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Okay.

Thank you for Chief Thomas to be here to talk about education-based development.

I do want to open with introductions and announcements.

So I will start with the distinguished gentleman to my right.

Good morning, everybody.

Sadena Gonzalez Cuchette is one of your council members at large.

Good morning, Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District Two.

Jamie Torres, West Denver District Three.

Good morning, Manistan, Northwest Denver District One.

We will open with announcements if there are any announcements that members want to share with colleagues or the members of the public who are listening at home, Councilman.

Yes.

Uh, thank you for joining me on Thursday at 10 15 a.m.

We will have a groundbreaking for a very important bridge that Destrict seven residents have been excited about for a long time.

The Jewel Pedestrian Bridge.

That will be 10 a.m.

on Thursday.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Others.

I mean, I'll be excited.

Okay.

I think people are excited to hear from the chief.

I just do want to say a couple words.

We're assembled.

Obviously, these two days are hard days in the life of the city.

We're in the midst of uh talking to employees about layoffs.

That is never an easy conversation.

I do want to thank all of the department heads who have worked uh so hard.

Uh, one of the things I think you'll notice is that uh due to the really difficult work we've done to try to control growth in the budget over the last year and a half, uh, it means that we were able to do about 80% of the reductions yesterday on vacancies and not on filled positions with employees in them.

So our 171 folks that we'll be notifying is a little more than one and a half percent of the city workforce.

But importantly, in a city where 70% of our budget is personnel, that would mean that up to 140 million or so of that gap would have had to been solved on uh on the balance of city employees.

We're very happy that that is not what we needed to do or chose to do.

Uh instead, um, we're able to close about 100 million of that gap where more than 80% of that is from vacant positions.

And so I know that will not make everyone's work easier, but it does protect uh as many of those city employees as we can, and so uh in the midst of these hard conversations, just wanted to thank the departments who are working so hard at everything they can to both deliver core city services to focus on citywide priorities and to protect city employees all at the same time.

Um so uh with that, I want to turn to a topic that I know is important to many members of the council, to us, to the chief, uh, which is the police department's work on education-based development.

So, chief, I will give this to you to walk us through the briefing on uh this uh concept.

Well, thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, uh Council President, the members of council.

I know that I've met with many of you to give you kind of your own individual uh briefing.

You may have questions that have arisen since then.

Uh hopefully they'll be answered in the presentation, but if not, uh happy to answer any questions at the end.

Um, so uh first I'd just like to begin by right setting some misinformation that I think is out there relative to education-based uh development.

Um, so the current uh discipline matrix model remains intact.

There have been no changes.

Uh there's continued full transparency with the officer of the independent monitor.

All cases will be entered and tracked in a shared database.

Uh the office of the independent monitor.

I'm glad that uh Director Castle is here.

Um I think she would agree that uh we are strong partners um that uh her office are very important um in maintaining credibility and public trust.

Uh every case will be thoroughly investigated to the satisfaction of the office of the independent monitor, and there will be no shortcuts.

Every case accepted for education-based development will be tracked, and there will be no second chances, so all repeat offenses or identified patterns of conduct will follow the normal uh process, and previous education-based discipline would cancel out any mitigating factor for a subsequent violation that might otherwise be considered next slide.

I'm sorry, next slide after that.

Sorry.

Okay, so uh education-based development is not eliminate uh accountability or oversight.

So one the matrix is a framework for depend for determining appropriate discipline categories.

Uh that has not changed, and there's been no attempt to change it.

Investigative piece is continuing at the internal affairs uh level, and the officer of the independent monitor will be routed the completed case to verify thoroughness.

Then we'll have an opportunity to provide recommendations on education-based development appropriateness.

Again, this is not a freebie for officers, education-based development will cancel mitigating factors for subsequent violations because they were trained previously and didn't follow that training, so officers won't get that opportunity again.

And I think it's important to note that of the 127 uh violations that are specific violations that can be uh charged uh to an officer, sixty-six of them, so 52 percent are ineligable for consideration.

These include specifications tied to force complaints, bias allegations, and EEO violations.

So, that's what EO.

Uh uh You said force bias, the third was uh EEO violations.

So those are like uh employment issues, so equal employment, yes.

Um, so let's talk about uh current research.

So organizations such as ICP, PERF, and the Department of Justice don't often endorse law enforcement programs, uh, due to a lack of their own research, not because they don't believe in it.

These entities also don't endorse active bystandership in law enforcement.

Uh I think you're aware that uh Denver has been a leader in active bystandership and law enforcement.

I discovered the program, it's active in a number of other departments across the country.

Uh, once I was introduced to it, I thought that it was valuable a way to support intervention, and so I brought it in Denver and felt so strongly about it that uh that we organized a statewide consortium so that uh departments across the state uh could begin training uh and be able trained agencies, and just as bystandership is a science-based fundamental of active bystandership and law enforcement, training and development or science-based fundamentals of education-based development to create behavior change.

Uh, additionally, here's some direct quotes from the ICP and the National Institute of Justice relative to the best solutions for addressing performance issues.

So, from the ISCP education officers, the best solution for police misconduct through education standards and continual focused training, police misconduct can be reduced.

Also, from ICP generally, law enforcement leadership should primarily respond to performance issues with a training and development approach and resort to formal discipline only when performance issues become chronic, resistant to training, and/or deliberate.

And then from the National Institute of Justice in Harvard, the primary focus of discipline should be on changing unacceptable behavior.

So, you're not done.

So here's uh just a quick overview of the concept I'm presenting, recognizing the limitations of only systems and the advantages of behavior change programs that emphasize accountability, coaching, and skill development.

Not some comparisons for traditional punishment versus behavior change.

I think it's important to point out that accountability is not synonymous with punishment.

Traditional punitive measures may create compliance out of fear, but can ignore the underlying causes of mistakes or misconduct, failing to change future behaviors.

Education-based development aims to improve outcomes and reduce recidivism by confronting issues requiring reflection and building skills to prevent reoccurrence, which arguably is a deeper form of accountability.

Education-based development factors and timeliness of the process, not just training to improve outcomes.

I believe this will also improve satisfaction with the process.

Complainants will have a solution-based outcome, which is incident-specific training versus just receiving a letter of the outcome of the case.

These are quotes from an executive session.

Next slide.

These are quotes from an executive session on policing and public safety put on by the National Institute of Justice in Harvard, suggesting alternatives for rule violations that lead to behavior change are often seldom part of sanctions imposed on officers.

And equally as important, the impact of discipline on officers and the messages to both the department and the community are compromised, the longer the time-lapse from incident to resolution.

Now, next slide.

Thank you.

Here is our concept statement for education-based development with key points.

Sorry.

I feel like one back.

There we go.

So the key points being officers benefit from timely specific feedback and training.

Education-based development supports the Denver Police Department's commitment to being a learning culture and public transparency.

Education-based development provides overall better outcomes on low-level cases.

Currently, 60 or more departments of varying sizes to include 10 or more major cities in the US and Canada have developed some element of education-based development.

These departments have varying uses of education-based development, some that we clearly thought were overbroad or just wouldn't work in Denver.

And for these reasons, I have not only developed a model that fits for Denver, but have contracted with an evaluator to measure the effectiveness to determine if and where we may need to change or change course or improve.

So what are the benefits of education-based development?

Through the implementation of education-based development, I am proposing an opportunity to train behavior change.

I'm also proposing an opportunity to provide officers more direct training for minor mistakes, improve outcomes for complainants, and better focus our resources on significant incidents of misconduct.

Education-based development is not intended to replace the formal discipline to replace formal discipline in cases of egregious or willful misconduct, which may be more easily detected through repeated violations even after education-based interventions have been applied.

It is designed for cases where learning and behavioral improvement are the appropriate outcomes.

Next slide.

Okay.

So here is our current disciplinary process.

So as you see, complaints are received either directly to DPD or through the Officer of the Independent Monitor.

The investigation takes place.

Then it is sent to the monitor's office for them to determine whether or not it's a thorough and complete investigation.

And if not, then things that we need to do in order to satisfy that for them.

Then it goes to the conduct review office.

And so everything beyond that point is really kind of what takes significant time in the process, and really don't want to assign blame to anybody, it's just the process.

And then after that process, essentially every case goes to the end of a very long line.

And I think that it's that long line that that relates to the length of time that it takes to resolve a case.

And so I'd like to shorten that line and keep things from going to the back of that long line so that it shortens over time.

So that's that's the hope.

Okay, next slide.

So here is the discipline process with education-based development.

If the officer were to sign the agreement, so after the officer of the independent monitor has reviewed the investigation and given their recommendation, a final determination will be made regarding whether education-based development is appropriate.

If the case is approved for education-based development, an agreement letter is developed by internal affairs and our professional development unit and signed by the involved officer.

The officer will have three business days to decide whether to accept and sign the agreement.

If they don't sign the agreement within three business days, the discipline process will proceed, and education-based development will no longer be an option.

If the officer agrees, the professional development unit in concert with our academy will coordinate the assignment of classes and document education-based training in the shared database.

Training will be made available within 30 days and will be completed within 90 days of signing the agreement.

Once the training is complete, the internal affairs commander will ensure that the education-based development agreement has been fulfilled and the case will be closed.

If an officer fails to complete any part of the agreement, the case will continue through the disciplinary process, and all of this will be documented in the shared database.

So, as you can see here, if the officer does not accept education-based development, the case continues through the normal disciplinary process.

Next.

So why is Denver contemplating adopting education-based discipline?

So from 2022 to 2025, 66% of all cases could have been eligible for education-based development.

Instead, these cases have clogged our disciplinary process, taking several months to resolve, which I think is unacceptable for a complainant to wait this long.

And I think that that in and of itself erodes trust.

Now, I I emphasize could have been eligible because the way our analysis will go is you know the first determination will be does this infraction that uh that is uh alleged against an officer, is this one of the 66 that's ineligible?

If it is one of the 66, then it goes through the normal disciplinary process.

The next analysis will be is this part of some continuing pattern?

Is this a repeat offense?

If the answer to any of those questions is yes, then it goes through the normal disciplinary process.

And then the third um analysis, which I think I've shared with a number of you, is based upon the case specifics.

Um, is it determined that this is a mistake of the head or a mistake of the heart?

It's a mistake of ahead where they clearly just didn't know what they were supposed to do.

Then I think the most appropriate outcome is to help them understand both what they were supposed to do and what the department and the community expectation is.

If it's a mistake of the heart where they did know what they were supposed to do, but just elected not to do that anyway, then that's clearly a case where we need to proceed with uh with the normal discipline.

Uh next slide.

So um this represents last year's uh disciplinary outcome.

So of the 713 internal affairs cases filed against officers last year, these have been the outcomes.

So 261 were declined for further investigation with the agreement of the Office of the Independent Monitor.

122 had informal outcomes.

So these were cases where which you know we think were more cautionary rather than identifications of uh significant misconduct.

106 cases were not sustained, uh, and of the 204 which remain that were sustained, 45 received a written reprimand, 68 received an oral reprimand, 37 received a fine of one to two days.

Um 33 received a suspension or a fine of more than two days, and then there were 21 cases where there were terminations or people resigned in lieu of termination.

I think it's uh important to point out that we complete every single case, regardless of whether or not the officer separates.

We think that that's important.

Uh you know, we want to make sure that we're able to report you know to report to post if there has been a reportable uh post-reportable offense that's been uh committed by that officer.

We want to make sure that we are reporting that to pose.

We also want to make sure that we're maintaining that in our records so that if this person chooses to go to another department, that department is going to reach out to us, and we would be able to say, Well, you know, they they left our department, but had they remained there, is there's this case where we would have that's important to communicate to other departments so that we don't have officer gypsy officers that are just you know engaging in misconduct and moving on before they're held accountable.

So here, uh next slide.

Thank you.

Uh so here um as you can see, regardless of the disciplinary outcome, cases generally take six to eight months and often up to a year or more to resolve.

I believe it is a disservice for any complainant to wait nearly a year for a resolution to a complaint that they filed, not only should complainants receive closure in a reasonable amount of time, but officers who engage in misconduct should receive corrective action promptly.

Now I'm looking at this holistically, looking at overall behavior change.

So an officer who does not have the understanding or awareness will go forward with the ability to apply learned skills in every aspect of their performance.

I'm focused on reducing the number of officers committing violations and on identifying root causes.

Next slide.

So what has uh stakeholder engagement looked like?

So initial introduction of the concept was shared with the following groups: uh Chief's uh community advisory group, which is 14 individuals, uh extremely diverse backgrounds, members of uh multiple faith communities, um, and you know, former uh counsel aides, um, members that represent the immigrant community.

So I think pretty diverse uh group of folks.

That was the first group that I used.

The concept to uh Greater Denver Ministerial Alliance, together Colorado, uh Office of the Independent Monitor, our police protective association, who uh everyone understands is our bargaining union, uh, various peer law enforcement agencies, uh, and then mental health and academic partners.

It's important uh to note that this was not sharing of a policy draft with any of these entities, it was merely just introducing the concept for public input and making tweaks to our framework.

We didn't hear any objections, just uh suggestions that we incorporated into the fanwork and subsequent policy drafts.

Next.

Um following discussion with the officer of the independent monitor and since an oversight board, uh several suggestions were incorporated into the current policy draft, and additional community feedback was sought.

Um, so this included attendees at six different community meetings in each of the police districts, uh, community members that are on our community engagement distribution list that I'll get into a little bit deeper again, uh the independent monitor as well as the Denver Civil Service Commission.

Um important to note again that no one saw a draft except for the officer of the independent monitor.

Um, and we ultimately did incorporate uh most of the OIM's recommendations into the current uh policy draft, which has since been placed on our webpage for further feedback.

Um next page, yes.

Um, so um, as I talked about the the people that expressed interest in in having uh you know follow-up uh engagement with the police department.

Uh all of you are probably aware of our spider tech technology where anyone who calls 911 from a cell phone begins getting text messages back.

Um, those initial text messages are in relation to the response, you know, whether or not it's delayed, whether or not officers are responding at that moment, um, and then they get text messages after the call has uh been completed, um, where you can evaluate the performance of just not just the dispatcher but also the responding officer.

There's also um uh a place within the survey where you can indicate your desire to have further communication with the police department, thousands of people have checked that box and have indicated interest and having that uh that follow-on engagement, and we received uh over 800 responses from that tool.

Um, and as you can see uh to the question, did you do you agree with this uh program concept?

78% said yes.

Do you believe the program will have a positive impact on an officer's behavior?

62% said yes.

Do you believe this program will have a positive impact on police community relations?

61% said yes.

Do you believe this program will enhance the safety of community members?

54% said yes.

Um, and um the systems oversight provided um the survey data.

Next slide.

Thank you.

Um, so I don't uh disagree um uh that some agencies uh education-based development programs are overbroad.

Uh I'm proposing a program which is much more strict than many other programs we looked at.

We are not allowing education-based development for any case where suspension or any sort of significant discipline uh is appropriate.

Um, there is an appendix attached to the policy, which highlights those cases which are or those complaints which are eligible, eligible, and remember.

Um 66 of those 127 violations are uh automatically ineligible.

Next, um, so uh education-based development is not eligible, as I've said, for more serious offenses where presumptive penalties are higher than minor reprimands, such as sexual misconduct, uh forced complaints, integrity complaints, uh EEO violations, bias incidents, or repeated uh incidents or patterns.

Um, again, these are cases where we want to impose discipline where appropriate as timely as possible.

Thanks.

Um, so in cases of minor rule violations, training will be designed around them taking accountability.

I believe acknowledging a mistake we committed and agreeing to receive better training to better understand the ongoing patients is accountability.

I would argue that this absolutely addresses the harm to community.

Wouldn't uh community want our officers to be more well-rounded, skilled, and better critical thinkers, maintaining a high level of respect for the communities that they serve.

We incorporate community respect and potential harms into several of our uh current trainings to include active bystandership and law enforcement before the badge, uh professional policing uh leadership institute and our anti-biased training.

So, why wouldn't we use those same elements in augmenting our specialized training designed around specific violations?

I believe education-based discipline will be effective as it will be fairly and reasonably administered and will ensure clarity and expectations through specific training, will strengthen relationships, thrust by better ensuring understanding of policies and procedures, uh also uh timeliness uh relates to trust and ensuring better outcomes.

Next slide.

So, relative to evaluation and monitoring, I believe these corrective approaches focused on education, coaching, and engagement, can strengthen individual responsibility, long-term learning and behavior change, which are key components of accountability.

An evaluation will identify whether the intended outcomes are achieved without unintended consequences.

We have contracted with a university partner to conduct a robust data-informed study of the effectiveness of the program to include an upfront diagnostic review of our discipline process and evidence of positive outcomes, and lastly, uh regarding transparency, to include community uh transparency along with our um transparency with the Office of the Independent Monitor.

Outcomes will be added to the current complaint dashboard, which is available on our transparency wage on our uh website, uh, or there will be a separate dashboard created um so that people can clearly see uh what cases are uh diverted to education-based development, what offenses, what officers, so that they can verify for themselves that there are no allegations uh that shouldn't have gone that route, or there are no repeat uh offenses.

Um again, everything related to citizen and internal complaints will be uploaded into the shared uh database so that OAM always has uh access and uh the opportunity to view what's going on.

So questions.

Okay, I have a number of folks in the queue.

I have councilman Flynn, Ashman, as far as parody, Watson, Council Torres.

Okay, and then LB addressed Councilman Flynn, you want to start us off?

Sure, thank you.

Uh thank you, Chief.

And I appreciated the uh the listing in the draft that showed the various complaints, categories that could lead to the disciplinary process because I was struck by how many of them I would never have thought of.

There was one damaging your badge was on there.

And so I think a lot of folks in the public, when they hear police complaints, they think of the ones that make the news, uh brutality, inappropriate use of force, etc.

And just to be clear, those are those are not on the people.

Absolutely.

So it seems to me that when I looked at your flow flow chart, the difference between what we do now and what you're proposing is that once an investigation is done into whatever the complaint is, whether it's you damaged your badge or you loaned it to another officer or whatever, or you pulled your firearm when you shouldn't have, whatever it is, those are investigated equally to a certain point, and at that decision point, right now, they all go into that long line.

Correct.

That you're trying to resolve.

Correct.

So the difference here is those that are on the list that could be diverted to EBD out of the academy, the staff would put together a course.

It could be different depending on what the complaint was, and the officer completes that.

Satisfactorily.

The difference is that it doesn't result in an oral reprimand or whatever would have would have happened had it gone through that one year or the 400 days.

I'm understanding that correctly.

Yes, and so I think the points to really hammer home are that a thorough investigation is completed on every so that means talking to all involved officers, every single witness, you know.

We want to really understand exactly what happened and why, so that we can answer those questions.

Was this a mistake of the head or a mistake of the heart?

Then obviously, there's um, you know, we want to make sure that this um is or isn't one of those uh ineligible cases, and um, and we also want to identify patterns of conduct now.

Um, you know, once we determine that it is appropriate for education-based development, now we want to, given those facts, we want to uh develop a very incident-specific training.

So again, I want to make it clear that this is not sitting in front of a computer watching videos.

This is like our academy staff, our professional development, training, testing.

So, at the academy, uh, out at the academy, so that at the end of it, it's very clear that they understand the the policy procedure that they were to follow, uh, the impact that they had on the community, what the expectation is of community and of the department.

What would really help me, and I suppose a lot of people might be watching on channel eight, is could you give maybe two examples of actual cases that could have gone through this and what how the outcome uh would have been handled without you know without using names.

Yeah, certainly.

So one that comes to mind I probably have shared with a number of you is so let's say there is, and I think many of you have uh council districts that share borders with other cities.

So uh let's say uh an officer responds to an accident, when they get there, they make the determination, no, this isn't Denver, this is Sheridan, this is Aurora.

Um, I can't take your report, um, you need to call Aurora, Sheridan, whoever they do that, they call Sheridan or Aurora, they show up and they're like, oh no, this is absolutely not our jurisdiction, this is Denver.

Um, so now they have to call Denver back, and somebody has to come and take that report.

Now this person has wasted five hours of their life uh waiting for um, you know, an accident to be reported, which is already a traumatic uh event.

Sounds like my district every day.

Yeah, and so um we would get that complaint, we would recognize that there actually is a policy that says in a jurisdictional dispute, you will complete the report, and um, and we will figure out the jurisdictional issues later.

Um I think it's reasonable that you know, in an operations manual that's thicker than a phone book, that that might be something that was lost, forgotten.

Um I think that if you were to uh educate an officer on what the department expectation is there, what the exact policy and procedure is there, help them understand the impact that they had on that particular uh uh citizen, and also um help them understand what the department and the community expectation is.

My guess is they'll never do that again.

If they did do that again, then I think it you know it seems very willful.

Like, yeah, I I knew that maybe I should have taken the report, but I just didn't choose to.

So this is one strike in your your hour.

So the next time that they did that, obviously that would not be.

We have a policy already that when there's a dis uh misunderstanding or dispute about where that accident is.

I'm thinking Bellevue and Wadsworth, there's three jurisdictions that merge there.

Uh the Denver officer responding, even if the officer thinks it's in Lakewood or an unincorporated JEFCO, that officer is supposed to take that report anyway.

If the officer doesn't, and the uh people in the accent complain right now, that would be fully investigated, and it could go into that long line that's clogging up higher level complaints from being resolved.

What uh so if the officer says, I'm sorry, this is Lakewood, you know, give them a call.

That also would be called in.

Possibly go to the training.

It was the first time.

Okay, I think I get it.

Um I know there's a lot too many other people in the queue for a second uh example, but if you have other examples, maybe uh the honor email them to us because I have to get a better understanding.

Sure.

The kinds of things that would be taken out of that.

Oh, there it is, taken out of that long line.

Yes, and what does that do?

Well, we don't know what it'll do for improvement of officer performance, but all due to public satisfaction, so my strong hypothesis is that it will lessen complaints, that it will certainly address recidivism, um, and that it will shorten the process, particularly for low level, but I think ultimately shorten the process for the more significant cases because we won't keep sending people to the end of that long line, and that line will just progressively get shorter.

So that is that is the hypothesis, and that is those are the outcomes that we will be studying uh to make sure that it works.

I want to be very clear with this group that uh if those outcomes turn out not to be true, then I would discontinue the practice.

Thank you, Mayor.

I understand there was an accident there at Bellevue and Wadsworth, and the jurisdiction was decided by where the victim was thrown from the vehicle and where the victim's head landed, because literally straddling the uh the three lines.

Helpful example.

Thank you, Councilman Flynn.

Councilman Cashman.

Thank you, thanks for the presentation, Chief.

Um, and thanks for the briefing.

Uh one-on-one we did.

Um, I've had the opportunity to talk to you at length about this.

Excuse me, and the opportunity to talk to Monitor Castle, um, as well.

I respect you both completely, y'all are on different pages, and I don't think this is cooked.

Um I I this is not I don't I don't even want to go into uh you know details and he said they said whatever, but y'all are on different vastly different pages, and so I think you need to get on the same page as close as possible, and I would just encourage the discussion between you, the monitor, the COB.

Um, I understand where you're trying to go, and I don't think that I have a hard problem with that.

Sure, but like I said, uh uh I I think uh the interpretation of whether or not oversight is being shortchanged differs, and I do not want the monitor that shortchanged, in the course of what you're trying to, and I believe that to be true, sir.

I believe that to be true.

Thank you.

Uh thanks, Councilman Cashman.

Uh next up, Councilmanski Terras.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and thank you, Chief, for the time um that we've kind of walked through some of this stuff.

Do we have this publicly posted?

This this um slideshow slide should show, that'd be a question.

And I couldn't find it on Legislature.

So that would be great, just because it's I'm trying to go back and want to look at comparing this to the other slide, and it's difficult to do that because I don't have access to this slide deck.

Um I can make that a little circle.

Okay, thank you.

Um, but also to the public, that would be great.

Um, one question that I have is about the information that you had on one of the slides that said that this is actually evidence-based practice, um, having worked in you know the um social sciences field, evidence-based means a very specific thing, right?

It means that it has gone through a rigorous um process, an evaluation process that is rigorous, academic, um, it's also very expensive for a lot of programs to go through that process.

I'm curious if sometimes people utilize the term evidence-based kind of in a catch-all, but it is a very specific thing.

Do you have the information that the source of uh showing that this is in fact evidence-based?

Well, so I um I think the correct answer to that is there probably is currently no evidence-based that this works in policing, because while 60 plus agencies across the country and in Canada have done it, they have not done their own science-based analysis, uh, or if it is, it's just not available, nor have any of the bodies like ICP for uh done that.

But I think that the concept, I think there is evidence bases that providing education, training, coaching, development do work to change behavior in many other disciplines, and so um again, recognizing that uh it is probably a true statement that there is no true uh science-based um uh work that shows that this is effective.

I want to create my own uh study to demonstrate that it works, which is why uh from the very beginning I've I've engaged with a uh university partner to to study those outcomes.

Okay, I would just ask that like we make sure that we're properly using these types of terminology because they can be misconstrued to mean something different because as I stated, evidence-based practices.

There, this particular model is not an evidence-based practice.

So I just want to be clear on that because there is no research as far as I can tell, and I've seen there is no actual research substantiating that fact.

Correct in policing, but in other disciplines to crew.

But we're talking about it for in the case of with policing, when we're looking at the stakes in different types of situations when you're looking at different types of jobs, we're talking about folks who have a badge and a gun who have the ultimate authority over someone's life, right?

And so I just want to be very cautious about how we're putting information out there.

That's all that I'm asking.

Yeah, no, appreciate it.

Um, and then the next question, and I'll let somebody else get in because I know everybody's in the queue.

Can you go over the type of conduct where this would be applied?

I know that when you and I met you talked about violation specific types of violations, and you've kind of touched on a couple of them here today, but um I'm just curious.

What are what are exactly are those violations?

Well, primarily they are violations relative to um, I mean, they're they're generally administrative in nature.

So um the officer did not complete a certain report that they were required to complete.

Um, an officer did not follow a certain policy that they were required to follow.

They didn't uh handle uh property the way that they are required to handle property.

So these these again are not uh situations that involve you know bias complaints or forced complaints, integrity issues, EEO issues, you know, anything that that you know anyone would deem to be uh serious in nature is what would be off the table.

And so um I know that very early on I kind of talked about things that fall between category and A and category C.

I think that that was overly broad.

Um, you know, looking more closely at those uh the the violations that fall in those various categories.

I was able to actually identify some that do fall in those categories that I wouldn't want, nor would anybody else want to be uh considered, and so that's why those 66 specifically were determined to be ineligible.

Can we get a list of the violations that would be considered for this process?

I mean it's already on the so that's right.

It's part of the appendix, so it's it's it's publicly available today.

Okay, so people have been have been able to view that, uh, make comments about that.

So that is being tracked right now.

I think the last thing I'll just say is that you know, even if it is a what a quote-unquote administrative like um violation, right, where something is not filed properly or things like that, those still can have detrimental impacts to victims.

Um, and you know, in the entire justice system as a whole, right?

And and I have seen that play out over decades in not only the work that I've done in juvenile justice space, um child welfare, and then also as a council member and just ongoing um, you know, conversations and information that I receive from people who are victims of crimes and whose cases are being mishandled, right?

And so those are not minor violations because they have pretty significant impact on somebody's yeah, so I do want to say like it's although it may not be a police brutality case, or it may not be you know, so um straightforward that someone is being harmed, someone is being harmed.

So I just want to make sure we're talking about that.

And I appreciate that distinction, so which is why, you know, I I think that we want to be very careful in our training to make sure that we are not just addressing what the appropriate policy and procedure is to follow, but helping them understand what that community expectation is, what that impact was on that victim, which I think is accomplished through a comprehensive training rather than um an oral reprimand or uh you know just a letter in an officer's file.

Well, certainly we could do both, but the problem with doing both is that what are we gonna do about that long line that has caused cases to take so such a long time to uh to resolve?

Thank you.

I'll let somebody else go.

Uh councilwoman parody.

Yeah, thank you so much for being here, Chief.

Um so um, trying to think where to start.

First of all, I think I want to just verify that I have the right understanding of the problems that you're trying to solve.

One of them is the length of the time that the investigations take, and I hear you on that.

One of them is um that you want to lean into having officers that are getting really good training and education, or is there anything else that I'm missing?

Um I think I think I do want to um uh address recidivism, and I also want to make sure that we are having much more um just just a better overall outcome, uh solution-based outcome rather than just a letter and a file.

Okay.

Um so what other solutions have you considered to try to shorten the length of time of investigations.

Well, that's not I mean that's completely out of my control.

So obviously the uh Monitor Castle and I have discussed the length of time that uh the cases take and and again I assign no blame for the reason why it takes such a long time for the process, it just does.

And um, and I think that um again, uh one of the best ways to shorten the line is to um reduce the number of cases that go to the end of that line.

I think we have to be very thoughtful about which cases it is that we are not putting to the back of that line.

So we certainly don't want to just shorten the line for the for the sake of shortening the line.

We want to make sure that we're doing it with the right cases.

But for example, wouldn't like more staffing in both IAV and OIM shorten the time.

I mean, I it would be hard for me to imagine that we couldn't um that there couldn't be other ways, at least conceptually that we could get those investigations to move more quickly.

Well, I mean, I guess the the answer to your specific question is we certainly could, um, you know, I don't, I can't, I won't speak for uh independent monitor, but um it would be difficult for me to remove staff from another assignment and place them in internal affairs, um, but again, it's not just the length of time that is the issue, it is I think maybe the uh ineffective outcome that isn't that isn't solution oriented.

Okay, yeah, and that's a different bucket of kind of the issues that you're solving for.

So I wanted to ask you about the time because I do hear that concern.

Um so getting to the um list of violations.

I really want to lean in on this, and council member Flynn, it goes to kind of what you were asking about, which is just the idea that these are minor violations.

Um I put the list out to a number of um sort of like people who have experience in the world of police misconduct, um, and I got responses back that were people were sort of stunned.

And here's like an example of one of these emails.

Um, some of these are violations we routinely see in cases where officers are abusing their authority and violating the constitution.

In particular, the body worn camera policy.

Body worn cameras can be turned off to not record what's supposed to be on them.

They also might be turned off because someone forgot them, right?

Like it could be either motivation, um, but there's nothing about that offense that is inherently minor.

It can be extremely serious, right?

Um, same thing with discourtesy.

I mean, that can be minor or it can be extremely not minor, right?

Well, I don't know.

Um, depending on what an officer says to someone.

Um, duty to obey rules and mayoral orders, a lot of really serious police misconduct, the way that everything, you know, our um rules are structured right now, free speech violations would fall under that.

So First Amendment violations, which are serious, that's a constitutional issue.

Um, giving your name and badge number, that is an exceptionally serious matter at times, because sometimes that might be again sort of a miscommunication.

Sometimes it might be about trying to make sure that someone can't pursue a claim against you after a protest.

We've had officers cover up their badges during protests.

That's not a minor thing.

I mean, it just isn't.

Um, in addition, the um the example about loaning your badge to someone else, that strikes me as really serious.

I don't want someone who's not a cop running around with a badge.

So I just think like the problem is that if we try to categorize these things as minor because they are sometimes minor, innocent, forgivable, then we're having to trust whoever's making the decision about which route to put people on to distinguish between those things.

And we don't always know those things.

Evidence handling and report writing are fundamental and crucial to police accountability.

If we do not know that someone is writing accurate reports, we, and a lot of times that's only uncovered in the investigation.

So I have seen this so many times.

Um, and I'll give an example of a case where I was representing an exceptional cop.

He was a sergeant, he had gotten like every possible medal in the Greenwood Village police department.

His name is Pat Sello.

He um tried to unionize his department with IUPA, and he ran into a bunch of opposition from the existing chief and lieutenants who were all FOP.

Um, and he ended up getting fired for supposedly not having supervised a search correctly, and come to find out as we litigated his case, because their disciplinary system was discretionary, the discipline had been incredibly unequal between people who were union members and people who were FOP members, and a bunch of the reports had been fudged to make the union people seem more accountable.

And the only way that came out was because we litigated that case.

So I just can't see us going down this road.

Like I don't think any of the violations are uniformly and always minor because it always depends on context.

Yeah, that's absolutely true.

We can't remove oversight to determine that I mean the we are conducting the full and thorough investigation to get answers to all of those questions that you raised to determine all of those impacts to determine whether this is local.

And we're doing that hand in hand with the office of the independent monitor.

So we're not going to shortchange an investigation and not get answers to questions that are important to have answers to whether or not you know, so so I I don't believe that we're removing oversight at all, and we're actually um making certain that we have answers to all of those questions to determine.

I mean, with with the with the process that's in place, you're able to see the numbers of cases where the outcome was uh the slide that you're actually previously on.

Um the outcomes of oral reprimands versus written reprimands versus um one to two day fines.

I think the one after that.

Um, so two forward, yeah.

The the kind of squiggly line looking like one more forward um keep going.

Oh, the one outside.

Yeah, but there you go.

So, you know, those that those that are in green, again, those are those are ones that that but that you know that that everyone agreed that that was the appropriate outcome.

And um, and I would I would say that even all of those would not necessarily be considered for education-based development because we would have to look at was this willful, was this uh a pattern of conduct.

Um, but I think that you know when everyone on both sides agreed that the that the appropriate outcome was a written reprimand.

I think that the more appropriate outcome to a written reprimand is actually um eight or 16 hours of training so that you walk away clearly with an understanding of what you should have done, and also so that you have a clear understanding of what the impact of that community member was and what the community expectation is.

Right, and my concern that I've done.

So, mindful councilman I for the folks in the queue, so maybe 30 more seconds to move on.

If we cut short, if we're not using our full process, we may not uncover um some of the things that like are can be so insidious about these kinds of violations.

That I just don't see how we can have it both ways, like both shorten the process and not lose some of that incredibly important insight and accountability.

So I'll leave that there.

Thank you.

Keith, you want to keep on?

No, I just think that you know the the important piece to remain intact is the investigation because that is where you get the answers to all of those questions.

So uh if you go back two slides to the discipline process with EBD.

So this slide indicates you would have a complete and thorough investigation into internal affairs.

The completeness and thoroughness of that investigation would then be certified by OIM.

You would then make a recommendation about education-based development.

Oh I am going to be able to review that recommendation and provide input on it before it then went to education-based development.

So there are three checks on the complete and thorough investigation before decisions made to go to EBD.

Correct.

Great, thank you.

Next, I have uh Councilman Watson.

Uh, thank you.

Uh I was gonna call you council president.

Um, Mayor Johnston.

Um, thank you uh Chief Thomas for being here, and uh I appreciate the walking through of the checks um on this slide because I don't think it came out clearly your last response.

I wanted to say um, as a the chair of the health and safety committee, my normal process would have been sir to have you present before health and safety, provide um the briefings to council members, and then receive input from any of the organizations that are monitoring, monitoring, reviewing the efficacy of this proposed policy.

Uh that process did not occur in this step.

Um, and uh we'll make sure with any future um um training or any other changes within disciplinary process within um your team that we follow that process because I think it's important to hear this information and then receive feedback from other partners.

Um my question, and I have two.

Um, can you describe um you stated that the Office of Independent Monitor has had the opportunity to review the recommendations provided, and there were uh certain number or of those that were accepted.

Talk through that process with the Office of Independent Monitor for reviewing really the advocacy of this possible role.

So I think, you know, in full transparency, you know, I have been contemplating a model for addressing those concerns that I've enumerated for over a year.

And so um I introduced at the time it was called education-based discipline.

Um I sort of introduced that concept uh had a number of discussions with uh Monitor Castle about that.

Um, and you know, she uh seemed interested in seeing exactly what I put together and what I put in front of her.

Um I ultimately did put a framework uh in front of her, and then later put uh a policy uh in front of her, which I thought she made several very thoughtful recommendations.

I I lose track of the numbers, through the number of thoughtful recommendations were.

And I think to date, the current policy um includes I think 28 of those recommendations.

So nearly all of the recommendations, and actually, one of the recommendations that I was uh resistant to having conversations with a couple of members of council uh and hearing their feedback, there is actually one additional um uh change that I want to make to the policy, and that relates to the the credit for training.

And so, like let's say, you know, so every officer um by policy um by post standard has to receive 24 hours of uh continuing education credit every year.

12 of those have to be in perishable skills, so shooting driving arrest control.

Um so initially I was open to the idea of let's say they have eight hours of education-based uh development for a specific infraction, having that count towards that 24 hour total, um, but not towards the 12 hours of can of uh of perishable skills.

Um, having uh had some feedback from uh from some of your colleagues, um I have uh decided that that that would be you know that we would make those eight hours in addition to that 24 hour total.

So um so while they would certainly get you know additional credit, um, it wouldn't go towards that 24 hour uh requirement.

And so you know we have you know, I would say most officers uh go well past the 24 hour uh uh limit of of required hours of continuing education, and so this would be just another instance where they would have 24 hours of uh required and these eight hours that were mandated by by the by the discipline.

Thank you, Chief.

I got two quick questions, and I hope that you're able to provide a succinct answer because uh I think we have part of this.

Well, it's in the queue.

Uh I wanted to get to clarify again um this training for um that you're proposing.

This is in-person on-site training.

Folks weren't doing this on their iPads and their cars, that's correct.

And you know, and so this is, you know, they are being removed from their assignment and sent to the academy to receive this training, and the follow-up process to identify outcomes to evaluate if this goes into practice, um, describe the relationship with the university that you're working with, and what's the ongoing feedback from the dashboard, et cetera, for there would be transparency to do community as far as which um uh disciplinary steps are it is training is being a part of.

Walk through that a little bit.

Yeah, so quickly, um, so we have partnered with the um uh University of Nevada, Las Vegas, um, and they will be the ones responsible for gathering the outcome data and making a determination of whether or not the uh outcomes that that I believe will uh improve have actually improved.

And again, committing to if they haven't improved, then I would discontinue the practice because that's the only reason why uh I would be doing this.

Um and then uh relative to the transparency piece, um obviously there's continued transparency with the office of the independent monitor because all of these things will be entered into the database that we both share.

So there's uh constant awareness, um, but also we have uh for at least the last two years plus, had a transparency page on our dashboard on our on our DPD web page that allows people to see disciplinary outcomes.

This will be yet another tab that they can see disciplinary outcomes specifically as they relate to education-based development.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

I just wanted to jump in from the that you said, Council Member Watson.

This conversation had been happening um a lot more before I changed committees.

So, so yes, you did develop a new process as you became chair July 21st.

But Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez had been working on this for a really long time and attempting to bring both parties together and um had numerous requests.

I've seen them.

So I just want to say on the record that yes, you are currently the chair now, but Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez had been working on that, and I just didn't feel like that was a fair statement to say that your process is different than hers when she was chair and she did a really good job, and she really did attempt to have this come together to have a conversation, and it didn't happen.

I won't get into that right now, but I just wanted to clear the record to not make it feel like Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez had not attempted to do what you were doing because I just feel like communication matters right now amongst all of us and how we approach things and really thinking about having EQ in these conversations and not claiming somebody is gonna be something that I'm gonna hold all of us accountable for because she really did do a great job chairing for a while.

Yeah, I'm comfortable with that, Council President.

I was speaking solely to my process as a chair, making sure that it was clear.

Thank you.

Uh thank you both.

Council Torres.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you so much, Chief.

I I really have to agree with my colleague, Councilman Cashman.

Um I don't think this is ready to be implemented, if only because I'm watching so much um critique of consequence or um uh failure to agree with the monitor's office, um, uh because I couldn't claim to be an expert on how we arrive at certain disciplinary uh charges or um what process should look like according to the matrix or any of those things.

And so when there is this level of disagreement, I think it um it it deeply sows mistrust that something's not being done correctly.

And I I do want to have confidence that you're approaching this because of um uh really good methods and interests in in the goal, um, but that level of disagreement I think is hard to ignore.

Um, one thing that I'll say from the letter that the um citizen oversight board uh shared with council is uh an area that I think um from an outside perspective feels uh really uncomfortable, is um that there is no agreement as to what qualifies as a low-level offense between the DPD investigators and uh the monitor's office.

So if I'm looking at this, I could um presumably um uh say that something could get categorized as discourtesy when it's in fact intimidation or when it is presumably something else that could be more severe, um, and without that level of um agreement or uh consultation.

Uh I would struggle that we would be letting some officers go through EBD for discourtesy or you know, name another that um might have been otherwise qualified as a different kind of category.

Um, so just to have that kind of confidence because I don't want um DPD, I think under your leadership, has um really grown in my eyes in terms of what you've embraced and the kinds of programs to garner public trust.

I wouldn't want to see that eroded um because we launched into something without everyone's um understanding or appreciation for why we're doing that and how.

So um uh just just my thoughts on I think that piece, and I hope that like Councilman Cashman mentioned, this can be launched with more um more folks on board.

Thank you.

Um Councilwoman Alvidres.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

Um, thank you for the presentation of the thorough.

It does seem like there has been some evolution over the time of the process, so I'm curious um if it's okay if I could ask uh Office of the Independent Monitor if they have seen a change in this compared to what was presented in committee.

I don't know that we're gonna have time for multiple witnesses this morning.

I encourage you to check with the monitor after if you want to, but um uh I'm wanting to do our other two.

I do have a 1030, other folks may as well, and so I think one encourage you for sure to have that conversation offline.

We just weren't ready to do multiple witnesses today.

All right, um, one of my questions, comments have been made previously about the trainings that why aren't all these trainings included in the standard training, and these trainings seem great.

So I just wanted to hear your response to that.

Well, they so they are.

I mean, you know, 28-week academy, um, and so um a lot of these things are trained, so that you know, I would say most of our policies and procedures, particularly the ones that people engage in every day, are trained at the uh academy and in field training, but I I think that just in uh every uh profession, um, the the amount of rule and regulation is just so vast and broad that I think that it leads to an opportunity to forget to to misunderstand um and and I think those you know the identification of those misunderstandings is a perfect opportunity to jump in and make sure that somebody is adequately trained going forward.

Great.

Um, and then when you were talking about is this um something of the head or the heart, how are you determining that?

Well, I think the facts uh really determine that.

And so, you know, if if um if you know having interviewed the officer, having interviewed the you know the complainant, having interviewed both the civilian and the uniform witnesses that are on scene.

I think that we generally do get a pretty good sense of um whether or not this was willful or not, and um, and I think that that also determines what the ultimate outcome is going to be.

Is there going to be aggravation applied?

Is there gonna be mitigation applied?

And so I think that that we can get the answers to those questions so that we can uh so that we can determine whether or not it's a mistake of the heart or mistake of the head uh during that process.

I think also um, you know, because all of these things are tracked and all these things are uh able for us all to view, we can also understand if an officer makes repeated maybe not the same mistake but repeated mistakes of policy violations well.

Um I think that that lends itself to a different type of of uh outcome that's necessary there where we actually do need to begin to apply some very progressive um uh discipline to that person so that they have an understanding that that you can't just keep making these foolish mistakes, even if you don't mean to, you do need you do have some responsibility to uh have a greater understanding of policy procedure.

And if you don't know, ask.

I appreciate that.

I think overall I'm open to this conversation and this policy because I think you know, as a mother as a supervisor, when someone makes a mistake, I always try to talk to them about it and figure out what's going on before it's just a punishment maybe that has an impact on their financial stability or their home life or that resentfulness, which makes me worried.

Um, so I just want to pin that there, and then the other thing that has come up as a part of this with the COB and the civil service was just the open vacancies, and I don't know if you've been able to fill those yet, Mr.

Mayor.

The vacancies in which committees on the Civil Service Committee, there was someone that has that their term is up, and we haven't read you your office.

This the Civil Service Commission and the Citizen Oversight Board both have vacancies.

Okay, thank you.

Um the next uh council Lewis.

Thanks.

Thanks for the presentation.

I have a few questions for you.

Um can you help me to understand the training and the curriculum aspect of it?

Can you just give me an understanding of what's a part of the training?

Yeah, so um, so obviously we want to make sure that there is training specific to the violation.

So, you know, going back to our operations manual, going back to the specific policies, training bulletins that may be available, just the the the specific site in the operations manual where that describes that particular policy.

So I think that is a component of the training to make sure that they clearly understand what the department expectation is by policy.

Then I think next, I think that depending on the violation, I think certainly there are procedural justice components that need to be folded in, emotional intelligence components that need to be folded in.

You know, we have received outcry actually from educators that believe that I think this is a great idea, but you should probably include this in the training, you know.

So, and then you know, I showed on the slide that I've engaged with uh people in the in the mental health field and uh education field.

I mean, people have reached out to me saying, you know, I actually think this is a great idea, and something that we do in our profession, but I think that you um need to make sure that you include these components, and so uh we have taken that advice.

We have um uh elicited the support of people in those fields to help us build uh those very specific training components within the within the training.

So when you say that you have folks reach out to you to add additional pieces to the training, how are you putting that together?

Like what is execution look like?

What are the different components?

Are folks a part of the cohort?

What is the so you know as as was shown in the in the um in the presentation?

So the the framework, several sides of framework were sent to thousands of people and also made available to people at uh six different community meetings, and there was a QR code that allowed them to provide feedback later, and so and so we took account of all of that feedback, and some of that feedback was I am an educator, and this is what I think about your program, and this is what I think would make it better.

Um, or I am in the middle health field, and this is what I think about your program, and this is what I think would make it better.

And so you know, I think you know, we have given people the opportunity to provide feedback and be able to incorporate not just that feedback, but the feedback that we receive from now so the independent monitor into the the current uh policy, the current draft policy.

Um, and then you know the policy is now available since the 20th of July.

And we continue to get feedback there.

Um, very thoughtful, we'll do that.

Who will deliver for training?

So it will be delivered by uh for the most part our uh personal development uh team, which is a branch of our internal affairs division and our academy.

Okay, so if they're taking pieces of recommendations from other folks, these aren't necessarily experts in terms of that delivery, they're just the conveners of and the creators of the curriculum and then they're delivering it more facilitators more so than experts.

Well, I think if there is a need to bring in an expert in uh emotional intelligence or procedural justice, we could certainly do that, but I would say our trainers are expert in the delivery of training because they're all certified.

We'll probably disagree on that one, but I do have one follow-up for you.

Um so you mentioned the current uh you you mentioned recidivism as one of the goals that you I wanted to accomplish.

I'm curious as what the recidivism data is currently, and then what's the goal that you all have outlined in terms of that reduction?

Well, so um I would say that uh I don't have the numbers in front of me as to what that recidivism actually is, but it is uh there is recidivism.

There there is an instance of officers repeating the same mistake four or five times, um, as well as a number of officers repeating the same mistake twice.

I think that's the most frequent uh occurrence of people repeating the same mistake twice, and so we certainly want to address that.

We certainly I would like to eliminate that altogether.

Um but I think that by continuing to impress upon people what the community expectation is and the department expectation is, I think that that will lower uh overall complaints.

Yeah, it'd be helpful to know like what the baseline is for recidivism so that I can understand what you all are trying to accomplish in terms of.

And I think that's one of the you know the benefits of having a university partner just establish that baseline and then be able to compare where we get to at the end of a study period to that baseline.

Okay, and then my final question is I think that's what I said.

My final question is how do you objectively measure a mistake of the heart and how do you objectively measure a mistake of the mind?

Again, I think that that is very clear in the in the investigation.

I think that it is very clear in all of the actions that uh you know that that you know, like if we go back to if we go back to the um to the example that I gave of not taking the report um on uh on a jurisdictional boundary.

Um I think that I think that there are other behaviors, like let's say let's say on top of it uh the officer was rude or the officer um made it seem like I don't have time for this, you need to call somebody else.

I think I just think that you know, in my experience, having spent three tours in internal affairs, I think it's actually very easy with the full breadth of the investigation to determine whether or not somebody just plain didn't know what they were supposed to do or if they didn't know but they chose to do otherwise anyway.

It feels more subjective.

I was worried, I was curious of what an objective measure would be for both of those.

Well, I don't know.

I mean, help me understand how you would objectively determine whether or not somebody, you know, you know, if if if you bumped into somebody in the hallway, I don't know how you would be able to determine objectively if that was an intentional or an accidental act.

You know, I think I think that you would have to take a number of other factors into consideration to determine whether or not um they meant to do that or it was purely an accident.

I agree, and that's why I worry is that it's very subjective and be dependent on it.

And and you know, and I don't I don't intend for these decisions to be made um you know in a vacuum.

I don't intend for these decisions to be made lightly, um, and I don't even intend for these decisions to be made by one person, and so um, so I think that there are several opportunities for us to make sure that we have the right outcome and we make that right determination as to whether or not this is something that training is best for, or strict discipline is best for.

Thank you.

Thank you.

President Burton, you have the last very brief question.

I do, um, and actually it's a wrap-up.

So thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you, Chief, for being here.

And maybe this is more of a question for you, just hearing you know, my colleagues' questions, still concern for some process.

What's next?

Like where what happens after this meeting?

What's the next step in the process?

Um, sure.

I can um uh defer to Chief on that, but I'll actually make um I'll give the mineral answer to Chief Canad.

Obviously appreciate Chief's commitment to gather community feedback on this to gather feedback from independent monitors, and oversight boards and council members.

Uh he is ultimately in charge of leading and running his department the same way all 27 agency heads in the city are in charge of leading and running their department.

That includes making programmatic decisions like this one.

So that is in his purview to make this decision.

Um I think we always want to make sure we have feedback and thought partnership in that design, but that is certainly um uh within his power to make the decision for how to run this operation.

Uh, I think for me, what we're looking at is how do we make sure we've heard all the feedback and comments and we've delivered a system that addresses those concerns.

I think we are all entirely committed to making sure that folks learn from mistakes and get better.

We're entirely committed to making sure that folks that abuse their power or um or misuse the power of the office are held accountable.

I think we have the most rigorous and in fact the most punitive system of punishment for police than we do for any other city employee of any brand.

And so I think there's no shortage of capacity to do that.

Um this feedback was helpful today.

When I look at this process, uh I would remind us why you have is first a complete and thorough internal affairs investigation, which means every single case is never shortened the length or depth of the investigation based on the severity of the charge.

After that thorough investigation, then it goes to IM to certify that that investigation was both thorough and complete, which means to certify that something that was named as discourtesy wasn't actually intimidation, or that someone that was blocking their badge wasn't doing it because they were holding a grocery bag, but because they were actually trying to prevent someone from ascertaining their identity to make a claim.

After that is certified to be thorough and complete and the charges are adequate and appropriate to what the behavior was, it would then go to a recommendation for education-based development, which would have then returned to the independent monitor again for review and recommendations on the specific decision for that thorough and complete investigation to be aligned to education-based development.

So uh to me that's three separate, very thorough checks uh on a process, and then we'll have the data to know exactly which of those uh decisions were made uh to go to EBD, which were not, and what the outcomes from the officers that went into both of those patterns were.

Uh and so uh to me that is a both a thorough and complete process for feedback as well as a thorough and complete set of checks to make sure the concerns raised today do not happen.

Um, but I will defer with the chief on any other comments he wants to make on what the uh just a couple of short comments.

First, I've understood that I've had the capacity to institute policy um as I see fit, but I chose specifically for this policy to engage community to have a lot of uh to a lot of input on this.

And so I think next steps are continuing to meet with the office of the monitor to try to remove or eliminate that daylight that uh is still between us and continue to uh to listen to feedback.

And so, you know, overwhelming amount of feedback on the policy that we have uh posted on our on our website, and so we continue to monitor that and and take advantage of that opportunity to understand what uh what the community desire is.

Thank you, Chief, for being here.

Thanks for all the members of the public for being here.

Thank you, counsel.

We are adjourned.

Have a great Tuesday.

She does not sleep in a bed.

She sleeps sitting up.

She is a 108.

You you have to sleep in my neighborhood to my uh we wouldn't allow the public.

And I've just made it about to use the vote.

It was traumatic for me.

How is it that you've been things you've done suppressed?

I again thank our witnesses for being with us this morning.

We we really do look forward to your testimony, and I'll tell you, we don't have many centenarians testify before our committees.

Sadly, many Americans today are not even aware that this massacre took place.