Good afternoon.

We were now called to order this meeting of the public safety standing committee.

I will now begin by reading the chamber emergency evacuation plan announcement and public speaker guidelines.

Upon activation emergency alarm signal, all persons should immediately exit the building.

Please use the exit to the left, right, or front of the council chamber or the east of West Stairworlds outside the rear doors of the chamber.

Do not use elevators or escalators.

At the exit in the building, security would direct everyone down 9th Street to the assembly area located inside the former public safety building parking lot.

Able persons should assist visually inherent a pair of visitors with exiting the building.

Persons wishing to speak during the public comment period or public hearings are generally allowed three minutes to speak.

Persons appearing before the committee are now allowed to campaign for public office, promote private business ventures, use language of a personal nature, which is also demeans any person, including comments directed at public officials or staff members that are not related to their official duties or just to question staff members directly.

All questions to be directed to the committee chair.

Faithy here to the guidelines may result in speakers forfeiting any many time and further displaying action as necessary, which couldn't include barring from attendance and future meetings of the committee for a period of six months.

This concludes the announcements, and we will now um go on to the approval of the minutes going a little bit out of order.

Um the minutes to be approved are from the October 28th, 2025 public safety standing committee meeting.

If there are no amendments or corrections, you know, meeting minutes stand approved as presented.

Those minutes have been approved.

We will now open up the floor for public comment.

Is there anyone here that would like to provide comment for items not for um anything not on today's agenda?

Please approach the podium and form a light at the podium and state your name for the record and please speak clearly.

Hi there.

My name is Penny Page.

Um I'm here to talk about the city's contract with Flock Security.

Um I helped in part to organize uh efforts to get the city's contract with Flock canceled, and I want to make clear that I did so um in effort to help um efforts being led by police across Virginia and across the country.

I was a little bit concerned to see uh in the media and other places this effort being uh depicted as some kind of anti-police movement, which is so far from the truth.

I personally, well, I'm not speaking on behalf of my employer.

I've worked professionally with the police in several contexts.

I um so happy to have uh their collaboration on so many projects.

I believe, especially in the work done by Richmond City police, uh, and that they're trying to adhere, I've seen over and over again to the best practices in police and use the best proven methods to achieve public safety.

Um, notably an attempt to focus on repeated violent offenders because a pattern of habitual offense demonstrates the behavior that cannot be adjusted without preventing this person from inflicting further harm on the community.

And that's kind of really the exact issue with FLOC.

The pattern of the misuse of this data, it's happened again and again all across the country.

Um this data's been used to by people trying to stalk their ex-girlfriends.

Um it's been authorized, it's been accessed without authorization by immigration.

We haven't been able to stop that in our own city, in fact.

Um I do know that there is a uh legislative attempt to fix this.

Uh passing a new law, though, is not going to change the behavior of someone who habitually breaks the law.

Um, and that is important.

We tell victims of uh crimes, they're very often told a protective order is an important tool, but to a habitual offender, it is ultimately just a piece of paper.

And to a habitual offender like Flock, this new law is just a piece of paper.

Um I mean, that is in addition to uh the fact that there is no proof this technology is really effective.

I'm very uh concerned about the fact that Flock does tend to point to anecdotal evidence.

There are cases where crimes have been solved and their technology has been used in the course of solving that crime, but those do not reflect a larger trend.

Uh the research uh on the effectiveness of this technology is mixed at best.

That's generous to say.

Um it's uh there's no clear trend that communities that have this technology are safer because of it.

Uh-y seconds.

Oh, thank you.

I mean, I could tell you uh anecdotal cases of specific people who smoke cigarettes until they're 80 years old, but that does not mean that people who smoke cigarettes do not get cancer.

Um thank you.

I'm uh here asking that you cancel the uh city's contract with Flock.

Hello, my name is Morgan Haifer.

I'm a former bike courier for 20 years.

Um I'm here today to discuss the public safety and the lack of oversight of our bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure coordinators who um this is a map that New York City created for bicycles in 2005.

It didn't take them 13 years, 15 years rather, 500 million dollars, and did not produce the record deaths that we have in our city with the highest paid bike planners in the entire country.

Um, if you want to address deaths, um, you must coordinate with police who know what radar guns are and giving tickets by pulling people over and inconveniencing them instead of mailing them tickets, because that is not a punishment.

Otherwise, they would have started mailing them in the in the in the early days, right?

But um speed bumps or turning Richmond into speed bump city, rather, is no solution either.

But back to the bike lanes and the trips that our city council went to twice two years in a row to Europe, 2012-2013, to bring back hospitality for 679,000 people who came here.

Uh do you see any bike tourists coming in here any summer since 2015?

I think the answer is no.

But if you had listened to me when I came to council, bothered looking at you know, news articles where I state what we needed to do to run the bike race, having been a courier, having traveled the world, going to Switzerland this summer on my bicycle for the uh something like the 20th annual European Cycle Messenger Courier Championships.

Um, all you people who know a lot about bikes and pedestrian safety and policing and traffic enforcement.

Well, where are the results?

Please address the committee chair.

Where are the results?

Where are the results, people?

They're deadly, they're clear as day, and you people aren't riding bikes.

But we're taking the people from the current planning department, opening a new department with the same people, the same mindset and the same incompetence that has cost 15 years, but no bike map, no bike map, no safety, uh, no bike lanes, no European tourist.

Uh, my business, carbon-free courier, uh, is gone because why?

Uh, well, we did such a good job with that race that who would want to come back to Richmond and get killed in our streets.

I mean, these streets are dangerous more dangerous than New York City, and I lived in New York City for seven years.

So it's my blowing that we have the highest paid bike planners in the country and the police and the bump outs and the speed bumps, but we're never going to get results until we fix the core problem, which is addressing the people who are corrupt and running and overseeing this scam and the people who are coordinating it on the on the streets of our city uh with no regard for life, uh, economic development or common sense.

And BTW, I'm a Richmond school, public school dropout, eighth grade.

Um, but I've traveled that is your time.

Yeah, thank you.

Hi, good afternoon, counsel and uh fellow uh Richmond citizens.

Uh my name is Mike Weish.

Uh I live in the 5th district.

Uh thank you for this time.

I would also like to know it would be super convenient if this would be later in the afternoon, maybe after five o'clock after people come out of work.

Um, I would first like to talk uh about the crime review packet uh that was distributed out last night, and I think it was out earlier.

Um, looking at the major crimes overview, I like to note that in January 25th of 2023 at a press conference while talking about the crime overview for 2022.

Chief Edwards said in 2021 we had 90 murders.

Last year we had 59, uh 34% reduction in murders.

I mentioned that to show that crime has been on the downward swing in Richmond uh in the last 10 years.

I specifically mentioned 2021 to 2022 as it gives us a picture of what we were headed towards as Flock cameras were then installed in 2023.

Now, as we go through the next page of the packet, we look at the devices of Flock, a third-party private interest company that is based in Georgia and is using it to track you.

When I see this, I think of how does it differ from CCTV, red light cameras, and V dot traffic cameras under the jurisdiction of the DMV, whose footage has been used to aid in recovery of missing, stolen, abducted, wanted goods or people and aided pursuit and in the court of law as evidence in cases.

Uh currently still in the past.

Uh now please keep an eye on the bottom left photo of the car.

We will return to that in a little bit.

How do we know this will not be used for unauthorized immigration enforcement?

We don't.

To say there's no backdoor access in the flock is inaccurate.

According to an analysis by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism WHRO, over a 12-month period, law enforcement conducted nearly 3,000 searches related to immigration enforcement from Virginia's Flock Safety Network.

These searches happen because an officer was asked and allowed someone access.

Guardrails are only as good as people are willing to follow.

Flock is a vehicle, and those with access can open a side door and let whoever in.

Now remember when I asked you to remember the photo of the car?

If you can go back and take a look at it, please.

It is your time.

Thank you very much for your time.

Good afternoon.

My name is Amante Goncello.

I live in the 6th district.

I'm here once again to ask to request that you please tell the mayor to cancel the flock safety contracts.

The chief of police said that it was very valuable in the recent tragedy with using flock to catch the person that's alleged to do it.

The problem though is it's after the fact because that's what cameras are.

They don't stop crime, they just help you after it.

And unfortunately, it's mass surveillance, and we have rights in this country, which make the police's job harder.

And I know that that's unfortunate, and sure, more crime could be solved if you use mass surveillance, but it's not the it's not gonna be beneficial to society if we go down that path.

And it has already been abused multiple times.

Like I said yesterday in Evanston, Illinois, when well in Emerson in Illinois flock just flagrantly disregarded the city when they canceled the contract and they put up, they re put up the cameras.

And it has been abused with police officers searching for abortion, searching all the cameras, searching for a woman who had an abortion, and they searched all the cameras.

It's been used by ICE.

Um there was I think it was last year, ATF.

One person had access to the our Richmond Police Department um flock cameras, and they could search anything.

One person had access.

What's to stop that again?

Nothing.

And you can't really say that there's no backdoors when flock runs the servers.

Ask any IT professional, you do not know what they're running on the server.

You cannot know.

And the servers are not in your possession, so you do not own the data.

They can say you own the data, but it's completely meaningless because they have the servers.

If you have the servers, you control it.

So I'm just asking you once again that you tell the mayor not to renew the contract.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Uh, my name is Juan Braxton.

I live in the 5th district.

Um, I'm the criminal justice chair for the Richmond branch and WACP.

And for the past several years, I've been serving as the liaison between Soccer Bottom Night Life and RPD.

Um, not going to get into the actual incident right now.

Um, others will be doing that.

But I do want to speak in favor of the city keeping the flock contract.

Uh, reason being everyone in this room, whether they want to admit it in that has a cell phone.

We all have cell phones.

So a lot of the issues that people have as far as being tracked, data information, or things like that.

Same things happen to you on your cell phone daily.

Daily.

I just want us not to get into a cycle of polarized political thinking where things have to be either or.

No system is perfect, including flock.

It's not a perfect system.

There may be some things that need to be worked on, some things where it needs to be some safeguards.

But when it's your family is looking for something, you're gonna want those flock cameras.

And it's not fair that I stood with a family sadity and watch a mother cry out about a daughter.

And the only thing she wanted in that moment was to find out who killed their child.

She wants to know who killed her child.

The flock cameras are utensil for the police department to be able to do that.

They have been doing that.

And I don't want to get into this polarized thinking of thinking because there's flaws, we shouldn't use it because there is good that is done with these cameras.

Because there is good that is done with these cameras.

Our camera is not going to prevent crime.

A camera, it's not going to prevent crime.

Over time it will, because people will start to realize I can't do things in certain areas because these cameras have proven to incarcerate people who break the law.

So even though it may not prevent crime, it is significant in solving crimes.

So I don't want to get caught up in this political thinking that it has to be a race.

Everybody's issue, their concerns, valid.

That's how you feel.

But let's work on a way to correct these things, not get rid of something that's very valuable to our city.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Jackie Bishop Wells.

Um, I live in the 6th district, but I also operate a business in the 7th district in Shaco Bottom.

And today I wanted to come and talk about the um most recent tragedy this past weekend uh in Shaco Bottom.

Um I know that there's a meeting tomorrow to discuss some of the safety protocols moving forward.

But uh, on behalf of myself and some other business owners, we would like to ask yet again to move the police enforcement window back to 11 p.m.

to 4 a.m.

Since many of the issues are happening much after in the later portion of the night.

We've been asking for this for over a year.

Um we would also like to define Shaco Bottom as an entertainment district so that we can build uh policy around it and code around it.

If it's a defined area, then we can start to have a little bit more leg room as to what we can enforce in the area.

We would also like to focus enforcement on non-alcoholic spaces and gathering locations, especially past 2 a.m.

So that's where people go after the clubs have let out and gather, where other agencies don't necessarily have purview.

Um, but open drinking is happening in the streets, people are gathering, such as the parking lots and various food establishments that are encouraging large crowds to crowds to gather.

Um, people are leaving other areas of the city at 2 a.m.

to come to Shaco Bottom after 2 a.m.

to gather to keep the party going.

Uh that's been happening for several years at this point.

Um we also asked that this be done at a faster clip because uh our last mass meeting about this was in September.

Uh the average uh food or beverage establishment only has 11 days of working capital at any point in time.

Our business is being greatly impacted by this, and by result of that, these city taxes are being greatly impacted by this.

What the city should be making off of our very high uh ALM taxes is significantly lower right now because of these impacted uh business.

Um I go over time.

Okay.

Um we are not able to pay as much as we could be able to.

This is one of the highest concentrations of uh night life in the city, all in a very, very condensed space, which should be an asset to Richmond, and it is currently a detriment.

Um I'm sure that there'll be other people to talk about it.

But uh we're all hanging on by a thread down there.

And I've never seen so many empty buildings in my life.

I've been working in Shaco Bottom since 2006.

That's half my life, not half my adult life, that's half my entire life.

And I have never seen so many empty storefronts.

My neighbor just got kicked out after 20 years down there because he couldn't afford to stay.

So thank you.

Um Good afternoon, honorable members of city council.

How's everybody?

I've seen all the familiar faces.

It's good to see all of you again.

My name is Ezadina Lassad.

I am the president of the Yemeni American Association of Virginia.

I stand here today, not as just a business owner, but as a community leader, a father, and a representative for many families and business owners in the city.

I'd like to call on our people to stand up.

Those are our elders in the community.

They represent over 1,000 owners.

You can sit down, thanks.

And restore owners.

We have about 60 stores in the city that have been shut down in the past 60 uh days, I think, or 90 days uh because of the operation vaporize.

Um we are not here to fight the city on what they do.

We are here because our people are worried.

When a small business is forced to close, it's not just because the business, it's not just a business shut down.

It's food that is taken away from the family's table.

It's employees, they lose their job.

It's children they see in their parents stressed and afraid.

Most our store owners are immigrants.

They came to this country believing in the hard work and the American dream.

They are not asking for shortcuts.

They are not asking to be ignored or ignore the rules.

They are asking to be fairness in the law.

We believe in safety, but we also believe and closure should be as the final steps, not the first response.

We support on keeping public safety, and we are all for it 100%.

But if a mistake can be fixed in a day or two, please give us a chance.

We are a small community of minorities, and we often feel invisible in the halls of power.

But we come here today because we believe in your leadership today.

We believe you are the voice or the voiceless.

When our community feels that there is no path forward, you are the path forward.

You are the beacon of our hope.

We are asking for a pause on non-emergency closures while we are sitting down together to create a better framework.

We're asking for dialogue.

We are asking for understanding.

We are asking for the city that loves and the 30 seconds.

And the state that is this, you know, the city of love.

Our children are growing up in here, and we want to build Richmond, not to be broken by it.

Work with us.

Help us comply.

Help us to stay open.

Help us stay strong.

Thank you.

And may the Lord bless all of you in this holy month of Ramadan.

Dean, Dean, I do not see anybody here from the administration.

You and I have had some conversations, and I'm glad you brought all these business owners here today.

Um, I know it takes a lot for them to have to lead their businesses, or now some of them have been shut down, do not know exactly why they were shut down, how it was shut down.

Um, I know that the police chief is here, which he cannot answer those questions.

We need um, I guess somebody from the administration that should have been here to see all of you here to try to have a meeting and to answer your questions.

And if you get a chance, please call me after six tonight so you can give me some information on because I see so many of them that I know here, and I know that they're not in business right now, or they've been shut down, I don't know, for a week or month, and as you told me earlier, um, you don't even know what the violations are, so they could be corrected.

Correct.

And we have about 60 locations that have been shut down and it's continually shut down as of eight o'clock this morning.

I received you know some calls that their businesses have been shut down, and some of them for just minor, you know, uh infractions like a sign or not an ADA compliance or a you know a dirty area.

So those are the things that we trying to make sure that we work together.

If there is a little mistake, we can correct it.

But we are all for a shutdown for a business that is hazard to the community.

We are for a shutdown for business that is not good for the community.

But please work with us.

That's all we asking for.

It's just fear treatment.

Thank you.

I've known you for 20 years, and I know that when I've had an issue over there, you corrected it, and I won't mention a store, but I know that I've been able to come to you, come to Mo, and when there's been issues, it was taken care of before the city had even gotten involved in it.

And I appreciate that.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you, my friend.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, honorable members of the city council.

My name is Salah Al Assad.

I'm Dean Al Assad's son, and uh today I'm here to advocate for the small and minority-owned businesses as well.

I'm here to address a growing concern that is affecting working families, employees, and small business owners today.

Let me begin by saying clearly, we support law enforcement, we support safe buildings, and we support compliance.

What we are asking for is fairness in how enforcement is carried out.

Over recent months, like my father said, more than 60 small businesses have faced immediate closures for issues that were minor, technical, and correctable within a short period of time.

For large corporations, a short closure may be inconvenient, but for small businesses, they're devastating.

When a store shut down, employees lose wages, suppliers, vendors go unpaid, and rent continues, utilities continues, and families continue to fall behind.

Closures should be the last resort, not the first step.

Unless there is a true immediate safety danger.

Today, we are formally requesting a temporary halt on non-emergency store closures.

While the city works with business representatives to develop a clearer, more balanced framework.

We're also requesting a written compliance, defined care periods for minor violations, and a structured meeting with the city council and the mayor's office within the next 14 days, if possible.

This is not a demand for expect for exemption.

It's a request for equal and consistent application of the law.

We believe Richmond can enforce codes while also protecting economic stability.

We want partnership, not confrontation.

We're ready to work with the city, and by the grace of the city, we ask to work with us.

Thank you.

And I'm a local representative in my community in Richmond.

When property assessments rose, three counselors from the fourth, fifth, and eighth district proposed lowering the tax rate to offset the increase.

Danny Avula's administration said no, claiming it would require budget cuts.

So they let the rates stay the same, resulting in a tax hike.

On top of that, they slashed funding for nonprofits by millions, cutting half a million dollars from Next Stop RVA, an organization serving Richmond's affected youth.

Sorry for my strong language, but you expect us to believe this administration supports local communities.

Now Avula's administration is targeting small business owners.

It's not hard to be a bigot.

It's not hard to target communities.

One can demonize the Indian community, the Chinese community, whites, blacks, Arabs, in the name of safety, massage parlors, clubs with back rooms, small motels that take cash, and we all know what happens there.

Even though most of these business owners are good people, hard working, honest people, bigots will always find ways to demonize entire minorities.

And since this administration took over, this type of rhetoric has been permeating through the halls of this city.

This city has shut down nearly 60 stores in recent days without precedent, due process, and without safeguards.

These businesses each pay thousands in sales tax monthly and employ locals.

At 60 closures, we talk we're talking about six to seven million dollars in lost tax revenue and payroll annually.

And apparently more businesses are being targeted as we speak, so that number will increase.

Small business owners invest their life savings.

Now they're left with expired inventory, unpaid leases, and lost future income.

Add to that the targeting of specific communities, and the city is opening itself up to potential lawsuits for closure in the millions.

Does Avula's administration care?

They'll probably just raise the taxes on local families to cover the deficit.

That is destroying the small business class.

So please discuss that in your next budget meeting.

Small businesses, we are not numbers on a spreadsheet.

We hire locally, we serve neighborhoods and keep entire corridors alive.

Yet you demonize us and shutter us to make room for big business buddies.

This policy will be reflected in empty shops, future budgets, and the ballot box.

If there's no research, if there is no reciprocation, we must start being active.

And we will look to support opposition leaders who aren't bigots who are supportive of small businesses and lower taxes.

The city belongs to the people who live here, not to those writing policies behind closed doors.

Right now, the actions of Danny Avula's administration mirrors that of the Trump administration, but not in our city.

Richmond deserves better.

The question is, is Avula's administration willing to change course before it's too late?

Thank you.

Sir, I want to say this.

Thank you for coming here today.

And I know you mentioned the golden food market, which is in my district, and I know that I know them, and I know that they have worked with me all through the years.

But do you see us three council members up here?

Sarah, Stephanie, myself, we're the ones that put the paper in to reduce the real estate tax, not once, but a couple of times.

Our colleagues have voted us down.

Us three fought hard.

Yes, I know.

It was the fourth, the fifth, and eighth district, and we appreciate it very much.

And we will we are ready to support you guys in any initiative you have to help alleviate, you know, the taxes and the burning on the community.

Yes.

And I appreciate you coming here because I know that you got a lot of development going on over there, especially near Dean's The Convenience store over there by Afton Avenue.

Um beautiful apartments are coming up.

We've been waiting years and years.

And once they build them, guess what?

Your assessments go up because every time that something new is built, your assessments go up.

They do not go down.

That's right.

Because Richie has to assess our properties at their market price.

That's right.

So again, I want to thank you, and I will stay in touch with you.

I'll get your number from Dean, and I'll give you a call this afternoon.

Thank you very much, Castle.

I thank you.

And I appreciate you.

Thank you.

If anybody else wants to come down and speak, please get in line.

Please.

Hey, Christine.

Good afternoon to everyone in council.

I'm Christine Gibson.

I'm actually a resident of the 5th district, have a home in the 8th district as well.

Have been to the fourth district's meetings.

Also have a home in Henrico County.

Nice to see someone from their law enforcement here as well.

But just want to speak up on the tax.

Yes, they're kind of taxing us out here in the city.

They're gonna have to do something.

I don't know what the mayor is thinking.

He may be daydreaming or quite confused.

Not really sure which one it is, but we really need to work on trying to lower the taxes for some of the seniors and other people who just aren't going to be able to afford it.

Now we'll go off to the cameras, and I think they're a good idea.

A lot of people said as the Please speak more directly into the mic.

As the gentleman spoke earlier and stated that no, he was at a service where the mother was crying, wanted to know what had happened to her child.

A lot of people may not like the flock cameras, but they do bring home a lot.

When someone breaks into your home or something, or a car does something, or a truck or a vehicle, they're able to find out.

I won't say that some of it may be misuse, but that may happen in anything.

But the fact when it happens to your loved one or someone you know, then you're like, oh my goodness, I wish they had that crammer.

So it can't just be a camera for the use when it's good for you.

Sometimes people will abuse things.

The persons who run, hit, break in, do things they abuse, they take from people whom they shouldn't take.

But these cameras may serve as an enforcement to help you.

No, it's not necessarily going to stop the crime, but may prevent that individual or individuals from committing a crime at some later date or time.

So we're looking to try to help out the communities altogether.

And I would say for anyone basically residing in Southside, if you've got some cameras that you don't want in your neighborhood because you're worried about your personal, I guess, demise of someone maybe looking into your home or tracking or following you.

Take your cell phone if you have one, throw it in the river, not in the James River, but in another river where they can collect it, have a big thing about you because it tracks you no matter what you're doing, where you it tracks you in your sleep.

When you turn it on, the last thing you went into, it may say, Oh, are you interested in finding out what time the laundromat is open?

That will come up.

So you're tracked there.

But just think that these cameras that they have, the flocks, they will help us to prevent anything that goes on.

Our officers, our police chiefs in the surrounding counties, areas, all the way down to Petersburg, Stony Creek, and whatever, they are all trying to get crime into a better mode.

30 seconds.

Into a better mode.

And let's try to hope that people make it home safely.

When they finish going out for the evenings, if they return home, a lot of things may not happen to them.

But I thank everyone for listening, and I hope that our city is safer about this.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Mike Byrne.

Um, I live in the 4th district.

And uh Reva, how are you, Chairman?

Uh I uh worked in Chakra Slip for 35, 40 years.

I'm still there.

Uh owned, operated three restaurants.

Uh, and I was on the board for 30 years and ran uh was it liaison to the police department for 25 years.

And what that meant was we set up a system of trying to correspond with the police department, with the ABC board, with uh the CAPS program and various programs to understand how to operate a safe community.

What happened in the Chakra Bottom has been going on for 25 years.

Since the mid-90s, it's been a police state.

Just has.

During the summer, it's worse.

Last weekend we had nine shoot shots, nine people shot, two were fatally shot.

And I'm reminded of what we did all those years to try to stay safe when we had businesses.

And part of it was working with the ABC board to enforce those that open operations or abiding by the law, the current law, the current code, the current regulations that says this is what you do if you want to operate a restaurant.

You have to have a hood, you have to be open, you got to serve food until 30 minutes before you're closed, on and on.

It's all in the code.

So to put this off on the police department, they show up when there's a problem and they try to do their best to circumvent those problems by having a presence, but there's a limited amount of resources.

When I'm here to say, and I talked to Dave Napier, uh, who's been in Chaco Bottom for 25 years, David and I worked together for many, many years today, and he said they're kind of giving up hope.

The association's down to three or four members, and the situation is that there's guns.

We I fought guns and bars uh for 20 years and we finally lost.

But you still can't drink alcohol and carry a concealed weapon, but they are.

Uh they're not enforcing the ABC laws.

Uh those that open and apply for a license aren't open, maybe not serving food, don't have an inventory, don't have a kitchen staff, don't have waiters and 30 seconds, and folks that are managing the ABC protocols of protecting.

245 in the morning is 245 in the morning.

The law requires that everything is off the table.

And what they're doing is they're serving uh mixers after two o'clock, and people are bringing in their own little bottles.

They're carrying handguns and and drinking liquor.

So the the real problem is enforcement that they from the ABC board uh to say that if you aren't abiding by the law.

May I finish?

Go ahead, Michael.

Mike, finish.

That if we don't enforce the regulations that are currently already on the books, then what good is it sending down a police force in mass?

It didn't work 25 years ago.

It hasn't worked, it certainly didn't work last weekend, and it's not gonna work in the future by putting ambassadors out on the street.

I wouldn't go out there at 245 in the morning to tell people that they gotta get in their car and go home.

Would you?

No, most people would not.

So here we are.

We're not enforcing, we're not working with the ABC board like we should be.

And I applaud the police department what they've done, but it's not up to them.

It's up to the issuing of the licenses for those that are operating.

There are any questions.

I'll call you.

I'll call you tonight because I'm gonna talk to my colleagues after this meeting.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, members of this committee, and President Dr.

Newby, and all those that are assembled today.

My name is Charles Willis, executive director of United Communities Against Crime, and I have a number of issues and concerns that I want to bring forward, and I'm gonna try to be very brief about it.

The first thing I want to share with everybody that's listening in the ears that this Friday at three o'clock, the city of Richmond uh organizations.

Well, let me repeat that.

There are number of organizations that have come together along with the families, the mother and father of the Joneses that would be assembling down in the Shaco Bottom area at three o'clock for a Richmond's walk of peace.

That walk of peace, we would assemble at 18th of Maine, and then we would proceed to walk towards City Hall right here and meet on Marshall Street, where Mayor Avula will address the families and communities, and we invite everybody else in the sound of our voice to join us for that.

But I want to share with you about something that's very dear to my heart.

And many people have came before you, Madam Chairwoman, to share about the flock cameras.

And they talk about what it could have, should have would have.

It was the flock camera that apprehended that was able to assist the police department and find out who that individual was.

Zoomed right in.

They didn't have to go to this person.

They didn't have to stop a car.

They didn't have to go in somebody's backyard.

They went straight to that individual house, apprehended that individual, and not only that individual, but sees other guns that was there.

Not only that, then a neighbor of mine's got hit on Sam's Avenue and the car kept going.

No regard for life.

But the flock camera assistance was the one that caught that individual by reading the license plates.

They didn't go chase after anybody a lot of daughter.

They went after that car.

And then I want to end with this.

It's the flock cameras that are being assisted today, that are helping us find who were the corporates that did the shooting down in Shaco Balham.

Do you talk about getting rid of the flock cameras?

Give them some more money.

Give them extra money.

God bless you, may you have a smile upon you.

Don't forget this Friday, three o'clock.

Come join us for the Richmond's Walk for Peace.

Hi, my name is Defa Sali, president of the Arab community in the state of Virginia.

Please speak more into the mic.

My name is Defa Sali, president of the Arab community in the state of Virginia.

Hi to every one of you guys.

Thank you.

We had a meeting yesterday with a couple of members from the state in 1801 Commerce wrote about what's going on in our businesses is being shut down.

It's been closed stores set down.

It's almost like 60 stores right now, and they're still coming up for more.

I received calls why I'm here right now in one of our members they get closed your store.

Why we in right now in here?

So we do want to work with the city of Richmond and see what's going on about this ratings about for all the businesses in the state.

So we do want to work with every government officials, and we want to thank to the chief department is here today.

And yesterday, they came from all every department.

Yesterday, when we had a meeting with them, they're working with us.

We want to thank every one of them.

And especially you, you know how our community working, they paying their taxes.

A lot of stores is closed right now.

And we just want to fix these issues.

That's why we all here is a lot of members being, we receiving a ton of calls.

Like I said yesterday in the meeting, if any the stores like when they come for the inspection to every one of the locations, if they need help, we definitely gonna help them out.

And we get someone to fix the issues what they required from our community.

And thank you to every one of you guys.

Thanks.

Again, uh, I have a local business owner from our community.

He uh just he wasn't supposed to be here today, but the city just closed his store about 30 minutes ago.

So he basically just shut down the store and came straight here.

He would like to have a word.

What store is that?

Hello.

Um, it's on government road.

It's called um ZM Convenient.

Um I just it took me a long time to open this business.

Of years of savings and me and my wife working so hard.

And just for the simplest thing the city closed me down, they should have at least given us a chances to to fix the stuff that needs to be corrected in the business.

So instead of them giving us a couple of weeks or a month at least to correct everything, so they intentionally come into the store.

Is we're gonna shut you down just for this smallest reason to shut it down.

The back door being closed or small wire that hanging down, it just close it down with no warning.

This is not fair.

I I now I can't afford even to pay my mortgage.

I can't afford to put food on my tables because my only business that's shutting down.

The smallest thing, and I it I don't know how what I'm gonna do tomorrow.

Where's your store located?

It's own on government road.

I'm sorry, what?

It's it's on government road.

Government and um it's it's in Fulton Hills on government road.

We'll we'll give you the address um when we get together.

Okay, because I see that Kevin Bonk is here from community development.

I was hoping that somebody from the mayor's office would be here because I I'm not gonna go there, but anyway, I think it's a damn shame that the CAO or somebody else is not here to hear all of you and listen to you all, all of you, to know that you all are business owners, taxpayers, and I know that there's been some issues in some of the stores.

I do, I do know that, but still it's a way that if you're saying that they just came in there, no warning, no nothing, and just shut you down.

Because I will tell you right now, I got some issues in my district that's been going on for a few years, maybe five or ten years.

Not a convenience store, but another kind of business that they're still doing things that I'm not that I'm not happy about, especially when it's only like three blocks from my house.

So I think it's a shame that the CAO, as I just said, or somebody else is not here to speak to you all.

Go ahead, sir.

Could you please state your name for the record, sir?

Zachariah Makcher.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I if I was just saying, I've known Zach Harrier for a long time.

He is one of the younger members of our community that is just literally getting on his feet, hoping his first business.

And I know for a fact that he is gonna struggle to pay the landlord and his rent and his mortgages, and we're probably gonna have to pull together as a community just to keep him afloat.

And we cannot keep doing that for everybody that comes to us.

It's becoming very stressful on us, on the city.

And it's it's even worse when we have hundreds of members saying that they're not gonna business at Richmond anymore.

They want to open in the counties and they don't want to come to the city.

And it's it's not good, you know, now, and it's not good in the long run.

We need to really try to nip this in the bud.

We appreciate you listening to us.

Thank you.

I appreciate you.

Assalamu alayhi fumana is me.

Ahmad.

Shaq Alien Uman is Arif kayfana.

Uh peace be on to you all.

Um, my name is Abduhazam.

I uh Ahmed Naji Ahmed.

I am here to uh protest that closure of my three businesses, and I am at the verge of going out of business.

My family is over 30 people from my kids, my sons, and their grandsons, and all of us are actually devastated because this is the only source of income that we have, and we basically almost out of business, and we didn't have no money to sustain ourselves after closing our three businesses that we've been having for the past 30 years as you know, people living in the city of Richmond.

Dean, where's his businesses?

Where are they?

Um Broadrock, the second one is in Fourth Avenue and area, and um one on Adams Street, and one in Adams Street.

Uh May I say this is the problem that we are facing right now.

As we sit over here, and uh one of our members just came here to protest to voice his opinion, and as he's sitting over there, he got a call that the enforcement agencies are in his store closing his business as he comes over here.

I'd like all of you, please to find it in your heart to stay together and to see our problem.

We don't want you to forget this problem because this is over 60 stores, over 200 families, devastated.

This man right here, he is over 65 years old.

He does not have anything to go for anymore.

Three businesses, not one, not two, not three.

We call this systematic.

We call this systematic as it is.

Why this person would be shut down in three businesses while he's been in the city doing business for 30 years, 30 years, and all of a sudden in one day the city wake up and closed all his businesses, put him out of business.

What are you supposed to do?

What are you guys supposed to do for him?

What the city is supposed to do for him.

And Dean, there's one thing that you left out that's very, very important.

The customers that come into your convenience stores because in my district, where's where's the where's the Walmart?

Where is the super grocery store for us?

We have my people depend on those convenience stores and the little corner markets to go to so they can have food for their families.

I've we have over 3,000 signatures from all our clients and all our customers.

And we gave it to them.

We gave it actually to the to the city members that we met the last time.

We told them here, this is the people they are requesting for the stores to open because some of them they had to walk.

Some of them are old, they didn't need to walk three, four blocks because the store next to them has closed down.

Some of them they need to be, you know, close to the, you know, the store needs to be close to them so they could get to it.

But all of that is ignored.

We have been trying to get together, you know, together with the mayor since December.

The mayor has been ignoring every single email, every single call that we have been trying.

We voted for the mayor so he could be representing us, but we voted now.

We feel like we voted for a person that who as soon as he gets to the power.

The first person he targeted is us, the minorities, the helpless, the voiceless.

You all are our voice.

You all are responsible for what happened to us.

We need your help.

We didn't need you to forget us.

Please, as soon as we leave this room, as soon as you convene together, look into our problem and address it.

If there's a problem on our side, we will be willing to have you know to work on it.

We are not saying we're not gonna do anything to make sure that we are in compliance, but don't shut us down.

Don't put this business person out of business.

He is literally a homeless if he doesn't pay his you know, his you know, payment.

He had 30 children's and grandchildren's.

What would this person do?

That person right there just made a business not even six months ago, and I know him personally, and I helped him with the credit card machines, and he got shut down today.

That means every dollar and every saving that he had all of it gone to the store that is shut down.

When a business shut down that has perishable, these perishable items, they don't stay for a month, they don't stay for two weeks.

You get your milk, your cheeses, your groceries, your bread, all of that is gone.

All the money that he invested is gonna be gone.

If you guys don't do the right thing and stop this madness and stop this harassment to our community.

Now I say it with all strength.

We are being targeted.

I am being targeted with my community.

I can say it with a loud voice.

Please stop this systematically targeting to our community.

I promise you, Dean.

Us please help us today.

I promise you.

I promise you.

I've taken your calls every time you've called me, anytime any of you have called me, I've taken your calls no matter what time of day or night it is.

We hear you, and we're not gonna let you down.

Thank you so much.

I promise you.

Thanks.

Good afternoon.

My name is Bender Al Jadi.

I'm an owner of Rims Market.

I have this business since 2019, and uh until last month, and they came from the city of Richmond, they shut me down for no reason.

I have any no issues at all, and I paid my taxes.

I have 14 people in my house between the children and adults, and this is the only income I have, and they can't shut me down for no reason.

I don't know what's what I have to do right now.

I'm behind everything.

And thank you so much.

The public comment period is now closed.

We will now move on to the board vacancy packet.

Um gentlemen, before you leave, you may want to um sorry uh DCAO Wiggins and um director vonk from planning are right there in the corner, and I know that uh they are more than happy to talk to you, so they might take you um into the lobby to have a discussion uh good afternoon, Chairwoman Trammell, Vice Chair Lynch, Ms.

Abby Walker, Council President New Bill, Pamela Nichols, Council Management Analysts.

Um the vacancy report before you this afternoon consists of current and projected vacancies through May of this year, and we're gonna move through this swiftly, starting with the community criminal justice board for an attorney for the commonwealth design.

We have a reappointment application from Crystal Fitzgerald, and then moving down to the Richmond MLNS Authority.

There is one vacancy for an applicant who either either reside or have a principal place of employment in the city, and we received two applications, one from Nicholas Peck and Nicole Raleigh.

We did receive support for Ms.

Raleigh's application from the Richmond MLS Authority, and those are the those are the applications for consideration.

Um I'd like to recommend Nicole Raleigh for the Richmond MLMs authority.

Thank you.

And Christa Fitzcher reappointment to community criminal justice.

Thank you.

Do we have a motion and a second?

So moved.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Second.

The committee is voting on the motion to for the board and board recommendations of the community criminal justice board, enrichment ambulance authority, as stated to counsel.

Ms.

Abu Bakr, aye.

Vice Chair Lynch.

Aye.

Chair Tram.

Aye.

That motion has been approved.

Thank you.

We will now move on to the papers for consideration.

We only have one item, one paper for consideration this afternoon.

Item one, ordinance 2025-287 to amend city code concerning the traffic signal enforcement program for the purpose of establishing the manner in which civil penalties are allocated.

That papers before the committee.

It is the hope that we will be able to use funding for Vision Zero to facilitate vision zero.

Um, where does it move the money?

Where was the money prior to if it's going to vision zero in this ordinance?

Where was it before?

This is the new uh red light camera footage.

Okay.

So we have not started collecting any funding yet.

Okay.

Thank you.

We will now hold a public hearing.

Is there anyone here that would like to speak in opposition to item one, chief?

Do you anyone that would like to speak in support of item one?

Madam Clerk, I think um Stephanie had a question for the chief.

Can I do you want me to close the public hearing?

We can thank you.

Okay, the public hearing is now closed.

Bring it back to the committee.

Um just a quick quick question.

Um, because I know we had um some limit, well, more specific more specifics around um the photo speed ticketing.

Is this if you start the special fund, can it can it help fund your staff and personnel, or is it for vision zero, like what's line itemed out in vision zero for like CIP and traffic safety and infrastructure?

Both is my understanding.

So that I have to allocate staffing to review each uh camera footage.

Uh that is incredibly expensive, and we will have to add two police officers managing that program as well, or retired law enforcement.

So it leaves you enough flexibility to do that.

Okay.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

How would y'all like to proceed um with this item?

Yes.

Do we have what is the what would y'all like to do with this paper?

Uh motion to report to full committee or recommendation to approve and support to the full committee.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Thank you.

The committee is voting on the motion to forward item one ordinance 2025 287 to council with the recommendation to approve.

Ms.

Abu Baum?

Aye.

Vice Chair Lynch.

Aye.

Chair Tram.

Aye.

That motion has that um that motion has been approved.

Um, we do have a um two presentations today, one from for the Richmond Police Department 2026 crime statistics review from Chief of Police Rick Edwards.

Thank you.

Uh, again, I'm Rick Edwards Chief of Police.

We'll be showing a presentation.

I will be very brief about the crime report.

I've spoken about that uh frequently in various venues, but if you go to the next slide, or I guess I can control it, let's see.

There we go.

So overall major crimes uh review was 12% reduction that includes major crimes such as murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, parson, burglary, larcen, arsenic, and all auto thefts.

So significant reductions in overall crime last year.

Here's our violent crime.

Uh flat on murders, significant reduction in non-federal shootings of 15%, and a lot of reductions in various robberies.

Where we saw increase, and certainly rapes.

Where we saw increase were robbery commercials and aggravated assault domestics.

The aggravated assault domestic is a is a reporting issue where we we are claiming uh felony aggravated assaults whenever a perpetrator grabs the throat of their domestic partner.

That is a reporting change before we required someone to lose consciousness.

The robbery commercials, there are two things driving those.

Last year we saw a significant increase in shoplifting gone bad, meaning shoplifters would take a hot dog, walk out of a store.

Is that better?

Okay, so uh a shoplifter would steal a hot dog, walk out of a store, would be intervened by either a clerk or um another patron and use force or the threat of force, and immediately that turns into a robbery commercial.

A third of those were that.

The other third or were a topic that was being discussed earlier, uh, which is vape shops being targeted by robbers.

So that is a significant increase in that.

All good news with the exception of shoplifting when it comes to property crime.

So property crime saw a 2% increase, everything else, significant reductions, and that was our focus last year to try to reduce some of the property crimes, including motor vehicle theft, which which, as you know, has been a challenge for the last three years with a KEA and Hyundai's.

We're fixing that problem.

So now I want to talk about uh some of our technology.

This was a topic last night at City Council.

Um, and I and I want to start by saying the Richmond Police Department is not beholden to any company.

Uh we have contracts with certain companies to include Flock, but we don't, I'm not beholden to them.

If they don't meet our needs, we have a yearly contract, we will go to another vendor.

I am convinced that the technology is helpful.

But I do want to uh talk about something that is often conflated.

So these two technologies the school speed zone cameras and the red light cameras that are just coming online.

By code, these cannot be used for any other investigations.

So these are what I would term a black box.

They go nowhere.

We only learn about, we can only investigate the specific crime.

So theoretically, a murder could take place in front of one of these cameras, and we are not allowed to access them.

That's that's how the the case uh the code was designed.

So now talk about our current camera technologies uh with the vendor flock.

So there's two different kinds flock falcon and flock raven.

So flock falcon is what most people think of when they think of flock, that's an automated license plate readers.

Flock Raven is gunshot detection and other uh crash detection.

This is what what an operator sees when, and this was discussed last night as well.

What flock does is identify a license plate, location, date time, make body color, unique identifiers such as stickers, toolboxes, types of tags.

It doesn't have any personal information.

DMV is not connected to this system, and it does not show images of drivers.

So this is what we get.

And this is a specific uh case that I had from 2000 from 2022.

So this is uh involving the murder of Tanasia Humphreys, age 15 in Gilpin Court.

Tanasia was an innocent victim walking through the streets when two vehicles drove through Gilman Court, shot an individual, they shot back, and she was caught in the crossfire and killed.

That case would not have been solved but for this technology.

We had camera footage out there, it was not high resolution.

Detectives were able in 2022 to use these limited uh use this uh technology to help identify the cars and the the operators of the said cars and make arrests.

Two individuals were arrested who got life in prison, three others were arrested and got significant prison terms, in part because of this technology.

This is what an operator sees.

So you have to put in um you have to put in uh different types of in the field, like endangered person, human trafficking, wanted person, stolen vehicle, stolen license plate, or other criminal investigation.

Those are the only reasons you can you can query flock.

Now, some of these um there it also enables you to do with what the the vehicle fingerprint, uh what I was talking about, some of the unique identifiers that don't meet that.

You can add that to try to search for it, like color or bumper stickers in certain locations.

So a lot of the concerns that members of the community mentioned, and I want to I want to take a minute and talk about last night.

Um I have spoken about this technology publicly.

I've met with anyone who wants to meet with me on this topic.

Um, we have nothing to hide.

Uh, and I want to say that the activists who spoke today and last night have a point.

They have a point.

This is very powerful technology.

That's why myself and other chiefs of police around the commonwealth went to the General Assembly.

We talked about ways to put rules in place so that this technology can be used in a fair way.

And House Bill 2724 that was effective July 1st of 2025, fixed many of the concerns that have been addressed.

So, first, it delineated what it can be used for, which is a defined law enforcement purpose.

Criminal investigations, one of parties or missing persons.

The second, it made it for the first time a violation of law for it to be misused, including class one misdemeanor.

Previously, uh it would be a policy violation to do it, now it's against the law.

And if we learn of one of our operators using it, we will enforce the law, not only the criminal law against that member, but also uh the internal policy violations.

The other thing that changed that we had to give a bit was previously it was 30-day retention period that was lowered in consultation with uh elected officials to 21 days.

Then it is completely purged.

On the 22nd day, we cannot go back and flock cannot go back and retain that data.

The other thing, and Virginia and California are the only two states that do this.

Was we limit access to our cameras to only uh since this date, only to um cameras and LPR cameras within the Commonwealth of Virginia.

We cannot share it with uh federal authorities any longer.

Local law enforcement can only uh share that with people you choose to share it with inside the commonwealth.

We cannot send it to other police departments in other states as as was the previous uh mandate.

Now uh and then there's also monthly mandatory audits uh that we do internally.

We've also required data collection and submission to the Virginia State Police, and Virginia State Police created a model policy that has been adopted by RPD.

There are two cases that I think when we hear about some of the concerns about privacy that have been adjudicated in federal court.

The first one is a Richmond case, U.S.

versus Martin.

In that case, Richmond was investigating a robbery suspect.

We use this technology to catch that person.

Uh they tried to argue in court that it was so widespread that it uh created an invasion of privacy.

The court disagreed.

It says it merely enhances police ability to compile and access information that anyone can see from public roads.

There's another recent case that was cited last night, but not the update to that case.

That is a Norfolk case where Schmidt versus City of Norfolk.

They found that the use of ALPR did not constitute an unconstitutional search, does not violate reasonable expectations of privacy, and a few hits per day did not reach the level of comprehensive tracking.

That was January 27th, so very recent.

This is the agreement that every flock operator must sign.

And the reason we've done this is so that if there is a violation of our policy, we will use this as exhibit A internally and with uh and any potential crimes, where they are saying they will not query access the system for any unauthorized use by law.

They acknowledge they're not to share it with any federal authorities, they've uh they're not to download it for unauthorized purposes.

This is a check on the system that if we do find a violation, we'll be key in showing that the person knew knowingly violated the policy.

So here's some FAQs that were discussed, um, and I can add to them because this was created before last night.

But um first, uh, will it be used for unauthorized immigration enforcement?

So there is no backdoor access to Flock.

Flock does not contract with ICE or DHS or federal agencies and federal agencies are excluded from national or statewide network search capabilities.

RPD owns the data and it controls who has access.

Now I'd like to take a minute to talk about something that I brought to the community's attention last year, which was we had a supervisor in our real-time crime center had given access to an ATF analyst in February.

Unbeknownst to me, it was not escalated to supervisors.

And at the time, ATF, it never would have occurred to us that they would be deputized in the immigration enforcement, but unfortunately they were.

And they did use that that technology as part of informational packets for searching for people related to ICE.

So once I learned about it, it was immediately shut down.

We do not have access, and now it is illegal as of July 1, illegal for us to share that with any other federal agency.

So we have solved that specific problem.

So does it uh ALPR data capture personal information?

The answer is no.

Some systems link to DMV, they link to other databases.

Ours does not.

So we don't all it simply does is create that queryable um picture that you saw, and then after 21 days, it's completely deleted.

How many does RPA RPD currently have?

We have 99 fixed ALPRs and two mobile APR ALPR devices.

So 99 fixed that, and we get questions about that.

Um there are gunshot detection throughout the East End that look similar to ALPR, but they're not.

There are gunshot detection throughout the East End that look similar to ALPR, but they're not.

They're they're black in color, they have the solar solar panel, but they are not capturing that data.

So is it used to surveil uh protest activity?

The answer is no, not for First Amendment protective activity.

There was an incident where RPD did use that as a query, but it was related to crimes that occurred during a protest of graffiti.

So someone in a black truck used graffiti and uh and an analyst queried it for that purpose.

No arrest was ever made in that, but it was mentioned in an article.

Has Flock data been breached?

Flock has no known cloud data breaches and has never been compromised.

Flock uses CG CGIS aligned controls, including encryption.

What about uh the Condor camera?

So there is videos online of cameras uh being viewed live, 60 of those cameras.

Uh they were not LPR devices, but Flock immediately looked into this and took those cameras offline to correct what they termed as a configuration issue.

No recorded video or databases were accessed during that breach.

Can it be used uh to track people to track a citizen not involved in criminal information or uh activity, rather?

ALPR can by law cannot be used for criminal investigation for anything other than criminal investigations.

Further, the scope of RPD uh use of ALPR is limited to 99 fixed, which are clustered in certain areas of the city.

There's over 1500 streets and thousands of intersections.

The federal courts have ruled that our the scale of ours does not pose privacy or fourth amendment uh violations.

Finally, or I'm sorry, how does our Richmond compare with uh other jurisdictions by in terms of numbers or densities of LPR?

Now, based upon uh publicly available disclosures by other localities, we're in the middle to lower end.

So Richmond has 99 fixed LPR devices, that is 4.2 per 10,000 residents for a total population of 20 uh 235,000 residents.

So, based upon that, and then and I'll I'll speak about that directly.

The police officer and me would love to have more of those because we would be more effective and efficient.

But the case we had with Judge Payne in federal court, he remarked that the reason we it was ruled in our favor, we do not have them everywhere.

It doesn't track people throughout their day completely.

So, and then if a citizen complains of misuse, can RPD audit uh access?

And absolutely, that's why I mentioned the form.

If we were to get a complaint from a citizen, say from what has been referenced before, an ex-wife, ex-girlfriend saying, I think my police officer or uh the some analyst boyfriend is tracking me, we can audit that very easily.

And if we find it wrong, I will make the public aware of it.

We will make a referral to the Richmond Commonwealth Attorney for a class one misdemeanor charge, and I will certainly take internal steps to take access from that individual and move forward with uh discipline.

So, first um, I'd like the family of Ramon of uh Marvin Ramos Hernandez to please stand up.

They've joined us today.

So I'd like to thank them for coming.

I'd like to some of the things that have happened uh yesterday.

It was odd for me to listen because some individuals uh talked about the fact that this is an omnipresent technology that's tracking everyone, and some people said it doesn't work.

Well, it's got to be one or the other.

And I can tell you as the police chief of this city that it works.

So Marvin was a 39-year-old innocent person at the Lindo Market on February 7th, 2024 in your district.

Uh he was just working and he was gunned down in it in his restaurant.

This is what our officers started with.

So I was at headquarters when I heard this terrible thing happen.

I start responding from 200 West Grade Street to Broadrock Boulevard.

That's when our detectives quickly learn this is the image of the two persons.

Now you can see it's a blurry image.

There is a picture of a car there.

We can't make out the tag, but we can do we can do a search based upon the make and model and some of the unique identifiers in that car.

And I did not choose to show video of this incident because it is traumatic.

But you can see the robber chasing the victim in this case throughout this restaurant, which was had a lot of people in it, innocent people.

He shoots him and then walks back calmly.

You can see the the clothing he's wearing, the gun still in his hand as he leaves.

33 minutes after Marvin was pronounced dead.

This is what happens.

This vehicle was searched by officers, and the two suspects were apprehended in Southwood apartments after a flock ALPR alert.

33 minutes.

Not only are they safer, our community is safer, because they robbed two other stores during this time as well.

And thankfully didn't kill them.

Not only did we collect that, but we we found the murder weapon still on his hip.

And I can tell you that this result, we may have solved this case, but I guarantee it wasn't in 33 minutes, and it may not have been without other victims.

Now I will talk about the murder of Darnell Christian, 63 years old, killed in the 1500 block of Coulter Street on March 28th last year.

Well, first let me go back to this.

One of the things that's so important about this is this vehicle is a pretty generic looking vehicle.

And our officers have the authority, if this descriptions come out to stop any dark colored SUV fleeing the scene.

We can stop those cars at gunpoint.

We can do felony stops where we're ordering people out like these gentlemen are ordered out.

Except if it's the wrong car, we're alienating our members of our community.

We're stopping people that had nothing to do with it, but just happen to meet the match the description.

As a chief of police, I hear that often from our community.

They don't want to be targeted for matching the description.

Just because the vehicle looked like this common vehicle, we could have stopped those cars and lost trust with members of our community.

Not only is it safer for the community, but we can be very strategic in who we interact with in this kind of where we're pointing guns at people.

That could have been a car that could have been driven by a soccer mom or city council member or or a police chief and stopped like that.

Instead, it was stopped 33 minutes after the occasion, after the death of this victim, and done so in a way that was professional and safe for our officers and kept our community safe.

That's one benefit of this that never gets discussed.

Now I'll talk about Darnell Christian.

So Darnell Christian was in the 1500 block of Coulter Street.

And again, I'm not going to play this video.

It is disturbing, but it is important to see.

If you look at the right picture, that is the suspect in this case shooting Mr.

Christian in front of every one of those blocks on the left side represents one or two or three people that witnessed this.

And I and I'm going to talk about why that's important.

So I blocked that out.

You can see at 6 09 p.m., this is when this occurred, 1809 in military time.

This is what the flock hit showed of that car.

The left side is the car leaving the scene.

The block there is our victim laying in the ground.

And within at 611 p.m., it is hitting a flock in a nearby neighborhood.

We're able to rely relay that information to another agency, put it out over the air, and within one hour, the suspect is stopped on 64 after a short chase.

He is taken into custody safely.

Now I'm going to go back to this picture.

I'm a former homicide detective.

I wish I had this technology when I was working murder cases.

Because what I would have had to do is find each one of those people that was standing out there when this terrible thing happened and drop a subpoena on them.

Compel them to come in John Marshall's court building and testify against the killer.

Instead, we didn't have to subpoena any of them.

We're able to use the technology, show the camera footage, show the ALPR hit, and the case speaks for itself.

In both of those cases, uh this case, the suspect uh was found guilty by a jury.

In the other case, both individuals pled guilty because of the strength of the evidence against them.

And again, LP ALPR in the news.

So I don't normally like talking about this technology.

I thought it was understood by our community that this is powerful, that it works, but it seems like I have to talk about it because the argument's being made that it's a waste of money.

But as I mentioned, we have solved the last two fatal hit and run crashes with this technology.

We've also used it to investigate the abduction of a one-year-old where a car was used, where a family called 911 to report their missing elderly parent who has a heart condition, and the car was missing.

Our officers, our technology uh team used ALPR to find that car.

Thankfully, that gentleman was okay.

But we were able to put that family's uh concerns uh at rest.

We solved an arson recently in Hillside Court, in part because of this technology.

Um, so I just think that instead of me explaining it every time and time again, I hope you will understand that this works.

There are privacy concerns that I share, and that's why myself and other chiefs of police advocated for the rules that the General Assembly laid down to us.

And if we don't follow the rules, you can hold us accountable.

Thank you.

Thanks, Chief.

This being my second time hearing that presentation, it's still incredibly impactful.

And I agree that, you know, obviously there are always going to be privacy concerns, but I think for me, one of the more convincing things is especially knowing in his the history of Richmond and knowing that there is a lot of retaliatory violence when some person goes and testifies or speaks against another person, knowing that these cameras can be used so that we are not pulling in witnesses that may put themselves or their families at risk.

Just a few questions.

And I I love that you were at the forefront of that.

In terms of, you know, there were a lot of people.

I got that um that uh petition yesterday, and there are about a thousand names on that petition, but there were a lot of them were actually from Henrico or Chesterfield or surrounding counties.

Can you tell me to the best of your knowledge?

Do Henraco and Chesterfield use this technology as well.

I'll also my friends here from Enrico, uh Chief English, but I can tell you that it's publicly known that that they do have ALPR.

Uh I'm hesitant to speak about other agencies.

It's not publicly available.

Sure.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't want you to do that.

I just I think it's important to note that this is not a uniquely Richmond experience.

There's dozens of municipalities throughout the state of Virginia that are using this technology as well.

Yes.

Um then uh in terms of I know one of the questions we talked about this a little bit, the um that came up yesterday was about the changing of terms of use for the the flock contract.

And I know that I was very interested in what the terms of use for the city of Richmond and our flock contract is.

Can you can you explain a little bit more about that?

And um if those should be concerning to people.

Well, that's a question that we heard for the first time last night.

We confirmed that with uh our uh liaison with flock.

Uh it nothing has changed substantively.

So I'm nothing, nothing has changed.

So it's clarifying more uh that they must follow the rules for other states, is my understanding of it.

That if you're trying to, you know, if you're trying to search from other states, that doesn't apply to us since nobody can search our database outside of the Commonwealth.

So for the record, nobody from an outside from outside of the state of Virginia can access our flock records.

Correct, since July 1, 2025.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

And um, you know, I I I too, like Sarah, I think one of the more, if not the most um important point from not only a public safety perspective, but just from a human perspective, is how impactful the technology has been to protecting those that may have witnessed or been a part of the homicide or the crime, but are terrified.

I mean terrified to come forward, and they don't.

And there's so many um crimes that go unsolved and perpetuate criminal activity and homicides and more killings and more shootings in our communities.

Um, you know, typically, and I'm I'm you know, it I would have maybe in a several years back or many, many years back, said, you know what, this technology really scares me too.

It it does feel like an invasion of of privacy, and what is the cost-benefit analysis?

How much of our how much of that of the uh of our privacy are we willing to give up for the larger greater benefit of public safety?

But having buried not one, not two, not three, but over 20 of my own constituents.

And standing with moms, dads, cousins, uncles, friends that have lost their loved one.

And like Mr.

Willis mentioned, and in that moment, just wanted to find out who did this and have the assurance to go to bed at night that they were safe too, and their community was going to be safe.

We have people crying out for this technology.

And it I've seen it happen in Belt Atlantic.

I've seen it happen mostly in our south side communities where our community members are asking for us to do more.

Well, that's that's a perfect example.

I've never been to a community meeting where there is a neighborhood that is experiencing gun violence where they're not asking for this.

They want to be, they want it to be controlled.

They want um, they don't want to be felt to be uh treated differently, but in neighborhoods that are experiencing gun violence, it's real to them.

There are people that view this um this topic like as tourists in this space.

For the people that live in in high crime communities and for the police officers that are that work in those, it's real to us.

We're the ones that have to see uh dead kids.

We're the ones that have to talk to children about how to be safe.

I told this story the other day, I had totally forgotten about it.

But I was walking in Gilpin court and there was an eight, nine-year-old little boy who came up to me and he said to me, uh, you know, they were shooting last night.

And I asked him, well, what did you do?

And I thought he was gonna say, Oh, I got on the ground or I ran.

He smiled at me and said, I got behind the wheel well because the engine block stops bullets.

Now, when I heard that, he was smiling, he was proud of himself for saying that.

When I heard that, I know what happened.

Some Richmond cop told him that the doors don't stop bullets, that uh you you you want to get behind the engine block because that'll stop bullets.

So some cop in a good way taught that little boy gunfighting tactics that we teach police officers and members of the military.

And it shouldn't have to be that way.

My son never had to learn that.

So when people talk about this technology, particularly folks from outside of these neighborhoods, it's frustrating because they've never smelled the gunpowder that's still in the air.

They've never placed a uh chest seal on someone who's taking their last breath.

It is an academic endeavor.

It's real to us.

Um, and while while you're while you're here, and and and not to not to switch gears, but um I know that um some of your um presentation we wanted to address the horror, horrible incident that happened um in Chaco Bottom.

Um, we've had I think at least five um uh uh presentations slash discussions in this uh while we've had this iteration of this public safety body uh committee body.

Um we've talked about various um solutions and had have asked, I don't know if Mr.

Vonka is still here with us, um, but have asked for um recommendations on you know various levers that we had to push, not with just code enforcement, but you know, potentially, I think we you know really, really were looking to see the um outdoor refreshment area or entertainment district established so that we could have more control over the entry points, the safety, and then of course, banning firearms.

Um hoping to have some discussion on that today.

Um, and and also thank you for the work that you have been doing.

I know our colleague President Um New Bill is with us and and has is just right in the thick of it doing the hard, hard, hard work.

Um, so want to thank her for coming today and um and being willing to share um what what you're going through.

And we we we as a as a body want to say um that we're with you and the community and thank you for the work that you're doing to try and to try and solve this.

So, President Newbound and I met today.

I'm I'm sure she can she can discuss some of the options that we're talking about in the near term, longer term when it comes to gun-free zones at the General Assembly.

Unfortunately, that has been pushed until the possibility uh till next year.

There are some legislation that that I support, particularly uh House Bill 110 and Senate Bill 496, which deal with leaving unattended firearms in cars.

When I talk about Shaco Bottom, it is the number one place for guns to be stolen.

And without going into too much detail about this weekend's tragedy, some of the individuals involved in this incident went back to their cars and got guns.

You cannot walk into a uh restaurant or club in Shaco Bottom with your firearm on.

You will be wanted and checked.

So all the guns are left in the cars.

And but when this fight popped off, members of the public went there.

So I think that could be something that could be beneficial to us to hold people accountable for bringing guns and not attend attending to them.

Dr.

Newbel.

Thank you, Chief.

Uh thank you.

Um Councilwoman Trammell, uh and Rich for your attention to this.

I I want to um first just acknowledge the tragic, senseless, devastating loss of life uh and injury that occurred this past weekend in Shacobata.

I would like to express my sincere condolences to the families of those who lost their loved ones and just well wishes for speedy recovery for those who suffered injury.

I want to thank the chief we have been talking and meeting and actually um have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow at Main Street State and station with um our Shaco Bottom businesses.

I think one is still here as well as an advocate Mr.

Warren Broxie has departed but President O Bill could you please speak more.

I will do better ma'am I'm sorry I'm just having a give me a moment um so we uh we'll have a meeting tomorrow and the purpose is to discuss immediate responses to this instance and what we can do to address violence and and I said uh met with the chief as well as the director of justice services I'm not sure if Mr.

Hopkins is still here but um met with both of them and so short term and the chief has referenced some of this um installation of cameras this weekend additional in the parking lot additional officers uh for example um intermediate um really looking at um possibilities in terms of a substation uh yeah at least exploring it and what that would look like and possibly mean looking at legislation you still can't hear me that's interesting okay okay is that the outside voice when we're at school with our kids I'm sorry it took me a moment on the front end I I apologize but meeting with um um our Shaco businesses our the partners again to talk about immediate responses to improve and to address uh violence and um facilitate safe safety in uh shaco um bottom area um some of which the chief has mentioned in terms of installation of um some additional cameras um um additional officers on duty um more um immediate and some other things we'll discuss tomorrow uh as well as exploring possibilities like can a substation be located there and what would that mean uh and how would that assist and substation not a um police precinct this is a different kind of concept just exploring looking at programs that um have been utilized in other cities um like the ambassador program uh and other items um looking at legislation that would assist with addressing challenges there but the goal is to um share to hear from the community uh and to really map out strategies immediate intermediate and long term sheeva was trying not to get it I mean because it's exploratory and we do want to have those conversations with the community yes thank you uh councilwoman thank you madam president uh just just quick question diving in a little bit to um some of the saw some of the things that we can solve for or that are in our purview um if we do and this is probably more of a a legal question if we establish my understanding is and why we've been kind of fixated on the outdoor entertainment or outdoor refreshment area as a solution is because essentially that's like having an event permit so when you have an event permit you can you have more obviously more purview more control um you know in our public parks for example we're allowed to say you're not allowed to have firearms or a public spaces you're allowed to to say you're not allowed to have um firearms so the event permit it's it's basically the art in the eyes of the law the ORA is an extended event permit like a permanent event permanent so if that permit says if we have that in our authority to say you can't have within these parameters you can't have firearms is that a way for us to have a more controlled not only can you know control over you know open carry of firearms but you also get the control points of access and entry.

So from your perspective, one is that like can you validate that from a legal perspective?

Um, and then two, is I mean, it sounds like a reasonable solution.

What is the administration's position on that?

What's your kind of perspective on that?

So I won't speak for the city attorney's office.

Uh, you know, I I will say that the the advice that our team has given us with that is it's a one-off and it's designed to be a one-off.

If we use it every Friday and Saturday, it no longer is a special use permit, it is just a gun-free zone.

So it leads us back to the legislation that I think has to come from General Assembly.

So if we were to use it for one time, we that makes sense.

That's what it's designed for.

But if we were to use it as a workaround, uh the I don't know what Greg will say, but um that's the advice that we've been given.

It may be considered um invalid.

The way that the code is written currently, it it is it's it does allow for the language in that permit to remain indefinitely.

That's you know, the establishment of an ORA basically says indefinitely until in purpertoony until the until the ORA is not removed.

Um the guidelines are parameters that are set forth.

And there's you know, there's a whole kind of series of requirements in the language um community input, you know, agree, you know, such percentage of the businesses in that um district have to agree, has to be put, you know, all those things.

But if all those conditions are met, I mean, I guess what you're saying is someone could challenge the city and say this is not the way that the law should have been interpreted.

Is it there will certainly be a if we were to charge someone based upon that first, I would have to meet with the Richmond Commonwealth attorney to ensure that her office would proceed on such a charge.

Uh and we would be exposed to civil litigation, obviously.

Second amendment folks would fight us on that.

And I think we need to be on very strong uh legal grounds before taking that step.

I'm not I think it would take a lot to secure that, but uh as council member Newball and I discussed.

While that's not going to solve all of our problems, because this the same problem, this the real problem is really the same thing we're seeing with pop-ups where people pop up and are intoxicated, fights and they're all armed.

But it could solve the problem for this very special neighborhood in our city that you know obviously is historically significant uh with the potential of the the new museum will be a national tourist destination.

Uh and I think it is incumbent upon me as the police chief to ensure that is safe for visitors from around the country.

So I would love as many tools as possible.

Um, but I think we just have to dot our I's and cross our T's with that.

Please speak into the mic.

Other members of the city attorney's office have worked the issue.

From what I've seen, however, it matches what Chief's just told us.

No, and thank you.

I mean that and and that that really helps us.

I mean, if that is not a viable solution because the the law um is not ironclad in that section of code.

And really what it sounds like is we need gun freeze, right?

We need the ability from the the General Assembly has to give us that ability, or else even if we establish an ORA to your point, you know, folks are gonna the defense trial lawyers will have a field day with that.

They'll you know, I mean they'll be hard for us to prosecute those cases.

I hear um so it really doesn't give us it might and it might work for a while, right?

Might give you, but but it really doesn't give us um the it is not the it is not um the silver bullet to this.

Well, I think the it would helpfully it would hopefully solve the problem that we see sometimes with open carry.

I've shown videos in this forum.

I I spoke about it.

People standing around with AR-15s in their hands and they're on a sling, uh, creating all kinds of concern.

Uh, but I I the concealed weapon, we already have that ability to enforce that a concealed weapon charge.

We have extra hoops to jump through in the city of Richmond based upon some of the the requirements, but we're training all of our officers to jump through those hoops.

We made a in 2024, uh we made a hundred and fifteen gun arrests uh in Chaco Bottom and Shockle Slip in 2025, we we made 82 gun arrests in that area.

So those are significant areas where guns are prevalent.

And that doesn't count uh some of the other incidents where people are walking around with guns and we don't have the legal authority to take them from them.

So uh there are many cases that uh we've stopped where what happened Saturday night, and I warned about that in this forum too, that we are going to have a mass shooting.

Um there are many nights where we've gotten there a little quicker with our foggers and we've broken things up, or we've seen someone going to the car.

I showed you a video of the incident I was involved in where a guy got in a fight, ran to his car, got a rifle and came back and we stopped him, but he was convicted of concealed weapon and got suspended time.

So I don't know what the another another person not from our city.

The other issue with this that we discussed is the the communication.

So we're making communications in our um uh with our with our community, but everyone involved in the incident this weekend is not from Richmond.

So other communities are coming into the city and and uh taking we want them to come visit us, but we want them to leave their guns at home.

Right.

And I and I wanted to mention that as well.

There are several um social media influencers.

I'm not gonna call out the specific accounts, but there are several um social media influencers and several several social media accounts, both across Instagram and TikTok and Snapchat that um often often and frequently feature the activity in Shaco Bottom and the reach of those account, those social media accounts is is going to the kids, and I mean kids.

Because I've been down there when I went down there, they're four 13, 14 years old, y'all.

I mean that they were children.

Um those accounts are you know almost promoting.

Like this is a this is an attractive destination if you're 13, 14, 15 years old and you want to go down there and hang out and look cool.

Um, to come to come to Shaco Bottom.

And I'm wondering if you know, we couldn't do some outreach to some of those.

Um, because you know, some of us have relationships with them, or we might be able to, you know, broker a relationship with them and just just talk about you know promoting that type of activity with that, what the impact of that is having.

I mean, clearly this with this weekend.

I think Greg Greg Hopkins is going to be working on that, some messaging uh that expands a little bit.

Um so yes, I think it has to be in all of the above approach.

I don't want to see what happened again in our city.

Chief, I want to thank you for the presentation and for coming to our council meeting.

I mean, our public safety meeting and our council meetings and bringing us information.

Um this might be for the city attorney to answer this.

I know that the mayor is talking about putting um ambassadors down there.

Um I don't know if all of my colleagues have been to an incident where police officers have had to stop um family members from coming into a scene where they're one of their loved ones have been shot or killed, and our officers they have the yellow tape up, and this the family members are screaming at them, hollering at them, spitting at them, um, trying to get into that into that area, or if they have been there where an officer has tried to take control of where there's you know people that are acting just acting up, you know, and and the business owners are calling, hey, I don't want this person in front of my business, and you got to get them away from here.

I have been there, I have seen it, I've seen them started cussing at the cops, and I'll tell you right now, I do not know how those police officers bite their tongue and and are so professional.

I just about saw it Friday night, what was happening?

Those officers were great.

I mean, they just handled it, you know, because the family members came up screaming at the police.

That's and you don't talk about.

And when I called um the major and I called, even a lieutenant answered the phone, he was at a concert and do you know 213?

I think his name is Warren.

He answered, we text me and said he would get back with me.

And I said, That's okay.

The major Keyshaw man and Ronnie's handling it.

Um how are you gonna put those kind of people in harm's way?

And something happens to one of them.

Do we do you get sued?

Do we get sued?

Mayor gets sued.

How did because they can't look how long are police officers go just training to be an officer?

And every day they're still in training because every day, every time they go on a call, it's a different situation that they have to handle and be very professional and and make sure because those body cameras don't lie.

Are they gonna be right?

Are they gonna be having body cameras on them to tell the whole story or just some of the story?

Because I'll tell you right now, you have sit in here, you have stood right there and said over and over, alcohol and and guns do not mix, and something major is going to happen in Shack Obama.

And here it has happened.

Yes.

So I've I've gotten that question a lot.

The mayor and I have discussed this uh program uh and what I envision is a a series of training, but talking to people when things are calm.

I don't anticipate these ambassadors intervening in anything significant.

The officers will still, it's not gonna replace police officers.

What I think the goal is is to have a visible presence and to have conversations with people, but they will be supported by my officers.

I I take your concern.

It is dangerous down there.

I wouldn't want them uh forcing someone to do something or or telling them to move along.

I think it it can be a conversation in a nice way, and then if that doesn't work, then police will step in.

Chief, you know, you know, just as well as I do, it only takes a second for something to turn the other way around.

That you can have those people out there and they can be just as 245 in the morning.

You know, they've been drinking, they've been partying, and you know, maybe I don't know what happened because we haven't really been briefed exactly what happened, but I know that you've got a lot of the information because I know I've sent you videos that people have sent to me, you know, and I appreciate the citizens that trust me to send them to me so I can send them to you.

But how do you I just don't think that's gonna work?

And I'll tell you right now, people have been texting me since I've been sitting here telling me having these meetings, they are sick and tired of meetings and meetings and meetings, and and what is the solution?

What's going to get done?

And what's next?

If they move from there, where do they go?

Where did where do they go towards um tobacco company?

Where are they gonna go?

And that's why he was here today.

Yes.

Because everybody is concerned.

You can't you can't just keep having a meeting and a meeting and a meeting.

They want to see something in place.

And if you just said that, I guess when the officer went to court and the judge suspended the the sentence or whatever the person, I mean, how could a judge do that?

Has he been down there?

Has he seen what we have seen?

Well, I can tell you, regardless of what happens in court, these misdemeanor gun arrests are important because it solves the problem for that night.

I like to say that every gun has a story, and the story ends when when our officer sees it.

And I I think people should be held accountable.

I think it should be, you know, if you're carrying a concealed weapon in a place like Shaco Bottom, I think that should be looked at differently than trespassing or reckless driving or some other classical misdemeanor.

I think it should be taken very seriously.

You should spend some time in the city jail.

Um, but that's not up to me.

What I'm committed to doing is making sure that the Richmond Police Department does its part.

And part of our job is ensuring that that we're gonna enforce the law there.

And I think, you know, I'm not gonna speak for the mayor, but but we've had conversations and it's an all of the above approach.

I I don't think he thinks that that ambassadors are gonna solve the problem in Shaco Bottom.

I think he views it as a piece of an overall strategy that we're gonna we're gonna employ to try to keep people safe.

But that's the it ha what has to happen is people need to stop bringing guns to places where they're drunk because the people that are involved in these things, they're not hardened criminals by and large, they're not often even convicted felons.

These are people that are carrying guns that they bought themselves legally and are showing up into the city thinking they're protected, they think that that gun is a shield to them.

Walking around with a gun in your hand when a fight's going on is a magnet for bullets.

Chief, it started out as a fist fight and ended up with the guns coming out.

That's what happened.

That's exactly right.

And and by the grace of God, at least the officer wasn't hit because what was it like 50 50 bullet casings that you've got to do?

There were over 50 cartridge casings, and six cars were shot up, nine people were shot.

Yes.

So I'm gonna ask the city attorney if we were to put not we, not us, the mayor was to do that, and if one of them got hurt or killed, or several of them, what would happen?

Would we be reliable?

I guess it would have to come for us for us to pass it or whatever.

Ask a lawyer, you're going to get a lawyer answer, being in this case, that would be heavily fact-dependent.

Now the Richmond police department has a very good reputation for training.

That would be the most important issue that would come up.

You mean if they had all the training that they would be?

I I don't buy that, because I've seen officers get shot.

I saw uh two officers got shot doing with the riots in 2020.

And the training were trained very well.

The training that came to these ambassadors and all the specifics.

The training that the ambassadors received and all of the specifics of the individual incident.

We'll have another discussion on that because I know if that was to happen, I guess would have to come to this committee for us to pass that.

And how many would it, you know?

For them to go to Shaco Bottom or wherever they're gonna go.

Um, and just for point of clarification, I'm sorry, I'm behind on this.

Can you explain what the ambassadors are and what?

So it's my understanding there was grant funding allocated to hire intervention specialists.

And uh, I don't know if Mr.

Hopkins is still here, don't see him here, but um, he would run that operation uh where they would train individuals to be almost like liaisons to talk to people, remind them the bars are closing, to give directions, to be a friendly face, where when something were to happen, if something had to happen, police would obviously be involved.

It's not a replacement for the police department, it's more eyes uh in the street, and it's more and other cities have apparently done this to some success.

So we that's what I was getting here, because we do have the mayor's um ambassador team, which they've bounced around between several departments.

They are not currently trained at all in public safety or fire.

I mean, not at all, right?

So you're see what we've really different folks, and then when you go through a training program, this is not going to be a uh okay.

So then we're using the named ambassadors, but these are actually completely different FTEs.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you for that clarification.

All right.

Um, Chief, I want to get back to the cameras.

Because we this has been a long discussion on everything.

This right here, this is when Captain Harvey Powers was our captain.

This is Milton.

I've carried this in my pocketbook since 2012.

He was murdered.

That's his wife.

That she came to one of our meetings at the satellite begging us, begging someone to please come forward with information on her husband being murdered at the family dollar store on July the 24th in 2012.

And she had said to me, if there would have been working cameras, better cameras, maybe her husband, maybe there would have been an arrest.

This has been what 14 years, 16 years later since 2012, no arrests.

Um another person, this is in my district, not even three blocks from my house.

It was at the family dollar store in Richmond Highway.

Jimmy Bishop, he was killed riding his lawnmower.

No cameras, not even three blocks from my house.

When is lawn more shot dead?

I remember that.

They said if they would have had cameras somewhere or working cameras, this could have been solved.

And everybody is still asking me, what's going on?

Where's the case?

I don't know.

Young Hispanic male killed not three blocks from my house on Castlewood Road.

We've seen his father on television begging, crying for someone to please come forward and tell why they killed his son, his innocent son that lived in a mobile park dead.

Um that's why I've always said that we're for the cameras.

I know people in my district, you hear them all the time.

Yes.

Every time you come to the meeting, we want more cameras.

We want a camera up over here, want a camera by the satellite.

We want it on Tyrone Street, Castlewood.

When these murders happened that that far away, and they're saying we still don't.

I mean, they've asked you, can you please give us some cameras over here?

Or just you know, for a while, let us have because we have so much things going on at the at some of the motels on Richmond Highway.

Yes.

And they're begging.

I mean, I've had a couple people call me up or get to the meeting and say, Reeves, you're not gonna believe what I just saw when I come around the corner and they went to you and told you what they saw, the criminal activity having sex right out there in broad daylight.

It's the best evidence we can provide to the Commonwealth Attorney.

It doesn't can't be intimidated, it doesn't forget, it doesn't lie.

And and in a weird way, it's better for the defendant.

They can be judged upon what they actually did.

Big part of issues where there's been false uh uh false imprisonments are when independent witnesses misidentify a suspect in a human way, not in a way because they're malicious, they just say that's the person who did it.

And with this technology, it can be interrogated by the defense as much as it is for the prosecution once it's once it's a person's been charged.

So I think it's fairer evidence as well for the defendants.

We can get to the truth of the matter.

And you want to know something, Chief?

I can remember back in the day when we had 160 some homicides.

The people would tell me, I saw it, I know who did, but I'm not going to court because they'll kill me.

Why can't y'all come up with some kind of technology so you don't have to subpoena me to court?

And if you say I said it, I'm going to deny it and say I didn't say it because I'm scared for my family, my life.

You know, I'm not, I'm not going to get involved.

Now with this right here, all this technology that we have, this is something we need more of to keep the innocent people from coming to court and them being, I guess, intimidated, or even sh I know one person dead and Blackwell had given up some information and he was shot through the window and they killed him in my district.

I I think there's no it's difficult to determine causal relationships, but in 2021, before we had Flock LPR, we had 90 murders.

Uh last year we had 54.

So we saw a 40% reduction in murders, a 30% reduction in non-fatal shooting since we've been employing this technology, and it's only getting better.

We're getting better at utilizing it.

We have a real-time crime center that is supporting the men and women of the Richmond Police Department every day in their efforts to solve all kind of crimes.

And that's on top of being a police department that is over 20% short in staffing.

I can't hire police officers because of all the challenges that come with doing this work.

But when I have an application open for a real-time crime center analyst, we have 200 applications for one for one analyst.

They want to do this work, they just don't want to be a police officer.

And while I desperately hope to get back to 755 officers one day, I don't know if I ever will.

So in the meantime, to keep our community safe, we rely upon this technology.

And also, Chief, thank you for bringing the family because I was there when their loved one was shot.

And yes, you were.

It's horrible.

Horrible.

And you, I mean, I don't want to even go there because it's been so many.

When you see 12-year-olds shot dead right there in your district, right, not even three blocks from your streets, Summer Hill, Columbia, all of that.

Young children shot dead.

And all of them said, if only we would have had a camera up there.

Now I can remember when Captain Steve Drew was trying when he was our captain ASA police chief and what Newport News.

Yes, ma'am.

And he would say, We need cameras.

If we had these cameras, we could have solved this because nobody's coming forward when there's gangs all over here.

So I just want to say thank you.

Thank you, officers, thank your command staff, your everybody for all that they do because I do not think they get thanked enough.

And if we didn't have them, where in the hell would we be?

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

I will uh try to try to be brief.

Uh I understand the meeting's running a little long.

Stephen Willoughby, I'm director of emergency communications preparedness and response, and thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on the implementation of the recommendations from the incident response assessment that Haggerty Consultant Consulting conducted following the weather and water incidents of January of 2025.

Uh, just as a reminder, the incident response assessment uh addresses the city's response to the loss of water.

Uh, there was a separate report conducted by HTB that uh that addresses the failures and the actions taken at the plant itself.

Uh so the purpose of the today's is is really uh bring you an update on the incident response assessment.

We did an independent uh review that was important.

This was a very unique incident uh and impacted every resident in the city uh as well as our neighboring jurisdictions as well.

It was based upon observation surveys, interviews, and workshops conducted over several months with a large group of stakeholders, and the result was 74 recommendations and timelines associated with the implementing those recommendations.

Uh so at a glance, what we what we have done over the last year is is more formalized our emergency operations procedures, um the improvements to our emergency operations coordination as well as communications uh with an emphasis on constant process of improvement.

Uh, that even though uh the work that we've done to initiate uh to address these initial gaps, um more work needs to be done, and we recognize that, and there will always be learning and we'll always be enhancing our plans and procedures uh to provide the best service.

Um the recent winter weather revealed um some improvement uh to how we do it, but there are that there were additional lessons learned uh that may or may not have been identified in the Haggerty report.

We're addressing those and constantly improving.

Regards to EOC activation and staffing.

We have formalized our activation process, making sure that we're notifying all likely stakeholders, and we've expanded that stakeholder list to more than just city departments.

We've done clarification of staffing expectations from departments.

We did that through revising our current emergency operations plan.

But also Mirabula signed administrative regulation 1.9.

This is a for the first time outlines city department's responsibilities as it relates to emergency management, codifying uh their role in emergency response.

Another area that's addressed in the Aggrity report is command and control.

As I mentioned, admin reg 1.9 formally establishes department emergency management liaisons that are in the process of being trained to respond in emergency operations in our command and control.

We've strengthened our coordination between the policy group and the EOC.

The example is the recent uh regular briefings in the re in the recent weather event, uh regular situation reports.

Um I think we had 16 situation reports uh over the two events uh over the last month.

Uh resource management, uh doing a better job of tracking resource management and doing that in our in our uh software called Web EOC, making sure that we're training folks in the Web EOC software uh head of this weather event.

We we do regular Web EOC trainings, but we did some just-in-time training uh for those uh individuals that were going to be working associated with the emergency operations center.

Uh also creating a permanent space in what we call the emergency the multi-agency coordination center uh has significantly helped in our command and control.

It provides us a command center where city leaders and key response agencies can coordinate real time and uh versually connect to larger the larger stakeholder group.

As you recall, uh previously our EOC was located in the basement of the library and was sat in a sat in a closet, and when EOC was activated, took time to pull that it pull that equipment out of the closet and set up the emergency operations center.

Information management and documentation.

I've talked a little bit about Web EOC, but uh we use that throughout the incident, uh tracking uh situation awareness reports, resource tracking, uh, activity logs.

It is our system record capturing situation reports.

Uh, it also provides city leaders and those assigned to the EOC a common operating picture across the entire incident.

Uh continuous improvement note associated with our uh Web EOC is now that we're we are uh uh using that more robustly, we're also identifying some gaps that we have with Web EOC, and the team is looking into that and addressing how in the future uh we can uh use that software, use different software uh to address uh our communications flow virtually uh as well as our documentation.

Communications of public information that is always uh to a degree a moving target.

Uh as you recall, uh our previous mass communication system uh failed us.

It failed us in January of 2025.

Uh, we were already in the process of of uh going to implement a new new software because uh we saw some of those challenges, uh, but we fast track that after the January incident.

That system is called Everbridge.

Uh Everbridge is what we use to um access uh the wireless emergency uh announcements or WIA.

Um Everbridge has a much easier workflow uh to to be able to send out those alerts.

Everbridge is also the platform that we use for Richmond Ready Alerts.

Uh we now have over 10,000 subscribers to to to Richmond Ready.

Um we've enhanced our policies and procedures uh to strengthen around both Richmond Ready and how how and when we activate WIA.

And we're creating a work group to further expand the usage of Everbridge and how we can better communicate both internally as well as externally.

Um, as agreed upon uh between the mayor's office and and and council leadership, uh the council chief of staff is now part of the EOC team and is designated as the liaison between the EOC and council.

Uh but again, I want to I want to emphasize improvements have been made in communications and public information, but there's always additional areas of improvement.

And we discussed some of those even last night with the CAO.

Planning and preparedness, a huge effort over the last year has been the development of the integrated preparedness plan.

This establishes preparedness priorities for the city, uh training and exercise plan and makes this a more prepared community.

A new emergency management training and exercise manager will be a big part of that.

He started work on Monday, and he will be uh principally responsible for enhancing the training and exercises that our city staff and our partners participate in.

The integrated preparedness plan also creates a structured schedule for developing and updating emergency plans.

It was noted in in the Haggerty report uh some gaps in those plans, and this uh outlines um prioritizes which plans to to implement and uh provides timelines for those.

After every significant event, we have uh conducted after action reviews using FEMA's national continuous improvement guidelines, uh, and those then fall into training uh to training recommendations as well as we track um track those recommendations uh to ensure that we're following through and making sure that we're applying lessons learned.

And uh we've created an emergency cost recovery plan uh as a uh that is now an update to our emergency operations plan and have trained our key finance and administrative personnel on that plan.

So how we're strengthening the city's preparedness framework.

I've talked a lot uh in the last slide about the integrated preparedness plan, which is a big piece of that.

Uh we have uh an external affairs annex that we have just uh completed and that will be incorporated into the emergency operations plan.

Uh we have are in the process of finalizing a crisis communications plan, which is which is among the recommendations in the uh Haggerty report.

Uh we are in the process of finalizing an updated emergency operations plan.

The city is required to update our emergency operations plan uh every four years.

Uh this is this is year four.

Uh what we have done with this update to the emergency operations plan is not only we incorporated the recommendations from from Haggerty, but also some lessons that have been learned over the last four years uh to make that a more more robust document.

We plan to bring that uh to council in June for adoption.

Uh MOU memorandum of understanding and mutual aid agreements.

We've developed a formal policy around that, and now we're creating a repository for with all of those agreements, which will help us uh in uh resource requests as well as for mutual aid.

And uh this year we will be creating a joint preparedness committee, which will include both internal and external stakeholders that will basically serve as an advisory group uh to the Office of Emergency Management.

Uh so some key takeaways is uh we we have implemented some significant operational improvements.

Uh we have uh done some additional enhancements uh through structured planning and policy updates uh and preparedness is now embedded into our policy training and tender change improvement.

However, as I as I mentioned, this is uh ongoing process and uh we learn every day.

With that, uh I tried to abbreviate this.

Uh, happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Director Willoughby.

Um a few questions.

One, um, you mentioned at the beginning of your presentation that there were still some lessons learned around the the most recent winter weather event.

Could you kind of expound on that?

Yeah, we're in the process of doing uh an after-action after action review.

Um, but sort of some of the highlight ones is we've we've we've noticed some some uh challenges with the software that we use uh to to track the incident and in resource requests.

Uh one of the lessons that we learned is for an incident such as this is uh we need to pre-identify uh an example is we need to pre-identify drivers and to have city four-wheel drive vehicles to transport workers that are critical to sheltering operations or emergency operations centers.

Uh we need to do that on the citywide effort.

Uh that was done more individually at the department levels.

We need to bring that up and make that a citywide effort to uh make sure that we can get those critical employees to and from work that have to respond.

Trying to think of we learned along the way of refining our communications around emergency sheltering and warming centers and inclement weather sheltering.

We have lessons learned.

And then is Haggerty, are we is Haggerty still a consultant, like an active consultant with the city at this point?

They are actually uh we we engaged them to do our emergency operations plan update.

We felt that they were the best equipped based on what they have learned uh through the incident response assessment.

They've helped us with that, they are the one that helped us create the cost recovery plan as well as the overall emergency recovery plan.

Uh so we engaged them to assist us with uh updating the emergency operations plan.

And is there anything from their initial um recommendations that they gave us that we have decided we don't need to do?

I can't recall any.

I mean, there there are still some that are still outstanding because they have a few they have a future date uh that we're still trying to wrap our heads around how we will implement that.

Um, but there's there's there's ways.

I mean, uh example that's coming immediately to my mind, something that we need to do, but we need to figure out how we're gonna do this is to do an incident management team uh within the city.

Uh just a structure around that and implement that implement that I'll be interested to hear more about that.

Yes.

Um, and then just uh lastly uh around the Richmond Ready um alerts.

What what other actions is the city taking um to continue to get subscribers?

Because when we talked in July, uh, I think you were at like about 8,000.

And so we're at seven months later, we're at 10,000.

Trending the right way, but you know, I would I would like to see that increase.

What are we doing to to get user adaptability?

So we've engaged in a uh media campaign in which it targets Richmond Richmond Ready, uh, Richmond residents uh or targets Richmond residents uh on on social media.

Uh and then we are currently working on a partnership with one of the local media stations uh to to do some other enhancements in regards to television advertisement as well.

And are we still um I had a few residents from this last incident, and I I wasn't sure what they were referencing, but they said they they're still getting alerts at like 2 a.m.

Yeah, uh that's that's a challenge.

I wish the National Weather Service would not decide that they're going to issue an advisory at 2 a.m.

Uh and that's so that's an automatic trigger.

That's an automatic trigger from the national from the National Weather Service.

We we've shared our concerns with the National Weather Service.

You know, there's there we want to make sure critical alerts get when they are to be sent when they are.

Um, but uh yeah so there's no moderation.

I mean, uh that actually feels like a better choice would be to go to Everbridge as the software provider and see if there's like a well a moderator function you could put in there.

Well, we we we we we can look into that.

It's it's it's it's a national program called IPAUS, and I apologize, I don't remember what IPAUS means, but it it funnels that information through everbridge is our our conduit and which receives that information from the National Weather Service and as well as any other uh uh national alerts that go out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just crouchy people to like.

Something else on yeah, and something else that we've uh we've done, and I can't remember if this was uh been since July, uh, is we now have uh a uh if if individuals want to register for Richmond Ready, uh there's now a a way you can do that in writing, and we will we will manually input those.

And then we've just uh we've we've just tasked an individual with sort of being the Richmond Ready uh help desk that if individuals want to call and register themselves, uh that will be rolling out here pretty soon of of or if they have questions about the Richmond Ready subscription, uh we'll be able to call that number and and be able to uh uh get assistance uh with the Richmond Ready subscription.

Great.

Thank you.

So um how many new people you hire now?

Or how many, how many new people is coming on on board with you?

Uh with the Office of Emergency Management, but we've only gotten one, we got one new position this year.

And that was the uh that was the training and exercise manager position.

So how many people in your department now?

Well, how many people are under you?

Uh there are a hundred about a hundred and thirty employees in the Department of Emergency Communications.

Uh the particular the Haggard the Haggard recommendation, how good recommendation was is to yes, to uh to enhance enhance the staffing.

We've had some other reports that says that that the Office of Emergency Management does need need additional staffing.

Uh where it's a staff of of five individuals right now of uh what they would recommend is seven to ten, uh, based upon uh our population, based on the number of special events we have, based on the word of capital, there was several criteria in which that's the same.

And how much is that costing?

How much is that?

How much is how much is how much are they charging?

Uh that that report was done two or three years ago.

I don't remember what that's that report was done two or three years ago.

I don't remember what that cost was.

And how many other um how many other recommendations have they given, I guess, to your department?

And you said a couple of years?

Yeah, that was that was uh when the transition uh when when uh emergency management moved from the fire department to DEC.