Good morning, everyone.

I'm Amy Peck, Chair of the Public Safety Committee, and I am calling this meeting to order.

This is our joint public safety and government operations committee meeting.

Um government operations is chaired by Councilmember Flickinger, who is here with us and will take over for the second part of our meeting today.

We are also joined by um Council members Carter and Councilmember Alcorn and staff from the offices of Councilmember Castillo, Martinez, Mayor Pro Tem Cassex Tatum, Thomas Huffman, Vice Chair Jackson's office.

Did I get everybody?

I think so.

All right.

Um, first presentation will be a safety and security overview for FIFA World Cup 2026 by Assistant Chief Howard if you want to come up.

And this is going to be a high level, you know, look at what we're doing safety wise.

If they're we're happy to take questions afterwards if there's something specific, though, we can always arrange um for one-on-one meetings as well.

Thanks, Assistant Chief.

Thank you for having me here today to brief out some highlights of the Houston Police Department's FIFA World Cup 2026 planning efforts to prepare Houston for its role in this historic event.

I'd like to briefly acknowledge here in the room with me today.

We have Executive Assistant Chief Jessica Anderson as well as Captain Reese Hardy, who are instrumental in the plans.

There's also a very large team that is doing all the behind the scenes work planning and doing the day-to-day work.

So I want to thank all of them for their both for their presence and those who are not here for the work that they've done thus far.

This is a reflection of their work.

Next slide, please.

I'm sorry, this appears to be out of order.

Thank you.

That's the next slide.

Thank you.

Houston has hosted many major events over the past decade to include the Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four, college football playoffs, and multiple Major League Baseball World Series games, including two victory parades.

This slide is intended to highlight the sheer scale of the World Cup.

As you can see, the average World Cup match is viewed by more than 10 times the viewership of many of these other major events.

The average match even outpaces Super Bowl viewer viewership by a wide margin.

As the tournament moves into its playoff bracket, also known as the knockout rounds, the audience only grows to numbers that are pretty incredible, with one and a half billion with a B people watching the 2022 World Cup final.

Next slide.

Ronaldo has over a billion followers on social media, and his fans bring remarkable enthusiasm.

And we will host Portugal not once but twice.

We are guaranteed to host four matches at a minimum with top ten teams and dynamic players and fans.

The knockout round matches will surely be exciting for even the most casual soccer fans.

Next slide.

With that basic understanding of the tournament as a whole, I'll move into an overview of the police department's safety and security planning.

I appreciate the consideration as mentioned earlier.

This is meant to be a high-level presentation.

A number of details are law enforcement sensitive.

Um, and so this might not be the form to answer some detailed questions, but I'll do the best that I can at the end.

Next slide.

This slide represents the organizational structure to show the diverse areas of planning.

Looking at the bottom row, you can see designated leads for the major areas of planning, which are broken down by discipline and major functions.

The law enforcement and public safety planning falls under me.

Transportation, fire and medical, private security, and emergency operations center coordination are the other major areas of planning with leadership provided by HFD, OEM, TranSTAR, the Host Committee, and the Chief Medical Officer for the Houston FIFA operations.

We have crosstalk between groups within each discipline as well as across various disciplines.

There are multiple work groups assigned to each of us as we have as we have to carve up the work.

It's truly a monumental task planning for this event.

For each of the work groups under the law enforcement and public safety sections, I'm also proud to share that we have co-leads from regional partner agencies, and we have taken a multidisciplinary approach to command control, communications, and coordination.

Above the five major planning leads that you see at the bottom of the org chart, there is a structure that serves to guide our efforts as needed.

The Houston Host Committee provides the connection between local planning efforts and FIFA.

The Houston Leadership Committee has diverse representation from multiple agencies and disciplines in the region.

It assists with answering major questions that cannot be answered within the confines of each major area of planning.

And the Houston Executive Committee provides senior leadership and is the final arbiter of those decisions when we need some tiebreaker decision making.

Next slide.

This slide shows just a partial snapshot of the partners who have a role in our FIFA FIFA FIFA World Cup planning.

I do I do not have time to name all of our partner agencies, and I apologize in advance for not doing so.

On the law enforcement side, our local partners include the Harris County Sheriff's Office, the Metro Police Department, Department of Public Safety, Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, and many others.

OEM, T Dem, and SetraC will provide essential regional visibility and coordination.

As a SEER 2 event, we will also have substantial support from multiple federal agencies.

A federal coordinating team has been designated to connect our planning work groups to the appropriate resources.

There are some resources that simply are not available at the local level or are not available at the scale required to support this size special event.

I'd also like to point out that we have participated in numerous exercises exercises with these partners, with a few more still on the calendar.

These exercises help us build a robust, multidisciplinary common operation common operating picture so that we can have confidence in all our all hazards plans and preparations.

From the law enforcement perspective, they give us a better understanding of the other areas of operations, and they have stress tested our structure, communications, strategy, and tactics.

Each exercise provides an opportunity to true up our planning from its current state from a global perspective rather than just from the confines of our individual areas of expertise.

And I can't thank our partners enough for their participation and support.

We regularly see these partners show up, they're spending their time to help build these plans.

And you know, partnership is just, it is both essential, but in our region it is also exceptional, and we've been noted for our regional cooperation by other host cities.

Next slide, please.

NRG Stadium will be transformed to Houston Stadium when FIFA arrives.

Like any of our previous major special events, there will be a fan activation zone.

This zone will be open on game days only, and the hours will extend both before and after each match.

The extended hours of the fan activation will assist with crowd management by allowing the crowd a longer amount of time to spread out both their ingress and their egress.

Similar to previous major events like the college football playoff championship game, there will be road closures in and around NRG Park.

Details of the road closure plan will be finalized in the coming months, but all discussions thus far look very similar to the plans that we have used in the plan in the past.

We will also have additional tactical support to provide a robust security posture.

Some of these assets are more visible, like supplemental crowd control, while others are more discrete tactical assets.

The scale and decent details of those deployments are law enforcement sensitive, but I assure you that our planning is from an all-hazards perspective, and we are working hard to mitigate any and all vulnerabilities.

Next slide, please.

In this picture, you can see an example of a fan march from the Netherlands team with their classic orange pride.

Fan marches are a part of soccer culture with varying degrees of participation depending on the team.

At this juncture, we do not know how many team fan bases will actually engage in a fan march.

Our plans assume that we will have to manage at least one fan march for each match, though it is possible that we will have games with two matches and others with none.

We will scale our operations based on intelligence.

Thus far, FIFA has been able to support our planning with insight into fan behaviors for each team.

Each team truly has its own culture, its own following, and we have to look at them as unique entities.

Even so, we will have to be flexible enough to adjust to unplanned assemblies, and we will staff with sufficient personnel to allow for contingency planning, particularly on game days.

Next slide, please a bird's eye view of the FanFest footprint.

It is adjacent to the home of our own Houston Dash and Dynamo, the Shell Energy Stadium.

The footprint is roughly from Polk to Texas Avenue, and between Hutchins and Emancipation.

The Fan Experience will have a capacity between 5,000 and 7500 visitors.

Every day that a game is played during the tournament, regardless of location, the fanfest will be open.

This means that we will support roughly 34 days of FanFest operations.

The design of the FANFE is intended to give people a place to see and experience the World Cup without needing a match ticket.

It is not designed to be a place where visitors will stay all day.

Rather, they will see games on video boards and enjoy some of the usual fan activation experiences before exiting to the adjacent Edo area.

The area in blue is where we expect to have heavy pedestrian traffic.

Our plans provide a secure space for the pedestrian traffic and will require road closures during peak operational hours.

Next slide, please.

And finally, I want to point out that the planning does not stop at the stadium and fanfest.

We will have hotels to manage as teams travel to and from Houston.

For those unaware, teams live and train at base camps when they are not traveling to or playing in a match.

At this time, Houston does not have a team assigned to us as a base camp.

However, an additional six teams will qualify for the tournament between now and the end of March.

It is possible that Houston could host one of these late qualifying teams.

We do have plans already developed to address the security requirements of hosting a base camp.

And for now, we will have to wait to see whether or not we'll be a host city.

When we reach the knockout phase of the tournament, we will likely begin to see teams spending more time in Houston leading up to their match.

With or without a base camp, we will have security obligations for the training facilities when teams come to Houston to play.

Practices are closed to the public.

Even so, some teams will draw significant numbers of fans to their training sites, and we will be prepared to manage those crowds.

We expect to have advanced notice of each team's itinerary, including their training schedule, so we will have the opportunity to staff and manage those events accordingly.

And of course, we expect to see an increase in airport throughput during this time.

For our part, you can expect to see increased presence both at hobby and IAH, as well as increased traffic control at the airports.

We expect to see an increase in international travelers, but we should not underestimate the interest of the American fans.

The United States regularly ranks as the top ticket purchasing nation during each World Cup, so do not underestimate the impact on domestic travel.

We have already drafted drafted base plans to support our major airports as they represent both a first and last impression for our guests.

As we close as we get closer to the tournament, the Houston Airport system will be able to provide us updates on ticketing and flights, allowing us to scale operations as well.

This concludes my presentation, and I'm sure there are questions, so I'm happy to answer.

Thank you, Chief.

Um before we get to questions, we were joined by Councilmember Ramirez and staff from Councilmember Salinas' office, Councilman Cayman's office, and online from Councilmember Davis's office.

Up first, Councilmember Carter.

Oh, okay.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And uh thanks for the presentation, Chief Howard.

Um question about the fan marches.

Um will you have uh a plan that includes, for instance, designating uh an area or a roadway for fan marches if if uh fans of a particular country want to do that?

Yes, so you know, just some general information.

Uh in order to have the numbers that these groups like to have, there's there's open communication about what their intentions are, and we have already had some communications uh with uh with uh with countries about uh their intentions, and so there's a lot of coordination and collaboration, and we're working on providing recommended paths, and uh you know, to the extent that we can, we're going to provide guidance.

I expect a lot of compliance with that, uh, just because they want to have a good experience, it's a representation of um you know them showing up for their nation.

So we certainly will have a plan.

We have some rough ideas of plans that we are proposing, and but we have to be open to uh other requests.

So all that is very much in progress, very early stages.

We're waiting for countries to start sending representatives to Houston, and we'll be able to get into further detail on those plans as they arrive.

And have you studied how other cities have handled the fan marches?

Yes, you know, there's been a lot of research that's gone into this.

Um, you know, within the U.S.

we do see fan marches at different scales.

And just to give an example, when the Dodgers come to Houston to play the Astros, they always select some place downtown and they march as a very large group to uh to Dykin Park.

So we're not totally unfamiliar with this.

Uh we have done a lot of research to see how they are managed in um in other countries in Europe.

The dynamic is a little bit different here in that those stadiums very often are in the middle of kind of uh uh you know a bustling area with pubs.

So the location of NRG doesn't have that same dynamic, and we understand how they're done elsewhere, and we're also applying what's unique to Houston and trying to make sure that we have uh plans to to adjust and recommendations so that there's a positive experience, but one that also does not create unintended problems for Houston.

Great.

Thank you for your work.

Staff from Councilmember Salinas' office.

All right.

Anyone else?

Oh, Councilmember Alcorn.

Thank you, Chair, and thanks for the presentation.

Uh on the money side, we get reimbursed for all of this, some of this, how much how does it work?

Yep.

So that is still in progress.

Funding was allocated over the summer with congressional funds, and there are a couple of different grants that will support.

Uh I do have an ask of council, and that is when requests for council action come forward with those with those grant um uh for those grants.

Uh we just asked for timely approval because we can only do so much right now pending the funding, but I expect I expect all the Houston police departments overtime expenses and equipment expenses to be covered.

Great news.

Thank you.

Thank you.

There's no one else in the queue.

Thank you, Chief, for the presentation.

And I'll now turn it over to Councilmember Flickinger for the final two presentations.

Okay, today we're gonna have presentations from the Houston Fire Department and the Houston Police Department uh regarding uh motor vehicle incidents in Houston Fire Department will be first.

Uh Assistant Chief Joe Trevino.

Okay.

Good morning.

Um my name is uh Joe Trevino, I'm assistant chief over the special investigations divisions of the Houston Fire Department.

Uh today, just gonna share a little bit uh with you about how HFD trains its firefighters before we put them on the street to drive, uh, what happens after a motor vehicle incident, and then ultimately how responsibility and any discipline is determined.

The next slide is just sort of the organizational chart that shows you where the motor vehicle incident review kind of falls in our chain of command.

It is under special investigations.

The next slide.

So guideline 2-35 is HFD's driving guideline.

It basically lays out how a driver is supposed to operate any city vehicle.

It's got everything in there from responding emergency, responding non-emergency, wearing seat belts, uh what kind of speed you can travel during emergencies or non-emergencies, uh backing incidents.

Uh it lays out all the guidelines and expectations of a driver any city vehicle.

Prior to allowing uh a member to drive HFD vehicles, they do have to uh while they're on phase testing, probationary firefighters pass these drive driver operator performance standards that lays out pretty much what's in 2-35, and kind of each uh performance standards uh laid out there, and they have to pass those before they get off probation.

They're also required to obtain a Class B driver's license uh from DPS in order to drive uh emergency on an emergency run.

Uh we also, of course, have the AP 2 2 and 2 3, and there's a HFD guidelines 1-16 that kind of lays out what happens after a motor vehicle incident.

Uh next slide.

So this slide basically is just shows the flow from when an actual incident occurs ultimately to the end goal being prevention, and we'll go through each of those steps briefly.

Uh the next slide.

So when an incident occurs and one of our apparatus is involved in an incident, the the first thing is securing the scene, making sure everything is safe.

If there's any injured parties, we need to get EMS out there, take care of the patients.

Uh our drivers have to notify the OEC, and they will they will uh contact whatever law enforcement agency needs to be sent out there to investigate the accident.

Also, they'll send out a district chief who has a responsibility to investigate the accident as a supervisor as well.

So that all happens immediately when the incident occurs.

The drivers will start to get witness information because sometimes people will leave the scene before PD gets there.

Um civilians are also then given a kind of a chart on what's gonna happen next in the process because they're just got into an accident with a city apparatus.

Uh next slide.

So the driver has to submit a driver's report of motor vehicle incident.

They filled it out at the scene, it has to be done at the scene, basically laying out the details of the incident, the direction of travel, how the accident occurred, uh weather conditions, street conditions, uh any witness information.

A district chief that was dispatched to the scene also completes uh investigation on the scene.

It's basically a fact-finding kind of investigation.

There's no real determination made, just trying to get the facts down.

They have to uh take any photographs of any vehicles, any damage, the scene, kind of document everything for the accident review committee.

Uh there, those two reports along with any um well, those two reports are sent to the HFD accident review within 72 hours.

Uh next slide.

So uh this slide just talks about the district chief's report.

It's basically has to be done by district chief or the equivalent level, depending on which division in the fire department that where the accident occurs.

Um they do also make a determination whether there needs to be a post-incident drug screen.

If one of our drivers is involved in an accident and a vehicle gets towed, a someone gets transported to the hospital or there's a fatality.

Our drivers have to be drug tested before they can go back to duty basically.

Um next slide.

So all that information is then forwarded to the motor vehicle incident review officer who has the job of basically determining whether our member was a cause of the accident or not.

Um if our employee caused or may have caused the incident, those uh findings are gonna be forwarded to the fire chief, and a formal process starts.

That formal process starts with the adoption of a complaint against the firefighter for the potential possibly violating our driving guidelines.

They receive a 48-hour notice, an opportunity to present their case, um, and then the panel meets, gives the firefighter an opportunity to explain what happened during the accident, and the panel has to determine whether or not it was preventable.

They look at any aggravating or mitigating factors.

Um at that point, a written determination is given to the member and also sent up to the fire chief.

You can go to the next slide.

It's sent up to the fire chief with an appraisal.

The appraisal comes from the fleet.

Uh it's added to the documentation that's given to the fire chief along with any police reports.

At that point, uh, you can go to the next one.

At that point, the fire chief has to make a determination on any discipline related to this incident.

Uh the fire chief makes that determination based on police reports, severity of the incident, the the amount of the damage, and any prior driving history this the driver may have had.

If our member is found to be the cause of the accident or the incident, there's three things that happen every time, and that's one is the driver's safety.

They have to have a driver's safety course mandatory.

It's documented in their 42, and also there's a coaching and counseling session.

Those three are automatic if we're the cause of it.

And then the fire chief determines if any discipline actual suspension is required based on on these other factors.

Um it could be up to loss of driving privileges, possibly a demotion of rank if they're a driver and they've had repetitive accidents, and also up to an indefinite suspension in rare cases.

Oh, uh yeah, I mentioned 42.

I guess that's just the personnel.

It's documentation into the person's personnel file.

I'm sorry.

Um the review panel.

So aside from determining whether or not our member was a cause for it, they also are they give recommendations as far as policy updates, training enhancements, and any fleet safety improvements.

Example uh example would be I know they they had helped get uh backing cameras on some of the apparatuses.

Um another example, they were noticing a trend in backing accidents at a local hospital.

The safety officer uh on the review panel visited that hospital, found out that they had re did some construction, added some columns to the emergency room area or the parking lot, and the columns were painted the same color as the wall behind them.

So they were able to identify that as a problem.

They got the hospital to paint the columns, decreasing the amount of backing accidents that were happening.

So they have other jobs besides determining what if there was a uh our firefighter was that cause or not.

Uh next slide.

So the next two slides are just the data as far as the number of incidents from 2021 to 2025.

Uh this slide is just broken down by quarter.

Uh the total incidents and then the emergency, how many of those incidents happened during emergency runs?

We average about between 400 and 500 accidents, motor vehicle incidents per year, with about half of those being on emergency runs, which makes sense because you're running emergency half the time and you're going back to the station the other half of the time.

Uh that's four to five hundred incidents.

That's a lot of incidents.

Um, but the fire department does respond to 400,000 calls for service per year.

And of those 400,000 calls for service, many of those are multiple apparatuses being dispatched to a location.

So the amount of response times that our apparatuses are on the streets, or it's over a million different response times.

So next slide.

So we do actually have this data also broken down into categories, whether it happened at an intersection, a fixed object at a station, backing.

If anybody wants us to send you that information, kind of detailed broken down data, we'd be happy to do that.

Um I don't think the next slide.

Uh that's it briefly in my part of unless you have any questions.

I'm sure you do.

Councilman Alcorn.

Oh, before we get started, that um there was a serious accident up in Kingwood, I think about a month and a half ago, and uh you believe it was the other party's fault.

Um you got an update on how the firefighters did.

I know several of them were taken to the hospital.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

Uh you probably know more about the uh status of maybe.

Uh-huh.

Oh, there it is.

Okay, now it likes me.

Um yeah, no, um, so yeah, you're you're you're saying that was uh I believe 104s.

Uh the ladder truck was uh blocking on the freeway and was was struck by a driver overnight um while we were out there.

Um there were uh four members in the vehicle, three of them were hospitalized.

Uh I believe they've all been released.

Um I don't know, I don't think all of them have come back to work yet, um, but I believe one of them has.

Um, but I believe one of them has.

And so I can I can get you more specifics on that.

I didn't think to pull that.

I apologize, but I can get that for you soon.

Yeah, absolutely.

Councilwoman Alcorn.

Thank you, Chair.

Has there been any effort to cut try to quantify you know the costs of these incidents on an average basis?

I know there's insurance, I know sometimes it's not our fault.

I know there's a damage to equipment, but uh um has the department done any work on kind of an average cost of an average cost of incident, not that I'm aware of of finance may have something like that.

Yeah, that would be something, and that's the other thing that to keep in mind, right?

We are driving these vehicles uh, but the vehicles are maintained by the fleet management department, right?

And they're purchased by finance, and so there's a lot of different departments that are working together on the road.

So there's all kinds of factors, but I just wondered if there had been any work.

I mean, it does seem like a lot.

I get when you do 400,000, you know, I get it.

It's a small portion, but uh but it it's I'd like to know kind of what the cost is.

To the extent you can get um any information for the and I can we can definitely tell you the cost of replacing an entire vehicle, right?

So if we have to replace an ambulance, that might be around 400,000.

If we have to replace a ladder, that's about 1.2 million dollars uh give or take.

And so uh we can have those for the But I would think that a lot of these incidents are not right.

They're not all the same.

Most of them are not replaced some of them.

They hit a pole, and there's no damage to the R vehicle necessarily, but there was an incident that had to be investigated.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Councilwoman Peck.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um have we compared our numbers to other major cities to determine you know if we're having more fewer accidents per year?

That's a great question.

I I haven't seen that data.

I do have the um our motor vehicle review officer who handles all the MVIs for us.

I can get that information from him, I bet he, I'm sure he does have that.

If you want to do that, yeah, that would be helpful to see, and then if there's another major city that maybe has fewer to see what they're doing to see if we can implement some of those ideas.

Thank you.

Yeah, I had a question on the the backing accidents.

Is is there always more than one people on your apparatus?

Not always.

I mean, most of our vehicles have two people on it.

If it's an ambulance and there's a patient in there, then one of them is taken out because he's in the back with a patient.

So they can't be used as a backer.

We have uh RS.

The policy to have a spotter out if there is.

Yes, sir.

And if you violate that policy, that's that's a a policy violation and it's handled with discipline because you violated that that direct policy.

So one of the other things I would suggest to I mean you track it by the number of incidents.

I'm sorry, so that one more time.

You're tracking your accidents by the number of incidents, correct?

Um I would also suggest you track it by incident versus uh how many times the vehicles actually uh responded to a scene uh to give you a percentage.

Uh because I mean obviously as your responses go up, the odds are your accidents are gonna go up.

If your responses decrease, which I don't think has been an issue, they should go down.

Uh I think that would be a more accurate metric and and way to measure it than just total number of incidents.

Yes, sir.

And do we know how we compare in incidents to other cities?

No, that uh that question was just asked.

We don't have that data.

I don't have that data now, but I can get that.

I'm sure my uh motor vehicle review officer that he actually probably I'm sure you have that data, but we can get that to you.

Okay.

And how often do you go back and look to update policies regarding motor vehicle incidents?

So the policies are touched more often than totally uh reviewed or totally um redone.

We do have a joint labor subcommittee with the contract and the new administration, and there there is a subcommittee who is responsible for for policy updates.

So they send recommendations to the fire chief as far as as far as driving and in any of the guidelines, actually.

Okay.

And do you know the last time there's been any modification made to it?

Uh I think the last one was 2025.

There was some modification.

Like I said, usually it's just minor.

Minor adjustments, but last year anyway.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Um drivers with multiple motor vehicle incidents.

Is there a progressive discipline with that fault?

Yeah, that's that's progressive.

So if you it it doesn't happen often, but there has been times where one driver has multiple incidents.

Uh generally, if you have your first incident, uh there's a certain level that that discipline falls within a range.

You have a second incident within 12 months that it gets enhanced, a third incident within 18 months or gets enhanced.

So we have had since I've been here, I've only known of one person who's had three.

They were going to get demoted and they voluntarily demoted prior to that point.

So I mean it doesn't necessarily mean they're a bad firefighter, maybe there's a bad driver.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Looks like that's all the questions.

So uh HPD.

All right, thank you.

You're up next.

And thank you very much for your presentation, sir.

Captain Donna Crawford.

Good morning.

My name is Donna Crawford.

I'm the captain of the vehicular crimes division for the Houston Police Department, and I'm here to give you an overview of our driving policies and post-crash procedures.

Next slide.

So the authority and guidance for our policies come from the Texas Department of Transportation, the administrative procedure 2-2 motor vehicle use for the city of Houston, and of course our Houston Police General Orders.

Next slide.

So the city defines uh any motor vehicle incident as follows on the uh the slide here.

Of course, it's gonna be a collision with another vehicle, person, property, a vehicle tipping or turning over, um, anything resulting in personal injury and a collision resulting in damage to private property.

And of course, any of these types of incidents have to be reported to a supervisor immediately.

Next slide.

So the Houston Police Department actually has the cr law enforcement investigative responsibility for all city vehicle crashes, regardless of what department they come from.

So the we would be respond to any crash involving a city vehicle that's within the boundaries of Houston or within 30 miles of um headquarters.

There are actually two different entities that would investigate those crashes.

If it is a crash involving a Houston police department vehicle, a Houston fire department vehicle, or any CD vehicle in which someone has suffered serious bodily injury or death, those will be investigated by my division, the vehicular crimes division, who are crash specialists.

If it is just a minor uh crash for any other city city vehicle, such as public works, you know, a dump truck, things like that, those would be investigated by the patrol division within that area.

Um the outside agencies do sometimes investigate vehicles, crashes involving city vehicles if it is outside of our jurisdiction.

However, for an HPD vehicle, we would then get a copy of that crash report for our admin administrative investigation.

So we do the law enforcement side of all of the crashes.

However, each city department is responsible for their own administrative review.

Next slide.

There's three major three main categories for crashes.

They are major, minor, and damage to shop.

Um while you would think that major would be resulting from the amount of damage to the vehicle, it actually has more to do with the injury.

It doesn't really matter how much damage there is to a vehicle.

If there is any injury whatsoever, it is then considered a major crash.

Um if there is no injury, it is a minor crash.

And if it is just damage to the shop, such as someone backed into a pole, there's nothing, no other vehicles involved, something like that, where the vehicle is still drivable, there's less than a thousand dollars of apparent damage, then we would categorize that as damage to shop rather than a crash.

Um those could also be if there's a collision with a citizen, however, there's no injuries and no damage to either vehicle, and the citizen is amenable, they can categorize those as damage to shop as well.

Um that's beneficial to both parties because then it doesn't go on anyone's driving record.

So it is something that that is an option.

However, there has to be no damage, no injuries in order for them to categorize that when there's another person involved.

Things like a rock chip, road debris, things like that, those are not going to be considered crashes because no vehicle is in motion, so they don't fall under the category of a crash.

Next slide.

So when it's a Houston police department vehicles involved in a crash, the first thing the involved officers are going to do is notify the command center.

The command center is going to ensure that a vehicular crimes division officer and supervisor are dispatched to the scene to investigate that crash.

Um, all of the things you would do for any other crash.

The VCD and sp investigators are specialized crash investigators, so they have equipment that your normal patrol officer does not.

They would come out and take um detailed photographs, they take scene measurements, depending on the severity of the crash, they may use their scanners to take detailed um pictures of the scene.

So they're gonna have a much more extensive investigation than just a regular crash.

These are the same investigators who investigate all of the fatality crashes for the city and serious bodily injury.

So they would have the same level of investigative investigation that they're bringing to the city vehicle crashes.

So if they respond to the scene and it appears it's going to be a damage to shop, no crash report would be generated.

That would just be notification to the supervisor that that's what occurred, but it has to have less than a thousand dollars of apparent damage.

Now TextOT only takes reports if they are over a thousand dollars worth of damage to the vehicle or apparent or any kind of injury reported.

However, if a city vehicle is involved in a crash, even if it is under 1,000 and no injury, a crash report would still be generated in-house and we maintain those locally, and those would be used for the administrative investigation.

Next slide.

Once VCD is conducted their their law enforcement investigation, a crash packet is put together and forwarded similar to what an IED packet would be.

I'm sorry, the crash packet is going to include the crash report, the vehicular crimes division employee collision history showing how many times that employee has ever been involved in a collision, whether they were at fault or not at fault, those are all listed.

The employee's driver's license status to ensure that they were up to date when the crash occurred, and the at fault crash rating worksheet.

That's going to be a worksheet that kind of gives the supervisors an idea of where that falls in the discipline.

And that's going to be based on things like whether there was an injury to the officer, injury to the other party, the amount of damage to each vehicle, and whether or not that officer has been in involved in previous crashes that might take away credit or give credit depending on the situation.

Next slide.

So those crash packets are completed regardless of whether the officer is at fault or not.

They just have different cover sheets and go to different places.

So if it is a not at fault crash, that goes to our crash review board directly.

And the crash review board would review it to make sure that they agree with the investigators' findings that the officer was not at fault.

This is to keep things even across the board, make sure that there are checks and balances, make sure that everything is above board and we are doing things consistently across the department.

If the crash review board agrees that the crash was not at fault, the chain of command for that officer is notified of the finding and then is placed in their personnel packet in that case is closed.

When it is an at-fault class crash, those are conducted as an internal affairs investigation.

They have an IRF just like an internal affairs investigation, they're subject to 143, just like any other investigation.

The officer is provided with a 48-hour notice, they have to give a statement.

Typically, those are conducted at the division level.

If there is serious bodily injury or death, then those are typically typically going to be handled by the Internal Affairs Division because of the severity of the incident.

Most of the time, every time that I can think of, if there is a death involved in the crash, internal affairs usually makes the scene that night as well.

Next slide.

So the way that investigation typically goes, just like an IED investigation, the officer would provide a statement regarding what occurred that night.

That would include the factors such as whether they were wearing their seatbelt, the road hazards, whether they were en route to a call or not, the total damage to the vehicle because an appraisal is conducted before the end of the investigation.

That packet is put together and a recommendation is given by by all of their supervisors through the command level, which would be the assistant chief or equivalent level.

So their sergeant, lieutenant, captain, and assistant chief or equivalent would give a recommendation on whether this should be deemed an at fault, a dual fault, whether or not discipline should be issued, whether or not it should be a training issue, those kind of things.

So they would make a recommendation on that.

Then the employee would be advised of the recommendation prior to that packet then being forwarded to the crash review board.

The crash review board once again reviews that case, make sure that they agree with the findings that the that the officer was at fault, that the investigation was thorough and contains all the information that they need, and then at that point they would give a recommendation on discipline based on what they've done in the past for same or similar crashes.

That's where that uh rating review sheet comes in because there is credit given for past good driving behavior.

If you've been driving as a police officer for 20 years and haven't had a single crash, you get a little bit of credit for that.

Um so that does come into play.

If it is a class B or a category B or below discipline recommendation, those typically go back to the division commander for a final decision.

If it is a category C or above, or if the uh investigation was conducted by internal affairs, that's gonna go to the chief of police for a final decision.

So those final decisions, um, the crash review board can also recommend things such as training, counseling, um referral to the administrative disciplinary committee if they believe that there's a higher infraction than just a traffic violation.

Um they can also um recommend specific discipline categories for that for that case, and all investigations that are done by internal affairs, even if it is a crash, are reviewed by the administrative disciplinary committee just like any other internal investigation.

So once those go back to the final authority for discipline, um they will determine what category is most appropriate based on the recommendations from all the supervisors and the recommendation for the from the CRB, the crash review board, and they will issue final discipline.

One thing that every officer involved in at fault crash is responsible for is they do have to take the at fault crash remediation, which is an eight-hour course out at our training academy where they relearned some of the defensive driving type tactics.

We do have an extensive driver's training program that occurs while our officers are still cadets.

Um I don't know that there is anything similar for civilians, but I do know that officers receive extensive driver's training while they're in the academy.

Next slide.

Now, as far as driver qualifications and disqualifications, typically our policies tend to be much more stringent than any superseding policy, because we want to make sure that we're never getting close to the um the qualifications that that overrule ours, correct?

We always want to make sure we have a more restrictive policy than the law, we have a more restrictive policy than the city because we hold our officers to a higher standard.

So the driver qualification for HPD is a little bit stricter than that for the city.

I know in certain parts of the AP it allows for certain violations on the driver's history as long as it is more than 36 months old prior to the review, but those type of restrictions for officers, they cannot, or for HPD employees, they cannot ever have those type of infractions, such as DWIs, felony involving a vehicle, things like that.

Um so for a Houston police employee, they must have, of course, a current valid driver's license, have never been convicted of a felony involving the use of a motor vehicle, and they have uh and if they have three or more moving violations or at fault crashes or any combination of those within 36 months, they are subject to removal of their driving privileges.

AP 2-2, of course, allows both HFD and HPD to create our own review board because of the amount of driving that our employees do versus other uh city departments.

So we do have um our own procedures for reviewing those cases when they hit up against that three driving infractions or three um at fault crashes.

Next slide.

And of course, neither the city nor the department is responsible for finding a different um place of employment if that employees job requires them to drive.

So it is important that we keep an eye on those three driving infractions and have that review board in place in order to review whether or not this person should be removed from driving or if they just had a really bad three years.

So we do have that review board, and they'll review those appeals uh requests to determine whether or not that employee should be disqualified from driving.

And I believe that concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

Do we have any questions?

Councilmember Tramitis.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, Chair.

And thanks for the presentation, Captain.

I'm wondering um if the department has any proactive measures that it takes aside from training uh to prevent uh motor vehicle accidents.

So we do fairly regularly have updated um driving courses as part of our mandatory training because that is something that comes up fairly regularly.

The most recent one that comes to mind is of course when we had um some revisions to our pursuit policy, and so we had uh an additional course on driving pursuits because that's one of the main things that officers, or one maybe not one of the main things, but it is a one of the more high-risk opportunities, driving opportunities for officers.

So over the last two training cycles, we just went through another class over pursuit policies and safe driving uh during pursuits.

So fairly regularly, those are added to the training schedule once when usually as a result of some kind of kind of incident that is said, hey, we might need to uh buff up our training in this particular area.

All right.

And um the one of the slides said three or more moving violations and or and or crashes could result in in discipline.

Is that the three or more?

Is that uh HPD policy or is that in state law somewhere?

That's HPD policy.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Alcorn.

Do you have information similar to what HFD did on number of incidents?

So I I do have some.

I do have the HPD stats.

I thought you were gonna ask about the other cities.

I was gonna tell you, no, we don't have that, but I'll look at it.

Um so for last year we had 552 collisions, which um and of those 231 were the officer was considered at fault, or the employee was considered at fault, because they're not all officers.

That we do have civilians that do drive city vehicles as well.

Um and so not at fault for 320 of them.

And is that pretty typical for an aver any a year?

Yes, that I would say that's pretty standard.

Thank you.

You had mentioned injury as a trigger for an accident.

What qualifies as an injury?

Do they have to be taken from the scene in an ambulance?

So there's two different metrics there.

If uh if you're just talking about whether a crash report should be initiated at all, then it's any kind of injury.

My neck hurts, my head hurts, my big toe hurts, you know, whatever.

Um if you're talking when you're talking bottling injury for the trigger for um like having an IED investigation or you know, raising the threshold on the discipline or the the seriousness of the of the incident, then you're talking things like um loss of limb, serious bodily injury is gonna be loss of limb, obviously loss of life, um losing an eye, things like that, bodily injury is gonna be broken arm, um you you know, some kind of significant type of of injury.

Okay.

Also, you had mentioned uh that you do not investigate the accidents that are outside the city limits.

So we do investigate, but we the juris the agency having jurisdiction is gonna conduct the law enforcement investigation for that.

We will get a copy of their report, and then um we'd still do the administrative investigation based on their findings.

And actually the question I was gonna ask was more centered around how many accidents do we have that are actually outside the city limits.

That I don't think I have.

I don't have that, but I know it's uh significantly lower than our total, just anecdotally, because I review every case that comes through that's a that's a PDE vehicle, and I can say anecdotally it's it's not that many.

Okay.

Usually those are gonna be like um someone has a take-home vehicle and they get backed into in the grocery store parking lot or you know, those those kind of things.

And and we've talked about driving records.

Uh do you run motor vehicle reports on every employee of HP?

How does that work?

So those are done uh when they're hired, there is a there's a check done at that point, and then during our annual integrity check, that's all also done because you're checking their driver history to see to make sure they're really not checking the driving history, they're checking to see if they have um if their driver's license is still current, hasn't been suspended, things like that.

So that that is done every year uh in the month prior to the employee's birth month and to make sure, and then as part of the crash packet as well, as a just kind of a double check on that, we also include a copy of their driver's license um status in with the crash packet so we can show that yes, they did or did not have an eligible driver's license at the time of the crash.

Okay, and when you're looking for motor vehicle, I mean motor vehicle violations, if you said three is so those are gonna be three or more violations while on duty.

We're not we're not gonna count things that unless it's uh unless it's a cut category B or above, which is a whole different conversation, um, then those would not count towards their violations for the city.

So if you get a speeding ticket off duty in your personal vehicle, that that's not we can't really hold you responsible for that as an on-duty behavior.

Okay, but wouldn't multiple off-duty moving violations signify a greater risk for their driving in general?

I can see I that that may.

However, they are required to notify their chain of command when they get a traffic citation.

It's not that frequent.

So I I could see if obviously you can always add two, right?

We don't take away from our policies, but we can add two.

If their chain of command sees, hey, this guy just turned in three letters for moving violations within the last six months, that we've got a problem here, then that chain of command would be responsible for raising the red flag and going, hey, we we might need to do something.

I mean, I would think that would be something you would look at, because I would think first of all, being a police officer, the odds of getting a ticket in the first place are pretty small.

So if you are getting one.

It's an unusual circumstance.

I think there's there's no rule for it because it hasn't come up that often, I think.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, thank you very much for your presentation.

I believe we've got a couple of public speakers after this.

Thank you very much, ma'am.

Thank you.

And I'm probably gonna I'll just go with the last name, Miss Gamble.

Is Ms.

Gamble here?

Oh, okay.

The microphone on your right is that uh Okay, y'all can hear me.

Okay.

My name is Taisha Gamble.

I'm a citizen of CD of Houston.

Well, Houston.

I've been living here my whole life.

I'm 33 now.

And I want to bring uh an incident that occurred.

I don't want to talk too much about the incident, but I do want to give some encouraging words to Houston Police Department because they had involvement.

And maybe it can help.

Um, because right now there is a federal civil case.

So there was an incident where I felt that it was biased.

And if we would have if we would have actually understood the Constitution, the Texas, and the federal constitution, I think it would have helped the case.

And we wouldn't have to spend more money in the city of Houston with a lawsuit.

I feel that we don't, we don't take pride in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, because as that sign say, the people are the city.

So without us, we have no city.

Houston is the big city, and I take pride in Houston Police Department.

Now there is more, I know we're talking about crashes.

There are more personal injury, but not a lot of civil lawsuits.

So it's about that time for a civil lawsuit.

So we can go ahead and implement in the constitution in the handbook of any police department.

Now there was a bias decision, which made it more made it more of a crime because my daughter was missing.

And it's gonna make it seem like law enforcement and the juice the judicial system is corrupt.

Sorry, I'm a little nervous.

Sheriff don't matter, uh the constables, it starts with them.

Because if you hand them something, if you hand the judicial something, the district district attorney, they have to follow what you said in order to make it to trial.

So they're trying to solve this case, but they have no case because if it was led from Houston Police Department or any law enforcement department, it should have been investigated properly, and if we would have implemented the Constitution, then we it won't follow by a lawsuit, a federal lawsuit.

Um but with the judicial system, I'm sorry.

Your time is expired.

If you could wrap it up quickly.

Um so basically I want to see what are we doing to help to stop to stop um being biased or in the judicial system.

What are we doing for the injustice?

Okay, thank you very much, ma'am.

I appreciate it.

Uh next we have Brian Dotson.

Good morning.

Um I'm a uh uh my place of employment is in District G, and all my sales tax money is spent in uh in district A.

And uh since I'm in these areas, I watch HPD behavior, and I also read about it in the press.

Uh I've seen some really good things on Eldridge one day.

Uh boy was going down in the middle of attics, and the police got him off of the shoulder of attics.

Uh one day on clay.

Uh this voice comes out of the sky.

Uh that was an unsafe lane change, and it was the unmarked Camaro uh, you know, making a point to a motorist with you know very little, very little effort.

Um, so you've seen some some some encouraging things.

However, uh over the I I see a lot of poor behavior on the part of the police department.

Um, you know, over the last uh three years total, we've had about 315 totalities a year, about 1,600 serious injuries.

Okay, not not just police, I'm not police, but as a as a city, it's like three billion dollars a year of economic, direct economic costs, not pain and suffering.

Um unfortunately, some of these uh fatalities are due to high speeds uh by uh police cruisers, um Dwayne Foreman on Wayside, uh uh uh uh desire pool on on Antoine.

Um, you know, vehicles going very fast.

You cannot you cannot tell how fast a vehicle is going, particularly at night, looking down something coming at you.

You your depth perception can't detect that.

Okay?

And so when somebody's going 70, 50 miles an hour down a city street, um that is that is that is operating at you know violation of the basic speed law, okay.

Um I think that the police department ought to adopt policies that are in line with the value of protecting the life and limb of their residents.

Okay.

I have two specific ideas uh just because I don't want to walk here and just and just whine.

Um you know, one of them would be to require lights and siren beyond when they're operating over a safe speed, not the speed limit.

When they're over operating over the basic speed law, you need to be running the lights and sirens.

Uh I tell you what, I hear a siren, I get off the road.

Okay.

I don't know if it's going to be a pursuit.

You know, most of the time I look back and okay, it's the it's the fire truck, and I feel better.

But I get my I get my butt off the road, way off the road.

Um and a second possibility, I know that you that the police department tracks response times, and that's important.

Um I think you ought to track how many people are involved are injured in incidents with police cruisers every year.

You know, just the raw count.

Doesn't matter who's at fault, okay?

Just you know, the the the pure count.

Uh defensive driving isn't about fault.

Defensive driving is nothing happens.

Tracking that's a good thing.

Your time's expired to be to wrap it up quickly.

With that, we uh have no more public speakers.

And uh before we adjourn, the next public safety meeting will be Monday, March 2nd at 10 a.m.

Next government operations meeting will be Wednesday, March 4th at 2 p.m.

If there's no other comments, the meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.