 Well, first, let me thank you all for coming here today. We're going to talk about obviously our use of force policy and really how it fits into what we think is our primary responsibility. And I kind of want to lead into what our primary responsibility that will ultimately partly into the use of force policy safety. I don't think anybody will take any issue with understanding that our primary our primary responsibility as a police department is to provide your safety and the safety of our citizens. So how do we do that? How do we measure that in a frightening way of describing it? We do it a couple ways. Number one, we look at the crime. Crime is part of the primary way that we measure our safety. When we talk about crime, we measure by the crime that occurred this year versus the crime that occurred the following year. It was a reduction in crime. So we compare ourselves to ourselves as it relates to our crime occur from year to year. And then we look at regionally what happens in crime as it relates to what other agencies that are similar to us in dynamics, what are they doing as a relation to crime versus what we've done in our region as a relation to crime? And then we compare ourselves nationally to other major cities. As you all well know, there are about 45 major cities in America, major cities, a city of 500,000 or more residents and we're one of those cities. So we look at their crime and what taxes and strategies that they're using as it relates to what we're doing and how do we compare to them as it relates to crime. And then perhaps the most important and one thing that we sometimes don't we when I say we are speaking of police department nationally forget to use as a comparison to perception that the community has a crime. You know, I've I've attended meetings in some of my past assignments as a police administrator and talked about the great decrease in crime and citizens of racer hands to say you can talk about all this decrease you want chief. But on my way to the meeting, I was intent I felt really intimidated by individual selling drugs at the corner. Individuals using using narcotics, people urinating the alleys of dirty. So we have to deal with that perception because the reality of it is once perceptions ones realities is once reality. So we use those four components when we talk about crime, we talk about your safety. The center piece of that is talking about crime. Now, ultimately, in order for us to get our arms around crime, we have to focus on prevention. That really speaks to how effective we are and and really preventive crime, you know, and I know in Noel and I talked about using Noel because we've had this conversation time and time again, we talk when we talk about prevention, a lot of times, you don't call the police the police response, we come with polite, we're courteous, you give us the description, we like the person up the person gets a conviction in jail. And I've asked citizens this all the time, just raise your hand. How many of you think that is really good police work? That is prevention. A lot of them raise their hand. Well, I take issue with that good prevention is you didn't call us because the crime didn't occur. That's going to lead us to this whole conversation today about our use of force and some things that we need to do different. Now, the 1500 members on our department in an effort for them to get their arms around prevention, which is really the core of what we do. What I see our responsibility is they have to have a relationship with the greatest resource and a great degree, the greatest resource any department has is related to its responsibility and preventing crime of the residents that absolutely paid them to do their job. And in our case, this between the 685 and 700,000 residents to live in our city every single day. And the bottom line is residents are more willing to work with us if they know us that they trust us if they treat us with dignity and respect. And ironically enough, the very residents that we need the most of those that are living in neighborhoods and to to a greater part to no fault of their own or a lot of crimes that occurring and where we put a lot of our resources. But those same residents are some of the same residents that have a lot of issues with our police department with policing across this country. Just look at what has happened in Ferguson was happening in Baltimore was happening in New York was happening in Chicago. Those are challenges that we're facing in policing. The bottom line is, I think citizens have raised a bar as it relates to what they expect from their police department as it relates to our responsibility to help them prevent crime in their particular neighborhoods, they've raised a bar. So I think it's only appropriate that we have to raise the bar also expectations of change policing has evolved. And for us, that really means that we need to do some things different in our police department, I'm of the opinion and I think many of you know that I've worked in five police departments and I get to travel around the country talking about transformational change. So I am of the opinion in order for us to do a better job in addressing crime, prevention, and building the confidence of the communities, particularly the communities that are most impacted by crime. There's some things that we just have to do different. I you know, I think I did an interview the other day with the media. And I was talking about the biggest one, our biggest challenges is trust, gaining trust in those communities. So we can work together addressing the issues that are relevant to them. So for us, that means that we need to change what we've done. We need to change how we've been doing things. And part of changing is this use of force policy. But I would ask that you understand the use of force policy is just a small piece of where we need to go or where we're going as an agency. So if you look up here on the board, you will see that we're actually our goal is evolving from a traditional type of policing, which is what we've been doing across this country for 40 to 50 years to a more dynamic and innovative approach in policing. So some of the things that we've done and will continue to do in an effort to address the needs of the community and to build a confidence of the community, because I will tell you if we're going to really be successful in really preventing crime, we've got to have the eyes and ears of the residents in this community, the 685,000 700,000 residents, particularly those in residence that are really impacted by the crime. And those are the residents that we probably have the greatest challenge in trying to get on board to work with us. So in an effort to reestablish our relationship with them, there's some things that we needed to do. And what you'll see up on this board is just a few of those things. If you look at the policies you will see in an effort to kind of build that relationship, we had to change. We had to change some of our policies, shooting into vehicles, individuals that are, that are, that we make arrests and they're ingesting the drugs. Instead of aggressively trying to extract those drugs for them, we had to, we had to do something different as a relation, that duty to intervene. When one officer sees another officer doing something that is totally inappropriate, that also has a responsibility to report that. There's a decision making model that I will talk about. Deescalation, which is part of the use of force policy in which I was talking about duty to render first aid. You know, I have a, I ought to give the story about Hill Street Blues. Many of you are too young to even know about Hill Street Blues. But I'm sure the chief of staff who's here, Alan Salazar, he and I are probably familiar with Chief Hill Street Blues. I don't know if anybody else is familiar with him. Anyway, it's a TV show that came on a long time ago. And at the end of the TV show, the sergeant would stand up like this, talking to the officers and say, now what I want you to do is to be able to go home at the end of the day to your families. So when we talk about duty to render aid, those individuals that are actually creating a threat to us, other than it being a daily threat, those individuals are creating a threat to our residents. We want them to go somewhere at the end of the day, other than at the end of a bullet in the head shot by a police officer wanting to go to jail, get into the court system to go somewhere. That's the sanctity of life. And if they are injured, after making sure that it is safe, we have a responsibility to render first aid to them also. So those are the changes that we really have to make. And some of the things that we're doing to get there is we have a brand new model as it relates to how we train police officers in the academy. We're in the process of spending additional 40 hours on ethnic training implicit bias training, sanctity of life. I talked about that. I deal with mental illness responses in a more empathetic, sympathetic way. Less lethal force, again, which will be part of the conversation on our new use of force policy and how we deal with parties to the suicidal. So all of those things are our approach of trying to build trust to reestablish trust in the communities as it relates to them helping us get our arms around what I think our primary responsibility is. And that's the prevention of crime. Now, how does all of that? What that really means is what we have been doing traditionally has to change. Now, how does our use of force policy fit into this change from traditional policing to dynamic and innovative policing? This is all about the use of force policy. Traditionally, this is what we've done. We have been taught that as long as all sorts of actions are legal, they're originally doing things that are okay. And that's the frustration that I think that you see in policing across this country. You know, I'm kind of the opinion again, and this is based on a lot of years of doing this and speaking to a lot of the police chiefs that we've operated on a standard of legal for years and years and years and that was the comfort zone that we're in. But I think we've got to evolve to a more dynamic and innovative approach in policing. So what we have, what we've talked about and what we're training our police officers on is not just good enough to be legal when they make actions. We want those actions to be not only legal, but to be necessary to be appropriate and to be and to be reasonable. Now, I've had the opportunity to talk to over maybe 500 police officers in this agency, with just me and the police officers, no supervisors, no management. And the one thing that frustrates them and the one thing that we've talked about and I wanted them to understand is they're they're a little frustrated because they're of the opinion. Sometimes they're involved in something controversial, controversial, not meaning right or wrong. And they get blasted as a as a relation. They get involved in the shooting and they don't get convicted by the DA. They don't get suspended or fired by myself based on or my recommendation to the executive director of safety. And she concurred with that and they don't even get suspended because their actions were deemed to be appropriate. But yet they get blasted in the media. They get blasted in part of the community. So what I share with them is people are not really questioning. Sometimes they think they're questioning the officers actions were illegal. But what they're really questioning is where the officers actions necessary. So that's why it is critically important and I use the force policy that we're that we're going to do. Eventually have is we go from this legal standard and we train officers on the importance of not only making decisions that are legal, but making decisions that are necessary that and that are reasonable and that are appropriate. So we're raising the bar and and we've talked about that and I will tell you that most of the men and women of our department is pretty much on board with as a relation that. So this new policy will will talk about that in some great detail. Additionally, we're going to address stand your ground officers have and I've been a policeman for 40 years and I was trained this way also. And then fortunately of late we still train officers on this. We train officers to to be trained not to not to give up the ground with dealing with a volatile situation. You got to stand your ground. You got to be like a cat that's been forced to be in a corner. You got to react. The more dynamic. Innovative way of policing is half officers adapt to the situation while maintaining control, keeping themselves and others safe officers ability to utilize additional resources and increase options. Don't stay in your ground is is always doing it. But what we want you to do is when you're in these situations, we want you to think use your use your intellectual skills and don't be so rigid on saying, I got to get a I got to get a resolution. I got to do something right away. We want you to maintain control and keep yourself and others out of harm's way. Don't rush into the situation. Traditionally, we have done under use of force and flexible citizens complaining that officers very rigid and disrespectful. More effective way of doing it is officers are now being taught to maintain control and apply professional manner while demonstrating heightened emotional intelligence. Simple as way to put this is what I tell my I have three kids about one of her daughter, she requires very little supervision, but I have two sons, they require a lot of supervision. And what I tell them is the same thing that I have a lot of conversations with our internal affairs. We look at the complaints and most of these complaints is a result of not what they also say but how they said it. You would be absolutely amazed a number of complaints that we get from citizens just basically that are based on the tone in which the officers address them. I've even had citizens commend officers for giving them a ticket, but they commend them for giving them not for just getting the ticket but how they approach them, how polite, how courteous, how responsive they were and when they gave the individual that ticket. And then I've had citizens who got stopped by police officers, never got the ticket, got a warning, yet they rushed to a complaint because they didn't like the attitude and the rigid approach that the officer took in addressing them. So we're really, really advocating and demanding that officers understand the importance of being respectful and how impactful that is and being impartial and understanding is not what you say, it's how you say it. Traditionally, heard response, regardless of the situation and possible danger to all parties involved, officers were well trained to resolve situations as quickly as possible and they do it quickly as possible for a couple reasons. Number one, so they get back out and start answering them on calls for service. A much more dynamic and innovative way of doing that is when possible it also is a tort to slow down, slow the response to the situation, allow for critical thinking. And many times this really is a safety issue for individuals that are that are being victimized as a relationist, individuals that are suspects as a relationist and to the also safety. So we're really encouraging officers to don't be so quick to jump into a scenario without thinking through where you are. Now I was a Swatman in Washington D.C. for many years and part of our training was to when we get into a barricade or a hostile situation to really think through the situation, slow down, secure security area, make sure we're safe, make sure everybody else safe, do everything we can to see how we can deescalate the situation versus trying to get an immediate response that can sometimes only escalate a bad situation into being worse. Traditionally, enforcing officers react to crime. They focus on eradicating crime through enforcement. This often is referred to as they say it's a war or a crime. Everybody should be a war against crime. Dynamic innovative approach and hence crime prevention through relationships with the community. Officers who are an integral part of the community are sought for hiring and training. The bottom line is, you know, and this is, I thought about this today. I don't know how this is going to go across. You know, we get hard and as police chiefs across the country, we say we need more police officers. And sometimes, I think, people think that we need more police officers so we can respond, so we can have a better response time to these calls to service. And we get criticized out of the department like most departments. There are certain individuals who criticize out of the response time. They don't think that we're getting there quick enough. They don't think that we're making enough police, enough arrests. But think about it. We want more police officers so we don't have to make the response time. So we don't have to make the arrests. That's the prevention part of policing. You know, you, some of us think that officers are being hired so they can have a quicker response time so they can make more arrests. Technically, if we're doing it right, officers should be hiring. So the response time goes down because the less calls they go to. The arrest goes down because we've done things interacting with the community, integrating our relationships with the community that will result in using the intelligence that they give us that will actually prevent crime from even occurring. Traditionally. Is that, was that the last one? So, you know, this is what's going to come out as a result. This is, we've been questioned greatly by a few that seems to get the attention of many. How come you're not a proponent for community engagement? Well, there could not be a more inaccurate statement. I'm a great proponent for community engagement. And some of you are going to leave here and you're going to go talk to individuals who you know that will give you a different perspective of this policy, particularly as it relates to community engagement because they will, they will say that community engagement is our responsibility as citizens to make sure that we have a relationship with the police department to the degree that we even need to help write the policies. I've heard them. I understand that. And to a lesser degree, I agree with that to some extent. But given the magnitude of this particular policy, you be mindful that this policy that we're going to put out as a draft, by the way, has implications on about 10 other policies that we have. So one of the things that we had to do prior to even getting it where we can get the community input, is look at all those other policies that are implicated that have some implication behind this particular policy. So my staff spent a lot of time looking at those other policies, making sure that these pieces are all kind of connected. So we've done that in an effort to get community engagement, which I'm a great opponent of, what we decided to do in this particular case is send out a draft of this policy to the entire community. Not just those that are constantly kind of criticizing us on community engagement, community engagement, what that means. So I think we've got the policy to the point where we've addressed the implications it has on all the other policies that are impacted by this to the point where I feel comfortable enough where we can send this out to the community. And this is a policy that's been well tested, by the way, by many police departments across the country by 21st century policing that on task force that was done by it, that was done by it at the direction of the mayor and by Perf which is a police executive research board which looks at best policies across the country and creates best practices across the country which I'm an executive member of that board, by the way. So this policy has taken all that in consideration but what it hasn't taken in consideration is the diversity of our community and the community's opportunity to have a voice in what we do as a relation to this and why we do it. So after factoring in all those other nuances is all the other policies and factoring in what else is going on around the country as it relates to use of force policy. We've come up with this draft that you will also have a copy of and we're asking the community to look at this draft and if they have any thoughts or perspectives that they want to share with us that will help enhance this they can go to DPD planning at Denvergov.org and we'll track all that information and we'll review that information and if it's in the best interest of this community as relates to use of force and if it's something that the men and women in our department can do we will absolutely insert it into the final copy. Questions? Hal, what's the rollout here with training your officers and when you actually hold them accountable to the standards of your old one? That's a great question. We're going to, I wish I had my training director here, we're going to probably start training them even before it gets into a final form. So now I'm going to commit him to it, he's not here. I would say that within the next two or three weeks we'll actually start training our officers and actually those officers that are in the academy down at recruits they've been getting a taste of what's expected of them as it relates to this policy already. But as it relates to all the officers that are currently on the street that will probably start certainly by no later than close of this particular month. Again, and prior to the policy being released we are going to have to retrain or educate the entire department on how we expect for them to implement that policy. So you think it'll take a year before they're actually held accountable? How long will it take? Do you know at 1,400? Yeah, well actually we'll authorize 1,503 so I'd like to use that number but you write the actual bodies that we have is probably somewhere closer to 1,460 or so. So it's going to take, it's a top priority. So given it as something that we control I would say that within six months everyone should probably be pretty much trained on what needs to be done and how to implement it. How long are you keeping this kind of open-ended opportunity for the community to either provide their input perspective or their additions? How long can that? Well, actually all of our policies you can actually go online and look at those policies and if somebody wants to weigh in on it we certainly will take that. But it relates to this particular opportunity to do that given the significance of this policy is really why we're doing that. So when there are policies that we think really have a significant impact on the community at large I certainly would not be opposed to putting it at your app form and giving the community an opportunity to comment on it. You talked a lot about other departments and other cities that are implementing some of these things already. I'm just curious if there is a city that you look at is like if we could be like them it would be great or is it just? Yeah, there is. What city? Great. Rock you down? Yeah. Denver? And I was you know I'm familiar with promos of every major city in America and some of them do it better and some there's some things that are done in New York that we that we duplicate that some things that are done in Washington that we duplicate. And I will tell you there are many things that are done in Denver that those departments duplicate. So I'm very proud, you know and this is not to say what we were doing was wrong. I think we have responsibility to compete to always evolve and figure out how we can do things better and more effectively. And and I say with great confidence that we're probably one of the more progressive departments in the country. Yes, sir. Chief, do you have some officers express concern that that changes to what they're able to do is is going to put their lives. No, they haven't but that's not to say that they won't. But I think once they get the policy and they read it carefully and we train them and do a thorough job in training them, I would say and hopefully they will say when it's all said and done, it actually puts them in a better situation and actually makes them safer. So instead of rushing into a dangerous situation when you don't have to rush into a dangerous situation, we're going to give them some tools to evaluate it more effectively to use time and distance and space to their advantage while at the same time not compromising the severity of the scenario that they're being confronted with. So in a long run, this policy will actually make it safer for police officers. But yeah, initially, I think when they get it and they look at it or they see this interview, there will probably be some that will have a lot of questions as it relates to their safety. Then it becomes our responsibility to elate those by making sure they have the accurate information. And then I wanted to ask to a question about accountability too because if you're an officer that's been doing things this way for so many years, sometimes it's hard to change if you get into a situation where you're making quick decisions and they use the whole policy. You know what, that is a great question. You know, in the fix to transforming police departments is not just policies. We have to change what we value. We have to change what we reward. We have to change who gets promoted and why they get promoted. So I think once, and we've been doing this for five years, by the way, there are 100 policies in the Denver Police Department. And there's members of my staff back there that their responsibility is to look at every policy that we have. How progressive is that policy? Is that a policy that is a traditional policy that's outdated or is it a policy that can be transformed into something that is innovative and dynamic at least the standard, the bar that's been raised by this community. So we're looking at every single policy that we have. And I think all sorts are seeing that. I mean, all sorts who get reward traditionally and we have an award ceremony. And traditionally, and it's not just this department, I've worked in five departments and I know about almost every major department and it also gets involved in a shooting. It's a justified shooting. So at the award ceremony, it also gets a medal. That's a culture. So the change is now and also is involved in a life-threatening situation. And the officer doesn't shoot because the officer use time distance of the space to his advantage and they de-escalate the situation. That's the officer that's going to get the award. An officer at an award ceremony, I was one of those officers in Washington D.C., make thousands of arrests at the award ceremony. You get an award for making so many arrests. Traditional. A more innovative way and the message you want to send, you have officers that are connecting with their coworkers that has the same precinct that they have and they're working with the community and they're working with things to prevent the crime from being occurring. So they wouldn't have to make the arrest. Those are the officers that should be getting the medals at the award ceremony. So it's changing the culture. And I think when officers understand that the culture is changing and they understand what we value and how they're going to be successful, I think they will automatically, in some it takes longer than others because change is tough, they will automatically understand this is how we do things now. And they will get on board as it relates to that. When did you give this policy to officers? It, the command staff probably had it, I don't know, maybe a month ago. And we went back and forth as it relates to that. The OSHAs received it today. How long might the public, how long will it be before the public realizes, hey, there's been a change. And I'm not just talking about hearing it, you're seeing it, but actually seeing the results of it and the city council seeing the results of it. You know, again, that's a great question. And you can kind of, you can help us out as it relates to that. But first as it relates to this policy, into February 4th, so it will be out when people will have it until February 4th to get feedback as it relates to that. As it relates to how long will it be before the public sees a change? And I will tell you that my government supervisor, that's one of the more frustrating concerns that she has. She understands that we've made a lot of changes in our department in the last five years, but they're just parts of the community that really don't see those changes. They don't understand those changes. So now that becomes our responsibility, my responsibility, the main woman in this department, UC sitting back there, our responsibility to continue to connect with the community, to show them what we're doing, explain to them what we're doing, making sure they have a voice in what we're doing. That is a big shift. It's like changing the culture. It's a big shift trying to turn around and it just doesn't happen overnight. But as opportunities like this, I think they will slowly kind of resonate. We have to continue to do these things. We have to continue to give them an opportunity to have a voice in some of the things that impact the quality of life in those particular neighborhoods. I have to continue to get those six district commanders and they've done a phenomenal job to have an advisory board of citizens to represent the other citizens in large in their geographical area, to meet on a regular basis, to hear what they have to say and to exchange with them what we're doing as relates to our responsibility to ensure that their neighborhoods are particularly safe. I mean, we just got to continue to knock on the doors and to tell our story and to listen to what individuals have to say and figure out how we can work together to get their confidence, but really all for the purpose of preventing the crimes from occurring. How will you measure success? Are you going to look at if your use of force numbers drop or do you have another way to measure that this is effective? I measure success, maybe not so much by, I mean numbers, we use numbers, but I measure success by perception also. You go into a neighborhood that's been challenged socially, economically and from a crime perspective and from a crime perspective, what do those residents think about their police department and our efforts as it relates to that? See, because if the residents really don't feel connected with us and if they don't feel that we're out there listening to what they have to say, it really doesn't matter how much crime we decrease because we're still dealing with a perception. So obviously we deal with the numbers and I gave you four examples earlier how we measure crime as it relates to numbers, but we also have to really deal with the perception of crime. So where we were last year to this year, what's happening in our region, what's happening to other cities and what is the perception of the community and how engaged are we with that community and does the community, to go back to the other question that was asked, does the community realize what we're doing? Anything else? With that, just a point of clarification because you're saying that officers will likely be trained here starting in the coming weeks. It'll take about six months or so to kind of get the department all on board with this new draft policy. On here it says, excuse me, that officers or this will not be in effect until officers receive this training. So are we anticipating that this policy will be what's in the books, by mid to late summer? Now February the 4th, people will have an opportunity, we welcome that input. So we're gonna take all that information on February the 4th and I will tell you in less than a week that information we reviewed and anything that's gonna be entered into the final draft will be done within the week following February the 4th. I'm looking at that, the captain back there who has a responsibility just sort of cringed a little bit when I said that. So within a week of getting the feedback from the community and from the officers, we're gonna take a look at that and we're gonna formulate a final draft. We're gonna formulate a policy as a result of that. So there will be a policy in place at the very latest, late February, March the 1st. Yes. Are you changing discipline policy to match this? I mean we, as you wanna know, well there's a matrix that's in place and that was something that was certainly negotiated and worked on certainly prior to my time. There's some wiggle room in that matrix that permits you to mitigate some things or to aggravate some things based on the scenario. So obviously we'll use the grade that we have in the matrix to either mitigate things that are occurring, that are consistent with our policy or to aggravate those things. But we're pretty much governed by having to live by that matrix. Anything else? Great. Again, I sincerely appreciate you all coming here. Happy new year and certainly safe travels back to your workstation.