 So let's go around for the purposes of camera and let's do quick this time. Maybe just say who you are Particularly, you know, everyone say what they do. The officers will say maybe your role What you do in the department and then for the community members, you know Maybe tell a little bit about how long you've been here and and what you do in the community And then I still have Jen I have a couple prompts and things that I think that kind of taken up what we talked about last time But after we do introductions if anybody has something burning or something They want to Kind of present to have us talk about it's open I've been really pleased that respectful nature of the conversations is a good thing But within that, you know, it's all open. You know, we're trying to get down to the nitty gritty. So My my opinion is don't hold back. No pulled punches if you have something on your chest or out public safety About police about race Let's talk because this is as safe as an environment. I think I think we're going to get to have those conversations So I'll start on Kyle Dotton. I'm the director of police transformation in Burlington been doing that for five and a half months And when I'm not doing that, I'm the CEO here at the YMCA Uh, I'm John Mira. I'm the acting chief of police at the Burlington police department Eric Radigal, I'm a detective at Burlington police. I've been there for 10 years So Rashieddin's I'm a poet and Facilitator I use spoken word and performance art as a tool to confront white supremacy Into a firm common humanity and also for deep mentorship and positive affirmation of community I'm sorry About the Living Burlington himself Tasha's I'm a community member at Born and Wraiths in Burlington, and I'm called... My name? I am a Sergeant. I've been here for about a little over 68 years. I'm Wayne Labracco. I'm the acting Deputy Chief of Operations. I've been a police officer in Burlington for 20 years. And you grew up in Burlington? And I did grow up in Burlington until I was like 9 or 10. I'm Craig Mitchell. I'm a local DJ. I live in Manuski. I grew up here in 989, go to school at St. Michael's College, graduated in 93. I'm a DJ, a singer, a music producer, and I try to do as much community outreach and social justice work as I can in the ways that I do it. And I helped start Winn-U-T Strong, which is doing very, very well to help inform about what the needs are of BIPOC communities as well as to help fund some of their hard work that they're doing. Out in the streets and trying to make changes. I'm Joe Coro, patrol officer. I've been with the department a little over 8-ish years. And I grew up in S-Extension, so I'm born and raised here. Sorry, Tracy. And I lived here about 30 years thanks to my sister, who doesn't live here anymore. From New York City, which is a totally different beast. And I've just tried to, you know, have influence in town just by doing what I do, you know? And being a part of it. So, yeah. Congratulations. I just want to point out, I think Tracy represents the movement where we want the conversation to go. So, from last time that we got together, and there was a little spot on the news. And so, Tracy saw that. She reached out to me and said she wanted to be a part of it. So, we invited her in. From this, there's going to be more CX coverage. And I hope that more people will come in. We'd love to bring in new officers. Thanks, Joe. So, Joe was talking with his colleagues, and he said that he'd like to be a part of it. So, we want to grow. We want to have this be as broad as possible, get as many different stakeholders representing different perspectives about how we help to transform the police and how we get better alignment between community expectations and what BGD understands is their job, and hopefully in that process grow trust and connection. So, with that, why don't we jump right in? I don't know. I have some thoughts, but does anyone have anything they want to cover? I just want to say, please, just as a community member, thank you to the officers and the chief for being here and being willing to be open and willing to be vessels to accept information. Also, to disseminate information. To hear what we have to say, and we're willing to hear what you have to say, and I think this is a safe space to do that. So, I appreciate all the folks that are here, especially the folks that haven't been to the meeting yet. And that's the point right there, disseminate information, please. So, I don't want to speak for them, but I would say that the positive buzz about these conversations that officers appreciate the opportunity to be heard and to share their peace, I think, got back to Joe and made Joe say, hey, I could be part of that. So, I think that's important to point out, Frank, that we want officers to want to come talk with community, be part of these conversations. We need to be here. We may think we know how hard your job is, but until we're in your shoes, we don't know. So, with that said, we want to hear how hard the job is and the things that are scary and the things that freak you out and things that put you on edge so that we, as folks who are commoners, don't have a better idea when we're thinking about policing and what needs to change and what doesn't need to change. Thank you for saying that. It's super important that that's two ways, too, because, certainly, I think the things that we heard both in the previous conversation we had on the phone and then the one that we had here two weeks ago now were both important. I know that the Deputy Chief of Rec said so. The idea of hearing how encounters are perceived from the other side and how interactions go from all sides is incredibly important there, too. It's certainly not... This isn't an opportunity for officers to say, well, it's us. And it's not an opportunity for the community to say it's either. It's just a chance to move forward. I'm not supposed to be talking to these things directly to thousands. I'll let you know when you speak to us. Any burning topics? Anything you want to address? If not, I've got thoughts, but also... Let's jump in. I thought, why don't we start with the issue of staffing? Does everyone, just to give a quick primer for people, what I'm speaking about is the resolution in June at City Council voted to decrease the size of the Burlington Police Department from 105 budgeted sworn officers to 74, approximately 30% reduction. One of the... Ultimately, in this time of defund the police, abolish the police, arguably Burlington is one of the more aggressive... So an actual 30% cut that went through would be one of the more aggressive places that happen around the country. And so we're now at the point... I'll let DC The Brunk or the Chief kind of correct me, but I feel like the last number I heard is 78 effective. So we are now... It gets a little complicated, but there are 78 officers available to go out and patrol the city. So from 105, there are now effectively 78 available, which puts some squeeze, puts pressure on things. And I thought it might be interesting to have a conversation. Get people's thoughts about... Please feel free to share your thoughts about defund generally. What happened here in Burlington? If you have thoughts about the number. If you have thoughts about the information that's come out about the number, the way the press has covered it. Once again, my sense is no holds barred. Whatever if you've thought about police staffing, then I think we should talk about it here. Aside all of the other things I feel, I'm going to put those on the shelf for now. As someone who works in this town till at least three in the morning, I'm sorry, how many people did we lose and guess what? It all comes down to the times when I'm still working and other people that I know are still working. Well, guess what? When something happens and we need help, it's not that the police department couldn't, but if the staffing isn't there on third shift, it affects more people than people who want these cuts to happen realize and that scares me to some degree. Aside from all the other things that are separate right now, but as a bartender and other folks that I work with or have in the past, that's that kind of... I can help bolster your case. Before I became police officer, the last job I had was the manager at Sweetwater. When I was in college at UVM, I worked in a nursing home. Longer is this, like the last chance. The original Finnegan's on St. Paul Street in 8th place when it was there down there on Main Street, but yeah, that's definitely a dangerous time of night. The other thing is to help you out with the staffing too. We have 78, but that actually includes all our detective bureau, the airport and the supervisors. So really the number we have right now available that we're going to work our own next tour is 39. So there's two shifts, day shifts with eight people on either side. There's an evening shift with seven people. There's another evening shift with eight people, eight officers. And then the two midnight teams, we've managed to bolster up to four officers on each midnight team, which is still a safe number, but once we as police officers drop below a certain number, it's not safe for the police officers to be out there too. So yeah, out of that 78, there's really only 39 plus the supervisors with them. So that will bump it up maybe another 11 more. So a total of 50 total cops, including their supervisors, that will be able to work all the shifts that cover the downtown, or sorry, the city of Burlington. So yeah, just to... So the situation here is strange of being involved in the nightlife. What have you observed? What's been your observation in the Burlington Police Department? Good, bad, indifferent? How do they interact? What kind of things do they do? And what would your characterization be of how they show up and interact with the public? Well, it's mostly good. A little bit of a mixed bag. And I think my one constructive piece that I can definitely bring to the table is reminding people that we are not the enemy. The people that work for the downtown, the restaurants and bars are not the enemy. We want to help you guys do your jobs. And I only say this because there are very few, not so great interactions that I've had or I've seen. It could have been approachable. Some things, when it came to interacting with bar staff or whatever, or downtown, and if you needed help, we're not that unapproachable, is what I'm trying to say, I guess. And how can we fix those things, I guess? How can we be a part of the positive process? I don't know if I'm conveying things well enough, but if you know something happened downtown and you're looking for video, someplace like even Esauce has a video camera. Come to us. We can, but it's a simple interaction, I guess. I was like, hey, we're here to help and not hinder a situation that may escalate to where none of us want to go. What I'm saying, hey. Is there anybody who has any sympathy with the defunding? Anyone who thinks there's something to be looked at as a release of the numbers, and perhaps there is a call for decreased numbers. I think the CSOs and CSLs is a great idea to a point. I think the thing that's not being conveyed very well though is we don't want the amount of numbers we had because we don't want the CSOs. The officers want the amount of numbers we had because when we have a shooting or a stabbing, that's how we can make that scene safe. When I have eight police officers to make the scene safe prior to our detectives showing up, that's huge. I know one of the big reasons for defunding is they want less officers on the road. One thing that they want is less officers out there so there's less chances of using force. I totally get that. That in a simple concept makes sense. The problem is the less officers you have on a scene, the more force is going to be used because it's less safe. I don't think the public... It seems counterintuitive. There's a shooting, something goes down. Why do we need eight officers? The shooting is a pretty simple example of that. If we're responding to a shooting, we need to secure the perimeter. We need to talk to witnesses. We need to detain suspects if there are any. We need to gather evidence. If we can't secure that scene, that whole case can go out the window because when we go to court later, they can say, well, the scene wasn't secure so there was evidence tampering. There was this, there was that. What's that involved in? If we have the ability, we'll get crime suit tape put up on our officers on multiple parts of that scene, actually on the perimeter. You're also going to have officers inside helping collect evidence. You're going to have officers inside that are going to be collecting witness statements. You're going to have officers inside that maybe... Let's say it's a house that was just... Somebody just got shot in the house. They now have to clear that house and what that means is they have to go inside and make sure that area is safe and there's nobody else inside that's going to hurt you. And nobody else that needs eight because that's another issue. So when we shoot up on a shooting, if somebody is hurt, we do render eight immediately if we can. Whether that's putting on a tourniquet, placing a chest seal, whatever we can do to help until the Fire Department it's safe for them to come in. And that's the other thing, the Fire Department can't come in until we deem that scene safe and they won't come in until we deem that scene safe. So that slows down the response time for them too if we don't have enough officers to do that. And it'll take a lot longer for us to make that scene safe if we don't have enough officers for that situation. And the other thing is, you know, four officers, five officers on a midnight shift might sound like a lot, but when two of them are in the south then and there's two in the north then at a domestic, now you've got the sergeant trying to handle, you know, a downtown call for a fight. Now you've got the officers spread thin everywhere. We're trying to call for mutual aid, but although the other cities around us aren't as busy as us, they're still busy and they only have two to three officers if they're, you know, if they're lucky and they're dealing with their own stuff. So calling for mutual aid is almost impossible most of the time. A lot of times we get the, we get some mutual aid and they're like, we can't come. We don't have the ability to come right now. They'll come when they can. So we had a scene the other day on North Street where there was, we had an individual, somebody thought gunner had been fired in a house and we got there, it kind of evolved into what appeared to be a mental health issue. It took my entire team, including some day shift officers. So you're looking at over 10 officers and then two sergeants. So 12 officers total plus UVMPD came down to do traffic. So that's one or two more officers. Just for that one scene where we determined there hadn't been a gunfire, it was somebody in mental health crisis. But to get that scene safe enough to determine that we needed that amount of officers to do that. We don't want to go to, we know we're not as well trained as a social worker to go to mental health calls. We don't want to have to go to those. We want to go with a social worker. But prior to getting to that point if it's that type of situation we have to figure out the scene is safe to do so. One way we can get there is if we have an officer to do so. And it's faster that way. And safer for everybody. This is potential. Joe, how long did that North Street from start for? Like when could Cospus first? How long were people tied up? It was about an hour at least. And everybody on shift at that time was tied up. So, and that one was good because the person that needed our help was asking for our help. So it went a lot faster. But if you're looking at like an actual standoff with somebody who's having mental health crisis that can be hours. And that's gonna tie up the entire shift. It may cause us to call in more officers from home to come in early. It may cause us to call in detectives to help us too. So you end up with a lot more officers than I think people realize. And it's hard to see. Like even if you're standing outside of that scene you can't see all the officers working where they are. And I just think that's the biggest thing. We don't want to saturate the city with officers. We don't want to have this show of force. We just want to make the scene safe that we're on. And also if we have that ability to actually make those scenes safe and then we still have more officers that also makes it able for us to actually do other things besides just respond to calls. Like interact with the public in more than just terrible situations because when do people call us? They call us usually on the worst day of their life. We're on a really bad day and we don't really get the chance to have that interaction in their time which also can make it difficult when we show up at a fight and we're looking for video and such. And that's not... That one interaction may be the only interaction we ever have with a police officer. And every officer I work with is always trying to be the best they can at all times. But when you work a 10-hour, 12-hour shift sometimes you make a mistake and you slip up and you say something or your tone's off and it shouldn't be. But we know that that one interaction may be the only interaction we get with you to change your mind about how a police officer acts. And sometimes we make the mistake of having the wrong tone or we say something the way we shouldn't have and we've ruined that interaction. And I know any officer that's been in that situation comes back to the PDF and says, oh man, I wish I'd done this this way. But we'd have more chances to do that if we had enough cops so that we could actually be out in the community... If we can actually be out in the community interacting when we're not just going to police. And right now, thankfully COVID I say thankfully COVID, which seems weird but thankfully last year with COVID we got down a little bit. So it hasn't been quite as crazy but as soon as we go back to normalcy the calls are going to go back through the roof and we'll just be going all the time. So... This is sort of nitty gritty. So what I heard Joe say is that one can make an argument that more officers actually allows for the kind of policing that it seems like communities are asking for. More officers allows is what Joe is telling us. It allows for the kind of control and securing of a setting that allows for greater safety. It allows for time to be out creating relationships interacting with the community in proactive positive ways. Does everyone bother that anyone have any sense that that doesn't jive for you? So this is an argument that if we get to better policing at some level more police will allow us to do that. Clarity too. I'm not a use force instructor myself. I'm a patrol procedure instructor and a couple other... I'm an instructor actually in the escalation too. But one thing I will tell you when I said more force can be... will be used if there's less officers that's actually part of a use force continuum if there's... if I'm one officer and I'm dealing with a person whereas if there's two officers now I can't be expected to use this level force, I should be expected to use this level force which is low. So that's another reason why more police officers on scenes are better. People be marinating on this idea of numbers and maybe more is better so we don't want to come back to that. But Joe brought out some other things. One is he talked about having interactions and on a given day an officer shows up in a way that's not optimal. It's not the way they would best want to show up. But it's the only interaction that that person has with that person in the public. So what comes up in conversations I have with officers is what's the standard we should have for a police officer as a professional to make mistakes. Right? So there's a... in other professions here at the Y we say you're human. If you... if someone on our front desk is surly or with a customer they come in they're going to have a conversation but they're not going to get fired. They're not going to get suspended. They're going to have a conversation about our values and about what we expect and some sense that we need them to be able to figure out what they need to do to show up better for our customers. Is there any a lot of people can talk to on a bad day? Yeah. We're not in your shoes. We don't know that stuff. Just like you don't know where someone else is coming from on the other side. That's where it gets convoluted. And my question to you would be when you get those calls that there's a mental health issue on the other side do you know that before you get there? On all of them or... not really. So I can use that as an example we were... we responded that as a shots fired call. We didn't know there was any mental health involved in it all. Thankfully when we got there and we set up a perimeter and slowed it down a little bit the scene was like I was here earlier this was a mental health complaint. It's so-and-so and then we had a negotiator on scene to start trying to talk to them to figure out how to get help from them. A lot of times we don't know. A lot of times the mental health calls we end up on a lot of times they come out with something else and they turn into mental health calls. Sometimes we do know and we take those a lot slower but when they start out like as a shots fired call that's a little more rapidly involved. Yeah, of course. So a few years ago Howard set up a program for social workers to be downtown and there was outreach and someone who no longer unfortunately lives in the state of Vermont used to actually be one of these people and once he left downtown never saw a hide their hair of anybody. So is the program still functioning? Yeah, they are still functioning but their budget's fairly low and they have very few people to do it. We usually don't have them on the sometimes we do have them on the weekends. We usually don't have them on nights because they don't have the staff to help us. You're talking about the street outreach team, correct? They are amazing. They do great work. I just wish there was more of them. I do too because that is huge for someone who also lives in the mental health world to have that connection to use. It was so easy to not have to call you guys if I knew Justin was in town or that he was around and I'd be like take the body on your personal phone but I can't find your car and you come down and it was great. Unfortunately since California that connection got lost and I'd love to figure out how to make that happen more for everybody involved because I think it would help you guys too. Hugely. They still get sent the calls prior to us going to do so. There's not enough of them to be on every shift that we work. They don't have the funding. Basically Justin left and when Matt passed away their spots were never filled. Because they didn't have the money. So yeah, Justin was amazing. He also worked the evening shift. He was also a night owl. Awesome. It was great. They still do a lot of work behind the scenes. They'll meet with people before they get in crisis. I can speak a lot to Justin because I would ride around with him. Justin was I remember one of his clients cat died and he transported in his car so they could bury it. That's the type of party he was. He was one of the greatest human beings I think I ever met. But he had a list of people too and he would come into work and he would call them and he'd be like I went and saw so and so I brought him a soda and a bag of chips and we would never hear from that person. And that's the kind of stuff I know most of my life would make more jobs so much easier. Instead of maybe considering the talk about defunding it's like no we just need more connections like that to really also destress a lot of everybody's jobs because if I'm dealing with something and then I have to call you guys and there's that no connection it just makes it. It may not even have to do with I serve them or not in my establishment because we've had those interactions too especially more so in the summer when we in the barbeque the buffer is gone and the students leave for the summer and all of a sudden we see that many more faces that we haven't seen for nine months because they're at a home so to speak so it's I don't know if you were both familiar with the street outreach team it's been around for almost 20 years or a little more. I think it was founded in 2000 or 2001 it's run by the Howard Center and it includes social workers and people trained in mental health and they are located primarily in the downtown area but they're out on the street during the day and all the things that both Joe and David said are true. It's not as big as it once was everybody's talking about a person who was there named Justin everyone remembers Justin as being somebody who really had a flare for this kind of interaction and this kind of work but it does exist and it's a team that is routinely called two scenes by police when police get to a scene and recognize that this isn't really up our alley or it's a person who needs some mental health care or needs to be connected with services that we don't necessarily have we bring in street outreach and they bring us in. If they are at a scene or they see something happening downtown it turns into a level of disorder that they are not going to deal with they'll ask officers to respond it's a very collaborative relationship between those two groups and they work well together I just didn't know if you guys knew what the program was or just wanted to fill that in I had to learn a lot of these things when I came here in 2018 and sort of understand a lot of them too Thanks John, I'll just add to that because Joe alluded to so back to the resolution and the decrease in the size of the force from 105 to 74 budgeted officers part of the theory was to redirect those resources towards more street outreach type workers. So that moved to the nomenclature which we already had in Brownington and any of the officers please correct me if I say something wrong so there's two positions Joe says CSO and CSL Community Service Officer Community Support Officer Community Support Liaison Community Service Officer Community Service Officer It's Community Service Officer which is not a sworn officer not armed and is a person who does a lot of work that supplements what officers do animal control issues, some traffic issues but not somebody who has law enforcement powers and is an existing position that we have two of and then the support liaison we have a social worker in the department we've had two one of whom was our opioid coordinator and was instrumental in dealing with the department's opioid approach and city's ComSTAT approach to opioids. She has has retired from our department and is doing other work we have another social worker who is modeling a new position on that existing position and that new position is called a Community Support Liaison or CSL and that doesn't exist yet we do not have people in that role but we want to and the city council has authorized the exploration of that role it gets complicated about how it's going to roll out our work but that is something that we envision being a department based pair to and compliment to what you see with street outreach and none of this is a zero sum game there is plenty of business as it were for all of these roles in Burlington there are plenty of clients who need assistance and plenty of folks who are in a position to be helped by these kinds of roles but it isn't it's a role that we're creating and director Dodson is actually tasked with sort of figuring out how that works so that she said and this is for those who might see the recording I have been tasked with trying to help us figure out so there have been authorized additional CSL resources so one has been created that will be located in VPD there's been authorization for the creation of two additional ones and there's a I'm leading up a process of trying to figure out if it makes sense to locate those outside of VPD so anyone the recording if you see this if you have ideas please reach out and anyone here so this idea because particularly the city council some of the people leading this idea of decreasing the number of gun-toting sworn officers I'm replacing it with a resource that has more of a social work mental health background and putting those people out there to replace the sort of response that would come from an officer with this sort of resource want that to happen and believe that that needs to be outside of VPD that being at VPD compromises not the neutrality but you know I'm paraphrasing what I believe the belief is but there are those who believe that if one believes that the issue of decreasing the police is to have less people who are out there perhaps one not being perfectly suited as Joe says but I think there's also I'm doing this for you know provocation in terms of our conversation but I think there are those who believe that the interaction that an officer has is more aggressive and is of a nature that would be improved if the person were a mental health worker and professional instead of an officer and I'm putting that out there to see if people have thoughts about that shouldn't we have more of these positions should there be some place other than in the police department there should be some place other people have a thought about where that someplace else is but I don't think it necessarily has to be separate why would it have to be separate from the VPD I mean I think that anything that has to do with adding to a more relational and humane capacity or engaging and serving the actual needs of people in their times of duress is valuable I think that because of the nature of the history and the present reality and the narrative of how police originated as an institution that was originally to capture form enslaving and the historical narrative of that to this day is still very much rooted in that same relationship to black people in the descendants of enslaved people here so very causally from that group you still have a lot of people who have fear in terms of engagement in terms of relationship and I think that needs to have more compassionate approach because it's an opportunity to de-escalate if I know that you're not directly associated with somebody who I perceive as harmful whether they may be or not I think it's wise for us to approach things in ways that can allow people's fears to be elated and to have the actual needs in the moments met so that you can find a positive resolution and also develop more of a rapport based on mutual trust that has a foundation in active relationship so I could see how those multiple prongs could be useful in and outside so that if I know you, I see you in the streets, I see you in and out of your capacity I have a valuable relationship with you I trust you, I know you care for me what the well-being for me, for my family it's not a vicious, it's not a power dynamic I think that can really be valuable in order to approach it that way I think that just like I graduated from high school three years ago and I was just thinking that this would be really interesting and I think beneficial addition to the police presence in schools, I think that just from different situations that I witnessed at the high school when a lot of people are having hard times and that might have come out in different forms and correction in school settings that that might have been a really good de-escalation tactic and just having that support mixed with the like more certain that the police officers had in the school, that that created a really combined relationship with the students doing this. There's an interesting thing that Lucy and Rajni brought up, but I think part of what Rajni I like the history and I think you're refutable I don't know if anyone wants to refute the idea that at some level the idea of public safety and who was being kept safe back in the time when they were enslaved people, part of it was to keep enslaved people enslaved and to manage runaways etc. So what's come up for me as we watch this I wonder what the group thinks is when I talk to and when I would talk to BTD I would say that when we start talking about policing one of the issues is that for BIPOC folks I don't think it is geographically or time-bound right? So as a black man experienced in 2016 where I was completely innocent I'm driving my car the cops stopped me with no clear reason that I could see pull me out of the car, rough me up cuff me do whatever then that's cop behavior and I probably through that trauma don't really take the time that's hard for me to say well that's just to Cleveland please first and trauma works in a way that it now becomes my experience and I will probably tend to sort of expound or you know cause that experience to be more comprehensive than it is in my mind's eye and I think part of this moment is I'm asking the group what do you think about that in terms of it seems irrefutable and interestingly this moment where we're in jury selection for Derek Chauvin in the George Floyd event that is it appropriate to ask the community to only judge Burlington police on what Burlington police do is it irrelevant the way police behave elsewhere to our community's transformation or is there some way that that reality should be brought to bear on Burlington and if that's the case what's that look like what is the argument for why it is appropriate to bring in these national occurrences where even officers officers will agree that certain of these events were murder or killing this was inappropriate this was bad police work this person should be held accountable officers will agree with that is it fair and appropriate what does it move us forward to bring that reality that those police do behave in that way and it is problematic should we bring it to our conversation what's that look like to what degree how much should but I just don't think we can expect to hold it to everybody you see what I'm saying does that make sense like yes we need to look at those things and how we can be there as a town and use those as teaching tools so that we can move on there are so many but we have there are so many examples of different things that good and bad but we have to remember to keep the good there too like as learning tools and not forget that yes there are good people even in major cities where they have these huge problems where it's that's all they see the negative is all they see so I think it's key to not forget those things or pretend that they don't exist just because it doesn't happen in Burlington or on that scale it's hard to say that it's so relevant as you pointed out as we were talking about everyone brings their own baggage their own trauma to a situation and no one knows what someone's carrying with them when they get there one of the things that we can take with us whether in this conversation or just in life when I talked about last week or two weeks ago we all grew up with the bad guy being the black guy who's getting hauled off and carried off the jail and everyone else was always going to beat his ass so our ideas of what a civilian should be and how they will be treated by police and our police are going to quote unquote treat us no matter who we are it's all been shaped by what we saw as children growing up and unfortunately there are people who are there in the system who are there for the reason that is the negative with that said on the other side there are folks that can't get rid of that trauma because that one incident that they either saw on television or that happened to them or happened to one of the family members they're carrying that baggage with them and so no matter what it's the woman that we talked about a couple weeks ago that I saw on the news where she was being pulled over woman of color the lights went on she freaked out and just kept driving out of fear three or four miles later she finally pulled over the cop came over and asked her to open the door and then said can I give you a hug I'm really sorry because you have to fall in her eyes and that should not be where our citizens are feeling about how they feel about our police officers so to say that we can't make it about the national when you watch 8 minutes and 45 seconds okay that's going to shake someone's brain that's going to make it so that someone's fearful don't want to be fearful of you or you and I'm not fearful of anyone in this room I am fortunately am Craig Mitchell I have a little bit more of a steak in this town and people know me I had the one incident that we talked about a couple weeks ago I fixed it it was done but not every person of color that moves in this town has the phone number of the police chief and say hey can I talk to you not everyone has the phone number of the mayor to hey it's just happening last night can we talk about this I had those situations and I moved that situation to a more positive as opposed to harping on it and making it into a negative so it depends on the person and what they can bring to the table and what they can as far as their own person afforded I think that's important Craig it makes it I love people's thoughts about Craig's justice variable it depends on who you are but that makes it challenging right it does make it challenging because ideally me Roger Craig Vincent and the boy over here Olivier should have the same experience or something reasonably the same I would probably say that in this town my experience is similar to Craig it's a fairly high profile position there's a good chance that someone might know who I am or I have a connection or something I could do that can play into it but should it take that it should just be so once again back to if we do if it is reasonable to somehow bring the national reality and the national conversation into what we do here in Burlington what's the appropriate what's that look like how do we bring it in where do we draw the line we say well we consider it up to this point then we gotta come local or like Roger said is there something about the history of policing there's a a colleague and a friend I don't know who anybody know Rashad Shabazz I was trying to know Rashad Shabazz that's UVM and he wrote a book and he wrote the book was called something along lines of the carceral space but incarceration the carceral space and he did this research where he showed that in the early 20th century there were vice neighborhoods drugs, sex prostitution etc and they were fairly diverse because it turns out that the enjoyment of those things doesn't break down a lot of racial lines there'll be all sorts of diversity there'll be all sorts of diversity in those environments but over time it appears I don't know the history of other people but it seems like there was a crackdown communities decided that those things weren't wanted there was a driving out and then often in those same neighborhoods concentrated black neighborhoods and those are places that became housing projects and then housing projects many people felt like it was a carceral space so that's our history and that's what police were at least in part part of the construction of these spaces has that impacted the psyche has it impacted the profession is it part of how one sees the job and that we should hold people accountable for that or is that unreasonable? what do we do with this? I feel like this is where we're stuck I want us to dig in here because I think what I hope for these conversations is, and I like it, but it does not be an issue in other people's perspective if these conversations are just kumbaya it does not service because it ain't kumbaya out there so if we kumbaya we're kind of wasting our time because we're not getting down to the difficult stuff because we have difficult things to work through I'm hoping that this environment gives us an opportunity to work through the difficult stuff doesn't make the difficult stuff go away one of the things that sticks out to me is in the last year we've seen a lot of things pushed forward and we are, I'll tell you right now I'm the Vice President of the Union we are not against any change as long as it's positive and it's actually useful change as long as it's not rushed because that's the biggest thing, if you rush something you go on really fast one simple one I'll give you is the legislature pushing for the privilege of shantelaw privilege of shantelaw makes sense I should not choke you out right that's terrible, that should not be okay I should not put my I should definitely not put my foot on your neck but that should not be something I should normally do granted though, if I'm fighting for my life against somebody anybody in this room starts fighting me and we're both fighting for our lives it's a very dangerous technique because it'll send me to jail for 20 years that's a very dangerous thing to do because now what are my other options as a police officer in that situation when I'm fighting for my life and I think that's something that when I'm talking about something pushed through too fast they're now going back on that and they're determining that if you end up in a situation where you're fighting for your life that will be okay but it has to be that exact situation which we've said all along we agree that that makes sense we don't use these techniques I don't want to use that technique in a situation where I feel that I'm going to die because that's the only time it would seem like I would need to do but I guess what I'm saying is that we want to change and we want to change the way that we do things in a positive light whichever way works but we want to do it together and we want to actually talk about it because we've been left without a conversation for the last year pretty heavy my name was on a sign for six months in the park and that gets to you over time especially when you know that's not you that's not the person that you are I was never brought into the conversation though nobody ever talked to me they just watched a video on the side of anything of exactly who I was and what I was about and that's not true I think you're right we can't think you're going to have a whom by all conversation but we need to have a conversation and people need to be real about that conversation if you watch that video and that made you decide who I was I'd love to sit down and talk and change your mind because that's not who I am you saw a very short video obviously I can't really talk about it due to the situation but you saw a very short video and I've been working at the police department for almost seven years as a police officer and that's just eight minutes you know there's a lot of other things I've done in the police department there's a lot of arrests I've made there's a lot of people I've dealt with who wouldn't agree with that video wouldn't agree with what's been said about me in that video so I think really what we need to do is talk about how we move forward but work we come and compromise where it makes sense if you leave us out of the conversation when it comes to reform you will miss things because there are things that we know because we do this job every single day we're not against changing anything but it has to make sense and it has to work not to go back to defunding I get what the idea is and I want there to be funding for social services they should have their own separate funding so they can actually stand up on their own and we should have funding so that we can have these CSLs and they do their jobs and they handle these certain calls that's perfect that is exactly what every police officer does this job wants we want to focus on the things that are keeping people safe that's what we want to do so yeah we can have these conversations we need to bring in the national you can't ignore it you need to bring in that information and you need to look at what we're doing right now this is what happened here like Derek Sheldon for example I don't know if you all know this but that technique that he used for some reason was in the Minneapolis use of force policy that was the approved technique that technique that he used was approved in their policy so my first question would be I feel like that we approve in our policy we go through a policy we will not file in our policy it actually stated in our use force policy it stated you will not use a neck restraint unless you are in a situation where you are in deadly force so that would be the first thing let's compare those two and see are they similar at all what do we need to change about them which was done a little bit the use force was reworked and then yeah going through looking at the national issue what can we change about them I think that's where you start what can we change what we're doing that makes sense and what are we already doing correctly because that's something that gets ignored too are we doing anything right for all the cops that I work with it doesn't feel like it we feel like we can't do anything right and that's hard it's hard to come to a job where we feel like you can't do anything right it makes you want to stay away from your public because you feel like you're demonized that's why we have so many cops leaving well sadly it's sort of like it reminds me of the WWF the bad guy that comes in and they're known as the bad guy and people boo them when they come in and throw stuff at them and then here comes a good guy but they're both going to do the same thing to each other once they get in that situation not saying that this is the same exact thing but that's you always look at as a bad guy you're demonized and for some folks after a while I'm sure that gets to them and gets them to a point where they are rage and they're like oh man you call me a jerk then I'll be a jerk and that unfortunately is also what happens and I go back to what you said for a second I love the idea of or at least I'm thinking about the idea of high schools and officers and social workers inside I can imagine an officer in a high school that was the nicest person in the world who is crazy and of course I haven't seen him in a while I'm sorry? yes and he's amazing I love his personality the way that I've seen him interact with students it's like hey officer he's a butt as opposed to I'm scared of that and I think that's more of what's needed there's someone there to keep folks safe but it's also your friend to keep an eye on you and make sure you're safe and what are you doing get your butt over here and I'm gonna pin you down and now I'm gonna be the guy that you saw on television that you're scared of well it's also preconceived notions that in every little community that still has of each other and it drives me crazy listening just even on a Sunday afternoon you know I have we were talking about the cross-section of people that come see me there's a bunch of restuarant people that play different music that's not the dance music and all of a sudden I'm hearing commentary and preconceived notions and that's just living day to day forget about the other the preconceived notions of people in a job and it's like I've had to stop conversations when I've heard people interrogatory towards another group and I put in a very plain and simple words of like okay they're clean respectful pay their tubs what's the difference labels excuse you why are you throwing stones and I think it makes me wonder we're in the 20 something century and it's like we're still everyone still walks around that little baggage of like preconceived somethings of a group of people and some days I get tired of trying to be the teacher on a daily basis of like not but we still have to do it you know and it's how do we change and I think you have a good point of like starting younger and having those interactions in school like where they see different you know different perspectives of what an officer might be they're not going to be you're changing those perspectives just living your life as the cop that goes to the school you know are you ready I'm just talking about James that too the last thing that I want to do is to hurt someone like that's not what I sign up to do I don't want to hurt people I want to talk to them but at some point when you're physically being targeted you have to get a fight for your life and you know being somebody that actually did have to fight with life through a way of telling to deny and jump on the bike path with me by myself with three folks and you know I had to fight for my life until back in camp like six minutes and thirty seconds on my back you know you're talking about where like 60 pounds of stuff on you I'm like five five hundred point out at the time I'm like chasing after these folks you know for a while you're like without extra weight on your wind and then you have to fight for your life perhaps you know if you don't want to hurt these people know but you know and they almost took my eye out you know that night so you know with that said you know it all come down to training and in order to train you have to have in order to have a better interaction in public you gotta have training and you know comfortable training but yeah they all come down to public growth and in order to have public growth we have to be able to serve you better and when it comes down to serve you better we have to have support we have to have opposite to be able to do all that you know training is minimal right now we barely have training we do what we can but you know how do you we don't provide the training that they do there's that problem as well you know I left big down in 1990 and I can tell you on the left over there people in Vietnam they hear the the cops they hear you know like I would not want to go to the police over there and report something you know like if I see a police officer I would not want to go to the police station and say hey that officer did something bad whatever immediately you'd be targeted you could do whatever and when I came here you know I lived here I grew up here and when I decided I wanted to you know join the police force because I don't want to make a difference and this is the only PD that I joke because I'm like well this is the most diverse place this is where I can make the most of my skills of my language so this is the you know so when I sign up it's not that people do not hurt so you know like like it's hard to serve the public when you don't have the resource and the means to do that you know like every single order I go to I want to make the best that I can do I want to make the last impression so that way you know the police are not bad but without the enough resources we're not going to put in a situation where we're not going to be responding to a back up depending on how so that in turn I think will make it worse not better Before you move on this, this is thank you Sergeant One for sharing move into you know I think there's some value in these conversations and moving into as much actual context as possible so I'm going to take us into real experience because I think there's an opportunity to learn and the Chiefs can let me know there's boundaries and all we can talk about but I think I understand them and can stay within those the first thing I do want to share because I think it's important for the conversation and once again you know because of this conversation I think that Joe Oshikoro alluded to things but I think there are some things he alluded to just to make sure everyone knows what we're talking about so Joe was one of the three officers who as part of the protest and everything else was being the community was calling for his dismissal so there's a video out there Oshikoro was involved in an interaction with the citizen and it was fairly widely criticized and people thought it should have been firing for him so I think it's important he put it out there so we're all here he's not hiding, he's saying I'm here and he's willing to you know there's a lawsuit so there are boundaries on what he can talk about but I think it's important to know that he chose to be here in no circumstances knowing that that's part of the background and something that you know he's dealing with so let's leave that because it's not really, we can't talk about that but I think we can talk about other things so for example this idea of both Oshikoro and Ren and Oshikoro talked about I think the public's understanding of do officers have a right to protect themselves do they have a right to go home, try to go home at the end of the day and what that can look like what does that look like and what does the escalation what does it mean when it's one on one so there are situations that I think that we now have I think they're out in the public so I believe that we can talk about it but for example these are things that's often in town so the other night not too long ago, two weeks ago there was the police got a call and they respond and there was a gentleman who had a woman with a knife and was holding this woman postage with a knife so they arrive there and the person, now this is interesting I always say that based on what was going on in the case of that crime the officers had reason to think that there could be some mental health stuff going on but the person had a knife to another person's you know to threaten another person so mental health piece at that point I think from the officer's standpoint becomes secondary because safety becomes primary so it's not that they're unaware but they're not in a position at that point necessarily deal with mental health because the first thing is to protect the person who is in harm's way so they interact, the person is yelling and gesticulating and talking talking about hurting himself, talking about hurting the woman talking about hurting the officers so they do the work of getting the woman separated from the person so now that's out of the way but now they have this person and the person is yelling and they're talking about shooting themselves shooting the cops and then apparently they reach down into something on the ground it's a pile, we don't know what's at the pile so you're there at this point because of the risk for danger officers have their guns full so officers are there with their gun trained on this suspect and the person reaches into something they have no idea what's in the apartment they have no idea what's in the pile I think my viewers have a thought what are you supposed to do, you're an officer it could happen quickly, it could be two seconds probably less, that person would pull out and shoot, you know, if they have a gun doing that can happen fairly quick it could go down fairly quick the officers don't know they don't know there's a gun yet but that's the kind of situation the officer has, like what do we as a community think the officers will have to do do they have to wait and make sure and wait for the hand to come out and wait to see what happens, is that the standard and I'm not trying to be funny, I'm serious because when I'm in this role and talking to officers I ask myself, where's the line what are they supposed to do we can talk about what happened but this is pretty, I think I described it pretty well, so we're there so all of us are there, what are you supposed to do as an officer, the person that's threatened threatened to hurt themselves threatened to hurt officers was already putting a third party in harm's way and you're there with a gun chained on them you're in a distance because safety has your space from them so you're not going to just tackle them you're not going to be able to do any grappling or anything while they're reaching in there because you're removed, because that's safe what are you supposed to do the training requires, but I feel like it must be some type of tiered response right, like if it's if you're out of direct harm's way, there's like a way to incapacitate the person that doesn't uh, necessarily permit a terminal outcome for the person who is endangering themselves and the other person who was held hostage so I feel like maybe there's, maybe the officers can illuminate that force there's a certain level of response in terms of different situations where you respond with what you do with the gun, you respond with the escalation tools before you use a taser, what is that so so, for that situation um, there at least when you have the knife you're going to have somebody who's trained on that person with a firearm just in case they do pull a firearm or in case something turns into a lethal force situation at the same time you usually have another officer attempting to deploy a less implementation which would be a 40mm launcher which would say it's either a blue, black, or orange round it looks kind of like a grenade when it hits it's soft, but it obviously that velocity perps in hopes that it will incapacitate that person but just to be clear when an officer gets to lethal force, our goal is to incapacitate you with the firearm, not to kill you that's always the goal when we shoot somebody, our goal is to incapacitate but in that situation, yeah we would have started I wasn't there, I know a couple of guys that were on, but how we would have gone through that would have been with the knife to start with if there's somebody who has trained in less munitions, it will be taking out either a 40mm launcher or a bean bag shotgun so that we can hopefully, if we have to to that point, we can use that prior to going to the lethal force the problem is once you get to him saying I have a gun and I'm here reaching what's the change? it's not it's raining, but it's also I'll go back a little bit what do you think is faster, action or reaction? action, right? so the action of you pulling something out and pointing that means it will be faster than me reacting the average person's perception and reaction to that perception the amount of time it can take you to take in the information and actually react to that will be one and a half seconds if you're really really trained on it and even then it can be slower than that in that time, if I pull a firearm and shoot you, it's over and I say it's over in the way that even if you hit me in the vest you know, if I get lucky enough to take a round in the vest because although our vest is very big, there's a lot of area where you could have a bullet to enter and still kill me and they don't stop, you know they only stop at the handgun, high velocity handgun rounds they don't stop at rifle rounds and stuff or shot, like a slug could even go through that dependent so the training tells me there if you're reaching for, if you're telling me of a firearm you're reaching at this point I'm justified at least before so the ability opportunity in Jeopardy is what we operate on in Vermont so the ability would be that they have the ability to hurt me or kill me the opportunity is the opportunity is the opportunity in front of them the opportunity is that they have the opportunity because I'm right there, there's nowhere for me to go at that very moment because I have to be the opportunity to kill me or hurt me and then Jeopardy, I'm in fear that either I'm going to be hurt or seriously injured or killed or the person next to me will or somebody else in the area so at that point I met all the prongs to get to lethal force which is why at that point I may deploy and the fact that those officers didn't is actually amazing that they had enough at that time whatever they were perceiving they were able to not have to deploy at lethal force and I wasn't there so you know it's hard to say just hearing the story perception, my role on scene is okay I've got spend of the night and if there's a hostage this can go back really fast so we're starting to split up who's doing what so talking about to your response would be I'm going to get a negotiator rolling if I can I'm going to get the lesson that I'm a taser maybe if that's applicable which tasers are great but they don't work like even with the clothing you're wearing a taser might not be effective on you because of that your shirt's a little more baggy that may not be effective on you at all it may be effective on your life and not appear and you have to have the connection so yeah I'm rolling I'm getting a negotiator rolling I'm probably calling for even more units to make the scene even safer if I can we're going to try to figure out how to get the hostage out first and try to do try to do it with nobody in here that's the goal every time if I can walk up a scene and the person that was trying to hit somebody nobody got hurt out of that that's amazing that's a great day you feel really good walking away from that you were able to do everything exactly right so yeah that would be the plan but unfortunately when the behavior dictates something else like telling you you have a gun and then reaching for that gun that changes the situation very part of it I want this ultimate this community conversation that we're going to have over time we're having it today to result in more alignment between what the community would expect an officer to do and what they understand in their training would have them do so if anyone else has a thought so once again the officer don't get to determine the circumstance what we said this is actually happening I'm there I said I'll sue you I said I'll sue myself and I'm reaching somewhere where you don't know what's in there does anyone think that's the moment for de-escalation what should that officer be thinking and is it and if that officer feels like you know it's either because once again there's non-compliance right so the person has broken the law so it's not just like neutral neutral they have someone at nice point and the officers there try to de-escalate and say you need to come quietly and they're not so they're already in the role and if anyone disagrees with that let's say that so now they're in there and they're doing this what is the officer supposed to do because there's this mismatch between community expectation and what officers do so now we're the community here what do we expect the officer to do there because that's what they were facing and what doesn't add to your opinion on top of that too is that on top of all of this this person has a history of violence and a history of fighting and resisting with the police and I'm sure the officer would have known that as well so adding the fact that you know the threat of the gun and you know pulling in the threat of the gun you know so add that extra on top of that as well okay because what could have happened is the officer could have shot and what we'd have is in this moment we could have a hurt or dead person who probably if we you know did some due diligence we'd find out had some mental health issues and we'd have an officer who did it and then we'd have that you know body cam that shows something that is you know less than optimal and then we'd be here as a community what would we say about what happened and how how it comes for the behavior in that moment I think that's the because officers have a role that allows the responsibility to dispense justice in a moment that the potential to take someone's life in that moment that is that puts a certain level of necessary integrity upon individuals so we're asking what should be done to make sure that there's a positive outcome in a resolution maybe we should be looked at what type of techniques did the officers present employee to allow for no terminal outcome to take place you know they were able to somehow even though this person was reaching for a gun we've seen so many instances of times when people are without weapons killed that's the main grievance that we have across the nation so many people weaponless harmless not even aggressive losing their lives unjustly but here you have a person who's actively aggressive I don't know the race of this person but it might be a factor I'm saying like I'm just telling my mind I'm not thinking about it so you have someone who's an aggressor obviously has a history with the police and violence probably from some mental condition probably some past trauma there somehow the officers are able to employ the training they've received and maybe there's their awareness of what's necessary in the moment to allow for an outcome where this person wasn't harmed so maybe those particular situations should be unpacked to look at what the officers are doing and those situations that allow for the resolution to take place I think the problem with that is in another situation where a shooting does occur because in that situation it's different it may have been that they had just enough time they didn't have to use deadly force but in another situation where somebody did have to use deadly force they didn't have that time and I'm not talking seconds I'm talking milliseconds it could be as simple as the officer on scene was already had their finger up and something changed and they didn't have to and in another situation where they didn't have that extra millisecond to pull that trigger those scenes could be almost the same but very different and that's the hard part I think we should unpack the ones where they went right or where our peers went right because even in those situations after situations like this we go back and we do unpack them we have what's called the after action report debrief about them we sit and we ask ourselves what do we do right how could we have done it better we do do that a lot I just did one two days ago but yeah that's the biggest thing we should always unpack these things but you have to understand that you cannot apply one to another one like a template it doesn't work like that they're just too different there's no scene I've been on that's ever been exactly the same even with the same person doing the same thing it's always slightly different and that's the hard part so the time to see in the past year in the previous calendar year there were 13 instances of people being unarmed who were killed by police and that's it's a terrible number this incident could have been one of those he was not armed and when he went in was there a firearm in that room no there probably was not I don't know if he actually were able to we didn't get a warrant for the space yet his actions as director Dodson has pointed out certainly put you in a position of saying could lethal force have been used there it could have been we're incredibly lucky that the training kicked in that three officers there were there that one officer was able to use a taser in that instance to prevent the other two officers from having to fire or to wait for him to prove whether he had that firearm position to be in to wait to see it and to decide I'm I'm going to wait to get shot before I do anything and officers sometimes don't wait for that and some of those things that we see around the country when we have those numbers of instances where people are shot who are unarmed are very similar to this situation it's just that it did that the shooting occurred and didn't happen here we're lucky about that but it's not just luck it is training it's intent it's what's in the officers' hearts every officer here has said that they don't take this job to hurt people or that they don't want to do those things yet another instance just this past weekend it had a very similar situation in outcome again a person in that instance did have a hand gun in his hand and and officers were able to take him in the custody without using their own firearms or without him shooting so they happened and then out of the you know the quarter trillion encounters between police officers and citizens every year we have 800,000 officers and you have 330 million Americans and they come into contact in one way or another a quarter billion times 11 of those excuse me 13 of those end up with somebody being killed who wasn't armed about a thousand end up with people being killed who are unarmed and that's terrible and nobody wants those outcomes and after action reviews are designed to make certain that we don't have those outcomes but they happen and so I think part of these conversations from the director's perspective and from my perspective is getting an understanding from our community of what we want and what our thresholds are and just understanding for both sides of what the law permits of what training says and what our community's expectations are to push either of those whether it's pushing the law which takes a long time in its heart or pushing training in new directions those are things that we can accomplish together and so because I was really stressed by what you said about the idea of not having people who bring this history and this weight and this burden to encounters being in all those encounters how can we minimize the encounters that involve one party having all that burden and that is a goal but sometimes those encounters even if that party isn't there is still going to turn into something that's dangerous and violent and what do we do then what do we do for either side of the party there the party who is trying to be being helped but also maybe dangerous and the party who's trying to help and maybe put in danger and the community has to have these answers and not answer these conversations and questions so that we can all come together I'm wondering staying with these two events because I guess the question is do we think this group of pretty diverse community members and police officers think we can get to a point where these two these are specific things that happened over the last two weeks a person suffering from mental health issues which is one of the categories of people that the community seem to be up in arms that please do not respond according to community expectations at times when dealing with people with mental health issues so that's one issue that is very contentious so I want us to get the contentious stuff in here another one is we have a shooting a person actually shoots someone that person gets supported by officers a lot of blood a lot of bleeding could have been something that had gone awry please apprehend said individual it seems like all of you know it's just illegal but seems like a positive idea the person responded the gun the casing this is the person to shoot so officers have this person surrounded they are waving a pistol so anytime they're waving once again both of these did not end in shooting but what I'm wondering is could we have a conversation where the community and police are in the same place if the people have been shot because that's the thing because unfortunately that may probably will happen the world and crime and things with their will it probably will happen at some point in this town can we survive and can we have a common understanding of what went down so I'm wearing a pistol someone's got a gun pointed at me one of the officers feels like in that moment with a journal in milliseconds that the gun points at them and then it's a I don't know half a second selling out a second until the round goes off so they shoot the individual because the individual was non-compliant they'd already shot someone they had a gun, officers tell them to put down the gun they don't put down the gun they wave it it seems like they're going to shoot someone and we shoot them what would the community do with that is that just wrong that also needs to be dismissed the police department is racist we're going to get rid of people in the police department but can we survive that because that's the question the police officers are asking and how do they do the job differently if that's wrong or what do we tell them as a community what do they need to do differently in that moment, not some moment but a guy with a gun who'd already shot somebody and it's a black man so I feel like community expectations community expectations you have department, policy and trainings then you have law so there's three different sets of expectations how officers will act there's a level of expectation when we watch TV we see the guy jump through the air shooting two guns wall flying through the air all those shots go right on target so we have this expectation that the officer could shoot the gun out of the person's hand or something along those lines then we have policies which dictate when you can use force and then you have law which is generally less restrictive it's basically to the community and then lower expectations and the policy and the training and then lower expectations generally in the law otherwise you wouldn't have any training you just have law so the training and the policy expectations are always going to be higher than law otherwise you just have the law and that's it the community expectations the guy that's lunging for what he's saying is a gun shoot him in the eye or shoot him in the hand I think that it's easy for the community to think there's some alternatives as Joe said earlier we shoot someone to incapacitate them shoot someone the leg doesn't incapacitate them that doesn't interrupt the signal between the brain and the finger so they can shoot you they shoot again out of someone's hand they hit someone's leg which is actually a really small target especially if they're moving it's really really hard to do but the expectations I think work against us like sometimes they help us people think that we're really good at our jobs and so that works in our favor but it also works against us in that situation and as Joe also said you can't take one situation and perfectly apply it to another situation so you can't have policy that dictates stringently how you act in every situation and also if you had that strict of a policy you'd be breaking that policy all the time because it'd be too hard to have such a prescribed reaction to one of 12 billion different circumstances that could happen but I think we need to have what our community expects and what we actually do I think they're pretty far apart and that's even in the evidence world they call it the CSI effect where there's crime scene and they scan it and immediately it gets a match if you're lucky you get a fingerprint that's good enough that you can do a comparison but actually just put in a system and boom there's a match so I feel like that's part of it I saw a year ago I don't know where it went there was a virtual reality set that you could go into I forget who made it they put you in the in an officer's position dealing with two black males and you had to determine how you would have handled that situation to give you the best perception from that person's perception and from what I remember the video wasn't the first video it was done very poorly in the way of how the officer handled the situation but it was to get you in that perception and that's the biggest thing I think it's lost I love axon the video cameras the best thing in the world because they show what my report can say because I can miss things in my report when I try to write it when I try to recollect I'm not going to recollect it correctly because I had a drone pumping in my system and there's a hundred other things going like I think what a lot of people know is when we get in these situations where there's a drone on pumping there's a couple things that happen one really simple thing you get what's called tunnel vision it literally makes your view this big I don't see the things over here as well anymore I'm focused on this specific thing I get what's called auditory exclusion so I don't hear everything I normally hear you could be standing right here yelling at me to do something I may miss that but that same thing is happening for that person that I'm dealing with so their behavior if they're upset and their adrenaline is pumping they now have tunnel vision they now have auditory exclusion so when I yell to them to put the gun down they may not react accordingly there's a problem is there's no way to change that in that situation because unless I can bring their level down up I can calm them down up and sometimes we don't have the time to do that when we actually can de-escalate somebody when we have what's called time distance and cover and we can de-escalate somebody that's when we can do that we can slow that situation down we can calm them down enough if they can think a little more clearly and maybe their behavior will change but perceptions are the biggest thing the question I always hear when I because I watch I'm constantly and a lot of cops I work with we're constantly trying to train so we train by ourselves videos, new videos that come out that get torn apart and explain why this happened or why it didn't happen but one of the things I hear the most is if you've seen any of the videos I'm not telling you to watch this because they're traumatic you're seeing people being shot but it's something I do for trainings but I'm understanding what's going on in the world it helps me try to think how to handle that situation if there was a better way to handle it one of the ones I've seen many times is the officer is dealing with somebody they start running, they turn around with a gun they turn back and then they shoot them so what did they just do? they shot them in the back and the question is always why did you shoot them in the back well that goes back to perception and goes back to what I said earlier for me the time that takes me to recognize what that was and then act on it is just long enough that by the time I shoot they're already turned back around but in my head they haven't done that yet an example I'll give you is I was down on the intervail looking for an aggravated assault suspect I found him with two other officers and I asked him to start walking towards me with his hands on top of his head and when he did that I saw that he had a gun on his head and all I said was do not reach for the gun just keep your hands in your head and out of habit he reached for the gun to take it and throw it he grabbed it, picked it up a little higher through it when he did that my perception was that he grabbed it and as he got to here I was like I'm going to draw on my gun and it was already on the ground but my perception it took me time to catch up to that that's how it works and that's one of the worst parts is why it can look so bad every time or a lot of times we're trying to catch up it's human, you can't change that it's in your head you can't make that faster I'm taking it as much as I can and as fast as I can and then I'm reacting to it the problem is I'm a little bit blind actually just like everybody else would be in that situation and that's how that happens so I think there needs to be an understanding that you have to add that in and that's the great thing about videos it gives you more of a perspective but it gives you a lot less of a perspective because you don't have the sound, the smells the adrenaline so that's hard to put yourself in that situation you're just seeing it from a 2D view and you're seeing and you're getting it from what's called hindsight and it's really easy to determine what you would have done differently in hindsight and I think that's what needs to be talked about more is what was the perception of that officer at the time what was the perception of that person at the time I'm curious we just downloaded a whole lot of stuff to you folks about being a police officer I'm interested in what your perspective is hearing this but also as police officers what your view is now you've heard some of this but I'm sure there are things that we I know there are things that we could do differently like how can we best go about taking like what you said was the public, your perception and our perception and coming together like a change on both parts that comes together as your understanding of that we basically just got up to all the seekers lesson I'm curious there's a lot of information there's a lot of stuff from out there I think that first and foremost we're all human and I think that at the end of the day whatever profession we're in we're looked upon as superheros whatever eyes, our kids' eyes community, public we're superheros superheros are supposed to be tough and strong and don't crack but there's also the other side to that story and I think and first and foremost I just have to say this is really healthy this is like everyone here right now especially I haven't got a chance and I just really appreciate your vulnerability I always say this vulnerability is because of the growth I think that us as humans it's a lot to decipher in that millisecond a tenth of a second and you have to go through the channel very swiftly, very rapidly and that's something to say that I take my hat off to get to that point and being able to get out on the force and serve our community so being able to get to that to that stance is an accomplishment of saying that you're qualified enough to take care of our community so I respect that and I give that the highest acknowledgement I think that as a whole as a community as I was saying before I think we all at the end of the day want to walk out our doors and know that we're we're going to be safe, we're going to come I have the potential to come back home I think everyone walks out with that with that charge of energy and I have to be honest you guys, the officers women and male you're catching the heavy you're catching the heavy because the world assumes you know that you guys got it all figured out and you're talking to one who's been a victim of police brutality when I was 13 just because I was walking down the street but my perception my lens doesn't allow me to my soul, my spirit won't allow me to say all officers are bad because of what happened to me when I was 13 years of age so I think what are we really looking for right, what are we really craving and asking for mercy we just want a little mercy it's that simple those women, community members community, everyone everyone it's not individualized I think it's collectively and it's a whole you know we're not looking for handouts we're looking to be put upon, we just want mercy and grace and I think mercy and grace comes with a certain level of integrity and accountability and also being held at that standard to where you know the hardest thing to do is to say sorry do the right thing when no one is looking and I think as a community we kind of want that assurance we want to feel that we want to feel that not just like think that but we want to really feel that and I think that's the gap that we have to kind of fulfill because if that's not available for on the table we got a wrong way and I think that's the rule we need to take so I want to push here so I like this, I love mercy and grace and I wonder if you have ideas or other people in this moment so I presume you didn't say of course Joe but that you did not shoot the individual in the interview so what I'm wondering is can we community and please get to the place where with the gentlemen with the knife and the reaching in the pile or the gentlemen who shot someone went down Riverside and turned his car over was waving the gun or Joe's got on the the interveil can we have any of those have an outcome where an officer shot the individual and we as a community could be the same place as the cops where this is awesome this is horrible but we don't know how it could have played out differently it just played out on the wrong side of things but the fact that Joe shot somebody who pulled a firearm to this point with the reaction and adrenaline that we don't end up protesting and calling for his dismissal and thinking of horrible cops because that's where we are now I don't think our community could survive that I think that if one of our cops shoots anyone and these men want to go to work every day thinking about it they can't imagine they could do their job and shoot anyone and survive it our community would not be able to see that shooting as something that happens when you're doing this difficult job they're doing and so it makes it hard for them to do it that feels like a stalemate it feels like we're stuck because if anyone in those three situations could have easily ended that way it seems I don't know that's my thing that it seems like it could have easily ended that way but it doesn't feel like our community could have survived that we couldn't have been together as a community in our assessment of what had gone down there and that gap because it feels like it's going to happen the world being the way the world is and the cops are scared to death post-COVID that stuff's going to go down and one of these times is not going to be in the need it's going to be central body loss and someone's going to be dead and what's our community do it doesn't seem like we're in a place right now where we can get through it together as a community with mercy and grace for all involved and I don't have the answer I am asking this is a six months I've been doing this job very difficult very difficult for me this experience we're having here is like solace in a thing that's been very difficult just to feel like I'm connecting with human beings and having a conversation where at least we all have some degree of chest and believe that perhaps we all want the same in I feel that here it's really important but I don't have that answer and I'm fearful of how we'll deal with that because it does strike me dealing with every day hearing the stories that it's going to go down at some point there's going to be an outcome that's really difficult I feel like trust I think trust that's when there's power there's a power dynamic like I said last week I had an instance with a police officer in a different state where the person was being unreasonable and I was I was just walking down the sidewalk at that point with a cup of coffee I could feel a power dynamic when you have that power dynamic and a lack of trust I think that's when things that's when it's bad and I think that's where we are I think the trust isn't there there might be some people who trust us but not everybody and there's a lot of people who have reasons to not trust us be them historical be them personal experiences be it stuff that they saw on TV stories that they've heard so how do we develop that trust and I'm just going to say it we're not going to have everybody's trust there's just too much against that but how can we find the people who need it most the people who are most vulnerable the people who people who if they're getting pulled over they're afraid that that's going to be their last day on the earth you know the people that are being impacted most how do we help those people have trust when there's so much that's outside of our control to do that I think it takes community to have trust so we need more community involved I think also ours first is like when we have an incident where somebody does get shot is that we can't release everything right away and then it looks like we're trying to hide something who can't in the sake of a case release everything right off the back there's like no way to make that as fast as possible I mean I'd rather a case be a little weaker than the police department being turned down or something injured I mean maybe we need to decide and Kyle's asking quickly do maybe maybe we change the rules a little bit true but if somebody was walking around with some sort of weapon that they've already used on somebody how in the world did we get this far and how did that person not take responsibility for their actions and why are they the only ones being scrutinized I'm just putting it out there that's critical of the critical importance I'm going to ask that we bracket that it's critically important and part of why I might argue this is Kyle's editorial we are left putting all this pressure on officers is because other parts of the community I don't know that we've had the robust response to vulnerable citizens people who struggle upstream so that hopefully we can be more proactive right but that's the separate thing and once again it's not the and I think once again Kyle's editorial in the moment when the person's pulling the gun it's not the place for the police to be dealing with that all that upstream stuff my opinion there's no latitude at that point to be dealing with that there's something immediate right but I want to go back to any other community members do any other community members here trust the police I trust BTD and if that's a no do you have a sense what what should we do what's the path to get in there because one of the things is we're at 78 effective so we have less officers and I don't think it's changed trust so we did one thing and I don't think it had any impact on the negative so we did one pretty dramatic thing that has a whole bunch of other set of consequences but that didn't change trust I'm going to argue so to agree that we want to trust to agree it's important what do we do figuring out a way to have connections without it being with a phone call like prior like there was the whole talk about you know the connection in schools and breaking down those barriers which is a start and to answer your other question I do there is some trust but it's very cautious because there are some old habits that not everyone per se here have you know maybe practiced or whatever but the few incidences in my life or that I've seen or interacted with unfortunately they're still there you know so yes I do to some degree and hope that the rest of it can be fixed or changed or whatever so because such as some degree working on stuff some things in your background anybody else Vincent, Raj, Lucy you guys trust the police please I mean I think I have like fairly good experiences in schools in my like school district growing up with the police that were there like whether it was on like career day or something like that like I feel like they were present they were like engaging and that was good but I also recognize that's my personal experience like I don't want to speak for anyone else who might have had difficulties or might have seen the police who were in the schools in a different light I think it's really a case by case for different students but my experience is overall awkward and I think that that fostered a lot of trust and Raj I need a couple people to stop but this is the stuff right there's a little trust we got community members here how's this group of community members feel about the police I have a great relationship what about your friend officer Mike Heman great guy, I don't know I mean we're all brothers from different mothers but I think at the end of the day what we also can't go away from is the realities of certain situations that do arise and I think what the community wants to know and wants to feel is that you know really for them as well regardless if they have on the suit if they walk on the badge just like me I have to be accountable for my actions and I think that ultimately regardless of like this take any situation like it doesn't let blood like race take all of the attributes out they just want accountability you know what I'm saying it's not about people to be accountable for what they're doing and I'm going to say it like and not be protected by the quality immunity and that's where I feel the community and not all is never all right I could never say it's not fear to say all that's just mathematically not even equitably correct so it needs to be accountability and I think if the community sees that for incidents and for situations I think the trust will increase you know but like I said on an individual basis I can't speak for everyone me personally I have no quarrels I actually have good friends on the floors I support them and how they you know wake up every day just like I do without my bed and try to do the best job as they go about starting their day so that's where I'm coming from but as far as you know on a bigger bigger scale I feel not just here but globally they want to feel they want to feel like they're like they have the same accountability as everyone else but as part of the reason we're here is to cultivate that to try to plant the seed to open a doorway in this moment to see what's possible to reexamine our histories and our experiences and live with a deeper lens to see what can transform you know I can't disassociate the connection of the police to its root origin in catching my enslaved ancestors that's reality and I wouldn't and if that's not a crucial component of people's training in taking this position and that should be examined otherwise it's not sincere serving and protecting all people so there's things that have to be deconstructed that have to be connected to how we inherit traumas from our history where we see each other where we see ourselves of course I want to go home safe, of course I want my daughter to be protected when I'm not around her and I have no malice toward any of you I have no ill will toward anyone but I feel like we have to connect to the human being behind the badge we have to connect to the human being behind this officious narrative that's kind of put it in our heads that all of police are one way when we know that's not the case by own experience but trauma speaks louder you know we're not Chicago or LA or some larger quote unquote urban city but we still have our own history and this is a part of America we're in a crucial moment right now just because this is grown to a state where you can't ignore it anymore and it has to be brought to bear in ways that allow for people to express their experiences with the social construct of race and how they see themselves and see each other what they were taught and mist taught because otherwise there's no real basis for trust there I feel like that's kind of why I'm here the way I kind of look at it is if something's happened in the past or something's happened in a different part of the country and a police officer in Burlington were to say I didn't do that that's not my problem, I'm going to do my job my analogy would be well if you're a painter and if you've got the paint outside of the house and you're painting I didn't make the paint that circumstances out of my control my job is to put paint on it so you're painting the rain I feel like that's similar to police definitely people experiencing their own individual connection to what's happening so as unjust as it feels for officers to feel like I'm being put upon right now what the officers did well that's the experience of black men every day from childhood from school onward you're put into a box and perceived this hostile and treated differently on a regular basis so that's a connection now that you have with us so if it doesn't feel good think about how it feels for us think about the human beings that you're serving and dealing with on a daily basis through a deeper lives of experience you can understand what people are going through and realize you in the moment and of course when there's extremely moments and it's life or death the life is consisting of many different small moments and it's what you do like this is one what we do with it right here right now is key so if we're willing to come together and put our hearts out there and be willing to understand each other to encourage other people to come to before and express their voices and their grievances and how you live together that allows for more to be possible I think you're right I think we have to trust you enough to be able to say what you're saying and understand that you're not taking it personally you're not throwing it personally at us you're saying this is why I feel the way I feel like a lead when I believe and we have to trust you enough as well to be like yeah I can take that I can have you tell me that and I understand and that makes me a better person a better police officer realizing it's not a personal thing I have to understand where you're coming from when you look at police you look all the way back through history I have to understand and trust in you enough just because you're saying that doesn't mean he hates me or she hates me or all of a sudden they think I'm that person in the past I'm not but I need to understand that that also and how you're looking at the situation so yeah it's our trust in you to be able to see those things and us to trust ourselves to be able to separate ourselves from that like you said in one of the first conversations I said when you told me people of color don't see Burlington police they see the police like everything that's all through history that's what they see it's not me personally but that's the representation and I think from our officers what we can take away from this and what we can work on too was the other thing you said about now I know you folks I know you might see on the street like hey how's it going you had to call me and I had to come deal with the situation you're in it's a whole different dynamic now like oh I remember sitting in a gym and now she's having you know this problem like it's more of a personal thing I don't walk in there and you know it's like an unknown to me I don't know if I could have trust me or something like that more connections officers could make like that and no people in their community I think that's something that maybe as police yeah we've kind of gone away it's hard when yeah like Joe was saying phone yourself into the shell as actually the opposite effect of what we really should be doing so yeah I think that's really important you know it's relational and it's humanizing and we all offer each other something that would courageously be vulnerable and authentic about what we experience you know even outside the world this conversation as far as officers and community members just being authentic that's what children respond to like you know when somebody really likes you when they don't when they're being passive aggressive with you it's in the tone, it's in the behavior it's in the way you engage with people so we're willing to be sincere with each other here and now and this is not a show for somebody on WCAX to watch later and it's about what we do with that genuine offer and how we make strides in meaningful movements towards a chance moment in the way the narrative is played out in people's minds by our relationships by the way we connect with each other and recognize who we are that seems really vital these conversations for me are just incredibly powerful I want to express my gratitude to all of you I want to really thank Megan, thank you she's been sitting here, she got here three but we captured this, it's critical so people can see what a different kind of conversation can look like thank you Katherine, if anyone is available, Katherine talked to you but I think she'd love to maybe talk to some people as we're done I'm going to try to bring us to wrap up here just out of respect for people's time the conversations can go on endlessly and it needs to, not tonight but we need to continue it I do have some thoughts about, so one you know this has been something that has been the biggest takeaway from my experience of six months living in the police department, going there every day and also still dealing with the community is the importance of having the kind of connection that Raji talks about I have such deep respect and admiration for how Raji moves through the world it's a gift to be able to speak his truth and to say at the content level I would argue the same thing as some other people in the community are saying but to have it lead to DC LeBret wanting to open himself up wanting to understand Raji wanting to say I need to be able to hear them that's what we want we want that to happen interestingly there are there are some people who have have cynical sense of just coming together and me pulling together why I chose people that's why I chose all of you because I had a sense of how you would have the conversation not what you would say everyone was free and actually encouraged to come here to say what you have to say but I think the way we've all said what has had to be said in here has allowed for more listening more hearing, more taking it in more sense that I'll come to the next conversation all things which I think we need I would ask people two things so I'm coming to a close in this role officially in the police department I'm not going anywhere I'll be here at the Y I've talked to, you know, I think it's important here we've got the mayor, thanks mayor Romain Burr for coming we've got the chief here I believe, in my opinion we need to continue this I don't have all the answers for how we expand it and so I'm leaving I'm putting it out to this group do people think there's value what's it look like to expand it I do think it's important to think about how we do it but that some of the folks who, at least in my observation, have not necessarily to this point been having a conversation like this but they have a perspective that's important and it's going to be critical for us to move forward right, the numbers are mayoral do you want 43 to 42 so I don't know how deep and like what the 42 all thought at some level you know, the person who got the 42 has been leading a charge and showing up certain ways and I think that we as a community need to engage that perspective we have to figure out a way to engage that perspective and I hope we can engage that perspective in the tone and the way that we've been able to establish here because I think that ultimately we want every stakeholder in this city to be able to say their piece and be heard and then we just grapple as a community and figure out where we get to so I guess I'm putting it out to all of you as an appeal to be thinking about it, I'll stay involved I'll be continuing to work with the mayor and the chief and supporting how I can the mayor I will imagine is going to be coming out with some thought in the not too distant future about his thoughts for the next piece of the work how this role and this work and this conversation gets moved forward and so be looking out for that and hopefully all of you can be what's the word I'm looking for ambassadors but people who want to help the mayor and that help is to engage the community in a productive dialogue about peace transformation not that you have to agree with the mayor but that you see yourself as someone who wants to help you because I trust that that's what he wants he doesn't want to science anything, he doesn't want to have it his way he wants to understand the will of the community and he wants to have the positive trust in the most accountable police department that he can have and I believe that John Murad, Eric Cronerville, Meinwin Wade Lebrecht and Joe Cora want the same thing I believe that, other people may not believe that I believe that that's true and I think because it suits them quite frankly they're self-interest they don't want their current work conditions and this spoke to that anyone can see the police department does not want their work conditions and they don't want to see what will not speak in a turn but Sergeant Wen came and I also think they're really appreciate it, he just sat down 16 years in, he's got four left until he's able to retire and he's not going anywhere, he made it clear he came here to be in Berlin, he's not going anywhere but he's concerned he's sad, he's sad his colleagues are leaving his colleagues are beleaguered about the circumstance and it hurts him, it bothers him he doesn't want that to be the case but he hasn't had the answer, he doesn't know how to solve it and what I take is that's why he came here, he's like maybe this will help because I'm willing, you know, he the guy, you know, people who are in the department these guys work hard I'm often leaving, this guy's still there this guy's still there people put in the time and they've got a lot of heart and soul in this and so, you know, I just hope we can take in this community and do the hard work coming together and extending a little trust like there was a good book a while ago like I'm not that well on some of you would be better on Christianity but like you know, hope is a faith in the unseen right, you gotta leech sometimes you can't have all the ducks in a row, you gotta take a little bit of a leech before you have all the substantiation that the leech was warranted right, or you'll never get there be careful, and if you wait till every possible way that the Brelington Police Department could be perfect and anti-racist and anti-everything and perfectly procedurally and perfect decision making that's a hard standard if that's the only way you'll ever extend a little good faith and extend a little trust but sometimes trust it gets trust, right in here, these officers this is a better conversation than police have about this moment than I've seen anywhere else there's no other place I've been in six months where police are as vulnerable they're as honest they're as giving take as in this room, period definitely no city council meeting or police commission meeting or joint committee meeting hasn't happened the way that people talking here single that's what we want, we want to elicit that we want to bring that out but we've got to engage we've got to engage people who for whom it's not as easy there's some people who are in a place right now where they're ready to have a conversation quite like this and we've got to be able we've got to manage that we've got to figure out what to do with that we've got a nice new place here so this group has modeled something and now we have, thank you again Megan we have something that we can say this is kind of what we're talking about not what is said, but how it's said. You say what you need to say but if you say it this way it's probably going to go a little better and just if I may to build into the future and to keep this going and that's absolutely something that I would hope that we can do I want future iterations of this to focus on something that you've brought up which is if the officers feel there's a people who feel and it is a much, much longer situation and it's got deeper, deeper roots. How can those two things come together in a sense of understanding on both sides without saying that there is a true comparison there that the scope and the scale are the same they're not commensurate but how can we understand from that both parts of this equation and it's not just two, it's all parts of this equation because there's so many parts of this equation that is a community how can we build on that and that's what I hope that we can develop in the ones that go forward that's what you've been saying for the time that you've been in this role and this really is a culmination of that, it can't be a culmination in the sense of it's the end, it's gotta be this first step and the chief helped me, when I speak and I talked about the difficulty that sorry, in one time it's not meant that I fear people could hear it until they correct it, it's not instead of it's not like well, you know the police are hurting, it's trying to get people to understand that there's humanity at one north out and there's people in there who care just like the community and they feel and that if we can recognize that also, not instead of it doesn't supplant community trauma community fear but I think if we add it to the mix of what we're trying to manage it'll just be better. So let's offer any last comments and then Rajani if you're willing to, I'd love for you to lead us in our ending prayer, I really appreciate that but please Joe. I appreciate being here with all of you and actually listening and what you're listening to me but I really appreciate hearing it I learned some things today and definitely helped me open my mind some more from a new perspective because I know that I have so much to learn but the biggest thing that I've noticed in our department in the last years, I have friends that plan on giving 25 years to this city and now don't think they can do that anymore and I would like to see that change and this is why I came today for that reason and also so that we could create that connection so that I could get more of my friends to come here thinking about leaving and change their mind because I think that I don't think that they really want to leave and just think that they feel kind of that they can't do anything to make it better, they don't feel like they can do anything so I'm here for them but I'm really here because I want to see the community trust us again and I hope that we can keep doing this. Any last thoughts? Please. I just want to take this occasion to thank Kyle for your leadership and for being on that to step into this role and to take this on and you have had a vision of the way to have this conversation and I have sense in the power I've been here that your intuition that this is the type of conversation we need to have is right on I imagine the way you articulated the responsibility that really is incumbent on everyone who works for the city on police officers to understand the impacts and history of police interactions with all members of the community is so well said it's something we've been groping towards and the way you medially responded Eric to with the your analogy it gives me real hope that there is a way we can build a mutual understanding that's necessary to move through these years of churning and chafing and really not having a consensus about how we do law enforcement in this community gives me hope that there's a path to action thank you all for participating in this and we have a long way to go but this is far from done but being here being able to observe this does give me hope and I do more thank you Kyle for taking me into this role it was a not easy thing to do I'm really glad you did I hope the community sees the value in what you've done thank you thank you man I want to say it's been an incredible privilege I raised three sons here me and their mother raised three sons and Brownington has been really good to the Dotson families been good to me professionally I've got incredible relationships this is what I groove on this I'm the only person in here who can do everything and that's my that's my high my thing is I love connecting I love being able to hopefully take relationships and create new relationships and that's my thing that's what I really enjoy doing as difficult as it has been there's also been a privilege I now have something that I think is rare which we need to it's a hard place to develop the relationships in the police department right because as Joe said you have that for so many you have that one reaction with them in the public that's not ideal and there's all sorts of safety and security around the building but I like Eric's push and keep pushing this Eric like policing is arguably a little bit worse than the next place of accepting like this is the way it's always been we got to be this way because it's like well why does it have to be that way like there's some things that are accepted as it has to be this way and if you really unpack them peel away the ways that others would be like well actually we can do it and it won't impact security it won't impact these things that you break up the excuses it's just we're comfortable doing it that way and doing it some other way might achieve some goals that we want and so this openness is doing it a different way so I do think it's both way being on the inside I think there's things that people accept to be this way I'm not so sure all the things that are they always have to be that way just an openness to pushing on that I have a request that people so part of what the mayor has asked me to do appropriately so and I think this kind of thing is coming out of that is I'm to and my report to him is to get back to him about training and training is what happens if people have thoughts that have come up in here and you're like the police department needs to do acts they need to do this thing it's a bias I love Raji. Raji's working with the why and there's something about everyone's responded there's some kind of love, soul, heart something that Raji has that I find impact people it affects people you feel that sense and the same thing the same content can be used differently can be worked with differently because there's something having a human level so I think there's maybe some possibilities down the road I will probably suggest that but this is a request, if you have an idea a sense of some things you think it would make sense for the Burlington Police Department to engage in please send them my way because I'm compiling those things and I want to be able to offer that to the city and to the mayor lastly something came up last time that I think is important that was really a really important point and that's the sphere of understanding so Vince last time said I just want to leave my house in the morning I want to feel safe I want to feel like my kids are safe yes and then there's a question so I'm thinking I'll look to officers and the officers are like well some officers some conversation be like well really Vince the reality is that like two random young black kids and a random black dude statistically the times that they've left their house in Burlington and been unsafe is limited there aren't very many examples in Burlington of that group of people suffering something physical now the psyche let's get to the that that and I'm just getting statistical so people are like in this the conversation well in the same way then also the bracket also Johnson's right here we're talking about how you know Kelsey Johnson also Johnson came in the Y she was like I know where all the X's are and they should talk about when I go to a restaurant I tactfully position so I can sit like feel anxious to see what's going on and so in the same way I said to her I was like I'm not sure also Johnson that there's ever been an officer targeted at a restaurant or anywhere in Burlington where someone came after them in such a way that it makes sense at some kind of kind of clear present danger that you have to tactfully position yourself as you move around Burlington but it doesn't stop the officers from feeling they need to do that and it doesn't stop them from feeling unsafe and how do we all own that how do we own the fact that there's some set of things that we've lived through that have been traumatized by the train that caused us to have these feelings that when we take it apart push we might argue they're not particularly rational doesn't make them not real and doesn't make them not something we have to deal and and that's part of in this moment I don't have the answers but the more we honor that we are feeling creatures and beings that have these things in our heads and in our hearts that don't necessarily make many logical rational sense but they're real and the more we have the capacity in the space to deal with them with that metaphor any last words or have Roger close us out here do you have anything you want to say Catherine about who you want would you like to have people in this department and then another community member would be great please sounds good make you want to say anything so much okay all right well everyone please thanks for making and we'll figure out how we can access it out of what happens okay great ready please stand I don't know if you say take hands but we can't do it so maybe you can please repeat after me close them under our feet breathe the warmth of community unto us so the peace and creativity we see so the peace and creativity we see mounts our bodies and sits on the chairs of our hearts spreading joy and love around us all I share alright thanks folks