 25th 2022, and I'm calling to order this meeting of the police commission for a roll call We have every looks that we have all commissioners present minus one either in person or online via zoom and Moving forward Is there a motion to amend or adopt the agenda I second that removal on the other Moving that agenda item from the agenda any conversation I'm not seeing or hearing any all in favor of removing agenda item 5.02 from the agenda. Please raise your hand or say aye. Aye This is unanimously Moving on to agenda item at 2.01 approving the minutes from the police commission meeting on the 27th of September 2022 Hope everyone got a chance to review those is there Is there a motion to Approve those minutes from 20s. Sorry from sorry, September 27th 2022 Motion by uh, commissioner comford seconded by commissioner. So we know all in favor raise your hand or sorry any discussion Nope all in favor raise your hand or please say aye I That passes unanimously um Next agenda item approving the minutes from The special police question meeting from october 17th 2022 Do I have a motion to Wasn't approved. Um, I'll second that um any discussion Not seeing or hearing any all in favor of approving the minutes from the police commission special meeting on october 17th 2022 Please raise your hand or say aye I that passes unanimously Um moving on to agenda item at 3.01 which is public forum Um, I guess I'll give the floor to people that are present here if they want to speak. Please Um, please come sit here at the table. Um, just state your name for the record and Floor is yours. Thank you Make sure the green button should be on of the little thing And then yeah, they speak right into the mic. Cool. Thank you. Hi. Um, sorry that was loud Uh, my name is sam powers and I am a student at uvm And I am here to talk about something very specific but very important Which is police data practices and the presentation of data Specifically as it relates to priority one incidents and that presentation As an indication of general public safety. Uh, so often the the police department Uses priority one incidents as a proxy for general public safety and and for those who don't know I assume all of you know Well aware but priority one incidents are those incidents that the police department has deemed most In need of rapid response. Um and so They frequently used These numbers as an indication of general public safety in their annual report as well as presentations in front of this commission and What I view as problematic about that is There are actually a variety of different data points within priority one incidents that are not similar. Um There are priority one incidents that deal with public safety and priority one incidents that don't deal with public safety. So There are if you if you look at your sheet, there are you know, uh, homicides arsons and resisting arrest, right? Um, or or, uh, you know, uh Crashes, um, but priority one incidents are also suicide attempts, uh overdoses domestic disturbances, um and so When you present recording in progress when you present, uh These these incidents is aggregated. Um, you tend to skew the actual view of Um Public safety in burlington. Um, so on the second page of of the handout Um, you can see what makes up priority one incidents And a significant portion. Um, generally half of all priority one incidents are not a threat to public safety Um, whereas a third are And uh around 20% are 911 calls which really have no bearing, uh on Public safety or not, uh, because we can't really tell what they were about. So, um Uh, you can see that that when there are large jumps in priority one incidents that don't have anything to do with public safety Uh, it tends to skew the data to make it look as if Burlington is more dangerous than it is. Um, and so if you'll look at your at the third graph here or the third Page We can see kind of a side by side of, uh, total priority one incidents Versus priority one incidents having to do with public safety. I'm not a statistician, uh, and I want to stress that I I, uh Don't want to make it look as if I'm Trying to make any claims about, um The meaning of the of these numbers, but uh, if you'll see the general Comparison year to year, uh, there there are significant differences in both of these presentations of data The blue line is is Are the numbers that the police department frequently uses, um to show general public safety, um and From year 2020 to 2021. Uh, there's a significant jump, uh in Priority one incidents and that makes it seem as though That level of priority one incidents, uh, is somewhat unprecedented or close to unprecedented and that's true But when you look at priority one public safety incidents, you actually see that It's relatively normal and the uh, the general downward trend is still significantly strong Um As it pertains to priority one public safety incidents and the third graph On the last page is just a presentation of, uh the um lack of correlation between Priority one totals and 911 hang-ups um, uh 911 hang-ups are included in priority one incident counts. And so when you do that you tend to Actually a few skate important details in the data because they change from year to year pretty Randomly, um, so if anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Uh, but yeah yeah I'm wondering How you got interested in this? Yeah, uh, I just like to play around with the open data portal and, um Yeah, I I think Frequently I hear from my neighbors. Um that Burlington is becoming a more dangerous place to live. Um, and Burlington is becoming a lot scarier. Um, granted I live in a Generally more conservative like building. Um, so, uh, it's it's a lot of it's a lot of people who are kind of Uh, uh, maybe maybe more afraid than most, but um Yeah, I I I I don't think that's true. Um, I think When we present data That suggests Otherwise that that Burlington is becoming a more dangerous place to live. I think there are significant ramifications for that In terms of how the public views public safety in Burlington as well as policymakers And and how they react Yeah Any other questions or comments or Could you explain the date the source of the data and how you accessed it? Yeah. Um, so yeah This is uh, this is from the Burlington open data portal. So it's the same data that the police use. Um, it's just, uh I think frequently they use val core as as their kind of, uh Way to Analyze the data. I just used excel Because I'm 20 and don't have access to fancy data stuff. So I basically yeah, just used excel and pivot tables to To analyze the data. Yeah Yeah Yes, yes That in 2012 32 of all incidents were Priority one public safety related. So in other words the Types of incidents that you have carved off as being public safety related. They were 32 percent They were 36 percent in 2013 and 2015 and in 2021 they went down to 28 percent that so and in contrast The non public safety related that is suicides over doses so on and so forth have gone from 44 percent to 53 percent and so and and uh, so that's essentially the point that you're making is that the If we only describe priority one as increasing We're missing the point that some of those are do social social causes if you will Versus those that are related to physical threat of community members. Is that accurate? Absolutely. Yeah, I appreciate that synthesis. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm sure and I think it's also important in terms of Not only like public facing presentation, but also, you know Using that data to make policies and and to implement responses to you know changes in crime like So so if we present data as if it's kind of In one way right aggregated um We actually missed the point that that uh A lot of that from from 2020 to 2021 that the biggest spike the biggest shift in data was actually due to a lot of you know Actually, I have like numbers here a 44 in percent increase from 2020 to 2021 in overdoses and uh 99 more Restraining order services and violations And that tends to skew the data, but it also Disaggregation is important in terms of responding to that shift in Those types of incidents So when you say that uh, disaggregation is important in responding Are you I don't want to put words in your mouth But what comes to mind for me is that the resources that are deployed for Non-public safety related like mental health and overdoses and so forth is more akin to Community service liaisons and community service officers versus armed officers. Is that was that what you're suggesting? Yeah, yeah, I think um, especially when you see that You know in terms of the actual percentage or makeup of priority one incidents From 2020 to 2021 was still 28 percent So we see, you know, the same a similar proportion. Um, and that just tells me that yes, I think Uh, when you disaggregate you actually understand better how to how to direct. I think uh department resources. Yeah, great Thanks so much. I really appreciate you drawing our attention to this and I think the idea of disaggregating priority one If we're going to use it as an indicator of public safety in burlington Disaggregating it actually is a really good idea. So thank you so much for that. Yeah, thank you Any further questions while we still have them here? Thank you very much for being here appreciate it and um anybody that is um Um checking on moving via zoom, um, please raise your hand and you'll be Called upon to speak with public forum No one by zoom right um that closes that agenda item Moving on to the chief's report and with that we welcome chief john mirad, uh chief the floor is yours Thank you very much commissioner. Uh, and if with your permission i'll share my screen Please do So, uh, this is the chief's report. I'll try to go through this briefly. I disseminated it to all of you This last week. Um, I disseminated it today to the local media and also posted it on the bpd site I will acknowledge there are two additional slides in this that came from uh some suggestions that came from department heads I I sent it to department heads and to the city council over the weekend as well And some of the suggestions I had uh sort of prompted me to add two additional slides, which I'll point out as we go through them They are in the version that is on uh that is being presented now They are on the version therefore that will live on youtube and they are on the version that is up at the Burlington police department website in our collection of all chief's reports that we've made over the past Almost two years now. Um So this is our our sworn officer staffing and headcount And one of the things that was mentioned was was talking about some of the other kinds of staffing and so I do that in a subsequent slide Um, as you see, we you know, our situation has not materially changed since previous Meetings that we've had This is the priority response plan that was referenced in that public comment slash public dialogue with with a back and forth interesting. Um, and I think that there was a Uh a discussion there that misses some of the point of this. This is a deployment plan This is a plan about how we deploy resources based on what we have to go to and of course We go to things that are going to have a life safety component. It's true We don't know what a 9-1-1 hang up is but we know that it can be bad. It is frequently an indication of something that's occurred Uh, someone makes a call and is interrupted in that call by an assailant Uh, someone makes a call and passes out If we ceased to go to those, I'm certain we would have a certain amount of public concern and appropriation Similarly, most of these other kinds of incidents are incidents that involve life safety and immediate life safety And they're not incidents to which we are going to send people who are not equipped and trained to deal with life safety incidents Nor I think you will learn from the next speaker. Will such entities go? These are calls for service for which frankly our social workers will not go And uh, similarly, these are not calls for service to which we would send community service officers Incident volume is up this year over last year. In fact, it is now past 2020 as well And this is total incident volume disaggregated although we do uh, excuse me aggregated although we do disaggregate it later in the presentation This is total incidents. You'll see that it just is peaking up above 2020's numbers. It is well above 2021 Uh, and if we were to add in traffic volume from previous years, we would actually be up in the range of previous years for total incident volume These are priority one incidents and obviously, uh, the the dialogue the public dialogue there was uh, something that they talked a little bit about this Uh, and and calls into question this, uh, you know, these are uh, Clearly labeled as what we know they are there were more priority one incidents in September 2022 than in any previous year I look forward to seeing some of that disaggregation to see where these changes are Uh, but these are incidents for which we send police officers and that was the nature of creating the priority response plan in 2021 and then revising it this past may in may of 2022 Selected val core incidents where we do in fact disaggregate and we can see these uh progressions We can see where the numbers have gone these of the previous years. This is year to date data Um, and these are the categories that do in fact cause neighbors to be concerned Now I will note that these are val core categories These aren't necessarily synonymous with offenses or arrests made But this is what the caller is saying is happening and that matters because if the caller says there's an assault going on We go to that assault Even if we find out upon arrival that it wasn't quite an assault It might have been more properly characterized as a disorderly conduct It might have been more properly characterized as a larceny over which there was a tug of war So larceny from a person But if it came over as an assault a the public has believed that is an assault at least a member of the public That creates an effect in our community and b we don't know what it is And we are going to respond based on what we do know, which is the reports to 911 We're never going to send cso's or community service liaisons Excuse me community support liaisons or other social workers to calls of a robbery for example This is a picture of how those uh patterns have changed over the past several years And where we are this year these are the the five year average of those previous numbers So the numbers come again from these tables, uh, if we add up 2017 through 2021 and divide by five and compared to 2022. That's where we get these changes in percentage Um, there has been some discussion about whether or not we should be including 2020 Uh, I welcome anyone who wants to go through that data and crunch it themselves to actually do the math on it Um, and juggle it in ways that they want, but this is what's most effective for us I believe that it eliminates a lot of the noise about year to year comparisons I believe that eliminates the I think, uh, Miss use of data to compare it to 2012. Frankly, our neighbors don't care how things were in 2012 They care how things were recently and how differently our city feels right now Um, not whether or not things were better 10 years ago or 15 years ago This is gunfire a category that very unfortunately has inarguably changed and it's one that has set us on a great deal of deliberation a great deal of effort And what we see here is is a change. I I'm Thankful, I knock on wood that we have not seen these in a bit And I think there has been some some incredible work based done by our detective bureau Done in conjunction with both the gunfire task force that was created with the great partners like the atf Like the dea like south burlington and other local agencies and a really terrific level of partnership with the vermont state police That we are working on on a daily basis beyond those troopers in green and gold that are sometimes seen at the corner of church in main Um, that has has allowed us to get some breathing room on these and I'm hopeful to have some announcements moving forward about additional progress Um, this is a picture I've added in a pie graph just so people can see where our resources are Patrol versus detectives versus a significant portion that are currently unavailable for patrol for a variety of reasons Including the three that we have in the vermont police academy right now. So they are among those those 10 This discusses the other capacity that we're building incredibly useful tools From the community support liaisons. They are a resource. I am very very proud of having built I'm very very proud of getting to work with lacy to create the this team And see the kinds of service gaps that it is bridging It's a really terrific Innovation and I'll as i'll discuss shortly when we talk about the international association of chiefs of police conference or iacp conference It's something that isn't really being done in a lot of other places. It's a real leader Ditto our community service officers or cso's their ability to respond to those quality of life calls that we have As you see back in the priority response model designated for them is a Is something important for us as we struggle with with lower sworn officer headcounts than are effective for our city These are the tiers of response to sort of Demonstrate how these resources can and can't work And the kinds of things that they do and don't respond to And then this is one of the slides that I added on patrol ships And I added it in order to demonstrate where we are with cso's and how we have increased the number of cso's Right now my you know the talking heads including mine are are covering over our current patrol shift But if I move myself over a little bit others I think can control their own screens You will see there, you know the we have increased the number of cso's They have addressed certain gaps particularly in quality of life response But they don't make up for the the vast diminution of sworn officers that we've experienced This body the police commission has been Very helpful in in attaining new levels of staffing permission I think that you know there was a concerted effort Around comparing our city to other cities merely by headcount and population Comparing other cities our city to other cities with large colleges. These were really Ineffective ways of looking at the numbers that our city needed and thankfully there was the cna report that I think gave a somewhat better picture of what we need But when we see how we were staffed in previous years and we see how we're staffed now you can see that real difference I threw this in just to talk about range day training range day training is a is a fun day for officers It's an important day for officers Obviously, it's a component of our training that we rarely use but we take very seriously And we get to do it in a pretty lovely place. Um, I I'll admit I make these presentations as much for The public as for the police commission and moreover I make it for people who may stumble upon them as they are doing due diligence in considering applying to our agency And this is a slide that I think would attract officers The idea of being able to get to spend an afternoon twice a year a day twice a year Out in the Jericho range Can bring us some officers. We equip very well with these tools. We train very well with these tools. We have some excellent excellent instructors And although it's a component that we are thankful. We very very rarely use. It's one that we have to know well This is the icp and a discussion of the icp Is is what follows the international association of chiefs of police is a long lived organization It's been around for more than a century Its annual conference this year was held in Dallas and it was the first conference held in several years Since the pandemic So there had been virtual conferences in 2020 and 2021 It was attended by anywhere from 15 to 18 thousand people There were literally hundreds of vendors hundreds of educational breakout sessions A huge and wonderful opportunity to to meet not only with officers from other parts of the country But as you see in the center there, uh, that's corporal norris meeting with with officers from brazil exchanging challenge coins and things and getting to learn about how different things are done in different places This is a selection of some of the educational sessions. This is just the deep rooms So there were a rooms and b rooms and c rooms and e rooms This is just the d's and and only a selection of those d rooms Each of these actually has a backside that shows monday and tuesday. You're seeing here sunday and saturday Huge numbers of of educational sessions as I said more than 250 More than a hundred different special interest groups that met President biden appeared on video attorney general garland and fbi director re appeared in person There were breakout sessions of real import to us around recruitment around working with community around developing some of the things we've already developed There were after-action reviews of the las vegas massacre of The insurrection at the capital. It was a really incredible experience A picture of some of the the various vendors that were available on the floor That we went to there's some here that we actually use such as faro primacy and forensics We bought some materials from them The force science institute up in the upper left hand corner is one that Is is an important component of how we analyze and look at use of force This was a really important thing one of the things that came up at this conference and i'll discuss the conference a little bit more Now was the the work that's been done over the past year around police reform A key component of that was president biden's may of 2022 executive order Around policing now because it's an executive order and it's from the federal government It mostly had teeth with federal entities Excuse me. I'm sorry um But it also apply it was it's a way of leading American agencies across the board the president cannot make the burlington police department or the south burlington police department do anything But he can make the fbi do something and that has a ripple effect Among these were uh issues around revising use of force standards basically catching up with where we were already Thanks to this body and work that we did during the 2019 committee to review policing practices during june of 2020 when we revised our use of force policy to make it the best in the state And then since then the state having adopted that policy as a mandatory policy for the entirety of the state So we're ahead of the game on that there were issues around limiting the use of no knock entries and warrants We don't do those um and there are there too. We are far ahead of the game Limiting the middle the militarization of law enforcement Again, not something that we do. We do not take military equipment at the burlington police department. We haven't um We are ahead of that game Leveraging federal grants and tools for that. We too did that When we went from being authorized at 100 to being authorized at 105 That was thanks to a federal grant that we obtained through The burn grants named after a new york city police officer who was assassinated in his car While guarding a witness's house by a drug lord the witness was going to testify against I'm sorry Excuse me um So we're ahead of the game on a lot of those things And it was it was actually very interesting to see in these educational breakouts the degree to which burlington is leading the way I'm sorry um I think I'll open it for questions now because I lost my voice suddenly I said I I don't think I'll open it for questions because I've lost my voice a bit But I can't hear any questions So so I have a question. No, so we're gonna do something here because we have a First of all to give chief murad time to get his voice back and we have A speaker so chief murad if it would be okay with you What we will do is hear from our speaker and then come back to you in about a half hour I think there are a number of questions about your presentation. Does that sound okay? I'm sorry Sorry chief. I believe your mic is muted My voice is fine. I'm happy to go through with that now and and keep ourselves to the 20 minute limit that you gave me commission Yeah, chief. We'll give you your questions right now. Um the floor's open for questions of the chief chief I'm interested in first of all. It's nice to know that the department is doing so well in terms of It's comparison to other places around the country What are some of the things you learned that you want to move forward on that you're not have not yet moved forward on from the conference Great question. Um, I you know, we're we're team back. We're going to team back the the folks who went so it was deputy chief lebrecht It was myself. It was sergeant mike bellovo and it was corporal jessica norris We attended we each went to different sessions. We tried as much as possible not to go to the same sessions Even so obviously with 250 we didn't touch all of them You know, we came around with with some great ideas over time for community affairs details Trying to work that out in order to reengage on a community affairs level We came away with some ideas around How we could work with the the community around gun violence Some of those are somewhat in court, but I'm hopeful to be able to leverage some We came away with some ideas around recruitment brainstorming lists of deliverables that we need to make in order to have a work plan for that recruitment The degree to which positivism needs to be a component of recruitment The idea of really understanding why applicants are choosing your agency Responsiveness and communication all of which I'm hopeful will be facilitated by that recruitment coordinator That's the the purpose of that role To to really maximize responsiveness communication and and then the the recruitment coordinator and the recruiting officer being able to Achieve a real personal connection with people so that they feel like they're coming to a place that is a family We have several officers who departed us who are actually contemplating coming back And a component of that is their understanding that this is a different place. This is a place where inside this agency We do take care of one another There is a sense of of camaraderie. Obviously there are real morale challenges But there are other aspects of this place that are are good And figuring out how to best put those forward was certainly a lesson from some of those recruiting Breakouts Follow up on that chief mirad. Can you say a little bit more about the Suggestions with regard to working with the community around gun violence. I realize you said Your your ideas here aren't fully formed yet, but can you share with us? Anything that you learned on that? I think that's an issue. So that was actually a core class that was attended by by sergeant bellow and there are some some concepts around there Some of them have to do with investigatory avenues. There was a great session called Interviewing the gun something that we are already again. We're doing it was actually a largely a pitch around neibis and working better with atf partners We're ahead of that game. Um, some of the other issues have to do with the ways in which we, you know Develop community relationships. That's a component of that community affairs over time potential that we've that we're discussing um You know, I went to a very interesting educational session on developing a comprehensive alternative uh response program for mental illness related calls that basically spelled out what denver's doing And we are frankly already doing it absent a co-response capacity and that is limited by our staffing Once we have a larger number of officers co-response is absolutely something I intend to dig into. Um, I went to a A really terrific session. Um, a couple on on 30 by 30 Bringing more women into the profession. A really terrific one Called hearing her voice around women's issues in the profession and things that that we need to do to make certain that we incorporate Attractive matter and measures for for female candidates Um, also, uh, a terrific course on excuse me session on, you know, historical injustices in policing Um, there were a lot of things that came out of that one as well A discussion also on consent decrees at the perf town hall and the ways in which certain municipalities are dealing with those Um, and a big one from axon also around gun violence Having to do with their belief that they can reduce officer involved gun violence by 50 percent over the next 10 years We have to buy a lot of axon project Products in order to make that happen, but that's the moonshot that is down at the bottom of the the bottom right hand corner of the screen Um, the the notion of that they have of Saying that they can can cut all gun related deaths between police and public by 50 percent in 10 years Thank you Hi chief. Um, I'm very glad to hear that you went to The one about historical injustices in policing I'd love to have an agenda item in the future Where you talk about what was discussed at that panel um, and how We can apply what was learned here. Um I wanted to go to page five on the report Uh, the total incident volume And I had a question about the information toward the end of the paragraph if we were to add 2017's Traffic volume and foot patrols to 2022's overall incident volume 2022 would have a more incident than any year since 2017 I had a concern about that because 2017's incidents are with 2017 And I don't believe we should infer adding incidents that occurred then To Not even a account for 2022 they just didn't occur in 2022 So the point of that is that those are largely discretionary activities. They are officer activities that are officer pro activity. So officers largely make Traffic stops when they observe a traffic condition, but they also do it when they are Out and and encourage to do traffic. We have stopped encouraging officers to do traffic Foot patrols foot patrols are actually up this year Thanks to the cso's But they were down a lot over the previous years owing to a combination of factors Including a desire to sort of minimize foot patrol and also fewer officers available to do them What this is saying and I accounted by the way for the difference between foot patrols You know, I didn't double count the foot patrols that happened or the traffic stops that happened So I took the difference between 2017 and 2022 What this is saying is that if officers were as proactive Creating incidents that are based on their discretion In this year as they have been in past years, we would be at the same incident volume I've said this a couple of times I've said it before that that a good percentage of the decrease in incident volume is not because the public is calling us less It is because officers have been told explicitly to do less They've been told about it with regard to traffic stops in order to address some concerns We had about traffic stops. We see that on this slide when we look at the plummet of of Traffic stops there to have gone from, you know Somewhere in the order of almost 3,000 to to barely 300 That's the difference you add those differences back and suddenly 2020 looks a lot like 2017 And what that tells us is the public isn't calling us less Tells us that officers are doing less proactive enforcement. Yes, sir Do by the public and by the police administration Okay, so I understand what you're saying and due to fact we're limited for time. I just have to disagree There are a number of reasons that led into The reduction of traffic stops And really can't examine them right now But they're not occurring and I am concerned about Adding You know saying that this implying that the same number would be occurring when in fact it hasn't So that is a concern of mine in terms of Making sure that when people review this report because I personally Have been out giving presentations and using your reports I need to feel confident about the data and that there's no intention To mislead anyone and that's that's the concern that I had The other question I have was There is no intention to mislead anyone I and I'm just trying to bring to your I hear what you're saying, sir. I just need you to hear my concern And just take take that into consideration. That's all I'm asking. I'm not asking for a debate back and forth I'm just asking you to hear my concern Those incidents didn't in fact happen in 2022 and there's a lot of reasons around why traffic stops You know are not occurring and we can add that as a future agenda item The other question that I had sir was Just kind of been asked questions from the community about how it's going with recruiting lateral transfers Had we had any applications from potential lateral transfers? No, we have not had any applications from lateral transfers. We had expected some We had been told that there were some in the county that were interested in it But but you know right or wrong Fair or not There's a perception among the officers that we still have among officers that we've lost and among many of the officers that we've unsuccessfully sought to hire in this area that the The atmosphere in the city has not changed substantively enough for the salary that we're now offering to overcome those concerns Understood. Um, would love to have another future agenda item about positive Public engagement on behalf of the department. Thank you. Any further questions or comments with the chief? Just maybe one follow-up on the recruitment We understood at the last meeting you were on a recruitment trip and and thank you very much for doing that I'm just wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on some of the challenges and opportunities You're facing in recruiting and also the status for the recruitment coordinator and the and recruitment officer how that search is going Thank you. Sure. Thank you very much for that commissioner. Um The the trip that I was on was to new york city. I stopped in at both mercy college in dobsferry and at john j college in manhattan And distributed flyers that we made Shannon trample made a really terrific brochure for our recruiting efforts that we were able to use I spoke at a class. I discussed criminal justice class talked to professors there Was going to also attend another meeting down there at the end of this month But really can't make the the four hour drive or a plus hour drive Back and forth for the sake of a two hour conference Although it is valuable. It is a uh, a significant There's a significant latino population at the school and um, a lot of those folks are are not are excuse me are card holding citizen Excuse me card holding residents the permanent residents, but not citizens and we are one of the few agencies that will hire non citizens appropriate background checks of course are necessary And so I was hopeful that that community might be a uniquely Amenable one for for us or rather we might be something that was attractive to them Uh, the recruitment coordinator position was only recently posted. I'm not certain I have not yet seen a single application for it. Although. I know there have been some And the recruitment officer to make clear is a sworn officer Who is in the police department? She's been a member of the police department for 18 19 years Um, and so she is is hard at work. Uh taking over for the former recruitment officer who is megan oliri The current officer Carolyn Irwin was was a recruitment officer. I think four or three recruitment officers ago Um, she brought in a lot of terrific current employees, and I'm hopeful that she's going to be able to do that again Uh corporal norris who was in the icp with us went to a number of different things on recruitment She and I are going to be meeting with carolin and talking about a lot of those things that we learned Um in order to try to leverage that the next step for us is really to Take the money that was granted to us in the budget by the mayor's hard work and the city council and be able to apply that towards finding a Recruiting firm a marketing firm to help us target outside entities Um, I think that we have a strong chance of being able to attract folks from other localities to our city Uh people who are in pennsylvania in colorado in other parts of the country I don't think that we've got a very strong one of attracting folks here I thought that the contract would be something to overcome it But they have real concerns about what they believe to be the political atmosphere about some of the things that they have concerns around from from this body Uh and about issues that they uh have fears about with regard to serving in burlington There's also a matter of volume. We we recently lost our most recent graduate of the police academy Who resigned owing to the fact that there was too much work here that was a component of staffing That was a component of the volume and variety of the work that we see And this is a person who in likelihood is going to go apply at the university of police vermont police department Where the pace is just different Thank you a quick question about um the new base annual salary Which is 71 000 is that correct? yes So a concern that i've had and i've brought this up with the mayor several weeks ago Regarding that that salary was not had not been changed So when you go to the site where office potential officers would have to Apply the new salary range wasn't showing the recruitment bonuses were but not the new salary range It had not been corrected. It was wrong in two potential landing pages. Um, I Also spoke to councilor paul Last week and i advised her that this was still an issue. She sent out an email And now i see it's been updated to 70 000 but still not 71 000 So i wonder if that is something that you can look into um With the hr department, I assume I I don't know who would be responsible to Uh getting updated information to the site where people actually have to submit their applications But I think it's important that in all landing pages where someone who is interested in working for berlington Wherever they potentially land that we have these Changes that we've put in place to be more competitive. Thank you a couple of comments actually and Perhaps there might be something the chief murad wants to respond to So I want to just talk a moment about the data I appreciate it as a discussion because it's one of the ways that the community understands What is public safety in berlington? And I appreciate the uh distinction chief murad that what you're looking for with these priority one incidents is deployment Versus what sam powers who brought this material to us was looking at in terms of An accurate representation of the dangerousness if you will of berlington So the same data can be used for different purposes And uh and both of those I think are valid and important. So Once again, I appreciate the notion of disaggregating the data because the most frequent comment that we get from the community Is around how safe is berlington? And so are we have an interest in ensuring that that's accurately or that we can represent that well in the data I want to just say something about the data with regard to the comparison to 2017 through 2021 I mean what we have observed is that there has been an impact of kovat I think at least i'm going to suggest that and i'm going to ask you about that chief murad but let me just state my thoughts here and that is that That is that we are seeing this all over the country. That is increased gunshots increased mental health problems Arise and overdoses again and so forth And so that's one of the challenges in representing these data that typically when we look at data over time when we look at a trend We want to remove those years that are aberrations and 2020 2020 and 21 are aberrational Hence the usefulness of disaggregating in that way, but I want to ask you chief murad Since you were at the iacp conference. Was there any discussion about this national trend with regard to violence And mental health problems that are associated with kovat and and what if anything have you learned from that that you might share with us Well, it certainly came up But I think that you know when we look at for example um Calls for service Or a priority one incidence. Um, we don't see drastic changes in the you know at the time of the pandemic In other words, it didn't it didn't nosedive in in april or march When the pandemic began, um, it certainly was depressed. Uh, we see that definitely with with 2021 But 2021 wasn't even the first year of the pandemic nor was it the worst of the closures with regard to businesses, etc So there are you know, I think uh mixed bag and so far is as how we draw correlations between what was happening or not I've seen other kinds of charts that are very very clear The chart of gunfire in new york city spikes entirely during the early days of the pandemic protests and then Really takes off after the geord foyd protests And I think that there was a a consensus in agencies At this conference around the degree to which there has been a sense of um, a police withdrawal Definitely contributing to what we are seeing in so far as crime goes You know, I think that that we definitely know that uh, that this increase that we see in this table of mental health issues Is is something that the that where we are with regard to General zeitgeist whether it's the pandemic whether it is Whether it is the the the political milieu whether it is issues around Social reckonings Certainly those things affect what we see here with mental health They certainly affect what we see with overdose although that is also changed by the kinds of drugs that are at play we've moved from Opioids oftentimes over the counter opioids to heroin and now to fentanyl and other drugs They are easier to overdose on they are more difficult to Regulate with regard to a user's ability to to understand how much the user can or can't take at a given moment um You know, we've seen a lot of these things and they have a lot of different Potential causes And while I do think that these are ultimately going to be years that are That are going to occupy statisticians for quite some time I don't believe that removing them from our our math is is valid when people Understand their environment based on what they most recently remember and how they remember something to be And that memory can sometimes go all the way back to say childhood in so far as nostalgia goes But when they really think about it felt safer or it seemed to be safer. They're not talking about Years and years ago. They're talking about a sort of a living memory and I think that living memory is about five years I guess we can all debate what living memory is depending on one's age. So but in any case, let me I have one more question, but I want to just Have have a comment and that is in response to your comment that recruitment is difficult and partly open Owing to this body and I assume by that you mean the police commission and I want to just Say I say that civilian oversight is a is a bumpy road And we have been given a mandate by the city council to provide oversight and And we have recommended that the police department do a training with nicole The national association for civilian oversight of law enforcement so that officers can better understand civilian oversight and also understand its benefits to the police department. This isn't This isn't just an effort to somehow Criticize the department. We are looking for procedural justice here that policies and protocols are followed that the community values with regard to policing are carried out and And hence our suggestion that the department have that training so that officers can better understand our role But I do want to just acknowledge That this is relatively new and other agents other law enforcement civilian oversight bodies in the country Have all had difficult beginnings and I'm hopeful that we nevertheless can establish a cooperative relationship And certainly I would be happy and I'm sure any of my commissioners would be happy to talk to officers about the work that we do I think that If there are concerns it would be important to air those and have a discussion about those and see if we can get to A place that there's a better relationship because it's in the service of all of the citizens of burlington that we're doing this And I know the police department is as well and so to the extent that we can work out any issues I think that would be very healthy. So I I look forward to an opportunity to do that with you chief mirad My question the question I wanted to ask you is something that came to us From the city council and that is the contract with the state police Can you tell us about that and I am particularly interested if there are use of force incidents that involve the state police What is their reporting if there are complaints for example while they're on duty here Will they come to the commission as well? So in other words, what is the what is the how will we know what is happening there? Uh, as especially as concerns certain types of incidents that might cause concern. Thanks so much So deputy chief lebrac attended a number of sessions at icp around oversight I'm sure he'd be happy to speak to them in so far as the uh, Vermont state police The arrangement with them the contract with them and this goes to anytime police come into our city is that they Occupy their own chain of command and they answer to their own internal mechanisms Um, and frankly the the desire to have that kind of control is is perceived in entities like the Vermont state police Like other agencies in the county who had officers thinking of coming here as a degree of overreach That makes people uncomfortable with coming here When office when when patrol officers come to work for example the marathon, they are not under burlington's jurisdiction They're operating in burlington. They're working and being paid by the in that case run vermont But should something happen they are going to answer to their respective chains of command the same is true of our federal partners You know several years ago. There was a an officer involved shooting involving federal officers That is is not the purview of the burlington police department or for that matter Uh, you know, burlington entities there are our federal controls on that Uh, and I think that uh, that is a component of any contract in which we enter Uh, that we enter into um, and no entity would give away that sovereignty in order to come into the city Really helpful. I appreciate it. Thanks I'm not seeing any further questions or comments for the chief so, um chief mayor. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it Thank you, sir Awesome. Uh, moving on to agenda item 5.01 And before I do uh Mr. Comerford, so we're fortunate tonight to have tammi buddho was a native burlingtonian Who has received a bachelor's degree at uvm? Um tammi then moved to boston for three years while she earned her jd at suffolk university law school She returned to vermont residing in burlington until 2007 Tammi's been a member of the howard center street outreach team until 2003 and became the team lead in 217 Tonight tammi's going to talk with us about the escalation what it is how it works and its limits So welcome tammi. Thank you so much for being here Is that it there we go Okay, thank you for having me um Just one Quick correction. My name was misspelled on the agenda Everybody's misspells it's b o u d a h just Corrections they Can you say your last name out loud for everyone buddha gotcha b o u d a h Um And yes, i'm the team lead for the howard center street outreach team Um, i'm Looking around and i'm thinking most of you are familiar with what the team does, but i'll just tell you briefly um, we are currently a team of five outreach workers um Our default position when we're not busy, um, which isn't often Is trying to do proactive engagement with individuals who will who would be in the downtown area Um, generally folks who are homeless, um Maybe on a fixed income Substances in the area to Purchase or just congregate with others Common spaces that people who don't have a lot of Means might use We're downtown trying to create relationships with people so that if there is a crisis or a need for a de-escalation We have that rapport in place but also to be sort of A roving information sign Have the ability to check in on people make sure that people are doing well If people start to decompensate or slip to hopefully be able to be there To offer them services to try to catch things before it becomes a crisis When we're not doing that we take calls for service from From clients themselves from merchants From family members from concerned citizens and from dispatch And typically our calls from dispatch are when a call comes in for a mental health issue That does not seem to be Escalated to a point where an officer is warranted and they'll ask us to go And either take care of the incident ourselves Or call for an officer should we need one and that's a that's a change up until 2021 it had always been a co-response So dispatch would call us and say hey so-and-so is going out to so-and-so's house Can you come with us or we're already there in the last year or so? Where you see that 38 increase a lot of that is us having to go out Just on our own So that's a brief introduction to us and how we fit into this Um So de-escalation. What is de-escalation? Um Our definition of it would be the use of communication or other techniques During an encounter to stabilize Slow or reduce the intensity of a potentially violent situation Without using physical force So we go up to the point Where words are no longer sufficient. That's where our purview ends The crux of de-escalation is that the person In this the person who is needing to be de-escalated is in a state of hyper arousal What I mean by that is They are in that sort of flight or fight mode The amygdala region of the brain is lit up The person can no longer access rational thought And is pretty much out of control can't control their reactions can't control themselves And our goal is to help the person Recover their calm and return to that calm regulated state And a de-escalation it can happen if you think of it more as like a continuum. So you start off Person sitting over here. They're calm There's a trigger They become agitated It starts to accelerate It peaks And then there's the recovery The de-escalation can happen anywhere along there and obviously you use different tools Your response is going to be different your choice as to whether or not you will respond becomes different at depending on where you're at in that continuum Before you do de-escalation work you really need to kind of do some self-checking My team and I kind of check in with ourselves every day And throughout the day we will often Like use each other as sounding boards like hey, do I seem et cetera to you or blah blah to you Because you want to be aware of how you are feeling where your mood is at Are you hungry? Are you tired? Are you cold? Are things triggering you? Is today a day that you're not fit for human? Interaction these are all things you have to ask yourself or you won't because your goal Is that you're going to be the person who's going to create this core of calm, right? You're going to be the person that The the person who is dysregulated Can join up with um And I that's a horse parlance, but Means they sort of mirror your personality or what you're doing and kind of take on your energy So you start off with you're here and they're here and you're trying to Move over here. So you're more of in a Like a partnership position with them as opposed to over here adversarily And also like helping them come down with you. So that's sort of that would be the physical Or the visual of what we're trying to do So you need to check in with yourself. You need to make first sure first of all make sure that you're okay to do that Um when you arrive on scene you want to be aware of space You want to create your own space so that you're safe you want to make sure that the other person has their space So that they perceive their safety. They may have a huge trauma response They may have something horrible may have just happened to them You being too close although we have a tendency to to touch people when we want to comfort them fight that and Keep space because that allows people To just sort of decrease their anxiety around what's going on Listen to what the person's experiencing Certainly you've come there with your own agenda But the first thing is to remember that that person whatever it is they are feeling is real Those are the sort of the facts for what's going on Whether you think those feelings are real justified or even if they may be based on delusional content What that person is going through is what's important at the moment and that's what you need to address Um make sure to align your verbal and your nonverbal communication Like right now I'm trying really hard to make sure that my voice is even and I'm not gesturing too much because I'm trying to Um You know project Authority and confidence and so I want to be doing that by making sure that everything is an alignment Same if you're working with someone who's escalated If you are fearful you you want to be You don't want to project that onto them because then they won't see you as a person that they can latch onto So make sure that your verbal and your nonverbal are gonna Um Match up Be mindful of your gestures your facial expressions your tone of voice Um You don't want to accidentally come off as condescending or judgmental All of those things are things to take into consideration Um Lastly allow the person time time to process time to digest time to decide Again you get to the scene you're on your own timetable. It could seem what is two minutes Might seem like a half an hour to you, but you have to kind of step out of yourself and let that person have to the extent that it's safe Let that person have the time that they need In that in that aroused state information might not be coming through very quickly So they really may need to hear everything five times. It may take them five times as long to understand being to respect that Um, so then I'm gonna talk about kind of four basic methods Um Verbal which is it's interesting. It's verbal, but it's mostly comprised of active listening Um redirection grounding exercises and change of venue um And as I say that I just want to caution that there is really no one perfect tool um I think of it as like a skilled carpenter You kind of pick up you go to different things and you go gee I wish I had a specific tool for that next time and so you pick up that tool or you know This screwdriver always seems to does do the trick for me. So you might gravitate towards that one first um, I think the same thing is true with deescalation skills and techniques and using them in the field um So in terms of verbal active listening The first and most common would be emotional labeling. It's often very helpful When you first are trying to create a rapport with a person, which is really the The foundation of being able to deregulate dysregulate a person. No Help them regulate get out of a state of dysregulation Um is to be able to create a rapport with them So that they can feel comfortable They can let down they can get out of that emotional state. They can work with you Um emotional labeling can be a really good first step with that. So you start the conversation say You seem really angry or you seem very afraid. Sometimes the person is so Dysregulated they are not even aware of what They are projecting. They're just very into their own head. They don't know how they seem They don't really understand what it is they're doing So being able to start on that and to kind of get a check to see is that actually how they're feeling And to give them a chance to label it to have them thinking about how they're feeling intellectually. Is this anger? Is that what I'm feeling that can be a really good way to start the process Paraphrasing summarizing what they tell you by by reflecting it back that way you make sure there's no misunderstandings again It helps them to have that intellect intellectualization Which allows them to sort of get out of their amygdala and back into their higher functioning Effective pauses can be very very effective Obviously because they're effective pauses But oftentimes people You know, they're not really ready to speak our Our society has taught people to abhor a verbal vacuum So if you sit with someone Oftentimes you can draw them into conversation just by being quiet instead of asking them a gazillion questions So that's often very effective It also again gives them time to really to start thinking again and to start using their words and to start getting more on an intellectual level While you're doing that minimal encouragers. Mm-hmm. Yeah, really when what? It lets the person Know that you're interested It encourages the flow of the conversation, but it doesn't interrupt it So it kind of just keeps the person going Open-ended questions. I think are probably the most important When you walk into a room, you know, you you might walk into a room in the room is trashed and Your concern as A person like my concern might be why did you do this because you want to know I might want to know Are they suffering from a delusion? Do they intend to hurt themselves? Are they going to hurt somebody else? So my Question might be why did you do this? But in order to get that answer what I really need to ask is how did this happen? If I say why did you do this? That's very accusatory It might put them into a state of feeling like they have to deny it They might not perceive that they did it if I ask them how did this happen? It gives them the floor and then they are able to give me The series of events, which is what's important. I need to know in addition to what happened I need to know what they perceived happen And again, it helps to build that report because now I'm an ally. They're telling me their story and I'm listening Um using i messages if you do have to deliver any bad news make it about yourself You know, I I I know you're very anxious and I'm I'm sure that the pacing is helping Um, I'm having a really hard time concentrating when you do that or I don't feel safe when you jump up and scream like that. I know you don't mean anything by it But could could we please just try sitting down? So make it make it about yourself You're eliciting A cooperation response, which people often want to hopefully by at this point you've created some kind of rapport now They want to do something for you So you can kind of get them again to align with you Start to kind of model how you're doing things That tends to be very helpful um So that that's the the verbal active listening piece um If none of those work or in addition to those um We also try redirection um Sometimes it's helpful To engage the the person in a thinking activity Right, like if the person's Running back and forth and they can't really seem to stop Say, hey, you know, I know you're really good at cars I have this um blinking light. It's red. It keeps coming up on my dashboard. It's kind of to the left Can you can you explain that to me? And that can get them to start thinking about something it gets their interest It redirects them from whatever it is that has them pacing and now they're they're thinking in a different space um Ask them, you know Children's birthdays how to explain a hobby or a skill things like that um Ignore challenging questions um Sometimes people will when you're trying to talk to them. They will want to question your authority. They'll you know kind of be like You're not the boss me And all of those things that those aren't those aren't really the issue and you can redirect the conversation um By just kind of trying to bring it back to the the attempt the issue at hand So you ignore the challenge that the person is kind of giving you verbally But not the person just bring the focus back to how Like I understand that's how you feel and how can we work together so that we can have this workout in your to your benefit um Setting limits um as a person progresses through the through the crisis Give them respectful simple reasonable limits Offer concise and respectful choices and possibly possibly depending on where you're at in the in the Situation crisis or consequences. I think sometimes it's fair To let people know You know We want it to work out this way If if we can't get it to work out this way we might have to move to x I don't want it to move to x and I don't mean that as a threat. I'm I'm just really trying to um Recognize your autonomy and and give you good information here um Be clear Speak simply And offer positive choices first if it's possible um You might end up redirecting yourself You might have come in with one goal in mind And it's it's the best possible outcome, but you realize you're not going to be able to get that um, so you might have to Be thoughtful decide about what rules are negotiable and what are not Um and offer that if you can offer the person some options and flexibility You might be able to have a different yet still positive outcome and avoid unnecessary altercations and Fight the other battle a different day if need be um Another technique are just simple grounding exercises, which I think are very common, especially if the escalation is anxiety based Which is pretty prevalent You know like breathing techniques box breathing Um naming items like I you know name five things you can touch Four things you can smell three things you could taste and one thing you could hear Again, that's the whole idea of grounding the person back into their body thinking Not being so visceral and feeling uh, yeah and feeling things um Focusing on feeling a part of a certain part of your body like focus on feeling your hands Focus on feeling your feet Counting backwards drinking water Things to like literally bring the person back into their body if they're you know de-escalated enough To get to that point and like I said you can use all of these along the continuum So you might start using just the verbal things in the beginning and then as the you get to the end You work your way down to the grounding exercises um The last one that we use pretty regularly for street outreach is changing the venue um sometimes Really what's going on is the environment or the people in the environment are um just kind of Causing the dysregulation or just really overstimulating the individual um, so a lot of times it'll be like hey Come over here and talk to me about it. You know, let's go for a walk over there. Um Let's go get a coffee And just the walking the moving the talking Um Getting the person out of that space out of their emotions Literally changing the scenery Can often do a lot for this situation um So one of so that's kind of de-escalation in a very small nutshell I have an hour and a half long training that I do on it. So that's pretty condensed um But I think You know one at one point is At what point is is a de-escalation no longer practical or safe? um The answer to that is when it becomes a situation that requires a behavioral intervention or containment um Safety concerns that would come to mind that we would look at that would tell us that we've reached that point that Talking Bargaining all these things. These aren't going to work Would be aggressive behavior in an unsecured setting where we're not able to have at least a two-person Co-response Report of currently violent behavior um The person having a recent history of violence Within the last week or so Of a significant violent act in an unsecured setting or even in a secured setting Significant impairment due to substance use And I would argue that The type of substance would also come into play. Um, we have found recently that people who are Disregulated due to methamphetamine use are particularly Prone to violence Not able to regulate Report to us later that They Really did not have any Any appreciation for what they were doing at the time and that they Felt like they had no way to really control themselves. So we take that to heart um Threats of harm to self or others with a weapon So those are all times that we That we would say that's not something that we can do Particularly if it's a person that we don't have a relationship with um to chief mirad's Points earlier The 38 spike in mental health calls That used I think I said that used to be a paired response so In addition to having an increase In the type of calls that we go to We do not have an officer with them And people are increasingly Escalated is what you what you were talking about earlier like there people in general are are increasingly escalated There's a sense of desperation There tends to be Multiple polysubstance use on board The methamphetamines are particularly Alarming oftentimes there is a pointed weapon. We fortunately haven't had any problems with Responding to someone with guns ourselves Our compatriots the community outreach team who do the surrounding hounds They are often met at the door with somebody with a gun So they're looking for bulletproof vests We have had many people threatened to stab us So we are interested in the stab proof vests But these are things that have not these are new this is Commissioner cumberford had asked any what changes had we seen in the last three years and this is certainly Something that never occurred in the last three years in the last ever I'd say in the last year year to year and a half just even within the last year It has really just Fallen off a cliff So tami what meaning do you make of that? What do I what what meaning do you make of that? Meaning do I make of what the increase in all of these behaviors? um I think There are many reasons for it. Um I I Used to kind of poo poo and people said oh, it's the pandemic But I did just read a very interesting article in the new york times that elaborated on that and how You know, it's sort of really Chipped away at eroded at people's personalities like their extroversion abilities to deal with people in an intersocial capacity Tolerance for Fear or anxiety just heightened paranoia So I do think that the pandemic has had a part to do with it um Certainly the rise in methamphetamine in the burlington area has had to do with it um We have been hearing since last summer from many of our clients and people who um frequent public areas. So I mean people who get um disability benefits uh live in um subsidized housing so people who have like very fixed incomes and not really any um Access to disposable income so really rely on public spaces to recreate To get out of the house to not isolate. Um have been telling us that they feel increasingly less safe um And I heard that from clients last summer But I didn't feel that way myself But to take that as sort of the canary in the coal mine right because they have less resource less power less protection than me um And now I am like, yeah, I'm with you. Um They attribute a lot of that to To the same thing people being paranoid. Um, but lack of police presence is something that I always hear from from clients um That they They just feel like And and that and that is you know, it's not just having police be there but it's the fact that Police aren't there that there aren't necessarily consequences um to a lot of things that um You know the likelihood of being prosecuted for things seems to have um Diminished. I know some of that was to do To the lack of judicial process during the pandemic. Um But also just sort of a there's a just a general sense of lawlessness like anything is possible. Everyone can do anything No one's here watching. It's all okay. You're not going to get caught if you do get caught You'll be let go. You'll just get to do it again. Um and and a sense that um Amongst the people who do the things That they don't really have any other options um That you know, I have to steal that. Um, I I have to do this, you know that they and and to some extent I would argue that You know, there are not as many options. I mean you it is difficult to be have someone hospitalized for mental health issues right now um when people are Brought to the hospital involuntarily they are often released within a couple of hours Um, not really any better than they were when we got them up there, but they are Regulated now they're calm for now Um Only to do it again the next day um There is not a venue for People who are seeking long-term substance use treatment um I mean, they're just they're there are no There is nothing for people to strive for Um, there's not really housing to be had. Maybe there will be some at some point Um, but right now there's not housing to be had Um, there's not housing there. There are we have the esd program But right now it's almost impossible to um Access a voucher inside chitin and county Um, so that makes it off the table for many people um and there's not a consequence to not do it so There's really nothing There's no reason for these for these folks who are just suspended in this kind of state of misery um To feel any reason to move any one way or another And I would imagine that if I were in that state, I would not really be thinking that far ahead. I would really be just getting from day to day to day today um And in that day, it's more desperation more paranoia decreased physical health All of the above Tammy, how large is the population that you're talking about here in the burlington area? I really don't know I mean I sat at a meeting yesterday where we are not yesterday the last week where we kind of did a rough count of how many people might be Like living in tents around the burlington area and we came up with about 80 um Some of those are the same folks who are um Using substances but not really able to progress in any one way or another um But there's probably another 40 or so people you could add to that And then there are people who are here um who are new to the area um either from out of state out of town or um have been in burlington, but just kind of Have surfaced who are here. I would say for the purposes of Well, I would not I would say I know some of them are here for the purposes of um Praying upon People who are homeless Um using substances but get benefits so they have some money. They have some means um and So there's a group of people who are kind of praying on that them Um and add add them to the mix um because that's that's the other thing I think you know Talking about being able to use like city hall park for example Client saying that you know, he didn't feel safe going there anymore um and I mean we've had I've had and now that I think about it Probably 15 to 20 clients that used to go there um As a place that they wouldn't That they wouldn't be isolating so they wouldn't start drinking again or they wouldn't start using again or just to have human connection um they've disappeared over the course of the year um and You know their comment was always well You know, what's going to you know those people over there? What's going to happen to them? I used to get into trouble Nothing happens to them. That's not fair um But also saying that they didn't feel safe around some of those people But as as the folks That used to talk to me about Feeling unsafe have disappeared like we have less allies so we used to be able to walk into the park And have that sort of social currency where there were people that we had allies that we could You know like they would be a friend of a friend and then we could build rapport and so that's really made it um That's made it a more challenging environment for us to do our work Um and to support the people who are there um because we don't really It's kind of a catch-22 we spend a lot of time being out on call with the police to or for the police to the mental health calls Which means we don't necessarily have as much time to stay and build the rapport um, and we lose social currency over time to people who are there to um victimize our clients um That's It's kind of a bad revolving door It's a rambling answer to your question. I don't I don't know if that's helpful. I actually don't think it was rambling I think it was actually very informative. Okay. Good because it's also you brought together the connections between Okay, so nice work. Thank you. Thank you Timmy, thanks so much and our apologies for misspelling your name. It's awesome. Everybody does everybody does It's okay. Um, I had a question for you. So I really appreciated your Uh explanation of de-escalation. It sounds like we all need that kind of training But i'm curious I have you ever just does the police department ever ask you to watch body cam video with them to perhaps Observe officer behavior with regard to de-escalation and get advice or input from you or is that something that you think might be useful? um No, they haven't done that. Um We do so a few years ago. I can't remember and maybe chief mirad could help me. Um We we have participated with the department In their trainings where we we take up we do the role-playing piece of being the person that they're going to de-escalate Um, and we give feedback As we're doing that In terms of us Kind of giving them feedback on axon cameras I to be honest they They receive Much more intense um and many more hours Of de-escalation training than we get um We really only do the training up to the point where Words aren't going to cut it anymore and then we're out They have to learn everything of words to soft restraint to hard restraint to Anything beyond that So I mean if they Wanted us to help them with that. I mean we would be happy to offer our opinion. I'm not sure that we are the correct Entity for that. I don't think I'm being I don't think I'm trying to I'm not trying to be like falsely humble I just I don't I think that They are more advanced than we are In that kind of training. Great. Thank you Thank you very much Those were really great reminders and it's extremely interesting hearing how the team, you know, I see the team a lot I live very close downtown um I walk in that area constantly. I make myself go through the park, you know with the police commissioners. I what's going on today Or how things going in I I see the team interacting um I was particularly moved by um Fighting the Tendency to want to touch people And I would love it if at some point you could provide us and the chief with some Some documentation something that's good to read about that because I Frequently get concerned with certain use of force issues that Are started because someone's touched. They are not at that point a threat. They are not posing a physical threat and they get touched and that sets them off and In these particular incidents I feel that things could have certain things could have been avoided So I would just be curious if you have any recommended reading on that because I feel that that would really help the department in some way these are incidents that really disturbed me greatly and I just It it I don't know part of it's being trauma-informed too. So I'm not really I might not be Putting it well, but just that that deep concern that I have where touching occurs when it doesn't need to And things go south. Thank you The floor's open for commissioners to um ask any any questions while we still have her I just wanted to uh say thank you. Tammy. That was a really nice presentation. I think there was a lot to be learned um, I'm kind of familiar with the work you guys do as well and um I've seen A lot of stuff on the streets that uh, never used to be here before as well And I try to scratch my head and figure out why are things changing the way they are But I do know one thing is that the the drug problem we have is just It's just it's overwhelming to this community and uh I think we really need to work harder to do something About curb, you know, the drugs that are coming into town So with that being said I What are you seeing on the streets as far as like What the the drug issues? um, I mean right now the The real problem drug is methamphetamine and methamphetamine with with fentanyl um You know, it's just it's really interesting when I first started this work Almost 20 years ago. Um It was all about people who um were intoxicated on the street um with alcohol And that's such a different dynamic And Just within the last well, I mean the methamphetamine started I'd say within the last six months um really hardcore in burlington, um And It just it really just changes the dynamic of everything um You know how How clients interact with clients how providers interact with clients how um merchants interact, I mean just how everybody it it Fuels adds adds gasoline to the fire of this already like paranoid um Very fearful climate that we already kind of had going on um a year ago and then add that to it and it's just Yeah, you know because now everybody assumes that everybody has a gun everybody assumes that everyone has a knife And so now everyone acts like everyone has a knife and a gun um So they're quicker to attack each other quicker to threaten to attack you um Yeah My experience is that a lot of folks on the streets do have weapons Knives especially and I I don't blame them. I would I would too Yeah, right But you're right. The drugs are feeling the People getting jumped Stealing from stores Just about everything the mental health crisis um, it's really behind every every one of those issues Thank you You're welcome So tammy if you were the king of the world or the queen of the world and you could you had three wishes That you can make three interventions. What would they be? Oh If I could have three things, um I would have I would have access To long term and by long term. I mean 28 days at least substance use treatment um I would have Can I have four things? Okay, I would have more housing um And it would be easier to get um I or even just if we could have hotel rooms again, that would be great something more shelter of some kind um I would have I would have more police officers. Absolutely um I think not being able to have officers Being I see what not being able to do proactive work has done to me and my ability to do my job And I feel it's the same for the police officers And I think that the lack of them being able to get to know people to Mingle to fraternize with folks Has only increased the paranoia um and the fear I mean, that's how our relationship with the police began in the first place Was we matt and I the matt the originator of street outreach He and I were always downtown We'd be standing by a station on church and cherry and off two officers would be on patrol They'd be standing at the other station at church and cherry They'd see us talk to somebody and then that person would go over and talk to them Or that person would go over would talk to them and then they come over and talk to us The office officer would say I know you can't really tell me anything about that person But I want you to know i'm worried about them and i'm worried about them because of x y and z So that person may have never opened up to us about it because they would be worried about telling the mental health worker That kind of thing but they would tell the officer that and so that was part of how we formed that relationship so not having That out there I mean forget the safety piece, but not being able to have them out there to be able to do that Just kind of Cuts our efficiency to the bone then you get into the efficiency the safety part of it I mean so the then what I mean Then there's going to be No response right, so If if I get a call if we get a call and there is There are all of these safety concerns and it is not safe And I can't go but there's not an officer available because they're doing x y or z Then no one is going to go And the same thing happens. I mean Is already happening has been happening for a while, but the last year especially with mental health warrants a person has been Designated or been found by a judge And a mental health clinician to be a person who is at imminent risk of harm to themselves or others and warrants being brought to the hospital for Evaluation and treatment for their safety Great you got the warrant But there's no one to serve it Where there have been there were days this summer when officers Tried three times we would see the person We would call the officer the officer would try to come out to serve the warrant But then something a priority one thing like somebody was actively being Hit or threatened or bad car accidents or something like that and they would have to rush off Meanwhile, this person is still Very very ill and very much in need of treatment and very much at risk to themselves or the public um So anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent about that So that's what not having why I need more officers if I could have my magic one. That's We need that And then I said housing I said, oh mental health beds. Jesus. Yeah I would have more mental health beds on both ends on the Residential kind of the housing piece for people Who are hard to house right like low barrier mental health housing like we don't really have that That would be expensive and difficult to create but it's needed And then on the other end I mean, what are their 56? Beds in the state of vermont in the state of vermont really there are only there are only 56 people Who need who are at the point that they need to be involuntarily hospitalized? Clearly 56 isn't the right answer I mean, I know when we de-institutionalized in the 80s 2000 was too many but 56 is like You are leaving a whole bunch of people Unserved with that number and and it's not just that oh, well, we can't lock them up. We can't punish them or whatever These are people who are unsafe It is not humane I mean as a society to say well, we're We are allowing them the dignity of their rights. I think that's kind of a cop out Because there's really nothing dignified by how these folks are living And then maybe another hundred or so in er's around the state Right as well. Yeah, right So those are my four. Thank you. It was really really wonderful to hear what you had to say tonight I think was very helpful and educational and thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for having me Commissioner grant I'd be happy to Right moving on to a agenda item 5.03. Uh, these are four supports for all of september in october up through I believe Um, I believe up through as of monday So, I hope everyone had a chance to review the force report. Um, if there was any Incidents that stood out and you'd like to review, please Let these little brec know now or if it pops up too later on please email them Videos that anyone wants to request For any of these incidents All right, um that closes that agenda item. Um, we'll be going on to agenda item 5.04 setting next meeting's agenda item and The next public meeting of the public. Sorry the next Monthly meeting of the police commission Will meet Looks like it's the 22nd. I know In in years past. Um, it's always a tricky week because it's the week of Thanksgiving. Um I've Right now it's kind of for the 22nd, which is the uh, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Um, I guess I don't want to put anything on the paper Put anything in the pen now, but um, let's talk, um In the next couple days and see if we should either do it the week before the week after or on the 22nd Does anybody have any items for the upcoming agenda? At this point, I do, um I'd like to do a public engagement update I've been making the rounds um, I would love dc. Lebrecht to talk about the presentation the panel that he went to about oversight And uh, I would love to hear a summary about the panel on Historical injustices and policing commissioners to think deeply about what other resources we want to bring in for educational things And sort of put that on the agenda for the next time that we actually have someone So I sent out once before and I think I may not have gotten many responses So I think this is a really important part of the service we provide both to ourselves to the police department and to the community So let's try to think up some other things that we would like to know about You know, I would actually like to invite sarah george back again um, I would be interested In getting an update now that the courts are past their covid restrictions How that has affected um bringing forward cases and how many cases They because for months and months they were limited as to what they could do and had to make certain priorities that um You know we're concerning but they had the limitations because of of the pandemic I think for a long time people didn't realize how long these restrictions had been in place Because everything else seemed to you know be opened up and moving on to the new normal um, I think that would be a worthwhile discussion and as always as um Things popped people's minds. Um, just email either myself or stephanie and Moving on to agenda item 6.01 commendations. I've been received for them for october Mohammed said that he hadn't received any um, we didn't receive any. All right. Um I have one um, and that is to the detective bureau at bpd On the swift apprehension of the suspect and double murder that happened earlier on this month. Um, I know a bunch of people reached out to me. Um I'm expressing those kind of congratulations. So that's my commendation for the month and uh Moving on to agenda item 7.01 which anticipated executive session and Find my legal language here. Um Um citing one vsa 3.13 a4. Um, I Move to enter executive session to discuss on disability matters with um city employees It's seconded by commissioner comerford. Um, all in favor please raise your hand or say aye All right. Um, thank you everybody that uh joined us for tonight's meeting and thank you everybody and um On the internet on zoom. Um, please uh, stay tuned to board docs for our next meeting. Um Because yeah, we uh, we just have to figure out what what days could be on either 22nd seven days before or seven days afterwards Thank you very much and just uh one last thing for the chiefs who are still on so the commission is going to meet uh now and uh You can join us around 8 15 and we will set up the zoom In the executive session room so you can join us then Thanks