn't mind promoting him, promoting them, sorry. So Brian, I think, is with Nicole, right? Yeah, perfect. He just found a back way in. Okay. Very, very crafty. Well, you know, after a year or so on zoom, you have, you have to have your ways. All right, then I'll give another couple seconds. If anyone, the attendees has anything, any questions or comments? Not seeing any. So that concludes public forum. It's 535. We shall recess till 5.59. So we can start at 6pm promptly. So we'll see everybody in about 24 minutes. Thank you. Jibu, would you like us to just go ahead and jump in and get started? I can't hear you. I'll try to go rescue him. There he is. Sorry about that. I can hear everybody, but nothing was there. So my fault is on that. All right. It is. This meeting is being recorded. It is 6.01 and I will shall give it forward to Kami. Kami, it's yours. Thank you so much and thank you again for having us this evening for the last, fourth and last training in our series. Today, let me just go ahead and get my screen up here for you. Okay. And I can assume that everybody can see the screen. Okay. Great. So today, you all know very well who I am at this point, but today I have brought with me one of Naples' longtime members and one of our immediate past presidents, Brian Core. And so I wanted to just turn the floor over to him for a moment to introduce himself. Brian? All right. Well, thank you so much, Kami. So as Kami said, my name is Brian Core. I live and work in Cambridge, Massachusetts, so not too far away. And so here in Cambridge, I am in charge of, you know, oversight of the Cambridge Police Department. I also am the immediate past president of Naples. So I served three years as a elected president, three different firms. So and now I am still on the board for a few more months as the past president. And I have to say very quickly, I'm originally from Detroit, Michigan. I came out to Massachusetts after college back in the 80s. But I really come to this work from a city that when I was growing up, had had many challenges, serious issues with police abuse, a program called Stress, which ended up killing 22 African-American men in less than two years as a way to try to make the community safe after the uprisings in 1967. And yet also saw a city that went through a lot, but the Police Department really did change. And so I kind of bring that experience with me to the work of oversight. So I'm very glad to be here since I am in Cambridge. Hopefully I will get a chance to see all of you in person at some point as you continue to be engaged with Naples over the years. And just really glad to be part of helping you with your work for improving policing for the residents, visitors, and everyone who ever such split in Burlington. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Brian. And before we get into the meat of today's presentations, I just wanted to make sure there weren't any other questions, follow up questions from Tuesday's session. Okay. Stephanie, you're still in mute. Kimmy, I just want to say as a professor myself, when there's no response from the audience, it's worrisome. But I think we're still processing and everything was clear. So it may be in the future that some questions come up, but it's not for lack of attentiveness or ability to absorb what you presented. It was really very clear. And I think we're just going to have to integrate this in order to be able to see if there are any questions. So just wanted to let you know that. Wonderful. Thank you, Stephanie. And as I've said before, the good news is that we're not going anywhere after today. We'll still be around and available for questions and discussions and whatever you need to continue to be successful in your work. So this is not the last time I'm available for follow up for sure. So today, for our last session, we're going to talk a little bit about minimum training standards for oversight practitioners. And then we're probably going to spend the bulk of today talking about the identification and addressing of challenges and opportunities. So first let's I'm going to move right into minimum training standards. So these training standards were developed as part of our work to identify effective practices in the field of civilian oversight. And it's based on the training that we're seeing across the country that seems to really give a base of information that's useful in the work that allows people to feel like they know have had the knowledge to be able to carry out the mandates that they've been given. So with that in mind, I want to start a little bit about board and commission members. So training should happen very soon. If not immediately after appointment and should not be considered one and done. This is just the beginning of training. The field is continuing to develop. I think everyone would agree that a lot of times until you get into the work, although you've got a good base of information, you never know what you don't know until you're faced with it. And so training should be an ongoing process. Also, it's important to remember that given diverse backgrounds, members of the boards and commissions may have a very limited understanding of civilian oversight and its processes, law enforcement, policy and procedures, criminal case processing, legal standards, reaching dispositions, and also doing that within the context of an administrative disciplinary system. So you're really, I mean, you have a group of people who are volunteering to do this work and often there is a very wide range of people who actually know all of the information needed at the onset to do the work itself. Training should be provided by a broad array. So a combination of civilian oversight experts, community and government organizations and law enforcement should be developed to meet the needs of all skill levels of your commission. Refresher courses are an absolute necessary or necessity. And advanced training opportunities should be provided yearly. So once you have your basic level of information, there's definitely those 203 level 300 level courses that can help you do some additional work and see things maybe in a different light. There's also much to be learned from organizations such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness or NAMI as it's better known, mediation centers, homeless advocacy, organizations, urban league, also members of US or city governments as well as US attorneys, prosecutors, public defenders, risk management specialists can also all be a benefit in this process. They all have information to contribute. In addition to providing members with a clear understanding of the authority and the mandate of the agency, trainers with knowledge and experience in civilian oversight of law enforcement should provide board and commissioners with an overview much like you guys have had. So some of this you can just put the check mark next to including overview of practices and principles of civilian oversight, discussion of stakeholder expectations, also information on the local oversight agency. It's important as commissioners come on that they know its history, the review of the enabling legislation or policy, what guides the work of the commission, the procedures, the scope of authority so that everybody understands from the get go what they are able to do and what their mandate is. Board and commission members also should be trained on public record and public meeting laws, confidentiality requirements, steps in the criminal justice process, something as simple as arrest, booking, arraignment, bail, hearings, trial so that they understand the entire process. Also state and local laws relating to law enforcement personnel actions, rights and privacy is also something that's very important. Also board and commission members must also have a broad understanding of the history policies, procedures and training practices of the law enforcement agency itself. A good example of, I'll just use my hometown civilian oversight agency as one of the examples. So in addition to attending trainings that are specific to civilian oversight, the Indianapolis civilian police complaint board has to participate in 20 hours of training within the first six months of appointment to the board and they work with law enforcement, that's specific to law enforcement and they work with them to develop the curriculum. So for instance, they might want to know traffic stop, everything about traffic stops and procedures relating to them, use of force policies. And then also the law enforcement agency can throw in some suggestions too about, you know, this, we think this would be really important as well. So that way you have a collaboration to come up with information that all parties still would be helpful. In addition to that 20 hours of training, they also have 16 hours of ride-alongs and I believe we talked a little bit about ride-alongs on Tuesday. And ride-alongs are such an amazing way to bridge that gap of understanding with the commission and police officers. When I did, I'll just, I'm fairly certain you've heard me say this before, but I'll just reiterate the fact that I, when I did ride-alongs even though we only had 16 hours, I made sure that I did ride-alongs in all of the districts for entire shift. So that you see what it's like from beginning to end, I tried to make sure that they were at different points in the day so that we could, so that I could see as much as possible. And it also gave me an opportunity to meet more law enforcement members and get their perspective. It's amazing the, the breadth of topics that get discussed when you're in a car together for an entire shift. And then all the time she stopped for the breaks where once the law enforcement members of that who are out on the district that day or evening know that they have a commissioner or board member in a car, they tend to all come and have a moment to have a chat with you and let them know their feelings about civilian oversight and also listen a little bit about what the oversight agency actually does. So it's a great opportunity to have those conversations. Next I want to talk a little bit about training for staff. And so I realize that you don't have staff yet, but I think, I think it's clear that staff would be beneficial. And so I think it's important to kind of talk about this for that moment when that does, does happen for you. So training should occur on a yearly basis for staff members. There is a lot of information that they convene to do their job better. Continuing education, professional development opportunities should also be offered to ensure that an oversight agency staff has the information necessary to do the work effectively and efficiently. I should also note in here because I'm not sure there's another place where I've kind of made space for this, that it is also really important not only for the staff, but the board members or commissioners themselves to work to network with other oversight practitioners in the country because issues that you're facing 99% of the time, someone has already faced those same issues. And so one of the things I love about the oversight community is that no one feels the need to keep information to themselves. They are more than happy to provide any kind of information that they can to help you not have to reinvent the wheel. And so, Nacol, one of the things that we do do is you're trying to start, I know one of the things on my list for you are mediation programs. But even if you just called me out of the blue and said or emailed me and said we're thinking about mediation programs, who can I talk to that has some, can you put us in contact? And Nacol will readily do that for you. We want to make sure everybody's talking to each other in the country so that you can get the best information you need continuously. And also once you form those relationships with the other civilian oversight practitioners throughout the country, they tend to be a valuable resource going forward. It's also important to form a team of experts and oversight contacts. So this is what I've been talking about. So I think also it's, they're nice to talk about internal as well as external issues that arise in the course of the work. How do you handle trying to get additional information on investigations? What methods have you used to help your commission work better together? Like there's just a variety of information that you can get. I also, as you move forward, I think training should be a consideration in initial funding structures so that you are sure that everybody continues to get the training that they need. And providing that base training that's so important to get the work done. As you continue, I think you should further prioritize education so that you continue to know that your staff will be well trained and their skills honed for the daily work. And I think it's also important for you and staff to be aware of developments in a field that's fairly specialized. So that kind of training will also help in making sure that you have the budget to do it is very important. And then lastly, I wanted to emphasize law enforcement's role in the training. So when oversight is, when communities are looking to oversight or looking to establish oversight, one of the arguments that we hear is how could a group of civilians know anything about the work that we do? Well, there are lots of professionals that are overseen by people outside of their professionals. This is not the only instance that that happens. But civilian oversight feels very strongly that those doing the work need to be prepared. And part of that is knowing as much as they can about law enforcement's policies, procedures, their role, their mission in the community, so that they can effectively do their job. Therefore, it's very important to help develop the training, have law enforcement help develop the training so it's not being done in a vacuum. It also is another way, one more way that you can build some of those bridges and lines of communication that are so important to the overall results of the work. I should also note that I very firmly believe that oversight should also have a role in the training of law enforcement, in that law enforcement should have a moment. Now, the length of moment, I'm sure that law enforcement might disagree with me on how much training, but law enforcement needs to be trained on civilian oversight, but they have a very clear understanding of your role, the mandate, what to expect, so that there aren't all of these misperceptions about what civilian oversight is that gets spread within law enforcement agencies. I think also, not only talking about civilian oversight in general, but very much emphasizing the benefits of civilian oversight to law enforcement is also a very important part of that training. That can't be understated. With that, I want to stop and see if anybody has any questions about the training before we move on. Here's my question. This is really helpful and I think maybe at some point more specifics about sequentially what kinds of trainings would be useful for us given where we're at right now. If I just could reiterate something that you said, we have two new members who are joining the commission. It sounds like we should organize some kind of initiation for them with documents. They are participating, by the way, in these trainings. They have been in the audience here, so they've had the benefit of that. But it sounds like we also need a more kind of defined introduction to the work of the commission. Yes, I agree. Maybe at some point we could just have some discussion with you about given as much as you know about us, and I know Brian has been in touch with folks in Burlington as I recall with Kyle Dodson and I think you and I were on a phone call. Maybe give us some advice about what you think would be sequentially useful for us to do next. Yes, we can do that. I think kind of that development of an onboarding process for them and those that come after are great because then there's also, it adds that consistency. Yes, we can absolutely have those conversations. Great, thanks. Any additional questions? Okay. Well, then I will turn things over to Brian for the next portion of our presentation tonight. Well, thank you, Kami. And again, I'm just very glad to be here. Glad to be part of this effort to work with you here. And as Stephanie said, I had a number of conversations with Kyle Dodson when he was doing his work within the police department and gave me some insight into Burlington. I mean, I've also, it's been a while with the pandemic and everything, but I've had a number of friends over the years who are from Burlington have spent time there, but it's been a while. So, I look forward to coming back up. But having said that, I said a little bit about who I am and we go into this conversation about challenges and opportunities. We're going to be doing some work that is really hopefully interactive. I am not here to lecture about the whole bunch of different ideas to as important as that is for parts of the training. But this is really an opportunity to hear from you and to help you think about what challenges and opportunities you, your community face, and how you can address those, how you can really do your work, ensure that the work of the police department and of course your own work is as good as it could be. And also that the community is getting its needs met, that the community is getting the kind of policing that it needs and deserves and wants. But to start this, I want to just kind of ground this a little bit and who's here. So, I'm going to ask the commissioners of you with mine to introduce yourselves and I can always remind you, but I would just ask it if you're willing to share your name, obviously. But also why you're on the police commission, you know, not a long thing, but just basically a few sentences or a paragraph or something. And then in a similar way, what life experiences do you bring to this work that you see as relevant? You know, what with experience, what things that you've seen or lived through or your family history or whatever that informs the work that you do as a member of the police commission. So again, who you are, why you're on the commission, and what you bring to this work. So anyone can start and I know it's, I guess we can't see each other. So it looks like Jabalani has unmuted. Yeah, I'll be happy to start. My name is Jabalani Gamash. I go by a jaboo normally. I grew up here in Burlington, a long time residence. And I joined the commission in response to what happened. There was an incident that happened involving some police and people of color in our town. And I joined in response to what happened to them. One of them is a close friend and a teammate of mine has been for years. And I felt the need to see how this works and wanted to hopefully affect change. So it wouldn't happen again. And I guess for, I guess my lived experience part, I have been a down, I said I've been a bartender right in the center of downtown Burlington for the last 10 years. And like, you know, I usually work, you know, Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights from, you know, five in the afternoon until three, four in the morning. So I've seen, I've seen a lot. I can't say I've seen it all, but I've seen a lot downtown. So I feel that kind of helps me with this because I see police interactions. I've seen it all downtown. So yeah. Very great. Thank you. I really appreciate you sharing all that. And it's a jaboo. That's fine. Jaboo, jaboo. Jaboo. I try to say people's names properly as well. All right. If we're in Iswatini, they'd say it differently. So it's quite all right. Okay. All right. Thank you. Who'd like to go next? I can go next. My name is Mila Grant. And I joined the, actually prior to the commission, I applied and was accepted for a committee to review policing policies. I'm very similar reasons to what Jaboo reported. Right now, the city of Burlington actually has three pending lawsuits related to use of force, which is something I think about a lot. And one of those incidents just really, it just said to me that something is really broken here. And that our community just can't continue in this way. So I wanted to be involved and look at policies that committee ended up helping to initiate and push through new use of force policies. But there was still a lot of work to be done, I felt. And so when a position became available on the police commission, I applied for it. In terms of lived experiences, I I have always felt that I've created a safe space for myself here in Burlington. I'm a born and raised in New York City. Not to say that I haven't, you know, faced discrimination. I don't think there is a black person in Vermont who can't tell stories of what happened. But I just didn't realize that maybe I'm not as safe as I thought I was. And I also concerned for some relatives of mine, like, you know, young men who aren't as safe as I would like them to be, especially from people who should be protecting them. And then going up in New York under, you know, just profiling that terrorized black and brown people on a routine basis every single day. You didn't know anyone whose relatives, friends, uncles, sons, husbands, father, everybody had a story. And it was just relentless. So that's kind of where I'm coming from with the concerns and what motivates me. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that with me. So who would like to go next? I can go next. Hi, Brian. I'm showing heart. So I joined five years ago when the commission was heavily focused on the law enforcement's response to folks in mental health crisis. There had been a recent death in response to a crisis. And so that was what prompted me to join. And so in terms of experience, it's that I work with a lot of mental health agencies and hospitals where we intersect quite a bit with law enforcement. So a lot of the work I'm doing is advising, obviously not the majority of my work, but certainly it's not uncommon where the issue of law enforcement in response to mental health crises is an issue. So that's what brought me here. Thank you. I appreciate it. Hi, Brian. So my background is as an economics professor. And I've been involved with Burlington Police Department, I think since 2012, analyzing their traffic stop data. They were one of the first cities in the state to do that. And I've continued to do it. And I continue to find in our analyses of the data that racial disparities not only exist, but in a number of cases have widened in some areas in Burlington. And so part of my motivation was really seeing what is going on and seeing if there was a way that I could possibly contribute to change at a more local level rather than doing kind of statewide analyses. And I think the other issue for me is, you know, in addition to Jabu and Milo's point about recent incidents and concern about family and friends of color. Also, you know, I have done some training in social work and in counseling. And the research on trauma informed practices seems to me so important. And it does not seem yet to have disseminated to our schools, but also the police agencies. And I just wanted to bring a different perspective and one that understands where people are coming from rather than just putting people in a box. And so hopefully that perspective, you know, I could bring to the commission. Thank you. I appreciate that. So I think we have Zariah left saying it properly. Hi, I'm Zariah. Hi, Tara, but I'm not on the police commission. I'm a city counselor for Burlington. Oh, okay. Sorry about that. But since you're here, I would love for you to share one of the same lines. So Zariah. Zariah. Okay. I try. I'm not very good. But Zariah. And so you're on the city council. And would you mind sharing what life experience, what would the experiences you bring to that work? Yes, I grew up in rural Oklahoma and moved to Vermont in 2016 after graduate school. And I did care about public safety. And part of the reason also that I ran for city council was we just had a string of incidences in our local politics that were like police scandal related. But I've, you know, been pulled over and had a gun pulled on me before when I was, you know, 19, 20 years old. So that's definitely something that I bring to my public safety work. Thank you. I really, again, really appreciate all of you sharing. And just to speak to my understanding is Shannon is staffing. She's not part of the commission. Correct. Okay. So not to disregard somebody, but you know, we're going to focus here on the commission. And of course, as noise and official, we're very glad that you were part of this training as well. It's really important to have different parts of government and community getting this information and engaged in this. So I've done this long intro, and I really appreciate that. So if Cam, if you would mind moving us to the next slide. So when we do these, these trainings, one of the things that is, I would say always important to think about is, you know, how we got here. So I'm talking to people who live in Burlington, Vermont. I don't, I visited all that. But the concept of Sankofa is one that comes from the Akhan people in Ghana in West Africa. And the image there is a bird and it's a stylized bird facing forward, feet facing forward, head looking backwards. And it's carrying a precious egg, which both represents the future. But it's also something that we can't see. There's something in that egg and we don't know what it will eventually be. And so this is this idea that we have to remember the past. We have to know where we've come from, to know who we are in the present, and to be able to understand where we're going and where we need to go, to do reflection, to be able to continually think about what it is that we must be doing. So I, and Nicole has used this concept of Sankofa since its founding. So this is something that I like to start this conversation with. And so I'm just going to share, I won't call it research because, you know, I went to a few websites, did some looking at Vermont history. And there's things I know already. But, you know, Vermont, like all of North America, belong to the people who lived here, people came from Europe, settlers, colonialists, conquerors. And Vermont has a, as a state, this proud history of being the Vermont Republic and being formed in 1777. We know there's a much more complicated history about New Hampshire, New York and land and property and competing grants. And we also know that there were black people, there were people of African descent in Vermont. You know, there's some questions about exactly how many and were they enslaved or were they free? It seems most likely that they were free in the southern part of the state. They were not enslaved by the time Vermont became part of the United States. But if you look at the history of black Americans in Burlington in the 1800s, like many cities around New England, there was a relatively small black community. They had to deal with a lot of discrimination as black people did everywhere. So they may not have been in the south. They may not have been doing with Jim Crow. But that history is still there. And, you know, there are one person that I found in my very quick reading was someone named Jeffrey Brace, who was a farmer. He fought in the Revolutionary War and he actually wrote a memoir to preserve some of his life history. But he was actually born in West Africa and he was brought to Barbados first and then he eventually ended up in Connecticut and made his way to Vermont where he created a life for itself. But these these sort of anecdotal things are part of history that I personally think are important because they're generally not known. I would imagine that from what I know and the way people talk in Massachusetts, you know, it's Vermont. It's almost completely white. There's a couple hundred black people scattered around the state, maybe a few other minorities, but it's totally white. It's rural and it's like those TV shows that we used to watch in the 80s. And we know that it's much more complicated. We know that there are huge amounts of poverty, rural poverty, urban poverty, even as Vermont is overall a great place to live and a wonderful state and more focused on equality and diversity and inclusion than many parts of the country. But it's not sufficient. We know that there's much more. And the fact that Vermont was the first state in the country to abolish slavery is vitally important. But it also points to the fact that abolishing slavery was not enough to create equality. So I say all this just to share from my little perspective, but I actually want to now hear from all of you. So the questions you see, why was this board established? What does Burlington want and what will your legacy be? So in the intros, people did say something about like why they personally joined the police commission. But I guess I would just ask any or all of you to share from your point of view, why is there a police commission? And why is it engaged in the work it's engaged in now? Why are we here from NACL doing this training at this point in the life of the police commission? So I open it up to you. I don't mind starting this time around. My understanding is that the commission mode of government in Burlington was established under Bernie Sanders who wanted to democratize community participation. I don't know much more than that about the origins of the police commission here. So but I will talk about where we are and where I you know what I hope our legacy is. I think that what we have learned and many of us knew is that what is public safety for some is not for others and that some people are over surveilled and under protected. And I think you know we are a community that really believes in equity in general in theory and I you know I think the goal is to enshrine that also in our public safety system that we all enjoy public safety that we are treated the same way for behaviors that others of a different race or gender identity possession. I think there's you know there's a strong feeling that the sort of white dominant community has dominated the you know the discourse around public safety and we haven't heard those voices who have been harmed and don't feel safe in this community and in particular don't feel safe with the police. And I also think that we're also at the juncture of a Brian Stevenson moment in which we understand that if somebody has done something bad it does not mean they're an evil person but that things have happened to them and that we have to we have to evolve along with brain science and a lot that we have learned about the human brain and the effects of trauma and so forth and it's our job to help modernize our institutions and school district is one of course but policing is another. Thank you. Who else would like to share why do you think or you know or think the board was established what does your community want and what will your legacy be if this work? I can't speak to why the board was established but I have heard anecdotally from a fair amount of people that right around the turn of the millennium like around 2001 or so the police mentioned had a lot more power and then like I said I was in high school at this time so I wasn't paying attention to local news but I believe at that point in time the commission and other commissions around Bernalton had some of their power taken back and put back to the mayor so yeah I can't really speak to why I was established and I can't really add much to what more Bernalton wants I think Stephanie pretty much hit that one on the head pretty well and I would hope the legacy of the police commission is because right now we don't have a lot of authority our mandate is very vague and it almost seems like that was kind of intentional but like I said I can't speak for what was happened in the past but I certainly hope that the legacy of the commission moving forward is that it will like it can provide oversight that is that is that is wanted in our community and that people actually look to us as a body with like respectable authority not just kind of um uh what's the term I'm looking for here um like a paper tiger or something or exactly you know um because yeah exactly yeah and I just want to follow up on what both Stephanie and Jaboo said for me a legacy for us would be if there were seven different people sitting here but the work we did helped inform them and make their job easier and maintained the improvements that we're hoping to achieve I guess I would add I don't know as much about the the history I could say that my general observations before joining were that there there wasn't a lot that the commission could do even some of the things that are written down like for example that supposedly we would have a say in discipline the reality of that situation is that that's not true in when we look about what what actually happens I think that I know a lot of my motivations come from the main thing I think the people of Burlington want which is accountability accountability and transparency has really been lacking um so I believe that one of our main purposes is really to try to improve that and put processes in place that will um establish guidelines and and support guidelines um but I know those are the top top two things that um people want and I would hope that the legacy would be that uh we're able to do that to really continue on to this work I mean we've certainly learned so much during these sessions um I was listening to the one that I had missed when I was on vacation uh last weekend it was just just really amazing stuff and giving us ideas of what to ask for because it's it's it's not offered up um by the department um giving us ideas of how maybe we could work better with the department because that is definitely an issue but I think the overall the community and and what our legacy should be is just just having that idea where you know everyone is can look at the public safety system and know that they're being treated in a fair and equitable way um by a system that they can rely on when needed and um also know that they would have respect and then can also uh respect the officers that serve in the department you know because there's definitely um issues of respect and trust within the department and outside of the department as well thank you all right thank you so this is really this is really really great um and again as someone who's here for the first time I see a couple there's someone else who's just joined I don't know if that's someone who is a member of the commission or member of the council or visiting or but I see Karen Paul right um I might just suggest that one of the people who is going to be a new commissioner is in the audience Susie Comerford and maybe she wants to say something as well maybe not I'm not sure let's see it looks like she's being brought into the magic of zoom so um so Susan you you are able to speak I think if you would like to address those same issues having trouble connecting so I can't really speak to that at the moment I'm now connected okay well then I can just say one of the um question one of the questions which I will ask you is has everyone to to just address in their own way what do you feel like Burlington wants um in terms of you know this police commission and what do you hope your legacy will be I know you're not on it yet but my sense of my sense of what the community is asking for is more accountability and more independence of the police commission itself and I would hope um and next to that is an honoring of all the people that are involved in the process including the police but I really believe that it's important I've been listening very carefully to the community and they're clearly asking for more independence largely um and that this commission might be able to do investigations in the way they need to be done the way we've been taught I've been following through on these police trainings and it's very clear to me from what I've been learning how important it is to have independence and so that that would be one thing I'm hearing in the community that I've also heard through this training and I guess you know I haven't thought much about the legacy question but I what I would say is that um that I was a good listener to the community um and that I did my fair share of work on the commission and that we were visionary as a whole group in terms of meeting the needs of the community with a special emphasis on equity. Great thank you, I really appreciate it and it looks like Kevin has also been given the ability to share so uh those again same questions to the extent you know why why was or why do you think the sport was established what does the community want and what will your legacy be as the police commission so I don't see Kevin unmuting all right well let's let's continue on if Kevin is able to speak or wants to speak we will we will give we'll give that opportunity um so let's move on to the next slide and uh this is where we're going to do this a little exercise about um challenges and opportunities so it's really um again I mean some of the things that you've already brought up have addressed some of these ideas but you know there's not like a big template that I have but although we do have some ideas for common challenges that communities face so but before we throw up our our whole list we would really like to ask you what are the challenges that you see um in accomplishing all those things you talked about in being able to have more authority and being able to help the community all parts of the community feel that they can trust the police and public safety is in their interest and is keeping them safe and all those other things um you know the challenges in general you face what are what are they so just throw things out you know you don't have to give a whole list or big explanation but just what are the challenges that you see from where you sit and what you know for the work of the police commission um I think one of the main ones right now is access to information okay access to information what else is there this looks like Stephanie did you yeah I part I think uh I'm going to go back to something that others have said about us having big authority I actually think we have the authority to do a lot but we ourselves have to change our practices and this training is one of the ways for us to step forward so I think we have a lot of work to do to really carefully define what our boundaries are what our roles are um and align our practices with those goals right and I they're very simple things some of them are very simple um you know uh for example securing legal counsel for ourselves so that we are better able to understand uh complaints and investigations uh I would say another challenge is um we just got a data report that shows pretty wide racial disparities at a number of areas and I still am not clear as a commissioner you know we've made attempts to address this with the police department but um what what what is the scope of policies that we can propose what are the mechanisms that we use to be convincing or to leverage change I think we for me it feels very stuck right now that um there's a desire for change in the community uh the commission is seeing its role as being more substantive but the police department with no disrespect whatsoever but they have been used to a system that is very different and I'm not sure how much our input is appreciated at this point and that navigating that relationship is for me seems very difficult so thank you so now to try to sum everything that I'm hearing sort of two big themes there one is almost the tools to do the work or or even how to use the tools that you already have and then how to effectively um you know have an effective respectful working relationship with police department so it's almost a parallel to that that sense of trust um so great those are those are not uncommon and important challenges all right what other challenges do you face in um you know again in your work as a commission or even in the community around policing I think the the items that were just mentioned are really I just want to reiterate them because um they are really affecting how we move forward um like lack of cooperation and in terms of looking at the data and looking at you know glaring data points that say if you put particular officers working a particular shift in a particular area of the city at a particular time of day you dramatically increase the likelihood of them having use of force with racial disparities what is your strategic plan and just to be really ignored and have nothing uh have no response to it and to just keep asking over and over again but not to have any response um you know how do we get past that um um that type of resistance right because it's really changing the culture um the culture is is a huge huge issue um additional training for them I have been trying to get information specifically on bias training you know what does that training actually include does it include you know a historical context because there are things that sometimes get said that are just really insensitive um and then uh education I mean I as I said before these trainings have been so helpful but that you know I do a lot of reading on my own um to really see what else is happening and then also to um go through and and and take a look at the information and what exactly is in place you know because sometimes you come across things that are actually in place so if it's in place then why can't we um why can't it be effective so for example you can read certain things and it was seen that we should be able to have access to information yet we could be denied that access to information um and then we're just kind of stuck you know so what can we do about it thank you thank you thank you thank you and I think I saw Shareen's hand as well thanks I was just going to add that you had mentioned community and I I do think that will be a challenge for us is getting the trust and the backing of the community can you say a little bit more because I can imagine but it's you know every community is different yeah I well I think that they you know I don't want to speak for they for the community as a day but but I will say that um we're perceived as being an extension of the police department and I can see now after the training why there is that perception I could see that all along but I think there are easy fixes to help reinforce that that is not our role and we aren't I mean we learn just basic things not meet it you know we shouldn't be meeting at the police department um we should have portions of our meetings where we are meeting alone in an executive session to deliberate on some of the things we have so I think it's a challenge and it's um you know the community um that will be a struggle for them possibly and again I hate speaking for the community but I think there will be those who will have a hard time placing their trust in us could I add to that and so I think that one of our challenges then is how do we communicate with the community about the changes that we are making to help them understand you know to help them understand our kind of journey in becoming more independent I you know I think that's a question I don't know that in the past that the commission has independently communicated with the community or the media or whatever else and I think we realize we have to take that on and so I think the challenge is how do we do that especially we don't have a staff person yet great um so before we we sort of share the challenges that we commonly see uh or any anything else any challenge you want to mention it's and it's fine if you don't I just want to give people one more chance if there's something that someone else said that reminded them so it looks like Shireen I think um there are some challenges in the form of the um collective bargaining agreement and that there might be changes um but that's a really you know that that's not an easy fix um but I think that that has presented difficulties for the commission to accomplish what it has in the last year identified as necessary or important okay now that makes sense I get to make sense uh so uh Gabby should we do the reveal of the which sounds it don't really exciting it's not that exciting but um you know so I'll just kind of run through these quickly uh you know these are some of the challenges that we were seeing around the country especially the time we're in uh with the racial reckoning the political situation pandemic I mean all of these things have created a lot of energy around challenges so there are very high expectations and I'm I'm sort of getting that sense from all of you it's it's sort of the the theme that the community really wants change and they want your entity to be able to drive that change and make those changes so it sounds like there are high expectations um one thing that we see a lot in communities especially in police departments but also in oversight agencies sometimes it's fear of change that can be fear of changing how you do things that can be fear of you know opening up your processes to what other people in uh there's a lot that goes into that but um there's a there's a lot of fear of change and there can be fear of change in the community uh from different sectors I mean you know I'm hearing and I think appropriately so a lot about people who don't feel safe but I'm certain in a city of you know 40 000 plus people there will be people who think that it's great and the police are awesome and don't touch it so there will be fear of change in many different ways that are within the community the role of community trauma now again just picking up from what people said in a couple of stories and knowing this is the nature of things our whole society there have been some incidents that that have traumatized at least certain parts of the city of Burlington and that have driven people to get involved in this work have made people become more aware of problems have had people really looking to figure out what's going on in the city that is knowing across the country for being very progressive and forward-looking and yet is still dealing with issues of racial disparities of use of force lawsuits against the police department so those things can create a level of trauma that builds upon whatever trauma people have brought down through the generations the trauma that people may have experienced in other parts of their lives and that's that's a really big thing I know Stephanie you mentioned a couple times that Cammy can tell you that I this is one of the things I care about most in this work is the role of trauma the complex nature of trauma and how it affects individuals communities police officers the police culture and the interplay among those things so I would love to talk more about that at some point so again I'm not going very fast skepticism from law enforcement y'all talked about that a lack of understanding of oversight in its role now this is something that I didn't really hear but comes up a lot because people will have this expectation well I'll put it this way to use a I'm gonna say something about George Floyd so I just want to kind of warn you but I've heard many many people say that well civilian oversight doesn't work because Minneapolis had civilian oversight and George Floyd is dead and so if if people think you have to set expectations of what oversight can actually do and doesn't do and how much change can be made and how much things are systemic versus individual and all of that so there's there can be challenges around that impartiality is often a challenge in in this work because people often will come because there's something that drove them to want to make a difference about policing and law enforcement make it more fair and more just and in looking at specific issues in cases you still have to be impartial and that's part of having legitimacy with in quotes both sides but with all aspects you know you have to have legitimacy with the law enforcement agency for them to cooperate and take you seriously because it sounds like you're already experiencing if it feels like there's not cooperation it's really hard to get the work done no matter what power you're given there has to still be that relationship and you have to have legitimacy with various parts of the community of different ethnic groups different interest groups different parts of town business community and and nobody is not you know no one entity will have legitimacy with every single human being in every single group but broadly you want to build legitimacy with as many people and entities as you can you've talked a lot about the need for training so and we're doing training I haven't heard as much tonight this idea of change can't wait but we hear that in a lot of communities that we have this moment and if we don't do it right now we're going to lose it nothing will ever happen and my my kind of line is that change can't wait and sustainable change takes time it takes patience and it's hard to tell people to be patient when we see what's happening around the world we see what's happening in our country we see what's happening in our communities and yet for this work to be sustainable it can't be too rushed you have to move with um all deliberate speed but you also have to be thoughtful and patient um attempting to meet all the demands um what to say about this I guess basically this comes up a lot and for oversight boards you will get criticism you will one of the things about civilian oversight is uh if we're doing our job well often everybody's at least a little bit upset with you nobody's totally happy complainants aren't happy police officers aren't happy activists aren't happy elected officials aren't happy and they may not be furious but they're probably going to feel like you're not doing enough of this you're you're too attached to that you're you're not listening enough to us you're not doing enough to make those people do something so um a challenge can really be realizing you can't be everything to all people and you start attempting to do all those things and it's you're not able to do it and then I'd say the last thing on the list that some stakeholders think others cannot be engaged I don't know if that's an issue in your community but it is in most communities there will be people who just feel like you know why are you even trying to talk to the police this is there's no point and other people say oh those people they come to public comment every week don't listen to them we know what they're going to say and everything in between so it's important that the commission to the extent that it can is a is a place where if all those people aren't actually coming together and hearing each other you are able to hear all of those voices and hear and listen to and validate all of those stakeholders and help to be that that kind of holds that place in the community um with your broader deeper responsibility around policing and law enforcement and community safety in broings so that was a lot I talk more than I usually do I don't know why so but I guess before we move on to the next thing which is going to be opportunities anything else that brought up or anything else people want to share okay I'm not seeing any by so can be let's let's move on to opportunities so I heard a little bit again as we were we're talking before people were sharing of there's an opportunity for getting more training there's an opportunity to communicate better but you know just what are some of the opportunities that you see in this police commission and the work that you have to do and I'm happy to call on people go ahead okay well a job would you would you like to start do you want um actually I'm sorry can you repeat the question I oh not at all that's that's why it's more people I call on you so no just really opportunities what are the opportunities that you see and they can be again specific opportunities about the work it could be opportunities about the the moment we're in as a society and that that maybe that's an opportunity just whatever opportunities you see for the work um I I do see this as a moment and at the moment started I want to say year ago year and a half ago for I think for a lot of us but this is a moment that we can make change that we can build something that kind of like lasts and and I luckily the commissions we have right now on on the commission are working towards that and I feel fairly confident that we will be able to set something up that that has legs and that can sustain on once we're all done because I I don't see us right now kind of being able to do some of the the really really big things that people want but I do kind of see us now as putting the putting the pieces in place for the next commissioners to really be able to run with this. So you can make changes that last and sort of setting up the people who come after you for for success and the ability to do the work that's great okay what else? I think one of the one of the opportunities is that for a variety of reasons partly because the state law changed a few years ago but for other reasons as well we actually have not an insignificant amount of data so I think that we are able to make evidence-based assessments of what's going on in the police department and many towns that don't have that so I think that's been uh can be really useful for us and I just want to reiterate what Jabu said about the moment that we're in and that is that there have been disparate voices for change people of color uh have talked about incidents for years that have happened but there's never been a critical mass and we now are at a moment where there's a critical mass not just among amongst the community of color but also the white community that has really heard the experiences of the community of color and so I that really is I would say the momentum behind the changes that we're able to make so I I also see the city administration being um on board with this so I think political leaders in the city including the two city counselors over here now for example is testimony to how much interest there is in addressing these issues so it's both a really tense time and feels a little bit polarized but at the same time I think there is a lot of sense that um we are you know this is a moment for change and we actually have um a um a consultancy working on what is the community's vision around public safety so again I think we have some evidence that will support the things that we're trying to do and so yeah I think in many ways it's could be an it can it's an exciting time great thank you other opportunities of whatever sort um I there are so many they really really are when I take a look at where where we're starting from um one of the things that I have really been hammering away at is just better engagement right we need really just better community engagement and we need everyone no matter uh where they land and how they feel about what we currently have uh we have certain rhetoric that's just been a huge concern to me and I think it just really interferes with making progress and I think we need to change the way that we speak to each other sometimes you know we need to talk in terms of everyone wants a public safety system that they can trust trust and and rely on and that they know will treat them equitably like who can't get behind that right um well there probably are a couple people who can't but by and large most people can get behind a statement like that so I think we have to um um you know look at um our politicians look at people who who represent the community and and just really um say that you know language matters words matters and that also this is an issue that cannot be ignored anymore um there there's there's been committees to look at things before um and I think there's a much bigger sense of urgency you know not just because what happened to George Floyd but what happened within our own community just stuff that is not okay and how much further does it have to go you know we're just at that point um and really trying to educate people and and and help them to understand that this we're we're just at that point we cannot go further than than this so I think the sky is the limit right now um from where we're starting thank you all right thank you thank you I think Cherine did you want to share yeah um this is more micro that's fine I think we have an opportunity to make a difference for individuals in the complaint process so I think we have the opportunity to really have a much more fulfilling complaint process even if the outcome is not what the individual was hoping for I still think that they could come away from it feeling hurt and I think that's a great opportunity thank you right is there anything else that's coming before we again do our big reveal and lecture at least that's what feels like for me I'll just add one other opportunity that I had wanted to say and I think it's the quality of the people on the commission I think the people that you know that I worked with on the commission are you know committed they're thoughtful people I think we have reasonable discussions so it feels like a very functional uh group of you really people whose heart is in this work and that's that's a great thing we couldn't do this without that well thank you that's that's not always the case with every group of people especially in this work you know because it is emotional work it's it's yeah so that that is definitely an opportunity that you have anything else okay so Kimmy let's go to the big reveal and see what was it in our brilliance we thought so again a lot of these things came came up all the time but you brought them up I mean the moment we're in this fierce urgency of now that you know often attributed to Dr. King but just that concept that that we are here right now we have to take action momentum for positive change I also heard that community trauma that's one of the things that I often and we talk about as a challenge but in a in a way it's also an opportunity because if if there's community trauma then you can do processes that help create healing you can set up systems that are trauma informed you can as people talked about a complaint process that whatever the outcome helps the complainant to feel listened to and heard and validated even if at the end of the day the finding is not that what the person was asking for in a sense but that process is very important and so community trauma which is not anything that we ever want but exists basically in every community in different forms is also an opportunity of government support for oversight people talked about that with two elected officials from the city council here in this training that is not something that happens in every community and that is important the fact that the city is I'm not going to state it probably exactly right but that the city is bringing in people to help the community have a conversation about what does Burlington want out of public safety again something many places would never do so you know some of the other things on here calls for reform and defunding abolition people have talked about that going from being seen as a small set of places to a broader call so that's been happening here centering those most impacted there's a lot of different ways to define what that means and many people will have slightly different senses of who's most impacted but I'm also hearing that that passion for you know it's not about we want to make sure that Burlington police department gets the police department of the year award it's that we want to make sure that people feel safe that they feel cared for that the negative experiences have happened do not continue demonstrating legitimacy I'd say that's sort of been a theme throughout our time together this evening and it's very important because as I said it's not always easy I'm sorry my phone is ringing you probably can't hear it policies and procedures can be changed so this is something that again from listening to what you've talked about looking briefly at the policy online about the role of the police commission in complaints you know it's not always easy but you are in a position where you can work to make those changes to advocate to work with the police department to use data the voices of the community and as people have said a number of times I mean that part of the community is also the police department so just ensuring that as you do that work you've got everybody at the table but that is a real opportunity creating something sustainable and I've heard that over and over again so kudos to you because so often people are very focused on like what are we going to do now and how are we going to deal with this case but to be thinking about your legacy I mean I asked you to think about that you clearly are already thinking about it what's happening with the people who follow you at this work defining the work and the role of the police commission and the outcomes now often in the work that Kami and I are engaged in there are other colleagues at Naples these are people and communities forming a new oversight board of Cedar Rapids Iowa yesterday we were doing training from South Bend Indiana I mean it's all over the country you're in New England as well and but you're actually in a place where you have an existing commission it sounds like there's a lot of things that you have the ability to do and you're just working to figure out how to make it happen so it is still an opportunity to find that role what the work is that you see is important and where are the outcomes that matter what is it that you really want to be coming out of that then again just like a broken record engaging all stakeholders it's a challenge and an opportunity it's not always easy to figure out how to do it I know someone spoke about the city's ability to community and public outreach and I can tell you here in Cambridge you know we are a well-resourced city we have all a fairly diverse city lots of very smart people people who've been here for multiple generations and our one of our biggest challenges is public engagement so that we really hear from the whole community it's not the only the activists and the people that come to public comment and the people who are comfortable getting up and giving a three minute speech that they've worked on and have all written out but that you really can hear from the whole community and you know so I say it's it's a challenge but it's also an opportunity I know here in Cambridge through the pandemic we have been working constantly to figure out with these new zoom tools and other things how can we do things differently than having a public meeting where people show up and raise their hands and go up to the mic and speak so it is a real opportunity and we're in a moment where there are new tools and new ways to engage stakeholders so I think I just want to ask again if there's anything else that you know are going through this list has lifted up for people before we move on to the next slide okay I'm not seeing anything so so next and I'm gonna I'm gonna try probably make Kami talk on this next slide too so next we just wanted to talk briefly about Newark and New Orleans and because in some ways you know I was getting where I was saying we were we do a lot of this with communities that are starting oversight but these are two communities that have had oversight and faced real challenges and had to rethink their model you know we could go on at great length but thinking about New Orleans so New Orleans you know famously has a history of well we'll just say corruption and the violence and policing and the whole nation saw during Katrina some of the most horrific things that you could imagine in the midst of a horrific national natural disaster and so in New Orleans there was an investigation by the Department of Justice there was a consent decree where the federal government the department of justice and the court and the city made an agreement a binding agreement to monitor to affect specific changes and then to monitor those changes and that process is still ongoing there's still a federal monitor and that work led to including the creation of the office of the independent monitor so Nicole's current president Susan Hudson actually has just taken a leave from that work but she has been the the director of that office since it started and it really had to change because it was still kind of a long detailed story but it was under the control of the sales inspector general who was basically a political figure had no interest in civilian oversight and pretty much kept them from doing anything the community was not happy and so people organized and actually got a referendum on the ballot to change the city charter to take the office of the independent police monitor out of the inspector general's office in the city and to make it an independent office and that one and so really that combination of community activism you know the history of New Orleans again a long long history we probably all have some idea and the the political situation you know there were you would think with a federal consent decree in a federal monitor what else would you need but it turned out that in the specific context of New Orleans that inspector general who again the role of the inspector general is to become independent oversight over the whole government that particular inspector general was not interested in civilian oversight of the police and the community and the people in that office worked together and made that change and it's you know it's still a tough city but New Orleans has made so much progress in policing and it's not only because of the office of the independent monitor or because of federal consent decree but those combinations of things and training on the role of trauma and a program that's focused specifically on teaching police officers to be to not be bystanders but to be active and intervene when they see other officers taking making bad decisions or taking terrible actions those things have all worked together so but I would say that the point of the New Orleans piece is that it was a city that's had many challenges you would think had a system at work but it wasn't working people made those changes when next I'm sorry Kami did you want to add anything about New Orleans and I can go on and on I was just going to add one of the other things I think is an important lesson from the New Orleans model and experience is that they have done an incredible amount of work there to gain trust of the law enforcement agency they do have not only are they a place where law enforcement can come to make complaints because there is a very long history of some horrible things happening to law enforcement in New Orleans when they when they become whistleblowers and so creating a safe space for them to try and help make the to do their part in making the law enforcement agency better making sure that commendations as well as complaints were at the forefront in the reports and and just kind of being there to help you know they're at a point where they have officers come and just kind of talk about stuff with them to see how they might be able to make recommendations to do things better and so that is an amazing place to have moved to and it's taken a lot of work but I love using that example because it shows that that's possible so yeah thank you for letting me add that in oh please thank you and so let's turn to Newark maybe not for quite as long but so Newark New Jersey they in 2016 created a civilian point review board the history which is long and detailed but it really goes back to the rebellions you know the so-called riots of the in the 1960 1967 I believe in Newark just like in my hometown Detroit and there have been calls for you know civilian oversight for decades but really there was an effort by community activists in the ACLU I mean almost 10 years ago now that led to the Department of Justice coming in doing the same thing doing an investigation about systemic civil rights violations pattern in practice investigations they call it and they also worked with the city and came up with an agreement to reform the police department that included creating civilian oversight so when they created their oversight that as soon as the ordinance was put into place the state federation of police the state police union suit and there was an injunction it was designed to be very powerful and in some ways it's I still think it's a bit of a cautionary tale the ACLU and I'll say I used to work at the ACLU so I'm not anti ACLU but the ACLU really worked to try to create a model ordinance that was going to be the strongest in the country and so immediately there was an injunction most of the ability of that office to do any work was taken away the board could not they could meet and they could get training and they could review policies but they couldn't accept any complaints they couldn't do anything that was even perceived as soliciting complaints so even things like public forums to hear from the community they couldn't do any of that and it went through the courts for years in fact there's there's still a little bit of that going on but the last year there was a ruling that said most of those powers they got back there was one very specific thing about being able to do concurrent investigations so that the police department would do an investigation and the oversight board would do an investigation at the same time and there you know there are reasons that could be good there are reasons that's challenging but they got their other powers back and so they've now hired investigators they're starting their work but for about four years it stalled out and community members who felt like they were part of creating the best oversight in America were felt like everything was stuck and the system didn't work and so they have they're having to do a lot of work to to build legitimacy and you know they've got the support of the mayor Ras Baraka they have now in New Jersey there's been an effort to change state law to give civilian oversight boards more power specifically in response to this lawsuit and you know it is moving forward but it's been challenging and for people who've been working on this for years for decades you know it's it can be frustrating and yet progress is being made and so again Kami and Kami and I got to go down to New York and do some training together a couple years ago so she's also very familiar with New York right we did the training when they couldn't do any work it was very strange and they one of the things that was um I think some takeaways is that you know as as any jurisdiction is looking to implement or enhance an existing oversight mechanism doing it in a vacuum can be very dangerous um you can't always do it collaboratively because you might have stakeholders that don't agree with the changes that you feel are really important but keeping everybody informed so that you also know what you might be up against is incredibly helpful because that way when you get to the end after you've done all this work you aren't blind sighted um and that doesn't mean they weren't um providing updates but I'm I mean they really got hit hard when they when the lawsuit was you came down um the other pieces is because of all of that they've had to spend a tremendous amount of time rebuilding momentum so you know the community worked really hard and then the bottom dropped out and everybody was like well look one more thing that didn't work and and so they've had to really start from scratch with building the momentum the trust um reestablishing some expectations or I guess just establishing them now that they can actually tell everybody what they're doing um so it's just some some great lessons learned kind of a cautionary tale but it is pretty exciting that they're up and running now we're we're rooting for them no absolutely um so I guess we should probably oh I see a question yeah Stephanie yeah just uh you use the term pattern practice and pattern investigations can you explain what those are okay so I will I always say I'm not an attorney I know as I worked at the ACLU but I was the first organizer ever hired by the ACLU of Massachusetts so I'm not a law guy but uh basically this is part of um you know the United States Code and it's a provision that allows the Department of Justice to come in and look at police departments because it's in general the federal government doesn't have jurisdiction over local entities right so the federal government can't come in and say hey city of Burlington you need to decrease your police budget by this or increase your fire budget but because of this law section 1983 um it allows them to specifically come in to look at law enforcement agencies to see if there's a pattern or a practice of civil rights violations so it's really about constitutional violations but that so when you hear people talk about consent decrees um and the Trump administration stopped them and the Biden administration is starting them those are legal agreements that are signed generally after there's an investigation a pattern and practice investigation and you know we've been very lucky at NACOL because a number of people who work as monitors people who have helped um lead those investigations um there's just one person in particular I think of Kristi Lopez who led the Ferguson Missouri investigation and she's so after that the Obama administration elect office she ended up becoming a professor at Georgetown School of Law and she has been doing amazing work um in that context about building upon that and and looking at the you know what were the limitations in the work that she was able to do inside the Department of Justice in their civil rights division um and and try to from the outside sort of balance some of those things or enhance those abilities and and really thinking about what's the best way to make sustainable change our consent decrees um you know really sufficient how do they work there's questions about funding I mean there's a lot of details I could watch this I'm going into which detail I'm kind of a geek I know so but basically it's there are federal investigations by the Department of Justice looking at constitutional violations of civil rights in a systemic way so that there's a pattern or practice as opposed to there are some bad officers or this you know this one trainer at the training academy was giving people bad information that this is something that is the way that department is working and it's wrong and it's illegal and it's unconstitutional great thank you I'm happy to also um when I send the email with the other information that I'm sending you send some links to some of those um pattern those investigations um so that not because I mean some of those investigations are really hard to read the findings um you know I you know whether it's Baltimore or Seattle or or New Orleans um and so there are so many things in there that absolutely are not applicable to Burlington but it is interesting to see what they're looking at like the categories of information and how they come to their determination so it's almost like a study and what what should I be looking for as far as systemic issues are concerned maybe that aren't nearly as egregious as what might have been found in some of those other cities but just to have more information about how to how to look at things and what things to look for yeah and and I'll just add quickly that and in all the investigations I've really read through part of their whole process of doing an investigation was talking to people in the community and listening to their voices and capturing that and seeing that as part of the process because yes it's a legal investigation but it's also part of a process of making that community safer and making things better so they have felt that it's important in the those number of consent decrees to include or those investigations to include those voices and kind of put that on the printed page and put it on the record so that the experience of people in that community is part of that it's not just data and statistics but it's people's actual lived experience all right so I'm watching the time we've gone from thinking oh we've got so much time but now we're we're getting closer to the end so um should oh should we should we try to go into this one can be or should we skip this a little bit what do you think um I feel like we probably they've they've talked through some of this yeah um as as a result of the other conversations I I do like the next slide a lot so I feel like we need to get to to that okay well I guess I'll just say quickly I realize that we didn't change the wording because you know we have sort of a template but no it's fine it's but you know you're not exactly you're rising your ordinance but you are looking to change the way you do things as a commission so but again I think can be right that's why I ask because we've talked about this when you hope to see in the future expectations and success um looks like you found us for support and guidance but we'll connect you with more people so yeah I guess let's go on that next slide Kevin so um this is going to be where it's a little less lecture again and um thinking strategically right so you know people have a variety of backgrounds some of you may do strategic planning in your sleep some of you might be like I don't even know what that means but really think of this as just a brief time where we're going to talk about what is the intersection between you know the systemic piece these systems data the vision that you have for a Burlington where every single person feels safe and cared for and secure in various ways and the creativity that you need to get there you know it's not just that there's no cookie cutter there's no boilerplate so as you think about this work of how you do this change you know some of the things we've already talked about like legitimacy but there are many different things that really come into play as you think strategically around your work you know where do you already have legitimacy where are you lacking legitimacy what are the reasons for it I mean again I've heard some of that already but continuing to think about that and as you do your work as things change as you interact with people as you hear from community members and the police department others always thinking about um you know where is that how do these things intersect how are we how is our look at the system intersecting with what we want to see and and new ways of thinking of things new ways of doing things being nimble and flexible when things aren't working you know figure out how do we do it differently um another couple of issues are closely or I kind of tie together are oh please Stephanie oh and I'm sorry you're on mute could you give us an example like when you say like you know thinking about new ways of doing things just give us maybe some examples of other oversight groups and just to kind of concretize that oh so I'm doing this off top my head so it's going to become almost a backwards example for many people and Kami can probably think while I'm talking she has one but so my own civilian oversight board you know in Cambridge there's a long history it goes back to 1984 and I've been doing this work for about 10 11 years and I'm sure they work but um if you go back to the history it was established and still in the ordinance was this kind of almost a very legalistic model so it would make a complaint there would be a public hearing the complainant would present their case and they could have an attorney the officer and the officer's attorney or the union rep they would present their case and there would be evidence the board would ask questions and then they would make a determination and it just it ended not working very well and it's not to say that there aren't places that do that it works very well but in Cambridge it ended up making things very adversarial and because police have specific rights called dirty rights that are you know kind of an extension of the right against self-incrimination but specifically in the context of their employment as obvious people who can be ordered to do things they don't have to say anything you know they don't have to self incriminate and they have dirty rights so you would have these hearings where the police would basically kind of just I don't have to be here I don't have to tell you I mean you could make me show up I'm not going to tell you anything that was very adversarial and so it took a while but what they eventually came up with and it still has worked to this day is actually having the police department do investigations because again we we're talking about very low number of complaints in Cambridge at this point but those investigations belong to the board so I you know I'm the director I'm kind of the liaison in a sense between the board and the police department in certain ways and so I will go in and meet with them I check on the progress of investigations I flag things I think the board will ask questions about and then they you know we need an executive session because of our state laws about personnel and complaints and things like that and the people who've done the investigation they come in they present their findings the board asks them questions they may say okay thank you we're going to deliberate they're dismissed they may say okay we we want some more information you know were there witnesses what did you try to interview them why not and it's actually been a good learning experience for the police department because they have to now think not just about what does the police commissioner want in my investigation they have to think about what are the five members of the Cambridge police union advisory board going to be looking for what questions are they going to ask and so then they have to start anticipating and thinking differently so that was a long example but but then this was something that really came about because it was kind of dysfunctional and in the end you know by changing the rules not the ordinance we were they were able to create a system that has allowed more transparency internally our state laws don't allow that much transparency although there's some changes coming but it's really a lot of members of the board to have a much deeper understanding of what the police do how they're trained what standards are held to and to give them ability to question it based on specific cases and specific examples. Thanks that was good. Very good because I didn't know what I was going to say when you asked that question. So I think a couple other things about states like political capital and political will so you know political for some people sounds like it's politics or it's not good but I always kind of think of politics in the small piece sense it's really how we come together as groups of human beings to figure out how we do things and take care of each other we don't always do it that well sometimes we do it pretty well but everything is political they call this political you know I'm sure your police commission has politics everything is political we know academia is political I bet working in the bar is political there's always politics right and so you have to think about where is your political capital and I one day I'm gonna come with a bare word because I hate talking about capital but you know where is your reservoir of good will of trust of belief maybe that's why I should start saying and how do you you know kind of keep track and be aware of how full that reservoir is and what's the state is it rising is it dropping is it clean is it contaminated and then also the political will right so my sense is there's a lot of political will in Burlington for making change but that's something that can change over time priorities change individuals and roles change needs of communities change and always being aware of what the level of political will is and then with both of those things thinking about what's your role in maintaining and supporting it I mean it's you know connected to legitimacy in that sense but you know how do you ensure that the work that you do to the extent possible is supporting that political will that is giving those people who are decision makers the sense that this is important and we know what's going on and we want more of it we want to support it giving those people who are you know sworn law enforcement officers the sense that okay these people might be watching us but you know they've got good training they're they want to do the right thing and they're trying to make things fair for everybody including us as police officers I mean all of these different things are important and I mean that just brings me to this piece of thinking strategically around stakeholders and I would say this is one of the more difficult pieces I've probably said two or three times because I say it all the time but it's very hard to maintain legitimacy with all of the stakeholders I mean I think policing police will tell you that they have a real tough time trying to maintain legitimacy with everyone they work with and I actually think that it's even harder for oversight because we have to maintain legitimacy with you know the broad public with different segments of the community with individuals with community organizations with service providers with elected officials with appointed government officials with staff and with the police department right so it could be a big challenge and so that is really a time that's really an area where you have to be constantly thinking again about this intersection so as you're dealing with different sets of people different sectors and you know that if you're out in the community a community meeting they're you know listening to people and validating those voices and those experiences there are probably also people who are listening who are thinking like yeah these people they just hate the police and you know you're not you can't win everybody over but you have to be aware and be thinking as you do your work and that you're trying to speak to multiple offices multiple audiences at the same time and it's not easy and you know there will be missteps but as long as you're constantly thinking about how we're doing it you know how does it affect where people are or how is it affected by kind of where people sit you know people's roles and systems and in society play a role apart in how they experience things and how they think about things you know are people feeling attacked are people feeling supported all of those things you have to constantly be thinking about and it's again in that context of where the systems what's the vision that we have and how do we creatively deal with those tensions and then I think the last about thinking strategically for me is that if you're able to really stay in that strategic thinking space it keeps you from falling into um unhelpful binaries will put it that way us against them or you know we're in a fight and someone's going to win we're going to win or we're going to lose so we got to win um you know they're the good people and the bad people they are the victims and they're the perpetrators I mean there's so many binaries um that I think that binary thinking is often when things start to break down when it's hard to have communication when people start to cross their arms and resist and that's not what you're looking for so um it's not to say that there aren't times where there is right wrong and there is good and bad because they're absolutely are but not having that be the framework through which the work happens um you know so being open to good and bad while doing your best not to see everything is binary um okay so I've lectured for a long time and I'm gonna ask Kami if she has anything she wants to add on the slide before we move on and she's shaking her head all right so um let's let's jump ahead to the next part of this and I don't think there's much to say so uh because we've talked about this a lot you know again it's just in writing how do you build on these opportunities that that you all identified some that we may have shared while addressing and understanding the challenges right so that's that's like a concrete piece so you've got those that intersection of those those three circles so how do you do that that involves strategic thinking you know again I just went on and on how do you build that legitimacy and and with all the stakeholders and build goodwill for the future uh because again that reservoir of trust of goodwill um you know it can go up it can go down but you want to keep it as high as possible because at some point there will be a critical incident there will be a controversial situation there will be people who from whatever position feel that your board your commission has not done the right thing and you want to to the extent possible build that sense of legitimacy before you get there because then you can draw that it's a this is not my brilliant thinking right we all know these concepts um another thing though that I think is really important when you're thinking strategically is what are your priorities and what can go on the back burner um you know I haven't heard everything but I get the sense that there's a lot that you want to do which is great and you're not going to be able to do it all I mean you would be great if you can get staffing that's dedicated that will help but even if you have full-time staff there will be things you want to do that you can't do so um and that's kind of a constant process you know it's not a one and done with there are priorities there are three priorities there'll be our priorities so they're 20 47 it's you have to constantly be checking and thinking and when we were talking about these places that have transformed their oversight model to some degree that's what they had to do as well um and then the same thing how can you adapt to conditions in order to achieve your mission um you know you're in this place of kind of starting and creating this new version of this police commission 3.0 or 2.0 but um to do that you really have to be um thinking about what's happening how is it changing you know we thought this at a certain point in time when we went down this road but now we see things are different so how do you adapt and do that how do you constantly be thinking um where you need to go and um I don't know I think I could I don't know if I have anything else to say can I know you can be talk so much so I I try to give you I think you I think you covered it right okay great so um I think let's go to that next slide and then we can do any final Q and A so um this is this is an image you some of you may have seen this before you may have seen the quote which I'll just read nothing about us without us is for us and this is really based on a slogan it's a it is a slogan that was popularized in South Africa by disability rights and use youth activists um this is an image this particular image is created by an artist's name Ricardo Levins Morales but um I know well no can be you know I'm gonna make you talk I want you to say why you love this image rather than me say so I love this image I this image um the first time I saw it was actually in a presentation that a woman that I greatly admire put together on community engagement her name's Ursula Price and she works um at the time she was the deputy monitor in New Orleans and um she has this right above her desk to remind her every day of why and she's doing the work how she should do the work and what happened and that she needs to start thinking about what's going to happen tomorrow as well um and so it's just a nice and a beautiful reminder that um we can sometimes get very caught up in what we believe needs to happen next um but also have to remember that it's not just about what we think is right that there there is something it is about what is right for the community um and so I think it's particularly important um reminder for those working in and around civilian oversight no thank you so I'm very excited that Brian has included it in his slide no it's and I love including it by me for those same not not so much because I saw it from Ursula but just um because of both the image you know Ricardo Levins Morales with he used to be part of something called the Northland collective that these beautiful calendars every year out of Minnesota um and his sister actually used to live about two blocks from here so it's it's kind of there's a slight personal connection but um we have more on this slide that we want to bring up which is a parallel piece so um this is a quote you may have heard before if you have come to help me you are wasting my time but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine then let us work together and this is a slogan that is often attributed to a woman named Lola Watson who is an Aboriginal activist from Australia but she will tell you or she would tell you that she didn't come up with this that it was really this was the the way that that community of activists in Queensland in the 70s talked and this was their slogan but I think it goes to such a deep truth um and not to be critical of things because there are lots of good people who are working hard to help other people and they see they're oppressed and we're going to go help liberate them and we're going to address our white privilege and our guilt and all that and and that's necessary and it's absolutely insufficient transformation in society cannot happen unless all of us see that the struggle is a collective struggle that none of us is free until all of us is free that oppression dehumanizes everyone engaged in that interaction and it's not to say that the oppressor is the same as the person who is experiencing oppression those experiences are not the same but the common piece is that in that both people lose a piece of their humanity one that piece of humanity is taken from them by the oppression and the other the act of oppressing someone actually diminishes your humanity and so liberation is a joint project we have to all be engaged and we have to all see that this is not about someone else's life or just my life this is about each and every one of us together so we like to kind of end on this because I think it's an important reminder that we're here we're the ones doing the work those there have been those who've come before us there will be those who come after us there are those who accompany us and there's a whole community that we are part of that we are embedded in that we are working to on behalf of but in partnership with as well so with that I think we can go on to any next steps questions closing right gammie yes so let's see do we have a is there any more slides I guess not just our contact info and people know that right yeah so really this is a chance for anything else I see stephanie's hand yeah uh I I want to refer to your discussion around thinking strategically and helping us think about that um so when I said here and think about that it seems like one of the discussions that we should have at one of our public meetings all of our meetings are public so um is what are our priorities and you know how do we think we ought to sequence the many things that we learn from this but I wonder if you have any other guidance around kind of uh thinking strategically and how do operationalize that uh that would be helpful yeah well let me start now I'll ask kambi to add too because kambi's been doing this for a long time has seen a lot of different communities I think that part of it is it's actually taking the time um you know now I I have to admit that I have I didn't take the time to dive deeply into the work but let's say that you're at the point down the road where you're you have staff you're processing complaints you're going into meetings monthly to review complaints and make determinations or something like that that can be very time consuming you know and it can be really challenging this is one of the things I face with my own oversight board that I work with here in Cambridge to also build in the time for ongoing training for reflection and for listening to the community it's challenging and so um part of that is really just making sure you carve out the time to do strategic thinking along with those other things that you really have time almost like in a retreat format to really do a deep dive you know you know again every state is different there's different laws about how you do that what you can do where you could do that so whatever you need to do but to really take time you know maybe once a year to stop and pause and reflect and and look not at the work that's in front of us today and when we have to get done by this 30-day deadline but like how has it been going what have we been hearing what are the things that stepping back we we want to keep looking at so it's really trying to build that time in and I'll be honest I think it's really challenging I have really struggled with my own board to create that space because people are busy and then we've got cases and if we don't do that it it takes a toll I would just add to that one of the things that I've seen with other boards that are looking to sorry who are looking to prioritize what comes next um a lot of times they do community surveys ahead of time they do small facilitated discussions um one city they were actually in the process of establishing oversight so it's a different different point in the process um but they brought together they they know who their community stakeholders are they know that there are groups that are heard from often they know that there are also groups who are representing members of the community that we don't hear from as often um they brought together those stakeholders I don't think there were more than 10 people in any given meeting they had I think a total of 10 meetings where they asked the same questions from each one of them to hear their thoughts on some of the work that would be done um and it was amazing to hear the collection of um of thoughts on on the direction that oversight should take and the priorities that there should be and having the small facilitated um conversations you could hear so much more than in a larger community meeting um because people there were lots of people that probably would never have gotten up in front of a large group and said what they said they felt very comfortable and being very open and honest um and as you mentioned that the community surveys that they did and kind of informed the questions so it was a process of starting very big narrowing it down and then from that then you have this ability to narrow it down even further as a commission with the things that based on the feedback from the broader community what are those things that we're going to narrow down to so that's one suggestion I have for process um that might be helpful as you report. So you know should we stop sharing the slide? Sure so I can actually see everyone that would be lovely. Yeah so um yeah but really this is just you know we have a few minutes left so any other questions or thoughts or things that um or you're wondering how we might help you and they're real happy. Oh please. I do I don't want to just take the space from my other commissioners so interrupt me whenever but um I want to ask you a question it might seem out of left field but one of the things that's happened recently is that there's been a discussion around staffing levels because the city council passed a motion to reduce the size of the police force by 30% and so more recently the chief has disseminated a staffing plan to explain how you know um various complaints or you know issues would be policed and so forth and I'm just wondering there's like I see a lot for us to do as a police commission is that something for us to weigh in on uh in your experience with others like I've had reporters call me and ask me to comment on that and I'm not sure that's my purview uh as a commissioner so I just wondering do you think that's the purview of commissioners to comment on like on the specifics of deployment of officers and staffing and so forth? So I would say as someone who's not I wish I'd read more I'm not totally familiar with your model and the role of the commission as it is in the ordinance or in the charter um my my general advice would be that um as a member of the commission uh generally the commission should speak with one voice and it should be um you know it should be whatever the commission determines it is now that doesn't mean that as an individual you can't say you know I'm not I'm speaking as someone who you know as an individual even though I'm on the commission but the reality is people will often still hear that as oh well the vice chair of the commission says blah blah blah so it's you know it's it's a challenge in that way but I would say that whatever your powers are I think that it would seem to me again I can't promise not an attorney don't know the charter ordinance but it seemed to me that would be within your purview as a commission to have that discussion to you know ask for the plan to maybe even ask the chief to come in and speak to the commission and and talk about it ask questions offer any suggestions um you know I I think that worst-case scenario you make your suggestions and you don't really get much feedback but I would hope that especially if it's if you know something the body is doing in its official capacity that there would be both support for that and interest in your perspective and one of the things that I think is really great about civilian oversight is that over time I've seen in my own city more and more over the years in many cities police leaders in rank and file learn that it's actually really helpful to know what people who aren't police think there's such a way in which policing culture gets very internally focused and there are reasons for that I mean there some are maybe not so great some are very reasonable and logical and it's really important to hear from those outside of policing and as a commission that is focused on this it's getting training from civilian oversight practitioners that's getting training from the law enforcement agency that you are working with you have an extra measure of legitimacy because you actually have training you're looking at these things so um it may be something over time you work up to but but so long long-winded way of saying I think looking at policies and proposals is a very important piece of the work and as long as it doesn't come into conflict with some provision of your local ordinance or the city charter or any other agreements it seems to me like that's a good thing to do but to do it in a format that is again a meeting that is open that people can really hear and that you're working as a body so that was very long but Tammy yeah so given so there are the simple answer is there are commissions in police commissions throughout the country who do look at those things they are mandated to that they they are involved in almost every little aspect of the process so that there is that feedback piece that Brian was just discussing your the policy that guides you as we discussed before it's fairly vague um on some of these things and so it's a matter of um kind of filling working to fill in the specifics um because it's uh if memory serves me correct it does not specifically say that this is something um you should or should not do um but there are many police commissions who do do those things where they look at new policies they look at some look at budget recommendations staffing recommendations um they also um some are responsible for saying I think we need an the police need to do an audit of x y or z um so there there is a vast amount of authority that's out there um I think some of those in that discussion of priorities I think determining those authorities and solidifying them maybe should be as part part of the discussion other questions well I have other questions but but I know that we'll have some time with Kemi and some of them were more specific types of questions that we would probably benefit from hearing about other oversight agencies experience so I'll I'll say like I'm noting them down actually I'm okay because I know so that makes sense and you know and again I mean both through NACO it is also I mean I am in Cambridge Massachusetts I love Vermont I you know I know it's easy for people to say but um so you know I would hope that I can continue to be engaged and support the work you're doing as well that's awesome that would be great yeah well if um yeah I guess time for last questions if anybody has any well like I said for a sound like a broken record I cannot thank you guys enough um for being here with us taking this time to help us along through this I mean this is true like I guess I've already said it before this has been invaluable and I think this is really going to help us be able to kind of like plot a path forward and see what's actually possible for us to get things accomplished so thank you so much you're very welcome it's it's really a pleasure and honor to be able to work with you and looking forward to working with you as you move forward so thank you yeah including us thank you so much as well you're welcome but and thank you all for being so willing to to get engaged and answer all those questions have those discussions not everyone wants to so I really appreciate that I feel like I've gotten to at least know you a little bit so thanks for everything great well I guess with that then um we can call us make a motion to end this meeting um by charane all in favor say aye aye aye all right then everyone in the public that tuned in thank you very much our next police commission meeting um will be on the 22nd of june this coming Tuesday and that uh notice will be going out tomorrow so we hope you tune in or and show up uh everyone out there thank you very much and have a great weekend happy juneteenth thank you all for coming thanks thank you happy juneteenth yeah thanks