This meeting to order of the uh Annapolis Public Safety Committee meeting at 4 46 p.m.

on Wednesday, April 15th.

Um as far as our roll call to my right, I have President Haldeman Smith Brown.

Right.

Uh Daisha Conte is not in attendance today, and Karma O'Neal is.

Um may I have a motion to uh confirm the agenda.

Or I move to approve of the agenda.

I'll second that.

All in favor, please say aye.

Um next up, do I have a motion to approve um meeting minutes from 318 26?

Yes, I moved to approve the meeting minutes from March 18th, 2026.

I'll second that.

All in favor, please say aye.

Okay.

Motion carries.

Um next up on our agenda is our general discussion, and today we have the Annapolis Police Department.

Welcome.

If you wouldn't mind introducing each person and position.

Sure.

I'm acting chief of the police department, Amy Megeth.

And to my right is Deputy Chief Major Stanley Brantford.

Director Lakeisha Blue Captain Guy Thacker, Patrol Division.

Captain Moore Howard Operations and Captain Hill Hurley administrative services.

Right, anybody else?

Okay.

Yep.

Thank you.

So you've uh you've let us be the last to present, uh, which we thank you for.

We got to experience the Office of Emergency Management and the Fire Department's presentations, and I took uh some good ideas that they had and built built on them for our presentation.

Uh I left uh some time at the end for questions, so we certainly want to get to that.

We are trying to give a broad overview of the whole police department and the work that we do, not necessarily getting into the details.

And so we want um we do we have a finite amount of time for the committee meeting.

We've definitely invite uh anyone to come and tour.

I know that um Alderman O'Neill did that in the past, came to the police department and um got a tour of our facility, uh also ride alongside we we definitely um encourage that as well to learn more about how um the work we do.

So I'm I'm gonna get started.

So we're gonna uh go over the department um kind of on a broad scale, talk about the command staff again, what what it means, what we're in charge of, uh, and then uh the different divisions specifically, the work that we do, uh some practical matters that are helpful for the older people to know in general, and uh then if we have time at the end going over some current crime data um for Annapolis.

So you're gonna get a copy of this presentation.

So I'm not gonna read everything on the page, but you know, like any department, we have a mission statement, we have a vision, um, you know, our is to protect life and property, prevent and reduce crime, maintain order, and enforce the law within our community while protecting the constitutional rights and dignity of those we serve.

I also have goals, which include you know, obviously keeping the community safe, strengthening public trust, being uh organizationally excellent, strengthening our workforce, and optimizing resource management.

Also our core values, honor, respect, integrity, and service.

The fire department recently went through a comprehensive strategic plan uh for the next few years.

We strive to do a process like that this year, um involving the public, involving our employees, uh really getting feedback and creating a plan for our department.

One of the things I took from the past presentations was uh Chief Romale spoke about the history, and I do think it's important to touch on the history of the police department.

Well, the first commissioner and the chief of police that was 1867, which is the date that we usually date our police uh department to.

Obviously, the city charter 1708.

It's you know, it's on the front of the um the dais there.

Uh there were constables and watchmen that were uh organized in the city to just basically look for fire fires and um be out in the middle of the night.

Um that 1867 date was when those duties were formalized.

Over time, uh our structure and the size increased as the city grew.

So the department until 1973 operated out of city hall, uh, just like the fire department mentioned that they operated out of City Hall and next door across the street at the fire station.

We also operated there.

In 1973, our current headquarters was built, and that's when we started occupying that site.

So between the years of 1925 and 1930, the department had a chief and 10 officers, one vehicle and a motorcycle.

At that point, the city ended at Westgate Circle and at Spa Creek on the Eastport side.

So the city was much much smaller than it is today.

In uh 1951, there were significant annexations to the city, which included Eastport, German town Homewood, Pearl, Wardor, and West Annapolis.

So that's really uh where the bulk of what makes Annapolis and Apollo happened uh through those annexations.

Uh 1960 saw the first African American police officers hired by the police department.

Chief George Rollins was the chief that hired those officers.

And in 1966, we saw the first civilian clerical staff.

So before that, um officers did all kinds of duties at the police department.

Chief Anthony Howes was the one that moved us out of City Hall to the current headquarters on Taylor Avenue.

Uh he also hired the first female officer, Barbara Hopkins, uh, who later became the first female captain.

Through our history, we also at one point not only had a chief, we had a police commissioner.

And the last police commissioner was in 1974, General Ridgely Gaither.

Uh I was doing some prior work on the history of the department, and I came across this photo of a guy in uniform.

It's at Annapolis PD, but he had stars on his epaulets, and it's like we don't use stars, we we wear eagles, you know.

So I was like, who is this guy?

So I went to the officer at the department who's retired who has the most tenure on, and I was like, who is this?

And he said it was General Gaither, and uh, I was looking a little bit about him.

He was a general, he went uh he was from the family that founded Gaitersburg, which is where his name came from, and he went to St.

John's College when it was prior to it being a great books program.

It was more of a military school, and so that that time period he went, that's how it operated.

Um he settled in Annapolis after retirement from the military and uh became our last police commissioner.

So I thought that was very interesting history.

Also in 1982, that's when our police communications operators were first hired.

So we operate our own uh emergency communications center out of the police department, and that started in 1982.

We operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and this week is National Public Safety Communications Week.

So I'd like to recognize those emergency operators that we have that answer calls morning, day, and night.

Uh in 1985, we actually had a minority recruitment plan as a result of a consent degree.

So from 1985 to 1994, we operated under that consent degree and had this minority recruitment plan for officers specifically.

In 1994, Chief Joseph S.

Johnson became the first African American chief of police, and he was the chief until 2008.

During that time, uh, in fact, I found some records from 2003.

We had an authorized strength of 126 officers, and our officer demographics were 42% minority officers and 17% female officers.

And so you'll see that that numbers remained pretty steady, pretty constant to the current day.

And uh it was while Captain Hopkins was also in place, and it and she was in charge of this project.

The department achieved national accreditation through the commission on accreditation for law enforcement agencies.

So that's what date our CLIA accreditation dates to, 2004.

So it's been over 20 years that we've had that accreditation.

It is very important.

I'm sure city attorney Berger will explain that it's not just about some sort of rubber stamp accreditation.

They change, they update their standards all the time.

We have to follow what are considered current standards for police departments across the country.

It is important for us for liability purposes to have that accreditation, but it's also important for us as a department to make sure that we're staying up to date on these, you know.

This isn't a static field.

Things are changing all the time as things develop and community changes.

We need to make sure that we're keeping in line with those at least the bare minimum, right?

And we should be above that.

So speaking about Annapolis demographics, so both the department and the city.

I put a chart in here about the 2020 census.

Where we lack some, and this is not this is more ethnicity than race is Hispanic and Latino officers.

We have about 5% that identifies Hispanic or Latino.

And then also our female sworn officers has remained around that 17%.

So we were at 17.6%.

And that's something that we always are striving to increase as well.

So as far as the command staff, you get to see them up in front of you today, but I also included them in the presentation.

Our organization chart is also in the presentation.

It's very cluttered.

We have a lot going on at the police department, a lot of responsibilities.

Some of these units, for example, if you look under the very left-hand side, which is the captain of patrol, the day shift lieutenant, and you look down at the bottom, you see things like motors and UAS, which is a drone, basically, an unmanned aerial system.

Those are not like full-time, there's always someone assigned to those.

A lot of these are like secondary responsibilities that people step up for.

So they're not necessarily a standalone unit staffed by a number of people.

Internal affairs falls under the office of the chief, and she'll be speaking more about internal affairs, Miss Blue.

Professional standards includes our CLIA accreditation, our policy, our inspections and audits, and our body worn camera unit.

So the CLIA accreditation occurs once a year, but it's important for us to keep updating our policies throughout that time.

But another part of the accreditation is making sure that we're doing the proper inspections of different aspects of the department.

So this unit makes sure those inspections are done.

Audits, so when something needs to be checked to make sure we're doing the right thing, they'll they'll conduct those audits as well.

And the body worn camera unit is part of that because there are inspections and audits that occur with those as well.

There's random inspections of videos of officers at times.

So our cameras are scheduled, we're not scheduled, but they're tripped by different things.

If an officer arms their taser that will trigger the camera to activate, sometimes it's accidental.

It could be a door closing because they're also they are also set to go off if there's a loud noise like a gunshot.

So if there's a loud door nearby or something like that, it'll trigger um the camera to go live.

We are we can't delete any video.

Um, and so that unit then inspection inspects all accidental activations to ensure that they are actually accidental investig uh activations of the cameras.

So things like that, and they make sure that the videos are labeled correctly because a lot of these videos are shared then with the state's attorney and and private counsel for for crime criminal cases.

So that's what that unit does.

And then other areas, you know, there's an executive assistant in the chief's office, there's the public information officer, and then also the chaplains operate out of the chief's office.

Wanted to add.

Um back to uh Kalia.

So in reference to Khalia is a four-year cycle, and when we get to that fourth year, there's an on-site inspection.

Uh, just to let you know that the public has a role uh in that um where the inspectors will actually come out, they'll spend time in the community, they ask questions about the police department, they'll do surveys, so it's not just the police department, it do have a component in there for the public to weigh in on what they feel like what type of police department we are.

This slide just touches on professional standards and the work that they do.

Um, I'm not gonna read everything on here, and I'll let you guys um get a copy and if you have any questions.

So moving to internal affairs, Director Blue.

Uh the Internal Affairs Division is responsible for ensuring fair and consistent implementation of the disciplinary process across the Annapolis police department.

Um to conduct fair, thorough, objective, and timely investigations into potential officer misconduct.

The staffing consists of a director, sergeant, police officer, external complaint advocate, um, which is Miss Kayla Ziegler.

Her picture is on the slide.

Um, she's a liaison for um complainants and as well as a civilian investigator.

The intake of complaints, some of the ways that we receive complaints are through the public portal.

Uh people can walk into our lobby, um, the police accountability board forward us complaints as well, emails, or they can report them to um supervisors.

Some of the types of complaints that we receive are external complaints, and we also receive internal complaints.

Um, external complaints originate from individuals or entities outside of the department, such as citizens, um, other law enforcement agencies, states attorneys, um, and if it's a complaint involving a member of the public, that uh case is forwarded to the Anna Rundle County Administrative Charging Committee for review for um disciplinary um review.

Some type of the uh types of external allegations include discourtesy, neglect of duty, and failure to write report, internal complaints originate from within the Annapolis police department, and examples of those allegations are lateness for duty, um, absent without leave, and insubordination.

Some of the common allegations that we investigate are excessive force, discurities, uh body one camera violation, false statement, um, and the list goes on.

Some of the um additional responsibilities of internal affairs consist of review of departmental accidents, review of use of forced incidents, review of injured prisoner reports, um, vehicle pursuits, and we also manage uh an early warning alert system.

We also work with the police accountability board and um the administrative charging committee, like I mentioned um before.

So um in the next slide, um I'll speak about some of the complaints that we receive year-to-day comparison.

2024 in 2024, we received 25 internal complaints.

I mean um complaints, and in 2025, we received 41 complaints, and the slide kind of breaks down the increase versus internal and external complaints.

16 were internal and 25 was external.

And uh that was a significant increase in cases uh for 2025.

As far as use of force in 2024, we received uh 10 use of force incidents compared to 11 in 2025.

Departmental accidents in 2024, we had um 26 compared to 25 in 2025.

The vehicle pursuits, we had one in 2024 and three vehicle pursuits in 2025.

Um, out of the three, one pursuit was found to be outside of policy, and the one that we received in 2024 was within policy.

Um moving forward towards our goals, some of um our future goals.

We intend to um implement a mediation program to assist with resolving minor complaints um made against police officers with citizens.

Um we'll be utilizing the Ana Rundle County Conflict Resolution Umter for that project.

Um we're looking to roll it out, possibly July 1st um of this year.

Um we're also looking to enhance agency efficiency by ensuring that cases move through the chain of command um expeditiously, and we continue to maintain transparency and professionalism um in the internal affairs unit.

Good evening, Captain Guy Thacker from Patrol Division.

Patrol Division is essentially every single officer that you see in uniform out on the street performing a variety of different functions.

Um we're 24-7, 365.

We never shut down.

There are always police officers out on the streets of Annapolis.

Patrol, uh the largest portion of patrol are the patrol squads.

Uh we run uh a model where uh the officers, the squads, uh there are four total squads, two are dedicated to daytime hours, 6 a.m.

to 6 p.m., and two squads are dedicated to nighttime hours, 6 p.m.

to 6 a.m.

Uh there's a total of eight supervisors, that's a sergeant and corporal for each squad, and 12 officers per squad.

So do the math, eight supervisors, uh 48 officers just in uniform marked patrol.

Top of that, we have I have two lieutenants uh they're directly underneath me.

They manage uh the patrol division, one manages day work, one manages night work.

There are other permanent units embedded underneath the patrol division, that would be the traffic safety unit.

Inside of that unit is a uh a sergeant, a corporal, and an officer.

Uh what also comes underneath the traffic safety unit and is managed by uh Corporal Higgins is the crossing guard.

So we have a supervisor and 14 and we're fully staffed.

Great people.

Uh sort of associated with the traffic safety unit, and we'll see on another slide with the future where we're gonna be trying to take the traffic unit to uh is the motors unit.

So we have two officers that are currently in the patrol squads, but they're cross-trained, and uh we have uh two motorcycles that we're able to deploy for traffic enforcement reasons or purposes.

Umit, a crisis intervention team.

We have an officer assigned to that.

That's mainly all mental health, mental health follow-ups, and that's a really, really big thing in um in modern-day law enforcement is meeting people where they are and routing them to the proper uh service providers to kind of help them in their position, and that that goes and is factored into what we try to do uh in our efforts in our crime plan and crime reduction.

We don't need recidivism, people falling back into their old habits.

Um we have a retired uh sergeant from the police department who we have hired back uh as a full-time civilian to deal with special events.

Now, uh this is a very specific unit designed for large-scale events, parades, fourth of July celebrations, uh, and anything that's required, uh a permitting process through the city permit office.

Um the office down here in City Hall and uh Sergeant retired Sergeant Paul Gibbs, they do a fantastic job, and there are just a bunch of things that people want to do that require special events and extra planning.

So we need to draw upon our staffing numbers, our officers that are available inside the APD to help facilitate, and we have we also have great partnerships with Maryland Capitol Police and Anna Ronald County Police in those endeavors.

And we're looking to expand that program too.

CDU is it's essentially any kind of civil disturbance that might occur if there's uh dare I say a uh a riot type situation, but there's uh there's specialized training and specialized equipment and specialized uh formations.

So we have a lot of our younger officers who've come online inside the APD.

We are um working close closely with the Antarundal County Police Department and their program.

If we have a large-scale incident, obviously we're gonna fall upon Anna Rundle to come in and kind of help facilitate.

So we have adopted uh a lot of their curriculum with what we're doing and trying to build our CDU response.

And and also Maryland Capitol, that of course they're here and we work very closely with them.

And just last year uh we were able to get them some training slots in the Ana Ronaldin County CDU program.

So we're all kind of operating under the same sheet of music.

Crash reconstruction.

There are officers.

This would be an investigation, uh, a serious injury, possibly uh life-threatening, or it actually a fatal accident, motorized a fatal accident.

They hit there's some specialized training that's required.

It's almost like a um like a homicide investigation, but these officers can do uh crash reconstruction, it's very scientific, a lot of advanced training.

We have officers that have that capability.

The marine unit, uh, just got a photograph.

Our our boat is in the water.

Uh we spent some money last year for some mechanical repairs.

It had been in essentially mothballs for about seven years.

Um we uh acquired some training from Baltimore City Police, and we have 12 of our officers and supervisors who've been uh trained with in that capability to get that boat out on the water.

This is a maritime city, we have a port, we have uh a lot of activity on the water.

We have to we have to be able to have a response capability on that water.

And uh that's another area where the Ana Ronald County Police and the Annapolis Police and the Department of Natural Resources and I guess Coast Guard are working hand in hand.

Uh it's a great capability, but we have it in the water, and um we're gonna be doing uh a lot of evening and weekend deployments out and about, making sure that everybody's safe out on the water and by the waterways.

Motors unit talked about that already.

Looking to expand that and move that uh permanently and have staffing permanently in the uh traffic safety unit.

Um one of our detective lieutenants creates a uh every year an annual traffic report.

It takes all the data that's compiled from all of the accidents, property or injury, and we do an analysis, and uh historically there are uh six major intersections, and if you travel the roads of Annapolis, you know that some of these intersections already.

Chick-upen and forest is like uh the uh highest volume of accidents.

There's a core and several other intersections along that forest drive.

Uh, we're working with Anner Rundle County to come into the city limits to help us try to slow people down uh and prevent accidents and and injury.

Uh there's another corridor on the West Street Corridor from Legion all the way out to the county line.

That's an area of concern as well.

Honor guard, uh very ceremonial.

It's a very ceremonial unit, but it's uh it leads our parades.

This is a unit that is important because it's symbolic.

One uh it represents the pride that goes into being a police officer, and for young children that might be attending a parade or any kind of special event where the honor guard is deployed.

That's that's what they look at, and potentially uh they they say, hey, you know, uh maybe I could do that one day too.

So we we invest heavily in that.

We're looking to expand that.

And um, we have a really good unit, and they're participating in a lot of activities.

I think they did 27 total activities last year, and we're looking to increase that this year.

We can go to the next slide, Chief.

Okay, future goals.

Uh we we only recently within about the last month achieved full staffing in our patrol squads.

Administrative unit and recruitment did a great great job, fan fantastic job of not only hiring lateral officers from other agencies to come in already Marin Police Training Commission certified, who then we uh run through a um a lateral program and get them on the streets of Annapolis.

But we also have been sending uh good numbers to our uh other uh police departments in the area that run pretty extensive academy training, Antarmour County Academy, Baltimore County Academy, and I think both there are some that are slated to go to the Baltimore City Police Academy.

But uh we we had there towards the end of the year, we actually had uh nine, I think it was nine officers in field training at one time.

Of course, to be able to uh accommodate that, we had to preliminarily take a lot of our officers who are in patrol and train them up to be field training officers themselves.

So we had to build a program to support the uh the surge, I called it the surge of officers uh into the police department but into the patrol ranks, and the the result was full staffing, so 12 officers in each patrol squad, and we have 12 uh three officers uh that will be graduating in the middle of May from the Antarctic County uh police department academy, and we hope that you could attend that function.

It would be great.

Three more officers uh coming to the streets of Annapolis.

We do have goals uh in patrol uh the for flexibility.

Obviously, there's uh there's leave considerations, there's training considerations.

Sometimes my supervisors aren't there, and we need leadership for uh and supervisors to be monitoring what's going on with the officers on the street and the activities that are happening out on the street.

So we're looking to increase by one essentially a flexible sergeant supervisor to be able to move into whatever gaps or deficiencies or voids that we have in our supervisory rank to make sure that that leadership is there.

Of course, I mentioned about the uh the three officers that are in the Antarctic County Academy and uh talk to recruitment.

We have two officers in the pipeline uh for lateral.

So we're hoping that sometime by June, middle of the summer, that they'll be with us here in Annapolis, too.

It's important because uh the depart as the department has the available openings to be able to staff.

There are other needs also in the department, and to keep the patrol staffing where we are.

This is a uh these are potentially three to five officers that will be coming to patrol, which frees up our ability to move personnel around in the rest of the V agency to be able to fulfill.

I mean, I have some other this would be when I would be able to possibly uh move some officers into the motors unit full time.

It gives me the flexibility to be able to do stuff like that.

So uh increasing the size of asset or the SWAT team by five officers.

This is a uh this is a tall order.

Uh we're relying again upon other agencies in the area to help provide that training.

It's a uh Maryland Police Training Commission certified course.

It's uh it's three full weeks, plus there's an additional week that comes after that.

It's very intensive training.

It's it's very difficult to achieve this.

Uh five is a big number, but the ultimate goal is to have the ultimate goal that we're removing to is what we call a tier two team, which has 19 personnel dedicated to the team, and we're probably right now uh 10 people short.

So five gets us halfway there, and then the next year maybe we recruit or uh solicit interest from others in the APD to fill the other five vacancies and get to that tier two team.

The marine unit, as I said, we have the boats splash, it's in the water, it's actually at the pier right now.

Uh and we're looking to increase our patrols again in the evening and on weekends and the uh high volume days.

Um bicycle unit.

So uh have a lot of history with uh utilizing mountain bikes and police officers on mountain bikes.

Uh they're tactically very efficient.

Uh they most people, when you talk to people in the community, they like to see officers out of the car, and they'll say they like to see them walking foot.

And what I say back to them is what you actually want to see is officers on bicycles.

They cover more ground, uh, just tactically more efficient all the way around.

So we're looking to do that.

I think we have uh a mountain bike school tentatively slated for the next couple of months.

Yep.

And uh we run that school pretty regularly every year.

I think we ran two schools last year.

The honor guard talked about that, uh, increase the safe uh traffic safety unit.

It's currently the two supervisors and the one officer, and looking to move uh two permanent motors into that.

That's a goal.

Uh how we go about achieving that.

I mean, there are other needs in the agency, but this would be a goal.

And it goes to the traffic enforcement component that we'll talk about in the next slide.

Uh the mission statement was pretty clear.

It's right, it says it talks about the preservation of life and property, protecting property.

But the the highest level there is the preservation of human life.

Uh, I kind of uh compartmentalize that into what I call three buckets, and that is the violent crime reduction.

That's anything where loss of life is possible a possibility, the serious crimes.

There's the overdoses.

So this is uh this might be a mental health thing, public health crisis.

We want to try to uh mitigate and eliminate overdoses.

We have to have a capability for that.

And then the final is traffic safety.

The needlessly loss of life uh for whatever reason, failure to give full time and attention, speeding, all of that.

But we have some intersections with data that support us being out there and trying to uh preserve life and having more people dedicated specifically to that function in as motors units or enforcement units in the traffic safety unit is the goal.

The canine unit, we had a recent retirement.

We had a total of three, one retired.

Uh we had trained one earlier in the year.

As you can expect, it's very expensive and time consuming.

Training certifications are very stringent.

Uh I'm looking to uh replace again.

This would come with the full staffing and patrol and the additional officers coming to patrol midsummer.

This would give me the ability to possibly put a new or get to get a new uh canine officer into the canine unit, get them with a dog and get them trained and get them operational.

But I would like to actually go one step further and get an additional canine officer and can that person hopefully would be a uh a higher level uh training certified certified trainer that could help accommodate not only the uh police canines but also the fire department canines.

Lastly, what I'll talk about on this slide is just building the capacity uh for a modern public safety response with the integration of a robust drone or UAS program.

Um we have a policy, it's a good policy, it's a very robust policy.

I think we have the funding sourced for a uh a drone coordinator that's very important.

This entire program has to be forward-facing to the public uh and be done correctly.

You you you build something, you do it correctly, and that's what we're doing with the APD.

So we're in the the beginning stages of that, but we have uh working concepts and ideas of how to use these drones to effectively or efficiently uh make sure that our community is safe.

We can go to the next slide, Chief.

All right, going back to the traffic safety.

Uh there was a uh from 2023 to 24.

You saw an increase, but in 24 to 25, you saw a nine percent decrease in traffic accidents.

Um the pedestrians in 24, we had 36 pedestrians that were struck, two happened to be killed.

In 25, we had more pedestrians struck with 47, but there were zero that uh were fatals.

Um traffic enforcement has increased uh a lot.

That became a focus last year during our summer crime plan was to focus on these uh historically six intersections or areas, geographies that are the most problematic in the city of Annapolis.

You can you can take a look at those intersections uh every single day.

We're dealing with uh automobile accidents at Forest and Chickapin and Forest and Spa and Forest and Cherry Grove and Forest and Hilltop and Forest and Bywater, and then West from Legion out the route to and if you look at the same report over the last several years, it's the identical intersection.

So we need to get on top of that, and as a a segue uh of slowing people down, uh we are in the works with the additional supervisor that was uh staffed for the traffic safety unit in the uh early stages of expanding the uh speed enforcement cameras that will be placed in the city.

Um for patrol if you have any questions.

Go ahead.

Before we move on, Captain Thack, can you kind of highlight how female asset officer talk about that?

Yes, uh we had two really talented officers that were vying for one spot in the Anironal County QRT quick response team SWAT school earlier this well, earlier last year.

Uh officer Gail Lane, I apologize.

Gail's my canine officer.

Officer Lane uh went to that school, she successfully graduated, she's on the team, she's a very valuable resource, she's doing a fantastic job.

So it's not uh it this position, although physically demanding, is a position that both male and female officers can look to uh or aspire to uh and to be part of in the Annapolis police department.

And I think it was a fantastic thing, and she's an excellent.

Yeah, she was she was only the second female that had graduated from the Ana Ronda County SWAT team, uh, and the last one was 2002, I think.

Okay, uh no, is uh Jenny McLaurin, who is now the PIO for the uh county's fire department.

She was uh police officer with the county.

She was the last one who who successfully completed that SWAT academy.

So we're very proud of her, and we know more are out there that can do the job.

So we act there are actually uh a few other females in the APD who are pursuing this.

So it's it's an issue only of uh finding an available school, and they typically get run in the fall, but there'll be multiple schools and that multiple opportunities.

And oh so I've I'm advancing those screens, but that screen changes when someone else does something, just so you know.

Because it's been on that slide back there.

Okay.

Okay.

Good evening.

Can you hear me?

Good evening.

I'm Captain Howard.

Uh I run the uh investigations division.

Uh so under me, um, we have uh our criminal investigation section, um, which they investigate all of our part one crimes, homicides, shootings, um, ag assaults, robberies, burglaries, the big five I call them.

Um that unit is staffed with uh one lieutenant, a sergeant, a corporal, and right now, currently I have seven detectives um in CIS.

Next, uh we have community outreach, which I call the the feel good unit for the agency.

I don't care what community they go in, when they leave, there's a lot of smiles and a lot of happy people for the things that they do.

Um, and the next we have uh our crime reporting, which is uh falls up on our NIBERS, which stands for our national incident based reporting system.

Um and that just is just a mechanism um to ensure that we properly report crime, all crime, um, that we're not fudging the numbers, um, and those numbers are reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

Next, um, I have Lieutenant Hobie um SIS, which includes the drug unit.

Um, those guys are uh multifaceted.

Um not only do they investigate the narcotics complaints and the drug crimes, but they also do on the secondary things like the tobacco and alcohol checks um for some establishments that are willing to sell to underage folks.

Um next is C, uh, which stands for uh special enforcement action team, and those guys are at the tip of the spear with our patrol counterparts, they're out in the communities every day uh trying to mitigate handgun violence um and trying to make um Annapolis um keep Annapolis safe.

NET is our neighborhood enforcement team, they're kind of like a stabilizing unit.

So whenever we have an incident um and we do a deployment, we do an after action.

We'll generally send net in after we remove uh seat and patrol deployments and move them elsewhere.

We generally will we'll take net and we'll we'll put them there to help stabilize the unit, uh stabilize the community.

Um next, we have uh our intel um crew, uh, which is also part of the Arctic, which stands for the regional um uh I can't think what the real-time information center, uh, which is a collaboration with Anorona County, uh, where we share information with our sister agencies, our regional partners of emergent trends and things like that as it relates to crime.

Um and next is our federal task force officers, which is huge.

Um currently, right now we have um officers assigned to the FBI, ATF, DEA, and the U.S.

Marshals uh with our federal counterparts, which really gives us um some oomph as we get into the summer months um when it relates to our crime plan.

Um federal task force officers um uh are uh big on when we have a large takedown of multiple suspects um that may be affecting not only Annapolis, Anna Rona County, Baltimore City.

Uh we had one recently um in 2024, uh Operation Goldenhammer, which was in the Clay Street community.

Um and then also we have our camera monitors.

Uh those are the gentlemen that kind of like the eye in the sky.

They're sitting in the um uh computer room on the camera room, um, and they generally uh guide patrol officers or some of my detectives into areas where they may see individuals selling narcotics or being in possession of a firearm.

The other areas that we have is uh forensic services, which is our crime lab.

They come out and they um process all of our crime scenes, so they fall um directly in hand with uh criminal investigation section.

Um next is our cold case.

Uh I have one individual staff in that unit, uh, Corporal Noel.

Um I think most of us know that um in 2025 we were able to close a 39 year old, 39 year homicide when an Annapolis librarian was was brutally killed in her home.

So we were able to close that um that investigation, and we're coming up uh for uh for court here pretty soon.

Um next is uh crisis negotiation, uh, which is uh it's kind of like the the little brother of asset.

Um it's a group of individuals, it's a part-time um position where uh we have officers and detectives respond to highly volatile situations such as a hostage barricade situation, and that primary function is is to try to resolve that incident through communication and dialogue.

Um and that helps um that helps prevent officers being hurt, victims, and the suspect as well.

So next is re-entry, Officer Horn, uh, which is the program that he's running is just it's amazing.

Um it's it's crime reduction in itself.

Um this program helps individuals, once they complete their social contract and they come back to their communities, it helps them change the trajectory of their lives, which in fact which helps reduce recidivism.

So it's very valuable in our crime fight.

So next slide, ma'am.

Here's just an overall map of uh going back to 2022 of uh some of the crimes, um, the homicides and shootings that we've had.

And what I what I like to highlight about this this uh this particular slide is is that our CIS um this very talented group of young men and women, they consistently exceed the national clearance averages as it relates to case closures.

So our homicides, our shootings, our aggravated assaults, our burglaries, um, to like we they consistently exceed the national clearance admin.

So um they do a tremendous job.

Um they're very competent um and they're very hardworking, um, and that they're some of the best that I've seen.

Next slide, ma'am.

Again, uh just some numbers um in comparison uh to 2024 to 2025.

Um again uh highlighting the hard work that these young men and women do in RCIS um section uh makes Annapolis safer day by day.

Next slide, ma'am.

Here's uh three-month review of our um special investigation section, uh primarily C and DEU.

You can see these guys are out there.

Um they're targeting the most violent recidivists that we have in Annapolis.

Um the numbers speak for themselves in the last couple months 39 arrests, uh 15 for CDS, um, handgun violations and the like.

So they're they're uh they're very good crew.

Um they work hard, just as just as competent and uh just as reliable as our uh CIS section.

Um and I'm I'm proud to serve with them.

Next slide, ma'am.

Here um in 2023, uh we had um a turn-in for firearms.

We had two during the year, we had one in June and one in October.

Um in one of the events we had we had 69 firearms altogether that were turned in.

And here to the right, you see the number of firearms that were seized from year uh 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025.

So not only do we we go out um and target individuals who are um illegally carrying firearms, but we use other efforts to take as many firearms as we can off the streets of Annapolis.

Next slide, ma'am.

Re-entry.

Uh just got to talking about um Officer Rob Horn.

Um, since he's been here, he's graduated 12 cohorts of uh returning citizens um coming back to Annapolis um to change their lives.

I mean they're coming home and and you know, some of the um of the folks that are coming back, I mean they're learning they're learning meaningful skills, CDL, heating, air, automotive, and medical.

And the idea is behind that is is to give them gainful employment to keep them off the streets from victimizing other antipolitans.

And he he is just doing um, he he's just doing a tremendous job.

Uh, he's a one-man show, um, but he is he is doing a tremendous job.

There is no other program, no other program in the state of Maryland that rivals this positive impact program that Officer Horn is doing on a day-to-day basis.

Next slide, man.

Community outreach.

I talked about community outreach.

Um, I'm amazed uh at you know what they do from the movie nights, the fish camps, uh, the cooking with a cop.

Um you name it.

They they do it all.

Um, and and again, you know, when they when they go into these communities, they build bridges between a community and annapolis police department, and it and it's seen, um it's just amazing what they do.

Um, the smiles, the way the children gravitate to Miss Ms.

Patty Norris, uh Corporal Davis, um, Lieutenant Um Lieutenant Krause, Joe Hudson.

It's it's just the amazing work that they do on a day-to-day basis.

And uh I'm I'm just I'm in awe just to see their itinerary and when they go out and the things that they do, and it's definitely beneficial for the Annapolis Police Department and the city of Annapolis.

Next slide, man.

Again, community outreach.

Here we go, some more fishing, STEM, art, um, crabbing, sailing, the crime lab, you name it.

They do it all.

They do it all.

Next slide, man.

Community outreach again, dare, character counts, uh, career destination days, the homework club, read across America, you name it.

They're involved in it.

Any good program here in the city of Annapolis, um, community outreach is involved, and they have their hands in it.

Next slide, man.

Again, community outreach.

Next slide, man.

Lastly, um, this is the uh patrol uh hero car program.

Um in 2024, we uh partner with the uh Naval Academy.

Um there was a young uh midshipman who was killed in New Jersey by a drunk driver.

Um, and um the agency saw fit to um uh to highlight his life and to partnership with the Naval Academy, and we had one of our vehicles wrapped um in in his honor for John R.

Elliott, um, to show uh, you know, the you know the collaboration and and and the um the to show admiration for the sacrifice of this young man and his service to our nation.

And I think that's it.

So last slide.

I look at about 25 seconds.

Sorry.

Um acting captain, Hill of Rulah.

Uh I do administrative services division, we do all the stuff behind the scenes, so the police can go do police work.

Um, so that's the list of all the stuff that I do.

If I run through everything, it's gonna probably put us way over, and I don't want to do that.

Okay, fine.

You have until six o'clock.

Oh, no, I'll keep talking.

Um so I have uh basically I do in charge of property evidence, building maintenance fleet, which is the cars, um, IT.

Uh so we that's everything in the building that happens.

We work with the city to make sure things get fixed, the showers work, all that kind of stuff, the cars, which is a big problem of maintaining the cars, making sure we have enough for everybody that they work, that everything works in them, like the radios, the lights, all that.

Um we also do recruiting, which I think we'll get to a little bit later about what we've done in recruiting um and hiring, and also we do all the training for the department.

Um not just police, but also the civilians training as well.

Um, one thing that it's not gonna be in the sides, but I was gonna mention is we are trying to start a citizen's academy as well this year.

We used to do it years ago.

Um, I think it would be good just uh, you know, consider joining the Citizens Academy so you can see what we actually do, which do some good stuff, scenarios, courtroom testimony, all that stuff that you would see what what we actually do every day.

I think it's an eye-opening experience for everybody.

Um we also in charge of communications, which is the radio people, um, records.

Basically, most of the civilians in the department work under administrative services division.

They support the police officers doing their job so they can not worry about that kind of stuff.

Um finance, payroll, HR, our version of HR.

Uh we're monitoring the grants, part of collective bargaining, um, peer support, which is uh SISM.

So we're also getting this year a therapy dog for the officers.

So hopefully it can come in and have officers sort of relax or um settle down after a traumatic experience.

Um police officers on average go through 200 times more traumatic experiences than the average person in their lifetime.

Um I think the studies were a couple hundred for an officer, and most people go through eight extreme traumatic experiences.

Um part of the promotion process, which is coming up, we're getting that right now to get that done.

And then firearms that includes both firearms training, which is under training, and also firearms returns.

So when we take a gun from somebody and they're allowed to get it back, we go through and see if they can get it back and make sure we give it back to them.

That was good.

I just barely finished talking.

Um, this is our budget breakdown.

Uh if that's current, um, you can see the main point of this is that most of our budget is salaries and benefits.

86% of it is.

Um, and you can see that what's left is what we use.

We'll get to the training budget as well, which is um kind of small, but we try to do the best we can with it.

You could go.

Um, so I moved, I've only been there about a month in try in charge of the administrative services division.

Um, last year we did hire 19 sworn officers and but 12 left, so that's a plus seven for the year.

Um, and then our current staffing is 118.

I think that might be 119 now.

Um, so we're still short.

Still 118.

It is 118.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, I forgot he left.

Someone left.

Sorry, we just had a person leave again.

Um we do have which they retired.

Yes, it was a good thing.

Um, so to follow up with uh Captain Thacker, we have two more people in Baltimore City's Academy right now.

They started actually on Easter Sunday, which is interesting.

Um, and then civilian staffing.

We hired eight people, a lot of different people there.

We have nine interns, all the crossing guard positions are filled, as Captain Thacker said.

The camera monitor positions were filled, but we have had since someone left.

Um had five leave employment from civilian, four resigned, one actually moved to become a police officer.

He's a police officer now.

Um, and from what I hear, he's doing well.

Um, the hiring over there in the corner, which is hard to see, but you can see the ratio of um looks like African American 57, uh white 31, and it was 15 men to four women for sworn hiring.

Uh okay.

So this is what we did administrative services.

We finally got our fire range, our firearms range working.

It's been uh offline for a few years.

It's almost done.

We just don't have the actual targets working yet, but we're getting there.

Um the PIO we hired, the uh property section.

We're trying to update that by putting everything barcoding so that we have a lot of things in property that are still handwritten, which we're trying to change that and fix that and clean up property from that standpoint to make it all of it searchable.

We have gone through different software programs over the years, so we have a couple different programs where all the property is in.

Not everyone has access to it.

Um, and some of the stuff that was handwritten is hard to read.

So we're trying to go into now and barcoding all of it and scanning all it into the new system so it'll be ready.

We can search it from there.

Um, we're also trying to get rid of and donate the bike.

We have 300 bicycles to get rid of.

Um, and then we've already gotten rid of 78 firearms in 2025, and we're you can so what we're trying to do is hire the police officers to be fully staffed, so we need six more to do that.

As you can see, we hire six and two leave, so it's a it's a constant struggle to get to that point.

Um fully staff all the communications.

We are three short in communications.

So hopefully we can get there.

We have a um testing coming up now for PCO positions.

Hopefully, people will pass and we can uh get people hired.

Uh the range electronics, so the range is up and working, it works really well.

The electronics don't work, so we have to move all the targets by hand, um, which is fine, except that everyone's 15 yards is different.

So my 15 yards is different than your 15 yards, so we get staggered and we can't it it adds more time to trying to get it done.

So the range is four lanes.

So we're in the middle of transitioning to our new handgun the Glock 45, which you remember from what happened while we're transferring over.

Um, and we only have three lanes that are operational because the the targets slide back and forth on a um uh whatever.

Rail rail, thank you.

On a rail, uh one of them is broken off completely, so that one doesn't work.

So we have three, but they have to push by hand.

So we're trying to get them done as as fast as we can, but obviously 126 officers need to be trained because it include the fire marshals, and we have to do it on three lanes, and it takes a minimum two hours of shooting.

So it takes a lot of time.

Thankfully, I've got two guys dedicated, just that's what they're doing right now.

So we are down to 38 left that need to be qualified out of 126, so that's pretty good.

Um, we're trying to dispose 200 or more firearms from the property section.

We have a lot of firems that need to go, and then we're trying to sell off additional things out of the property to try to generate some income.

Training, um, I will point out that our budget is only 80,000 and at zero right now.

So for the rest of the calendar year, we're doing free trainings, whatever we can find.

Um I'll just hit a couple things so I don't take too much time.

Uh we're doing roll call training every month.

Um, we're trying to get to that point.

Right now, we're doing uh almost monthly roll call training.

So we just once we pick up a topic that have people have a problem with, we try to go through all the roll calls and talk to them.

Roll call training means we go and talk to the patrol sections when they're getting ready to start their day.

So it's 6 a.m.

and 6 p.m.

Um we're doing much more simulation type training and practical exercises to generate stress within the officers, see how they respond to stressful situations.

So when it happens out on the street, it's not as stressful when it comes in there.

Um we did convert the entire department to pistol optics, which was a two-day class for each officer.

Last year we certified 21 additional officers to carry the patrol rifle.

Um let's see, we also do CRACE training, so it's civilian response to active shooter event, and that we've gone to two churches last year, and I think maybe another two this year.

So any church or business or school that says, Hey, can you help us respond to active shooter?

We go out there and teach them.

We follow the alert model, which is a national standard of how to respond in the active shooter event because people get they hear about it, they get freaked out, and we try to tell them here's what you should do, here's things you can do.

Sorry.

Um we did a master taser instructor last year.

I don't know if we ever had one before, and what that allows us to do is he can then train other people to be taser certified.

So he's putting on a class this Friday, actually, to train seven more officers for taser uh teachers, instructors.

Um, so we do taser instruction every single year for every single officer.

Keep going.

Okay.

Um, so this is what we're doing as the Captain Thacker pointed out before, we're doing a mountain bike certification.

So we have an officer that teaches that every single year, pretty much to try to get as many people bike certified as possible.

We do standard SFSTs, field sobriety tests.

We do try to do that every year as well.

We do alert training every year.

We're doing more simulations and virtual reality training.

We're trying to bump up to quarterly firearms training so we can get people used to um shooting and feel more comfortable.

Um, one of the things that people don't talk about is the reason we train is so that people actually, if they pull their gun, they hit the target.

Because what you hear about a lot of times is when they miss and hit someone else they did not intend to hit and want people to be comfortable or they're afraid to pull it out, and it's a bad situation as well.

Thankfully, here we don't get any many option-volved shootings.

Um, but I want people to prepare just in case.

Um I was gonna do that, but I wasn't sure.

We're switching to the taser 10.

Um, that may not mean anything to you, but it's an advancement over what we have now.

Basically, what it allows us to do, if you are familiar with tasers at all, where they shoot two darts at once, and it has to create a split to get NMI, which is neuromuscular incapacitation, which is makes them fall over.

Um the taser 10 shoots one dart at a time.

So it allows us to shoot a dart, shoot a dart.

If we miss, hit the other leg, and it should form that connection, which makes them go down.

So they should be much more effective.

Because one of the things we have with tasers, honestly, is when people wear bulky clothes or they move, it's hard to get a good connection.

And the advantage of the taser is if I can tase you, I don't have to fight you, and you don't have to fight me and no one gets hurt.

It's the idea of it.

So hopefully we'll get the taser 10, get them used to that, and it'll be more effective if we use it.

We don't have a whole lot of taser discharges, but when we do, it's nice that it works.

So just really quick, we have a couple slides.

Um practical matters, obviously, you know where the police department is.

Uh, just so you're aware, we only have jurisdiction in the city of Annapolis.

So over that city line, we are not the primary law enforcement agency, and we cannot take action unless it's an emergency situation.

So if um if I'm on my way home and I'm in Anronal County and I see something that is not, and like I said, an emergency situation, I can't pull someone over, I can't um take police action.

Uh the best way to get us to respond to something uh as a um for service to get a police officer out to a location that you need is to call our phone number.

So either 911 and if if it's an emergency or 410-268-4141, and I say that to you as well as all their people.

So if someone contacts you about a situation that's ongoing that's happening right there that an officer needs to go out to, the best way to get a response to get an officer out there is to call that number.

You know, those calls come in to our dispatch center directly, they enter it into our dispatch system, they dispatch an officer, it's in the records.

If you contact someone else in the police department, then that just means that person has to call radio or um create a call.

So the best, the best quickest way is 911 or 2684141.

If you have someone who contacts you that needs to get a follow-up about something they reported, you know, they that non-emerg that administrative line, the 268-9000 number, that's the number that's easily transferred within the department.

And um it's answered 24 hours a day.

Um but it's during business hours, it's easiest to get someone's extension that way.

Uh and then we have a general email, police at anapolis.gov.

If there's something like a traffic concern, that's the best email address to send it to.

Those get routed to whoever's the most appropriate person to handle it.

I can't just send them to you.

You can, and you do.

No, that's fine.

And then our if you haven't explored our website, anapolis.gov slash police, there's ways for people to sign up for our daily police report that goes out via email.

It also gets posted on our Facebook page.

There's a crime map on our website that you can put different parameters in to search for things that happen.

Um that's updated automatically from our system at least once a day, so it's up to date.

We also have a gun violence dashboard updated the same way, so it's specific to gun crimes, and it's very helpful as well on our website.

And then I, you know, director blue mentioned complaints.

People can there's a portal on through our website, uh, also police accountability board website.

There's also a compliment set selection on our website, so um definitely re reach out, you know, go on our website and check it out.

Um I'll stop for questions now.

We can go over crime data another time just so that we can keep this condensed.

Yes, thank you.

I'm gonna start with questions and then I'll turn it over to Alderman Smith Brown because I was trying to highlight them as we were going through.

I'm gonna start at the beginning.

Um you talked about doing a strategic plan this year.

Is that in your requested FY27 budget?

No, but my understanding is that the federal government through the Department of Justice has um grants and things that will help us facilitate that.

Um, actual experts that they make available, and that it may be uh at no cost.

So I'm hopeful for that, and otherwise we'll explore our options.

Okay, thank you.

Um to where we were talking about uh Calia, and I know that three years ago we missed the mark on it and had to work to get it back again.

Do we have one person that's in charge of that or the department?

So it falls under professional standards, and um there's a sergeant in charge of that unit.

There that's part of inspections and audits, Calia is part of that.

It is um a collaborative unit, so that sergeant spearheads, making sure that our CLIA accreditation is on track, but there are people that report to her that manage it.

So we're definitely increasing um the importance of it across the different divisions.

It used to be one person kind of off to this side that was kind of that was their task, or it was a part of an additional task of a sort of of a person who had multiple tasks.

This is one unit focused on um you know our standards, which includes Calia.

So we've really um kind of integrated it into what we do.

Great, thank you.

Um the slides talked about there was an increase in the number of complaints to the department um year over year.

Is there a pattern to that?

Do you have an idea of what the increase is?

So I'd like to bring to you maybe at a future meeting kind of a breakdown of like um not just the types of complaints, the categories they fall into, but then the outcomes.

Um, so we do see some complaints that are quickly exonerated because of our body worn cameras.

Um, but I'm sure Director Blue can speak more to that.

But we I think that's a a topic we could definitely jump more into uh and as well as maybe inviting someone from the PAB or ACC to come to the committee meeting as well.

That would be great.

Maybe let's plan on that for June.

Okay.

Um, two more questions.

Sorry.

Um when Captain Thacker, when you were talking about your patrol units, and you talk about 48 officers, and then you did the breakdown of the different parts, uh, the crisis intervention, the special events.

Is that an additional number of officers, or is that part of the 48?

Yeah, there's full-time, there's uh a traffic safety unit that's three personnel, two supervisors, and an officer, uh CIT, one officer, and canine, currently two all uh a supervisor and one officer.

So uh those are those are in addition to the eight patrol supervisors and the 48 patrol officers.

Okay, the other units are um what I would term as decentralized.

So not only are there members of the patrol division that participate in on the SWAT team, but there's also detectives from CIS and C that are on the on the SWAT team as well.

Okay, thank you.

I just wanted that clarification.

Um the cadets, which unit do they follow under?

Cadets.

Our police cadets.

They followed.

No, it's um Lamar.

Okay, they follow them on the community services.

Okay.

I recently heard that you uh petitioned, I believe, the state to change the rules on the cadets that they can stay longer than 21 as long as they're in school, and I applaud you for that.

Well, so we changed our policy, which was that was our policy.

That was your policy.

So it was very easy for us to change.

Okay, but but it was it was um, I think really needed because we have uh you know, people who have become cadets that are still in college completing their degree, and they don't want to stop to, you know, and then they have that gap.

We actually have an officer who's with us now, she's one of our detectives who was a cadet.

She turned 21.

She ended up uh doing some other work for us, not as a cadet, but within the department, and so she actually has a gap now in her service uh technically, because uh at that time the cadets service counted to their police uh time, not for retirement purposes but for seniority purposes.

So yeah.

Um, I just I have found the program from my side from a civilian side looking into it really amazing.

Um I'm hoping that you know every day we are cultivating those young folks who have an interest in the police department to then further that.

Um, and so anything we can do to keep them, and I think that in this year's budget we also increase their pay.

Yes, so in the pro mayor's proposed budget, we had asked for an increase in their salary to kind of keep pace with what Anne Ronda County offers their cadets, and we were successful in having that uh included in the mayor's proposed budget.

So we we definitely we have a um we have four right now.

I think we have two more openings, so definitely encourage the alder people if there's any young people that they know that are interested to apply um for those positions.

Great, thank you very much.

Thank you.

And then my last question was about the re-entry program.

Um, are those folks automatically referred when they are released, or are they referred by social services, or is it a combination of both?

Do we know?

So generally um Horn, he meets the current crop of individuals that we have in the program.

He meets them in prison before they're they're ever discharge from from prison.

So that's where that communication starts and identifying individuals who will participate in the program.

Okay, and just to add to that, so we also get referrals from parole and probation.

Um we actually have parole and probation that comes to the station uh to actually meet uh their clients, and Rob Horn is there to meet them.

We get referrals from uh family members who heard about the program.

So word of mouth is uh is huge uh for us.

Just to give you a quick story.

Uh I think a couple years ago we had a guy that was released from prison, and this was in the beginning of the program.

Uh the guy got out on a Friday, and I think he spent a couple days on the street.

Uh he called 911 on himself, and one of the things that he told us that an officer went out to meet him, and he said, you know, he he gotten out and he was about ready to commit some robberies, but before he did that, he heard about the program and he wanted to know what we could do.

Rob met him, got him off the street, and that guy's been a success story.

So, you know, we we we get referrals from a lot of different places.

Yeah, in the courts.

In the courts.

Great.

Thank you so much.

I think that's all of my questions.

All right, thank you also very much as well.

Always a pleasure.

So I have many questions though.

Looking at the time, I know we can have another opportunity to maybe talk about some of these.

How are we recruiting officers?

So if you go on our Facebook page, you'll see all the recruitment events that we go to.

We go to a lot of the local universities.

I think there was Bowie State last year, uh last month, um, Morgan State.

Uh, you know, we focus a lot on the historically black colleges, but we do other events as well.

We do um transitioning military events.

Uh we put things on our the police department has a LinkedIn page, we share it there, we put it on some of the job searches, you know.

Uh we uh we try and get the information out that we're that we're hiring to the to the widest range we have.

Like other departments, we've seen an increase in the applicants.

Um, you know, I think we've kind of turned the tide on staffing, and so hopefully that can remains the case.

Just to add to that real quick.

Sorry, she a lot of um that's for new hires, a lot of laterals, word of mouth, right?

So we get an officer come from an agency, and I think Annapolis PD has a good reputation.

And one of the things they go back and say, hey, you guys need to come and check this out.

So the last few referrals that we had or uh laterals that we had came from those people who came here initially and went back and told others.

Yeah, we do have a we have a uh program where um through our union contract that allows for um you know pay payments for uh if someone comes here as a lateral or as an officer, not not necessarily as a lateral, but uh someone comes, then the person who referred them for the position if they remain there for a year, there's a little bonus for them.

I think it's like a thousand dollars just to encourage officers to um being recruiters for the department.

Right.

And do we do uh anything in Annapolis, like reaching out to residents here or anyone here to encourage them, or if they have family members, young persons that just graduated.

Uh, do we do anything like that to promote it?

So the city council actually enacted uh um property tax um relief for any officers that live in the city of Annapolis, and I think that really has increased the awareness in Annapolis of our positions and the the um importance of it.

And it not just includes our for our police officers, but for our police communications operators, the ones answering 911.

So we try and get more and more um residents to be interested, and part of that is by visiting uh the schools as well, especially the high school.

The high school has a job fair every year, and we we are we attend that.

Um we just we really would encourage any city resident that is interested, you know, to come be part of the department.

Okay.

Um, how are we donating the 300 bicycles?

It's in the city code.

So uh it was added, I believe, last year um to the city code.

It used to be the case where the city code only allowed for us to auction them.

However, some of the bikes were in very bad states of repair, and there are a number of um groups that uh um renovate or repair bicycles that are registered 501c3.

So we opened up a call for those groups uh to contact us.

You know, we get their um their paperwork, you know, to confirm that they're a 501c3, you know, that was a part of the city code, and then um, you know, they'll they'll take the bikes um for that.

So it's not these bikes are not ones that are gonna be sold, you know, to recoup money for the city because they're just most of them are not, they've been left out, they're rusty, there's parts missing off of them already.

Um, so we we hope for those types of bikes, we allow them to be donated if they were like something that was more, you know, then we try to auction it because that's what the city code uh was focused on.

for that so it's not these bikes are not ones that are gonna be sold you know to recoup money for the city um because they're just most of them are not they've been left out they're rusty there's parts missing off of them already um so we we hope for those types of bikes we allow them to be donated if they were like something that was more you know then we try to auction it because that's what the city code uh was focused on um thank you uh is there what I know you'd spoke a little bit about the re-entry program and maybe this is something uh madam chair that we can have um him join us to give a little background or just should show us some details on how successful this program has been and just an overview uh for us to support our residents or in their family members who may be dealing with um coming back into the society that they do belong in and so that was the one I wanted to throw out there so what can we do uh to support the APD aside from the building renovationslash upgrades that I recall us talking about the other night uh any legislation ideas that you may have there there are a number I wasn't prepared to talk on that but um you know we've been so budget focused lately and then just finding out what the proposed budget is is important so part of the um budget season is always um is making sure that we focus on um what we've asked for just recently and I don't want to add more to the plate necessarily for for this budget season um without you know more thought on it but there's there are a lot of things we just had a meeting earlier today about um you know public dining and some of the public safety considerations with um having people out in the street or in in a concentrated area special events road closures things like that so there's um there are definitely some opportunities of of things that for public safety reasons we we would want um we if you want a list we will give you a laundry list of things but there's a there's a lot of things um and and uh with it being budget season we'll we'll focus on uh what we're looking at uh for our enhancements yes gives that list that's what I'm here for um and so the next question I had particularly from my ward something that um I committed to my residence when I was running uh to serve is we have a lot of encampments in ward three um and I know I've talked about this before primarily off of Bywater Road which is the road um right where I live at as well as on um Gibraltar Morland Parkway mainly on more than parkway as well as uh near the town court apartment complex uh where the um liquor store lighthouse liquors and the Dunkin Donuts and the um the other I'm not gonna don't need to name everything that's over there but uh so my question which I've asked is what do we do about this it's not illegal as you all know um for us to have persons who are don't have a home uh to be out there in the wooded areas but but how can we address this because I'm looking for uh legislation to uh or whatever we can do in the code uh to support those people while at the same time ensure that uh the values of people's homes are not brought brought down uh from what I've seen in these woods is unacceptable uh for children and families to have to deal with I I agree we've had an uh longstanding um meeting that we're a part of so um not only does the county have a coalition uh to address homelessness but we have an Annapolis specific meeting that our crisis intervention officer kind of spearheads with community outreach you know those are kind of the places where um that become most aware of those encampments either through the mental health needs of the people in them or community um complaints coming in to community outreach about different activities happening so um they collaborate with um an Ronda County resources there's um actually outreach teams that go out to those encampments to offer services um try and get people moved into housing um those meetings center around what people have heard what the current um concerns are you know so when we hear if there's someone we're getting a lot of calls about at from at the police department because of their behavior um if we're dealing with a lot of issues with with a person or an area we bring those issues to that meeting to collaboratively find solutions and and I'll tell you that solutions are can be really hard to find for some people you know um the county has a has the winter relief program we have our emergency winter relief program but there are people that just don't want to be housed in any way um and that's extremely difficult sometimes there are patches of property where it's not clear who owns the property in cases where we get a lot of complaints then what we do is we try and find okay who are the owners are there issues that can be that can be brought up to get them to help

You know, um the county has a has the winter relief program, we have our emergency winter relief program, but there are people that just don't want to be housed in any way.

Um and that's extremely difficult.

Sometimes there are patches of property where it's not clear who owns the property in cases where we get a lot of complaints.

Then what we do is we try and find okay, who are the owners?

Are there issues that can be that can be brought up to get them to help enforce not wanting people on the property?

Um for instance, there's a there was a spot off Edgewood that was a community-owned piece of land, but the community was you know 30, 40 years old, and so the people who lived in the houses didn't realize that their association owned this property where someone had set up a tent, but it was also a water um shed area.

So there were concerns about the debris that that was being left in that area and getting out into the water.

Um, and the I think code enforcement actually with the city ended up being able to bring to bear um like you need to enforce no trespassing and clean this area up, or else you're gonna be liable for some sort of environmental you know, cleanup that had to be done.

So there's all kinds of different angles that we look at.

We're not looking for a community to have a problem, you know, with an area if they're not having a problem having that area there, but if we're getting a lot of calls, um, whether it's a you know domestic problems between people that live there together, um, whether it's because of drug use, you know, what have you, you know, we try and find different solutions depending on the situation.

When a community is um wanting to get rid of those um people that are in on their property, then we advise them about no trespassing signs, telling people that they're not welcome, having the community, the outreach team from the county go out and talk to them to make sure they know like you you're gonna be removed, property owner doesn't want you here, you know where else can you go, you know, making plans for that to happen.

So you know, I agree it is it is an issue, and um you know, we just keep working on solutions.

All right.

Um, and so there are two more questions here.

Actually, hopefully we can get that in three minutes.

The f the first of the two is I'm working on uh I'm just to share with you all I'm working on legislation.

I know you're added to that, the legal park right to park in front of residential private driveways, and I want to make sure that you all take a look at that so that I can get your eye before we move forward to ensure that seeing that you all will be a part of the enforcement, it is done according to your workload and whatever's best for us to have your support for our residents.

Uh, that was the one question.

But the question really is if you had any questions about it, feel free.

I know this is not transportation meeting, but it is public safety concern.

Um, so if you had any questions, please feel free.

But um, if not, the last question is uh for the record, um will you just clarify?

And I know we've spoken with this as all the persons is in the mayor on the matter, but clarify the department's current relationship or lack thereof with um federal immigration authorities, ICE.

Yes, definitely.

So um we don't have any kind of ongoing relationship with ICE.

They do not let us know when they're operating in the city of Annapolis, either beforehand uh during or after they've been in the city.

Uh we um we don't enforce federal law, we don't enforce immigration and law, um, so we do not uh have an ongoing relationship with them.

When officers encounter people out on the street, you know, it's our policy um not to ask for their immigration status that's never been part of our um practice in Annapolis.

We um there are certain situations where someone's arrested for um serious crimes, where if we don't um notify consulates and things like that, embassies if they are the um uh citizen citizen of another country, it could affect our ability to prosecute them.

Uh and it could affect the treaties that we have with those countries.

So some countries require us to mandatorily report if we arrest somebody and say charge them with homicide.

Um, some countries leave it up to the person to decide if we tell their country or not.

Um there are different trees that the United States has.

So that's the only situation where that comes up, but it is I can't remember the last time we've had to deal with that.

Um so our policies are online, so on our website as well, the police department policies are published there.

Uh they get updated whenever we update them.

So certainly you could go there as well, and anyone, anyone in the the community can go there.

If you don't I'm at a chair uh there actually uh you just reminded me of the question I had to ask you uh from the other day, so it's don't forget to ask the question.

So in light of policies, we're working on uh updating the code to uh make it easier for our departments, particularly since the rules of city government, which I chair has to deal with this um and make having holding public forums to come and speak on any policies that are being updated or changed.

Um are there any to date that have been updated or changed that have not been shared with the rules of city government committee?

Well, I mean, our policies do not go through rules and city government, so our policies are um like a like I said, they're published on the website, and that was a result of um state law to require police departments to and they get reviewed by the office of law as well.

Our policies um we've had policies, you know, written policies for you know that it's a function of being a police department to have standard operating procedures and policies.

They're not enshrined in code um because they get changed uh all the time, updated, tweaked, uh, you know, some are a matter of like the cadets, you know, we can let them be a cadet and be over 21.

That's not re restricted by any any law, and we can just change it if we want to.

Um if you don't mind, uh what i is it um at city attorney burger that coming to the rules of city government?

I know if things change, we have to have a public forum to come and speak.

The police department's not a part of that.

So this is probably a conversation better to have offline that we you and I have discussed before about um the intent of the sponsors of the original legislation not extending to the departments themselves, though the legislation says department, um, that council or those sponsors, I don't want to speak sort of on behalf of the entire council, but understood that with police and fire in particular, um, as acting captain McGuiss said, there's a lot of times where you know, in order to keep updated with Khalia accreditation in order, things evolve quickly.

And so going through that that 30-day period and then some before a um general order or an operating policy manual can be officially updated and disseminated is not feasible.

And so one of the things that the police department does that not other um departments within the city necessarily do is have all of their general orders with the exception of very few that are are safety sensitive, uh, published on the website.

So technically speaking, you know, a member of the public can look at a policy and if they want to weigh in on it, they can do so.

It's not through the form of the rules in city government, but there is that ability to do that, and it kind of, you know, the um portal that was referenced earlier where you can do complaints or compliments, that is also another avenue where someone can submit a um comment on the published general orders.

But the legislation itself that we've discussed changing, the main intent behind it was when the city's boards and commissions update their rules and regulations, that that was what um those sponsors wanted to go before before the rules of the city government to allow for that public comment period as well.

And it wasn't intended to cover um departmental rules and regulations.

I think maybe there was a lack of understanding that police and fire in particular have a lot of those departmental rules and regulations, and they're constantly being updated.

That's exactly what we're looking for.

Thank you.

Okay.

You're good.

Thank you.

Um I didn't come up with any other questions.

You guys were very thorough, and I thank you so much for spending the last hour and 45 minutes with us to share um we I've asked Caitlin for our June um agenda to put the um discussion on complaints, both internal and external, so we can talk a little bit about that a little bit further.

Um also going to add the crime stats that we didn't get to in your to that date.

And I might also, if time permits, see if we can also do the reentry program.

Trying to be very proactive in not making all of the public safety personnel come to every single public safety committee meeting if they you know don't want to.

So being very intentional with our agendas so we can get the most of your time without wasting your time.

Correct.

I don't think I saw uh you here for the fire department.

No.

Oh yeah, you were.

You were here.

Thank you all very much for coming.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um as we have completed our agenda, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

I move to adjourn.

I'll second that.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Blessing.

Aye.

Meeting adjourned.