The May 21st, 2026, regular meeting of the Fire and Police Commission.

Present are Commissioners Burgos, Evans, Snyder, Spence, World Patterson, and myself, Commissioner Spencer.

Commissioners Horowitz, Raimi, and Fung are excused.

And Chair Horowitz's absence, I'll be chairing today's meetings of the vice chair.

Also present are FPC executive executive director Leon Todd and Deputy Director Jay Pusick.

Before we start with the agenda, I want to be clear.

We have item nine is going to get moved up.

This is very atypical, but removing it quickly before public comment because there needs if there's any edits to this document, it needs to happen like tonight before a certain time.

So we're going to do that really quickly, and then we'll proceed with public comment.

So that's um item number nine.

Okay.

So uh this is as the chair mentioned item nine, which is under examinations.

It's uh file number FPC 212534 resolution relating to the approval of the police sergeant job announcement bulletin within the Milwaukee police department.

I do want to draw the commissioners' attention to uh a few uh updated items with uh with this document, uh updated from uh with respect to the last round of testing uh for the sergeant position, uh which was about uh two years ago.

So typically what we have done since at least 2019 is require a continuous service period of seven years in order to test for the sergeant position to meet the minimum requirements.

Uh we had a discussion at the testing and recruiting committee uh earlier this month, or excuse me, earlier this month, where it was recommended to uh by FPC staff to reduce the seven-year time period to six years.

Um my understanding was that the consensus of all the testing and recruiting committee members was favorable to that, so and uh the department is in agreement with that.

In addition, uh there was also uh my understanding was that it was a unanimous consensus among the committee members to add a another provision saying that if for members that have at least two years of detective experience, uh they would be eligible to take the sergeant's exam, provided they have a minimum of a total of five years of experience as either an officer or a detective or some combination of that.

So this job posting reflects those changes.

Again, for all members, uh minimum service requirement of six years, and then for members with at least two years of detective experience, uh minimum continuous service total requirement of five years.

Um, happy to answer any questions.

Okay, do any of the commissioners have any comments or questions regarding this item?

Okay, all right.

Uh I will take a voice vote on this item.

Oh, we need a motion first.

So uh if there's a motion.

So second.

All right, great.

Um, any discussion?

Okay.

So I'll take a voice vote.

All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Okay, great.

Any opposed?

I think that was all of us.

Any abstentions?

Uh motion carries.

Director, let's go back to public comment.

All right, excellent.

So, item one is public comment.

Uh, for those who would like to speak and are here in person, please come up and sit at the front table when your name is called.

If you are appearing virtually and have registered in advance to speak, please use the raise my hand feature in the webinar tools and unmute yourself when called upon to speak.

Each person will be given up to five minutes to speak, and we will begin as usual with uh with individuals who are here in person.

Uh the first person I have is Omar Barbarina.

Good evening, yes.

Thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of Voces de la Frontera and our community members.

We proudly support this resolution to protect Milaki residents from aggressive ICE tactics.

Every family deserves to feel safe in their neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and places of worships without fear of intimidation.

This resolution is a proactive response to the well-documented abuse and constitutional violations on the part of CBP and ICE that have been terrorizing community residents, profiling, physically assaulting, and even killing immigrants and US citizens in their search operations.

We're not these politics and the and the funding of this cruel, senseless and expensive operations will only continue.

We applaud this forward-looking legislation that would provide necessary clarity clarity to local government and law enforcement officials to uphold the US and state constitution and prioritizes public safety.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tiffany Stark.

Sorry.

I thought I was.

Good evening.

Hello everyone.

It's like our weekly or every other week, uh family meeting.

Check in.

Yes, check in.

So once again, I thank you guys for doing all the work you've done.

I just am not in a good place with this.

I I feel helpless and hopeless waiting on the elders.

Like I've said, I beat the drum to death with my concerns with the communication.

With the elders, you know, not being present here to hear all the work we've done the last eight months with hearing the reports of NYU, and then we need to depend on them to make this big decision.

Within that knowing half the stuff that's been done.

Uh yesterday I appeared on Channel 12 and we did an interview, and it was a good story.

It gave a lot of detail of the process and the steps and what happened.

But a lot of the comments about the bank pressure point right now were edited and cut out.

I had spoke directly in that interview about the elders and the communication and my concerns.

And nothing.

I called last Wednesday, I talked to staffers, never got any return phone calls.

I've heard other people have called and they've been not so nice to some people, and then sending a lot of people to directly the voicemail.

So I mean, and then this morning, the use of forcing that after you guys unanimously all voted for that motion was rejected.

So I don't have a very good feeling about this.

And I know you guys have done everything you can, but once again, moving forward and any other issues, these elders work for the constituents of the city of Milwaukee, and they need to start answering their phone and start taking public comment.

Not coming to the FPC to voice our concerns.

There's other stuff going on, and there's no public comment, no platform for anyone to speak, they're making decisions without any public input, and we have good ideas and solutions, and we want to be part of the process.

And this is just pissing me off.

I'm sorry.

Because I feel like we've gone through so much in eight months, and this is just gonna blow up because of Act 12.

And my goal is to get these Republicans in the state the hell out, and we can get some people in and we can sue or reappeal or get rid of Act 12 so we can have some power again.

Because the people spoke.

We we have over 300 signatures in the community about these vehicle police pursuits, and no one's listening.

And I will not until I die, I will be running my mouth because I'm not gonna stop fighting.

Too many people are dying over stupid things, and people should be able to come home and be safe driving down the damn street.

So that's all I have to say.

I'm not, I'm sorry if I'm taking this out on you because it's not you.

I wish these elders were sitting right in front of me so I could be saying the things I'm saying right now, but they hide in silos and in silence, and they can run, but one day they're gonna have to face the people.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Representative Ryan Clancy.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Thank you, commissioners, and uh to Tiffany's comment.

Act 12 is trash.

Hopefully, we can repeal that uh early next year.

Um I I want to start by saying uh thank you to you folks for for considering this here tonight.

I'm very grateful to the authors of this uh piece of legislation.

Yet it is beyond ridiculous that we have to have a piece of legislation that begs law enforcement to enforce the law, and that is what what this is.

Uh it is unfortunately very necessary.

It was just a few months ago when I sat with other state lawmakers, state legislators uh from around the Milwaukee area, and we asked uh our police chief, Chief Norman, the same question in different ways over and over again.

And the question was really simple.

It was if ICE comes here in full force and violates the law.

Will you hold them accountable?

Will you enforce state and local law if ICE violates it?

And we got every single answer from police chief Norman other than yes.

We got no, our hands are tied, there's nothing we can do.

We got we're gonna take this on a case-by-case basis.

And then we went through the cases that we asked him to uh to respond to.

What if a six-year-old is abducted and taken away from their family without a judicial signed warrant?

What if Milwaukee residents are tear gassed or puppers sprayed on the streets?

What if they're gunned down in the streets?

And the response by Chief Norman was we're not gonna talk hypotheticals.

And these aren't hypotheticals.

We are seeing these things play out in major cities across the United States, and we are still seeing them despite the uh the lack of of media on on some of them in some markets.

And it was among the most frustrating conversations that I've ever had.

One of the other replies to will you enforce the law as law enforcement was we are afraid of blue on blue violence.

And it used that phrase three times the last time we met.

So in case anybody here is under the impression that the Milwaukee Police Department is concerned about serving or protecting our residents.

That is not their primary concern.

They consider ICE agents their colleagues, and their primary concern is to not have conflict with them.

It is shameful and it is embarrassing that this piece of legislation is necessary, but it is, and I thank you for considering it.

Sub-C seems a very reasonable uh amendment to this, and I I hope it passes tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anne Ritchie.

Good evening.

Um I'm very happy to be here to um speak in favor of changing the um SOP of the MPD to uh it it sounds like what we're what is being asked is that it's the same expectation if you know it's uh if these are officers within MPD.

They're trying this um this change is to make it so that the same standards are applied, even if it's um an officer from another agency, like a federal agency like us.

So I think that's just so important for us to be prepared.

We're all so horrified when we saw on TV night after night the awful things happening happening in Minneapolis.

So I think it's super important that we put things in place so that we are prepared to take action um if something like that happens here.

Um I also just want to point out that I like of the versions that have been put out.

I like the the one the um proposed substitute B, the best because it does talk about the duty to investigate, and then it seems like that part has been taken out in some of the the versions, and um I'm not really understanding why you would uh it seems like you would want to have investigations.

Um this uh Chicago Tribune article from February 20th does talk about um Chicago and Illinois.

Uh the attorney General is there, um, does talk about first of all that uh changing they're changing their um procedures there too, so that federal officers could be charged with a crime, also um, they're talking about investigations being done by by law enforcement.

So it seems like whatever we do should include that too.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Bruce Wiggins.

Good evening.

Hello, my name is Bruce Wiggins, 728 East Pleasant Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I want to support and underline the testimony of the previous speakers, representative Clancy and Richards, uh, and the speaker from Vos is data from Veda.

Uh those are all good important points that I I want to really emphasize.

Uh and am I allowed to ask a question at this point about the applicability of this?

Uh, or is are you taking only testimony now?

It's primarily testimony, but if there is a a simple procedural question, I can do my best to answer.

Okay.

Um, I'm really worried about the fall elections and uh some trumped up charges bringing ICE to uh Milwaukee and uh trying to steal the vote or depress the vote.

Is there anything in this that would uh protect our voting rights?

This is not designed to do that.

Okay.

Let's see if we can figure out something else than to protect our voting rights.

I'm not sure what it would be, but I'm really worried, uh worried about that.

Um, but apart from that, um I'm here to support the um uh the previous speakers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Amy Donnahu.

Good evening.

Thank you.

I just wanted to quickly also add my uh support for an SOP that will um protect us in Milwaukee from uh ice that they come.

Um, and yeah, thank you for hearing us all for everyone who came to this room to provide testimony.

Thank you.

Jim Carpenter.

Oh, there's not the last one.

Yeah.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is Jim Carpenter.

I'm co-chair of Peace Action.

Um I live at 1633 in North Prospect of Milwaukee 53202.

First, I want to thank our city government for taking a moral stand against ICE, uh, for taking a principled stand against DICE.

Uh there they truly have a working moral compass, and I'm asking this body also to engage your moral compass and take a stand against ICE.

Uh the the Trump administration is a criminal administration, it's conducting ill illegal and moral war in Iran.

And but not only is it conducting ill illegal actions against foreigners, is conducting illegal and moral actions against people in this country, namely black and brown immigrants, the poor, and the people who stand up for these people.

And so I'm as we know ICE has gone into Minnesota and they committed crimes.

They murdered people.

They came into Milwaukee and they committed a crime.

They kidnapped Salah Sassor, and he's still in prison, and and this person that was not committing any crimes uh was here legally.

He was basically kidnapped.

This is a federal crime, kidnapping.

So we're asking uh this body to support the common council and standing up against ICE and protecting us.

I have a little sign here, MPD, protect us all.

Uh please uh please honor that request.

That's basically what I'm here for.

And I just want to point out that it's not just, of course, the uh Trump administration that's criminal and the fact that he has a criminal gang, namely ICE that comes in to terrorize our community and this has to be stopped.

The Biden administration too also broke crimes, and we should not play favorites here.

The Biden and administration uh supported uh Israel's genocide against Gaza and uh the fact that uh Solasur spoke up against that, I believe is one of the primary reasons that he was abducted.

And so please find your moral compass.

I know you have one.

Uh join uh our city government and keeping us safe from ISIS crimes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there anyone here else here in person who would like to speak during public comment?

Ma'am, would you like to make a public comment?

Okay.

And Bridget, uh, do we have anyone appearing virtually for public comment?

We do, Director.

Julie is on the line for you.

Alright.

Good evening.

Thanks, Bridget, Director.

Good evening, commissioners, neighbors.

This chaplain Julie Kershio, Milwaukee County resident.

Thanks to Director Todd for the invitation to contact him directly with questions and requests.

I spoke with him after the last FPC commission meeting and appreciate him taking the time to talk with me.

He said he would relay my concerns to the chair, including my request to have police training concerns added to an upcoming FPC agenda.

So I'm providing more information in the hopes that the chair decides to do that soon.

In the interest of oversight and transparency, it would be helpful to know.

Does the MPD have a system for tracking employees who train with foreign law enforcement agencies?

If so, what is it?

If not, why not?

Are MPD employees who attend any training sessions, seminars, and conferences required to document what they learned and who they met with?

If so, can the public review this information?

If not, why not?

Do the employees who attend trainings have to explain how and why these trainings benefit the community?

If so, can the public review this information?

If not, why not?

For example, has the MPD um adopted any tactics, altered any policies, or developed any internal training programs based on these trips abroad or any other trainings attended, and is this information verifiable?

Can the FPC enhance the requirements of training?

For instance, require permission from the FPC prior to enrolling in training events, so that there is some external oversight of what they're being trained in without proper record keeping as mentioned.

How can the MPD or the FPC evaluate any key takeaways, practical applications, potential benefits or harms?

Here's an example.

Wouldn't it be helpful to know what kind of training MPD staff receives regarding interviewing sexual assault survivors?

Wouldn't it be helpful to insist they receive training from vetted, compassionate, respectful, appropriate trainers, especially given this month's formal complaint all over the Milwaukee News?

If these records are kept, how long are they kept for?

In other words, what are the data retention guidelines for the MPD?

How can safeguards be built in to ensure transparency regarding how trainings are funded?

I don't think that donations to cover travel have to be disclosed under state and federal law, but the potential risks and perception of conflict of interest associated with such funding outweighs the benefits of maintaining anonymity of funding sources and would go a long way in building community trust.

At a minimum, some other police departments in the U.S.

require documentation and tracking of the location, the category, and the topics covered at each training event.

Ideally, participants should be required to complete an evaluation report detailing what lessons they learned and practical applications for department operations and their perceived benefits to our community.

Chief Norman proudly went to the internationally condemned genocidal racist apartheid Zionist regime that is currently occupying Palestine.

They named themselves Israel, and they are an internationally condemned chronic violator of human rights.

Chief Norman went to them for training.

What did he learn?

What did he bring back home to inflict on the citizens of Milwaukee?

How can the FPC hold the MPD accountable regarding training?

Free Milwaukee from FRT, free Milwaukee from flock, free Milwaukee from all fascist surveillance, free Milwaukee from reckless and lethal police chases, free Milwaukee from dangerous, unaccountable, rogue policing, pre-Milwaukee from a police department with institutional impunity, pre-Milwaukee from dehumanizing disrespectful interviewing techniques.

Free Milwaukee, pre-Palestine, it's all connected.

Thank you.

Have a good evening.

Thank you.

And I uh I do appreciate that I owe you a follow-up and I will do so uh soon.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else appearing virtually for public comment?

There it's not, Director.

Okay, there being no further comments.

This concludes the public comment portion of the meeting.

Director, please proceed.

I will now read the items under the consent agenda.

After I do so, any commissioner may remove any item to the regular agenda for discussion or appropriate action.

Items not removed may be adopted by general consent without debate.

Item two, FPC 212526, resolution relating to the May 7th, 2026 meeting minutes.

Item 3, FPC 212528.

Resolution relating to the appointments to the help desk specialist to position within the Milwaukee Police Department, two appointments.

Item 4, FPC 212529.

Resolution relating to the appointment to the police services specialist investigator position within the Milwaukee Police Department.

Item 5, FPC 212530.

Resolution relating to the appointment to the Office of System 3 position within the Milwaukee Police Department.

Item 6, FPC 212531.

Resolution relating to the electronic technician one eligible list for the Milwaukee Police Department.

Item 7, FPC 212532.

Resolution relating to the electronic technician two eligible list for the Milwaukee Police Department.

And item number eight, FPC 212533.

Resolution relating to the electronic technician three eligible list for the Milwaukee Police Department.

This concludes the consent agenda.

Would any of the commissioners like to remove any of these items from the consent agenda to the regular agenda?

If there are no objections, the items on the consent agenda will be adopted by general consent.

Are there any objections?

Alright, hearing none, these items are adopted.

Director, please proceed.

We have previously uh addressed number or item number nine, so we will move uh to the item under old business, which is item 10 FPC 212453.

Resolution relating to common counsel file number two five one seven nine nine, a substitute motion modifying Milwaukee Police Department standard operating procedures regarding the duty to intervene, investigate, and report unreasonable uses of force.

Uh the commission uh previously cons heard this item for the first time uh uh a few meetings ago, uh, thereafter uh it was held to the call of the chair uh to allow further consideration uh of the item.

Uh after that, uh the chair did uh request that uh requests receive guidance from the city attorney's office.

The city attorney's office has now provided that uh uh their recommendations, and I want to clarify uh for members of the public uh the actual common council uh or the file that's before the common council includes the original uh motion as well as a proposed substitute A and B, which have been offered by the sponsor Alderman Brower.

So proposed substitute B is the most current version of uh of the resolution within the Common Council's file.

Uh what's titled as proposed substitute C is a recommendation from the city attorney's office although that is not currently before the common council as it hasn't been offered by an alder person.

With that uh Madam Chair I'll turn it back over to you.

Sounds good to any of the commissioners have any comments or questions regarding this item at this time and we'll I'm gonna ask again in a little bit so I want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to weigh in I'm not seeing any right now I thought someone just came up but I can't tell who it is.

Oh Commissioner Spence, do you have something?

I don't at this moment.

Okay.

Okay so um I I also have uh some thoughts but I want to wait to hear from some other folks first.

So Alderman Brower do you wish to speak on this item I do please members of the FPC thank you so much for allowing me to have public uh join this comment here and thank you so much for allowing public comment uh from the members of the public I really appreciate this body engaging with the public as often as it does thank you guys um it really it really takes it takes it takes a lot to be able to say something it takes even more strength to listen so thank you so much I really do appreciate it.

What we have before us is substitute B, which is a substitute that was a um a compromise and then upon further um look by the city attorney's office um they've suggested substitute C, which I intend to fill in the file.

And um so and I I believe this um I would like to ask this body if there's a some way procedurally it can um recommend this for adoption to the Milwaukee Common Council.

You know basically this does modify some things in some ways significantly um it removes the duty to investigate um but it's still really important um that we uh that we you know investigates enforcements and what I intend to do is work with the city attorney's office to potentially introduce a further modification to it potentially a different SOP to accomplish the same goals of investigation and and I believe the city attorney office is committed to working with our office in that um so I'm committed to do that and we but you know more importantly here we need to to do what we can right now and I would urge this body to I mean I know Substitute C isn't in the file but if there's a way we can recommend it for adoption I would encourage you to do that.

Because what we need to do is work our hardest and do every single thing that we can to protect the residents of Milwaukee.

And um while I have a lot of disagreements about the way policing is conducted I do know that there's a lot of police officers that have that same value and so we're calling on them in this SOP modification to do what they were sworn to do which is protect the people of Milwaukee even if that's from a federal law enforcement officer.

We really do demand that and so I um I urge you to adopt this has quite a bit of of weight here to require our city's officers to take action when ICE is can is doing something illegal or violating um violating our residents.

These are things that we should I mean I a part of me thinks we shouldn't have to write this down but I think you know given that we have everything in SOPs we should we should put this in there too that this is a minimum expectation that we have of our police that even if it's a federal law enforcement officer that they need to do the right thing and do what they're sworn to do, which is protect uh Milwaukee.

And so I urge you to use any means uh necessary tonight to recommend this so that we can take this up at the public health and safety um or public safety and health, excuse me, committee, and then it can be um adopted by the full common council.

Unless the police do what they've done, and the police department does what they do in the past, which is you know, adopt this themselves, they're open to do that as well.

I would encourage the police chief to come out and you know willingly modify the SOP.

But in um in the event that they do not do that, I would ask that this body um, or even before they do that, I would ask this body recommend this to the council so we can begin our deliberations on this as soon as possible because we do not know when ICE will begin a major operation in Milwaukee, and given the fact that they've received even further funding, given the fact that the new department head of the Department of Homeland Security has said that they are going to double down on their efforts with ICE.

We need to be ready.

And let's hope it never happens, but we've got to be prepared.

This is one step, another step, and I believe the strongest step in our preparations uh to deal with immigration and customs enforcement uh here in Milwaukee.

And like um, and like Jim Carpenter said, I really appreciate that he brought this up.

They're already acting with impunity here in Milwaukee.

The abduction of Salah Sarsour is completely unacceptable.

There's other people that there are there are people that aren't as high profile as Salah that are being that have been abducted by ICE already in Milwaukee unjustly.

Uh, those people deserve justice as well.

I mean, ICE ICE in our and frankly, the county council believes, and the mayor signed this resolution as well.

We believe that ice should be abolished, right?

But we, you know, we cannot do that by ordinance here in Milwaukee.

So until that time comes, we need to do everything we can uh to prepare, and so I I really appreciate you hearing me on this.

And um, I hope that you have everything you can tonight to uh further this piece because um public safety and health wants your guys' opinion before they take action uh on this file, and so I urge you to take action this evening if you can.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, okay.

Um, do you still want me to say?

I don't think anyone from city attorneys is here right now.

That's right.

Okay.

So does a member of the Milwaukee Police Department wish to make any comments regarding this item?

Yes.

Uh Heather Hoff Chief of Staff, I am first going to apologize for being in my car.

My son has a memorial day ceremony thing for a group he's in that starts at 6 30.

And this is a very important topic.

I wanted to be there in person.

Unfortunately, I had uh a conflicting personal conflicts.

So this is serious.

The department takes it serious, and the department wholeheartedly agrees with the community that no one should cause harm to our residents, and that includes law enforcement.

So I want to make that crystal clear to everybody in this conversation that we are in agreement that no one should cause our residents harm.

That being said, policing is complex.

We are not here to object, we are here to listen to this body deliberate and come to a decision on this file.

But I want to point out that when we use force, we have policies, guidelines that dictate how and when we can use force.

A great example is the chokehold.

The fire and police commission banned the Milwaukee police's use of troll folds for residents of the city of Milwaukee in using force.

That being said, it is a legal use of force in the state of Wisconsin and surrounding jurisdictions.

And I say that as an example because when you are asking broadly for our officers to have a duty to intervene when they observe what they think is unreasonable force, we only they only know the policies that guide them.

Their rules of engagement, they do not know the rules of engagement of other agencies, including federal authorities.

And with that being said, as a protection for our officers, we are concerned that they may intervene in situations where it is a legally acceptable use of force in other jurisdictions, but not ours, and then it's an escalation of two law enforcement agencies going at it in those moments.

When the chief talked about blue on blue, we are concerned not about anyone else but the safety of our officers.

And so our policies guide our officers, our policies protect our officers.

We are not of an uh a place where we are objecting to the sentiment.

Policing is complex, and these are considerations we just want to put on the record as you make these deliberations.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief of Staffhoff.

Do any of the commissioners have any additional questions or comments at this time?

I'm gonna start over with you, check in with you, Burgos.

Um, no, I just while we're talking to the city attorney, we did view that the investigative part was removed, but there are other aspects and other SOPs that cover that.

I think that uh we're gonna point that out a little bit a little bit more discussion.

So it's part of the total picture of the police department, how they do things.

Um do we intervene is a very important issue here we deal with, and uh we take it very seriously.

So I I'm I'm leaning toward what the city attorney says and it's my comment.

Thank you, Commissioner Snyder.

No comments.

Okay, uh let's go to the folks who are here virtually.

Um Commissioner Evans.

No comments, Commissioner Spence.

Yeah, I I agree that this is a weighty argument.

Um I do I do have excuse me, some concerns is um uh the chief of staff explained their their concerns relative to trying to weigh between what's what we do in Milwaukee and what others are allowed to do.

I happen to think that if we put something uh in RSOPs, there's this opportunity to have discussions with other groups that come into Milwaukee relative to what is acceptable here, uh and so that has weight for me, not that uh folks have to follow our uh policies, but by the fact that we've got a policy uh that needs to be explored by others who come into our community, I think it it creates opportunity for pause, and so on, listening for that uh that opportunity to put something in writing that causes other agencies to pause as they think about how they should comport themselves in the city of Milwaukee.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner War Patterson, yes, interestingly, that is what stood out for me as well.

That if we have a policy, and another jurisdiction comes in that may not have the same policy, shouldn't Milwaukee where you're coming as a guest, be the guiding principal, that would be the purity that I would learn from the chief of staff.

I would think that Milwaukee should be the guiding principle for anyone that comes here, their policies or guiding principles should not overrule what we have in place.

Unfortunately, in policing matters, it is the policies of the jurisdiction of the law enforcement uh officer.

So if the federal government um comes to Milwaukee, their policy is the federal government policy for that agency, um, our policies only apply to Milwaukee police officers.

Is there a way that we that can be changed?

But I'm sure I could try to answer this.

Um, she was asking, but I want to be clear.

She was asking a chief to stop up.

Right, Commissioner Will Patterson?

Correct.

Or or the director, whoever, is there a way that that can be changed?

So not easily would be my uh initial answer.

So uh certainly with respect to uh what the chief is able to do, he can promulgate policies for department members, but the chief doesn't have the authority to promulgate rules that govern law enforcement officers whenever they come in to the city of Milwaukee, be it uh uh the sheriff, uh federal law enforcement officers or other local uh uh law enforcement officers from other jurisdictions, he simply doesn't have that authority.

Uh there are some circumstances, um I think, and uh I want to be very cautious here.

I know that uh the uh um the Milwaukee Common Council did pass uh an ordinance that uh uh had some provisions requiring uh uh the removal of facial coverings or masks for uh for law enforcement officers in general in this city.

Uh so if there was to if there would to be if there was gonna be any such uh requirements or changes, I I think would have to come from the Milwaukee Common Council rather than the FPC or the police department, and even with respect to the common council, uh they they have to be there there's rules that they would have to be very careful about and see guidance from the city attorney's office because they could potentially overstep in telling federal officers what they can and cannot do.

Okay, are you sure are you saying that federal officers have more authority than our officers?

So generally speaking, um they are under uh or governed by federal law which which is uh supreme to to state or local law.

That said, they are still required to follow state, they cannot violate state criminal law uh absent uh a few of some some exceptions uh that relate to uh the essential requirements of their duties.

It's complicated.

I and I apologize I don't have a clearer answer.

It's it is complicated, but in practicality, would we allow anyone to come into our home and do whatever they want?

So saying that we have a representative from the common council, maybe that's something that they would be willing to lift and research and maybe even move us forward because it doesn't seem it doesn't seem to make a lot of I'm not a police officer, you know, I'm not of the law enforcement, but it doesn't seem practical that we would allow someone to come into our home and do whatever they want.

Um thank you, Commissioner Roe Hyerson.

So I want to make one thing really I I would like to make one thing really clear, which is that the state of Wisconsin statute already requires that the Milwaukee police department intervene on another officer, even if they're within the state, like if they're another state officer.

So I think that um, and I'm I'm not trying to minimize this is a complex issue.

That's real, the overlapping authorities between different levels of government and a federalized system, that's real.

Um I guess I want to say that.

Um after four years of being a Milwaukee Fire and Police Commissioner, I'm I'm not overly worried about threats of how things can't work.

Um I w uh when we did the pass the five seven five policy for body war and camera, which is one of the things I'm most proud of uh during my time on the commission, being part of that movement, um, we received a letter from the state sheriff's association signed by I think every sheriff in the state saying that if we did 575, no sheriff department in the state of Wisconsin would render aid in the city of Milwaukee, and it was complete nonsense.

So I think it's really important to hold that.

That is the kind of sort of sable saber rattling that can happen, and it's important to not let fear win the day, I guess.

Um I also want to be.

You can't just say, like, well, I didn't know that was illegal.

That doesn't matter.

And so I do think there needs to be more conversation, and I'm looking at you all around on this issue of trying to be more clear on policy of what's expected in the city of Milwaukee.

I also want to be really careful not to participate in what I would call a race to the bottom, where like we let the least restrictive policies in the universe of policing stop us from doing what we think is right in the city of Milwaukee.

Um, so I want to I want to make uh a sort of a process point clear.

The investigations when I when I first read this first, the first draft draft A, I was really confused because it didn't it didn't really read like police SOP, and so the inclusion of investigations, for example, was very confusing to me because I get the sentiment, but this SOP is not where that should live.

That's really confusing.

And the officer who witnesses, whatever it is, anytime there's a duty to intervene, the officer that intervenes, the officer that witnesses the excessive use of power, uh use of force, they're never the ones that are gonna be investigating because they're directly involved by having intervened.

So I'm okay with um sub-C, and we are able to introduce adopt that tonight if that's what people want to do.

Um so I want to just be clear on that investigation point.

Like there already exists investigatory rules in the department that govern um personnel stuff internally that govern crime scene investigations that govern what was the other one?

Crime scene critical incidents and uh officer involved deaths or critical incidents, and so that's I think a much more appropriate place.

I don't know that it actually needs adjustment to go with this adoption if that's what we do, but it's worth looking into.

I'm glad you're gonna be talking to the city attorney's office about it.

Um, I also want to be really clear on the limits of a policy like this and what it can do.

I think it's for me, I'm gonna speak for myself.

Like, I I think the inclusion and the specification that other officer means includes federal officers is doing most of the work in this policy adjustment uh modification.

But I also want to be clear about the limits in America of thinking that the police are the ones that are gonna save you from the police or the feds, right?

Like at different levels, like that also is what it is.

Um, so I think this helps.

I think it's part of the whole package of things that the the city is doing, and I just whenever we pass or or think about policy, I always like to try to be very as candid as I can be with the public about what I think can happen and what the constraints might be.

Um, okay, that's what I have to say on the matter.

Um, so now let's move to is there any additional questions or comments from other commissioners?

I'm not seeing I'd like my comment not to get lost, you know, agree.

So is there a way that uh we can have continue the discussion around the common council lifting the this concern about around law enforcement coming into our city not having the power to overrule what we have done months and hours and hours of work on to protect the citizens of Milwaukee?

I would not I don't want that to get lost.

So I don't know what happens for me.

Well, there is at least one member of the common council that's here and then listening to your uh your statements, Commissioner Will Patterson.

Um I can certainly pass those on to other members of uh the common council, particularly the members of the uh public safety and health committee uh for their consideration.

Um can we have a follow-up, please?

Yeah, you mean put it on the agenda for a future meeting?

Correct.

Well, once they've looked at it and what becomes of it, yes.

Like within a couple of months, few months.

Yes.

I'm just the vice chair, but I'm gonna say yes because the chair of the if you ask the chair to put something on the agenda, typically she will, and I think is very responsive to that.

So yes, I think it is the answer.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Um, sorry.

Uh, do you sure sure if you have something you want to say briefly?

Yeah, yeah.

Members of the committee, thank you so much, Oliver Brower.

Uh, just want to commit the, you know, we can I I hear you.

I think the question, you know, being what is what can we do to um to cur you know control what what uh federal law enforcement is doing in Milwaukee.

I mean, we just need to talk with the city attorney's office.

There's issues of the supremacy clause uh that are that are in play here.

But I'm I'm fully committed, and I know other people on the common council are fully committed to to that particular question that you're asking, and so I can commit right now to to following up and exploring all those options with the city attorney and continuing the conversation with this commission.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, so let's proceed.

Is there a motion on this matter?

Madam Chair, I move we recommend substitute C.

Okay.

Second, second, second.

Any discussion?

All right, I'll take a roll call vote in alphabetical order.

Uh Commissioner Burgos.

Aye.

Commissioner Evans.

Aye.

Uh Commissioner Snyder.

Aye.

Commissioner Spence.

Aye.

Commissioner World Patterson.

Aye.

And the chair votes aye.

The motion carries.

Uh director, please proceed.

All right, all right, we gotta keep it moving, folks.

All right, I'll now read uh uh, oh no, director, please.

Will you read the items under new business?

Yes.

Uh starting with item 11, FPC 212536.

Communication relating to low acuity calls for service from the police and fire departments and whether such calls should be serviced by alternative non-sworn responders.

Um, just for folks before you leave.

If you're interested in ways that we can provide service uh with through unarmed services and first response, uh, this is a good session to listen to.

If you're interested, just letting you know that's what this is about to be about.

Alright, and we will have uh there is a report in the file from Dr.

Amy Watson uh of Wayne State University who uh did a review of this some time ago, and uh unfortunately she wasn't able to be with with us here this evening, but we have uh the capable assistant chief Josh Parrish from Milwaukee Fire Department who's gonna provide an overview as well as uh an update on some of these initiatives that he's already been working on implementing.

And thanks for waiting.

We appreciate you.

But he has a PowerPoint, right?

So we're not looking at the report.

Okay.

Stop it.

Lee keeps making a joke that your slideshow is seventy-five slides long.

Is that is that true?

AC20.

Okay, 20 is not.

Not including the intro slide.

Okay, that's all 21.

Call that 21.

Don't be on the public page.

Are you sharing the screen here?

I'm gonna share in a second here.

Oh, yeah, so that the people online can see, right?

Okay.

Since we're just sitting quietly, I will just say in my former in my former job, I used to do work around alternative first response or unarmed first response.

It's a way of sort of shrinking the footprint of uh current policing and trying to provide the right response at the right time.

Um, and that's what uh level QAD calls have the potential for for that kind of service.

And it exists in a lot of other places in the United States with a lot of success, including places like Albuquerque, Portland, Seattle, Durham.

Um there's some really great programs out there.

Just like just sharing.

Oh, we we all get a card, is that really like just take a card and pass it down.

He has tricks.

I think this is accurate.

Oh yeah, we got the chair.

The low rider.

Okay.

Alright.

Uh Joshua Paris, this chief of marketing fire department.

I also happen to be the chair of the community intervention task force uh as well.

Uh I am here to give you all a uh brief overview of uh a little bit of the report that uh Amy Watson did that the Fire Police Commission uh actually commissioned a little over a year and a half or two years ago I want to say executive director, and also what we've been doing um with some of that information since then.

Um the report is fascinating, it is rather dense, so I'm not gonna get into the specifics of it.

It is in the file.

Uh I did want to take some time to briefly go over kind of what has gone on with this uh work group because that's been in existence for quite some time and um it's been quiet for a few reasons that I will share kind of when we go on.

So a little bit of timeline.

Um back in 2020.

Well, remember that was a time of uh COVID, which some of us want to forget, there was a resolution creating, but it's not called the CITF.

Um it was the MPD alternative response task force.

It changed name three or four times.

It's now CITF.

So if you're looking for the file, depending on what the name is and the year is, you'll find it in there somewhere.

Um the common council was very different at the time.

Uh in 2021, there were multiple agencies added to that effort, uh including uh at the time OVP, the FPC, the MFD, um, the county.

I mean, it really you know became a really robust group.

And in 2022, uh there was a research project that was commissioned by the uh law enforcement action partnership, I want to say.

Um for uh for the group looking at what this could look like based on some other national models.

Um then I took over as the chairperson in late 2022.

Um not a whole lot happened that two years, so we try to do some fast tracking and said, okay, like what would this actually look like?

Um as most of you that know me personally, I am a huge nerd.

Um I did a bunch of this work over uh Christmas break on a train with my wife in Europe, but we definitely got it done.

Uh shout out, honey.

I love you if you're watching.

Um, you know, and then I'll take this opportunity to be frank.

Uh the plan that we presented was exceptionally detailed.

There was mapping.

We gave the full budget um schedule for the city, which a lot of the readers were kind of surprised at.

So okay, like our options are, you know, I think that was January.

Is you tell us you want this now.

There's money for it, you'll have it in about two years.

Because that's just the way the city budgeting works.

For those of you that aren't aware, um, the the department heads, they submit their budgets in March for that following year.

You can't, you don't know what you get in your budget until about November of that year.

And you can't act on that budgetarily until January of the next year.

So essentially every department hit, if we want to do this, has to know that the money is there and guaranteed to put money in their budget for it a full year and a half in advance for this to go.

Um we looked at some other um some other uh groups across the country um that were doing this as uh as chair Spencer mentioned, and then we're able to get some basic ish pricing.

Um the law enforcement action partnership was estimating that you know, it's a possible a million bucks.

Um, looking at what we were just considering with numbers that we didn't have at the time, I was thinking about 15 to 20 ish million for the city of Milwaukee.

Um, so we really had a big variation there.

We realized that we needed numbers about what estimated call volume could be to actually make an estimated guess of what that budget would be, and also the impact.

You just can't guess at something like this.

So we actually have some funds to get those numbers squared away, which is what the report is in front of you.

We commissioned um Dr.

Amy Watson, who at that time was at UW Milwaukee, she then moved to Wayne State, but still is locally, and she is like an international expert in this one thing.

Like we just happen to have her in our backyard.

Um, so we got money for her and our graduate students to essentially listen to calls and then figure out what that number could be, and then give some recommendations based on that research.

Um so we got that in this piece of research, and then we started doing some things in the background to see if we can implement something from that um from that understanding, and also understand that there wasn't one or 20 million dollars allocated to this.

Um, there was some finances that were put uh aside for some of this work, and it was actually only about 300,000 dollars, so nowhere near close to us getting to where we wanted to be in that.

Alright, so a little bit of refresher.

This is a beautiful but one of the most complicated graphics in the world.

But this is how 911 works in Milwaukee.

Um, this is on the city website, and essentially what happens is with a few modifications for DEC now, because it's now um one dispatch center, but you call 911 either through 911 or the police are non-emergency line or the fire non-emergency line, which actually still works.

If you want to dial the actual 10-digit number, you still get through.

You then get a call taker.

That call taker, they're doing some cross training right now, but there were at a time police and fire call takers, and that's important because the disciplines are very, very different.

Um the fire department call takers actually have uh training in medical triage and they put calls into the appropriate buckets.

So we just don't listen to a call and pick what goes out.

There's actually a lot of training, schooling that decides what calls go in what buckets.

That call then goes to a dispatcher who then sends people's up.

Yeah, absolutely.

So we we are in the process of getting universal call figures, meaning all the 911 people we train for doing calling to take either an NP call or an NF call.

So the only thing different would be like this would merge into one person right here.

Very good.

But the dispatching is still different because the dispatching for the police department goes out by um by police district.

Um, dispatching for the fire department then has another layer to it because we can dispatch our private ambulance companies, our engines, our trucks.

We have a lot more different dispatch packages in the police department, normally it's a squad or two.

We have uh 20 or 30 different variations of things that we can send out depending on the emergency.

Love this graphic.

I'm gonna make this worse.

Alright, so we actually already have alternative responders in our system that we use all the time.

We just don't call them as such.

The police department actually um works really well with Med EC, the fire department, our ambulance agencies.

Um, we actually have a physician car that gets dispatched through our system.

So the doctors that actually respond, they do field amputations, um, quality control, stuff like that.

I know, but it's necessary.

It's a big city.

It's it's a thing.

It's a thing.

Um, and then from the fire department, we use the health department a lot, public works a ton, especially in the winter.

Um, department of neighborhood services, uh, you saw the fire alarm fire last night.

Um, they're gonna respond to something like that and condemn the building.

And then uh we energies we use a ton to actually keep crews on standby just for the fire department.

All right, here's where it gets messy.

Alright, so the police department has all these different call types.

Um, when Dr.

Watson did this research, it was before the switchover.

Um, so there's new call types in this spectra now that didn't exist at the time of this report.

Then for the fire department, we have over 1,300 different call types.

Um, and then those then uh go into about 30 or 40 ish different firefighting call types as well.

So there were a lot of challenges when we even thought about adding a behavioral response call type or any of these alt-response call types that were part of the original committee.

Um, one was working on homelessness, we have no homelessness call type, it doesn't exist anywhere in the ecosystem.

So you have to make one.

Um when you're making a call type, it's very complicated because you want it to overlap.

You want the call takers to dispatch the same thing very frequently.

Now, a nuanced point is that this level of specificity is common in big cities.

It's not common in smaller communities.

Smaller communities, it's a lot more like what do you think is appropriate?

Bigger communities, you want that you want it to go rapidly and be the same over and over and over again.

So some of the programs across the country are programs in smaller communities where they can have like not to be demeaned, but it's like more like the vibe-based dispatching, right?

Where the call taker may know that you know that this resource exists in this area, they may actually know the person that's been called, they may know the area more intimately.

Um, and that even occurs in the state.

Like you look like Walker Shaw's program.

Not that they don't use EMD and whatnot, but it's a smaller community, so they can do some different things.

Big systems like ours, you know, six, seven, eight hundred thousand calls a year.

You need triage methodology to make this work.

So good news, bad news, some challenges.

We're gonna go through kind of what we went through.

Um, there is a behavioral health call type for EMD, which is the medical system that we use.

It ain't that good.

Um, the problem with the EMS call typing as it exists is it looks at a issue, it doesn't do a great job looking at multiple issues.

So, case in point.

Um, these are some of the call types, they have prefixes that we use in the city currently.

17 is fall, um, you'll get behavior health calls in the fall call type.

Because we've identified that there is a behavioral issue, but the primary issue is that they can't move, you default to the primary issue.

Same thing with uh 25 and 26.

25 is actually our psychiatric call type, but most of the time, these are psychiatric issues that not have a biological health issue.

A lot of times you're end up with chemical sedation in these in these considerations, right?

26 is also level of consciousness that can be diabetic, it can be stroke, it can be a blood issue, it can be a medication issue.

You have a lot of things that come in that alter level of consciousness bucket that may or may not be psychiatric.

Um, a lot of these assessments happen 30 to 45 ish seconds, two minutes-ish tops before the call taker is assigning them a code.

Um, across the country across the planet, when they're doing this behavior health call taking, those calls are running 10 15, 20 minutes.

So, also as we look at how DEC is graded on what a good job they do, this methodology may not fit into them doing a good job, so requires a re-configuring of that entire system of what good is.

There's also figuring out the uh the total numbers of calls that you're dealing with.

Um, if you make the system too big, you have a problem because you're underutilized.

You make it too small, it gets used too much.

Um, so you really want to make sure that you're right sizing this the uh the first time out and that you're pretty close-ish.

Um, and we see that issue now where we don't have enough staff, and then the call, the wait times for responses stretch, and then you get that response of like, well, it's not working, it's taking too long.

So you want to be sure that um if you send up a new system that it's actually working, so guessing is really really bad, and we wouldn't make sure that um that we didn't guess.

The other thing about um about guessing is that you want to make sure the system works.

So the the goal isn't to respond to the call, the goal is to come to a solution that's appropriate for that incident.

So if we're talking about homelessness, the question is like what solution do you want to get to for this response if you're talking about behavioral health incident?

Then what solution are you looking to get to for this response?

And not all solutions are created the same, which we're gonna get to, which is why you all have no cards.

Um we then had the issue of um because we had a lot of discussion about well, doing a small pilot in a geographic area.

Um, you have the both the area issue for a couple different reasons.

Milwaukee's a big city, we're about a hundred square miles.

Um, Chief Snyder may remember this, but if you're downtown, even lights and sirens, getting to the other side of the city can take you 20 plus minutes.

So we did a pilot a few years ago where we put two cars in the city to do some limited response, and what we found is that them just going like this around the city added 30 minutes of travel time to some of those responses, even with lights and sirens.

So you also have to make sure that you have enough responders in the right spot to get a response that is appropriate to what you're doing.

So for the fire department, that's why we have so many physical buildings.

The police department just has more cars, but we basically right-size all these response agencies to what um what the expected demand on them is.

The other thing with a geographically limited pilot, so this is actually a map of uh Chicago, and then it's a map of where they instituted their cares pilot.

Um, when you do especially research on something that you know works, you kind of run into an ethical issue when you limit that service to people.

You're functionally picking winners and losers based on geography.

This presents a new issue that I call resource specificity.

I made up my own word, yes, I did.

Um, but the problem becomes you have something good, and then the people experience it, but they cross the street and now they can't get it, right?

So you've told somebody to use this resource, but you cross Capital Drive, you make the exact same call for the exact same issue, and then you get a different response.

You don't get a lot of customer satisfaction with a tool like that.

So, one thing that wanted to be really deliberate about was we know that this is a good idea, but we also don't want to sign into a system worth picking winners and losers.

That kind of makes it worse.

Money, we talked about, like I said, none of these are really free.

Um, and even in trying to write-size a response, um, or right-size an agency, and then pick a budget that matched that agency, um, it was evident that there wasn't 20 million dollars sitting around, and the money that we got to even you know try this was um was somebody that was looking at funding clinicians, which also presented an economic and market issue because there also aren't a lot of extra unemployed conditions in the market.

So when you're doing something at this scale, you have both the service issue, but you have to have the market considerations as well: do you have an employee pool to meet that demand?

One of the great examples I give is um we've had discussions about um about EMS service in Southeastern Wisconsin, and if it's about the Milwaukee Fire Department, you look at the numbers for the state, and it's like, oh, there's all these EMTs and paramedics in the region.

Like, yeah, we have them because I made them.

There aren't any more for me, and then when you start competing on price, you create a wage war, and it like nobody wins, right?

So that's one thing that we've done very deliberately for the fire department.

Is that when we realize there's a market issue, we then create our own um our own talent pool, we're gonna do our own upstream employment and training and so on and so forth, so that we can meet our demand that we know we're gonna have, which one reason why we don't use MATC for our fire training.

They couldn't meet the market demand of just working with the Milwaukee fire department.

Then you like said you have to have a system that works and it works for the patients, so it's not just about um having a response, it's really about saying, okay, like what's the most appropriate outcome that you can produce for the patients, and are you doing follow-up?

Is it pharmacological?

Is it intervention?

Is it a family solution?

Like, what does that really look like?

And making sure that your system can do all those things.

So this was a lot more than us wanting to get this right, was a lot more than having extra response agents or having extra responders, it was taking all these into consideration, especially from the fire department.

Because if we're gonna do it, we want to do it well and make sure that we're doing something that's um that meets the customers' needs.

So in comes Amy Watson, our superheroine of the day.

Wonder Woman Arms, the whole nine, all right.

So without going deeply into the port, one of the questions that um we had a few different questions here.

One of the big questions I had was looking at psychological versus psychiatric.

Um, full disclosure, I'm married to a psych nurse practitioner, and she I know right, I love her.

Oh, she's not here, okay.

Um, so I'm working to a psych nurse practitioner, and as I'm going through this problem with her, she brought up some very interesting concepts to me that I'll be honest a lot of the systems I looked at hadn't yet considered.

Um, also getting a rough-ish estimate of total call volume, um, and then looking at this telephonic response option, which was fascinating to me.

We're gonna get into here later.

So uh she did two parts of this report, like I said, you all have it.

Um, there's a part for MPD and a part for MFD of note, the part for MPD, like a lot of those call types have changed over the years.

Um, but the report has the specifics into what she looked at, what she did and how she did it, so on and so forth.

She's a genius.

She has a PhD.

I am not going to get into the nuance of her stuff, but you all have a note card in front of you in a pen, correct?

Alright, perfect.

On your note card, there are four pronouns on the screen, alright?

Uh, for the staff that's here um remotely, you can also join us.

I want you to write on your note card, for your professional language.

What do you call a person?

It's probably gonna be one of these.

Are they a client?

Are they a patient?

Are there a subject or are they a student?

If you use another pronoun, feel free.

Everybody got one.

Good job.

Now switch.

Oh god, someone has to read the handwriting.

You have to give it to somebody who does not have your same pronoun.

If anybody would like to join, you can as well.

I have more cards.

Thank you.

I'm just doing it because otherwise it would have its own only.

Alright.

So the point of this exercise is that I use these four pronouns very specifically because these all have different rules of engagement for information sharing.

That clients are normally what mental health professionals call the individuals that they work with.

That data is protected by CFR 42 at the federal level.

Patients are normally protected by HIPAA.

Students are picked by FERPA and their information thereof.

So there are different rules depending on what you call a person, even in the exact same scenario.

Please repeat client.

Client is normally used for behavioral health providers.

So if somebody is uh counseling an individual, or if a psychiatr uh if a psychiatric trained individual has not established care with a patient, then they're a client until they establish care.

Yes.

Thank you.

No problem.

Alright.

So Amy Watson's general recommendation at the end of her report was as such.

We'd already started having conversations with Milwaukee County Behavior Health.

Was BHD, now it's BHS.

I'm gonna go back and forth.

I'm gonna screw that up.

I apologize.

Alright.

Um, but they indicated that they had the capacity to receive some of these behavioral calls.

What was missing was a way to make that transition, and then for them, understanding what that capacity was, so that we also didn't destroy their system with extra volume.

Um they're really focused on the MO and the behavior health and citizen warehouse calls, but like I said, those have changed.

Not huge.

She had a few other recommendations that we're gonna go into shortly.

One was that um if there was an alt response program that'd be housed with an MFD.

Um a lot of it's based on our social capital in the community.

People um trust us, they engage with us.

We have programs like this where we're able to get information from people.

We also can use a lot of those different pronouns.

So I have a C just, you know, I did a CS background check.

I'm you know, I understand CFR 42.

I'm not a behavioral professional.

Um I have an MPI number because we are a healthcare provider, the Swalky Fire Department, um, and we run an academy, so I'm very familiar with purple rules as well.

So I just happen to know a few different languages.

There was also recommendations about the MPD's uh CSO program, and then um integrating a behavioral clinician into DEC.

So throughout Amy Watson's report and totally unprompted by me and this belief, you have sprinklings of her realizing that a lot of these calls can be handled by phone.

A lot of the calls that are coming to 911 for these call types, they're not even asking for a response.

This was fascinating to me.

Um her general idea was that there are probably about 15,000 calls that could be diverted in the Milwaukee system based on those all call types from MPD.

Ours got a lot more wonky because a lot of what we were doing what we were doing was hands-on clinical care um or hands-on clinical assessment to determine a level of care that was appropriate for that person moving through the system.

And then of note, these are some of the statements that um Amy was able to extract from some of these call types.

So I'll give everybody a second to read through these because we're gonna use these for the next slide.

I'm actually gonna read the bottom one because I've had this call.

I'm I was shocked at how common this was that came up.

Caller states her life is being threatened by lasers.

Call her states lower level intelligence officers working as terrorists are attacking her.

Call her states she cannot see anyone but can feel them.

Caller states she has an unknown mental health diagnosis and she took meds, but it's getting worse.

Locked lobby, ring bell for entry.

I've actually, as a fire department, probably as a lieutenant, I've responded to a shooting for personal shot by lasers.

So these are real things, these happen a lot in the call set.

So we're gonna do a little mad libs.

Alright.

You all have a card in front of you still, right?

Alright.

So you are observing your pronoun on the left, who is behaving abnormally by doing one of the things that we saw on that previous slide.

Insert their blank, pick one.

You observe that they're recently prescribed one of the medications on the right.

What's your working assessment and what you do next?

This is all the information you need to handle these calls.

Well, I don't know what any of those drugs are, so I can't be helpful to you.

Exactly.

This is one of the issues that we're running into with our behavioral health calls.

You learn so much by just having the medication in front of you.

So I'll give you the cheat code.

I did this with my wife.

There was only one she didn't know, and the one she didn't know because it was a really old medication.

So palyperidone is an oral antipsychotic medication that's prescribed to uh schizophrenic patients.

So in this case, your patient just hasn't taken their bill.

It's also one of the lesser effective uh psychological psychiatric medications, and it's so old, it's generic only.

So it's actually paired with other stuff.

So my wife saw it, she's like, I don't know what that is.

She said, Oh, because I would never prescribe that in that way.

So odds are it's a generic only medication that a patient was prescribed by a prescriber and they just didn't do a great job of matching it.

Alright.

Don't uh Donopezal, I'm not great at this either, is for dementia.

So your patient just has dementia.

There's nothing you're gonna do clinically to make that person better.

That's a conversation with the family.

That's it.

They're stay at home, they're probably perfectly fine.

They're just having one of those episodes, secondary to dementia.

That's it.

Glimapyroide is a medication for diabetics.

Your patient's just hypoglycemic.

Give them some orange juice.

The alternate level of consciousness will probably resolve.

That medication is specific in that it actually drops your blood pressure rapidly.

Or your blood sugar, I'm sorry, pretty rapidly.

So just a diabetic patient.

And then uh, perfinessine, I'm sorry.

That's actually an in it's an injectable.

So it's uh it's a long-acting injectable that you also give to um to schizophrenic patients.

It's one of the ones that doesn't work ish great.

So normally a physician would prescribe that and an oral medication until the injectable takes hold.

But it should work for about a month-ish.

So just from having the medication, you know a ton about the situation and then what your next steps should be, and what you could advise the patient to do, or what you maybe advise the family to do, or how you handle that.

Now the question is how do you get a provider to do that at 3 o'clock in the morning in Wisconsin winters for the rates that we may pay a BHD clinician or car clinician.

There's a mismatch there, right?

Um, and then the question is, can you get enough to provide that service at 15,000 a year to go through some of these cases?

The answer is probably not, unless they don't have to go.

So as we're looking at the system, the idea is that engaging a behavioral clinician doesn't mean that they have to be there at the patient's side because we just went through four calls without ever actually encountering the patient.

And those were four real resolutions to four real calls that are probably occurring right now in our system.

So, to Amy Watson's point, a telephonic response model would actually probably work really well.

Not for all these calls.

We're not looking for 100% compliance, our system doesn't work that way.

When we looked around the country and around the planet, a 5% shift in call, um call dispatching differentiation was enough to have a meaningful impact on the entire system.

So what's interesting is that also in uh Amy Watson's work is um some of our MFD calls for alter LOC that I said that we need clinical eyes on, and then also suicide attempts, we said you should always send a person.

I'm gonna of the things that successful programs do is also follow up.

So even for the calls that you do need a clinician there for, and there is a biological health concern, or that you have a suicide attempt or a suicide that has been followed through with, there's still an opportunity for follow-up.

And that follow-up doesn't always have to be in person.

And that follow-up actually, we've learned through our research is actually better later.

It isn't always the best time to do those great things with that person or that client or that suspect or that family member or that patient right then and there.

That's our community health, our community paramedic model works.

It isn't at the time of response, it's a day later, it's two or three days later, and we find a lot of great success giving the family, the patient, the client, some time for the system to work, and then another provider comes in to make sure that they're well to just check up on them, and that you get a lot of really great responses from that.

The QR code does work if y'all are interested.

This is an evaluation of Chicago's program.

Um there was called care.

Interestingly enough, the care clinicians that are community paramedics are trained right here in Milwaukee.

So the Milwaukee fire department work with UW Milwaukee to make a program to train community paramedics, which is what they use for this.

So they train right alongside our people.

So they have the exact same training, exact same standards.

Um, and what they're finding is that exact same issue is that their system, which was geography-based, what got overwhelming for them was the follow-up.

They're wanting to prevent the next call became so time consuming that you then have to balance how much do you respond with how much do you spend with the person making sure that they're stable so that the next thing doesn't occur.

So, with this insight, what uh I started talking about with the behavioral health division was how about we work backwards?

How about you guys master follow-up first?

And then try to figure out how many of our patients are your clients, and then let's see where we can meet because we never had that discussion before.

So we signed some legal paperwork, um, and then we began with uh we began a couple of different projects.

One was our first idea was to do a patient attribution study, um, and then what we ended up doing was we ended up building a back-end system to basically give an almost instantaneous referral from the Milwaukee Fire Department to the behavioral health division for our patients that we identified as having behavioral health issues, and we told them just work on it.

You figure out what works best for your system, and then let's figure out how we can come together and work on this as a partnership.

So last year, after we got the demo version of this report, that's what we started doing.

We said, Okay, like what would this look like if we built something together that focused on producing good outcomes after the event happened?

And rough-ish, what do you think the number of patients that we had in common was for the behavioral health patients?

It was over 50%.

Over half of every BH patient that we're seeing for the Milwaukee Fire Department, the behavioral health division already knows.

I gotta think that number is higher for MPD because most of these calls never cross over to us.

So we did a pretty good job, we struck gold, we're only about $10,000 in at this point, so it was a kind of simple computer linkage program.

Um, so they're working on the on the follow-up, and then we started talking about the telephonic response because we just don't have enough resources for enough clinicians to go around, and then getting clinicians to and from in the city is difficult.

MPD has cart, but there aren't enough cart clinicians either.

So we started looking around the planet and decided okay, like you know, how do we want to continue to there we go?

So we started looking around the planet, and we said, How do we want to crack this nut?

And the answer wasn't telephonic, it was actually video.

Um, a lot of times, and Jason will love this one.

People talk about best practices.

I hate the word best practices.

It is the chagrin of my existence.

Okay.

What I prefer to do is worse practices.

I prefer to travel around the planet and sit with the people who are doing the things and have dinner and go, what's broken in your system?

What doesn't work?

What are you trying that you wish you could stop so that I can avoid those exact same mistakes?

Because a lot of times what happens when we talk about best practices, they don't consider our laws, state statutes, capacity, so on and so forth.

So we end up trying to do things that may not work for us when I can learn so much by just avoiding the mistakes of other people.

So I started calling and started reading.

And what we realized was that in Europe, they're using video and I want one systems at a level that we are not even close to in the United States.

And they've learned a ton from doing this.

One of the uh individuals that we one of the research papers that we found actually was benchmarked against the Milwaukee Police Department.

And it was an agency in the United Kingdom that's using video response for domestic violence, and they're getting a higher response rate and a higher satisfaction rate for video response than they're getting for in-person officer response.

Fascinating, right?

Um, and it's something that just was not here or being done in the United States at all.

And they're doing them for, you know, assailants not present, right?

You know, like they're adjustable to the safety concerns, and like I say, it's not an all thing, but these twos and fuse in major systems end up being thousands of responses, and they're able to get to a person in 45 seconds, and they're finding that that's really what people want for some of these responses.

They want the feeling of the thing personal and they want it fast, and nothing is faster than turning on the stuff on your camera.

In London, they're using video response for cardiac arrest.

So even for the most critical calls when someone is dead, they're using that to coach the caller through by center CPR.

So it isn't even about the criticality of the response, it's just about thinking novelly and differently about what is a response actually look like.

During COVID, this is what we did.

This was the normal thing that was being done, yes.

In uh this UK jurisdiction, can people decline the video service and say, hey, no, I want uh a body to come out.

I I know it might take 30, 40 minutes, but I prefer that.

I don't want it and then.

Yes, for so for research projects, a participant always has the option to decline.

Uh, and we get to the research, there is.

Uh there we go.

So if you scan that QR code, I built an AI bot that has all the research papers I have.

So you can go through and read the papers, download them to your RS content.

Are you gonna stay on this slide for a second?

I can if you like, but this is cheating now.

Are you gonna sell it to us?

Yes.

Alright, so we started looking at video response because it was great everywhere.

Just wasn't a best practice from the United States.

Um, and this turned out to be amazing and also incredibly affordable.

Um, so a lot of the systems that are being used, because we use Teams, we use Zoom, right?

A lot of systems that are being used abroad, it's not app based.

It's just a text message that's sent to your phone.

You can see it turns on your camera, turns on your mic, and that's just it.

So it's not app determinant.

Once again, I give her credit to my wife, and she's like, You didn't know that?

She was like, Oh, I was using that three years ago.

Like, come on.

So we reached out to the company she was using, we gave them our use case.

Um, spent about almost a year in legal for that one because things just take this long.

We got a contract, um, and we gave the first few accounts out already.

So the Bayer Rome Division already has their account.

Um, we're waiting for them to figure out what their price is going to be to use it, with the idea that um they can use it for their critical patients in their follow-ups now.

And it's a part of CITF's mandate to work with them to figure out what that response could look like, and it's looking like that alternate response, even for them to both engage and follow up with their patients, is gonna be video.

Interestingly enough, one of the things that's still funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid is video psychiatric evaluations.

After COVID, after all the things, it's the one thing that actually remained in that taxonomy code, and it's encouraged for psychiatrists and clinicians to use videos access patients whenever they need or whatever they need that access for.

We also saved some comments for ourselves.

So we've been thinking about this actually since the floods uh last year.

So uh the fall floods last year, I was already kind of working with this.

I seen the research, I was in the command center uh in DEC, so I was working as a chief who was basically trying to figure out what we're gonna do all these calls.

So when we as a fire department don't have enough vehicles to send everything, we just basically put the calls in queue and we get to when we can get to them.

So about one o'clock in the morning, I get a call from my mom, and she's crying and she is hysterical because there's water in the first floor of our house.

She has a basement, so the house is filled up, and it's three or four inches in her, and my mom can't swim.

So she is just losing it.

And I'm in the command center and we're out of boats.

Like, I know my mom is good, she's crying, but like paying airway, I'm doing my assessment thing, trying to be a good son.

I'm like, Ma, like, I need you to relax for a little bit.

And I said, wait a second, I got this app thing.

I was like, Ma, I'm gonna send you a text message.

She's like, What?

I sent me a text message, like, hey, she's crying still.

What do I do now?

I'm like, click the link.

She clicked some link.

Like, what now?

I'm like, put your name in.

She's like, Okay, what now?

I'm like, just keep pushing accept.

Then I could see my mom.

I was like, all right, mind do me a favor, turn your camera around so I can see your street.

Then I was able to identify that this intersection was flooded, and I only was my mom okay, but I also shouldn't send a fire truck down that street.

I take my map, I go, okay, I start like this is great scene information.

Do my research, they're using this in Europe for helicopter landings.

So this is a known use.

I approach Chief Lipske, I go, hey, I think we should integrate this into our climate response plan.

Because when we have floods, heavy snow, heavy wind, heavy rain, we always run out of vehicles.

But this is a great way for us to figure out what the most serious of responses are, as opposed to just doing them in time order because there is a severity to that.

So then it floods again.

Well, one, he was out of town for the first floods.

I was acting chief, so I can make command decisions.

I was acting chief for the floods we had last month, so I made a command decision.

Like, let's try it out.

Where's Jeff Lang?

So Jeff's been assigned to me.

We try this out in the course of one hour using video response.

Chief Lang takes 30 calls and resolves them all.

It's unheard of.

So we're putting this into our climate response plan now.

Um, we are looking at uh figuring out how to host some of the video and technology with the behavior health division.

There's still someone left over in this $300,000 pot.

So we're also gonna um we're also working with our friends over at DEC and Director Boyneau is here, sir.

Um, and we've actually figured out that we can actually create vehicles for other agencies, and then with the technology upgrade, we actually can shift calls between agencies like we do for the private ambulance providers.

So it's only a small technology lift to make the behavior health division service, whatever for the call now.

It's only a small actually technology lift to actually make them responders that are dispatchable for our system.

So we're gonna work on building that technology now, and that's gonna fit in my budget.

Um, how we develop that triage methodology is gonna be that next step, but we are actually building that foundation to make this a reality.

We then started talking to the um MPD about what this work with CART as well.

Understand that there's a there's not enough clinicians to go around, and some of that service is time limited, and it's also clinician limited.

We're back to the pill bottle example.

Oh, wait a second, if you had a person sitting at a terminal, and you could turn on your phone's camera and you could read what's on the pill bottle, or send them a screenshot, because I can't pronounce these medications, send them a screenshot of what's on the pill bottle.

You get a ton of information, and that clinician who is sitting in an office in their headquarters, can also look up that patient's history.

They can look up and see when they were last seen, they can look up and see who their provider was, what their care plan is.

All this information is actually accessible and they have that technology now.

It's sitting there.

What's the hard part is just making that link, and the reality is that a video response model can make that link without having that person having to leave that room, and you can figure out is it appropriate to chapter them?

Is this a person who needs to end up at MEC?

Or is this something that maybe can be managed by medication?

There's even a spot in a future state where you have a prescriber, and maybe it's a spot for a bridge prescription because a medication isn't working, or it's just out or was lost, or whatever the case is.

There is a space that we would love to get hooped to, and that's actually putting that clinician in DEC, and then make sure that that clinician is trained in the back end technology to use the computer systems or dispatch terminal.

Um we've definitely had those discussions with BHS about what that looks like, and they say yeah, it's possible they'd love to do that.

So that's a future state item that we're pursuing.

Um, but it's a way that we get to one of Andy Watson's other recommendations of embedding that clinician in the space that they belong.

What's really interesting about some of the research is that in building these systems, the recommendation from abroad is you build them from bottom up.

So the answer is actually you let your call takers and your dispatchers decide what's what um a case that we reviewed in Denmark, they actually tried it in two different parts of the country.

So, Central Denmark region tried it, and they actually happen to have paramedics and nurses in their dispatch center.

And when we ask them for their training materials, they say, Well, they kind of figured out what they should and shouldn't do, and they built something, but it wasn't something that the physicians told them to do.

When they tried it in Copenhagen, they did it top down and they say it was really unsuccessful.

So one of the key findings that we had here is that right sizing it to your system's capacity and to the logistical capabilities of your system is essential.

So then you're all gonna ask me eventually.

Well, like, will we get more data from this?

Yes, yes, you will.

So we've already engaged uh two amazing evaluators, uh, semi-locally.

One is Kadi Kostelak, who uh you all have definitely read her work and you know, seen the amazing things that she does from the evaluation and from imitation standpoint.

Uh, she is the queen of sub such hits as overdose fatality review, homicide review, shoot review, VR fast, um, her list of great products goes on and on and on.

We also reached out to University of Chicago Health Lab who did the evaluation for cares, they did some other stuff that I really really like.

The interesting thing about them is that they have a data warehouse that can hold all the different privacy standards, and then they're also well versed in doing products, white papers, information evaluations in a way that protects the privacy and ticks all those different boxes when it's appropriate.

It's a really nuanced thing to know like what information package you could put together to make it identifiable.

It's it's a really really wonky thing.

So we're already working on our contract with them to basically get a data use agreement to build a foundation so we can start putting stuff in that warehouse, with the idea being that we don't we haven't given them work product yet.

We want to make this interactive so that as questions are asked, then that then becomes a work product that we ask to produce.

You still have to pay the researchers, but it's already in one bucket as opposed to having to do that work again and again and again and again.

That's just painful.

So this is the QR code.

Um I had an AI bot basically put together a bunch of research from across the planet.

You can scan it, it won't work on your smartphones.

Um, all the papers, all the links that say viewpaper, they all work.

Sorry, what is it saying on the top there?

We aren't the first, we're gonna be the best.

Nice.

Um, so um the key findings are summaries from the abstracts from the papers.

Uh all the links work for view paper except for one.

One is broken, I can't get the AI bot to unbreak it.

I'm sorry.

Um, but long story short, I just wanted to bring this up because as novel as this seems, and as many questions that will come up, the reality is like this has been done before.

Australia is actually using this specifically for mental health.

It is being used for some of the most critical calls that we can think of.

Those questions have um are being addressed right now globally by some of the best minds on the planet that are looking at this.

There is even some really really novel technology out there that is um not even say that they are anymore, where you can actually take a patient's respiratory rate and pulse just with the video, and it's like 95% accurate.

I know, right?

That's crazy.

Uh we were on a call with a vendor and they were playing with a platform that actually does blood pressure as well.

Um, it wasn't working as great on me.

There's also a lot of really interesting um well, and I'll bring it up because it's a appropriate, right?

There's also some emerging research about the different responses for people with different skin pigmentations.

So it was something I very specifically asked the vendor like I'm a darker guy.

Will this work?

And he was like I think so we tried it.

The blood pressure didn't work.

The pulse did.

So yeah like we're interested in like seeing what those things look like.

I think that's important here when we talk about like that kind of bottom up approach is that if we aren't too prescriptive we get to play with things and see do they or don't they work in our system because I have a lot of African American dark scan patients.

It was one of the first things I thought of the guy I was talking to the line was white and he was like it works all the time.

I was like eh not so much.

But I mean you know it was cool for him too.

So all that to say there's a lot of really cool stuff out there already um just not in the United States yet there are a few implementations that are going on in the US across the country um for both fire and law enforcement um and they're seeing different variations of success with those a lot of that is really because of the research protocols.

Sorry I'm seeing that Commissioner Spence has his hand up.

Yes thank you.

Uh Chief Parish I'm wondering if if the research includes anything relative to cultural acceptance of new technology or tools can you speak a little bit to that or were there any elements that uh others had to deal with relative to the acceptance of a different approach to providing care.

That's a great question.

So I'm gonna use a few different definitions of culture to answer that question.

The thing that so in one of the studies from Europe I forget which one uh let's do cult um family culture right parents were really really good at doing this and you would think that you would never do this on a pediatric patient but the reality was that the parents could hold the phone and they wanted help and that help was instant.

So that cultural nuance yeah that worked out great um geriatric users you get a little bit of swing in both directions um we actually started when this was one of uh Chief Lang's question was like what types of phones does and doesn't it work on?

Do you have to have a new iPhone will it work on like um one of the uh free phones that you get you know it has to be a smartphone can we figure out if it's a smartphone right so there was some of that nuance um when it comes to the ethnic culture nuances was interesting about the platform that we went with that has built in translation so some of the questions um it's not free but it does have it as a feature right because that's now a common thing with AI and that it will recognize what you're reading and then it will subtext all that right um and you can also use language line.

So you have like live translation and then AI media translation.

What's interesting is that I didn't see a lot of research about people using those type of tools to access non-English speaking recipients.

I don't know if the researchers have gotten there yet.

I can definitely reach out some of the people that I know across the planet and see if they have any specific information on that.

But I mean it's the for most of the projects that are being done globally they're finding high rates of acceptance because most people are used to using FaceTime or team or zooms now because everybody that's using this now has lived through COVID when that was an OR.

So I don't know is the quick answer.

Yeah but what's interesting is that a lot of the communities that you brought up are pretty homogeneous.

So we're dealing with heterogeneous populations whether it's on a socioeconomic scale I I ask myself okay what are the um what are the uh challenges that you face with uh the spread that we have relative to all sorts of demographic differences here in the States.

Gotcha.

And here in Milwaukee, you think about we've got what 30 different languages that are spoken.

Uh we're very heterogeneous.

Yep.

And trying to figure out how this will actually work in such an environment is going to be a challenge.

No, so you asked a great question.

Um I would say, so for just geographic heterogeneity, City of London is infinitely more diverse than City of Milwaukee.

Um they're using this now, they've they've been using it for a while, so yeah, they they have every language on the planet spoken in London.

Um, every major language on the planet spoken in London.

They also have a lot more diverse providers in their dispatch center.

Um, but yeah, they're using they were one of the first users of this and of the uh pulse and respiratory technology that system is called a good SAM.

San Antonio uses that now on their EMS system.

So yeah, um City of London actually sees pretty wide acceptance of that good SAM module across all of their uh population base, which is more diverse than Milwaukee.

Great.

Thank you.

Absolutely, good observation.

So what is a future state look like for our dispatch system?

Barring 20 million dollars somebody giving me for a full response system that is in-person vehicle, that's just the whole nine.

Uh to your point, Commissioner Spencer, that you know, there is definitely a spot where once we have universal call taker, that there's a clinician that the call takers have access to.

Um I will say that what this integration requires is for us to think differently about the time standards in DC.

Um what I did talk, and I won't out the system, but a system that had like a novel use case of putting another call taker in the dispatch center, that system failed because of a time constraint.

The reality is that you need to have a little bit more patience with this call type because you're gonna be hearing a lot more, right?

Also, if it's somebody who is um who is considering or conflating suicide and you're having that discussion with them, that call just takes as long as it takes.

We have call takers that are actually doing that now, and we sit in our call set, and they're doing an amazing job, but those calls are really, really, really long.

So when Director Boyne is reporting his call standards and you're seeing that, you know, ninety-seven is percent of the time, something is occurring, and people are about the other three percent.

That's that other 3%.

Alright, and with the volume, it's not showing as a huge number, but the reality is like that's what that is.

It's those call takers are doing an amazing job talking through a person who was like considering suicide at that moment.

Like I listened to a young lady who had a you know, who was trying to cut herself and she was like literally trying to cut herself in.

Could I get the knife to the skin?

And the call taker was doing an amazing job of talking her through just putting the knife down.

Those take so much longer.

Integrating the Bay Ralph Division into the system is um why I said that's a technological technological and contracting lift, but we're going through that all right now.

Some of that paperwork assigned.

Some of this is also realizing that one of the most powerful people in this system is actually Director Bueno and the DC staff because they get to pick the pronoun.

So the subject gets unsubjected really quickly when the call takers have another way to just determine what that person is.

Then it no longer has to end up in MPD.

The patient isn't a patient if there isn't a biological health need.

That client that BHD has that now has a weapon and a means and a plan can be instantly transferred back because that is a much higher risk call type in there in that call case.

So it's that seamless transition of that call to that system and making that possible is an amazing foundation that is where we're gonna start.

That's all I got.

Questions?

Very quickly because uh Chief Lipsky uh wasn't able to be here today, uh, due to a conflict, but he did want me to uh express and relate to the commission that uh he believes the work this work that Josh is doing, or AC Parrish, excuse me.

Josh is fine, is I've been she fairs all day.

Exceptional work, very important and has his full support.

So I just wanted to put that out there.

Make it so we can see the video again.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um thank you for sharing that.

Do any of the commissioners have any questions or comments regarding this presentation?

Well, I do, okay, Commissioner.

Well, you have to want to do this right on the as a dispatcher.

On the dispatch side, or the call side.

Call side.

You have to want to talk to people.

Do our DC personnel have that kind of training and desire.

I mean, as I was a crisis negotiator for 15 20 years.

You have to want to talk to people.

It's much easier just to transfer.

It's safer.

I've been on the roof of a building for two or three hours talking to somebody.

And our do our call people want to do this.

Do they do they have the training or will they get the training?

They will get the training, and I I completely agree.

That one of the frustrations with on the call taker side is that they have this caller who's in desperate need of support or help.

But in today's model, they know that you know creating a medical call is a waste of resources, perhaps.

And that sending an armed response to this person is probably the not the right thing to do.

So their their anxiety level uh is goes higher because they know what a best response might be, which would be a clinician that that person can talk to, whether in person or or by phone or by video, uh, but yet they're they're pigeonholed into choosing uh path A or path B.

So they they eventually uh choose the best of the worst uh scenarios, maybe a low-level police response, which gets out late, or a low level or even high level uh fire response.

All of them, uh, depending on the situation, uh could be the wrong uh recipe.

So yeah, I think that with with proper training uh when we implement this model, uh it actually will alleviate a lot of that anxiety that our call takers have when they get that call uh because right now they they they don't have the tools, they don't have the right uh pathway to help this person, which is really what they want to do.

Uh so this is this this direction that we're going.

Uh the information that Josh has shared uh completely support it.

Um and we're gonna do everything we can to make it a success.

So this is part of the training for the universal call takers, or this in addition to it's it's it will be in addition to when what because this is a completely different model.

I will say though that that one of the things that we've done as part of this research is to flag and and train our call takers to flag behavioral health uh related calls and to tag those calls so that they can be used in in uh the analysis.

So they they're they're starting to get a glimpse of what that eventual uh full circle service will be.

They they can flag the call, but then we'll give them the training to help them find the right solution to to address that call.

Thank you.

And and I would say every one of the triumvirate of our emergency services, please fire emergency communications, it's not new, change isn't new, right?

I mean, this has been going on for as long as they've been around.

We you know, we that's why we don't have horses anymore, right?

So um no, it's it's just great, and this is the next level, the next step.

And what's the bottom line?

And I hear you, Ruben, of course, it's gonna it's gonna take a lot.

I mean there's no question, uh all the way around.

But what's the what's our bottom line?

What can we provide this community?

How can we provide the best for this community, right?

And and this sounds like it all the way around.

And for our people as well.

I mean, you know, this this alleviates a lot of that in your talk about the stress, you know, taking away the stress too of the time on the call.

Like, like oh, we gotta get off here quickly now.

No, okay, I understand that this is not this is not one of those calls.

I don't have to like get this thing turned over.

Or we're not sending people out when that's not the best thing, whether that's police or fire again.

So yeah, I I think this is great, and I'm uh yeah, just totally fascinated by it.

Thank you.

Um I'll I'll just say briefly, I really I really really love the right sending the right response at the right time.

I think having that as sort of a North Star is really helpful here, and I cannot even I cannot even articulate the number of times members from police and fire have expressed frustration and feeling that sometimes all they've got to offer is wrong side surgery, right?

It's like I the the thing I can offer is not the thing this person needs, and I know it.

And that toll on service providers, in addition to the toll to the community, not getting the right sponsor at time, but also that way that it wears and burns people out when they see a need they cannot meet over and over and over again.

I think also we'll we would see a benefit to our members um from something like this.

Uh let's go to online.

Um let's see, uh Commissioner Spence, I think you're off mute.

Uh sure.

Um, fascinating.

Uh, thank you for the presentation.

Um, the thing that comes to mind for me is um we move forward.

Uh we know that we're gonna have our challenges.

We'll probably stumble here and there, but that shouldn't dissuade us from continuing to push forward on something that we know, a model that we know is gonna deliver better service, better care to this community.

And so I'm I'm quite impressed with the work that uh the team has uh has put into this, and we'll be uh a huge proponent.

So uh let's keep moving forward.

Thank you.

Um I think Commissioner Evans, I think you're off mute.

Yeah, I just want to say this right here would blow me away.

They call it my eye because of health is real, and to be able to uh get the the right clinician online correct medication, right?

And how to help our our our citizens, our fictionless.

Uh I think this is effective and efficient.

And my main question is what's the time launch for implementation?

Um, so great great question.

Um we we actually have four different use cases that we're on boarding right now.

Um Dr.

Kosalak is actually on the call as well, so I invite her to the meeting.

Um, so she's one of our evaluators and has some amazing ideas.

Um, so for the fire department, because I can speak most for us, uh Chief Lang is assigned to me to write this into our SOG.

So it's a recurring issue that we know that we have with our changing climate.

Um, and we know that we get to a state where we're just run out of stuff to send.

But to your point, we also know that a lot of those calls are um you know what was the one last time?

It was just a hole in the roof, right?

You know, and it was somebody that was terrified and their answer with their call 911, and what Chief Lane talked through through was we can't fix your roof.

Right.

But okay, do you have a safe place to stay?

Can I see the hole in your roof?

We're talking building collapse or just hold.

Okay, it's not gonna collapse.

Have you called your building manager?

They're gonna be there tomorrow.

Great.

Do you have a safe place to stay?

Can you get there?

Is that a good resolution for you?

He fixed the problem, right?

So for the MFD use case, that's what we're looking at.

Is like implementing this on fixable problems that we can just advise and talk a person through.

Probably not great for a cardiac arrest for us right now, but maybe we get there and it's a part of our bi-centered CPR.

Um for the uh BHS, they're working on what this looks like for them because they do clinical response already.

So whether they do it as follow-up or initial, that's what they're working out with their staff.

And uh, Commissioner Burgos, to your point, that's a training thing for them to figure out what works logistically best for them because some staff is better at adolescent suicide.

Some staff is better at geriatric suicide, other different cases.

So it's about right sizing their response and the logistics and then going forward a plan that worked great for them.

Um we're doing the technology assessment, I think, next week, to figure out, you know, what to take to get a terminal in their space.

And then once that is there, then it's you know, assigning vehicles and then figuring out what that communication looks like and then where we go from there.

So the implementation um will be, I'll be honest, the next couple years.

We'll be working on figuring out how to roll this out and then really focusing on getting it right for our system.

Um because the reality is like as great as some of these programs are across the country, some are folded.

So we want to be sure that you know that we're doing a good job of making sure that we're building something that we can fit and that we can afford.

Um, you know, cahoots was the gold standard forever, and Eugene lost cahoots last year.

It just wasn't financially viable.

Madison has a program and they're spending two million bucks a year on their program with limited hours.

If I just scale that up to us, that's 14 million dollars.

Minneapolis St.

Paul program is 26 million a year.

So it's really figuring out where we want to be in this ecosystem with an item that we know that we can sustain in our budget.

Um, you know, I present and I go to classes all across the country.

One of the most interesting but depressing comments that was ever made in me was at a public health conference, and this woman who was from the region said that Milwaukee is littered with the corpses of two-year funder projects.

And when I heard her say that in a speech, I made sure that I would never be a part of one of those processes.

So doing something that's sustainable is incredibly support important to me, which means it may not happen super fast, but I do want to build something that'll be here after I retire.

I I just want to say thank you for that.

Uh sustainability is the key.

Um, and to build something that, like you said, when when the next person still saying they can keep the ball rolling and that we don't we don't lose this because this is great work and a lot of time and effort is put into it.

So thank everyone that's involved.

This is good for the city.

Connie.

Um, okay, just quickly, um, we're gonna go to not quickly to you, uh, Commissioner Royal Patterson.

I just wanna, cause Chief Paris just pointed to Connie, so we'll go to Commissioner Royal Patterson for the last word for commissioners, and then we'll go to the research.

That's fine.

Um, kudos to you.

I'm just wondering if saying that it's going to take a while to turn things over.

Is everyone on board with the direction of this model?

And yeah, that's just one question.

Is everyone on board with this model?

That's a great question.

Yeah, we have some discussions with the NPD.

They love the idea, so it's a matter of figuring out what fits into their use case.

Um we've had some discussions with CART, and that's we're gonna start with this because that's that combined MPD BHD model.

Um or BHS model.

Uh yes, BHS we've had discussions with their on board, uh, MPD, fire departments on board, DEC is on board.

It's a matter of figuring out where everybody fits.

Um, and then we've all agreed to play nicely together to advance this forward.

Um, and then like I said, the the note card thing is key, right?

Like it's it's for people to understand that like with your current understanding, you just may not have the vocabulary or the use case to understand that next thing.

So there's an act of faith here as well that we're all acting good faith for things and languages that we just don't know how to move forward with.

Awesome.

And how do you think that the okay one more question?

How do you think that like percentage-wise?

And I know with percentages, we're talking about people, that this will affect the mental health community.

And positively by getting to them sooner.

Have you drilled down in that way?

That's a great question.

I have not.

I I will say that um, texture.

Are you feeling with better help?

That or the the matching, yeah.

So I think there's a lot of existing evidence that um that virtual behavioral health services are popular and accepted enough for people to recognize that as it's an acceptable way to get access to a service.

Um what we're talking about here is more so for those critical responses.

So that's a great question.

Um, there is, like I said, one of the research papers I found was specific to banking for health, and it was specific to that call type.

Um in other systems, you see a variation.

I think some of that nuance is once again that cultural thing.

Um, when we talk to the people in Denmark, so we have the best discussion with them.

They don't have as much penetrating trauma as we do.

You know, gratefully.

So, like some of those things don't show up in the research because it's a nuance of Milwaukee that made it exist in other places.

I think that'd be a great question, and that's why we bring academic researchers along with us to evaluate those things as they arise, and then to get a list of questions that we can engage individuals, say, like, yeah, we'll put that in the hopper to evaluate as we move forward.

Is there another big city doing this well?

Not at this level for all these use cases that I found in the United States.

Um there are other places across the planet that are doing it.

I haven't seen anybody doing it for police and fire and EMS with a nuance that not everybody has the same makeup systems that we have.

Sure.

Lots of questions.

Thanks so much.

Love the questions.

That was great.

Thank you.

Um, awesome.

So I think now we'll go to Connie over to you.

Oh, thank you.

Um, really appreciate the opportunity to uh join you at least remotely today.

Um, I think I know many of you, but I'm Connie Costellac from the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Um I'm in our institute for health and humanity, but then I also lead our data division for the comprehensive injury center.

Um, and we've been talking about this in various capacities now for a period of time as as the thoughts have been evolving on this.

Um, but part of what's really, I think um so promising about this is the multiple use cases as assistant chief parish just mentioned, um, and the fact that it really can be customized to the local community, right?

There can be uh modifications to which use cases make the most sense, and part of that needs to be driven by the evidence, and the evidence is partially what kinds of calls are are able to be handled, but then it's also the feedback from individuals who have utilized the service to see, um, and and this is something we're actually trying to test right now, even with the uh 30 calls that we're taking care of with the most recent storms, to get that immediate feedback from people, um, to answer some of the questions that you all are raising about what do people think about this service?

Um, and are people satisfied with it?

Is it resolving what they're needing?

Um, and then you have that along with the uh more standard data that we can look at in terms of the impact that it has on call volume and response times and workload, and then thinking about it from a financial perspective, right?

How much does this save to not have to send a rig or a patrol officer or whatever the scenario is out to the scene.

It's saving time, it's saving money, um, but it's it's different than just the phone call where you can uh turn the camera around and really get a better sense of what's actually happening in the immediate environment.

Um, so there's from an evaluation standpoint, Assistant Chief Parrish and uh Rebecca Newstead, who he mentioned from the University of uh Chicago crime lab.

I do have to take credit that I think I introduced them originally.

Um, but uh yeah, Rebecca and I've uh been we've known each other for quite a while.

Um, but we've essentially got a logic model with some of the indicators already laid out in terms of what uh what the anticipated benefits would be from this kind of an implementation, and the fact that it's relatively low cost and pretty scalable, um, gives us a great platform to see what happens both in the short term but then certainly in longer term follow-up as well.

So just this is an exciting project that I think has a lot of potential benefits for the community.

So kind of excited to be on the ground floor of helping to look at uh bringing the data back to all of you to say this is what's happening with the implementation.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Uh, just making sure, Commissioner Spence, did you have a question?

Yeah, just a a quick question relative to funding, or at least um start funding that would help.

I'm curious as to whether or not HHS has been involved in looking at these sorts of um methodologies and whether or not they're funding anything that would help.

So uh specific to the to the telephonic response model or just clinicians.

Yeah.

So um well, the any of the elements because I would think modeling this in a way that's sustainable, as you spoke to, would be useful in so many parts of our country where we we got a health crisis here, and it doesn't seem as if we have answers to help uh from an acute care perspective.

So you're asking a great question.

This is why I don't like the word best practice.

Like most of the research I found was not from the United States.

It is not a best practice of another city that we would otherwise look at or compare ourselves to.

It is normally not usual to look at research from outside of your country.

Um I'm blessing that I went to grad school in another country, so it was normal for me to do it, and it is normal for me to engage with people from across the planet to figure out what other people are doing.

So even the platform that we selected, it is not commonly used in the United States.

It's a lot more popular in Europe.

But it's only 400 bucks per user.

Your prices.

Yeah, so I mean, it's so it's one of those things where um I think that other people not doing this is a limitation of our American-centric view of what we should be doing and copying off of other, but not looking globally to go, what can we learn from the global community?

Um, and the reality is like I had a classmate who was doing AIDS compliant research in South Africa 10 years ago, and they had been using WhatsApp.

It was a common thing that they did, and she was shocked that we wouldn't have known that.

So, yeah, I mean like globally, this is common practice to use telephonic tools and normally cell phones in places that don't have hard carpal aid.

Um, so all that to say, I they didn't bring it up until I bought it up, is the first answer.

Um, telepsychiatry and telepsychology is already pretty common.

And with the money that I had to pursue this, I was able to buy the account because that was part of the charge was for the city to bring them on as a partner.

So I'm eating the bill for the um the city's in the bill for the buttons with the pot of funds that I have.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

It's really hard to tell when judge it online.

That's okay.

You got my question answered.

I just think that there are opportunities for people to actually learn from the work that we're doing.

And it's not copying it as a whole, it's um it's it's really creating things that take into consideration what your community needs look like.

You can all learn from one another, so all right, thank you.

Um is there a member of the police department that wishes to make any comments regarding this item?

Uh yes, I would just like to say I've met uh on this uh I've met Josh Parrish twice on this, both in person and virtually.

We support completely support the direction this is going, um, and I look for it to be uh as the report highlights to be expanded beyond just the mental health calls as it highlighted at least 32 to 38 calls per day that could be screened for diversion.

This presents a tremendous opportunity for us to still respond to the needs of the community, yet be able to um divert our resources, our formal response resources to areas that it's needed.

So we are excited for this opportunity.

Thank you, Josh, and I look forward to continuing to work with you and to build on this as we move forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um yeah, so uh just also say uh in conclusion, thank you so much for your work on this.

Thank you, uh Chief Parrish, Director Bueno, uh BC Lang, um, the police department and everyone who's been involved, I think it's awesome, and I really appreciate the thoughtful questions from the commissioners this evening, and it was a robust good discussion.

Good presentation.

So thank you for that.

It's exciting.

Okay, so this is a communication file, so no further action is required at this time.

However, we may wish to hear an additional update at a later time.

So I would entertain a motion to hold this item to the call of the chair.

Do I have such a motion?

So move.

Second.

Second.

Any further discussion?

Okay.

I'll take a voice vote.

All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

All right.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

Motion carries.

Thanks, everybody.

Director, please proceed.

Next item is item 12, FPC 212535 communication from FPC staff relating to the FPC's 2025 vehicle pursuit report.

A copy of the uh report, vehicle pursuit report is in the file.

Uh, this was drafted by our former recently former uh research and policy analyst Barbara Cooley, who has since retired.

So I will uh just give a very brief overview and then happy to answer questions.

Um the summary is that uh in 2025 MPD engaged in 970 vehicle pursuits, which is uh a slight increase uh from 2024 when it was 957.

Uh the vast majority of vehicle pursuits in 2025 were in response to reckless driving, uh around 76% uh of the total, which is uh a percentage increase from 2024 when it was 62 percent.

Uh the number of non-pursuit incidents that's uh when an officer attempts a traffic stop and the vehicle flees, but the officer does not pursue.

Uh in 2025, there were uh approximately 1,100 non-pursuits, which is 17% lower than in 2024.

Uh I would want to note also that um the number of pursuits resulting in injury to subjects, department members and third parties did drop compared to 2024 from 224 to 227, but significantly there were nine fatalities in 2025, including six uh to third parties, um, compared to only one in 2024.

So uh there were a significant number of vehicle pursuit related fatalities, and uh I think that's uh in no small part due to the fact that the percentage of pursuits reaching speeds greater than 75 miles per hour has increased steadily since 2008 from 15 percent up to 70 percent in 2025.

So these pursuits are much faster, much more dangerous.

Um correspondingly, the median age of pursuit subjects uh has decreased steadily.

Uh is um since 2014 is around uh uh from 18 to 21 years old.

Last year it was 20 years old.

Uh so uh people are engaging in this at a younger age, younger and younger, and going much faster.

Uh the percentage of pursuits resulting in subject apprehension reached a high of 91.2 percent in 2024, and in 2025, um it was 58%.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay, thank you for that overview.

Um do any of the commissioners have any comments or questions about this report?

I'm not seeing anybody.

Okay.

Um does a member of the police department wish to make any comments.

Uh no, madam chair.

Uh a lot of what's in the report is what I've already presented.

Um, assistant chief Sarno to the commission before.

Uh, the only thing that I'm just going to kind of look into a little bit more closely is what was listed on page 15 of the report, where it said the um average, the median age of the non-pursuit subject was 20, the average age is 23.

The data that I presented reflects the average age of the pursuit driver is 26 years of age.

Um, so I just need to kind of dig into this data a little bit more.

Don't know if it took into account both driver and passenger to come up with those numbers, but that's just what I'm going to look at.

Again, I'm still um slated to present a six-month update to the commission, which I have on my calendar for the second FPC meeting in July.

So July 16th present the first six months worth of data to the commission.

So that is all.

Okay, and please let me know if there's any updates that need or corrections that need to be made to our report.

We'll do executive director.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Um director, please proceed.

The next item is item 13, FPC 212537 communication from the Milwaukee Police Department relating to recent changes to MPD standard operating procedures or standard operating instructions.

Uh, we only have one policy change before us this evening, which is SOP 010 absence.

Uh is there I'm I'm I don't need to pretend like we don't know who's here from the Department AC SR now.

Do you have something on this?

Uh yeah.

Uh yes, madam chair, this I think the if you read this, it kind of speaks for itself.

We simply uh kind of uh for lack of a better words spelled out what funeral leave is and what you need to provide to verify eligibility.

Um, all members of their collective bargaining agreements are eligible for funeral leave.

Uh but the SOP up until this point was silent on what you need to provide to uh verify that eligibility, we just defined it.

That's all.

I had just one question, which is because I was looking at the um, I like looking at the roll call ones because it shows what's taken out and what's added very, you know.

Um did non-sworn members lose a paid day off.

Uh yeah, it's uh what was taken off here was uh which includes Caesar Chavez Day, March 31st.

Well, I thought it was the optional holiday, so like civilian members could choose which like one additional holiday to use.

Yeah, it's just the it's just the optional holiday off for civilian members, which was taken out, and that reflects the cross out that I'm looking at on my copy is uh which it says which includes Caesar Chavez Day, so yeah.

Um I I understand because it was uh my understanding was that it's been removed from the city ordinance, so we took it out of our policy.

Okay, I see it's it's a city HR thing.

That's correct being changed through that.

Okay, okay, thank you.

That was that was my question.

Um any other questions or comments uh for AC Sarnell on this policy change?

Okay.

Um it's a communication file, so um, we're good.

Uh we can proceed.

Thank you, AC Sarno.

The next item is item 14, FPC 212538 communication from the executive director relating to FPC staffing and operations.

Uh a copy of my uh monthly report is in the file.

Uh I won't uh uh bore you with uh a summary, but I would just note that uh in response to a request from uh I think multiple commissioners uh we modified in section three the uh the categories of citizen complaints that we're reporting on.

Uh these are the allegation types, which are a little bit more specific than the previous categories, which included things like department services, department procedure, uh, but instead now we have uh you know failure to activate body warrant camera, failure to file a report, excessive use of force, uh things of that nature.

Uh so I think it's a little bit more specific and it can give you an idea of of where things are uh where what type of complaints we're getting.

And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Do any of the commissioners have any questions or comments regarding this item?

Seeing none.

Um, so director, please proceed.

I will now read the items under the Department of Emergency Communications, starting with item 15, FPC 212539.

Resolution relating to the promotion of Hannah Rodriguez to the emergency communications manager position.

Uh hi, Director Reno.

Yes, please.

Uh, tell me that the Department of Emergency Communications.

We actually had a bit of a typo there.

Hannah Lore Rodriguez is her name.

Uh she is an astounding supervisor.

She's been serving in an interim capacity.

Uh she uh gets the vision of the department.

She is uh holding people accountable, but maintaining and developing good relations uh with the floor and to a person uh they all rave about her ability to do that uh effectively, and that's uh a welcome uh this is the this is the person who won the like overall DEC um internals award director's awards supervisor beer.

The supervisor, that's what I'm thinking.

Okay, so Hannah, I just wanted to say I've she when I went and did my like site visits with DEC for I did uh four hours for two of the shifts and two hours for another one.

Uh I think she was there each of the time that I was there.

I get to see her interact with staff.

She was incredibly helpful when she won the supervisor award at the DEC, like when she got it at the DEC ceremony.

It you know, to see someone in supervision be so applaud like people were so excited for her and applauding, it was really cool to see from members.

So I just wanted to highlight that.

Yeah, we're excited to see her excel in this position and um Anna Laura Rodriguez.

Anna Laura Rodriguez, okay.

Um do any of the commissioners have any comments or questions on this item?

Okay, is there a motion on this matter?

So move.

So move, second.

Great.

Any discussion?

Okay.

As this is a promotion, I'll take a roll call vote in alphabetical order.

Commissioner Burgos.

Aye.

Commissioner Evans?

Aye.

Commissioner Snyder?

Aye.

Commissioner Spence?

Aye.

Commissioner Will Patterson.

Aye.

And the chair votes aye.

Uh motion carries.

Uh congrats.

Thank you.

And director, please proceed.

Item 16, FPC 212540.

Resolution relating to the promotions of Katie Cresto, Tanika Suggs, Rebecca McGill, Tiffany Hunt, Michelle Mailing, Jessica Maronati, and Sophia Toscano to the emergency communications officer two position.

Do any of the commissioners have any questions or comments regarding this item?

Do you have anything you want to say about it, Director Brown?

Yeah, these are again part of our our new hires and our continuing effort to make sure that everybody's cross-changes.

Um, and all good employees.

Um, so welcome that promotion.

Great.

Is there a motion on this matter?

So moved, second.

Any discussion?

Okay, so this is another alphabetical order roll call because it's promotion.

Uh Commissioner Burgos?

Aye.

Commissioner Evans?

Aye.

Commissioner Snyder?

Aye.

Commissioner Spence?

Aye.

Commissioner Will Patterson?

Aye.

And the chair votes aye.

Motion carries.

Director, please proceed.

And congrats.

Yes.

Uh we'll now read the items under the police department, starting with item 17, FPC 212541.

Resolution relating to the promotion of Caleb Belsiger to the Crime Analyst 2 position.

Okay, do any of the commissioners have any comments or questions regarding this item?

I'm seeing none.

So is there a motion on this matter?

So moved.

Second.

Second.

Any discussion?

All right.

Another roll call vote, folks.

Commissioner Burgos.

Aye.

Commissioner Evans.

Aye.

Commissioner Snyder.

Aye.

Commissioner Spence?

Aye.

Commissioner Will Patterson.

Aye.

And the chair votes aye.

Motion carries.

Director, please proceed.

Item 18, FPC 212542.

Resolution relating to the extension of the probationary period for a police sergeant.

Okay, do any commissioners have any questions or comments regarding this item?

Okay.

Is there a motion?

So move.

Second.

Second.

Any discussion?

Gotta know.

Okay, I'll take a voice vote on this item.

All in favor, please signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

That was all of us.

Alright.

Motion carries.

Director, please proceed.

That concludes the agenda, Madam Chair.

Alright, thank you.

Do I have a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Second.

Very all right, all in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Oh yes.

Thanks, everybody.

We stand adjourned.