Everyone to the final police policy oversight commission meeting for 1225.

We will get started with a call to order.

Oh, Homer's here.

Okay.

Grab those.

Whoa.

Okay.

Alright, thank you, everyone for making it here.

I'll start by name by name.

Commissioner Friedley.

Here.

Commissioner Kyle Fisher.

Here.

Commissioner Door.

Yeah.

Commissioner Parker.

Here.

Commissioner Snyder.

Here.

Commissioner Wheeler.

Here.

I am here as well, Mr.

Patel.

Alright.

First on the agenda then is approval of the minutes from our September 9th, 2025 meeting.

Move approval.

Second.

Alright, we'll have a motion and a second.

Any discussion?

No seeing none.

All in favor, vote to say aye.

All opposed.

Alright.

Motion carries.

Next item, we need to adopt the agenda for today's meeting.

Move approval.

Second.

Alright, we have a motion and a second.

Any discussion on the agenda?

Alright, all in favor?

All opposed.

Motion carries.

We now have an opportunity for public comment.

15 minutes total.

I do see it, possibly someone from the media, but I assume they're not commenting today.

So barring any other people from the public, we are going to move forward from public comment.

Alright, here.

So unless this commission has any policies that they would like to review ad hoc, we will move forward from agenda item number five.

Oh.

Okay.

Alright, so first big presentation here is agenda item number six, which is a presentation from the Rochester Police Department on the drone as a first responder project.

It's a presentation being held by uh two folks here.

Would you like to introduce yourselves?

And we will turn around so we can see the screen almost the screen.

So we're doing okay.

So all right, everyone flip one eight.

Yep, so my name is Alex Kendrick.

I'm a detective with the Rochester Police Department.

And then uh Jeff, once you uh you know I'm Jeff Savaki of a management analyst with the Rochester Police Department.

So Jeff has been uh uh helping me along making everything look nice and pretty.

Um so we have our our drone is the first responder uh program here for the Rochester Police Department, which is an expansion on our existing program.

Um so our our current our program actually began in 2017 with a couple of different uh models of drones than what we have right now, uh but all with kind of the same goal of providing overwatch or information to officers on scene to make sure that they're safe, the public is safe.

Um, but with this new expansion, it actually makes that not only more effective but a lot uh a lot faster so we can get that information to officers that need to uh respond to any call for service that may come away.

And so we have a little video here uh just to kind of the the vendor that uh we're using the equipment through right now is called SkyTeal.

So this is a video from SkyDio showing their view on uh drone as a first responder um at least nationwide, and then we'll we'll get down to how Rochester is uh using that program.

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So kind of like SkyDo mentioned, so the reason behind the program is still a lot kind of what it says here to allow drones to allow for a faster, smarter response to eligible calls for service.

That rapid initial assessment improves the response accuracy enhancing public and officer safety.

So there's actually been a number of success stories.

I won't get too deep into the details where either myself or one of the other pilots that we've trained up, they've either been able to slow down the response of officers or increase that response based on the call notes.

And that is tailored specifically because of the information that the drones able to get to the officers much faster.

The uh so when it comes to the overall goals for Rochester, these were kind of the primary objectives of this program.

So we obviously we wanted to reduce response times, enhance our situational awareness of where we're responding to, reduce officer anxiety.

This one's important because it's actually also an additional service to the public because not that I think it would ever happen here in Rochester, but the most important thing for a police officer is to have that information because if I myself as an officer and responding emergent to a situation, I'm trying to plan for every possible scenario that I can think of, and I'm occupying a lot of my brain power trying to plan for those situations.

Whereas when I have a drone on scene that says this is what's going on, I have to worry about a lot less so I can focus on what I need to do for the information that I already have.

Um and then the uh a force multiplier, what that is uh meaning is that I myself, as a drone pilot, um, for certain situations like searching an area for a missing person or holding a perimeter if we need to, where normal situations in the past, we would require sometimes in excess of six or seven or more police officers to hold an area.

I can do a lot more with just one officer with the drone.

So I can overwatch the area, I can see if something's moving out in the trees or the corn field for the I once upon a time I found a dementia patient that uh was lost, they couldn't find their way home in the cornfield and it was cold outside.

So instead of getting a line by line, for example, uh grid search going, I sent the drone up and it found the person 10 minutes less than that.

So that force multiplier alleviates staffing needs for the department, lowers costs, and uh increases the response time and the action time for the officers responding to the call.

So what we're doing here, uh we're in we've adopted a crawl walk run uh in implementation for the program here.

So right now, what we're operating with are two of these dock-based drones.

There's one on top of this building here at the police uh uh North Precinct, and then there's one on top of the Art Center downtown.

Um that gives us the most coverage with uh kind of the initial phase of the equipment that we have available to us right now.

So they're they're located in the way that offers us, like I said, the most coverage.

Uh they're actually operated from this building uh in a in a real-time information center or Arctic, I guess is what uh summarize it as.

The uh I have the ability to stream that drone feed to whoever needs to see it, whether it's an incident commander or an officer on scene at uh at a moment's notice.

And um, I don't have to be on scene to fly the drone.

So I could be flying uh uh a mission on the north end of town, and then when I'm done, I can immediately take off from the south side of town if I need to.

So that's really where that force multiplier comes into play where one officer is essentially able to cover the entire city.

Uh so far we've been active since um September, mid September, and uh the eliminates our training flights, so we're only seeing call for service data here, but this shows the activity of the DFR program so far.

So uh as of December 3rd, when we pulled this information, there's been 573 flights.

Uh the average flights per day is a little bit skewed right now because I'm the only full-time uh drone operator right now that's that's working this.

That's part of that crawl phase.

So once we kind of get a better handle on how we're going to staff this and make our approach towards a 24-7 coverage or at least as close as possible, we'll obviously be seeing a lot more.

So there's been times where I was able to take uh the drone when I was working in, I'd flown more than 25 flights in a single day.

So it could be a lot more responding to those calls for service.

But um submission rate, so every time we fly, what that's uh looking at is we as part of a public transparency, we have to document, we'll get to that here in the next couple slides, uh the statutory reason for our flight.

We can't just fly randomly for no reason at all.

There's no general surveillance.

In fact, statute prohibits that.

Uh so that's another thing that kind of helps build trust with the community.

We're not flying the drone just because it's fun.

You know, it's fun.

But we're a lot more interested in serving the community and making sure that we're we're responding to the community's needs, not just playing with a toy.

That's not what this is.

Uh but the uh the really nice uh information here is that on scene, out of these 573 flights that we were able to fly to, we're on scene at about 60% of the time before an officer even shows up.

And that's just because a drone flying point A to point B is the pro flights can get there a lot faster than having to deal with traffic.

Um or uh if it's a lower priority call and the officer has to kind of navigate his way through the city, we can get there on scene, get the information we need, and sometimes even just clear the call without even sending the officer, saving that officer time to be available for the priority calls as well.

Um that statute is actually the one right next to it.

So about 14% of the time uh as it stands, we're able to clear the call just with showing up on the drone drone with the drone getting on scene.

What's that mean exactly?

So an example of that, uh, it's actually in a way also another added service to the community because I don't want to be the bearer of bad news whenever I show up on scene.

When I show up on scene, one of the usual things that people say is like, oh my gosh, the cops are giving somebody's in trouble.

That's not always the case, obviously, because there's emergencies that we respond to as well, just to try to protect people.

But um let's say that someone calls in a call and they say, Hey, I see somebody walking down the street, I don't recognize them, they look kind of shady to me.

Maybe it's just some new guy that moved into the neighborhood and he's walking his dog.

And so I get on scene with the drone, and I can observe for a little bit, and instead of embarrassing that individual that's new to the neighborhood with cops approaching him, I can say, he hasn't look suspicious.

We don't need to respond to this.

This is okay.

He's just walking his dog, he's just walking down the street minding his own business, let it go on his way.

We'll send the drone back home.

He gets to maintain his dignity, the caller gets to uh we get a we get them a call and let them know that everything's fine, and the call's been resolved.

Um the uh there's also situations where it maybe it's a suspicious vehicle, or um the uh uh it might be like a uh uh a missing person complaint.

We actually had one just the other day where I found what found them with the drone, they were coming back on scene before the officer even got there.

So they're going back in.

I called the caller and said, Yep, we're good to go.

He got he came back, and so the officer was able to cancel.

So that it's there are a lot of situations like that where it saves the not only the department time, but it also gives the community an added level of trust.

So any other questions on this slide?

This is probably got the most numerical data.

Not even thing we don't have any intel, but there was a reason to go for none.

Oh, so this is so when it says none, it means that the drone didn't provide information.

Oh, like so, like it got on scene, but it didn't help anything.

So we track that too.

Because if we're flying uselessly, we want to make sure we know why, so we can tailor and train to be more effective with our flights.

Well, three of those drone move.

So check where the vehicle is going.

Yep, because for obvious reasons, so this that's obviously a different policy, but uh vehicle pursuits are obviously an inherently dangerous situation.

So if a drone hovering with no traffic up in the air can just watch and see where the person's going, yeah, okay.

We don't need to chase it.

We'll decide whether or not we need to reapproach based on the some areas of the situation.

So another way that it kind of de-escalates uh police response in the examination.

What are the uh two columns?

Which I will write over here.

No, part of the right on the bottom here.

Nope.

In the chart.

There's two columns, like 488.

No, it's the number of calls or the number of events and the percentage of those over the total.

Then what the two four service has far right.

So the 488 is for dispatch call service.

And event overwatches the 79.

I'm still you're talking about these two different oh, you're talking in the center here.

There's another number that's 488.

I think it's the number of the events and the so this information is the type of information that the drone provided.

And then over here is the type of call that the drone responded to.

Right.

What's the 249?

So that's so 249 times that the drone flew, it was providing overwatch to the officers.

So you know, making sure that because sometimes what happened will happen is one officer will get there, the drone will get there, and then one officer will arrive, and there'll be maybe a delay for the second officer to arrive.

It's kind of a dangerous situation, depending on what's going on for the officer to be alone.

And so we could watch them, because if they get in trouble, the drone can say, hey, this is what's going on to everybody else on scene, so that officer can respond without having to try to multitask, grab the radio and communicate everything.

That's what that overwatch means.

So then just follow up with Lucy's question.

249 times the drone provided overwatch, yeah.

79 times was that it was asked.

Why is the event overwatch on the channel?

So the so the event overwatch means that the drone was launched because the officer was requesting overwatch.

The drone might have responded over in this column, it might have responded for something else initially, and it ended up providing because this could happen on multiple different.

So I I might have provided overwatch and located a person in the second column.

Go ahead.

So it's the operator.

So like I said, every time the drone takes off, it generates a flight report.

Yeah.

Um and that flight report has to be completed by the officer, so they have to detail why they flew the drone, what they where they flew the drone to, and what they did while they were flying the drone.

That's where this information is captured.

So that the other nuts are generated by the user.

Correct.

So like if I flew the drone, let's say let's let's take one of these overwatch you know scenarios where I'm flying the drone, but maybe the wind's against me and it takes me a little bit longer before the second off maybe the second officer gets there before the drone does because they were close.

Well, there's no reason for me to fly anymore, so I'm gonna bring it back.

I provided no information, so it's a nut.

Okay.

So it's it's it's don't gather rather than so.

That's why we don't see another uh incident because you would have watched it for the colour.

Correct.

Yes, yeah, correct.

Like that's that's that's exactly it.

Why the total is it?

Exceed the uh 5732.

Well if you have multiple purposes for the same.

Correct, because they can double up.

Great questions.

I understand earlier is uh you only have one person doing this.

If you have more people with the you'd have more so the other thing is also in the winter time, we have a lot worse weather.

We also have uh slightly uh uh lower call load uh as as an average.

So these taller columns are usually the days that I'm flying, and then the smaller columns are the days where I'm off, but one of our other pilots has been able to dedicate a few hours of their shift to find the drawing.

In the example of searching for somebody lost, or maybe somebody that the officer is pursuing, the video mentioned the thermal option.

Yep.

So if you are searching for somebody and the drone is able to watch for somebody maybe being pursued from, or you're hiding, would there be a category that would show thermal?

So where would that go to that utilization?

So every time, so to make to maintain integrity, the any thermal video that's captured is is uploaded directly to the evidence server, but the drone itself is simultaneously recorded color and thermal at all times.

So every time I take off, it's it's doing both, but I have to toggle between others.

So to decide when thermal was used, it would probably be whatever the officer decides to upload.

If it's a criminal case, upload into the case as evidence.

Um well, we'll actually get to that as well as far as record budget for policy wise, but um, but I guess the short answer to your question is there isn't a specific category for thermal being used because it's always active.

But there could be a point where you're navigating the drone and the officer could be on scene or searching for somebody that you because of nighttime or something going on that you would intentionally use a thermal to help search correctly.

Do you have two of the same drill?

We yep, so we have the those two locations that I showed you, it's the exact same drone.

It's just there's one here and then one on the RX center downtown.

So even if we wanted to, we would want here to fly it as zero.

There might be a day where we could do like a ride-along, I suppose.

Uh but uh yeah, we're uh provided weather allows, we're actually going to try and do a demo.

Yeah, uh we'll have to see what the weather is.

We're getting towards the end of it here, so I think maybe I can't let you fly it today, but maybe at some point in the future.

Yeah, you get to see how it goes.

So how long would be how far would be designed uh how how long?

How long can it fly?

It can't so it it operates off of a uh an antenna and also the cell tower connections.

So the range isn't really um limited by connection, it's it's limited by the battery, so it's not going to be able to get outside of the city limits, even if I wanted to.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's that's so this is like the average range now, depending on.

I don't want to get too deep into the weeds, but depending on the weather, if the wind's blowing real good this way, I might be able to get further out that way, but then I have to fight the wind and come back.

So that's the whole problem.

Rochester only.

Yeah, it's just the city of Rochester.

But the the batteries will let us fly for about 20 to 23 minutes per full charge.

Use the sheriff's department have their own drones.

They do they probably uh they they have their own drones, they're the same models, but they don't have docks like this.

Okay.

It's just in a box that they pull out and set up and and take off and rescue.

Which is actually where our our program started.

We have we had we still have those, uh a couple drones that are based in squat charge, but these have kind of overshadowed them quite a bit just because they're always on and they can get on super faster.

I think that's it.

So now to get into more of the policy side of things, so Rochester Police Department's policy mirrors pretty much what Minnesota statute is, because the statute is beautifully written.

It's it's uh it provides for a lot of transparency, it also provides for um the police department to be able to do what they need to to protect the community.

But so uh what it can do, so obviously the drones are meant for supporting critical incident management, but uh there's specific, and it's on the next slide here when we get to it, but there's specific reasons when we can fly the drone, and our statute mirrors that or I'm sorry, our policy mirrors the statute.

So we'll we'll look at it here, but basically what it boils down to is we need some kind of an emergency that could result in a uh in bodily harm death, or uh some level of criminal activity.

Um and that's where, like, for example, a missing person that's an emergency that could result in bodily harm, depending on the situation.

If it's something like a voluntary runaway, maybe it's we wouldn't be able to fly for a statute on that, but then we learned that maybe they don't have the medicine with them or something like that.

And the urgency to find them, obviously, is a lot higher where we can uh uh legally justify the use of the drone.

But um, I we can probably go to the next one here.

Uh so these are the reasons.

Uh there's 11 statutory reasons if we do not have a search warrant.

So we can always apply for a search warrant to do certain things.

Um but uh if we don't have a search warrant, uh if the situation does not fall into one of these 11 categories, it's prohibited to fly the drone in in Minnesota.

The other thing that we're governed by, which I apologize was on the last slide, is we're also governed by uh FAA regulations, and uh it's considered it's called part 107, but we we also have a waiver from the FAA to be able to fly beyond visual line of sight, which is how we can fly it from the office here while flying and clear down in the south of the town, for example.

Um yeah, so like I I know I maybe oversimplified it here, but just so that everyone's aware of what those those uh specific reasons are, like I said, it has to either be an emergency, which is actually the very first one that involves bodily harm or death or the risk of death, uh, or some level of criminal activity, whether it's a suspicious activity or we know that it's happening at a time.

Um we already talked about missing persons.

We can get written consent to search private property if we need to, um, though that's probably not as common, but uh that would be another reason that we would fly over private property if someone's got a big strip of line, we're looking over a farm or something.

Someone's got a big strip and we're looking over a farm or something.

Any questions on any of this at all?

We have an example of number 10.

So what that would be, that's probably the least common.

So, like if uh if uh let's say public works wants me to inspect a bridge after a storm or something like that, I can do that.

I just have to have them send me like it has to be written, so send me an email saying, hey, can we borrow your drone to make sure there's no cracks in the dam or something like that or the bridge?

I can do that at, but it has to be a government entity.

It can't just be, hey, can you fly the drone for my birthday party or something?

Sorry, that'd be fun, but no, I can't do that.

Just uh on this slide and that um original um slide with the various data on all of the different flights that you've done so far.

Yeah, is that identified which of these subdivision three?

Not on there.

No, that's that's more we just shared that that's more internal tracking, so we can track our own statistics.

There's a separate to actually show you that here.

Uh there's a publicly available portal that would show that information.

Got it.

Thank you.

Yep.

Okay, go ahead.

Yeah, you might as well move there next.

So that's actually what this is here.

So on the Rochester police department website, uh, there is a link on there.

I I don't have the exact pathway of it memorized, but it we can show you here.

But it'll look like this.

And so you see this giant spider web.

Well, this is every single flight that I have flown, and then you can filter through or search based on whatever you're interested in and click on it, and it will highlight in blue the flight path, the date, and the statutory reason that uh that the drone was flown for.

So if you get somebody that's you know, obviously, people might be concerned if they're not fully aware, as you folks are becoming aware of now in the program.

Hey, I saw a drone flying, you know, on this day or whatever.

If it if it was ours, uh you can come in here and you can look and you can see uh where we were, what time it took off, and uh what why it was why it was flown in the first place.

Is this looking real time or is this delayed?

It is delayed.

So there is a review process.

So because some of these do end up becoming actual criminal investigations, to protect the integrity of that investigation, that's what that delay is for because it may be evidence that we can't release per statute.

So ongoing cases would be correct.

They would yeah, they they'd be they they would be reviewed, and then if it's determined that they're not uh an ongoing investigation, so it's just a call for service, like we gave a couple of those quick examples where there's no criminal investigation that's ongoing, then uh usually after a couple days or maybe a week or two, it'll it'll show up on here.

I saw on your oven card that had these circles on.

Yep.

There was some overlap.

Is that pretty hard and fast?

I mean, if you had two incidences for example in the northwest part of it, would you be able to fly both drone?

It depends.

Well, well, right now, and that maybe that's getting a little technical, but right now I can't fly two drones simultaneously legally, even if I have a technical ability to do that.

That is a negotiation we'd have to have with the FAA to approve that.

Uh that's not a super common thing right now, just because it's new, we obviously don't want drones crashing into each other in the sky or another.

So there's got to be probably a few more safety things put in place before we get there.

But uh but uh one other thing that I wanted to talk about on this one is uh so the the video so to your question about the thermal and the where I've mentioned both are being recorded, uh those are uploaded as soon as the drone lands uploaded to our event server to maintain chain of custody, and then per statute uh we're required to delete that uh those recordings if they're not part of an uh criminal investigation within seven days.

And so uh if it goes beyond that and you go, whoops, we need that, it's because we need to stay in compliance with the statute, we've lost that.

So that's another reason why there's that review period to make sure that we're keeping evidence that we need to keep while also make sure making sure that we can let the community trust us that we're not just keeping random videos that are being recorded all the time.

Um the other thing is at a level of safety that I just wanted to mention is especially off to the west side of the city.

You might see if you look at it, some kind of odd flight paths around because we have two helipads in Rochester.

So we've actually been an active communication with male clinic to make sure that we're not putting any of their uh patient transports or emergency flights at risk because we have to yield the right away to manned air traffic with the drone.

So uh even if we are responding to an emergency manned air traffic uh per the FA takes priority.

So that's uh the that's something that we had to deconflict our airspace with uh main planet.

And it's an ongoing thing, we're always trying to make sure there's any communication.

So I have a question on number four slide.

Yeah.

Um so some drones are with like a flight camera and then the primary camera.

Are these drones just the primary below?

So I can do that like a horizon line as well.

So there's there's actually multiple cameras on the drone.

That's pretty standard.

However, the only one that's recording anything is the is the drone, the the camp camera on the gimbal.

Everything else is just for uh making sure it doesn't run into anything so it doesn't record video.

Yeah, you see the video from that's all internal.

Yeah, yep.

That's just the optical avoidance system.

Yeah.

So the camera that uh that I'm looking through when I'm flying, and provided the weather holds up a little, I think we're okay for now.

Um the uh the only camera that I'm able to look through is the the one that I can control it now.

So when I'm responding to the scene, that camera is pointing forward, and then when I get on C will pitch down for me, so I can start looking around what I'm looking for.

Great question.

So what is expansion look like?

Is that in the feature plot uh feature plans for the department?

Have we found value enough to maybe get additional drones?

Is that contingent on FAA rolls?

Uh so well the FAA we've already negotiated, so we could expand um when we're ready to.

I think the uh the expansion questions that we're trying to just get a good handle on is how much is enough and how much is too much, so we don't do that because I mean it'd be super fun to have a hundred of these things, obviously, but that's probably not the best use of money.

Uh whereas on the same on the opposite side of that coin, two is is helping, but it's probably not enough for the entire city.

So the that's what this data is helping us determine is okay.

When we're ready to expand, what is the best way to do that and where?

Because the data we're collecting from these drones is we're also able to see kind of the hot spots where the drone is more consistently being sent for the area, I should say, uh this the part of the city, the side of the city, that we can say, okay, maybe we want another dock in that area or this area.

That's overactively looking into it.

No concrete information yet.

No one had it.

So it's still a pilot space.

It's still a pilot phase, that's pretty true.

Um other questions?

One last question for me.

I know this has nothing to do with the policy side, but for the protection side of the equipment, is there a criminal statute of some sort of protecting the drone so somebody can't harm it or shoot it or damage it in some way?

Not locally, but they are registered aircraft, so it would be a federal thing.

We would have to record it to the FAA and then they would investigate it.

We'd turn it over there.

And then for us well, locally would probably be like a criminal damaged property statute, but not specifically to like an aircraft.

So there's two different worlds to expose.

I would not recommend it.

Yeah, please please refrain.

Well, there yeah, there's there's lots of there's lots of things that could apply there.

But I suppose.

That's always a possibility.

Uh you know, sometimes technology reaches certain areas before the the law can.

So I would anticipate something like that happening in the future, but I don't have any uh nothing right.

I see there's plenty of things out there that I can do this.

I was just curious if there was anything regarding potential.

Yep.

Great.

So I think we're gonna do a demo.

Nice.

Yep, we'll get it.

Although if anyone need to grab a jacket or anything at the outside, oh we're gonna do it.

We're gonna do it right from here.

Yeah, that's the wonder of this program.

I thought we would just uh do one final check here.

You just pump up the roof and you have some kind of I think we're okay.

As long as we don't like fly out anywhere, we can just take it off and then we'll land it.

Because it is snowing.

You know, I mean, oh you can drive or I can grab it there.

Yeah, it's a little bit line up here.

Okay.

Thank you.

So if I were to uh so we'll take off the one that's flying uh that's on top of the building here.

Just because the screen space.

So I'll get a map and I'll be able to see you know the location of the call.

I can even see where uh the officers are.

If I need to send it to them, they're asking for help.

Yeah, it's not the thermal specials right here, and then we see this is the dock view.

And so when I just click launch, a lot of this is automated, so it makes it super easy for me.

Good option for color from the different filters on thermal, or is it there's a couple different color schemes depending on you know what I'm looking at.

The contrast controls and then you know you can fly in inclement weather uh moderate, so like this is this is we probably won't fly very long in this just because it's has a potential for freezing range, but um the uh the mouse is tethered here.

Of course, I'm working on a touchpad, so it's a little tough.

But um when I'm flying, I have total control, or I can uh click and I can tell it to fly or respond.

There's a couple different reasons for that.

But whenever I'm done and I'm complete, it'll actually show you that flight report that I'll show you here.

Um once it lands, it'll generate that report, it'll do a couple of health checks on the drone, and it'll start to charge it for its next flight.

Oh, so it can have a little power lines.

So the app that's what the extra cameras are for, so it can actually see and recognize those, and then it'll just fly around it partly.

So if I need to fly sideways because I'm trying to find something else, as long as I have the optical avoidance activated, I really don't need to worry about what's around me.

That's actually one of the one of the nice things about this company.

So this is that post-flight report where I have to click in.

This would be considered a training flight or a PR purpose.

I'll show you that there.

That's right.

There it is.

So these are all those statutory statutory exceptions.

So this that's where this would fall under.

I'll finish the rest of it later just for time.

But I put on all the little uh bits of data that you saw feed through that BFR outcomes area and a couple of other internal statistics for us to make sure that we're uh using the drones effectively.

So does that mean that does all flight do all flights get included in that?

But that's significant, which is highlight the one as an example.

So the asking about the significant question.

So that's the one where like we have a really good wind that we want.

Yeah, so like we did a really good job on this one, and we want to send that out to the team for like this is why I did what I did.

This is I looked from this angle and then I looked from this angle, right?

Responded in this fashion so that we can send those out with the team as uh training experiences.

So but it's not like a button that you click to include any of the data or not.

No, that's included.

That's purely just for training for us.

How close can you get to detail on the scene?

Like how much detail can you see?

There was a officer involved something on one of those corners.

How clear, how close can you see to what's actually going on?

It depends on how close the drone is, obviously.

There's a digital zoom, but obviously the further I am away, the more pixelated it becomes if I have to zoom that far.

Right.

So I mean, it depends on the time of day as well.

So I guess there's not a real clear answer to that question.

It just kind of depends on the situation.

Because if it's dark, it's not gonna be able to be able to see as much as it can in the day.

Okay.

So you have the quality of the cameras.

There we do have a focus, and there's different qualities that I can turn on and off.

Um it automatically records in high definition.

There's a 4K resolution, but then it just fills up the media card and can't record very well, so we don't really use that option too often.

So day and night the same.

What's that?

Day and night same for what?

Flying.

I'm sorry, when you will fly in this one.

Yeah, that would be the same thing.

Yeah, yep, same thing.

So at night time, yeah, obviously there's an anti-collision light on it, so it's even more visible than normal, but it's always got flashing lights on it, so then everyone can see where it's at.

So I would require experience.

We're gonna call that a thumbs up.

Does the uh let's say you're out on uh responding to an incident?

Is there a capability for it to safely land and not deploy its parachute like an officer comes grabs it if it ran out of battery or there was a battery fault?

Yeah, yep, there is an option for that.

I've done that a couple of times.

It's not officially supported by starting to go, so if I landed outside the dock, it has to be manually replaced in the dock.

I can't take it off again.

Um there's there's some potential for that to change in the future.

But yeah, I have that ability if I need to stay on screen longer than the battery allows.

So you can just choose to land it next to a car and go and have it on the office or then the parachute on here, it if it if it loses power or uh like I maybe I wasn't paying attention to the wind and it tilted the drone too far if it reads a certain tilting uh angle, the parachute will deploy.

It's not necessarily to save the drone, it's to save the people that are potentially under the drone.

So we may still have a damaged drone, but it'll hurt a lot less when it's coming down for and at full speed.

So it's not common.

Take any more audience questions.

Yes, yes, yes, go for it.

I'm prosecuting a case.

How do I know whether it may have involved a drone flight?

So if it if the drone is uh used as evidence, so uh trying to think of the easiest way to explain that.

So now that I flew this drone, I when I'm after I'm done, I'm gonna have to go into our evidence server and then tag that as non-criminal, right?

Because I you can't keep this video that because it recorded a video just now.

Um that if I suddenly say that, oh my gosh, while we were flying that it recorded a stolen car driving down the street, we didn't even know because it was totally on accident.

We have seven days to realize that and save it, and then we could save it in the XCR, there would be a narrative report uh generated and saved into the case file.

So it's that comment.

What's that?

That what that was about the second.

For you to be able, it goes into evidence.com.

Just like a body camera would that answer your question or it does.

Just trying to think of kind of the sample size that we have at this point and whether my prosecutors have seen any cases where we are seeing in the report some indication that there's drone evidence, drone video related to the case.

I know.

Do you have any sense of how often you're attaching so um not off the top of my head?

I know that we've we've had a couple of uh a number of county cases.

I guess I'm not sure how many of those are city cases, though.

I'd have to double check and get back to you on that one.

But uh any time the officers that are responding are usually pretty good about writing in their narrative saying uh the drone told me X, and so I responded appropriately, you know, whatever their actions were based on the information that was provided.

And so that would be the clue, but then it's up to the pilot, like I said, I just have to make sure that I properly tag that in the case file.

Is there any chance that there would be a uh like an offset out in the field that they can call it to the position rather than have a pilot on current?

Um and the reason for that is the FA needs someone to be in control of the drone at all times.

There might be an automated ability down the road, because they talked about that exact feature actually, where an officer can like push a button on their body camera or have a separate button on their belt or something like that and say, hey, I need the drone because something important is happening.

Uh that's just not the I should say the technology is there, but I think the FAA just doesn't want to open that can alerms just yet.

I've uh followed that does someone does the pilot operate the drone have to be here.

No, uh so they could be anywhere that they have internet connection.

Okay, because that's how this operates.

Right.

So um there's been a couple of times where an officer has even flown from their squad car as long as it was safe to do so.

Okay, so as long as they're certified as a pilot to flies us, they can correct.

So our our current training program requires our our officers to be part 107 certified, so it's a FAA license that they obtained and then there's a separate training program that I put them through here at the department on how we use the equipment, and then we can talk about the statute of the policy when they're allowed to fly versus just how they fly.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm not looking to go in a sewer, you know, edge cases and stuff, but say an officer uh in the squad flew the drone over to investigate something that had to engage in a situation.

Is there anything written on how the drone would act?

Because they now on that.

So right.

So I would hope that the officer would never put themselves in that situation.

Then we have an unmanned drone, essentially.

But if there's ever well say if there's ever like a lot, let's say that the internet went down.

All of a sudden law was fine, the strong and now we don't have wasn't anything intentionally, it just happened.

The drone will realize that there's no active pilot and it will automatically return the document.

You could also talk about the common year function that it has.

Yeah, well, so they yes.

So Jeff is actually another pilot.

So there's been a couple of times where we've flown together, and where I will send it out to a call, and maybe I have the information in my head, and Jeff was working on something else.

But maybe there's another call coming out, and I need to take that drone so I can say, hey Jeff, I'm gonna send this one home.

Can you take it over for me so I can pass off control to Jeff while I take over the other drone?

So let's say another ops like in your situation where an officer is you know approached or uh gets into some kind of altercation or whatever the situation is where they can't take over the drawing.

They can get on the radio and say I have the drone in the air, someone needs to take control, another one of the pilots will grab it and send it home or do whatever they need to do.

So it can be actively swapped whoever's controlling it.

It's not tied to whoever launched it.

No.

Yep.

Very easy to do that.

Any other questions from the commission, Andrew?

Should I put you in your phone?

We could be that's that's a potential, I suppose.

Although the phone might be a small screen for me.

You might see me with my laptop out there.

Very cool.

All right.

All right, audience folks.

Okay, everyone, 180.

All right.

With that being said, we did lose one commissioner.

Um that is a okay.

We still have forum.

So we can continue on with our agenda.

Uh item 7A, our bylaws.

Um, as we know that we have been talking about these for the good majority of the past year.

Um, so I know our city attorney has some thoughts on what has been submitted.

Thank you, everyone who has submitted any suggestions or ideas to uh amend our bylaws, but we'll go ahead and open up the discussion here to our city attorney.

So I'm not I'm not sure how you want to approach this discussion today, particularly given the amount of time that we have.

Um there's been um there's been a couple of meetings internally, kind of trying to talk through what sort of feedback may be helpful to the commission.

Um, we do have submissions from a few of you, we have some perhaps low-hanging fruit ideas that are easy to discuss, but one of the points of discussion also was that um we're not sure that the commission is particularly familiar with the professional standards manager role and how that position typically receives and handles compliance, and then that context may be particularly important to some of the amendments that um have been proposed.

Um so I would just look for your guidance, frankly, and how you want to engage in this discussion today.

Um we do have the professional standards manager here today who's prepared to talk to you about about his role.

Um could be today, that could be in a future future meeting.

All right, well, my idea would be we can go through the track changes document that was appended to the uh agenda up.

Um people have copies of that available to them.

Okay, we could go through the track track.

Yeah, so one of the things that the mayor is pointing out is that we're using the term bylaws, and we have a document that is not labeled bylaws or anymore.

They're labeled, they're labeled rules of procedure and operation.

I mean, if it may just be helpful for us to all be on the same day for that understanding, okay.

Is that something you feel we need to amend or standardize across the board?

These were adopted by the council to as a standardized document.

We can't consider changes, but they wanted standardized throughout the whole city on the boards and commission.

Is that the idea?

So that's the second the city of Rochester Advisory Boards, Committees and Commissions, Rules of Procedure and Operation.

But there exists a separate document that's specific to this body, correct?

Right.

That's a separate document.

Separate document from what the standardized version that I'm seeing here on the back of the agenda.

So there was the police policy oversight commission rules of procedure and operation attached.

And in addition to help with this discussion, there was also the city commission organization council.

Yeah, so we are not operating by the standardized council want we have our own rules and procedure document, which is what we've been amending and recommending uh proposal changes to.

Yeah.

So there's one superseding the other.

Is that what I'm hearing?

No, I I don't believe so.

I I think the point that the mayor was making in part is that a number of years ago there was conversation at the council level.

Um the mayor may want to speak to this to some extent, but there was um conversation about the importance of standardization of rules and and um procedure for the different boards and commissions.

There was a fairly deliberate attempt to go through all of the city boards and commissions, and to have them all be working off of a pretty similar um document that sets out their sets up their rules and process.

The general concept was that people attending a board or various boards and commissions for the city have a similar experience, similar process, similar agenda.

Um the city council considered and voted on and approved a standard rules and procedure document that was then kind of rolled out board by board, commission by commission over about a year and a half period of time.

Um that document informed what you now have as your current version of your rules of procedure and operation.

That is the one document that this body has at that time we got away from any reference to bylaws for a board or commission using this rules of procedure and operation language.

I think the um it's the actual city council rules.

The advisory boards, committees, and commissions rules of procedure and operation.

Right.

But the the thing that's on our agenda packet to include the version we're correctly looking at.

Yes.

Is there anything that compels this body to mandate adherence to the standardized version as opposed to operating our own version?

Well, well, we're in the body of the council.

I think they're gonna be told these the thing I I'm seeing here, right?

It's a standardized document talks about how a border commission may operate, which I'm in agreement with personally, right?

Um, but it does not address the nuances of the responsibilities within a particular body that we by council statute have, right?

But just the renewal policies have the other function being complaints.

So does this document need to address those here?

Both both documents are valid for your work, the your let's alignment ordinance okay.

Is it okay by answering offshore asking?

Oh, that's not the ordinance that gives you direction on what your rule is, and there's how you proceed, and those two documents are your direction.

Right.

If you want to change that, we might need to go back to the council because we the council asked for everybody to kind of use the same template.

Right.

I I I don't know how they would feel about one changing and doing something different.

That's not happening yet.

No, then that I understand that.

But between the two versions, right?

So I don't want to write this open, but there's a standardized document and then this customized document that we have to this board relation.

Um the standardized one does not address the nuances of this body.

So my question then being is what do we have to do versus what are we within our capacity to do this project?

Um given our standards, right?

Because for the left past year, we have been excuse okay.

Modifying and recommending suggestions to this customized rules of procedure document.

Um it was not I was not aware of the standardized version, and it may have been something before my time.

Um is the ask or is it a requirement that we adopt the standardized version?

The one you've adopted is the standardized version.

Whether someone's changed it, I don't know.

I don't know that we could also standardized versions.

I think which you attached for referential council version of it.

Okay.

So the one we've been working off got is the one that is was adopted based off the consolidation.

Yes, it is it is fair to say that a number of the boards and commissions have grappled with this question, right?

It's been a few years since they didn't have Trump, and um and there have been one ops on some boards and commissions.

Um it's also accurate, so some of the boards and commissions in their enacting uh language in the ordinance, it gives you the authority to set rules for your body, right?

Okay, so arguably it does set up a bit of a conflict between a body that is by ordinance responsible for setting rules that are appropriate to your body, and this concept that we would like some sense of standardization, and the council has approved that effort.

Okay, but we are still empowered to make modifications to this document as it applies to this commission.

Yeah, I think part of the point that the mayor is making is um with within reason and subject to review by by the council.

Right, from hearing it correctly, ideally they don't want us to.

So ideally, we should be having one document.

Yeah, one ordinance change, that would be a whole, you know, but some things with your ordinance and your role, that's a whole different thing.

Right.

If you're if it's a day that you meet, that's different, right?

It's a some people meet monthly, some people meet quarterly, and if you're making that change, that's not substantive.

Right.

But if it's substantive to Michael's point, it may need to go back to it.

So we're not discussing it, I think.

So I didn't look at them that way, these two documents to look at to me when I looked at them at completely separate, so I only looked at powers individually, and I didn't so in I guess in my mindset.

If I was to re-look at the documents side by side, I would then question what is repetitive, what is duplicate that is so to me.

I feel like they're I looked at the both documents differently.

Which two documents, the ones that were attached, yeah.

Okay, just to make sure, and I I want to make sure that I'm understanding this.

The one that you attached that is not labeled at least policy over site, was the one that the city council uses.

Correct.

That's guidance.

No, for their rules and regulations.

But I thought I just for reference.

We have advisory boards, but that's for all of us.

For advisory boards, that was what the council suggested that all advisory boards come together and use.

So that's what I didn't realize in ours.

Then yeah, then I'm also confused because then what what have we been looking at?

Right.

Yeah, then why have we been looking at this other one?

And I'll just say, like your order of business.

Um, you know, what you call things might be slightly different than that.

That's not, I mean, in my mind, that's not substance if you call it the whatever, but the it's the idea that you have these things on your agenda, public comments and whatever.

If you call it something different, I don't think that's like for depth, but you're changing a quorum, changing.

Um, there were a couple things like the majority vote of the commission.

You can't take out notification or ratification by the city council.

But why because they made the rules, right?

So they say that we have to be notified.

You can't you can't just say, no, I don't agree with the council necessarily.

That would go back to the council to say, no, we don't want you taking our authority away from us, the other city council.

You advise that.

So that would be what is the language that's compelling us, is my question.

I'm okay with that concept.

I just want to know what is by statute compelling us to abide by council.

Mr.

Chairman, yeah, for you.

So I think it's important to know that truthfully the city council is the kind of uh governing supreme board within city government.

So what I hear the mayor saying is that they've made rules, you know, basically saying that you can't change these part of the rules.

Um so I think hopefully that answers the why we can't.

Um the solution I offer is this.

I think there's a couple of questions that I have.

Uh one is we have the current rules of procedure actually been revised after the council made a new rule and if you guys are the city attorney city have like a double check that number one.

So perhaps off of that is a step one from path four.

Step two would be to review the suggested park changes.

Uh you know, downline to kind of make a determination of is this truly within the scope and purview of the commission's authority, and then come back here later and discuss what is what's in mouse or what's colouring outside the lines.

Um that's my suggesting that for the like missing meetings.

That's not that 80% is approved by the council.

I don't think they would accept you changing that because it's that information comes back to me and I make a decision about whether a person gets reappointed or is remote.

And to Commissioner McTell's point about before our time, it might be that we came into this understanding that we had what we knew is bylaws without knowing that things rules and regulations set forth by the council.

I came into it seeing this as oh, this is how we do things, we could make changes and updates.

But with the context of this was a figure process that was applied to all boards, it's a lot more understandable though.

Right.

But that's not to say if there isn't something that you're concerned about, then you couldn't bring it forward to the county.

You know, you couldn't say why not 65%, and you know, they determined that they probably won't fled on.

But to go through the correct paths rather than I think that's the gap that we were missing is and I say we speaking for myself.

I want to speak for it.

So at this point, do we want to go forward with any review of changes?

No, I think the recommendation to look at what you have suggested is to look at that what has been recommended that is automatically outside of outside of what was already established by the council, do that, and then I think we should go back, or I should go back and look at those document that way with that vision of okay.

Here's what the council recommended established for us is our policy and the processes, and then we can look at what our recommendations are or what we've been currently looking at, because I almost feel like I've never looked at it that way.

I've only looked at it from the one document that says the commission on it.

And granted, they're probably overlapping quite a bit without a doubt, but right now I feel like I've been missing some pieces.

Guidance, I guess.

Yes, I would agree.

And I mean, I I'm a little disheartened because we've been discussing this for the past year, and this is now only now being brought up, so I can hopefully understand the frustration that I have here with the this, but also I'm seeing that there's within our own laws the opponents to review these and approve them, but we're saying we don't even have this document, we're not abiding by it.

So I think we need to go back and figure out what document we operate by.

Yeah, I think I know for me.

I just missed that initial guidance.

I think we all did.

I I think none of us here's substantial change in this order over the last two years.

Yeah, absolutely.

Right, yeah.

So I subjected table.

Yeah, I'm for that.

I just want to make sure that the next time we get together that we have something actionable and then we have solid understanding across the board.

Um because I know that there are some recommendations, right?

Um, and just provide an example, right?

80% doesn't make sense for a board that only means four times because that's one absence, and you're already below threshold.

So how do we now?

That's what you need to know.

You used to meet monthly.

Right.

Right, right.

But with that, that means that that piece does not apply necessarily that needs to then now understand needs to go back to the council to bring that to conversation.

So that was just this whole new piece that makes perfect sense that we just realized today.

Yeah, I think it's I'm not aware of the there being a council action that is not a mandatory requirement.

Okay.

Um if there's if it's problematic and someone isn't giving excuse absences.

So if you have an excuse, I'm sick, I can't be there.

Sure.

That's okay, but right that's how to get you if you will.

Well, I think that's chair discretion, right?

Right.

Yeah.

No.

There are exceptions.

And so I think as I'm looking at this, you know, you're putting up when you meet and where you meet.

I think the the idea was that's something that you guys will decide.

It doesn't, it's almost an addendum to the rules rather than changing.

Yes, that makes sense.

Yeah, right.

I think it's your group is making the decision when you meet where you meet.

That's okay.

The point that the council had was so specifications rather than modifications.

Yeah, right.

And it's not bylaws, it would be then rules.

Which would clarify the addition to those documents.

Right.

So that document council document would be the primary, and then there would be a secondary document that would be specific only to us because of our monthly or whatever those pieces are.

So we need to dive into the council piece and see what is unique to us.

No, I'm following where rule eight doesn't make sense.

Okay.

And all of these are just kind of with uh mindset of well years ago when we decide that, and then maybe things we take to the council and just say that thing isn't substantive if they want to make a change.

Does anybody really care?

And then that would be that addendum to your rules about how you're you're gonna run the sort of overlay this, right?

Sort of different levels, yeah.

Sort of trivial, like 16 minutes versus 15 because four times four is 16.

Yeah, I think what they don't want is to have a two-hour when everybody else does 15 minutes, right?

They don't want it to be so I know this.

There may be substantive issues, though.

And I think the thing about uh instruments, for example, and involvement of the commission incidents maybe it's something we want to get more guidance on.

Right.

Which which do you think are the more critical issues for us to involve something?

Outside advice on it, Mr.

Mr.

City Attorney.

What are you asking?

If you do look at the two different versions of this, which of the of the uh the first document in the on the uh what's you know in the packet uh concern you the most the um it's fair to say that the the most substantive changes were the integration of incident review and how the body can engage in that in a meaningful manner, right?

Like I think we understood that you're attempting to make some modifications consistent with ordinance that kind of grants you that responsibility.

Umiging against that, of course, is um pretty challenging data practices issues for us.

Um so blending those two and whether you need to integrate that process into your rules or not, um, is maybe a separate question that might just be tricky to do that.

Um again think it would be helpful for you to be thinking through that knowing the role of the professional standards manager and what the complaint process is currently, and that position is also written into the ordinance as well, right?

Like we just do think that is that's the medius piece.

What you think would be a good set of bylaws or a good set of rules of procedure for that function.

Well, I I think I understand what you're asking.

I do think it will be important for you to hear from and better understand the role of the professional standards manager and what the complaint process currently looks like for you to have a better sense of what role and what limitations there are for this body to be involved in complaint or incident review.

Well, I'm just thinking a seven member citizen group might not be as well equipped to write something like that.

I think it would be important to hear maybe at our next meeting what that is, learn more about what that review is and where we do come in in play into those type of complaints.

I would like to know that first.

I don't think we could do that fairly or completely without a clear understanding of what the rules are where we come in.

I think we do that first.

Okay.

I'm in suggestion in support of that.

Um I should put a motion to table there.

I think it would be a table.

Um I also want to make it clear that I think we need input from city council.

We need input from the mayor's office, and just really understand what document we're just gonna get the plain clarity of what we're wanting to do with this document that we have in front of us and what we need to operate by.

Um so if we can get information or if there's a reason for this body to have to reach out to the council, that is also within the realm of reasons, so having that you know out there as a call to action.

I really don't want to keep kicking this down the road uh further than this because it was supposed to be an annual process and it's dragged on the whole year, and now we're gonna enter 2026.

So given that, I'm personally okay with it, but I'll put it to a vote if someone wants to make a motion.

The table for next year, I think.

I do have one six stipulation, but uh so similar for earlier in the year we had an issue where we had two different versions of the policy that we're reviewing, and that caused a little bit of numbers that weren't lined up, right?

And then we got that on the website, and everything's you know, we go off of what the public knows.

Um I would like to be able to single out the document that we have that holds what our governing rules and operations are and get that in front of me so that you know when we look at either potential changes or just understanding from a baseline.

We all know that we're looking at the same document, and we know that they know that we're looking at the same document.

They being the mayor's office city council, you know, whoever's gonna go back and forth.

Right.

So we did have a motion to table.

There was a second.

Any discussion on that front?

I think does anyone need any additional clarity on how we're gonna proceed for our next meeting?

Hearing none, all in favor.

All opposed.

All right, motion carries.

Okay.

Um, with that, is there any other new business that needs to be brought forward?

I don't have anything here, but open it up to our commission.

Okay, and then last I will seek a motion for adjournment for you before you adjourn before you adjourn.

Yes, can we just confirm what I think we urge is that you would like to hear from the professional standards manager at the next meeting as to the scope of this role and how the complaints and process is okay.

Thank you.

Um real quick, I'm sorry, just thought it is would it be helpful for us to hear back from the review from the mayor prior to that meeting?

Is it is that something that the mayor's office is capable of, I would not be opposed to it.

That I want to put uh pressure on that right now, but tomorrow great to have that for discussion for next time.

Even if we don't have to receive it prior to that, but if we could have that review about what we what what we've put in so far for changes, so we have it for conversation at time.

I think that would be a wonderful idea.

I will seek any uh give people an opportunity if there's anything you need from us before we draw.

Okay, well, and that I will seek a motion.

Motion motion?

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Okay.

Have a great holiday, everyone.

Thank you.