And so I'm going to call the meeting of the Citizens Police Review Board to order.

We'll start as we usually do with introductions, and I think we'll start with Assistant Chief Horrell and go around this way.

My name is Richard Harelma, Assistant Chief of Columbia Police Department.

Harry Castle, board member.

Ed Robinson, board member.

Denise Flazic, board member.

Doug Hunt, board chair.

Steve Jeffrey, board member.

Stephanie Coleman, board member.

Earl Krause, City Law Department.

Aiden Oliver, City Management Fellow.

Stephanie Brown, Special Projects Manager in Liaison.

All right.

Welcome everyone.

We'll first have a motion to approve the agenda unless somebody sees corrections that need to be made to it.

I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda as written.

So moved.

Second.

Yeah, take your choice.

Denise might have been a split second earlier.

Okay.

It's been moved and properly seconded to approve the agenda.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

And then approval of the minutes.

I think everyone's had a chance to look at them.

So we've got the draft open session minutes from July 9th.

I'll entertain a motion to approve the draft open session minutes from July 9th.

Coleman, I'll make a motion.

I'll second the motion.

Been moved and seconded to accept the draft open session minutes from July 9th.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

And then we've got the draft closed session minutes July 9th.

I was not here, so I will be recusing myself on this vote.

Likewise.

Okay.

So a motion from someone else would be welcome.

Yeah, I'll make a motion.

Coleman.

I'll second it.

Been moved and seconded to accept the draft closed session minutes from July 9th.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Good.

We've got the business cards update.

And I think we've all to our delight have a little deck of uh business cards in front of us now.

I mean any news about what we need to know about these?

Um there are board in supply, so if anyone needs any more, I have those.

And we have flyers still as well, if anyone needs those.

That's great.

Good to hear.

All right.

So I think these are very much what we were expecting, and uh I'm delighted to have it.

So thank you so much.

Appreciate that.

I definitely will want some more of the flyers.

Then school's getting ready to start all some of the classes that I guess speak at.

Good.

I think we'll move on then to new business.

Um I had mentioned before that um I wanted to discuss the question of wrong address incidents by looking first of all at um a case that came actually before the U.S.

Supreme Court in December because it'll it's a good one to study.

And we can I think we can learn a good deal about um some policy issues and and perhaps raise some practice uh issues uh with the assistant chief.

So uh and you'll look at your screen, you'll see searches and seizures at the wrong address.

So we are talking about Fourth Amendment rights when police uh uh answer a call and arrive at the wrong address.

Sometimes they're the dispatch is wrong, sometimes it's a question of the officers being confused about what the address is.

Um again, searches and seizures uh implying that there might be an entry, there might be uh somebody being restrained or arrested or something like that when the when the officers have arrived at the wrong address.

So that's our our subject.

And uh the case that came up this summer from the Supreme Court and resulted in a unanimous decision was uh Martin versus the United States.

Um it's an interesting case in many respects, the uh because it involves um FBI agents.

And there's a very high wall of immunity in terms of cases brought against FBI agents or other agents of the federal government.

Sovereign immunity is the uh term that's often used, uh, so that uh some agent of the federal government who's uh in the process of uh doing their business, or the federal government itself, or the FBI is has enjoys pretty wide immunity from prosecution.

I could go into some technicalities here, but the exceptions to that are in effect malice or uh negligence.

But um it's a high wall, and the case that came before the Supreme Court had to do whether that wall would be applied in this particular case, or whether the Martin household would be allowed to file suit against the United States.

So here's our basic situation.

You can look at the um the Martin family on the left, Toy Clyde, Trina Martin, and Gabe Martin.

Gabe is looking a little older than he was at the time.

He was seven years old at the time of the incident, as will happen with things going through the court, it can take a long time.

Um the police, the FBI, I should say, had information that led them to uh want to do a um a raid, uh, was a pre-dawn raid on the target house, which was 3741 Landau Lane.

So the dispatch went to tell them to go to 31, 3741 Landau Lane, but that's not where they went.

They ended up going to 3756 Danville Trace.

This is all in Atlanta, Georgia, where it happened, which if you look at it, it's like four houses away in the north south direction, the opposite side of the street.

It's actually on a different street, technically.

Um that's the wrong house element of this.

Apparently, dispatch was correct about where the officers were to go, but the officers went to the wrong place.

Um when the Supreme Court looked at this, and again, uh it is possible that negligence would break down the wall of immunity in terms of the federal government being sued for this.

They noted these possible that they're not the finders of fact, as they say.

They're saying that these are the allegations that that uh would support going to court.

There was uh reported reliance by the lead officer here on a GPS device, which he said it wasn't working.

It's bad, so I threw it away.

Right.

So there was the question of reliance on a personal GPS device that may have been faulty, was one thing that they mentioned.

Failure to notice that right near the house that they raided was the Denville Trace Street sign.

So, you know, sort of uh elementary looking at the street sign would have led them to say, well, this can't be the address, and but they didn't uh didn't notice it or didn't act on what they saw.

Failure to notice the house number that was plainly visible on the mailbox at the end of the driveway.

So there were signs there that this would be uh another address.

And they had been the the target house, uh which they were quite concerned about.

They'd been uh tracing the suspect involved there for some time.

They looked at a car that was there was a car in the driveway, and it wasn't the suspect's car.

So they had these things that might have set off some alarm signals.

Yeah, that's the general picture.

By the way, anybody can interrupt me if they want, if it verification, but that's the uh what the the court noted.

And then here's what happens is October 8th, 2017, and the family wakes up to the sound of a battering ram entry.

So the the door is being beaten down, and then there's the flash bang grenade.

So needless to say, they jumped out of bed.

Uh they were they were still in bed.

It was a pre-dawn raid, as we said.

Trina and Toy, the adults, leapt out of the bed and went to hide in a walk-in closet near their bedroom.

Um they didn't know what was happening.

Uh Toy, the male said later on that he thought somebody had been sent there to finish them off.

Um they went into the closet.

The officers were moving very fast, which was very good, because Trina and Toy went into the uh walk-in closet and closed the door, and uh Toy started to reach for a shotgun that he had behind the door.

But before he could get to the shotgun, the door opened, and the officers apprehended him and pulled him out.

Put him on the floor and handcuffed him.

Trina, who was described by the Supreme Court as half naked, I I assumed that she might have been in her nightgown or something like that.

She collapsed and was still in the closet and saw an officer hovering over with a pointed rifle.

And Gabe, who was age seven, was in another bedroom and had the presence of mind to hide under the rug.

But the officers found him and pointed rifles at him and pulled the rug away.

So that's the basic thing that happened in the raid.

Now, it didn't take long for them to, when they started uh interrogating Toy, what he was saying didn't fit with the story of why they were sent there.

So that was a sort of signal, and they began to be uneasy about things and eventually figured out that they had uh arrived at the wrong address, but all this had happened before that moment.

So now again, I want to say this isn't happening in Columbia.

This was happening in Atlanta.

This is the facts of the case that were is being talked about.

So the damage, um, there was a question of straightforward monetary damage because the door had to be replaced, uh, the rug was burned by the flash bang grenade, um, some railings were knocked down and stuff like that.

So it was about $5,000 in um monetary damage.

But as I understand it, insurance ended up paying for that, and that was not the main concern of the Martin family.

The main concern that they had was uh suffering and um psychological damage.

Trina, though the woman, um says at the time I was a track coach, and I had to give that up because every time at the starting line, when they shot off the gun, it sent me into a frenzy.

So she gave up her job as a track coach.

Gabe, the who was young at the time, he was seven years old, says they had two guns pointed at my head at the same time.

I didn't want to get killed, it cost me my childhood, and Toy, the uh male involved, said we were going to a lot of therapists.

So that's their uh statement of the damage that they feel they suffered.

And again, Supreme Court isn't gonna confirm that that's that they did suffer that damage, right?

They're just saying that these are the allegations that a court refused to hear before.

And uh, and they're saying, no, actually it needs to be heard that we might have a case of of negligence here that breaks down the wall of uh sovereign immunity.

Um so that's a that's a picture of a pretty severe wrong address incident.

Um, you know, for one thing it's it's a it's an outright raid, so we've got everybody's heavily armed and and the action is fast and uh and damaging.

Um tried to do some research on what the absolute number of wrong address errors are, and it's very hard to document because there's not an ineffective database that tells us, and even individual police departments do not typically keep track of wrong address errors and and publish a count.

Um there are some municipalities that have done so, and um people who have looked at those numbers and sort of projected uh think that there are hundreds of court warranted, that's the easier ones that to um to count because you actually the the department went to the courts and got a warrant, so we've got a clear record here.

So there are hundreds apparently of court warranted wrong address raids every year in the U.S.

And if you think about it, that's a non-spontaneous uh planned operation if it's a court warranted uh raid, as this one was.

Um, as the researchers point out, if you add the number of spur of the moment entries or detentions where the officers show up at the wrong address because they feel that there's an urgent call there and go in without a uh a warrant.

Um the projection is that there must be pretty common.

I mean, there must be thousands of them that happen every year.

So it is a nationally recognized problem, and it's rather fascinating that the current Supreme Court should in an unanimous decision um lower the threshold for suing the U.S.

government in the case of a wrong address raid or incident.

So that's where we are.

Now I get to tell my own story.

You may or may not recognize on the picture on the lower left the fellow on the right, but that is well done.

That's my wife at the time, Marge Hunt and me, Doug Hunt.

It's the summer of 1974.

We've just returned to the U.S.

after uh spending a couple of years in England.

And it's really our first night there.

We were fortunate enough to find a place to rent from a very nice minister.

Some of you may know, Mel West, who's turning a hundred years old, wonderful man around town.

And we're needless to say, tired.

We traveled with very little and we're sleeping in a rear bedroom of that house on a mattress on the floor with our belongings still in boxes around us.

The crickets were a problem that night.

It was very hot.

I can remember certain details.

And about two o'clock in the morning, I hear a commotion in the front room.

I want you to look at a picture of that house, and you'll notice that right now, even there are two mailboxes in front of it.

The officers, it was a, as I said, a very hot night.

We had every window open and the door open with just the screen locked.

And I hear a commotion in the front room.

I don't, I hardly know what to do.

As you can probably tell by the love beads around my neck, I'm unlikely to be carrying a pistol in my closet or anything like that.

But I finally decide I'd better go out there and see what's going on.

So I open up the door, and I'm blinded by a flashlight in my eyes, and I'm able to see that there's a pistol behind the flashlight.

Um, and that there are two officers in the house.

Um, and we had a little discussion.

Uh I cannot remember it because it was uh a state of high excitement.

And um the they left.

Um and you know, I said she said, okay, okay, okay.

And they ran around to the back of the house.

And what had happened was that a young lady had been followed and threatened on her way home from I think probably the bars or something like that that night.

And they had simply mistaken A for B in the house and had uh broken in.

Um this is a a trivial example in some ways of a wronghouse raid, a wrong house uh incident.

Um it was um kind of upsetting at the time.

One thing that they have in common, these two things, which I actually appreciate very much, is that after the incident was over, um, we'll go back to Atlanta, first of all, the officer who led the raid went into to the Martin's house and said, I'm sorry.

We we we just made an elementary error.

We we ended up at the wrong address.

So the Martins understood that they were not suspects or something like that.

The officer who's gone to the wrong address.

The um officers returned and talked to us.

We were not fast asleep, believe me, uh, and said uh, here's what happened.

We were actually trying to help this woman out who had called in distress from the the same thing.

Wrong address raids are um, you know, people have Fourth Amendment rights.

There's the sort of castle doctrine about supposed to be safe in your home and everything like that.

They also cause distress because in the case of the Martins, for instance, all the neighbors are looking at their house being raided, and they're saying, what's wrong with these people?

What's going on?

So there's there are real prices to be paid for uh wrong address raids or wrong address uh calls, whether of a very serious sort, like the Martins are a fairly trivial sort, uh, as happened with uh the one that I'm talking about.

And again, because of the relatively common nature of uh wrong address raids, I wanted thought it would be worthwhile for us to discuss with the assistant chief um the question of some uh policy questions that kind of come up there.

So I sent these ahead of time.

Um well actually no, I do have to do one more.

That's right.

This is important too.

Um this is actually from a um Supreme Uh Court case in uh uh in the Ohio Supreme Court in 24, because it has to do with municipal responsibility, not the not um federal government responsibility, not individual officer responsibility.

It has to do with municipal responsibility.

And they had a wrong house raid with very bad consequences.

And the decision of the court there, I don't know what the state of Missouri decisions are, I just not a good enough scholar to know.

But the the uh Supreme Court in and uh Ohio said the city was clearly on notice that officers going to the wrong address is a recurring problem.

When such an important right is at issue as the right to be secure in one's home from unannounced forcible official entry and search, and when there is such a potential for mistakes, mistakes that so readily can have tragic consequences, then a municipality is required to exercise more than usual care.

So again, here we've got a state court saying that people have a right to sue should such things happen.

So and this is you know very much in the air uh in in lots of places, but that's the the clearest statement I could talk about municipal responsibility.

That's the stage, so to speak.

Any questions about any of those things that so here's the questions that I that I had uh proposed, and um maybe we'll ask uh ask others may others may have other questions they want to follow up with, but I I thought we might start with the just assistant chief Worrell and just uh focus on these four pretty elementary questions.

Um so we can we can take these in any order you want, or what what suits you best.

Uh shall we just start at the top or that's fine.

Um we can do that.

Uh I'd like to address a couple things, though.

Um first first your example uh when it comes to the Supreme Court case, um that case has been remanded to the lower court, so it hasn't been decided.

Exactly right, right?

So that's exactly right.

Keep that in mind.

Um and then secondly, um this case is all about tort law and how one can get claims against the United States government.

So in that respect, that's not my my doings, right?

So it's it's a little bit more complicated than just simply saying some of the things that you had said, but um so I just wanted to point that out.

But to be clear, what I'm talking about is whether the municipal the city of Columbia is subject to a lawsuit, for instance, in these instances.

I'm not talking about whether the police officer is or something like that.

Does the municipality have a responsibility is the real question here.

And the the federal government in the in the Supreme Court case that if these things are true, then the federal government does have responsibilities.

You say it's remanded at the lower court to be the finder of fact, right?

But so we and we don't know what the fact find what they'll finally find, but they are saying that the federal government can be held responsible.

I'm a little concerned about whether the municipality can be held responsible, as you know, uh in a case of a wrong house raid.

Now, I I hear you about you know, it's not a question of whether some officer or the police department, yeah.

Right.

And then as far as the municipality goes, I I think that would be subject to the attorneys for the city to decide how that would work, right?

I mean, yeah, I don't know.

But um I I can say that you know it's it's very difficult to speculate on what happens um in different instances.

You're in this case, this was a search warrant executed at at a house where they went to a wrong address.

Right.

When you first talked, you talked about dispatch told them to go to a different address.

And and those are two different things.

In execution of a search warrant, dispatch doesn't tell us to do anything.

That's that is a a judge signed order that allows us, because we've obtained probable cause to search and seize a residence or people or whatever, right?

So that's pretty specific and a little bit different than a dispatch to call for service.

Does that make sense?

Well, I I think so, but what I'm what I'm saying is that the officer that the FBI officers were sent, I maybe I'm using the word dispatch wrong to one address and in fact went to another address.

Yeah, so uh and I would say they weren't sent anywhere.

What they did is they execute a search warrant at the wrong address, period.

Right, right.

That's the bottom line, right?

Sure, I agree.

If if in fact they had the correct address of 3741 Lando, and that was in the search warrant, that is where they should have executed the warrant, and they didn't do that.

They went to a wrong address, period.

Right, and that discussion, right?

I mean, that's that's how I look at it.

Sure, and I think that again who gets to sue who, that's all about torts and such, and uh, and I don't that's not my thing, but going to the wrong address is certainly a problem.

Yeah any way you look at it.

Oh, yeah.

So um and that's how I do it.

So just to understand in in executing a search warrant, that is a very clear established where you're going, what you're doing thing.

Right.

We search for certain things based on a probable cause statement, right?

So that's way different than for example, your ex your example was not an execution of a search warrant.

No.

That was that was completely because a call for service.

Right.

And we can always get calls for service for all kinds of things in different places, and sometimes it it's very dependent upon the information from the caller, the information that the communication center enters in the computer.

Um it depends on if we get out and someone flags us down and says, hey, over here.

I mean, there's so many variables there, it's hard to speculate what's happening.

So we always try to get to the right place.

Don't get me wrong.

Yes, ma'am.

Well, I hear what you're saying.

About, you know, it's not exactly the same, and there's different instances and blah, blah, blah.

But how common are these wrong address incidents in Colombia?

Okay, are you talking search warrants?

Are you talking calls for service?

Those are two different things.

Let's talk about both.

Both perfect search warrants.

I'm not aware of any execution of a search warrant at any wrong address in the last 30 years here in Columbia that I know of.

And all right, but we uh heard Doug mention that often um agencies don't like to keep track of things like that.

So is it because you don't keep track of it or because they haven't occurred?

No, I don't they have not occurred.

Okay.

Um I I can tell you the City of Columbia, we are very clear about how we execute things here, particularly when it comes to search warrant.

There's multiple reviews by supervisors, we gather intelligence.

Um there's a lot of work that goes into a search warrant packet, if you will, and I'll call it a packet that has information in it that we all look at to decide if that warrant should be executed and how that works.

It then gets reviewed by a prosecuting attorney.

Prosecuting attorney um after goes through three different supervisors, um, will then review that case.

After that's done, it's then taken to a judge.

And a judge signs off on it or doesn't sign off on it.

The judge approves that.

So um we haven't had any executions of warrants at wrong houses.

When it comes to calls for service, that's that can be all kinds of things, right?

I mean, the bottom line there is it depends on the caller.

It how many callers are so excited when they call that they tell us the wrong address they're at.

I mean, we've had different streets even the same kind of thing.

We'll go to the wrong address because the caller said, hey, I'm at this address and they're not there, right?

And there's there's even addresses in the city that are like North Street or South Street, which that's a big difference when you're trying to find the right person in the right place, right?

So the callers are a challenge.

Uh the 911 operators when they're entering stuff and someone's yelling on the phone could be hard to hear, so they enter things the best they can.

We take that information when we get it via computer or via radio, and that's what we're listening to.

We go to an address, right?

Or someone flags us down and said, Hey, I heard something over here, can you go check that out?

We might go over to wherever that is where they pointed to and look around and see what's happening because they're they said that.

It it's a duty for us to do that, right?

But we might not know that something's happening or not happening there.

So I can't tell you how many are wrong or or right with that.

Um generally speaking, we go to the right addresses based on the calls for service.

But is there a chance?

Always, always a chance, and it just depends on the nature of the beast.

When someone's super excited, they'll they'll yell all kinds of things out and may come up with the wrong address that they're really at.

So it just depends.

Anybody else?

Questions already talked about some of the policies and procedures that that have to go through in order to uh get to a place where you're searching.

And I already talked about some of the policies and procedures that have to go through in order to uh get to a place where you're searching.

Well, for a search warrant, but uh but there's the question of policies, procedures, and trainings.

Do they we have in place to avoid wrong address incidents generally?

We're familiar with that one that we looked at.

Talk about any particular case.

So we know that is we can't discuss particular cases.

We can I think we can say that we as a board are concerned about the probability of wrong address cases happening.

And so that's the pertinence of the question.

What about policy?

What are the policies and procedures and training practices to minimize those instances where the responding officers go to a dr uh an address that they weren't dispatched to?

Do what what policies and procedures and training practices do we have in place?

So we typically don't go to addresses we're not dispatched to, or for I mean, that's not what we typically do.

We go to calls for service.

We can certainly look into any problems that we foresee.

If we see somebody jumping through somebody's window, we don't know who they are.

Certainly we would check that out, right?

Could be a burglary, right?

So it depends on the nature.

Do we go to the wrong addresses is what you're asking?

And I well, no, no, that's not what I'm asking, actually.

What I'm asking is how do you prov what what what steps does the police department make in terms of policies and procedures and training practices to prevent officers from going to the wrong addresses if possible.

Right.

So when it comes to that, the specifics are this.

We get dispatched to a call for service.

We don't typically decide who that is or where that is, we get that information via computer, right?

Or the radio dispatch.

They come up with whatever address they give us, we look into where that is and we respond to that location, right?

When we get there, what do we always do?

We first of all verify we're at the right address, right?

Look at the street address, look at the numbers.

That's that's part of our training methodology, right?

Is the verify of our location.

We always got to do that.

Nowadays we have a GPS system in the cars, it's certainly easier to do than the old days where we picked up maps and looked at it.

So our first step is verification of our location.

Again, there are different streets that sometimes are named the same thing, but they're in two different parts of the city.

So uh we that's our first step.

Second step is who's the caller, who called us, and trying to talk to that person to see are we at the right location?

So we we identify who the caller is and try to talk to them and verify that the caller is the person we need to talk to and verify what the problem is, what they need, et cetera.

So those are the the basic principles, kind of common sense really is how we deal with every call for service is is finding out where to go properly and who to talk to first.

And then once we identify that, it's it's just a simple matter of investigating what the issues are, and we go from there.

Is there a uh specific uh practice or or or procedure?

That's how we handle all of our calls for service one at a time, and we look at that call as a whole, and we look at where to go and how to get there and who to talk to.

That's pretty pretty straightforward.

Yeah.

Okay.

Any other questions or comments?

Um, let's suppose that uh a mistake is discovered, that the uh officers discover that they have gone to the wrong address.

Um perhaps I shouldn't go into specifics, but they've gone to the wrong address, and there's been an entry and there's been a seizure.

Um how does the department deal with the innocent civilians?

What what do they do?

Well, I I would say it's a pretty extreme case.

Um if there's an entry and a seizure, uh you're talking about a lot of things that have happened there and why did they happen.

I can't, it's hard to speculate on that particular uh uh thought process.

Um I can tell you when we serve warrants for people, and there's always going to be we're looking for person A and there's person C D E and F in that building, they're innocent parties.

We always treat them with dignity and respect.

There's been kids involved uh where we we basically uh uh take those kids and take care of those kids uh if we're in our SWAT gear, if you will, we'll take our helmets off, we talk to these kids, we pick them up, we we we tell the story.

Uh if we're in our SWAT gear, if you will, we'll take our helmets off, we talk to these kids, we pick them up, we we we tell the story.

So we try to explain why we're doing what we're doing and when we're doing it.

Um and again, there's always that element involved.

Um we we just don't go into people's houses just because um there has to be a really good reason to do that.

We're not here to violate people's for fourth amendment.

That's right.

And I guess what I'm interested in it may nonetheless happen.

I I think about the uh the Martin case, I think even about the relatively trivial case that um happened with my wife and I on Ripley Street is the policy of the department, if they discover that they have um made a wrong address raid to talk to the people where the wrong address raid took place and tell them that that they were they were improperly.

Yeah, so let's talk about that.

You you broke it down into two cases.

You you your example was the Martin case, which is a executed search warrant at a wrong address, clearly, right?

Would you agree?

Oh, yeah.

Secondly, the case for your house that you mentioned and you brought up was the investigation of someone who called, according to you, someone who called needing help, and the officers came to that house, probably weren't able to identify A or B or whatever, couldn't understand which was which.

Um, and tried to get her help, whatever that was at the time.

We would do the same thing in any case today.

And that's that is our our methodology.

We we try to be customer service, customer friendly, we deal with people reasonably and effectively.

Um we're always trying to uh explain why we do what we do.

Um we don't typically go to the wrong houses for just some unknown reason in willy-nilly walk in someone's house.

Yeah, I I don't think Doug's saying that it's done out of malice.

More of it's an it's an accident.

People make mistakes.

Yeah, everybody makes a mistake.

Nobody nobody holds anybody, you know, accountable for just a mistake um repeating a mistake, you know, you probably need to do that.

But yeah, if we make a mistake, it's a mistake.

Sure.

And then so we make a mistake, and one of the things that I do when I make a mistake is I apologize.

I make sure that I go and apologize.

Right.

And in that case, we did that with you, as you mentioned in your case.

I think we would do that in any case where we go to the wrong address.

Um we typically apologize to everybody depending on what the circumstances are and why we're there, at least explain to them why we're there.

Now, some people don't accept that apology, right?

Some people just don't.

And and that's okay, but if we can explain why we're there, most of the time people understand that.

And that's a good thing.

So we just try to explain ourselves.

And that should be a standard operating procedure.

We make a mistake, we own up to that and okay absolutely.

So if that would have occurred, and there's damage to the property, uh, who is responsible for that?

Yeah, so if if there is something where there's damage to someone's personal property, we would send that through a risk management through the city.

And risk management would do that assessment as to what occurred and how it happened.

That's pretty typical.

Umadays uh with uh uh uh cell phones and whatnot, it's easy to take pictures, it's easy to send that information to risk management.

They have a whole form we fill out, we say what happened, how it happened, we get the identifying person's uh information or the party's information.

We we send all that stuff to risk management, they reach out to that party and they they take care of it.

Again, we make mistakes, so I guess I'm I'm just trying to fit this in my mind.

The the way you characterized what happened at at Doug's house, and you said, well, you know, of course, if somebody called, we we would talk, but breaking walking into forcing yourself into a house in the middle of the night with a gun drawn and a flashlight in someone's how is that talking to someone?

I mean, that that doesn't seem like talking would be you walked up to the door, knocked on the door, and said, hello, did somebody call the police?

I I I I just don't understand how you how you characterize that.

Well, we well, we don't talk to them.

That would be way more than talking.

Sure.

Well, in in reference to that event, I believe what you said was that the lady was being followed by someone, she called the police, was being followed, probably didn't know.

I mean, I don't know the facts of the case, but let's throw this out there.

Let's say that she was being followed by someone, maybe that person got into her house.

Maybe she was trapped in her house with that person.

We walk into a situation, we don't know what we're gonna find.

So at first, we're gonna be very protective of what we're doing and how we're doing it.

If that woman was would have been held hostage or something, we don't know.

Again, we don't know how that's going to play out.

So that's our first step, right?

Is being prepared for the unknown.

The second step is once we realize that we had a problem, we're gonna apologize and say, Oh gosh, I'm so sorry.

We we're trying to find this lady's calling, she says she needs help, you know, where do we find her at, you know, and then go from there, and then we go to the next the next stage, right?

But so the first step is being prepared for the unknown, what could possibly be going on, because we don't know.

And then the second step is then if we do make a mistake, correct for that, apologize, and then go on to the next thing.

Well, I would say also that the uh officer's safety is very in important, too, because they just can't um go in without being cautious and doing what they have to do.

Yes, sir.

So I just think that uh, you know, it kind of works both ways.

The balancing out, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it really does.

And it uh uh until you are that person going into to help somebody in the middle of the night in the dark with just a little flashlight in an unknown territory.

Um you don't know the stress level that can occur there.

And it's on both ends.

Uh you know, police officers are human too.

And so there's a lot of stress and unknowns there that um we have to be careful about.

So that's how we try to frame things.

So the and and and by the way, I very much agree with you about when I think about that particular circumstance.

I'm glad they were there, and I'm glad that they were so I don't have an uh objections, but in fact, I I want to uh say how uh appropriate I thought it was and pleased I was that they explained and apologized.

But I'm again we're trying to find a way to discuss policies and procedures without discussing particular cases that have come before us.

And I guess what I want to know is whether it is a policy and a a standard procedure when a wrong house incident happens and innocent people are involved, they will be apologized to, and and the and there will be an admission of the mistake.

Is that the policy?

I I believe that we do have that in our policy, yes.

Can I point to it right this second?

I I can't.

But we we have we have very robust policies and procedures on this when it comes to how we do business when it comes to the execution of search warrants, or when it comes to just responding to regular calls for service.

Okay.

With the number of like swatting incidents, um how are you guys handling those?

Those are always very, very difficult because there's so many unknowns, and the technical aspect of those events um are pretty horrendous if if you're aware.

I mean, you could be here and quote, swatting somebody in California at some address, and nobody would ever know through the uh the technology of VPNs and all these things, it's very difficult to track these things down.

And there's there's some good um actually there's some very good uh uh media on, and I can't remember Netflix or one of those things about some SWATICs that show how how challenging they are and the sadness about some of those.

Um the way we typically handle those is first of all, um a lot of those come through our 911 center.

That's the first stage of understanding what's happening.

Um some of these things are pretty um if if you listen to enough calls for service, like our 911 operators do, they can kind of tell sometimes what doesn't sound right, like someone's too clear about an address, someone seems to be uh messing up over where location is, someone doesn't remember something that should be really simple to remember on a swatting event.

Um, and and so that's the first stage of that's really suspicious, right?

Or we get an address that never's had anything there before because we have a history of addresses we go to, right?

We can look and see how many times we've been somewhere.

And and so when we do that, we'll look and see has there ever been anything there?

Or they'll give us a name and we look up names too to identify does that person live there, or do is there any names associated with that address?

Once that's done, we can respond to those events and then make another assessment externally about hey, this doesn't look right.

This doesn't look like that whatever this person has said to us via the 911 center.

Um something's not right here.

So we will even try to call back, quote, call back, in other words, whoever calls 911, typically we have a callback number.

Um we can call that number back and find and talk to that person.

When we get numbers that we can't call back, that's another red flag for us, right?

So there's a lot of things that go into managing those events.

Um and they do happen uh clearly.

Uh so uh we've had a few here for sure, and nothing uh uh terrible has happened from that event.

We typically are able to figure that out before we even get to that particular location.

So um, but they are uh technology is crazy nowadays.

Um you can just there's so many things that can be done.

So we have to be cautious with those every time.

And in a way, I I feel like you've you've kind of gotten to the uh the fourth of the questions, by the way, you answer the third question.

So if it's a policy and a procedure to um uh admit to a mistake and so on and so forth.

Uh I uh but I'll go ahead and ask how how how do how does the department follow up?

If if it turns out officers have gone to the wrong address and there's been a search and seizure incident, how does the department follow up?

I did you know, is there a debriefing procedure or something like that so we can understand what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future?

There's a couple things, I guess.

Uh so I'll talk um broad base.

So, first of all, uh a lot of our supervisors will do what we call after action reviews of critical events.

And those are basically a way to go through the good, the bad, um, what went well, what didn't go well, uh, how we can improve next time on pick an event, right?

Uh we do that pretty often, particularly on on patrol when it comes to patrol shift, what we call shift meetings, and that's the chance to do those things.

When it comes to search warrants, executionist search warrants, we typically do debriefings after those executions to go through the same procedures, right?

Uh talk about what went well, what didn't go well, what we what we could improve on, um equipment failures sometimes happen.

That's just Murphy's law, right?

So what we could do differently, all of that's typically done um after search warrant execution.

Okay.

What we're doing a lot now too is on responding to calls for service, when there's a bigger call for service, uh the sergeants or supervisors typically get with those officers afterwards to talk through how things went.

So that's probably the first step of the game, right?

Um, is to do that constant understanding and education uh with people to because we do have a lot of new people, and we have to, it's important to me, that's an education benefit is to talk through these things and figure out how to do better, right?

We make a mistake, we own up to that, we figure out how to do it better, fix it next time, that kind of thing.

Um when it comes to more uh uh difficult process where there's uh egregious errors made or criminal issues or anything like that, we do have an internal affairs process that we go through.

Um, and that's a pretty extensive process.

I have um several investigators that that's all they do.

Um they investigate things, whatever those things are.

So um we can go that route as well.

So but we have I think a pretty robust uh investigation process and an after-action review system.

Good.

Anything else from anybody else on the thank you very much.

That was very helpful.

Very helpful.

Yeah, thank you.

Um I think to go to the next item on the agenda of the reports, the since Steph Yolcom isn't here, we probably won't have a human rights commission report.

Um so I think we are ready to go on to general comments from the public.

And again, I think the uh the rules here, and Stephen will be our timekeeper is three minutes unless you're representing an organization, in which case it might be five.

So we need to know which the time period is.

If you want to make a comment, we'll turn first to the public.

Any members of the public wish to make a comment.

Good evening.

I'm Dr.

Murder at Footy Giem.

Doug Hunt knows me, and some of the faces uh are uh new here.

But uh I am I'm 71 years old, and I'm uh 53-year resident of Columbia, Boone County, Missouri.

A retired doctor.

And um recently, through a series of uh unconstitutional illegal activities there, they basically uh falsely accused me of things there, and uh they arrested and me and and incarcerated me.

Um and they gave me the the highest cash-only bond in history of Missouri, five million dollars for something I never did or said.

I paid the five million dollars cash, and uh so I got up.

So they made up another uh charges there, put me back into jail.

And um I went and they kept me there the longest uh in history of Missouri awaiting trial.

Five and a half years at Poon County jail.

Uh right about two total two years of it that they kept me in solitary confinement in uh mentor ward and things like that, suicidal ward and because they can do it.

Um I went through the trial, I was fully acquitted, and some of you may or may not remember that from the news there.

I was fully acquitted on all the bogus malicious charges.

While I was incarcerated, they robbed me of literally everything I worked 53 years in the show me state to gain in excess of 12 and a half million dollars.

And our CPD had a played a major role in there, major role.

I came when after I was acquitted there April uh 20 um 20 April 7th, 2022.

I thought that I can yes, I I I thought thank you.

I thought that I can bring it up to our to CPD to our city council and to CPRB, and you know, I didn't know that you know they took they clipped all the wings from CPRB uh in the process, but I tried and I got nowhere.

And uh what is this clock correct?

It jumped from three minutes to 30 seconds.

No, it's it's it's been running steadily, yeah.

Three minutes.

I saw three minutes there, and then it just jumped to 21.

Okay.

All right anyway.

I gave uh I gave you I'm gonna get on to this case that I'm here.

I gave the the case there, there was an attempt on my life there, and uh I didn't get anywhere through uh CP the CPD and and the process and and CPRB and Doug remembers as well.

And um they told me, well, the only way to do it because there is no accountability in City of Columbia or Boone County uh for misconduct of police officers and anything like that.

Uh so they said, Well, you have to sue.

Well, I had no other choice, so I sued.

Reluctantly, I sued CPD and CD of Columbia and uh and so on there, which is in federal court and ongoing.

But I'm here for this case.

This happened two months ago.

One of the officers, uh one of the submaritors told me that I um Tony, go ahead and um ask for Missouri Sunshine Law to get something that was an attempt on your life.

I said, Really?

He said, Yeah.

I said, okay.

So I went to CPD and I requested uh Missouri Sunshine Law.

They gave me the printed uh number of things, and they gave it to me.

And lo and behold, I gave it to you.

I think you have all of you.

Actually, I think I'm gonna have to call time, but we do have all that information.

Okay, and in fact, that's gonna be one of the things we'll be discussing in closer sessions.

Thank you very much.

And in that in that in that issue, is that for some unknown reason is beyond belief that Boone County Circuit Clerk submitted 250 pages of evidence, witness testimony and all of that to CPD.

CPD assigned, apparently, I didn't know any of that when I was incarcerated, and after I was I I just found out about it two months ago, two months ago.

I have proof.

I provided you with the proof.

And then I'm gonna jump in and say, I think the chair was calling time a while ago.

Yeah.

You're only allowed three minutes, sir.

Three minutes?

Okay.

Thank you.

Oh thank you.

Um, actually, we and I see under general comments by members and staff, we've got a board vacancy update.

So let's hear about that, and then we'll see if there are other comments.

Yes, so we do um you have two vacant positions.

Um, and there are currently three applicants that will be interviewed at the pre-council on Monday, uh, August 18th.

And then, of course, uh council will appoint those members at the regular meeting at 7 p.m.

on the 18th.

Okay, great.

So it was it, Xavier and who's the other.

Um he's not be given a chance to finish that about what I'm here for, and I gave you an example.

Uh not tonight, no.

Um, so uh those were going by me fast, and uh but I think what that means is by the next meeting we will actually be a full board again.

Is that is that correct?

Yes, as long as they appointments.

Okay, assuming, and sometimes they do delay for various reasons, but assuming that okay.

All right.

Um other members of the let's start with the members of the board.

Any comments from the members of the board.

No, I I actually have one, just um, and you know, we're not technically empowered to compliment officers.

I'm going to mention an officer I want to compliment.

Um Chad Reynolds.

Um, and I can't go into the details because it involves um what might be some ongoing uh matters, but uh and called in to address a matter that actually put a very vulnerable person into a very unacceptable situation.

Um I thought Officer Reynolds showed a lot of kindness, a lot of patience.

He was remarkably thorough as he gathered the information uh necessary to the uh investigation without being intrusive or alarming.

And I just I admired his work a great deal and just wanted to say that because it was something that I witnessed.

That was who again?

Chad Reynolds.

Um other members or staff.

Um I do have one more.

Um so I will thank you to those that responded about the Nicole conference.

Um I'll reach out to you with other details by the end of the month.

And if anyone else is interested, just send me an email.

Let me know.

Okay, thanks.

Great.

All right.

Any other comments from staff or members?

Okay.

Um I will entertain a motion to go into closed session to discuss records which are protected from disclosure by law pursuant to sections 610 point two one for N14 and 590.502 of revised statutes of Missouri.

I'll move that we go into closed session.

Is there a second?

Second second.

Okay, and I think this calls for a voice vote, right?

So we'll have a roll call vote.

Denise?

Yes.

Mary?

Yes.

Stephanie?

Yes.

Doug?

Yes.

Stephen?

Yes.

And Ed.

And yes.

Well done.

All right.

We are the open session is closed.

We'll go into to uh closed session.