 seems to be partially with us. I'm sure he'll join us completely pretty soon. Okay, we are live. Senate government operations on Thursday, June 11. And just to kind of set the stage here a little bit for what we're going to do, we have a lot of people who are who have been invited, a lot of people who are interested in the topic. So we thought the way we would do this is to, Commissioner Schirling is under a time constraint, so we're going to hear from him first and he's going to give us a high level overview of the draft proposal that they've been working on and some of the concerns that they have. Then we'll hear from Betsy Ann Rask about the, what we've already done around law enforcement and equity. And then we'll hear, we'll have a committee conversation about breaking down, breaking this down into categories because it will get too confusing if we're doing kind of everything at once. And that's what when we do bills, we try to break it down that way so that we can focus on one topic and settle on that and then another instead of mixing them all up. And then starting tomorrow, and we'll hear from some people today if we have some time. And then starting tomorrow, we're going to be listening to people on these different categories and we'll put on the agenda which categories we'll be dealing with on which days. Does that make sense committee? Okay. Great. So with that, Commissioner Schirling, would you like to, and I should say that this is an issue that this isn't something that just happened and that people are just beginning to think about this is something that people have been thinking about for a long time. And as you'll hear when Betsy Ann talks about it, we've been doing a number of things for a number of years. And but it's all been kind of brought to the, to the head or the brought up before us in a more immediate way right now because of recent events, not recent events in Vermont, but recent events around the country. So with that, Commissioner Schirling, would you like to join us? Certainly. Thank you, Madam Chair. I had a fairly lengthy introduction to kind of set the stage. But I think in the interest of time and to ensure that others have an opportunity to weigh in as much as possible, I'll abbreviate that. And I'm willing to come back on the topic specific areas to elaborate further. I appreciate you taking me first as we're, we're continuing to work through various crises at the same time with COVID taking still a bulk of our time in parallel with this. The just a brief piece of context, I think you set the stage. Well, this is work that's been going on for a long time. The pace has not been fast enough. And this is an opportunity and a point of inflection where accelerating the pace of change and accelerating our efforts at modernizing what we do in policing and in criminal justice more broadly. And as a society, even more broadly is essential. So the so for background, just so people are sort of aware of the the overarching context for all of this, there are over 1000 police officers in Vermont are typically about 1500 events that are responded to on a daily basis. So it's a lot of contact with Vermonters. It's a lot of contact with people visiting Vermont. It is probably the most forward facing, high intensity government operation that we have. So with that as the backdrop, we've been working for years decades really, I've been doing this for more than 30 years to accelerate the work of fair and impartial policing of modernization of policy updates of new equipment of new ways of doing business and really using a a model where there's continuous improvement. But that still hasn't been enough. We've worked in partnership with community on a variety of different initiatives and we continue to do so. But again, it's still not enough. So what we have taken the time to do both earlier this year and accelerating that work now is to outline modernization strategies that we think will push progress forward at a more rapid pace. You'll recall that earlier this year in January, we outlined the historic nature of under resource public safety, including training and technology and a variety of other areas ranging from mental health and social service provision. And just a wide range of things. We proposed a suite of modernization initiatives and a three year budget stabilization effort. None of those things proposed expanding the traditional way law enforcement is done. It's not about adding officers to the street, although we could make an argument that in some instances we are short on the numbers to get the job done. But rather, we proposed modernizing training, data systems, expanding mental health and social service field teams, street outreach like teams in partnership with the communities, with the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Corrections. We've put forth a model of the criminal justice system in that modernization strategy that has four levels where the best dollar invested is in prevention and education and then outreach and intervention and then alternative sanctions, alternatives to traditional corrections and traditional adversarial criminal justice. And then when all else fails, delivering a more traditional but more nuanced and effective criminal justice system. So all those things have been on the table for months even before the most recent crisis was precipitated by events outside Vermont. In addition to that, we have now very rapidly gotten together with the Criminal Justice Training Council, the Chiefs Association, the Sheriff's Association and the Attorney General's Office and crafted an even more robust suite of reforms that we think matches very closely what our community is looking for. Important to note that this is a very preliminary draft. It was done, it was created in part with community partners and the Farron and Partial Policing teams that we work with on a day to day basis. But it is not the endpoint. It is not the final proposal. It's the starting point for engaging you, engaging the community, engaging all of our communities and as many stakeholders as possible to refine these strategies and really do what policing is supposed to do, which is be reflective of our communities and to police with communities to achieve safety and health. And it's not about what police departments do to communities. It's what police departments should be doing with communities as an extension of the social standards and the social norms that are set by, in our case, Vermont. So all of the work that we're accelerating now has to be done with many stakeholders gaining much more robust feedback and has to be more nuanced than we've presented so far. But with that as the backdrop, I think it makes sense to just walk through very briefly the outline. I'm going to hold on discussing the original modernization strategy any further. But of note that is back in the committee's hands and likely posted, I imagine, to legislative websites so others who are listening in can see the overarching modernization strategy we've been talking about since the beginning of the legislative session. I think I'll pause there for any questions or direction from the committee and then absent any, I will move into the 10 areas that we've begun to focus. Well, that's inaccurate. We're continuing focus on and accelerating the work on at the same time. So what you're going to be going over with us now is the law enforcement reform recommendation draft? Yes, that's correct. Are there any questions for the commissioner before he gets into the Brian? Thank you, Madam Chair. I was trying to copy down notes, Mike. You said there's over 1,000 officers and I think you said 1,500 responses each day. That's correct. On the low end, it's in the 11 or 1,200 range. On the high end, it can approach 2,000 total calls for service in a given day. The state police, for example, handle about 117,000 events a year, which results in several hundred thousand contacts with the public. Any other questions? Sorry, Commissioner. That's okay. Actually, I may come back to the point I was just about to make anyway in terms of timing. So I won't go line by line and read this four-page document to you. And important to note, we've received feedback even since I sent the most recent update this morning. So this is an iterative document that's constantly being updated as we get community feedback. And there, we are going to work on an engagement process with the community, but we want to ensure that the community is driving that. So we're not, we're being very mindful about how to do that. So you haven't seen announcements on an engagement process because we don't want to get ahead of our partners in the community, but we are ready to work at a pace that is rapid. So the areas that we've identified, again, collectively with the community based on feedback and areas that we've been working on, in some cases for years, hiring practice to ensure that the departments are reflective, not only of the community, but of the community we want to attract to Vermont and that we're being very proactive about the types of people we're looking for. And we're very deliberate about the kinds of candidates, the types of traits and skills that we want them to have. And oftentimes that's going to be nontraditional. And then within that, and when I should be clear what I mean by nontraditional, historically, if you go back 30 years, many of the folks coming into law enforcement were coming from either a criminal justice specific background or the military. And we get great candidates from those areas, but you don't want an organization to be over dependent on any one kind of training or background. You want it to be as diverse as possible. And I say that with a small D, diverse in terms of race, of ethnicity, of skill sets of background, of age, all those things create more stronger organizations. So without spending too much time here on each one, because it would take an inordinate amount of the committee's time, there's a number of action items we've preliminarily identified that will help us to accelerate the process of modernizing hiring. And I'm happy to take if you want me to pause on each one for questions that that may make sense rather than trying to mold them all together. So, committee, I'm not sure how you would like to proceed here. What we're going to do is we're going to take these same categories that you've outlined here. And we're going to deal with them more in depth at a separate time like tomorrow we might do hiring practice and training, we'll figure out to the way. Don't try to get people testifying in general terms, but to very specific issues. And I should just say that a lot of this does not need legislation. And wherever possible, if there is legislation needed, we're happy to do that. We've been instructed by the pro tem to that if there is legislation needed, we should scurry around and get it, get it developed and get it out. So we do have permission, but a lot of it may not need that. But committee, are there any questions on on the hiring practice so far? I don't have that kind of question. Do we have a copy of this somewhere? The four page document? Yes, it's posted on our on today's Okay, posted on today's. If you look under documents for today. Okay, it's listed there. It's called it's the first under Commissioner's name. There's three documents under his name. And it's the first one. It's called law enforcement, something draft. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. And you actually brought up a point that I had, I was about was going to make before I got into here, but into the document, but it's a perfect placeholder. Not all of these things do require legislation. I'm sensitive to the fact, though, that police departments do require oversight and accountability. And these things are designed to create more accountability. And I am also cognizant that the legislature may want specific accountability by police departments around Vermont to certain standards. And I would offer that as we've thought very intently about this since the beginning of the year, one of the ways that that may be most viable is rather than spelling out specific policy and statute, which creates a rigidity that makes it more difficult actually to create ongoing improvement because we'd have to come back and revisit the legislation. If the legislature were so inclined, if you wanted to govern, for example, use of force, much conversation about that right now. One path may be to set out a general framework that says police departments and police officers must adhere to the current modern standard that don't get hung up on the language. I'm just I'm explaining a construct, not necessarily how it would be framed. You must adhere to the current modern standard. It must be a statewide standard, not nuanced for all 251 of our communities. And then the absence of that, you're not eligible for state grant funding, funding that flows through the state. And I would go as far as to say you're not eligible to send people to the police academy or to obtain training from the state if you're not in compliance with whatever those standards are that the that the legislature or the Criminal Justice Training Council set forth as the as the minimally viable product. So there is a way to create requisite oversight using our governance structures. If we're nuanced about it, that also doesn't inhibit future progress. So I was going to make that point at the end. But since you brought it up, we've been doing a lot of thinking about that in in recent months. So with that, thank you. And I just will throw, can I throw in one more one more thought here is for people who are watching and listening, the one we divide this up into the categories, the the solutions and the recommendations within those categories will not be limited to what's coming from this draft, we're getting recommendations from many, many places. And I forwarded to the committee members. And I think maybe was posted a list of some of them that we've gotten so far. So when those suggestions fit into the specific category, we'll be taking them up along with the other recommendations. Just wanted to make that clear that we weren't we aren't responding just to this document. So Commissioner, sorry about that. Thank you. No problem. I'll make a footnote. I'm not sure I'll get to that list that the committee's posted, but we've gone through that list as well. And I believe we concur with 80% of what's there have questions on about 15% and there are a couple that I think we have some other ideas on how to execute. But with just about 100% of what's been been suggested, I think there is a way forward. So with that said, training is needs to be modernized. And we've been talking about this since January. There's a variety of additional training that's needed. We need different delivery models. And you know, there's just a lot of work to be done here. And we've outlined a number of potential action steps that are here. And I know that there's some others that have been inbound from the community as well that are interesting. So I'll just leave it at there's a comprehensive training modernization emphasis that we believe is necessary. And with a new executive director at the Academy who will be hired in the not too distant future, we have an opportunity there. Promotion and supervisor selection very similar to hiring. We've got to promote and make sure our supervisors are doing we're promoting the right people with the right skill sets that they have the right emphasis, the service emphasis that we want that they embrace fairness, equity, treating all with dignity and respect as a core value. And then we go on to outline a number of strategies, including community engagement, both for the hiring process and for the promotional process and community involvement, to do those selections as the model for how it should be done statewide. I also should have noted from the outset that there are a number of agencies around Vermont that do many of the things that are in this strategy, where we're really trying to go is to make this your phone. Apologies. It's the internet. I imagine commissioner you. Yeah, you're beginning to sound like some like R2D2 or C3PO one of those. I'm not sure which one. Well, as long as it's a Star Wars analogy, can you hear me now? Yeah. Okay. That this is these strategies about ensuring a uniform approach by all organizations in Vermont. So we don't have many different ways of doing business, but there is a single best practice playbook that we are all using. That is one of the most important pieces of these puzzles. So on promotion, very similar to the hiring process in terms of the needs and some of the action steps, select the right people, get them into the right positions so that you're institutionalizing the best practice for supervisors. Improper conduct allegations. There's a number of things here. Really, again, the optimal term here is modernizing. Looking at ways to do early intervention when officers or employees seem to be straying from the community standards. Ensure that we're taking care of employees so that they can take care of the public. And really, I think the glass breaking part of what you'll see here on this page is we've got unanimity, including, I hope I'm not overstepping, but we've had preliminary conversations with the Troopers Association around the need for statutory reform regarding release of misconduct allegations and the grievance process and to free up the ability to have more of that information be public facing in the interest of transparency and building trust with the community. So that is an area that is a departure from where we have historically been on those issues. And then again, there's a number of action items that are starting points for how we actually execute that particular strategy. Data we've been talking about since early this year, we are about to select a new or a vendor. I don't know whether it'll be a new or existing vendor for a computer rated dispatch and records management system that our plan is to deploy statewide. And if you'll recall part of the modernization strategy is not to charge agencies for that, in large part because we want to be able to do reporting on anything and everything that's in that system with the exception of personally identifying information on a statewide basis. So not only race data collection statewide for traffic stops, which is currently in place, but the ability to drill in to data and have easily accessible public facing dashboards of what's going on with policing in Vermont and the calls for service that we're responding to and what's happening on a statewide basis in a uniform way, and also be able to collect and report that data out in a more raw fashion so that researchers, folks that want to do research in our communities, the legislature, whomever can take that data and unpack it in their own way and do research on it without having to jump through hoops to do so. So that is an active project that is moving forward now. The sixth area is body worn cameras. We have committed to this this year with the state police. We do have the funding necessary to pull this project off. We're about to select a vendor on a statewide basis. Both the chiefs and sheriffs and the criminal justice training council are calling for statewide body cameras, a statewide policy that governs their use, including a policy that is uniformly addressing the release of footage to the public. If there's one on this page that has a little asterisk next to it, it's this one because it will require an investment of some kind. We need to identify the scope of need for agencies that do not have cameras now and the technology to support those cameras, including the cloud storage. And so this one, it is a little more difficult to put a specific timeline on other than to say we're, we're working to accelerate it as as fast as possible. And relative to the state police, the largest agency, that project is moving forward rapidly. Community collaboration is the seventh area focus. There's been a significant focus on this already, but this is a commitment to redouble those efforts and to modernize them as well to develop develop additional models for how agencies can collaborate in hiring, training, promotion, policy development, community education about what law enforcement does, the accountability and oversight process, all of those things should have some intersection with the community. Because as I said, when when we started, our police departments, whether they're at a state level, a county level, or a local level, our extensions of our community, we are working with the community to achieve safety and health. The eighth area is community oversight models. I'm not sure that at the state level, we want to specifically prescribe how communities do this, but we uniformly agree that there should be community oversight of each and every department, including input. And this weaves into number seven as well, hiring, training, promotional process, policy development and accountability and discipline. And the thought here at the moment is that we could develop a variety of different mechanisms depending on the size of the community and the community's desire for communities to adopt relative to how to do this. Number nine is policy. And there are a variety of things in here. This particular portion is focused on use of force policy. And I understand that the Judiciary Committee will be spending time on this rather than government operations. So I won't read you all the sections, but suffice it to say there is a comprehensive set. We believe it's a comprehensive set. There may be a few things that we have left out. But the most comprehensive set that I've seen in 30 years of improvements and modernizations to what again, we anticipate should be a statewide uniform use of force policy. And we do call out at the bottom here that failure to adopt this model should result in limitations on state funding for the agency that fails to do so. And as I said in the beginning, part of the evolution of this thinking is around whether there are other policies or other specific operational parameters that should be part of that as well. Think of it like federal highway dollars. You have to prescribe to certain parameters in order to be eligible for them. We're suggesting something similar. And then the Go ahead. I'll be super brief on the last one. We've heard from the community that they need to address military equipment. Just note that there are no state dollars used on military equipment. The state police administers this program. There's very little military surplus equipment coming to Vermont. It typically is technology, radios and things of that nature. There are some rifles in Vermont that are used for things like responding to active shooting scenarios, school shootings, things like that. But there's we're not like some other states. There are not local agencies don't have tanks. I think there's a couple of boats out there for marine operations and search and rescue and things like that. And we'll add some detail here, but we wanted to at least address it, especially in the wake of the protests in Washington D.C. and some of the conflation around the use of the military and that kind of equipment to respond to protests and demonstrations. Thank you. I'm going to ask the committee if they have any questions or comments, but I'm going to just make my little pitch here around and I do this all the time. And so everybody's heard it before and it we usually do it anyway, even though I object that I have a real problem with model policies, because in my opinion, the way to develop a policy is to say here are the 10 things you have to address in your policy. Here, here's how you have you need to address these 10 things and then let the whether it's a school around the lunch program or a police department around you, whatever policy it is, grapple with those 10 issues and come up with their policy. And because it's way too easy for an agency to just adopt a model policy without having the conversation about what does that really mean for us and how does it affect the way we operate. And so I don't like model policies and I know that one example was when we did the one around fair and impartial policing and the immigration. Our sheriff's department had a real hard time at one point getting theirs adopted because they had in their general policies, they had policy around how to treat community members and how to be fair and always working with community members. So they didn't put it in their fair and impartial policing policy because it was already in there. So then they were dinged for not having it in that policy. So my I have real problems with it, but I understand we'll go forward and we will have model policies and I'll keep saying why I disagree with them. Yeah, I appreciate that, Madam Chair. I think we're actually suggesting I may be conflating the term model in my description. I think what we're actually shooting for is a singular statewide policy, not a model from which individual agencies craft their own structure. These are things that should be universal in their application to all Vermonters. The way force is used in I know Chief Prekels on the on the line. So I'll use Manchester as the example versus where I live in Burlington. They should match. They should not be different. So this is an inflection point where I think we're all on the same page to go to not just models, which were that was an iterative step here at the stage where single policy. Did I lose you know I? Okay, I think he's I could hear him. I think we've almost lost you. Yeah, I think it's on your end. Madam chair. Can you hear him? Yes we hear him very well. Oh, but he's not saying anything at the moment. No, I'm silent right now. I was done. Brian. Thank you, Madam chair. So commissioner, I just want to thank you for a, I'm very short notice coming up with what I think is a very great jumping off point. I think you take into account many of the issues that we will be dealing with in the next two or three weeks here. I did have a couple of, well, I guess one question or one comment back on the hiring. Practices portion. I know at one time and I'm speaking probably just of the state police. There used to be a physical requirement. Unfortunately, I'll be very honest. It probably would have let me out of it because I think you had to be a certain height. But there's no mention of having people be in. Relatively, however you define that good physical shape. There's the emphasis on a new psychological test. And I think that's a great idea. But, but I certainly don't think we want people who are. Challenge physically to to be. I'm probably not saying that in the best possible way, but you know what I mean. Agreed. We are using a reasonably antiquated system right now. We don't call it out in this particular document. I know that we are looking at modernizing the physical fitness tests so that we're getting people that are in shape. We are broadening the ability to hire from a wider cross section of the community. And actually, I don't know that it's finalized yet, but we're looking at a model that is used by the, by some other agencies nationwide and using equipment that's built here in Vermont with concept two and actually using a rowing machine as the method of assessing fitness rather than the. More traditional pushups and setups and bench presses and things like that. That's great to hear. The second, you know, this is just a comment. Thank you very much for your emphasis on transparency. I see John Flowers is with us. I had a brief discussion with Mike Donahue last night. And it's good to see that you're at least aware of the advantage of having some possible changes in the way the general public learns about improper conduct. Again, we have to be careful just that the spurious allocations don't get reported. But if there's been an issue and a resolution and someone found at fault, I do think it's important for the general public to know that. And I congratulate you on at least being willing to tackle that issue. Thank you. I do anticipate that's something we will need legislative assistance with. And it just to elaborate very briefly, I think you're right. There are, there are instances that do not belong necessarily in the public vein when there are, you know, social media posts that are detrimental or calling out something that doesn't turn out to be accurate. Or other instances where people are just throwing allegations out that have no substance. There's a middle ground also where, you know, communities, I think we're going to have to find a way to ensure that there's an acceptance of an error rate. I'm not talking about catastrophic error where people get hurt or killed. I'm talking about we employ humans. We're not going to be at zero errors. And we do need latitude to both educate and sometimes discipline employees without that adversely impacting them from a public perspective and also not adversely impacting them from a career perspective long term. People are going to make mistakes. And then there are, there's a category of things that are just completely unacceptable. And if they are fatal to someone's career by design or they're fatal because the community standard is evolving. And that's a side effect of the job that you've chosen to do, but we will need a lot of help in trying to, to figure that out, making sure that we're balancing support for employees who are doing a very difficult job and they're going to be errors made and holding people accountable. Thank you commissioner. Chris. I wanted to ask about, it's probably inherent in the outline you've brought, which is very helpful. Thanks for doing that. One of the things that's come up is if there is that newer law enforcement officers learn from their more senior, more experienced people. And if they're witnessing something that is contrary to their training, they're, they're also not in a very good or a comfortable position to object because this person has some sort of supervisory control over them or could affect their career, et cetera. Is that, is that tough situation going to be addressed in the work you're planning? It is both in, and it's, it'll take a while to ensure that we're there. But supervisor selections, one of those things, ensuring that we're selecting people that are comfortable intervening when things are at a low level and, or at a high level, but, but it's harder actually for field supervisors for those, those first line supervisors, whether you're in manufacturing or you're in customer service or you're in policing, that transition when you're that first level supervisor is arguably the most important thing that we select because those are the folks that are setting those cultural norms. They're the ones that have to challenge both the young folks that are coming on and some of the older folks that have been on for a while. If they're doing things that are out of bounds to, that they have to be comfortable in doing that. They have to have the skills and the abilities to do those interventions before they become more substantial. And then one step before that, we have to hire people that are willing to raise their hand and speak up and get involved. That actually is less of a challenge today. You know, a lot's been written about the millennial generation questioning everything in this conversation. That is a good thing. Thank you. Anthony, I keep meeting myself just so that you're trying to talk and you're shutting yourself down at the same time. Yeah. I know this is a, this document is a draft and it's beginning of a process that will go on for some time, but I'm wondering if, how much you involved sort of the community groups that are on the, on the ground level working on these issues involved in developing this initial document, whether you met with the social justice groups, racist groups, things of people of that sort. Or just, you know, where you've gone with that process so far. We have a number of them, but important to note that they're just a cross section of the community, just like we're just a cross section of the community. And I don't think anyone wants to conflate that with, we've gotten plenty of feedback. We've run it by X number of people there for, we're good. But it has had the benefit of being viewed through a lens of folks that are outside law enforcement that are embedded in these issues with a different lens, at least preliminarily. Allison. Thank you, Michael. This is just to echo. Brian's comments. This is a great launching point for us and very, lots of stuff to chew on. I'm just curious, you've been involved in other law enforcement departments. And I'm just curious, a lot of culture changes involved in this, how long, how long do you anticipate culture change to take, how long does it take for culture change to occur in an apartment? I think culture change for humans in any organization typically takes about a decade. But the good, the silver lining here is that this is not the beginning. We're somewhere in the middle of substantial culture change and the goalposts continue to move as we learn more, as the community engages more as the social norms change, the goalposts move and that's a good thing, not a bad thing. So it elongates the time for full culture change. The other thing I would note is that that culture change, there's a million police officers in the United States and about a million encounters a day with citizens. What policing looks like in Minneapolis or somewhere else in the country bears very little resemblance to the way it does here. But for no other reason than the community standard, the social standard that what our communities expect of us is different. And so the type of culture change that's required, it's important to note, we're not, I'm going to pick on Minneapolis for obvious reasons. We're not trying to get from where they are to where we need to be. We're trying to get from where we are to where we need to be, which is a far shorter playing field than in other places in the country. I think that we can also, that a lot of culture change depends on the leadership. And we saw, for example, when Secretary Minter took over the transportation agency, their culture change there happened pretty rapidly. So I think that it depends on leadership, not only the kind of acknowledged leaders of the organization, but one of the things in Minneapolis that we've heard and around the country in lots of places is that the police unions are very counter productive in changing the culture. And I don't think that's, I haven't seen that in Vermont. So I think the union leadership is also important here. Agreed. I would call out a couple of things here. I don't think that the unions are as entrenched in old ways of doing business. The troopers union in particular that I've worked with for the last several months is incredibly professional and forward facing and does a great job at trying to balance the needs of protecting employees with the needs to hold folks accountable and to be accountable to our communities. So I think, again, it's a much shorter field to use the football analogy. At the same time, this is also a good point to call out this. I didn't draft this by myself. The state police, the colonel and his command staff, Chief Brackell from the chair of the criminal justice training council, Chief Merkel and Sheriff Bonyak from the associations. Burke and South Burlington Chief Morrison and Burlington Sheriff Anderson all had and they've all communicated with their groups and provided feedback as well. So lots of different avenues for getting this together. And there really is a, I believe a co lessons of leadership to move the ball forward like I've not seen before in 30 years. Well, we hope that they've been communicating with their members, their people on the ground. I mean, because when you mentioned the list of people you just read off or set off. I mean, they're supposed to achieve this achieve that I don't mean to be overly critical. I just want to make sure that we're talking to the people on the ground who are actually doing the work. I'm not insinuating you're not planning to do that. I just want to be clear on that that's a concern that I have. Understood. Any questions or comments for the commissioner and we will make sure that you are invited to all of them with an agenda of what we'll be taking up. And all the information that everybody gets and feel free to join us whenever you can and if you can't, if somebody else does and I see that we have both Chief Brackell and Colonel Birmingham with us today also so we're going to make sure that we have people joining us and we've sent we sent out actually a huge invite list today. Gail was quite nervous about it and how to manage it from behind the scenes. So, I saw any more questions trying to choreograph thank you for for fitting me in at this time and I look forward to working with you and all of our communities on this topic. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Betsy and are you with us. Oh and Bryn is with us too. Yay. We haven't seen Bryn for a long time. Thank you Bryn because Bryn is one of our judiciary attorneys and specializes in justice issues in the judiciary system and she actually wrote all of you a memo that summarizes the recent legislation and issues of racial inequity and use of force. So I'm going to turn it over to Bryn and I believe it is. It's posted. It is posted it is on our website. So Bryn, if anybody can see it and so Bryn, if you would like to go through kind of what we've done up to this point, I mean, as we said before this is not a new something that just caught us out of the blue and said, Oh, we better deal. We better do something. We've been working on this for a long time. So if you can just kind of run through that and I'm going to put myself on mute because apparently I'm causing some echos or freezing or something and we're having some kind of a little problem outside. So, Anthony, if you, I'm going to put myself on mute. So if somebody needs to be interrupted and I can't get to it. Would you do that? You're fine now, Jeanette. I mean, it's fine. Yeah, I think part of your problems is you're just thinking you're having problems. We're not sensing the problems you're having, but that's okay if you want to sit quietly. Okay. I'm going to jump in. Good afternoon committee, Bryn here from legislative council for the record. I'm going to start off by saying that I have another meeting to that I have to move to three o'clock so I can't stay for too much longer. And I apologize for that, but hopefully I'll be able to just run through this memo and you'll also have the memo available to you to look at if you need some more detail. And one other thing I want to say is that my the wind is blowing at my house and so I keep getting an internet connection is unstable message so please somebody let me know if I'm cutting out and I'll shut off my video. And hopefully that will help. Okay. Okay. So the memo sort of goes through some legislation that the General Assembly has passed over the last three or four years. It provides some detailed information about that legislation that addresses take some steps to address racial inequity and the use of force by law enforcement officers in Vermont. So the first act that the memo discusses is act 54 from 2017, which created the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel. And you've probably heard about this advisory panel they do quite a bit of work in the state. They're also tasked them with doing a whole list of things including consulting with stakeholders and its work to essentially do kind of constant review of the criminal and juvenile justice systems and providing recommendations to the General Assembly about ways to address racial disparities that exist in those systems. They're also really reviewing the traffic stop data that's legislatively required to be collected by law enforcement. And in that review they're sort of tasked with monitoring progress towards a fair and impartial system of law enforcement. A big part of their work is to provide recommendations for implicit bias trainings to stakeholders across the spectrum from correctional officers and judges and attorneys to law enforcement and other individuals in the criminal and juvenile justice system. So received reports from the criminal justice training council on on whether or not the council has adopted and implemented those implicit bias trainings for their law enforcement officers. The act also made some amendments to the fair and impartial policing policy. This committee will probably remember we've you've worked on the fair and impartial policing policy over the years and it sets out that model policy and it sets out sort of a procedure by which the model policy is amended and updated including and a process by which the policy can be influenced by stakeholder groups. So there was some additional modifications to the to that fair and impartial policing policy in act 54. And then the bill moves on to talk or the memo moves on to talk about Act number nine in 2018. And I'm sure this committee remembers its work on that bill which was to create the five year position in the executive branch for the executive director of racial equity. And that position is tasked with advising the governor on strategies to remediate systemic racism in state government. And the memo also talks about S 338 which is the justice reinvestment bill which is currently moving through the process. It just passed second reading. Today on the house floor, I believe. So that one section of that bill requires that advisory panel the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel. The executive director of racial equity, along with other stakeholders in the criminal justice system to work with the crime research group to identify existing data and gaps in that data that are related to demographic factors and sentencing outcomes. And to identify what additional data resources and staffing would be necessary to fill those gaps in the existing data and report back to the justice oversight committee in October of this year. It also directs the Vermont sentencing commission to take that information that was gathered by the stakeholders and to consider it and to come up with a recommendation about whether changes to Vermont sentencing structure are appropriate and consider issuing some non binding binding guidance for offenses that for which there exist racial disparities and geographic disparities and sentencing and they're tasked with reporting back to the legislature in February of next year. So, then the memo kind of moves on to talk from the racial disparities. Question to the use of force by law enforcement. So, about act 56 of 2017. And that was the act that expanded the disciplinary authority of the criminal justice training council law enforcement officers. So it broadened the definition of unprofessional conduct to include both bias enforcement and excessive use of force. Also, I'll note that as you know the this committee recently voted out a bill to broaden that definition even further to to include a first offense of excessive use of force as a category B conduct. And the committee six also expanded the authority of the criminal justice training council to impose sanctions for unprofessional law enforcement conduct. So the next bill that the memo talks about is the next act is Act 180 of 2013. That was the act that required the law enforcement advisory board to establish statewide policies concerning the use and calibration of electronic control devices which are also known as tasers. It specified a number of provisions that have to be included in that policy, including the standard for when an electronic control device may be used. And it required all law enforcement agencies and officers to adopt that policy. And all officers who carry the device devices were required to see receive training by that act. And also all officers, regardless of whether or not they carried a taser were required to receive more general training concerning mental health issues. And then lastly, it required that all uses of those electronic control control devices be reported to the training council, which had to in turn report that information back to the general assembly each year. So that is kind of a summary of the, of the relevant bills that have been passed by the general assembly over the last few years. And again, the memo provides some additional information about each of them. You saw some time right you don't believe yet. Mm hmm. I wonder if you could describe a little bit. I don't know. Well, Is it me. Or did Bryn freeze there? I think it was you. Is it me? Yes. So, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to turn off my video for a little while and see if that helps. I don't know what's going on. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Fran. I was wondering if you could describe for me like what a use of force policy looks like. I mean, is there a way to give a description of what, what, what, what, what would it include. So, are you talking about the use of force policy that is currently in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Well, I use the force policy in general. I mean, I'm just, I'm not, I don't want to pass judgment on whether the one before the committee is good or bad or not so good. Does that include, you know, if you were going to design a use force policy? Well, typically, it describes the, what the standard, what the standard is for a police officer to use force within certain circumstances. For example, it will use a reasonable person standard, what, what type of force can be used based on a reasonable person's understanding of the situation that's facing the officer. And, you know, it could also describe what an excessive use of force would look like, or what circumstances would allow for an officer to use deadly force. So those are just some of the, some of the things that you could consider in that policy. Are there states that are seen as leaders in this, you know, models that we could look at, maybe you've already done that, I'm just wondering, because our committee is not. There are, there are several states that have sort of a statewide policy on the use of force and I could work together some of those for the committee if you'd like to take a look at some examples. Well, is that being worked on in the judiciary committee though. It's, I have some examples of different state policies on use of force. Again, they're, they, they can vary based on whether they're specifically about use of what, what is excessive for what's considered excessive force, or what is like an allowable use of force or use of deadly force. So it's kind of thing where they're, I'm sorry. It is being worked on in judiciary that the way we divided this up is that Senator Sears is kind of taking on the model policy around use of force. And we can bring it in here. We just, just barely started it today. I'm also wondering how we're doing this change over to the data data gaps. Are we still doing are we doing a good job in terms of collecting data or are there still gaps you need to work on. You know, I might not be the best person to answer that question, but I think that you're hearing from a lot of witnesses over today and tomorrow who can answer that better than I can. Okay. Any other questions. Brian. Thank you, Anthony. It's not really a question for Bryn. I know she gets three o'clock. So she's got a schedule, but it occurred to me when we were looking at act. You know, there's a lot of work, which is the advisory panel, the racial disparities and the criminal juvenile justice system advisory panel, which currently numbers 13 members that one of the people that's not on that is Susana Davis, because probably when we passed that, that that executive administration position wasn't just, but we probably ought to look to add her to that panel. Just a minute. Anything else. We can let you go, Brandon, if you got to go somewhere. Thank you very much. Thank you. Talk to you later. No, that was my only thought there. My phone just went on by itself. Weird things going on. Siri just started talking to me. Hi Betsy. Do you want to add anything to a previous brain was saying about the memo? You think she covered it all. Of course, yes, I, if I'm here for backup, I'll keep track of things that are within Bryn's practice area. But if you have questions about some of the actual gov ops bills that I've handled for you, the main one was act 56, which really reformed the professional regulation of law enforcement officers so I'm here for backup and if I can answer any questions about that, if you have any. I just lost you all completely. Senator Bray. We heard you. I have a so Betty and is there anyone in ledge council who Senator Polina just asked a question I had that's the same question about data, data completeness and all the rest and since we're trying to drive consistent reform. If we don't get good data, it's hard to know how well we're really doing. And it also limits transparency, which is of interest to people to everyone I think is, are you or someone else and ledge council monitoring as part of your work with committees are progress on that or Brin said we might have witnesses who can speak to that point I don't know who that would be precisely on data collection generally. Yes, yes. Yeah, I mean, for instance, when bring walk through her memo. She is talking about the Vermont Human Rights Commission. Well, let me see. There's so many commissions in this paragraph. The responsibilities of the panel in re include reviewing and providing recommendations to address systemic racial disparities and statewide systems of juvenile criminal and juvenile justice. Also continually reviewing traffic stop data required by 20 vs a 2366. Specifically in regard to that 20 vs a 2366 that's the race data collection. And in that, in that statute, every state county and municipal law enforcement agency is supposed to collect roadside stop data, and then those agencies are supposed to work with the criminal justice training council. So that council has a vendor that it chose to, as I understand it to collect the data. And then that data, as I'm reading through this statute is supposed to be provided in electronic format that's posted electronically in a manner that's analyzable and accessible to the public on the public. So that that should be public data that we can find now I'm not exactly sure that data exists. Oh, I think that the, I think that the vendor has not been chosen yet that they're there is some consistency now in reporting the data and with the two systems that are being used. The vendor that's going to be chosen to actually collect the data and aggregate it and make it available has not. I think that Commissioner Anderson said that they're just about to choose it. I mean Commissioner, I'm sitting here Mark Anderson I said Commissioner Anderson I meant Commissioner Sherling but I think Mark Anderson actually is right up on this issue so would you like to answer the question. I'm chair so Mark Anderson for the record wouldn't can a share the two things about the collection and understand it's a judiciary bill bill so I'm happy to answer questions but I'm going to speak to it very quickly. There's the judiciary bill is essentially putting a consequence, if you will, or a punishment penalty whatever you want to call it a failure to report. Having a bit of a technical background I've worked with numerous agency heads and trying to come into compliance with this part of the problem is simply people don't understand computers and trying to walk people through how to export data from a system. And both record systems both Valcor and both Spelman. Each law enforcement agency retains a right to their their information so to speak so I can't share the Department of Public Safety is information without their explicit permission. And that's how we maintain openness of information sharing. And so the problem is I also don't have the same right to say hey, I know the Department of Public Safety needs help in in sharing this information so I'm just going to do it out of the goodness of my heart. So, requires us talking to however many chiefs that there are to say, would you like me to move your data for you versus someone else. Now the Department of Public Safety is not actually the example of an agency that's not reporting numerous agencies are actually trying to do that. So what I've been doing is with the vendor that my agency uses crosswind and they're the creators of Valcor to automate the process behind reporting this information that was a request that was put forward to the Valcor governance board which is the policy board that oversees our system. And so essentially saying we're going to give a permissive for all agencies data to automatically just be handed to the vendor, which at this moment cheaper Cal might be able to correct me if I'm wrong on this but my understanding is is CRG. That information is available on their website you can actually go to crgbt.org I believe, and there's a section called data and all the traffic stop and racial reporting data is right there going back to 2015 I believe. So so they aggregate the data and put it together. Yes. But you're not you can't know so it's kind of like what used to be with health record help medical records you can't communicate with others. Everybody's got a different, different program, not everybody but there's a number of different programs you can't access other data. So all the data is accessible. The problem is is that the movement of data to CRG is manual. And so that requires knowledge of how to move the data. It's an education issue and trying to explain to people who aren't quite sure how to turn on a computer, how to construct an email. I'm hopeful one of the things learned out of COVID-19 is actually how to use technology because it's BCR still. So, anyways, they had to zoom the information. I helped, I think it was two years ago and last year I helped several agencies do it when they learned that I could do this. So I helped them with their permission to move their data on their behalf. I'm happy to continue doing that but automating the process. I mean we have computers involved in the collection of the data, why not have computers involved in the transmission of the data. And with the vendors, my understanding is that that process was very far along and a fairly simple lift for the vendors to do and it just simplifies everyone's lives. But is that impacting the ability or the willingness of folks actually gather the data, you know, to report what they're finding and out in the field. So that would be a second thing and I think I would ask the members at CRG to report on the quality of the data because I haven't gone through to process everyone's data, I just, I transmit it. The, in my case, we have 100% compliance in the data that we collect. I can't speak to every single agency, but in having this automated transmission occur, we would actually be able to identify who is not recording the data versus who is not transmitting the data and right now that's a bit of a murky area. Any other questions about data or anything else. Chris. Sheriff Anderson, could you just say a little bit about the timeline for resolving this and getting, you know, what you would call from your point of view sort of a fully functional system up and running smoothly for everybody. I can't answer that at this moment, Senator, but I'd be happy to get that answer before back. Okay, I mean I don't know if there's a project deadline and someone said by September 1 for planning and having everybody in or this is just sort of a rolling issue and you're bringing on people as, as they become more interested in participating in the, the conversation, the most recent conversation occurred after, I believe it was January 1 of this year. And that was because January 1 becomes the deadline when or the book end up when this information for each year is captured. And so it's somewhat of a seasonal conversation that as it becomes. Hey, we need to make our report to the Council to CRG. Then we start talking about it again. This year, obviously we got distracted with other events. So that conversation has fallen by the wayside from my perspective, but I'm happy to reengage that because it is an important issue that needs to be addressed. Going back to what we were asking to do. The crosswind the vendor for that said it shouldn't be hard to transmit that data. There's not much of a technical, speaking of technical to do that. Right. Best froze my one last quick follow up is in the legislature. I think we try not to ask for data that is not also helpful to the agency or department that's creating the data. Why would there be data of interest to us that might not be of interest to them, you know, so are you finding the data useful and revealing instructive in some way has been surprising in any way or is this just feel a little bit like a task assigned from elsewhere and you have to do it but it's not that useful. I think I'll say both. The information is actually very helpful, especially when we have conversations about what policies we need to change an effect. To that end, for me to understand what effects we have in stopping minorities is something that I need to necessarily understand the interesting thing in terms of collecting data and just digressing a bit. In my agency, we have a very qualitative use of force reporting system, but it's not very good at quantitative data so I actually can't run a report right the second to say, this is the number of people that I've effectuated non compliant technique on or used lethal force to assemble it manually. The good news for my agency is that we have a very low repeat reporting rate of use of force. So we could actually assemble that fairly easily, but it would be a manual process. So, when talking about data. It's really important that we, we have the systems in place and with race data collection reporting standards, we had to get the systems in place to do that so the technical bridge that we're talking about right now is the next step. And we're learning over time and we're working with the vendors to do that to the question of is it a task that we need to do. Yes. In some part it's because it's based on a statewide standard that we're reporting at the same time, but there's nuance questions. There was some uncertainty about whether it's happening in September. Is that when we're supposed to report based on the when the statute was enacted versus do we report on fiscal years do we report on calendar years. We've all agreed to say we're just all going to report on a calendar year because there's not clarity in that. So working through some of those things can be tasks that we don't feel that we're the ones responsible for answering the questions and we're the ones responsible for responding with the data to support that. So, I think with any work you can consider the quote unquote task but I've seen a lot of value and merit in the race data report. I'm sorry. I don't need to interrupt. No, one more thing came up based on sheriff's response and that is, I hope that as it evolves that you all will be consulted so that you help shape the data and how the system functions so that over time it becomes as valued by us by legislators and others. Thank you, Senator I agree. And actually, to Commissioner Sherling's point, there's 80% that we all agree with, and about 5% that we, we have questions concerns comments with what will you some of my comments especially watching the judiciary here hearing today with my words to us to 19 was, how do you want us to report this information because what the way it's currently written. I could answer with 1500 different responses. So I'd really like to be be able to say this is what will be valuable to us so that we can work together to codify and law. Thank you very much. Allison. You know, every agency has different data that they collect how does the data interplay with each other and who is the ultimate collector of all law enforcement data. And if one is wanting to look at all agencies in one. I mean I hate the use of dashboard because I'm not really sure what it means, but in one place. I mean how does one. Where is it all aggregated. I think the question aggregates with CRG who's the vendor for the council. And so they have a document called, or I'm sorry a page, and I'm not sure if this is viewed for the public, but I'll send it and chat at least. They share that information publicly it's available all the time. And that is data that's accessible through a Excel spreadsheet. And that aggregate so that's every agency in in of law enforcement and the state is aggregated there. That's correct. It's also accessible through the criminal justice training councils website. There's a link. I don't remember where it is but those are two ways. And it's a traffic stop and race data collection. Ideally, I think people like pictures better than they like data but researchers like that about it better than they like pictures they want to be the ones to create the picture so what shared them as the raw data. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions. I thank you. No, thank you as helpful. Appreciate it. Okay, I, I'm not sure if I'm the one that's causing the problems here or not so you're not come back. Well, but every time I do, it seems to freeze either you or me so anyway, here I am but what I just wanted to talk a little bit about where we go from here I think. So what I would like to do is look at those kind of general areas that were defined by by the commissioner and if there are other areas that weren't defined by him that we need to put in here I think. So he had hiring training promotion improper conduct allegations data collection is being done by judiciary and body cameras for state police is being done by judiciary we might want to look at some get some testimony from the body cameras by local agencies, and then community outreach and community advisory panels, and then the judiciary is looking at the use of force policy, but if there are other policies that we want to look at or emphasize in training, they might fit in So one of the things what I would suggest right now unless and this we can be open to the this discussion is that we the first thing we look at is the improper conduct because judiciary is taking that up right now. And I think that there are there are some things in the bill that was proposed to judiciary that I have some real concerns about. And I think that I would like us to take some testimony before so that we can help inform judiciary there was there. There were some penalties that were put in there like if improper. improper. What what's the word conduct, not use of force but is used there could be a penalty a criminal penalty of up to 20 years in prison. And we haven't have not really very carefully defined use of force and as Mark sent me a note afterwards that said that really in law enforcement in their training there, they talk about use of force as anything is for I mean, just stopping the roadside can be seen as a forceful action by police officers. I think I would like us to take some testimony on that. Starting tomorrow and then on the penalties and the discipline that we already have through the training council for. For that. So who do we talk to about that kind of stuff you think. Oh, well, I think that we send out the. The usual list. And Gail when, when we send out the invites for today or the announcements for today, it went to a ton of people to the usual law enforcement people the media community groups social justice groups, the ACLU it went to a number of people and I think that we would want to hear from as many of them as possible. So what we want to do for you to invite all those folks we want to maybe present a question to have them respond to sort of define it a little bit. Yes, we're looking for. Yes, we need some sort of uniform sieve through which to weigh and measure all the, all that we're hearing because it's a it's a big this is a big task. Right. It's a short time we have this is, this is a, yeah, this is a. Well, I thought what we could do is put all of the suggestions that came from the commissioner in a list and all the suggestions that came from us from the various places around improper conduct and sanctions for discipline for officers in that category, and, and then have people testify and I hate to narrow it so much to a specific question because there might be things come up that we hadn't thought of or anticipated. So what we're talking about is how do, what is improper conduct, what do we have currently in place that the training council uses to deal with people who use improper conduct, how does improper conduct get defined what is use of force and I think Mark will probably testify in judiciary. The next time we take this up there but I'm concerned about some of the language that was in the bill there and then what kinds of discipline should there be and how the. What is the, what is the responsibility of the investigating agency to the release of information, when does that happen in an investigation, and when doesn't it happen and I think that we could bet he's very familiar with the OPR model here and maybe that's a model that we look at, I think that that's already in 124. But I just, I don't know but it seems to me that we, we need to take, we need to look at this pretty carefully. Great. I think you're right madam chair. When you mentioned the 20 year penalty. I'm just wondering how it could, how you could possibly define in other words, if if an officer handcuffs someone. I've never found out that he or she shouldn't have. I know what you're talking about that there could possibly be a jail term for that as opposed to slapping someone or punching someone. You know what I'm saying. Well that's why I think that we need to have some testimony about what does in the police world what does force mean, and when is it improper use of force and when isn't it because they're carefully defined and it's it, it does clearly say that if it causes serious bodily harm or death and I, if there's death resulting there would probably be criminal charges. And if, but if somebody pulls somebody's arm behind them because they're resisting arrest and it breaks their arm and they lose the use of their arm is that excessive force that would be punishable by 20 years. I don't know. I don't know that's why I think we have to look at this. It is a lot of gray area. Mark, and I, I would, I, so I think that we should send the invite to all the people that we sent it to today. And, and I'll write a thing that says, and puts kind of these different suggestions around improper conduct and disciplinary actions and the investigations around those into into the question so people can see kind of where we are but it'll be up to people to bring us other suggestions and other issues and I'm, you know, the media may have some, some suggestions and some concerns that they want to bring forward. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, madam chair I just wanted I know you're going to be wrapping up soon but I wanted to say the Vermont press Association is concerned about several of the 10 points mission mentioned by Commissioner. is number four, ensuring accountability when it comes to improper conduct allegations, transparency on that score. There are different standards now for different departments. There are more than 68 statewide municipal departments and they all operate by different procedures. And I know Mike Donahue who's been at this for quite a while can outline some of the cases, the misconduct examples. We're also concerned about training. The Vermont Police Academy used to have a media relations education process for new troopers. It doesn't at this point. And I think it would be very helpful for the troopers to get some news about media relations, first amendment rights, et cetera. And those are two things I wanted to mention really quickly. Oh, I do think so. I mean, we will lump kind of training and hiring and stuff into a category and go more into depth about that. But I might be wrong, but it seems to me that if we're looking at improper conduct and the disciplinary and the release of that information that that's probably enough for one Friday afternoon. Could be. I mean, we might be able to do more, but I suspect a lot of people will have a lot to say about that issue. Sure. Okay. Is that? That could be it. So did anybody, did you read that list of suggestions that I sent out and did anybody have any? I have more of them that have come in and I'll send those out also. There, it's a little overwhelming. I mean, there are just so many. Should we take a peek at them together? They're posted on our website, I believe, under Jeanette White. The categories you've identified. Those are just the categories. It's not your email. But where it says suggestions, that's the list. There's 25 suggestions. Oh, there it is. It follows. Sorry, page two. Got it. Yeah. So these are ones that came from different places and I didn't put them into categories because I didn't have the categories at the time, but I think we should try to lump them together instead of having somebody come in and testify on these 25 things. Put them into categories. But are there any in here that stand out to anybody? I think they're all worth talking about. I would say number 14 is, in my opinion, off the, off the, I don't know how you would do that anyway. I agree. Yeah. No, I don't know how it fits in our work either. I don't think it's... I just threw the suggestions out that came from, some came from the NAACP, some came from the Social Equity Caucus. Some came from Timash, some came, they came from different places and I didn't attribute them to anybody because they didn't want that to make a difference. That's fine. So we'll take... I don't know what number 20 means. Two cameras. Somebody is suggesting that there have to be two cameras in the cruisers at all time. One of them, I think they said one pointing forward and one pointing at the person. Yeah, I mean, every one of them is going to need to be fleshed out in terms of the need, you know. Right. The need, what current practice is, how does it benefit, how we can afford it? I mean, there's so many different layers of assessing each one of these that it's, it's sort of hard to figure out how we're going to tackle them until we, A, put them into our, you know, the topics that you want to put them in, which I think we need to, to make them digestible because at the moment it's sort of overwhelming. It's a big list and a lot of work. And I, not that I want to delegate this work, but it strikes me. I'm, you know, this is huge work and the work of a huge number of professionals in our area, many of whom have expertise in this area. I'm feeling, you know, as if my expertise is, and I don't have the expertise in large ways to, to, anyway, I forget. I'm not sure what I'm really saying right now. Well, we are the committee that deals with law enforcement. We are, and the training of law enforcement. And if, and if some of this needs legislation, that's probably where it would come from. Right. But just because those 20 to five things are listed there does not mean that they all have equal weight and that they all deserve much attention. So I'll try to, for tomorrow, I'll try putting them into the category, are the categories, first of all, are the categories that were, that I just stole from the commissioner? Are they the appropriate categories? If anybody wants to weigh in on that, on the committee or not? I don't have a strong feeling about that one or the other. They're fine. I think they're good. And I think they, particularly the first, you know, the some of them, yes, I think they're very good, but it's a lot. Any way. You might combine, you didn't number them, but the one that says body cams, you could probably put slash equipment and make that kind of one category if you were. Yeah, I think some of these go together pretty nicely, like training and recruitment or promotion and stuff, kind of. Well, or hiring and promotion. Right. I think those sort of fit together. Training certainly is its own kettle of fish. But I think we need to address it because we are addressing it. Yes. Training has been one of our major concerns for years. I mean, overseeing the training council is what we do. Okay. I think that we should overnight sort of go through this and maybe get, well, if you want to take the first pass out of that might be great. I'll try to put them into categories. And then. And some of them are a little redundant too. I mean, I think you'd end up with fewer. Yeah, you combine some of the ideas. I don't think it asks me that. And some of them, like, I don't want to, but things like prohibiting chokeholds and needles. And that's kind of like a yes or no question. I know there's a lot of debate that would go on around but either you want to move in that direction or you don't, you know. Well, and also you'd want to hear from police about in what ways are any of these, how are they used to, you know, what is the policy currently on them? Right. Well, I don't. This is one of the issues that judiciary is doing around use of force. Right. Because a kneehold and a chokehold is a use of force. And the way that it is defined right now in the use of force. So judiciary has this bill. Some of it was taken from the California proposed legislation and some of it was not. Some of it was just offered by individual committee members. But it defines, currently it defines use of force, excessive use of force. It prohibits anything that has pressure on the throat, the carotid artery, the nose. It's essentially choking things. But as Sears pointed out, that there are also force issues that don't have anything to do with choking, but like knees on spines is that was what the Woodside suit was about. So the Supreme Court has made a decision about some of that. So that will be folded into it. But so those kinds of things chokeholds, and I put it on here because it was a suggestion, but I think that judiciary is doing that. Well, and how does excessive use of force compare to excessive threatening? And where is that fine line? Because we all feel it when that line is crossed with excessive threat that's beyond the need of the moment. So where does that fit into some of this? Because I think that is an issue as well. Yes, but I don't think it's an issue we're gonna deal with. I think it's part of the judiciary bill. And if I can just share with you one, thing that Mark about use of force, he says, what type of use of force? Our training teaches that mere presence is a use of force by law enforcement, as are verbal commands, physical restraints, compliant handcuffing, pain compliance techniques, assaultive techniques and lethal force. I would suggest being explicit on the types of force we're looking to report. All law enforcement officers are trained on a force continuum, which includes escalation and de-escalation from the Academy's initial training. So I think it's more complicated than was presented in the bill this morning. So I thank Mark for sending that. I'm gonna forward this actually to all the committee members, if that's okay, Mark. Absolutely, Madam Chair. My neck was trying to say something, but it's really- Well, I'm sorry. Well, Madam Chair, just a point of clarification. The House of Judiciary, what they meant by improper restraint in a statute, it talks about the neck holds, cardiac holds, the drillings. That's where they're talking about the 20 years and 50,000 out fine. So I just wanted to clarify that as far as the use of force, what they're talking about in House of Judiciary today. Yeah, and we're talking about it in Senate Judiciary also this morning. Thank you. Yeah, but I just wanna make sure that we don't, and I'm not exactly sure how to say this, that we don't fall victim to doing something because it sounds like we're doing something, that we instead think very carefully about what we're doing and make decisions that are the right decisions, instead of just responding to rhetoric. And there is a ton of rhetoric and a lot of it is well-deserved, but I think that when we continue to talk about events that happened in Minnesota and wherever, and then judge our responses around that, that we're making a mistake. So I just, and if you had heard me say that in the late 60s or the early 70s, you would never have heard me say that. Although you, although you haven't aged since then, you're just getting wiser. Right, right. You might be surprised to learn that I was probably in a very similar situation at one time as you were, as evidenced by the picture I shared with you with myself and the Governor Douglas. Yep, yep, we should share stories sometime. I do have an FBI file. Cool, I'm just curious. Now, I mean, we know who's responsible for training law enforcement, our Vermont training council. And the police got me, and they're also charged with overseeing their, they do all the disciplinary actions as well. I mean, it would be interesting to have a sort of a chart and understanding of who's responsible for what already within the law enforcement world. Well, part of that is in S-124 that we just passed. A lot of it is in there because it details when, what's a category A category B category C, who has responsibility, who takes it on, who does it. So it's there. It is, but it's just, it would be interesting to see, because we have so many different law enforcement agencies, how discipline ends up coming up the ranks to, I mean, well, maybe we, I mean, I just, anyway. I think that is in S-124. Yeah, I guess it is. It's very clear about when a local agency when they do an investigation and when it goes to the academy and when they, I mean the training council and when they take over and, and then there are some interesting things in here like that all, maybe everything that in Shirlings, everything that results in, I don't know if he said serious bodily injury, but in death has to be reviewed by the, either the attorney general or the state's attorney. So, you know, there are some interesting things in here that we could look at around discipline. So, okay. So I see that Charity Clark is with us. So I'll make sure Charity that you get the information because we, if we're looking at improper conduct and allegations and discipline and penalties and stuff we would want you involved. So, Madam Chair, as much as we've dealt with discipline, I mean it isn't one of our categories and discipline. Yes, it is. It's called improper conduct. Okay. I mean, I put it under there because if you have improper conduct there's gonna be some consequences. So it's the investigation. Right. Yeah. Is it stuffy where you guys are? Yeah. It's really, really humid. So. I think I'm about to perish. I think my bottom is about to have completes. We have been sitting for it since 8 a.m. I know. So anything else this afternoon? Does anybody who's here with us, Chief Brackell or Matt or Rob Shelley see us here from Judiciary? Anybody have anything they'd like to throw in today about kind of the process? Because we want to make sure that we're doing the right process and so we can get everything taken care of. Madam Chair, if I could address you for just a minute. I'm looking at your categories for discussion or for your questions for tomorrow that specifically you would like testimony or answers to. I can also request Drew Bloom who is the lead use of force since Dr. Atty Academy. Oh. Everyone knows exactly the initial training that every officer gets and it continues once they leave the academy at their own home agency, obviously, but he would be probably one of the best people just to answer specific questions. If there were questions specific to training and use of force. And I sent in a chat to you the topics that I thought on your long agenda of 25 which would be remain to the council's discussion if those were things that were of interest to you tomorrow. So I can certainly let you know that you'd like him to be available if that's possible. Thanks and just would you give his information also to Gail so she can send him an invite? I will certainly do that. Thank you. Anybody else have anything they'd like to add kind of on the process? Well, Channette is the hope that our work will be folded in so that we have one goal on this. And our work will be folded in with judiciary's work? No, I think not. I think that judiciary, he really wants to get this out right away because this is around data collection and the deadly or use of deadly force primarily. So he wants to get this out right away. And if we're ready, we can, he intends on voting it out next Friday and we may well be ready on Friday. And then I'll leave that decision up to Tim who is much smarter at this kind of stuff than I. So I'm not sure what he wants, but I, committee, I know this is a huge ask. Is there any way we can meet on Monday? And if no, just say no. Yeah. Hi, Anthony. I'd be willing, excuse me, I'd be willing to meet on Monday. I'm not gonna be here tomorrow. I know. I have an appointment, I can't change. Yeah. Chris. I'm thinking, because I'm, we're trying to vote out all our act 250 stuff and we're talking about meeting on Monday to do that. And we're in that, you know, home stretch of editing five things into one. And so I have to say, I'd like to be on reserve. Okay. Because I might really need to be bearing down, getting our amendment finalized for a vote the following morning, which is pretty much a hard stop for us. Make those people work. Can I give you everyone's email on the committee? And okay. Yeah. That's the end. If we had to, could you, and Allison, we would prefer not to. Yeah. I prefer not to, because I'm feeling completely, you know, the workload in both these committees is pretty certain. I need you a day to catch up on some of it. And I mean, we have some of the weekend, but I mean, I'm happy to meet if we have to meet, you know. Let's wait and see. Let's see where we are tomorrow. Yeah. And then if we can make sure that we meet Tuesday, then my fear is that Wednesday and Thursday on the floor may take a long time and that we'll lose a lot of time, but we'll see. We can also maybe even put it over until the next week, but we'll see, okay? Okay. Thanks, Anthony, for jumping in there. I have no idea what was going on. With my stuff, but.