Public safety committee order.

Our first item is a uh briefing on uh the canine policy and uh Mr.

Davis is coming up to the microphone to take it away.

Um, good afternoon.

Let's see.

Okay, again, good afternoon.

Uh I'm Brandon Davis.

I have the privilege of leading our office of oversight and public accountability and our office of equity and engagement.

And today I'll be giving the benchmarking analysis and review of GRPD's K9 program policy 6-8.1.

Now, this uh is a benchmarking analysis.

Um, and this report compares GRPD's program and policies to peer organizations and thus that type of evaluation.

This is not an evaluation of GRPD's actual processes or uh those types of things.

We're looking at the actual language in the policy and comparing that as a benchmarking analysis.

So the way this will work today is uh we have this agenda.

Obviously, we'll do the introduction, then we'll talk about the three-part framework and benchmarking factors.

We'll give a summary of that three-part analysis, and then there are some recommendations that'll come along with that.

Then there'll be time for questions as well.

So the objective of this was uh in response to the city commission's request, the city demand uh the city manager directed OPA to engage in this benchmarking analysis of pure jurisdictions and national professional associations related to GRPD's canine policy.

So what we did was we evaluated GRPD's written canine policy and identify areas it could be clarified or strengthened to better align with pure city practices and nationally recognized guidance.

Uh, the review is based on GRPD's written policy, and I keep stressing that, as well as the canine handler manual, because that is what we were directed to look at.

That was the scope of this.

Um, now we do note some practices that are not reflected in a written policy, and we'll talk about that.

Um, but the the core of the evaluation was based on that written analysis.

So when we talk about the scope, it's important that we state uh that this is not a legal analysis.

Uh the goal of this was not to give a legal opinion.

Um we don't conclude that GRPD's canine deployment or incidents were unreasonable or unconstitutional or anything like that.

That is not what this process was about.

It was a benchmarking analysis.

Um, this analysis uh did not evaluate individual incidents or cases or anything like that.

So after completing his written uh the review of the written policy, we did have conversation with the police department interim chief Trigg has been amazing to work with throughout this process, and we had conversation with him and other leaders in the police department who are also uh helpful, and we were able to identify practices that uh may not be encapsulated in the policy, uh that are encapsulated in this report in some ways.

It's important to note that that uh the information we have based on that is based on what was provided to us uh by GRPD.

So we did not independently verify practices.

So, in order to have a good understanding of this report, it's important that we have some common language.

Uh so definitions.

Let's start with canine apprehension.

When we talk about apprehension in this uh report, we're talking about uh incident where uh uh suspect surrenders or is otherwise brought into custody at the res as a result of a canine deployment, right?

So this may be because the canine was used as trained or because the suspect surrendered after becoming aware of a canine being a part of it.

Um apprehension does not necessarily mean that there was a uh bite or some type of uh force used by the dog in that way.

Um what it does mean though is what we've uh stated here.

A canine handler is a sworn law enforcement officer trained and certified to work with a police canine, and then we talk about use of force and the use of force is the application of physical tactics or tools by law enforcement to gain compliance or control.

So when we look at the benchmarking factors, uh there's some important considerations that we have to have as we navigate this.

The first thing that's important for you to know is there is no single universally adopted standard for governing uh police canine programs in the United States.

So when you look at different jurisdictions across the country, you will see different things.

Uh, the way in which they navigate, uh, what their thresholds are, all of those types of things are different.

Um so what we have to do in this case, of course, is then look, of course, across several factors and and several different sources to try to determine what are those best practices.

What are those national uh recommendations that we can look at in order to put together a benchmarking analysis?

And through that process, 10 benchmarking factors were used in this study.

Again, they were not developed by OPA, they were derived from the recurring requirements and recommendations found across independent nationally recognized sources such as the International Association for the Chiefs of Police, the Police Executive Research Forum, and the Canine policy of peer agencies, and we'll talk more about those peer agencies as we go forward.

These factors also reflect operational categories around which law enforcement agencies routinely structure their canine policies.

So our three-part benchmarking framework included these things.

Cross policy analysis, best practices from nationally recognized sources, and then selected peer city comparison.

So when we talk about that cross-policy analysis, we'll talk about exactly what policies we looked at.

We're talking about GRPD policies.

We'll also talk about the national recognized sources we got to, and then we'll give you some more information about those peer cities that were selected and why they were selected.

So from the uh review, 10 benchmarking factors arose to the top.

The first is force classifications.

When you look at force classification, the question is, does the policy classify canine vice or apprehension as a use of force option?

When we look at apprehension threshold, the question is, is physical apprehension limited to serious violent felonies, armed suspects, or high risk situations.

Number three looks at supervisor approval.

The question there is does the policy require supervisory approval before bike risk deployments or situations where a bike could happen.