All right, we're gonna ask the uh authors to take their seat as we get started.

Uh we are uh we are missing a couple authors, but uh a couple autos will be late, and we have uh one order that is online.

We have eight, we got one online, yeah.

So we're good, and then ten for council.

Uh tonight we're gonna start our committee at a whole meeting uh Tuesday, September sixteenth, two thousand and twenty-five.

Uh first we will have uh call to order.

Um at this time we do not have a corner.

We have one, we have all the Popon online.

We have Alder Frazier and Harmon.

They are gonna be running late and they will be on their way, and also Alder Kelly.

Uh so they will they'll be on the they'll be on their way, and so we're gonna actually get started.

Uh first item, uh, we're gonna start zero seven eight two dash two fire communication sponsored by Audemac requesting that community safety director Tate give a presentation on the following.

One status of the comprehensive plan, two and analysts of gunfire analysis of gunfire and shooting calls in racing this year, and third one is strategies being implemented to address gun violence and racing.

And so I think uh Director Tate is going to start off and we will start with him.

So first things first, we'll jump right into the comprehensive safety plan of twenty twenty-five.

You will have a handout if you don't already, that is in draft form, but we have been operating based off this information for much of this year.

Um, so first, uh, this since it's my first time appearing for this body as a whole, I'll give you a brief overview of who we are, why we do what we do, what motivates us, what drives us, and how we operate.

Um so this department did evolve uh in 2024 out of the City of Racine Office of Violence Prevention.

Um we're tasked with developing and coordinating a public health approach to community violence.

Um, in practical terms, that does mean treating violence like a communicable disease by understanding its underlying causes, its associated risk factors, and developing appropriate intervention strategies.

Uh where we have our mission, vision, and values.

Um, our primary mission is establishing common ground with those who are also concerned about safety within our community.

Uh, we're assembling our collective strengths because collaboration is one of our core uh values and innovating with evidence-based practices and doing things thinking outside the box.

Our vision is ultimately that no matter who you are, where you live, where you come from, you have a right to be safe in this community.

And safety is an essential need, like food, shelter, and water, like anything else.

Um, so again, our values are collaboration first and foremost, because nothing that we do in regards to safety can be done independently of other partners, whether that's law enforcement, whether that's the hospital systems, whether that's the school district, collaboration is key.

Um, empathy, which means understanding where people are that we're working with and being non-judgmental, because some of the populations that we engage, it's very easy to judge.

You know, you're running around the streets being destructive and harming others, or you come from a background that does so, it's easy to dismiss those folks and not try and find a way to reach them and prevent them from engaging in harm to themselves or others.

So trying to build that understanding and engage them is one of our core values.

Um, resilience, because the folks that we work with and the challenges that we deal with, it can be very easy to tuck our tails and run to put our heads down and say we can't deal with this, there's no solutions here, let's give up.

But we have to continue to press through.

One, because our community is worth it, but two, because we believe these interventions work, um, because they're evidence-based, and ultimately it's a collaborative effort to do so.

And lastly, ingenuity, which is again thinking outside the box and breaking away from traditional ways that we understand how to deal with violence, how to deal with safety, and ultimately broadening our toolbox to address the challenges that we see in our community.

Uh so you know, improving safety again does start with shifting perspectives.

Um, our job is ultimately to approach with a public health perspective by connecting community members, organizations, um, and utilizing data-driven methods and utilizing evidence-based community-informed strategies.

The reason we say community-informed is because everything we do ultimately has to be in response to what our community desires to see in regards to safety.

And that's one of the core tenets as we talk about this comprehensive plan.

Um, and again, you know, we want to be actually addressing the issues that the community has identified as issues.

So, just to provide a quick framework of what the public health approach actually is.

Um, we aim to use strategies that do the most benefit for the most people.

Um, that using that approach to address safety, we draw on various scientific methodologies, whether that's the medical, sociological, psychological, criminology, education, and economics, because all of these factors actually are relevant when we talk about the underlying issues that cause violence in our community.

Um, more specifically, you'll see there the graphic, which might be hard for you to see, but it's uh simply the public health approach starts with defining the problem and understanding what it actually is.

That second step then means identifying the risk and protective factors, risk and protective factors for those who don't know.

A risk factor is something that increases one's probability or chance to have a harmful outcome, a protective factor is that which reduces the probability of a negative outcome.

Um, and then once we understand that, we can start to develop strategies and interventions that directly address those both protective factors, risk factors, and those underlying issues that we defined as the problem.

And then lastly, we're seeking widespread adoption so we can evaluate the outcomes.

Um, in this particular process, this started back in 2022, uh, when we saw a spike in violence not only in Racine but across the country.

Um, and the violent crime reduction initiative came together with the city of Racine, the County of Racine, or Racine County, the Racine Unified School District, and many others who were interested in saying, like what we're doing isn't working, this is not sustainable, it's not satisfactory, we have to approach this in a different way.

Um, so that initiative actually originally defined the problem.

You know, we're seeing gun violence, we presume it's one thing, but what actually is going on?

Um, and we'll talk a little bit further about what that definition of that problem ultimately produced, because it was distinct from what people presumed was the core problem.

Um at the time, people were like, it's just the kids, it's the youth.

Then when we took a step back and assessed who who was actually driving the violence in our community, it turned out it was people above 18 and up to 35.

Um, so that required a different type of approach and a different type of intervention to reach that particular population that is perhaps disconnected from some standard infrastructure like schools.

So again, the public health approach starts with a social ecological model in this particular case.

Um, as you can see from the graphic, it starts with the broader population that we examine, you know, the societal issues and the factors that contribute there, and work our way down level by level, societal to community to family to individual.

And when we assess the challenges and protective and risk factors at each of those levels, we have a much more comprehensive view of what actually contributes to violence within our community.

That also means that the interventions we identify happen at each of those levels as well.

Um, but where their production is matters about the amount of time that we invest.

So the individual level might be focused on intervening right at that direct person, having a direct conversation, a direct intervention, or even an intervention might include law enforcement action.

When we start talking about families, it gets a bit more challenging and a bit more complex.

We talk about communities, it gets even more challenging and more complex.

And we're talking about economics, we're talking about public health outcomes and medical issues.

And then we're talking about societal, it gets even broader than that when we think about gender and racial disparities.

But again, all of these are factors that trickle down and trickle up in terms of what contributes to the violence that we see in our community, which is why it's important that we have that comprehensive and holistic view when we talk about developing a comprehensive plan to attack those challenges.

Um, so as just getting into the specifics of this comprehensive plan, the background, this was funded by the state of Wisconsin Department of Administration's Blueprint for Peace grant.

Um, it's informed by community feedback, and it is intended to serve as a guide for policy, practices, and advocacy.

Um the primary data that informs this was the community conversations that occurred last year between June and October 2024.

The final report for those was produced for us by paying consulting in January.

Um, this is modeled after Milwaukee's blueprint piece.

Certainly, our certainly our plan does not have nearly as broad in depth.

They took about three years to develop theirs.

We had to do ours within a slightly shorter time period.

Um, but either way, the intention is the same, is to identify what those base challenges are and ultimately provide interventions that directly address those problems and uh building on our collective values and strengths and relationships.

Um obviously I've mentioned we emphasize a public health approach to violence.

So we'll jump right into the priorities and strategies that have been born out of this intervention and this uh outreach.

Um the first priority, and certainly I'm thinking for everybody, is to stop the shooting and to stop the violence.

Um prevention of community violence starts with understanding the underlying issues and distinguishing which types of violence have clear and interruptible predictors and those which do not.

Some forms of community violence, such as retaliatory group violence or relational or domestic violence, have very clear and well-defined and preventable factors that contribute to their occurrence.

By understanding the systems, the individual patterns of behavior and existing strategies for interventions to these types of violence collectively, we can target additional points of intervention in acute high-risk circumstances well before escalation.

Some of the factors contributing to community violence include economic stress, individual and family trauma, housing insecurity instability, and you know, poor relational and sociological coping mechanisms.

So some of the strategies that we ultimately identified to go forward is develop and implement interventions and strategy to interrupt escalating tensions and retaliatory cycles of violence.

Now you might note that some of the things we hear are actually some of the things we're already doing, because again, this department was developed in such a way that we had to build the plane while we're flying it.

Um that's okay because we want to do as best we can for the community that we serve.

Uh so one of the examples of that particular intervention might be our group violence intervention, actually is our group violence intervention, which I'll talk about a little bit later in this presentation.

Uh, second strategy is to establish collaborative focused intervention on, excuse me, focused on intervention and education regarding relational or interpersonal violence occurring within romantic and familial relationships.

That was a slight um subject matter for last year's uh budgetary goals.

In this coming year, Chief Ramirez will talk about that as well.

That is what we're seeing in terms of data within our community, a shift of the proportion of violence that's happening within our community, particularly the homicides, are within that relational and familial domain.

Um, thankfully, and you know, to the credit of many of the team who's participated in this, the relational retaliatory, excuse me, the retaliatory violence that we've seen from 22 and 23 has dropped dramatically.

But we still have a challenge with relational and domestic violence within our community.

And then lastly, we want to increase education on firearm safety, storage and prevention of unauthorized use and unsafe handlings.

Again, that is something else that we're already doing.

We distribute gun locks regularly.

We have a partnership with the public health department to have those gun locks in the vending public health vending machines that are stationed around the community.

And also, quite frankly, uh Alder Perez was reaching out to invite us to participate in a gun safety training, which we're happy to do to help again with the community, understanding how to better manage and better handle firearms in a safe way.

Just taking a step back, that second strategy is also underway.

We've already had two collaborative meetings, thanks to Alder Davis for joining us for us for those around domestic and relational violence, trying to build out a similar parallel ecosystem to the V violent crime reduction initiative and develop strategies and advocacy approaches around relational and domestic violence.

Our second priority is safe and connected neighborhoods.

Connected communities are safe communities.

Per our community surveys, positive safety perceptions, were strongly linked with active neighborhood watch programs, good relationships with neighbors, and well-maintained environments.

The social connections and influences that neighbors share serve as protective factors in resolving conflict.

And fostering connection also means demonstrating and illustrating how residents share experiences and providing opportunities to collectively heal, such as the shared trauma.

When shots are fired in a neighborhood, everybody on that block feels that particular trauma around that.

And we need to be able to bring people together and not separate us around what we're experiencing because ultimately when we work together, we can actually solve problems.

So when we see the shared humanity in each of us through that connected community, we're more effective in actually producing strategies together.

Highlighting our experiences also, rather than our division, strengthen these connections and in turn uh improve our ability to solve problem solve together.

So some of the identified strategies that we've uh found is that supporting activities, interventions, and organizations that support healthy social connection and conflict resolution between neighborhoods and communities.

A prime example of that this year might be some of the grants that we were issued into the community, one of which was neighborhood watch for a conflict resolution and mediation program within our community.

So again, building the plane while we're flying.

And then also sustain and sustain and expand existing community-oriented problem-solving efforts with the goal of building and building and strengthening relationships, trust and legitimacy throughout the community.

An example of that might be the COP model that currently exists, embedding those officers within communities, but also strengthening and identifying how those relationships can be stronger and better and more effective in their development and engagement with the residents.

The third is healthy social development.

During our community conversations, there is a strong emphasis placed on creating more programs for youth, including youth summer jobs, recreation, and activities to keep young people engaged.

Many residents care an intrinsic understanding that youth and young people are not destined to engage in poor choices.

But instead, young people will do what is available to them.

So youth-focused resources are viewed as essential for long-term safety and development.

I think many folks in this community recognize right now the absence or lack of healthy, safe options for young adults, certainly produces consternation and discomfort for the rest of the community when we think of large gatherings and spaces with sort of unstructured behavior and sometimes reckless behavior, such as parks.

But thankfully, at least they're in places where they're supposed to be gathering.

But we can be doing more as a community to provide structure to those young people so that they're making healthy and safe choices, even at even as they socialize in the way that they naturally should.

So some of the strategies we've identified are increasing healthy social development via education, recreational and social activities for committee members of all ages.

Developing public information campaigns on healthy pro-social behavior, particularly that which affects others' health, safety, and quality of life.

So an example of that might be safer driving education, because reckless driving, although it hasn't hit us as hard as other communities, it is certainly a discomfort and a concern for many of our residents, whether that's allowed vehicles or the backfiring cars that people might mistake for shots fired, or whether it's just for gathering in places at untold hours of the night and disturbing the local neighbors.

Again, we want to increase and improve pro-social decision making, even if it is natural environments that they want to be in, which is hanging out.

And then lastly, we want to create and support and advocate for opportunities for community members of all ages to address traumatic experiences and associated mental health challenges that is a core component of health and safety within our community, is being able to navigate the very real trauma and mental health challenges that exist within our community.

A prime example of that may be that we recently hosted a grief awareness event several weeks ago for national grief awareness, and we had members of the community from all ages coming and addressing whether losing a friend to gun violence or a lover to cancer, that shared grief that they experience ultimately can contribute to healthy or unhealthy, depending on how they cope with it, decision making.

And that is a core issue that we need to be able to address as it relates to healthy social development.

Next, infrastructure and environmental design.

One sense of safety is often unconscious or a passive experience.

Only when our safety is compromised, do we begin to notice the aspects of our daily living that contributed to that sense that is either lost or diminished.

In other words, we don't know what we have until it's gone.

So environmental design and infrastructure work the same way.

Only when roads are damaged or lights are out, do we recognize how much they contributed to how safe we felt in our neighborhoods.

So as thought as such, thoughtful infrastructure design around the concept of one's self of safety of our community self of safety, can have a substantial impact on what our community members and our residents believe and feel about how safe their neighborhoods are.

Further, you know, from a psychological and social sociological perspective, the way the environment is structured actually can directly influence people's behavior.

Um Alda Perez knows and many others who probably served on public works.

When we narrow the streets, suddenly people don't feel like driving as fast.

But if they're it's a 30-foot five, 30 wide road, suddenly it feels like a speedway and they'll drive faster.

So these sorts of interventions, these sorts of designs are core to crafting safety for our community.

So some of the some of the things that we've identified as strategies are developing policies and practices relevant to relevant in relevant city departments that use infrastructure and environment and place building to reduce risky decision making and behaviors.

Prime example that might be again when we talk about ingenuity, thinking outside the box, there has been research that has indicated that additional green space and artistic spaces, particularly in high violence areas, just by introducing that, has had a secondary or corollary effect on the reduction of high crime and violence in areas.

So this is an example of environmental design and infrastructure that can influence and change the way both we experience and react to safety.

So in that vein, we have strategies that encourage and support creation of safe and accessible community spaces.

We have many of those, but you know, we we have to continue to support and sustain those, the ones that we do have, but also expand the opportunities in places where they might not feel as much safe community space available to them.

And then lastly, which is probably perhaps more prescient as of late, is monitoring and regularly reviewing rules or regulating establishments with liquor, tobacco, or other substance licenses.

This is a part of community safety because we know a certain density of certain establishments has a corollary effect with how much crime or violence happens in that particular area.

So this wouldn't necessarily be a direct activity of this department, but it is part of the comprehensive plan that we as a city should be evaluating the distribution of facilities, whether that's vaping, whether it's tobacco, whether that's alcohol distribution, as it relates and correlates with where events that harm people's safety occur.

Then, lastly, part of number five, building trust between law enforcement and the community.

Prevention and accountability are inextricably linked.

As law enforcement was largely responsible for holding those who violate the rights and safety of others accountable.

It is critical that healthy, trusting relationships exist between the community and law enforcement.

In order to increase that trust, it is important to acknowledge when and where trust has been diminished and why.

From community conversations, residents remarked that a lack of knowledge about specific law enforcement activities does contribute to a sense of mistrust.

Improving communication and transparency can provide opportunities for residents to better understand and in turn feel feel more comfortable engaging with law enforcement for the better.

So one particular goal is increasing community and police connections by identifying and recommending policies and practices for law enforcement that directly address resident sources of distrust and connection.

An example of that might be, and I think I've talked to this, talked to Chief Mirrors about this, is after police operations, whether a warrant is served in the dawn or some other activity is served in an area, after those operations occur, COP officers could go back into those neighbors' neighborhoods and directly engage residents about what happened, what occurred to the extent that can be shared, so that residents don't have to worry and have this void filled with what was going on last night.

And then the second piece, which is something that's already occurring and can be expanded, conducting regular reviews of incidents of violence in coordination with public health, hospital systems, law enforcement, and community partners.

Um, that is again similar to or indicative of our violence intervention strategies, but there are additional partners that we can always be folding into these strategies to ensure that they reach every corner of our community because ultimately every corner has a role to play.

Um, but also that we're the most effective that we can be.

We can only do so much with so few at a particular table.

So we want to make sure that those tables are inviting to everybody who has a hand in the safety of our community.

So just to highlight some notable numbers from the 2024 research and outreach, uh, we'll just jumped into some highlight statistics uh that came out of the research.

Uh each of you do have the report itself, so you'll be able to dive in in terms of the further details on where they came from, but we'll just highlight a few things.

Um so most residents who responded to the survey and engaged in conversations did identify or seen the city itself as their community, showing a strong strong citywide identity and sense of belonging.

Um residents who participate in the survey identified top our top needs as job opportunities contributing to safety, educational access, medical and mental health resources, and after school youth programs.

Um arguable differences between availability and resources of available resources and knowledge of availability of resources is a real thing.

Um when we have these conversations in the background, we recognize that residents' experience of what's available to them may also be dramatically different than what is actually available in terms of the resources that are exists in this community.

Um so there's a bridge to be get uh crossed there and a connection to be made.

Top problems identified were violence, with 84% of respondents seeing that as a problem, uh drug use and property issues.

That's kind of some of those core quality of life substance uh matters.

Um, also 80 over 80 percent of resident survey respondents uh reported experiencing some form of trauma.

Now we're there is a list of perhaps 20 plus sources of trauma, so that's not necessarily a surprise that many people have experienced different types of trauma.

Uh but the five most prevalent forms were racism, bullying, burglary, and theft, fighting, and domestic violence.

Um, youth, particularly under 18 respond experience reported higher rates of trauma in border vehicle theft than average in voter vehicle death, homophobia, burglary, fighting, and internet violence.

And it's not necessarily surprising that youth would experience a higher rate of that, considering our young people uh are raised on the internet in our current climate.

So, next steps.

Um, it's about implementation and evaluation.

Uh so this comprehensive plan is structured to exist for a three to five year period before refresh.

Um, during this period, the department intends to both develop internal working groups within the city and or join existing working groups to collaborate towards fulfilling strategies identified in the five priority areas.

Um, annually review the strategies and make revisions as needed based on progress achieved.

Uh, continue to engage residents to measure trends and changes as needed, um, as they may identify additional strategies based on resident feedback, and then produce an annual report that will provide updates to key stakeholders uh within the community.

So the intention here is that no later than 2028, the department will begin the process of a concert concerted community outreach and survey administration as a part of the regular refresh with the full scope of data used to inform the 2025 plan.

Based on this new data, modified prairies may be identified with corresponding strategies being implemented.

So that is the comprehensive plan so far.

Um do you have any questions?

Any questions?

The auditor wider.

You have questions.

Oh, push a button, push a button.

Push a button.

Push a button, Michael.

Yeah.

I don't see it.

I don't see you.

I don't see you.

Okay.

He yeah, he cut he's coming.

Yeah.

Uh well, if you ask, I'll repeat it so that it's all heard on the audio.

That'll make things easier.

Yep.

Well, what's the one too?

Yep, you are.

Oh, I pushed the phone.

Can't believe it.

See how long it's been since we've been in City Hall.

I don't even remember what button to push.

Okay, so my question is from my understanding that your department has been funded by grant funds from the ARPA money.

Yes.

And that though that funding was to run out by the end of 2025.

Is that still accurate, or is there funding that will carry over for your department into 2026?

This grant will expire in 25.

Okay.

So I know this is preliminary to the budget discussion, but what are the discussions regarding your department going forward after 2025?

Don't think that's necessarily germane on the subject matter for tonight.

Um I think it was we will still be aggressively seeking additional funds.

I think that's ultimately a question for the mayor to present on his budget, though, so I won't dive into that.

Okay.

So I guess I I need to know are you applying for grants for funding to go forward or again?

That is a budgetary discussion, and I'm not gonna step on the mayor's toes before he presents his budget to you all.

Okay.

Any other question for Director Tate?

All right.

Thank you for your report, uh, Mr.

Tate.

I have a question regarding your statistics for demographic disparities in violence and I'm having a difficult time hearing you, if you could.

Sorry about that.

I have a question regarding the statistics that you listed in the demographic disparities in violence and trauma.

I'm curious as to where you sourced your percentages throughout your report.

Where did you where did you source those numbers and what what are they based on?

So these numbers are actually based on the survey respondents that were conducted last June through October.

So we administered nearly 900 surveys within the community about questions of what makes you feel safe, what are your experiences of safety or lack thereof?

And so these draw directly from local respondents and the statistics and demographic information from them.

Well, another question, please.

So specifically when you are talking about uh the who's impacted, and these are our general numbers.

For instance, you have multiracial individuals leading categories like homicide.

Is that to include victims as well?

What do you mean?

So it would be number five, racial and ethnic disparities.

Are you in the full report?

I'm reading from here.

Okay, yeah.

All right.

Multiracial individuals lead in categories like homicide, and you list that at 52 percent.

That's based on a survey you're saying.

Yes, those those are direct self-identified self-identification.

And is that including uh victims as well as people who have committed the crime?

I'm not sure what it is you're asking.

So it's your report is demographic disparities in violence and trauma.

52 percent.

What is that defining?

Okay, what is that defining?

So that is those who know or have well, obviously, it's not somebody who has been um a victim of homicide, but it's likely someone who knows someone or do they have a loved one who has been lost to violence.

Okay, so then you go on to list um statistics for African Americans and indigenous individuals.

And so that's the these are only the only groups that you surveyed.

No, we surveyed a broad gamut of people within our community.

The demographics data in terms of respondents should also be in the report, but these are just highlights of particular populations if they were not necessarily not significantly from a statistic perspective, but notable in those distinctions.

Okay, because what page are you on?

I'm on page seven, because you you don't have, for instance, the LGBTQIA community, you don't have any Caucasian communities listed in any of these demographical statistics.

So were they not surveyed?

They were.

I think this highlights disparities, so groups that were disproportionately reporting a high incidence of these traumatic experiences.

Um but again, the report, the survey itself was roughly, and I think we have in the back of the report the actual actually in the back of the report that does say like who actually participated and responded.

It's roughly 5050 in terms of non-white survey respondents to white survey respondents, which is reflective of our community.

Okay.

Thank you.

But yeah, this this report highlights various um components.

But if you want to see like the raw data, or not the raw data, this is still distilled and presented in such a way.

But it does have the demographic data for the participants, I believe, in the one of the appendices.

Yeah.

On page 25, you can see what the uh demographic breakdown of survey respondents was.

I I'm asking particularly because I think I'm looking through my um just looking as my experience of working in you know the law enforcement space and seeing so that's what I was asking.

I didn't know if you were taking any of your numbers from you know, who are we incarcerating, who are we serving as far as there being victims or something like that.

You're saying this is just from boots in the ground surveying certain people.

This is our internal, our directly conducted survey and community conversations.

Um so, yes, we this was compared to, and I believe in the front of the document, it does indicate some national statistics and how we compare necessarily, but the large majority of the information that we are reacting to is based on what our community has said is are their experiences.

So overall, we've been seeing a lot of different reports from different cities and communities that have been able to report reductions in their and how they're doing better in this space.

Overall, where do you think we stand?

Like Chief Ramirez is ready to answer that one.

Um so if you if you hold it, uh we can get into that.

Um, but we definitely have stats on how we're trending that the the short answer is improving significantly since this effort has started.

Um but uh I'll I won't steal the chief's thunder as it relates to the numbers that he wants to share.

Thank you.

Thank you for the questions.

Sorry if I wasn't catching where you were coming from.

I'll detergent.

Thank you.

So in there, you talked about how the majority of participants identified their community uh as the city of Racine.

Yeah.

Um in reading it though, there is with like 40 something percent or 20, there were there was a percentage of residents who identified their neighborhood um as their community.

And I I a lot of the initiatives that you have seem very, you know, directed at the city as a whole, you know, because a lot of them are pretty common.

Um however, you know, it's clear that some residents feel like their neighborhood, you know, has different challenges and and opportunities than others do.

So is this something that you are also tracking maybe internally of you know, maybe there's a heat map of where some of the residents responded differently based on address or or neighborhood?

Um we could generate a heat map if if they only if they shared.

Well, we didn't collect every piece of data, so we didn't necessarily ask like where particular residents their addresses were.

Um so that we probably wouldn't be able to generate a heat map necessarily on who felt their particular neighborhood was where they felt they belonged to more.

I think the question really what the reason we asked that is more so to be able to compare if somebody identifies or seen as their community, do they have a different assessment of what safety is versus if they identify their neighborhood of community as community, do they have a different assessment of what their experience and sense of safety is?

What we did find, you know, just from anecdotally, I sat in every single one of our community conversations.

The individuals who highlighted um their belong sense of belonging in the community being their neighborhood, also highlighted other protective factors that made them feel safer because of their neighborhood, whether that's knowing who their neighbors were, um, you know, having owned a home in the area for you know very a very long time.

Um so I think those were factors as well in terms of who determined or concluded that their neighborhood more so than the city as a whole was where they belonged and called community versus others who might feel like everywhere they go is their community.

Um the reason I wanted to highlight that 60 percent is just to note because we can get pretty down on the city sometimes that there's a lot of people here who still feel like this city as a whole is a place where they belong, and that's an important thing.

Absolutely, thank you.

I I guess to that point though, for you know, is there any efforts that you have that you're working on for um you know, maybe targeted towards neighborhoods, um, and it's not necessarily of maybe there was one particular thing, but it's maybe an idea of just challenges across the city are different.

I mean, if you ask any alder or their district against somebody else's vastly different, even though they're only a few minutes away sometimes.

I mean, certainly when we talk about our interventions, we want to be in the spaces where the things are occurring.

So, you know, earlier this year, we did some targeted outreach to the Bird Avenue area, um, largely because in the prior year there was significant gun violence in that area, and we did not want folks who live out there to feel like they were not connected, not seen or not heard by their local government, who is supposed to be responsible with fostering safety for them.

Um, again, that whole piece, like one of our second priorities is connected communities.

So we recognize that you know, whether it's local, whether it's your neighborhood or whether it's the broader city, that we want to be.

Uh-oh.

So we're about to lose the TV.

Um, but we we recognize that where people feel they belong is also where they tend to feel safe.

Um so, however, we can address that and understand those issues are ultimately what we want to be doing.

Um, so this particular report, you know, we don't want it to sit just for five years.

We don't want to um not respond or follow up in neighborhoods and with residents about like how those that sense and perception of safety is as well.

Uh, a significant and kind of underlying idea behind this uh survey process wasn't just to figure out where is safe and not safe, but ultimately where do people feel safe and not safe.

Um, because whether events occur in an area or not aren't necessarily what drives a person's sense of safety, and we kind of want to be able to address that sense of safety more than anything, even if, so for example, we know from a DPW perspective, and I think we meet you and I may have talked about this, stop signs don't necessarily do what people want them to do, but the presence thereof does give them a sense of safety.

Um so I think there's both an educational piece, but also a reality of there are certain things that make people sit feel safe that might not actually, in practical terms, contribute to the real-time safety, but it is something for us to be considering as we uh propose interventions and strategies and you know budget resources to ultimately inform and improve that sense of safety.

Yeah, thank you so much.

I really appreciate you indulging me on that because that's I found it very interesting, and I I think that it kind of sums up uh quite a bit of the differences of uh you know how somebody may feel versus what they're seeing in the news, and so I appreciate it.

Yeah, all right.

Any more questions from Dari?

If not, we're gonna have a chief comfort if he has a presentation.

You ready?

You want to go?

Because we can go right into the GVI too, and then follow up with the stats.

All right.

Because I don't know if he's got a is it uploaded?

I think code data person he's gonna.

I think Alder Alder Wagner may have had a question, by the way.

Yeah, I think we I think we can keep rolling.

Um, because it'll integrate well.

But if we can get somebody to stop the screens from turning off, that might be helpful too.

That's not even I don't know what's going on with the screen.

Um it's dim, but hopefully you all can see it.

Umder Prez, can you see that all right?

Yes.

Okay.

All right, good, great.

So next we'll jump into uh Aldermax's third point, which was the intervention strategies around violence.

Um, primarily our intervention and model that we're working with is the group violence intervention strategy.

Um, and it's a collaborative intervention.

So, first I want to kind of give some context about the scope that relates to public health interventions for violence.

There's prevention, there's intervention, and there's community transformation.

Um, for a lot of the interventions that people identify, and I'm gonna use these terms interchangeably, so bear with me.

But um, a lot of strategies that people want to deploy uh that they think ultimately produces a direct impact fall under the intervention category.

Um, those are long-term reduction strategies like mentoring high-risk youth in middle and high school, or you know, cognitive behavioral theory workshops.

There's a lot of resources invested and a lot of attention given to prevention, but that also doesn't produce that immediate effect that people are seeking when things escalate within the community.

Intervention, on the other hand, is a one to three year efficacy um strategy.

Uh it's violence reduction in the near term, it's a harm reduction-oriented strategy.

If you recall last year, we talked pretty heavily about harm reduction.

Um, and gun violence reduction strategies such as intensive intensive case management are one of those interventions that produce almost immediate results.

And then there's community transformation, which is a 15-20 long-term program, long-term intervention strategy that is about addressing, as I mentioned, with that social ecological model, those societal community-wide challenges that ultimately contribute to some degree to violence within our community.

So that's economic developments, that's neighborhood revitalization, that is education reform and investment.

So GVI is a focus deterrence strategy.

Um, focused endurance means that it engages a small, high-risk population, groups, chronic shooters, frequent violators of the law with a coordinated message.

Stop violent behavior, or you'll face swift, certain, and highly focused legal consequences.

And will offer credible supports, services, and community alternatives to help you stop.

This model combines a targeted enforcement with direct communication and outreach services such as housing, we've lost the screen, employment, treatment, and community credible messenger involvement.

So that graphic you can't see there has a three circles.

Okay, we're still good somewhere.

Has three circles, the general population, the justice involved population, and then the smallest but also the highest risk population amidst them.

And the reason we want to emphasize that is because focused deterrence recognizes that the majority of violence within a community is often conducted by a very small fraction of the community.

And if you can ass so you can adjust your resources to address that particular fraction of the community, you can have a serious and well felt impact on violence within the community.

So the strategy is this.

That's the circle of life.

It starts with the gun violence problem analysis, as I mentioned, that was with the VCRI team that established in 2022.

And then once we started doing the GVI process, we kind of kind of be more direct and intentional in that work.

So this includes for us biweekly shooting reviews, regular internal communication between the participants of that of those, excuse me, biweekly shooting reviews, making sure that we're sharing information that is relevant to intervention and activity, custom notifications, which I'll dive into.

This is really like the sequence that events may occur.

Um assignments to outreach after a custom customer notification.

There's intensive case management from that point, and then connection to supports and services, and then alongside all of that is focused supervision and enforcement from the law enforcement and probation and parole sectors.

And then lastly, on the back end, we evaluate the efficacy of those efforts and the strategies that we use.

So we start with data-driven identification of high-risk individuals.

That's our shooting reviews.

Shooting reviews are structured, reoccurring, multi-agency meetings that occur at a bi-weekly cadence in Racine that review confirmed recent shots fired incidents in real time.

The purpose of these shooting reviews is to understand who is involved, why it happened, and what retaliation risks exist so that outreach deterrence and services can be deployed.

It keeps a tight focus on those driving the violence within our community and enables a faster, coordinated response.

The intelligence that we use comes from on the ground intelligence and technology, mapping out where events occur, who lives there, and what messages may be sent by that particular violence.

That's five plus arrests or contacts with law enforcement.

They are associated with a group, crew, or gang.

The reason we use group instead of gang more often than not is because gangs as we know them, at least if you're over 30, gangs as you knew them, or we know them, aren't what they are today.

They are generally groups that are loosely associated with a particular neighborhood or a shared traumatic experience, and their activities aren't structured around economics or drug trafficking or territory, but more so who's harmed who from a social perspective, and then how do we retaliate for that harm?

Um, these individuals have often shot at somebody, been shot, or been shot at previously.

And they have a close friend or family member who has been shot and or killed in the recent past.

Uh direct and respectful communications is the next step after we identify individuals.

Those come in the form of custom notifications.

A custom notification is when law enforcement and violence prevention partners generally, it is DC Matoye, myself, and uh violence prevention manager Horton with the Rasine County will go and have a direct personal conversation with a person who's been identified as a high-risk individual.

Um, the law enforcement side will offer them information on what their legal risk is.

Um, the message ultimately that we send is we know that you're at risk, we know who you are, and that's the we collective, that's the royal we.

Um we know what you're involved in or who you're connected to.

We want to keep you safe, alive, and free, and you have a choice.

There actually is a way out of this process.

And so with that message, does come an offer of support to that individual.

If we identify those high risk and ask them, like, is this something that you want?

Is support something that you want?

Is getting out of the cycle of violence something that you want?

For those that say yes, they are immediately tied to our intensive outreach specialists if they're over 18, and they start building a case plan, intervention strategies and identifying resources that will help them make the choices that they want to make to keep themselves safe.

If they're under 18, um, they will be turned over to directed to someone with the county to do the same work with them and their families.

Um so for the intensive outreach and case management process, it does start with relationships.

That's that's the core component of it.

You get to know this person as who they are from an empathic view without judgment, so that they can feel comfortable telling you what their real issues are in their life, what their real traumas are in their life, what their real deficiencies are and why they can't hold a job, why they haven't finished school, what the barriers are to navigating with their you know co-parents if they exist, and then building that relationship to eventually be able to influence the decisions that they make to be a resource that they reach out to when they're involved in the cycles that they're always going to be involved in without intervention, so that you know, some of the guys that we work with, now that they have relationships, when they're in mixes with people, when they're in conversation people, one of the first things that they'll do is call their outreach special and say, like, hey man, I've got this thing going on, I need help because I don't want to make the decision that I otherwise would be making before you were involved in my life.

And so with that, we start influencing decision making and changing decision making and providing resources and strategy and cognitive behavioral theory to help them rewire the way they make their decisions to provide space between their emotional and traumatic reaction so that they can make a healthier choice as opposed to the reactive choice.

Like AlderPrez knows a lot about this working in the schools.

Um and then the last piece is obviously we want to improve the outcomes.

As individuals make different decisions, as they make healthier decisions, they one are less likely to shot or shoot somebody because they're making different decisions, and two, our community is safer safer because a person who was otherwise high risk, meaning we expected in the near future they were going to get shot or shoot somebody, no longer is that risk to our community.

And then lastly, there is the focused enforcement, not necessarily lastly, um, but it is the criminal legal perspective.

We want to make sure that's well defined what deterrence means.

Um, there are three core mechanisms we talk about deterrence, which is the idea of keeping somebody, what motivates somebody to not do a particular action.

What's needs to be in case is speed and swiftness of legal consequences.

So that means if you shoot, you're going to get picked up relatively quickly from the time that you shot to the time that you're in jail.

The certainty of legal consequences.

If you shoot, there's a high probability that you will be arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated.

And lastly, the severity of consequences.

If you shoot, when you're arrested, pro jailed, and prosecuted, you will go away for a substantial period of time.

The more certain and sure those three components are, the more effective the deterrence strategy is.

Okay.

So Chief Ramirez will dive into giving you our statistics and crime staff, but I'm just want to kind of piggyback on what Director Tate was talking to you about.

We've had crime waves up and down, right?

Over the years, every community sees the sees the same level or the same cycle.

And there's all kinds of different strategies and determinations that assist us as law enforcement and communities in keeping our communities safer.

And we're seeing we're so fortunate that we have multi-level approaches that have done very well for us over the course of the 27 years or 26 years that I've been here.

Umicing unit is crucial.

Um back or when you're on the patrol level and you're in those homes or assigned to that assignment, you're building relationships with everyone in your community.

So um everyone who lives there, your business owners, all of the above, and um you're also learning who the people are that are active in violence and other criminal activity.

You may also be making a relationship with those individuals or earning their um respect.

So when something serious happens and you're the one who shows up, they um feel comfortable talking to you and and cooperating to the extent possible.

In addition to that, we have patrol officers who are very proactive and aware and alert, and um also officers who work off duty um in the schools who also help develop a lot of relationships, and then in addition to that, we bring in the investigative division and all of our federal partners as well.

We're very blessed here to have an excellent relationship with the FBI, um, U.S.

Marshals, the ATF, um, the DEA, and uh all of our state partners as well.

When we couple the patrol officer work along with the investigative um work that can lead to long-term indictment type cases where people are facing serious federal prison or state cases, um, all of that has done an excellent job to help keep Racine safe over the last two, three decades.

However, there's always a time to um add additional steps.

And for me, learning about the GVI um process and partnering with our VCRI county partners, GBI just seems like the logical next step that's really assists us in um keeping our community safe and identifying and targeting the individuals who are our most at risk and the the very small percentage of people in our communities that are committing violence because violence breeds violence, it's like a spreading disease.

And um when John says when John says we the deliver the message that it needs to be swift and certain, and we want you to be safe and alive and free.

That is absolutely true.

But I am very happy if happy to make it so that you're at least safe and alive, and if that means you're in jail or prison and it's keeping our community safe, even if it's for smaller crimes, uh shorter amount of time till things die down.

I'm happy we're happy to do that.

But we want people to take advantage of the programs and the assistance and support that um already exists in our community.

Is that good?

Yeah.

All right, uh good evening.

Um committee members, President uh, thank you very much for inviting me here, Alder Mac for having this uh session.

I'm just gonna talk real quick about uh public safety report.

I only got a few slides, I think four.

Uh but I do want to preface it that uh public safety, of course, for the for police is our number one priority.

We gotta make sure that uh people are safe, able to be walk freely anywhere in the city of Racine without anyone doing harm to them, no matter who they are.

Uh breaking the cycle of violence is also extremely important to me, and that's why we also have this GVI program that I believe works.

Um matter what these stats may say, if you are a victim of a crime, it doesn't matter.

It's a hundred percent to you.

It doesn't matter if crime is going down or not, but if you're a victim of a crime, it's your it's a hundred percent to you.

I just want to preface it because that's how it is for those who have been victim of crime, whether it's uh burglary or have uh people that are that are relatives that may have suffered uh gun violence, uh they know what I'm talking about.

All right, next slide.

I just want to point this out.

This is just a calls for service uh through August.

Uh we're up uh at 39,845.

We're up nine percent compared to the last the prior year, and we're actually even higher from the year before.

So our calls for service are keep going up.

It could be where we make people more aware of things.

Uh we haven't really looked, I haven't really looked into why they're up all the time, but I think that we we do put a public message that we want people to call the police.

I know I've spoke to many of the alders here uh on regularly.

We want people to call the police so we know where things are happening, and we can adjust our deployment efforts as such.

All right, so you were seeing here in uh I'm just getting my report out here.

Overall crime here.

This these slides are gonna just deal specifically with uh gun violence.

As you can see this year, this is through the uh year to date through August, uh August 31st.

So we're in our homicides, we are up uh 25% compared to the year before.

We have in five this year and four.

I just want to let you know homicides is really only just one statistic or one metric of many.

Uh the shots fire incidents, um as you can see in 2022, we had through August, 2022, and look where we're at now at 8%.

So something 80 percent, so 12 percent compared to the year before.

Something is working out there, and I believe it's a work of a lot of people, uh, some in this room and some out in the schools that are that are helping us bring that getting involved with these families or these victims, or sometimes suspects to stop the violence, put the guns down, type of thing.

Uh so our shots fired instance have gone down.

And if you look at our non-fatal students, which is the third window on the right, uh, we're down 42 percent compared to last year at this time.

Uh you can see the trend though uh over the last three years, and 2022 was a very violent year for us, and since uh 2023, the beginning, things have been going downward trend, which is a positive.

Um next slide is uh just the gun recovery here through July.

This one's through July here.

Um we're waiting for that report through August.

But as you can see in 2022, we had the highest numbers of guns that we recovered.

That correlates also with the violence that we had in 2022.

And is it as uh years go on?

Uh the the bottom window there, uh we have 134 guns recovered this year so far.

We're down 50 percent compared to last year.

And uh domestic violence is one of the things that uh very concerned about.

It's gonna be one of my strategic initiatives for uh uh 2026.

Uh, we're gonna take a deeper dive into this, and as director Tate pointed out that domestic violence is uh very and I think very important that uh some of our victims and suspects are involved in a lot of domestic violent cases.

You can see here, um our domestic violence is uh you can see from our there that uh we are up uh this year compared to last year.

Uh over the last uh four years, you can see where we're trending.

We have 578 22 and in 23, 519 and 356 so far this year in uh 2025.

That's a lot.

Uh we try to do it comparable with other cities our size, but these are reported cases.

These are actual incident cases.

We work real close with the uh the women's resource center and other entities that help us, but now we're gonna take a deeper dive in 2026 to be our strategic initiative and how uh we can uh we can bring down I don't care if it's even 10 percent, but uh domestic violence is an issue here in the city we're seeing that's it.

Any I'm willing to answer any questions of uh you have for me.

Any questions?

I can I can also share this uh PowerPoint slide with it and get it emailed out to you guys.

Any questions for the chief?

All right, nobody's in that question.

Oh there is a question.

All right, all right, Aldo Harman.

Thank you, Chair.

I appreciate it.

Um thank you for all of the presenters for um your work and your desire to just make racing overall safer.

Thank you so much for your your work.

I only have one quick question, and maybe you don't have the answer to it.

Um I do know that um gun violence um there was a tick up um compared to years ago, and it's going down now.

Are there any um numbers that show any correlation to the number of guns that are being sold compared to violence in the area?

The number of concealed and carry licensing that has um has that increased up 10 percent, and it's also shown that an increase in just wreck some people if there are more guns, there are probably more use of the gun.

If there's more use of the gun, there's a higher possibility that certain percent of it won't be done used correctly.

Um are there any um numbers that are showing any correlation?

Well, uh, as far as CCW permits that are handed out, I don't have those statistics.

I don't think I can get those statistics, but I can tell you that the that uh we do have a gun store in the city of Racine.

I we we do track all our guns where they come from, uh how they're sold, uh, whether it's stroke purchases.

I know that we have an issue here with guns being sold out of cars as well, too.

So uh it's the being a responsible gun owner is important or because either you lock it up, put in your car, don't have access to kids.

I know that gun locks have been distributed.

I do know that the gun locks, any firearm that you buy from here locally, you get a gun lock with it, whether they use it or not.

I'm hoping that they do so people have less access to you should secure your weapons.

Um I believe there's a correlation between the gun recoveries and the violence that we had.

You can just see it from 2022.

We had a lot more guns recovered, and we had higher crime rates, higher gun violence uh crime rates.

So there's some correlation there.

But uh what we can do is uh just be people need to be responsible gun owners and uh hopefully that they don't get their guns stolen.

All right or used in an illegal way.

All right.

Thank you so much, Chief.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Chair.

Go ahead, Alta Papon.

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Loud and clear.

Okay.

I just have a question for the chief.

Um you said that our homicides were up 25% versus last year, I believe.

Is there any single contributing factor to that rise?

Or is it multiple uh factors contributing to that?

What do you think is causing that spike after having such a good year last year in comparison to now?

If I heard you correctly, uh you're asking what are some of the factors that contribute to the gun violence?

No, so that's you said there was a 25% rise in homicides from last year, right?

Yes.

Okay, so I'm asking, is there a single contributing factor to that?

Are there multiple factors that you think play into that spike that we see?

Is there anything we're doing differently this year that we didn't do last year?

Well, uh this year uh we've had a total of five criminal homicides.

Um 40% of them are related to domestic violence or some sort of interpersonal relationship.

Uh 2024, half of them uh are homicides were were either in a personal interrelation or domestic in some sort of uh way.

They knew each other.

The people that were involved knew each other's victim and suspect.

So there is some correlation between domestic violence and our homicides.

There's no doubt about it.

I think the mayor spoke that the uh state of the city as well.

I think I answered your question.

I hope I did.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Any more questions for the chief?

All right.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, uh DC Batoya and Director Tate.

Thank you guys for the presentation.

All right.

Uh at this time we didn't have enough people for quorum in the beginning, so I'm gonna ask uh, can we get approval of the minutes?

All right, there's been motion and second.

All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Aye.

Motion carries.

All right, and also can I get uh a motion to receive and file this item?

Um and second.

All in favor signify by saying aye.

Opposed?

Motion carries.

We have exhausted our agenda, and we will start coming counsel immediately uh after this, unless you guys if you guys want a five-minute recess.

Five minute recess today, we will start.

Thank you, I think.