 into sort of distinct categories so that we can discuss what, if anything, we want to do with each of the categories. So, 464 has a section of the bill regarding data collection and we do have a witness who would like to come in and testify but was not available to do that today with respect to the types of data that is being collected. And so, I expect we have some more work to do on that section and would be happy to hear suggestions from the committee of other perspectives that you would like to hear from. Andrea, can you remind me of the woman's name and she's from UVM? Stephanie Siglino. Siglino. Siglino. She's on the Racial Equity Commission, is that the panel? I think so. Thank you. So, she has some thoughts on this first section of the bill and there are other perspectives that you would like to hear from with respect to data collection. I would be happy to hear. Bryn, you can come in and join us. Sorry, I should have said that before you actually sat down. We're just going to have a committee discussion here about the different parts of 464 and also 808 so that we can sort of decide as a committee how we want to proceed, whose perspectives we want to hear on these different parts of these two bills. And I believe that House Judiciary is going to punt 808 over to us at some point soon. Okay. But that would require the chair of the committee to remember to do that during floor proceedings, so we'll see. But anyway, we can talk about both bills. So with respect to data collection, that is the first section of 464. Committee, any other perspectives that you'd like to hear, questions that you would like to have answered about the issues around the reporting and data? Jim? Did we hear anything from law enforcement that was any issue that they have that information today? We have not. We have a proposal in front of us to add to the data collection as we can certainly hear law enforcement is perspective on that. I mean, I thought I heard the information was collected, just not turned over for this, but I may be wrong in my memory and why I haven't heard any reason why we shouldn't share it. But if any law enforcement has a concern about that, I guess I'd like to hear it. I haven't heard it. All right. I suspect we have some ears listening who can help us find the right perspectives to hear from the law enforcement side of that question. Are there questions? Are there more information on that? So section two of the bill, I believe, is de-escalation and cross-cultural awareness policy. There was a concern that was voiced in committee about whether law enforcement officers are trained in cross-cultural awareness. And we heard a couple of examples of why people believe that is a problem. What other perspectives would you like to hear? I think we should hear from the Criminal Justice Training Academy, whatever their proper name is, as to what training in this area they do currently. I heard something about eight hours when we were doing the hearing on the joint bills, but I would be interested to know how much of that covered. And if we add the four hours, is that something new or duplicate of it already being done? And also what does that mean? Does it increase the academy by a day? I just think we ought to hear from them because they're our go-to training people. Yes. There is a proposal to increase the training from 16 to 20 hours. Okay, so it's currently 16? Yeah. State police get an additional seven hours. We are going to spend some time on understanding what that proposal is next week. So we're not trying to move this out of sync with math testimony. So we will have an opportunity to understand what the proposal is around training. Bob? In the back of my head, buzzing around is somebody talked to me at one point in time about reading about the program that Champlain College is trying to implement. I think DPS is thinking as well they would like to work with Champlain College. They don't necessarily support Champlain College as a proposal. That's why I heard this today. As it's currently. Would you like to hear something on that? I'm not advocating one way or the other. It's just something that the county chair is involved with. So every time I get a county position, I hear more about it. Other questions? Other perspectives that the committee would like to hear from? Section three is proposing minimum training standards changes? That's a 4L. Yeah. That goes back to your question. I was probably in my mind two and three together. One is the policy. One is I was plumping them together. So yeah, I mean the policy and training are separate animals. And I think really should be respected as different techniques that might be used to nudge changes if we felt there was something that needed to be changed. So 808 calls for statewide use of force policy. Am I remembering that correctly? Yes. Okay. So that is in the conversation here as well. And if there's anything more that you would like to hear on that, I would be happy to entertain. This is the bill that Ann Donahue introduced. Yes. And while 464 seems to be focused more on cross-cultural awareness and race issues, I think is coming from a standpoint of concerns about people who are in mental health crisis. We're going to merge these ideas and put them all on the table. What I came away from that hearing was that words matter. We're talking about a legal standard and there was significant pushback from the folks who are involved in law enforcement today to what that means and when they can use force. I think if we're going to pursue conversation while the Attorney General testified, I'm not sure what he said. So I think as our Chief Law Enforcement Officer prosecuting crimes and defending the state, we need to flesh that out, I believe, a little bit more if we're going to go down that path of changing the precedent that's been set up through current law and the courts. I think we need to better understand what current constitutional law is in this area and how, if at all, 808 could change that law. And especially in also looking at the definitions that are included in 808 and where that language came from, which is California law. So, Bryn, is that something that you could prepare to do for us? Absolutely. And again, I just want to reiterate that I'm putting these ideas together on the table but recognizing that training is different than policy. And we're not necessarily bringing 808 into the mix for the purposes of passing that policy but looking at the underlining, where is our laminated sheet here that says what our legislative rank is? So, what is the problem that we're trying to solve or what do you hope to resolve with this bill? I think we have heard concerns from folks in the mental health community that what they're hoping to resolve with this is better outcomes when it comes to interactions between law enforcement and people in mental health distress. And we have heard testimony that you don't ever hear about the good. You don't ever hear about the positive outcomes but today in Digger there is a headline that shows one of the positive outcomes which was Burlington police disarm woman with imitation firearm outside the police station and this is dated February 5th at 5 p.m. And so, yeah, obviously this story reads like many stories that we've heard except the outcome of the story was a positive one where the woman was disarmed and hopefully got connected with some resources and some help. So, other questions, concerns, ideas, thoughts on these two bills and all of their associated concepts. They're all on the table. I have thought about 464 and on page 3, line 5, the vendor chosen by criminal justice training council. Years ago, about 10 years ago, I was involved with an effort called Uncommon Alliance in Burlington and it was a very interesting collaboration between law enforcement leadership, criminal justice leadership, and community members who were advocates and organizers. And the purpose was to try to figure out a process to collect data on police stops based on grace. So, we spent about two years and we finally pulled it together and we were able to come up with a process that law enforcement agreed to, to collect data. Yet, law enforcement had the prerogative to choose the vendor that would process the data and report out. So, that was North Houston University who was selected and what was really surprising for all of us was their conclusion was there wasn't really a problem. Yet, the qualitative data was overwhelming. You've been including my own because I was certainly involved at the ground level with this racial profile. So, it made us very suspicious of having law enforcement pick out the vendor which actually turned out to be a long time vendor that had a long time relationship with all these players. So, we just felt there was bias going on there. So, how do we prevent that from happening in this process? And I would suggest possibly that the executive director of racial equity be at that table or others to participate in making sure we have the right vendor. Because data is data and you can spend it any way you want. But we knew it was flawed because- My stand lies in statistics. So, I think that's a concern for me in this bill as it reads. How are we looking to put an amendment in there? Yeah, I think so, just to- This section then it goes on if the vendor is not able to- Yeah, look at that piece. Is unable to continue receiving data than the executive director of racial equity takes over that? Do they have the capacity? I mean, I don't think they do. I don't think so either. So, I wonder why we have this out in the bill if the vendor is unable to continue receiving data. If you have a vendor, the whole purpose of the contract you have with them is that they're supposed to receive the data. Or you get another vendor. If you are not able to, then you're fired and we'll find another vendor. Yeah, it's just- Was there more print to that? Yes, there is a history there for the record brand here from Legislative Council. My recollection is that when House Judiciary was working on this language initially, there were some concerns about the existing vendor being able to continue receiving the data. And so they wanted to put something in the statute that would provide for an avenue if that vendor could not receive data anymore. I cannot remember who that vendor was. The current vendor is the crime research group. I do not think there's a concern moving forward about them being able to handle that data. So this was legislation that was tailored to a sort of unique circumstance. I just can't remember who the former vendor was. So then, you know, say, okay, there's a problem with the vendor. We're going to hand it off to the Executive Director of Race Equity who has no staff to do anything like collect data. It just doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, we need to dig into this just a little bit. And I guess we should hear from the crime research group and understand what they're doing with the data and whether they- I believe there's a more logical home for the out in the event that they can no longer collect the data. Other thoughts? Committee? Okay, we're going to have a few minutes of silent reading here now. If you're done reading and you would like, you can put your head down on your desk. Put our hands on the desk. Gently. Rob, gently. He turns in that direction. We have a leasing bill coming over from the Senate. No enforcement bill. There's a really long list of bills that I believe are Senate counterparts. It's hard for me to know whether any of those are going concerns or that I can make a prediction whether they're coming to us at any point soon. What do you ask? Well, I only ask if we wanted to add, you know, take one of these bills or part of a bill and amend it on them so we could do that. Yeah. I just, I don't know what the Senate is doing. I mean, this conversation that we're having is going to spill over into the coming days and weeks, so you will have time to better understand the landscape. Do you know if there are moving bills on the Senate side? I, in terms of the use of force, in terms of the parallel bills to these, I have not been asked to come in and testify about either of the parallel bills in the Senate about these. If the bill's got law enforcement, that's the end of the person to ask about that. I don't know. Questions and ideas? We agree on a lot of testimony surrounding mental health issues. Are there other communities that we should hear from besides people that are confronted with the use of force? That's a good question. We'll cover it. Well, I mean, that's, that was the kind of set of examples that was given with respect to cross-cultural awareness, you know. Right, but that is an area that I would like to hear more about, excuse me, the cross-cultural awareness because, honestly, not one of those things that I'm understanding will be a tent automatically. Would you like some more examples of the sort of potential miscues that could lead to a misunderstanding between law enforcement and a citizen involved in a traffic stop? Yes, I guess that would be helpful. I have some concerns. In the section that deals with the adoption of a policy, 2368 to start it would probably be, there's a lot of discussion about if you don't then you should and something gets reported, but there's... What page are you on? Excuse me, 5. It's 4, right? Or reports being generated, but no expectation of if you don't adopt a policy and then you don't, then you get one given to you effectively and you still don't implement it. Right, yeah. And then lose your certification. I don't think that we're at the point where we need to start refining this language. I don't think we're necessarily at the point where we're looking at proposing that we move forward with this language. Right now I would be more concerned with understanding the concepts that are out there and understanding what other perspectives the committee wants to hear. So I think you're absolutely right in terms of that, in the parts of that. To understand when possibly difficult to implement. This may be already included in training, but I'm wondering if law enforcement is trained in how to recognize physical illnesses. Say, I'm a diabetic and I'm stopped and someone thinks that I'm right and wrong, but I'm actually having... Any other thoughts on this? I just wonder if the Human Rights Commission can help illuminate some of these scenarios that take place and even get into the cross-cultural piece as well. In terms of how it impacts policing. We're talking about the woman who addressed us in the joint. Oh yeah. Well, I thought I remembered her saying that she would like disability information put into that. And that to me just ends up being a no-win situation because you're asking somebody to walk up and start making an immediate assessment about a person's disability. And how do you... how do you ask that question? One of the... they're trained to make an assessment of any situation that come up. I think that's the piece we haven't heard the details of because they're going to... you know, it's like being a diabetic or being drunk. You can... they'll look and they'll see the different things. The behavior of cultures though are totally different. How do they address that when they walk up to the window and all of a sudden see that it's a different race? It could be Lebanese or something else out there that pointing your finger the wrong way could mean something different. How do they train that type of recognition so that when they're addressing someone they're addressing them properly versus being that authority that's... I'm now in control and I can move along and I'll shoot you. Aren't we asking law enforcement to start racial profiling then? No. I'll go ahead. No, no. I think what we're ultimately expecting them to be is culturally intelligent to have an understanding of all the different cultures that they're going to interact with. As we become a black or a brown or a state this is going to be a greater concern. So if you don't feel comfortable interacting with someone who's different then you need to deal with that and learn because it's not going in the other direction. So how do we best support law enforcement to do their best work with people who are different? So if I don't look you in the eye does it mean I'm ignoring you or disrespecting you but you may react in a different way and then things escalate? Yeah. All those little nuances. So is it law enforcement's responsibility to try to have to learn all those different nuances or those that are here to learn our nuances? And I don't want to say ours. You know what I'm trying to get at is that our culture or our custom has been is that when you talk to some of you looking at me honestly at least you understand that you're communicating. Is it law enforcement's job to understand all those different nuances about all the different nationalities or customs or their responsibility to learn more about I guess what would be expected of them? Nelson do you want to answer that? I'm going to answer police officers today are trained different in every part of the country you're in right here whether in the south or California or up in the Midwest they train differently because of the culture that they're used to that lives around them. Somehow they need to get together and understand that the culture now is spreading out everywhere and they all should have some sort of cross training that meets the needs of each one of those districts not just one. And just to build on that I really see this moving away from training. This is about lifelong learning because the more you think you know the more you don't know. So it's a different mindset and you can learn from your community that you're working with if you have relationships. So it's training you know as a block you check it off and you're done and it's not that because culture is always changing the way it is. Okay so let's put a hold on this for now. We have a list of different perspectives that I'd like us to try to find witnesses to come and share their thoughts with us on these issues and we'll come back to this next week. So we have a now 10 minute break because at 11 we have folks coming in to talk about age 775 or in particular to talk about the after school alliance in Vermont.