Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Health and Safety Committee with Denver City Council.

Coverage of the Health and Safety Committee starts now.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the uh December 3rd Health and Safety Committee meeting.

My name is Daryl Watson.

I'm honored to serve as the chair of the Health and Safety Committee, as well as to serve all of the residents of defined district nine.

We have one briefing, uh, one action item today, I should say, and an additional briefing uh before we roll into the action item briefing.

Why don't we go around a room, at least in-house uh folks who are available?

Uh, city council members for introductions, and we'll go online.

We'll start on the right.

Oh, okay.

Hi, everyone.

Uh, Serena Gonzalez Gutierrez, and I'm uh honored to serve everybody in Denver.

You know, one of your council members at large.

Good afternoon, good morning.

I guess afternoon somewhere.

Yes.

Oh, that's from South Denver, District 6.

Uh Sarah Cody or other city council member at large.

Jamie Torres, West Denver District 30.

Excellent.

Let's go online.

Um, we have Councilmember Flynn and Sawyer, I believe.

So whomever wants to jump in first.

Kevin Flynn, South West Denver District 2.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Amanda Sawyer, District 5.

And Councilmember Romero Campbell's online two.

Hello, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4.

And Council President, uh, we see your message.

We're sending a link so that you can sign in, and so I will acknowledge you once you're able uh to sign in.

So thank you so much, um, council members for joining.

Do we have any other council members online?

Seeing our hearing none.

Um, our you did okay, okay.

I was a use user error.

Um, thank you.

Councilwoman Sanibal, Northwest Denver District 1.

Thank you, Council President, for signing in.

Um signing in.

I appreciate everyone making it online and being safe today, coming to the Health and Safety Committee.

Um, we have one action item, um, 251967 and 251968 is a presentation of the Exxon contract.

We have Emily Locke and team doing a presentation.

So, Emily, I'll turn it over to you to introduce yourself and your team, and I'll turn over the meeting uh for your presentation.

Thanks so much, Mr.

Chair, and good morning, members of committee and council.

Um, I'm Emily Locke, legislation and policy director for the Department of Public Safety, and I'll have my team.

Good morning, Cliff Barnes, uh DPD commander.

Uh Kelly Bruning, uh Chief of Administration.

Oh, thank you.

And we've got several other folks in the room as well, um, representing both our operational expertise as well as our vendor from Axon Enterprises and our CFO, as well as Chief Friedenberg from the fire department as well.

Um, so first we just wanted to acknowledge and thank you again for all of your time with us.

Your very thoughtful questions.

Um, we've worked very hard to be responsive and appreciate your patience with us as we had the holiday in a furlough, um, and then extensive data collection work.

Um, that took us some time to get back to you.

We did send out last night a lengthy document that we hope addresses a lot of the questions that we heard in the briefings and in committee last um two weeks ago, I believe, when we were here last.

Um, and so understanding that you've had a very short time with those materials, we're gonna move as quickly as we can through just the quick presentation that we have for you today, and then open it up to questions.

And so we're happy to address um any questions that you have, and again, we're also happy to set up time with you as well before, assuming we move um out of committee today with your approval before we move to the floor for full council consideration.

Um, so with that, I'll go ahead and get started.

Um, so as Chair Watson mentioned, we have two action items that we're requesting approval for today.

Uh the first is item 25-1967.

This involves uh the Department of Safety's current contract um with Axon Enterprises, and it requests increasing the maximum spend amount on that contract by adding 450,000.

Um, the second item that we have requesting for approval today is item 25, 1968, and this is an approval of a new five-year contract with the Department of Safety and Axon Enterprises with a max spend of 27 million dollars.

Um, so this slide uh may be familiar.

We uh discussed it a couple of weeks ago, but just for some baseline.

Our current contract.

Um, the max spend right now is set at roughly 22.1 million dollars, and the term ran from July of 2015 through mid-December of this year, 2025.

Um, the scope of that contract included the police and sheriff's department, and it's a combination of hardware, software, and professional services, um, specifically our body worn camera or BWC technology, um, taser uh tool devices and associated and required training, interview room technology, this would be microphones and video recording, and then also limited digital evidence management.

Um, so our the need for this amendment, this again, this request to increase our maximum spend on the contract by 450,000.

Um the sheriffs, this is related to sheriff's department invoices needed to close out our 2025 uh products and services.

Um the sheriff's department has budgeted for and does have the funds available to pay um these invoices.

It's an administrative amendment request to increase the maximum spend on the contract so we can issue purchase orders against it to be able to pay the invoices.

Um, we've got some items here on the slide that we discussed with you a few weeks ago regarding the background for why we got here and why we need to increase that maximum spend beyond the original projections in the contract.

Um and then the remaining point here we added is that all remaining invoices are legally required.

Um these invoices cover body worn camera, BWC licenses and equipment, as well as digital video storage, and that video storage is required to be able to upload the video that's taken from the body worn cameras and then held in safe storage for the designated retention periods.

Um so then moving into our new contract.

Um, this contract will take effect to January of 2026 and run through the end of 2030.

And again, the max spend that we are requesting here is 27 million dollars.

The new contract scope will include our police sheriff and fire departments.

Um, and again, you'll see uh very similar scope of services and equipment that are covered in as well.

Um, so now I'll turn it over to our agencies.

Um, again, what we'd like to do now is um walk you through the specific needs of our agencies addressed in the contract, and then in response to some of the questions you've raised, give you a bit more granular breakdown of how we got to those numbers and what those needs are.

So, commander.

Good morning, council members.

I plan to spend just a few moments this morning expanding upon some of the questions that were raised uh at towards the end of the last briefing.

I think we can go to the next slide.

Um I'll start with our interview rooms here.

We'll start with docking stations.

Uh, how about that?

So we did take a few moments uh to circle up again on the DPD side uh after the the questions were raised during the last briefing about the individual docking stations to to examine the potential impact operations.

I will say that you know we have the advantage of understanding both sides of the coin because prior to the axon body fours, which we're wearing now that are fairly new, um so going back to the axon body threes, we've had individual docking stations for all of the previous cameras.

So we understand, I can say with confidence that not having the individual docking stations for our current cameras have created um a lot of operational negative operational impact or operational inefficiencies.

So, and and I can you know talk about just a few examples.

I know we're we're crunched for time a little bit this morning, but you know, I think it's it's important to kind of just uh um to to describe, you know, like an officer typically has multiple, can have multiple assignments, right?

And they typically don't respond to a to a specific building or location and stay there for the duration of the shift.

It's just it's a different um you know kind of operational necessity that we have.

For example, if we have an officer that's assigned to district one and works down in sector two, they may arrive at the station, you know, for roll call at the beginning of the shift, but then they may spend the entirety of the rest of their shift down south in district one and and respond to 13, 14, 15 calls in a shift towards the end of the shift, respond back to the station, and then if they need to, they're going on days off or they need to go to an off-duty job.

Now they could be, you know, if they have three or four hours of body worn camera footage, they could be in that position of.

Well, now I need to find a multi-bate doc to dock it in and take overtime before I can go do the next thing, and it prevents them from moving on to their next assignment, you know.

You know, policy-wise, we allow officers within 15 minutes of the end of their shift to go move on to an off-duty shift or wherever else they may be needed throughout the city.

And that other place may be like a whole foods or it may be in the middle of an intersection directing traffic.

It's just it's a very, you know, um, it's a very diverse and uh operational environment.

So uh any time we're constraining officers to specific locations to dock their cameras, it is creating operational inefficiencies.

We know that because we've we've been on both sides of that equation.

So, and and I did uh mention towards the end of the last briefing that we expect between 80 and 100,000 of spend every year currently just on overtime from not having the individual docking stations.

Um we didn't even have an overtime code for that until our current body cams were deployed without the docking station.

So we know that there's an impact there.

Also, I just wanted to highlight a current issue that that my team, as you're all aware, I work on on a lot of the technical side of the things in the department.

Uh one of the issues that my team has recently highlighted is for example, over the past two-week period, more than 30% of our, roughly 30% of our body cameras have not been docked, which means that they're not receiving firmware updates for security purposes.

They're not receiving configuration updates during that period of not being docked.

We are we are currently working with Axon on a video audio synchronization issue that will probably require all cameras to be updated here in the next week.

And and you know, it just makes it that much more difficult operationally for officers not to have the individual docking stations to remedy some of those issues.

So and I'm I'm happy to talk more about those operational impacts, but I can say that you know uh the you know, we we did get together uh DPD leadership over the past two weeks to rediscuss that issue, and without a doubt, it's gonna create operational inefficiencies.

And I think in the current you know, time and climate that we're in where we're constantly battling, you know, staffing numbers and and trying to do more with less, you know, intentionally introducing any operational inefficiencies is just difficult at this time.

With that, I think interview rooms, we'll talk that.

Yes.

Okay.

So I know there were some questions raised at the end of the last briefing about interview rooms.

I just wanted to take a moment to expand upon that a little bit.

Uh my team has actually worked many hours over the last two weeks with uh both uh technology services and axon engineers to try to try to get specific data on the use of the interview rooms.

Unfortunately, because of various technology maintenance that has occurred over the over years over the years, we can't provide a specific number, but we did, we're able to provide or at least to get some estimates, and I can say that we've used the interview rooms, the 13 that we have tens of thousands of times since uh they were implemented in 2018.

Um I'm being told north of 35,000 interviews in those interview rooms.

And I think uh just to uh to provide a quick example, I think anybody that's you know seen CSI or any of the other you know types of shows uh will quickly realize that there's different types of interviews, right?

So the interviews that we conduct in interview rooms is different than field interviews, you know, it provides a more comfortable environment for lengthy interviews that we do with victims and witnesses, and then I think I mentioned at the end of last briefing that if we have a major uh incident, you know, homicide shooting, anything like that, typically what we do is we separate those witnesses and victims and then we we transport them downtown to be interviewed in those interview rooms.

And what that allows is you know, they can sit, for example, if it's a victim, they they can sit in a comfortable setting with an investigator and engage in that interview, but then you can have you know other investigators and command staff that are involved in that complex investigation also witness the interview at the same time without you know uh making that person that individual feel uncomfortable, right?

So it's it's a it's a different type of interview that's conducted.

Uh it's very necessary, it's different than field interviews that we do with with body worn cameras.

Also, I think I mentioned this last time.

I'll just I'll just mention it quickly again today.

Uh they're also used extensively for administrative uh interviews, so internal affairs interviews and and uh you know things of that nature, uh, also leveraging those interview rooms.

Uh taser quantity.

So I I wanted to spend uh just a few moments this morning talking about uh the the rationale for the quantity increase of of taser devices.

So we are uh this contract proposes moving us from a thousand to four, hundred.

There's an there's a number of drivers there.

I will say, you know, we have some taser experts with us this morning, but we we we're trying to make it our goal as a department to assign a taser device to anybody that's in a patrol or line assignment that may that may need use of that.

And currently with a thousand, we don't have the ability to assign a taser to everybody that needs one.

Um, especially since uh now we need to accommodate Denver International Airport with taser devices.

Uh we definitely don't have enough.

We also uh I was talking with with one of our Taser SMEs this morning.

We don't have enough to equip the next class.

So it's very important that this that this bump in total taser count happens.

And um, you know, we also need to make sure that we have enough for um RMA's replacements, you know, uh tasers that are broken in the field because you know it's um they're subjected to to rough circumstances and weather as we see this morning, things like that, right?

Uh happy to to answer questions on that later as well.

Body worn camera count.

I wanted to touch on that just briefly.

So the way that we're doing our math on body worn cameras is, you know, essentially uh the digital evidence team is always doing the math of okay, we have these many classes, these many recruits in the queue to be hired here in the near future, and then we have these many separations uh because of attrition, and they're trying to make that math work.

Really, the the math that's simplest for me is just looking at our at our authorized uh sworn count, right?

Because uh we're we're hovering right now at about 95%.

So we have to make sure that we have enough um tasers to to accommodate or sorry, body worn cameras to accommodate um all of the sworn uh by law.

Uh, it's required, and then we need enough uh headroom to make sure that uh any devices that were need to send in for repair or any that are we had one that was just recently lost in a foot chase, no fault of the officer, right?

Those have to be replaced immediately so that that those officers are in compliance with the law.

So right now that the breakdown is uh we have an authorized count is 1637.

We anticipate deploying to uh 19 civilian report technicians, and then we will have uh had headroom of about 69 devices uh for support replacement, uh, anything that needs an upgrade, that type of thing, which actually is a little bit low, you know.

Uh so I know that uh you know we're we're still trying to to make sure that we're being efficient uh in our requests, but that is the rationale behind uh the overall body warrant count that we are asking for in this contract.

Thank you.

Um and we'll move to the sheriff's department.

And let me know if you'd like me to skip directly to the slides related to the counts or if you would like to stick with the background information first.

Um, I think uh it's just uh the the same.

Um we are currently uh you utilizing the Exxon Body 3.

So we are one platform behind what the current uh platform is.

We're looking to uh upgrade to the Exxon Body 4 quantity we're looking at is 730, knowing that we were under the same um circumstances of our staffing issues and projected uh hires through the end of the contract.

Um we fall under the same uh digital storage.

Uh also we do not have single single bait uh docking stations, what is an op, which also creates an operational issue with inside the facilities uh in order to uh an individual to write the report and uh complete their assignment, they have to be relieved from their post if they are to record something, go to a centralized room that has the multi-bate docking stations and doctor and camera and wait.

So that does it uh with our current staffing levels, uh, does create an operational issue for us also within within the facilities.

Uh and then also we're still under the warranty upgrades and hardware and software included for the next um projected five years and and upgrades to the uh body uh Exxon body files.

Uh currently our tasers, as uh we discussed in the past, we're utilizing approximately 20-year-old three versions behind technology.

Um they are not under warranty, they are not uh um uh fixable if something is to happen to them, and then also we we do um question the reliability of those devices due to the age and the fact that they are um three three uh versions behind.

Uh you know, the new uh taser tens provide better training opportunities for us, uh, gives us live firing scenarios.

Uh currently, if we want to uh certify or train on tasers, we have to a la carte buy the taser cartridges.

So the new contract provides all that training and and virtual-based training for us, uh, but also will give us better data and improve uh uh our our statistics to show de-escalation uh does work um with this device.

And then again, all the costs included the hardware software training up for the five years on the the taser towns.

And then uh I think for us it's uh we're still uh we we have that now estuary, we have in internal and external um things that we do so by law we are required to carry them we have uh our external uh civil court services uh denver medical health center um that will be using this and then um I think and then the biggest thing for us too is the licenses we're only gonna activate the licenses that we need um so I know as we're as we're going through this is a the max spend is what it is but uh we are only going to ask for and activate those licenses that we're going to be using at that time and this is kind of our breakout um the 400 devices we're asking for approximately 330 of those uh taser 10 devices will be outside of the act two jail facilities and we'll have 70 of those devices that will be implemented within the two facilities themselves.

All right thank you and then finally Denver fire department um again they are not going to be utilizing taser equipment they do not do that um their portion of this contract is specific to body worn cameras um with charging docks digital evidence management and that digital evidence storage um and this is in a quantity of 13 to cover their arson investigators umops and so this is not legally required but departmentally we consider this a best practice given the um certain law enforcement functions and investigatory functions that our arson investigators do um and then as well as the nature of the public contacts um and investigatory duties that they do um as arson investigators um so with that we'll open it up to questions um again just a quick recap we have two items that we're requesting approval to move forward through the council process today um pending that committee approval to advance we will be skipping the mayor council process um and then we would be on the city council agenda on December 8th and so um again happy to answer any questions and appreciate your time uh thank you so much uh emily lock uh commander Barnes and um major burning uh thank you for the presentation and the briefings provided uh we have uh three council members in a queue we have several council members that are virtual I will check in after the first three uh council members in the queue to see if folks have questions we will do the two cadence two question cadence process we normally do you ask two questions one comment one question whatever uh compilation you want to do and then go back into the queue if you have additional questions so uh for now we have council member parody council member torres and then council member Gonzalez Guterres thank you so much Mr.

Chair um and I appreciate the information from last night it was a lot but it was great to have it and 7 pm if that's what you can do is what you can do.

So thank you Emily.

The um one question that I have is I want to go back to the single bay docking stations and the issue of um outside employment um I'm a little confused why we would be paying overtime for officers to download footage that's from their outside jobs like shouldn't that be it that feels like we're subsidizing those outside employers and like they should pay the officers for that time.

So that raised a little bit of a flag for me that just seems really odd.

Can you talk more about that?

And we are looking at cost I should mention this earlier we are looking at offset um strategies for that.

You know we've taken a look at a few different strategies uh for you know uh renewing those contracts and and and and seeing you know what the obligation of those specific employers should be and that is actually a topic of conversation that has come up recently is offsetting single bay dock uh prices for that I should also mention that uh just for everyone's awareness we are expecting during the term of this contract another body worn camera upgrade from you know what uh the acts on body five so to speak just based on the the longevity the lifespan of these devices that are used every day in the field and this contract also would include single bay docs for the that those next generation cameras as well okay I'm still a little tentative about that because that seems like a big contributor to the overtime that you're talking about um and overall um the the way the cost of this work out is that we're paying about a million dollars for the single bay docking stations right including the support for them and everything else um and if we're talking about 80 to 100k of overtime per year, that's still way less over the life of the contract than that million dollars.

So just as a cost proposition, I'm not seeing it.

And then overall I it's really noteworthy to me that the entire DPD portion of this axon contract has gone from a million dollars a year in 2017 to $4 million dollars per year of this contract.

That's a quadruple, and that makes me feel like we're sort of um captured by this company that more or less has a monopoly on this technology.

So I just feel really suspicious of these really high costs for more little elements.

So I will put that out there.

Essentially stating that the same positions within the sheriff's department will continue to have tasers, but we're just hoping there'll be more fully staffed, or is some of the increase explained by more people having tasers or more people having tasers strictly assigned to them?

Does that make sense?

So right now we have um we do have some that are personally assigned, but what we're looking to do is anyone that's working outside of the jail facilities to have one personally assigned to them to have better countability control and also metrics and what they're doing, and then also having uh a cash of 70 that we will have to be able to sign to individual posts within the facilities also.

You said people having them individually signed outside the jail, so that would be like doing evictions or our civil department, uh court services, the hospital, uh canine units, um, any anything, our VIF, we have individuals that are working outside of the actual jail facilities.

So those those individuals working outside of those facilities would have one assigned to them.

Okay, um, how many of them already have those?

Um I can get you the numbers.

Um, I right now I um we're we're auditing um our current uh um report and where our tasers are, but I can get you those numbers.

And I know some of that is in this.

I didn't look as closely at the I didn't have a chance um to look as closely at the taser deployal reports or deployment, that's not a word, deploy is not a word.

Um but I'm I'm sort of curious if some of those folks are like stationed the hospital, stationed at court services.

I just I'm a little curious how often they've experienced situations where they would need to deploy a taser um if they're sort of at I know it could happen, but um I feel like the frequency or the context of that is kind of important.

So that's that would be a follow-up question.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you.

I believe I can answer that, but we can absolutely follow up.

Um I was working closely with the data analysts through the last stages of the report.

So my understanding for the DSC report specifically is the vast majority of those taser deployments are within the facilities themselves.

Um there are very few that were external, and so we can definitely work to break that number out for you, but the vast majority were within the facilities.

So that cost is of concern to me then as well.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Parity.

There was an acronym used VIF or okay, thank you so much.

Um Councilmember Torres, and then Councilmember Gazaska Terris.

Mr.

Chair, um the um den contribution to the contract, do we know what that is yet?

I can start that out, and we do have Sine Cummings, our CFO online, um, that she can jump in as well.

Um, my understanding is that the um the den expenses would be contained within the overall cost allocation plan where Den reimburses uh downtown city for expenses, um, and I'm saying that very badly because I am not part of our finance team.

Um, so we in looking into it, we were unable to break out specifically either what direct invoicing um between may have occurred between den and axon during the period of the contract.

Um, we would have to turn to Den um to look that up for us in their financial systems.

Um, and we do not have a breakdown of what portion of the den allocation cost plan that would be related to our police department services, um, would go down specifically to the body more cameras or tasers.

When would you just know that as the invoices come through, or do we not know um like what assignments would be out at the airport, therefore covered by the airport?

The and I'm waiting to see if Chine comes up online.

Um however, no, my understanding is the invoices do not break down to the level of the specific individual license that's assigned, it's more this number of licenses generally, but we can definitely follow up with you and give you a more complete answer on that would just be helpful to understand that um piece of it.

Would you like us to check to see Sineads online?

For the producer for Department of Finance is Chinee Cummings.

There you are.

Yes, I am online.

Would you like Councilmember Torres to repeat our question?

No, thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

And sorry I wasn't able to attend in person.

Councilmember Torres, the process for Shine, do you mind introducing yourself?

I apologize.

I apologize.

Uh Shine Cummings, Chief Financial Officer for Department of Public Safety.

Goes through a cost allocation plan.

And so what that means is we look at our overall cost, and there's a percentage allocation that happens with the citywide cost allocation plan that gets allocated to DN.

So it's formulaic.

Well, it is it is formula and it is based on officers assigned to Dan.

So from a citywide perspective, and I believe Department of Finance has talked about this previously.

When they do a cost allocation to Dan, it's similar to like payroll, city attorney's office, um, HR, so some of those shared functions, and where it's like here's the total cost of what the agency paid out, and then based on that cost allocation of how many officers are assigned out there to DN, here's the percentage allocation that will be allocated to Dan as a result of that.

I whenever you know that percentage, Sinee, there'll be um if you can just send us an email just to know how much of the 27 million, it could be one percent, it could be you know a much bigger, just to just to um understand that piece, that'd be great.

Okay.

Um other question that I have is about the RFP process that was used for this.

So it was a national cooperative um that did the RFP.

Um would we be expected to do that again because um we did it this time, or um like why would we and when have we used a national co-op for our RFP process?

Um it's a great question.

Um, this is a process that's authorized through the DRMC, the Denver revised municipal code, um, and happy to provide additional information around that as well.

And it's um there are different circumstances that could lead to the national cooperative process being used as the due diligence basis for competitive procurement for a contract.

Um, in this case, I believe it came down to the length of time that would be needed to run a full competitive uh process and the due diligence period here in Denver based on staffing resources and capacity related to the number of competitive processes that are running through the city.

Um, and so we're able to use this process.

We need to do that in conjunction with the purchasing department to make sure that they sign off that it's an appropriate use of this um this tool or this mechanism.

Um I do understand from discussions with our executive director and our departmental leadership, um, that we've definitely heard the questions from council around um the utilization of a national bid process in a contract like this, where we definitely have a lot of local interest.

Um, and so I believe um we will be moving to a local competitive process for the next um iteration of contracting for these items.

Did we pay for uh a cost to use the co-op process?

No, we did not, and I will double check that, but my understanding is we did not.

Okay, all right.

Thank you, Emily.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Councilmember Gonzalez Gutierrez and then Councilmember Sawyer.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, one of the things that I noticed in in reading some of the materials was around this tier one or tier two axon customer experience improvement program.

Um just curious because it does state in the language that we can opt in or opt out of that.

Um, and it has to do with sharing data to improve technology, including building and supporting automated features, and just curious what what are we planning?

Like what is the plan there?

Because I know in other contracts, other tech contracts, um, we didn't it didn't necessarily specify that there were like opt-in and opt-out features, and I'm glad that this has that in it.

Um, but just curious where we're standing right now with this um feature.

Do we have any axon reps to talk about the specifics of that online?

Um, if not, we could follow up, but we should have Ben Rubke online as well from Axon to potentially speak to it.

Otherwise, we can absolutely follow up with Axon and the city attorney's office for where that stands and where that will stand under the new contract.

Can we promote um uh the list of axon representatives is listed in the the messenger?

And state that name again, Emily.

Uh Ben Rubke.

We can get you some more uh I think details about the ACIP program.

Um I think the uh, you know, I would you you can always opt out, um, it is it is uh sort of a standard uh term within our terms of service.

Um some folks decide that they don't want to participate in it, and so they strike from the contract altogether.

Some folks say they want to participate and then opt out later, some folks uh stay opted in for the entire term.

Um so really it's up to you.

It's pretty easy to opt out even after uh you've been um, you know, you've agreed to it in the terms of service.

So um we can provide all the details around tier one and tier two uh in a follow-up, and then also the opt-out uh process if that is uh something you'd like to evaluate as well.

Yes, and and also like what and I give and maybe this is for city folks, uh that opt-out, can that happen post?

Like if this one, if this passes and goes through, can we opt out after the fact?

Like what are the what are the options for us there if that could be followed up on?

Um and then my last question is um regarding the um partnership with like the the it's like the customer um where you can upload your ring footage, um, that feature.

And I think we talked a little bit about this last time, but just wanted to get some clarification around what that means for some of the features that ring is starting to you, ring cameras are starting to utilize, such as potential like facial recognition and things of that nature that are still up in the air as far as their reliability um and aren't foolproof and have a lot of problems um with them of itself, and so how if if like footage is being uploaded, how is DPD planning to utilize um that ring footage and are we going to be utilizing it in the capacity that ring would be providing?

That's a great question, and um I'm happy to speak to that.

If I say anything wrong, I think our axon reps can can definitely speak to the to the details of the technology as well.

But I did have a chance to follow up with Axon uh after the last briefing and kind of understand a little bit more the mechanics of how that works.

So, my understanding as of today is this is a feature that they're rolling out.

We have not utilized this feature um yet in Denver.

Um, but basically what it is is that it allows us to solicit um uh digital evidence from a specific area of ring customers that uh have chosen to share uh potentially share their digital evidence with evidence.com or axon.

And in that case, it's it's something that we would have to solicit.

So there's a crime in this area, and basically we can say, hey, if you have footage of this crime that occurred, um please please send it to us.

It doesn't differ a lot operationally from what we're doing today.

You know, we knock on doors and we say if you've captured something that you'd be willing to share, that would be great, and then we provide them an upload link to evidence.com.

This would just allow it, it's more of a uh a streamlined process that allows a ring customer to selectively um upload footage to evidence.com and it's something that they have to opt into.

It is not something that happens automatically, and again, it would just be in relation to a criminal event that happened in the area.

And as far as the other part of my question of utilizing that footage in the capacity that ring would allow, or like their the other technology features that they have around like facial recognition, for instance, is that something that DPD is going to then be utilizing in your investigation?

So we would be looking at the raw footage just as we would today, which is either you captured the event and the suspects uh you know uh on camera or you didn't.

So I I think you know, I can't speak to to the way that ring is capturing footage and doing that identification in their system, but we would be we would treat it no differently than the digital evidence that we're utilizing today.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Gonzalez Guterres.

Councilmember Sawyer.

Chair, um, really appreciate it.

Uh thanks so much for being here, you guys.

Wanted to just ask um one follow-up question about the competitive process.

And this actually may be a question for our attorneys.

Um can you refresh my memory?

I believe other areas of the city have used this competitive process before as well for RFPs, and I feel like maybe it was our cell phone contract pricing.

Um, is that true, John?

Do you is John there?

John, do you remember that?

Yes, John's here.

Yep.

He is speedily walking to the podium.

You can't see him here.

I can say council member, I can't say you're absolutely correct.

Um, I I can find out about it about contract specifically, but I do know some other examples.

Um this national process has been used specific to our staples contract for office supplies um that's used by several agencies throughout the city.

Um, and then additionally, my understanding is that we use this in the fleet process of purchasing vehicles that are approved for purchase through the the fleet fund.

Um, then there are um national, the competitive process is done with the vehicle manufacturers, um, and then we are able to utilize that process to be able to put in orders um for the vehicles that have been approved for purchase specifically um to be able to purchase, but we can definitely find out additional information on that.

Awesome.

You know what, Emily, thank you so much.

You don't need to um I just wanted to understand.

I feel like we did use that same process for our cell phone pricing and RFP.

Um, but uh I was really just sort of looking for examples that this is not the first and only time that we've used this process before.

Um, and that was those were both great examples.

So really appreciate that information.

Um, and then second, um, just want to make sure that I've got my mind entirely wrapped around this to clarify.

So these funds have already been appropriated to the Department of Safety Um through the budget process, right?

Uh I'll I'll defer to Shanae on this, but yes, that is my understanding.

Okay.

Yeah, if I could just get confirmation of that, that's great because my text a friend just replied.

Awesome.

Okay.

I am still on um Sinay coming as chief financial officer, Department of Public Safety.

You are correct, Councilmember Sawyer, those funds have already been allocated as part of our 26th budget.

Fantastic.

Just wanted to confirm that.

Thank you so much, Shine.

Thanks, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Sawyer.

Councilmember Flynn.

Um, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I appreciate it.

Uh I do know that there have been numerous instances where the city has taken advantage of national pricing, uh, whether through NASCAR or through some other national procurement, and over at Dr.

Cog, Denver Regional Council of Governance, we've done that as well.

Um, there was a question earlier about the NASPO uh pricing on this and our procurement under it.

And I want to point out that the information that Emily sent us last night uh indicated that we actually received a 19% discount off of that price uh for this particular contract.

Uh just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention.

Uh 19% uh less than the NASPO uh list price.

Thank you.

That's all I have, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, uh Councilmember Flynn.

I I know um Council President um responded that she didn't have any questions or comments at this time.

Council President Pro Tem, did you have any questions or comments?

Uh I hate to call folks out, but I don't want to miss folks who are online.

Um, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I don't have any questions.

Um, just to thank you for sending the questions in the briefing.

I was able to read them before this meeting, um, and it answered a lot of the questions.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, Council President Pratem.

And so back in the queue, we have Councilmember Parity.

And as we're looking at time, we're thinking about maybe 10 more minutes prior to inclusive of the the block vote, uh, because we do have another briefing.

Councilmember Parity, I apologize.

Thank you.

No, that's okay.

I sort of thought you could call them, but it wasn't there.

Um, so I wanted to talk about the um evidence uploading feature from ring cameras.

I certainly understand the convenience of that, but I'm trying to understand a little bit more if that's an entirely new cost or if the old way that we were doing it also had a cost under the old contract, if that makes sense.

Like is this is this 1.1 million fully additional to switch over to that.

My understanding and uh Ben Root Key, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Is there's no there's no additional cost associated with that?

That is that is a part of the community.

Um the module is escaping my name.

The name is escaping the community.

Yeah, and but basically uh we already have that that allows us to generate those links that uh allow citizens to upload directly to evidence.com and this is just a another feature that's being added to that.

And we already pay 1.1 million for correct existing community portal.

Yeah, okay.

Um thank you.

And then um going back to the um I'm sorry, I'm stuck a little bit on this offset strategies for overtime.

Could you talk about that a little more when you say you're looking at offset strategies?

I just am uh I'm taken aback that uh this something that I would view as like a cost of outside employment is being calculated and used to justify us spending really a lot of money on these single bay docking stations.

So I just when you say you're looking at offset strategies, what does that mean?

Like requiring the outside employer to pay for that time because it's really time for the exactly that's exactly what I mean.

And also I'd like to highlight that that um, you know, off-duty is not the only reason for indigenous docs, right?

There's a lot of other drivers there.

Of course.

So yeah, but yes, absolutely.

We're looking, uh, you know, we have had conversations in the last few weeks about you know, once again modifying those contracts to include some sort of a uh um a uh you know compensatory um cost associated to it to reimburse for for individual documents.

And do you mean contracts that we have with what contracts are you?

Off-duty contracts, so with individual uh employers, so to speak, that that contract uh DPD officers.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Parity.

I think Councilmember Flynn is back into the queue and once that comment, um, we'll I'll ask for a motion for a block vote um on 251967 and 251968.

Councilmember Flynn.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh, just wanted to uh mention that uh when we discussed the ring camera uploading and the current process, I actually participated in that.

I don't have a ring system, I have a different system, but uh officer knocked on my door uh to tell me that a neighbor across the street uh uh his work truck was broken into and thousands of dollars of tools were taken and uh she provided me with a link uh via email so that I could extract uh the 4 a.m.

to 405 a.m.

video and it actually showed the person breaking into the van, and I was able to send that video to uh evidence.com through the link that was provided.

So I think it's a very uh very useful system.

Uh the other comment I'd like to point out is that you know we have spent years working uh with the community to improve police accountability.

Uh and we've we continue to refine that.

I I view these individual docking stations as a step forward in improving the efficiency and the accountability uh for all of this evidence so that it's done quickly and it's done uh uh appropriately.

And so I think it's completely appropriate that we provide these individual docking stations uh in order to uh continue with our commitments to uh police accountability with the community.

Uh and with that, uh Mr.

Sherrod, I'd uh happily make the motion to move these two items to the floor.

Uh, and I do make that motion.

All right, is there a second?

It's been seconded by Councilmember Torres.

Do we need a uh a voice vote, or are we can do thumbs up uh to move this to the floor?

In a room for folks here, are we are we all right?

And then for folks online, I just want to make sure that we're seeing thumbs.

It's thank you so much, uh, Emily and team for your presentation.

We'll be moving this to the floor.

Um I appreciate uh the feedback and thank you for responding to all with any of the um the uh follow-up questions, uh answers to questions that you heard here in our um committee meeting.

We will transition to our briefing uh from OSEI and uh department of uh public safety um on the gun violence awareness and intervention network.

Let's take a few minutes for transition.

Hey, thanks so much.

Appreciate the.

And whenever the team is ready, I'll leave it up to you to do your introductions and then roll right into your briefing.

Okay, ready to go.

Go for it.

Uh good morning, council members.

I'm Megan Rohr.

I'm the director of Mural Initiatives, Mayor's Office.

Good morning, Kristen Jacobi.

I'm the interim director of the data analysis bureau for DPD.

Lynn Sanders, executive director, Office of Social Equity and Innovation.

Jake, commander, police department.

And we're really excited to be here today to talk to you about the gun violence awareness and intervention network, also known as GAINE.

Uh, quick agenda here.

We'll talk about the origins of GAIN, uh, what it's based off of in terms of a practice known as focus deterrence, our existing programs under community violence and solutions, what the pilot program was, uh, our outcomes and findings to date in the next steps.

Key points we want to hit on though before we get into the program design itself.

This was a year-long pilot that we concluded in October.

Uh, this pilot served both adults and youth, and no one has been arrested in Denver in conjunction with this pilot.

So Gain was born out of our safe city goal, which is ultimately why I'm here as the person that helps coordinate our six citywide goals.

In 2023, we had 68 firearm homicides and 285 non-fatal shootings for a total of 353.

So in 24, when we launched our citywide goals efforts, we recognized that gun violence reduction had to be at the forefront of that.

In 2024, our goal was a 20% reduction in shootings, and this year our goal has been an additional 15% reduction in shootings.

And because of our interagency efforts, we've actually had quite a bit of success here.

In 2024, we saw a 28% reduction in shootings.

And this here, year to date, we're at 33% with a 50% reduction in homicides.

These two photos are from uh PowerPoint presentation that we gave to this uh committee on the 20th of November of last year.

So to have a violence reduction strategy that works, it needs to be diversified.

It needs to have strategies that focus on the places where violence disproportionately occur and also the people that drive violence in a disproportionate amount.

So you need a place-based strategy and you personplace strategy.

On the left is the Robin Ingalls Tamara Herald 2017 crime reduction model, and this says that it is a diagnostic tool for police departments to build plans, and it's since been adopted by us, Nashville, Las Vegas Metro, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Tucson.

So you need a long term, you need a short-term, and an intermediate time frame strategy.

Our short-term strategy is hot spots policing, where officers respond to emerging crime hotspots.

They're there for 10 15 minutes in each individual district.

Individual districts select new hotspots every 28 days.

This is designed to be a band-aid, the most sophisticated band-aid that we can deliver based upon crime data.

Our middle-term strategy, that is gain.

That is our person-based approach that wants to identify people at high risk of violence and give them the best services the city can provide.

Our long-term strategy is another place-based strategy that's place networks investigation.

Of the three, that is the longest term, the most complicated, and has the most community involvement.

Just to give a little bit more color to what Commander Herrera just talked about in terms of the person-based strategy that we have.

It's called focused deterrence.

And this is a crime reduction strategy that we have that targets specific criminal behaviors by a small group of high-risk individuals who are already involved in gun violence or have been around gun violence.

There are four core components to the strategy.

One is the identification of those high-risk individuals.

The second is direct communication with those individuals, to say that if violence continues, there will be swift consequences, but that we would love to provide the services and help that they need to remove themselves from those environments.

The support and services then that need we need to offer them to exit violence, and then on the back end, SWIFT and legitimate and certain sanctions for continued violence in the form of sentencing.

Focused deterrence has been widely adopted and heavily studied.

It came out of Boston in the 1990s and had significant success there.

And then cities have continued to adopt it since then.

And because of that adoption, it has also been uh heavily evaluated and studied.

We've included two of those studies here.

It's the principal tactic as well of the violence reduction center, which is nationally renowned and uh run by Thomas Apt, who wrote the book Bleeding Out about urban gun violence and was part of the Obama administration uh task force towards this end.

One of the interesting wrinkles we had when we started thinking about focused deterrence is our existing programs.

And so we have community violence solutions, formerly known as Grid, that already does the case management and service provision of what this focused deterrence program would be, but for folks that are referred into our program.

So the individuals that CVS already serves are referred from places like pretrial, probation, community corrections, you see the list here, and CVS then partners with several bait uh several community-based organizations to provide services services to those folks.

Today, the uh community uh, excuse me, community violence solution serves approximately a hundred clients a year.

And so why launched this new pilot?

We recognize the folks that are the most high risk aren't always referred to us, and we wanted to be able to proactively reach out to them.

We also received a department of grant, um, a department of justice grant that allowed us to build a data model that would let us do that proactive outreach and identify those individuals in a way that we thought was the most objective way possible.

And I'll hand it to Kristen to talk through, or Kristen and Commander to talk through that.

Okay, so if you remember back that three-pronged strategy in November of 2023, Chief Montoya, who since less the department, uh, and I attended a talk by Thomas Apt on how to set up a comprehensive violence reduction strategy.

So we heard that talk, and then in January of 2024, I applied for what's called a national training and technical assistant grant from the Department of Justice.

Department of Justice is huge.

Within it, there's a whole pillar of employees who work in the community of office policing, the cops office, and their main function is to provide guidance to the nation's uh 14,000 law enforcement agencies.

Part of that is you can apply for specific projects and money.

So I wrote the proposal, it's a competitive process.

You go through the different stages, and we got it.

So what we were looking for was two main things was we wanted to set up focused deterrence, but we had to do it in a way that was constitutional, and there's no better arbiter of that than the Department of Justice.

And, well, the Biden era, Department of Justice, uh, and the it had to be iterative.

It had to, it had to be able to live, it had to be able to self-update, right?

It couldn't be a list that was a PDF, and this is the list, and we'll update it every 10 months.

It had to be something that could uh generate new information.

Okay, so we got so we get it, and it goes into an RFP that's managed by the Department of Justice.

So we had no idea who the vendors were, what the final cost was.

They told us we'd like your program, and they matched us with idea analytics, which is a small data analytic term out of Phoenix.

So not only was it limited in terms of uh had to be constitutional, but there's further internal constraints on the data we can keep because of an agreement we had in the early 2000s with the ACLU that stemmed from a scandal called the SPY files.

So we can't keep police intelligence based upon group involvement.

So it had to be a very, very limited pool of data we could pull from, which ended up only being DPD criminal justice records.

So that's the origin of the model.

I'll also note just um on top of what Commander Herrera mentioned that there is a data share use agreement in place between um idea analytics and DPD, and that is mainly because this involves criminal justice information services data, which is a strict training and certification process.

Um the members of the idea analytics team as well as the members of my team who have access to this product are both CGIS certified.

I'll also note that there are only six people in DPD, including myself, who are able to access this product.

Um okay, I'll take everyone through how the gain data model works.

Um this is the identification piece that Megan discussed in her overall focused deterrence discussion.

Um I first want to start with what it what the model is not taking into account uh when this data process that I'll take everyone through is run.

It does not take into account any demographics, so we're not looking at race, ethnicity, gender, or age.

Um as you all know, Denver does not collect immigration data, so that is not a factor as well.

Just note that.

And so the process for obtaining a score is for offense points.

It's a combination of three things offense points, role points, and a time decay.

The office offense points are um assigning a number or score for incidents, reported crimes, and they are weighted by severity.

So it's designed to give more serious offenses like homicide, higher points.

Um lower crimes like DUI or um criminal mischief, graffiti.

Those receive far less points.

Uh in this case, the scale is from zero to 100.

Um, the next piece is the role points.

So this is the person involved in these gun crimes.

Uh, and they are ranging from a victim to an offender, suspect, arrestee, um, complainant, just generally involved in the crime.

The design there is to bring higher points for those who are committing the gun violence, uh, and then the way the points work with the victim is separate.

So there's offender points and there's victim points.

Um often there are victims and suspects involved in gun violence.

So, if we're looking at potential risk offenders, we're also looking at how often they're victimized as well.

The final piece is that time decay, and that is simply a calculation that is lessening the severity of the points over time.

So if something happened 30 days ago, it's gonna have a higher score than something that happened two years ago.

So those three factors are then put into a formula to create a score.

That score does not predict gun violence.

It does not reflect any future behavior, no judgment on the person.

It is simply a tool that my analysts use to then develop a comprehensive workup for those individuals with the higher score.

Great.

And so what Kristen just described is the very first part of how gain and the gain pilot worked, which is her team would do this identification, go through the model, and then do this individual workup.

They would then give or they would then provide three to five candidates towards the gain larger larger interagency team, which is listed here.

That team would talk about whether or not the individuals were going to be a good fit for the gain process or the game program.

If they were, DPD and the DA's office would then generate a joint letter that DPD would then attempt to contact that individual with that says, hey, gun violence is really serious.

We would love for you to not be a participant in that.

We would love to provide services to you that would help you not be involved in this anymore.

If they were interested in services, there was a warm handoff to ONS team.

And if not, there was no further action taken other than notifying the DA's office that they had they were not interested in services.

There is a lot of data on this screen, but what I'll point you to is the top line there.

Over the year-long pilot, DPD screened 222 individuals.

Of those individuals that were screened, 60 were put forward by Kristen's team for consideration by the game team.

59 were selected.

Of the nine that were not selected, almost all of them had immediate sentencing that was happening within the next week and a half.

And so the gain program was not going to be something that was going to be a good fit for them within that.

So 50 51 of the 222 selected for the gain program.

On this next slide, again, lots of information, but I'll take you to the top left.

Of those 51, we only contacted 30 because we were not able to find the other 21.

And nine received, nine accepted and received services.

So 222 to nine receiving services.

Pilot findings.

Here are the things that we learned from last year.

One is the model that Kristen just ran us through was incredibly resource intensive for her team.

And so the model would then give a score, and then from that, they were doing an average of two hours of work on that workup per individual.

So two times 222 folks, right?

Very resource intensive.

That 51 to 30 folks contacted, it's really hard to find these individuals, right?

And so while we did have folks that we wanted to offer services to, we had about a 60% hit rate of even being able to find those folks.

One of the things that I don't think we necessarily understood at the beginning that we've definitely received a lot of feedback on since the conclusion of this pilot is the reputational risk ONS's programs have felt.

Having two programs kind of concurrently run at once.

One that has law enforcement involvement and another one that doesn't.

And so that's something we've deeply had to take into consideration, especially in the last couple of months.

We don't believe this version of the program has had any significant impact on our drop-in shootings, just given the small number of folks that we came into contact with.

And we actually have no data to evaluate this program's effect on sentencing because we have had nobody sentenced through this program.

The next steps that we have here, it was a year-long pilot that we concluded in October.

Uh, the program has been wound down, gain meetings are no longer happening.

We completed an after action uh review with the internal peak team to the city to figure out what we thought were strengths and weaknesses of this program.

And we do intend in 2026 to to think about a redesign of this because we think it's an important strategy towards uh gun violence reduction, and we'll try to take the learnings from what we have found in these findings forward into that.

With that, that's our presentation.

Thank you so much for the presentation and all of the information.

I wanted to start by by stating um the gang program, at least for um my edification and and my my knowledge came to my understanding from a group of um young um people from community speaking at public comment.

And and uh as I'm speaking to Channel Eight, I the the power and importance of um young people or all folks that are seeing or feeling need to elevate their voices, our public comment process every Monday night provides that, and that is how I became uniquely aware of this, and that's kind of the iterative process why this um briefing was brought forward.

So I want to thank the team so much for the presentation.

We do have council members in the queue, we have councilmember Cashman and Councilmember Parity, and then Councilmember Gonzalez Gutierrez.

And I I skipped uh councilmember Torres, and then I just saw that you were back in.

So it is Councilmember Castman and Councilmember Torres, Councilmember Parity, and then Councilman Gonzalez Terrace.

Right now, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So uh the last sentence you said uh sparked a second question, but that being why redesign, what are you dissatisfied with?

I think when we go back and look at the findings here, um, ultimately, you know, if and screening, and I'll hand this over to my my colleagues, but screening 222 folks to get to nine folks that received services.

I mean, ultimately what we are trying to do is find the individuals that are in the most high risk and the most need and connect them to services that are gonna change their life.

Uh, I don't think a conversion rate of 222 to nine is what we're after, right?

And so I think ultimately that is the biggest reason for the program design.

We are hoping to connect with more folks and and in its current iteration, didn't feel like we were doing that.

Great.

And um, if you can go back to slide 12, um just in uh the idea of uh identifying those actually 11, if you don't mind, yeah.

Um in how you recognize people uh with a high risk of violence is simply that score uh sheet that you referred to.

It's an objective metric.

Correct, yes, it is a calculated score that is refreshed, it's not a list somewhere, it's it's within an analytical product.

With that redesign in mind, are you satisfied with your metrics?

Uh the problem is not in that area.

Uh it's uh more in getting uh better results out of that work, sure.

I think uh generally, yes.

I think there's you know room to look at it.

Part of the benefit of having that grant was that it was an objective process.

The downside is that that my team isn't building it, and my team's more aware of the nuances in the data that maybe we could build out one that feels better for Denver data.

Um, thank you very much.

That's all Mr.

Chair.

Uh thank you, Councilmember Castman, Councilmember Torres.

Thank you, sir.

Um, thanks for I guess the the context around it.

I think um when we think about intervention, um, we've also really got to be more um attuned to um who has trust with the folks you're trying to reach.

Um, and I can only imagine somebody getting a letter from the DA and the Denver Police Department saying, hey, we want to help you out.

Um, is just gonna land like led.

Um, and so uh one of the things that I'm I'm really hoping for, and um uh Ben and OSCI and children's affairs.

We've been um looking forward to I think the conversation we're about to have about next year's pilot for the community-led safety grants.

Um, this is this is not too dissimilar in terms of audience, in terms of who we're trying to reach, and it is um it is reaching young people before things escalate for them, uh, before they end up with um a really serious charge or really serious incident involvement.

Um, and trying to do that through the lens of how our residents and neighbors um see themselves involved in a safer neighborhood and and community.

And and it is that connection that I think we we can't jump around ever, like and arrive at the perfect solution for um an individual, right?

Without that community connection, like I just that's always gonna be um uh a determinant factor on success.

Um so looking forward to that, I feel like that was a huge potentially missing piece in this.

Um, but um I get what you're trying to do.

We're we've got a similar vision, I think, when when we proposed that that particular item, and and hope we can find good ways to figure out alignment um and and use of where data comes in, where like anecdotal and qualitative information comes in uh from community because I think it's all really relevant.

Um, what I would ask in terms of uh like environment is um I know there had been kind of a uh a table basically set of partners around youth violence.

Um is that still operating?

Like what is the um kind of the ecosystem that that city departments have set up for uh youth violence prevention?

Uh so at this point, um, is you know we're in the process through this year's budget process, uh council person of um shifting a significant portion of the city's youth violence prevention resources from the Office of Children Affairs over to the Office of Social Equity and Innovation.

We're really excited about that, and about um a sort of uh pilot we want to run that would partner community-based organizations with schools to make sure that young people are getting not just support out of school, not just support in school, but have a sort of community-based network to your very insightful point, right?

Of the kind of support that they need, right?

And so that's what we're uh standing up to run in terms of uh the youth action table itself.

We've been sort of revisiting the the sort of best way to stand up that table, but we do have some staff here from the Office of Neighborhood Safety.

Thank you.

Right, that you might use.

Absolutely.

Hello and good morning, everyone.

My name is Stefan Cummings.

I'm the program manager of intervention services and community mobilization with Community Violence Solution, which is under the Office of Neighborhood Safety, which is a component of the uh Office of Social Equity and Innovation.

So essentially what uh our ecomap really looks like in terms of partners and providers uh comes down to a couple of different things.

We have multidisciplinary team meetings uh that we have that have a number of different city organizations, uh, has a couple of state organizations, uh, has a couple of local neighborhood associations and organizations that belong to it uh that really are speaking towards what is specifically going on down to the neighborhood in certain instances, right?

Uh we work to try and figure out solutions because we understand what a lot of those gang group and gun beefs are in those communities, and we work with different partners and partnerships throughout the city to try and resolve and rectify a number of those different uh gang group and gun conflicts, so to speak.

Um in addition to that, we also coordinate the outreach collaborative, which is comprised of a number of different therapeutic and community-based organizations that are dedicated to community violence intervention work uh throughout the city.

Uh, we have groups from all parts of the city, and we have groups that serve um specific neighborhoods, uh, and we want to work with those individuals, those groups, those programs, so that we can best deliver services, resources, options, and opportunities to those individuals in those particular neighborhoods.

It's not something that we're looking to come down from a top-down approach where we dictate to anybody what they need to do or how they need to do it.

We look from a collaborative standpoint and saying, hey, what's needed in this neighborhood?

How can we show up?

How can we best deliver uh services and support and options and opportunities, and who do we need to work with in order to make sure that we can execute those things?

Um so it really is a comprehensive plan uh involving multiple different levers, multiple different agencies, multiple, multiple different parts of town to really form that collaborative process that it takes to really reduce violence, even down to a specific neighborhood within a larger neighborhood.

Thank you, Stefan.

Absolutely.

All right.

Thank you.

I just appreciate the information and hope the pivot to something really tangible takes place.

So thanks so much.

And I look forward to the council person to really working with you closely.

I know we've got the really innovative and important amendment that you brought to the floor regarding Bronco's funds.

I think there's a really incredible opportunity to make important connections that bridge some of the gaps you've well identified here.

Thanks, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Councilmember Torres.

Uh, Councilmember Parity and Councilmember Gonzalez Gutierrez.

Okay.

I have so many questions.

Um I appreciate the briefing on Monday that my staff was able to attend.

Um I think my first question is um in the letter that we have from Chief Thomas, which says, we've looked at your situation and want you to know that if you use or continue to use violence, you will be charged and prosecuted for your illegal acts, and which to be clear is being sent to people where we don't necessarily have probable cause that they've been involved in a crime.

So it's a pretty intense letter, I would say, to get in the mail as a young person from the chief of police, which is who signed that.

Um this also says in this letter that they're working that groups like the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and Explosive FBI and the DEA are part of the what was then called the Denver Group violence reduction strategy.

So one thing I'm curious about is was it a condition of the DOJ funding that we share this information with these federal partners?

No.

Okay, and but we do that, they're part of the team.

Yeah, so okay.

The gain, how it worked is there was a gain, what we called the mothership meeting with about six city organizations and six, seven law enforcement organizations.

And the very beginning of each meeting is an overview of violent gun crime trends in the city, maps, is it up, is it down, and a recap of candidates if they've if we've been successful, unsuccessful, and sometimes a presentation on we're seeing group X and actively shooting at group Y, and the whole point of that is to develop a comprehensive approach with everyone, all law enforcement in Denver who can positively impact gun crime.

Okay.

So it doesn't involve those agencies.

So here's the other major area of question that I have because there's such a mismatch here between what I'm hearing the community groups were told about this program and then what we're being told today, and I do not understand the mismatch.

Um, Stefan, not to put you on the spot, but if you could come up to the mic, I I want to understand.

Um, I think you were the one that conducted some of these community meetings, and so I just want to ask you directly.

Um, what we heard filtered back from those meetings was that the numbers of um youth who were identified as potentially eligible were far higher than this 292.

Can you give me some context for that?

If that if you understand, I mean, in other words, were there numbers that you gave to community about how many youth were considered in some way?

Um, and if so, what were those and and what's the what's the difference there?

Absolutely.

Thank you.

In the information sharing meeting that we had, um, it was a collaborative meeting where we had the DPD crime analysts, we had Megan Rohr, uh, we had our leadership team, uh, we had uh uh DPD uh Commander Herrera, we had Chief Sanchez, we had a number of different individuals there to answer questions and to articulate more about what this program is.

Um, I think it's important to note, and and I don't say this to disparage, it's important to note that some of the voices that were screaming the loudest were not present in one of the two meetings that we had.

Yeah, and so, yeah, so for clarification's sake, we personally as a group, um, I can't speak to what uh KJ went over, because I can only remember my portions of it, obviously.

Um, but I can't speak to any numbers that might have been shared in terms of total number of of youth that were thrown in there.

What I can speak to is the fact that the youth were a component that were added to the game program after it was already going for a number of months.

Um I believe if everything started in October, I don't think we added youth until March, right?

Um so it was one of those things where out of that 222 individuals, a gross majority of them were adults, right?

Only a limited amount of them were juveniles.

But what I will say is that certain people will use any numbers, any bits of information possible in order to further a narrative, kind of disparaging what it is that we're looking to do.

So can I understand from anyone at the table?

Was there any pool of youth that numbered more like in the thousands that were at some point subject to filtering?

I'm really trying to match up what people think they heard on a community and just be accurate.

Um, and so for example, um, was there, again, was there a pool of youth that was larger than the 292 that we somehow started with or looked at or anything like that?

Again, someone uh affirmatively respond, I've seen some head nodding, nodding but.

I'm happy to jump in here.

I I have no idea where that number would have come from.

The only connection I can make is the the 222 is where your team has spent their time on it.

It draws from a data model that is much larger than that, but there was no other screening done on any of the other folks that are in that data model other than the 222.

Okay, do we know how many are in the data model?

So in the data model, um, it's essentially just a rolling three years of all people involved in any crime, including as a victim as a witness, not necessarily a suspect.

Right.

Right.

How many people is that, though?

Um I'll have to get back to you.

I don't know off the top of my head.

I'm just wondering if that may have been the number that was shared.

Um I think it's likely that that is the number that was shared and then misinterpreted as the number of people we were screening or looking to contact.

Okay, but that is the pool of people that um that would be pulled out for data analysis and some I mean, that is the starting pool.

So I don't know that that's a misinterpretation exactly.

So I don't have the number in front of me of the whole entire three years' worth of data, but I do have um gun crime-specific numbers.

So about 7500 people, adults and juveniles have a gun crime score of any range.

Okay, and that's exactly what people are concerned about and said back to us.

So there have been about 7500 people assigned a gun crime score.

That is accurate, and that is what people are concerned about and have said back to us.

So I don't I don't think we should be implying that community members are fabricating things.

Okay, and I'm not saying anyone did that, but I just that that number actually matches up exactly with what people thought they heard, and is in fact the number of people who have been given a score.

That's a lot of people.

So for some context, the analysts are not accessing an entire list at a time.

They're running the data model and pulling 10 people out at a time, or they will then see if that pool of 10 can get them to the three to five that we're hoping to discuss in the mothership meeting.

Okay, so at no point is there a list of thousands of people.

Got it.

That's helpful to know.

And I will I will happily tell people that to a lay fears.

Um, how are the 10 pulled out with the highest scores?

Highest score.

Okay.

Um, what would a high score be?

Uh I'll have to get back to you.

Okay, that's time.

And council member, we have four of the members in the queue.

That's fine, I can be done then.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gonzalez Gutierrez, and then Councilmember Flynn and Council President Sandoval.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, and thank you again.

I appreciate getting um some information ahead of time and then the follow-up information, which I think would be helpful to make sure we share with um other my colleagues.

Um I guess going back to one of the previous slides, we don't have to pull it up, but it was talking about the decrease in shootings that we've seen over the last couple of years, which is a positive thing.

But then you did state that this was not attributed to this pilot, that the the decrease in shootings was not attributed to this pilot.

And so then that then leads me to the question of then what is the need for the redesign or even moving forward with such a type of process or pilot.

If we did not actually see when any significant um impact, um the data didn't didn't give us anything, and also um we have seen a decrease in shootings, maybe for a variety of other programs or things that are in place for folks.

So why why continue down this path?

Why why do a redesign?

I'd love to start, and then I'll hand it over to you.

I mean, I think this year to date, and I may be a little a little dated on this.

I think we've had 155 shootings to date.

I think our goal is zero, right?

And so while we've had a significant decrease in that, I think we're open to any tactic and any strategy that will get us to zero because we don't think any family should have to go through that.

And as commander, I think we'll go into in a moment.

We we think it has to be a free prompt strategy that includes both people-based and per and place-based strategies in order to do that, and that's how it's been studied and put out in terms of proactive policing that really works in cities.

And so I we've had in tremendous success, I think, from some of the tactics we've used thus far, but we don't think it's enough.

We want to be at zero, and I think that's why we'll continue to look at this and see this design did not work for us in this way.

That's why we've wounded down.

But I think we've seen it really work in other cities and are looking for what is the number specific approach that we can take that works with things that exist already, like community violence solutions that allows us to get closer to that zero number.

But commander, what would you add?

So the evidence base of the FXC of focused deterrence is really strong.

Um so I I equate it to a vaccine.

We know vaccines work, but not every vaccine works.

So we need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how we can launch.

And this is I think our with Dr.

Monroe, like our third bite at the Apple for the city of Denver trying to stand up and establish focus, uh focused deterrence program.

So to get to a city that has zero shootings, you need a person-based strategy.

I guess to that point, then why wouldn't we look at the strategies that are working and improve upon those strategies and and like work on the things that we know are working and make them better and do more of that?

Do we know the things that are working or what attributed to those those decrease in shootings?

Okay, why wouldn't we do that assessment?

If we're if we're looking at data, we're evaluating programs, why not look at that?

Um we certainly are, and that's one of the reasons why we pulled we discontinued this this pilot.

Um so we know PNI is effective.

We have the independent research base, and so we are trying desperately to expand PNI.

I there's just so much proof from other cities that programs like this work that if you're going to get to a city with zero shootings, you need you need to be throwing um you know the analogy spaghetti at the wall.

It you need a whole variety of strategies, and there's only three law enforcement strategies that have risen to the level of a Campbell systematic review in terms of of the articles we provided, and so we know it works.

Why can't it work here?

Yeah, that's what we're trying to figure out.

And I because I have to move forward because I know there's a couple other people in the queue real quick, you know, throwing spaghetti at the wall, that's a concerning statement.

I will just say, because we're talking about people's lives, and we're talking about I think trauma that has now occurred in community because of these letters and the way that in which that they were written.

You you have a letter coming not only from the chief of police but from your DA.

And I will say that even the example letter that we received shows DA Beth McCann.

When this pilot took place, we had DA John Walsh.

So I'm hoping that that was a typo or an error, but that's like one like minor issue that you know also has significant impacts because if it is a legal type of document, also the fact that people are being told if you do not participate, this is being shared with the DA.

That to me, I'm not an attorney, but it is concerning that it is potentially a violation of um of your constitutional rights to do process.

If you haven't done anything wrong, if you have you're not you're not being investigated for any crime, but you're being told that your information is going to be shared if you choose not to participate, and that that is concerning.

Um, and so I guess what I would say going forward, whatever whatever is being decided, I would highly, highly recommend looking at some of the things that are already taking place in these programs.

As I mentioned during our briefing, uh, or uh our collaborative management program, DCP, they actually Denver Collaborative Partnership, they actually do um these staffings with families for kids that are involved in truancy court, which is a precursor, right, to kids ending up in a higher level.

So when we're talking about youth specifically, but it can also help adults in their life as well, where you're actually doing uh you're doing an assessment live and finding out what are the services, what are the needs of this family rather than sending a letter and saying you participate, but if you don't, this is what's gonna happen, and this is what can happen.

And so I think it's a matter of really reevaluating and and looking at what currently exists, what is in the future coming down with like community-led safety public safety grants, because I don't know that to me, this is very much based in driving fear in for people.

And we've seen uh in a variety of spaces that that doesn't always give us the outcomes that we want, and to the point that oh, this is evidence-based, and all of those, I still need to do more research on what that is, what that evidence based is, and I want to see um the documentation on that because I have great concerns that we're and I said this in our briefing, something um from the 90s when we were calling kids super predators, when we were had over incarceration of our young people that were using a model from the nineties.

I find that just very concerning, and and I want to continue to dig in more.

I want to um learn more about where you all are at and how you're engaging with community in a more um proactive way rather than we're gonna do this thing and we're gonna have all these law enforcement people looking at your information, and then we're gonna send out this letter to people.

Um there's just a lot there, and and and I would love to continue that conversation.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Gonzalez Guterres, Councilmember Flynn, and then uh we'll close with Council President Sandoval.

Uh thank you uh Mr.

Chair, appreciate it.

Uh I'll be really brief.

Uh could I would really benefit from an analysis?

Uh assuming you're at the time now that the pilot is over and being redesigned.

An analysis of how uh this game uh project pilot differs from what was the very successful uh grand parent of the effort, which was operation ceasefire in Boston, which has been very widely uh praised and credited with reducing uh youth gun violence.

Um so what are the major differences?

You know, why didn't we replicate Operation Ceasefire precisely?

Um what was different about game, and uh I just like to understand the differences.

So I don't even answer now, but I really benefit in the coming weeks from that sort of an analysis comparing the two.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Flynn and Council President Sandoval.

All right, thank you, Mr.

Chair, and thank you for all this information.

We have um, I know we're probably gonna go over on time, but I have a question to um Ben, Dr.

Sanders and everyone else.

When as I'm looking over who participated, I don't see the Office of Children's Affairs on slide 12, support and outreach.

Was the Office of Children's Affairs um part of this?

Yeah, uh the position tied to uh youth violence provision, um, council president was involved in this uh and gain when we got to the kind of three months endpoint where we incorporated youth, right?

So not from the very beginning, but once we started to try to consider how we could also offer some of these services to young people, we did engage with the Office of Children's Affairs and that youth violence prevention position.

So for since COVID in um Northwest Denver, we have a side collaborative community collaborative meeting, it's once a month.

Was this pilot program shared with that group?

Because it's a lot of the nonprofit and community partners that would hopefully have made this successful.

That's a good question.

I would need to sort of look back at our records in terms of who was invited to the mothership meeting.

I couldn't answer that off the top of my head.

Um so I'd have to get back to you on that.

Okay.

And then do you know while it utilized it says support and outreach here for Denver Public Schools?

Do you know?

Did this ever come to the city school coordinating committee that we have established in our Denver revised municipal code that meets I don't believe we ever went before that body, no?

So I think that um a lot of times maybe some of the um in my opinion of having grown up in the um summer of violence in Denver when I lost a lot of friends in high school to gun violence.

I went to, I've said this publicly, I went to more funerals in high school than I have as an adult from gun violence.

I lost five friends in high school from gun violence at North High School.

One was shot and killed on the corner of 32nd in Clay, and one was shot and killed on this in the um the middle of federal on 32nd and federal.

What was successful, what helped during that time was the involvement of community.

And when I see this pilot program and slide 12, I just don't see community listed.

I've I have a community outreach group that has been meeting in um Northwest Denver for since COVID, and I don't think they were involved.

I also know this woman named June from um DPS.

She has had a youth violence um prevention working group that my staff had um Ali Sandra has attended.

I don't remember, I was looking over her notes during the presentation.

I don't remember you guys reaching out to that group.

So and my one last question is did you come and brief city council when this started, or is this our first briefing?

We did a briefing on November 20th, 2024 of the three-pronged strategies of which we talked about gain.

And did you ask for our help?

Did you ask for our involvement, or did we just get briefed and talked to, or did you ask, say, hey, is there any way that you all can, you know, your communities, you were all individually elected in your communities, you have um registered neighborhood organizations, you're very involved in your communities.

Did you ask us how we could help and was there a council liaison during any of this part program?

I don't remember ever asking counsel specifically for help.

And I think council principal is an area of opportunity we absolutely see in 2026 for as we're doing the redesign.

What is communication look like, both with community partners, with council, with others that are involved?

We recognize this, especially as we saw in the findings here around ONS's reputational risk, and how do we discuss this?

I mean, one of the things that's been talked about largely here today is its effect on youth, which absolutely those concerns and and frustrations are deeply valid.

And of the 12 folks that of the 12 individual youth that were contacted, 10 of them already had a um a relationship with ONS and their programs, and largely were contacted through that.

But we didn't, I think there's opportunity for us to explain that better, right?

And so I do think looking in 2026 as we take a pause and go forward, uh better communication, uh, earlier communication is an opportunity we have here.

Thank you.

I would just emphasize not just communication, I would say partnership.

I have mentioned this numerous times with Mayor Johnston.

The key six to success is partnership.

Not having a city council liaison, not having city council involved, is, um, there's 13 of us that are actively involved in our community, 13 of us who are actively involved in projects in our community, and to not ask us for help is a missed opportunity.

I have, I could have told you of several different entry points in Northwest Denver.

I could have given you names of entry points in Northwest Denver.

I could have given you my lived experience of being involved in major gun violence in my in my life.

And I feel like oftentimes I'm gonna say this again, it's really hard to create partnerships when you're talked to instead of brought in.

For me, I'll say I statements.

Collaboration looks like having city council at the table with us at on all of these processes.

All you have to do is council president and say, hey, can you give me a liaison to this to this process?

Community planning and development does it.

I have two members who are at the table right now who are involved in a redesign of looking at our our single family zoning in Denver.

We have a city school coordinating committee that I worked on with Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez that you could have leaned on.

But if you don't ask us on our side, all we all you what it sets us up to is to react.

And I think in 2026, as we look to figure out how to create better partnerships, setting us up to not react, setting us up to understand how we are subject matter experts in our neighborhoods, subject matter experts in these areas.

You have a partner, Councilwoman Gonzalez Cutieres, who is literally a subject matter expert in this area.

And for her not to have been involved, for her not to have been incorporated, is just not using.

So thank you for this presentation.

And I really, really, really hope in 2026 that we are not talked to, that we are incorporated and that we were at the table, and that because this is our community as well.

We are elected officials that have to go to baseball games, football games, soccer games, lacrosse games, our grocery stores, our registered neighborhood organizations, our happy hours that our our community has, and we know our community and we are an asset, and if you don't you utilize it, it's just once again you're briefing us, and we're not part of it.

So I understand the failures of this.

I can see the data written on there, and I really hope and and the Department of Safety that you can just look at this and say, So when you're um reevaluating things, just don't forget about city council.

Please utilize us.

We want to be partners and we want to be at the table with you because these are our people, they're our community.

They're literally paying our salaries.

So we want this to be successful.

Um, so just please utilize us and utilize the council president to figure out how we can be partners.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Council President, for your timely words.

Um with that, thank you all for the briefing.

We have 13 items on consent and uh the meetings adjourned.

Thank you.