I have to call this uh this meeting of the police policy oversight commission order.

Thank you all for being here today.

We'll start with uh agenda item number one, which is roll call.

I'll go down this list here and please say present or here when your name is called Commissioner Friedley.

Commissioner Fisher.

Commissioner North is excuse absent.

Commissioner Parker, here.

I have myself present, Commissioner Snyder, Bureau, Commissioner Wheeler.

Not present.

Any word out there?

Okay.

Good.

Put that on the record.

Item number two, approval of the minutes from our December 9th, 2025 meeting.

Um I will go ahead and seek a motion for approval of member of this commission.

We have a second.

So I have any issue.

Okay.

And uh miss me as rolling high.

I was about to hear that uh I don't need to be delivered, but again, apologize for that.

So table.

Okay, I can see where it's eyes.

Would that be something we can adjust in the records?

Any other issues you can modify that?

No.

Alright, I will seek the emotion to amend the events and then approve.

Motion do it.

Who has a second?

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed.

Thank you for that.

All right.

Uh item three is adopting today's agenda.

We have a motion to adopt today's agenda.

Motion to a second.

So any discussions.

All right.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

So the agenda passes for today.

Do you have any members of the public?

Does not seem so, we'll go ahead and pull it to the public comment period.

Do you have any policies to review ad hoc?

There's none listed from last time, but if there are any policies, we can absolutely ready for the table if anyone has an update.

I have recognition priority.

Okay.

Wonderful.

Dr.

Casey will put that in for our business.

Okay.

I think it's not a specific policy necessary, but more than a question.

We've been reviewing the AI policies over the past couple sessions.

And one of my questions was in regards to cameras within the city.

Is there any intention for RPG to use specifically flock safety cameras?

No.

No.

We can talk about that more in depth and I'll email it.

Yeah.

So not flock, but we do that for a reason.

I'd be happy to speak to that more at the night either at this meeting or even almost ahead and propose at our next meeting.

We've got more about uh fixing OPRs.

I think we've got there we go.

That would be absolutely permitted to the conversation here.

We can discuss out if you build this on our agenda.

Yep.

Yep, okay.

Awesome.

Any other thoughts on policy review?

Okay, so we'll have a couple things for uh new residents to add before we hear today.

Moving on then, we will move on to item 68, which is a presentation by doctors and police departments professional standards management.

Except to have you here today to help you inform us on uh what it is you're able to bring to the table and all the functions and operations that will help us have being more informed about your role.

So thank you for being here today with us, and I will hand you on to you.

Well, thank you.

Uh good afternoon.

My name is Mike Gartley.

I am the current uh professional standards manager with the Rochester Police Department.

Um I'll just start off by saying there's probably never been a time that's more important for police accountability and transparency.

So I'm gonna hit on a little bit of that.

Uh but first I just want to touch on a little bit of uh my background.

Um I retired uh public to police department after 25 years.

I worked every rank in the department to include chief of police my last year and a half before retiring.

I put high expectations on, whether I'm a professional standards manager, whether I was a commander, a deputy chief, or the chief, or an officer, because I have to work in this institution, this this was uh you know, uh organization, and it's important to me that we have one that screams professionalism.

Okay, and so when I came to Rochester, um I wasn't brought in to rubber stamp, and I made it very clear that it would be very hard for me to see something and not say something.

And so that's what you're gonna get with me of a career of policy holding people accountable, and unfortunately, when you have to have a tough conversations, which a lot of people don't always like to have.

Um, when you ask what my job is, it's really simple.

Because I get asked.

People, I thought you retired, what are you doing now?

I said, Well, my job is simply to make sure that the front end of the Rochester police policy is adhered to.

Now I know that's very simplistic, but that's really what it boils down to because it all starts with here.

We need people out doing this job with integrity.

We need people out doing this job with a passion, respect, and utilizing innovation.

Now, you probably saw me fumbling around trying to hook up a laptop.

Innovation is not it's not my forte.

You scared the hell out of me when you turned towards me, and we're going to start talking about flock cameras, and I've got keep keep turning.

I am almost 60 years old, and I'm I'm too old in my book to really grasp the technology piece.

So I leave that for the for the other folks.

But um, this is what I do.

Um, I take calls, we'll go over uh the 2025 numbers, but here's, in my opinion, this is what you have to have in place to have a healthy police organization.

Okay, it starts with laying out high standards and expectations, which that's what Chief Franklin does.

That's second, and these aren't necessarily in importance, but if you throw people out to do a difficult job and they're not trained, they're not gonna be able to be successful in that difficult job.

Uh, state of the art equipment, again, Rochester.

Um, I'll just tell you when I was a deputy chief at Bloomington, my nickname was Deputy Cheap.

Because a lot of the stuff that the officers wanted, I would always say, let's let's evaluate the D versus the one.

On a 30 million dollar budget up there, we had to be careful what we spent.

Um Rochester, obviously leading the pack statewide in innovation and technology, and that that's just that's that's a plus again.

Uh officer wellness, I think their officer wellness program here is second to none.

Um really takes into account the full picture of not just you know, let's go down and pump iron, but let's make sure mentally, physically we're we're showing up each day to do the job.

Um transparency leads to higher accountability.

I'm just gonna tell you that when you start talking about transparency with police officers, sometimes you get a pushback because they're worried that if you let the numbers out of the bag and you start talking about it, it could potentially not represent the work that they're doing in the best of life.

But what I say is transparency simply leads to a higher level of accountability.

That's what anyone who's been somewhat awake the last 10 years, you know that it's never been more important.

Okay.

Uh robust community partnerships.

I think that speaks for itself here.

Earn police legitimacy with the community.

This isn't always easy.

This one here takes a lot of work.

This one here, you don't just simply go out and say, Well, look at our program, look at this big bright, shiny, beautiful program.

The work is done.

You have to show up, you have to continue to invest in those programs, and you also have to be willing to when somebody is critical of that program.

You don't get defensive.

You say, you know what, you're right, I think we can do better.

I think we can make it better.

Um here is another one.

This has become extremely difficult hiring and recruiting the right personnel to do the job.

If you get people in the door, and I can tell you that in Bloomington's heyday, we had about 450.

We were known as America's team up there in the great city of Wilmington.

Okay.

We would get about 450 people who wanted to apply.

When I left when I retired in 2022, we had about 40.

And that was just that was that was what the state, the hiring and recruiting pitcher looked like in the state of Minnesota across the country because of what was going on.

Get the right people, train them, lay your expectations out for them, and let them do the work.

How do we hold our officers in Rochester accountable?

We do have internal and external complaints.

I take phone calls and we'll get to the slides next, but not every single phone call I get is a complaint.

A lot of it, again, I'll just jump ahead is questions or inquiries.

Why did the officer do what they did that night?

And I explain.

That's one of the thinking the advantages of having somebody that put 32 years working this job.

I can usually explain the kind of the why behind the question.

And that usually satisfies the caller.

We are like most agencies in the state, a subscriber lexical policy and procedure, daily training bulletins on policy and procedure, frontline supervision, and laying clear expectations that we are going to hold our officers accountable.

Now let me ask you, in your opinion, Phil, you showed up a little late here.

I'm going to put you in a out of all these, what do you think is the most what's the most important for holding police officers in 2026 accountable?

Probably a clear.

Okay.

Anybody else disagree?

Clear expectations, but I'm a big frontline supervision guy.

Because I can tell roll call what I expect of them.

And if I have a supervisor or a sergeant sitting in the back, and you know what?

He doesn't like the direction that the chief is going.

He doesn't like Captain Ronald coming in and telling him that, telling them that he wants, he expects this, wants that.

And so without somebody who's going to make sure that that work gets done, you can have all that those pieces in place, but you're gonna you those expectations uh may not be met.

Uh here I already kind of hit on this, uh, just to kind of give you a definition inquiries are due to lack of explanation communication on behalf of the officer.

I'm I'm not letting the cat out of the bat here, but I will tell you that probably 80% of the of the inquiries I get are simply that the officers didn't explain what they were doing or what they wanted the people to do well enough.

And I don't know if it's a generational thing.

I don't know that we're just you know, we're kind of looking at a call, and maybe we're holding calls and we're rushed, and we're gonna go in and we're gonna deal with it as quickly as possible, but move on to the next call.

But that makes up a good chunk of they just I was suggesting this or said that, and they just kind of didn't listen fully, and so then I have to go back and circle back with the supervisor and tell them, hey, you know, maybe a roll call, sit down and say, Listen, you know, if you have to, I'm just I'm selfish, I don't want to take those phone calls, I don't want extra work, and so but if you spend a little bit more time on the front end, you won't have to worry about the questions about your conduct on the back end.

Questions regarding uh what the officer did or did not, and then here filing is the complaints and policy violations for Fourth Amendment violations.

Fourth Amendment, it usually is tied to they put me, they detained me, um, there was a seizure, they'd search my vehicle, all these things.

I don't think they had a right to do that.

Okay, and so we start to dig in, we look.

Uh, one thing that I pride myself on is I'm accessible, and I get back to people because I know what it's like.

I may hear a message on my phone, and it may sound like this is just ridiculous, but it's not ridiculous to that person.

It's not ridiculous to somebody who feels like you know they're pulled over because of the color of their skin, and it's not ridiculous as somebody who feels like, look, I had a real legitimate complaint, they blew me off.

And so I get back to people and make sure that at the very least they know that there's a heartbeat on the other end at the police department, and they're going to actually start to look into the problem.

Now they call me two weeks later, like, what do you got done?

And I say, Oh, shit, I that's a problem.

So these three things, that's what keeps a professional standards manager occupied in addition to policy uh development, policy review, uh, and also kind of looking at the overall operation of a police department.

Now, one thing that I think is important, and I want to take a ton of time, but in order to file a formal complaint against a police officer per state statute 626.89, you have to have a side complaint.

So now that doesn't mean that I can't start looking into it immediately, but if I think it's something that is going to, this is there's some substance here, there's some there.

I say, look, you have to fill out a complaint because I want to make sure that we're abiding by this.

Now, who does that protect?

Everybody.

Everybody, including the officer, who we just can't operate where you can just randomly make a complaint against the police officer is egregious as it may be, and then just walk away and say, throw the bomb and I'll blow, you know, and I'll put all this, you know, they can put all the work and energy into it.

And so this is just it covers great answer, everybody involved.

It kind of keeps the system on anonymous take, if you will.

Because I have had people where I've said, hey, you need to just stop in, or I can come to you, have you sign this, or and and I on occasion, if I think it's really all in-ish, I will say you can be charged.

You file a false police re or a complaint against a police officer, it is a violation of state statute, you can be charged.

And sometimes that the phone call ends pretty quick after they hear that.

Um complaint dispositions, and so when I look into something, um ultimately I'm a fact binder.

I want to make sure that uh if it is something where it's a potential, you know, Fourth Amendment violation, uh, I consult our legal uh representative of the PD, uh talk to other people, but these are just the different kind of closing statuses of a case, dispositions.

Unbounded is when investigations disclosed that the alleged acts did not occur or did not involve department members.

Um exonerated when look it happened, but it was justified or lawful or proper.

You guys can read through not sustained.

Um sustain is when the investigation discloses sufficient evidence to establish that the act occurred and then it constituted misconduct.

These are just it's not necessarily a done deal.

Let's just say I come up with a not sustained.

This doesn't mean the officer was perfect.

Far from it.

We still learn, we still coach and counsel on a non-sustain.

It just doesn't mean that in its entirety that the the actions of that officer uh were around us to sustain a complaint.

So Chief can look in this, he can reopen all these things.

Um last year we had about 65,000 calls for service in the city of Rochester.

With that, 65,000 contacts that our police officers are having uh with the public.

How many complaints do you think on average?

Formal complaints, now that phone rings, a lot of it's questions, inquiries.

How many formal complaints?

Somebody who takes it to a point where they come in, they fill something out, they either do it online, or they come in physically and sign their name on a complaint out of 65,000 contacts.

How many complaints do you think?

A hundred?

Less than a hundred.

Anyone want to go over a hundred?

Folks, aren't we in some tough times here?

With uh, you know, didn't I go over establishing uh public legitimacy?

Aren't we in this this this the bottom of the dregs of connecting with our society of communities and this try to so less than a hundred, nobody wants to go over a hundred?

Last year we had 10.

Two of which were non-smore.

Let's cut them out.

We still hold our non-smore accountable, they still have to follow a policy procedure.

But let's look at eight complaints out of 65,000 contacts with the public.

And I can tell you just my personality alone.

If I went and met 65,000 people, I'm gonna piss them.

I'm gonna I'm gonna rub certain people the wrong way.

Okay, probably just got some five uh uh and so yes, do you know how many of you were like started to be submitted, and then either were cut off when you present the no because here's what I don't do.

I don't talk somebody out of complaining.

I don't file out a file, a formal complaint.

That's not what my job is.

My job is to be there to listen to that complaint.

Now, um, and I'll even say this for me to suggest that I don't think there's anything there within a five-minute phone call, I don't think that's my position either.

I'm gonna let you tell me what happened, why you feel you're agreed, why there was a violation of policy you believe, or that the officer was really rude, um, they were short with you.

And so I we don't have a way to measure all that.

I can tell you I keep a blue book that the city offers up to us, and I almost like a journal, I write down every single phone call I get.

Because I'll have people call me back, and they said I don't want to do anything about it, and then they'll call back to that.

I've been thinking about that, I gotta page back, you know, 25 pages to find.

So that would be hard to answer, you know.

I hate to throw a number out there, but um again, I stay, I'm not trying to be job security here, but I stay pretty busy with people calling in, and again, it's not always a formal complaint.

It's you know, it's it's driving, you know, the officer didn't come to a complete stop.

I got a ticket two years ago for rolling through a stop sign, I saw them roll through it, you know, stuff like that.

So there's always the question of well, wait a minute.

Why would I call in a complaint?

Oh, sorry.

Yeah, how many of the yours bank?

He'll get to that in just one second.

Okay.

For my presentation.

Um this is always well, you're one of them.

Why would I why would I call in and complain to you?

What do you think?

You're gonna, you know, you're biased from the gate because you work for the Rochester Police Department, and and I I always tell people I have a a career that was built on holding people accountable and making decisions against police officers that were always favorable in whether it was Bloomington or here now in Rochester.

I I'm not about because when I talk about culture, the worst thing you can do is let conduct that should be corrected, continue to roll.

Because if you are all brand new officers and you're looking over at this seasoned 15 year vet, and you're gonna kind of role model off of that person, and they're allowed to do what they shouldn't be doing, clear policy violation, but it's just kind of been overlooked because you know what?

He's been around a while, he's salty, he knows how to do the job, so therefore, you're gonna only continue to roll with that with that bad cultural element.

And I can tell you in any organization, I know a lot of you come from, you know, you you have organizations that you're involved with, fixing negative negatives of anything is difficult.

It takes time because you're gonna get resistance.

So I always tell people look, there is a secondary way that you can complain on police officers is through the post board.

Um, but I will tell you, and I'm not I'm not patting myself on the back, but I have had many people tell me in my one and a half plus years here with Rochester.

Hey, you're fair.

You listen, I I I appreciate you.

You didn't, I didn't get necessarily the outcome I was looking for, but I felt like you handled it, you dug into it, and you answered a lot of the questions that I had.

So, second lane, you go through the post board.

Uh okay, getting back to your question, of the eight complaints, three were sustained, five were unfounded.

Um I will tell you out of a department of 160 sworn police officers.

The chief may not like this, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

Those three came at the hands of two officers.

Okay, that means again, that doesn't mean that we're just perfect and we're we're walking on far from it.

But I think what it shows you is that there is a level, there's a culture that's been ingrained in this department that you will go out and you will do the right thing, and you will go out again.

The very first slide, you'll treat people with respect and I'll compassion for people.

That is clear from day one when I started here.

And so three sustain out of the eight complaints, five unfounded.

Questions on that.

I want to assume what is the of the details of the complaints while it uh they there are certain parts that are public record, but because of data practices, because of employment, I wouldn't feel comfortable up here going into them, but certainly data requests could be made.

Uh we would consult, obviously, with the city attorney's office with HR, but um it's gotten so convoluted with uh employment law and the rights of employees and the privacy of what's public, what's private?

Um but I I will say just policy violations.

If you're thinking, like maybe, well, how do we know these aren't biased?

Policy violations on bias, discrimination, they're not.

They're not.

And especially in today, 2026, after the 10 years that we've come out of, those are taken extremely serious.

Because to level an allegation of racism on a police department, like concrete, where I've got this, this, this, and this, you can't let that just sit out there.

You you get on that, you disprove it, or you find it.

But of these, 25, 2025, uh just policy violations to not include that.

Question, yes.

Um you have three sustained cases with two individuals.

How do you translate that into less department for the rest of the team?

How do you go out and talk to the department and say, hey, your coworker, your buddy that you hang out with, or you go on control with and did this, and this is how we're gonna you may not say that name, but how do you translate, hey, we're gonna reinforce this training, or we're gonna give you more information on this, or if there's no process, how do you what do you do with that?

Yeah, so what we'll do is here's what I think is more important to your question.

And more so maybe the complaints, uh, I'll just say this.

I'll give you an example.

I was hearing when I first started that um I asked for a supervisor, and one never was was called over.

I went, I I came in to all the shift change, I talked to every supervisor.

I said, Look, is there a culture where there's no policy that says if you you request a supervisor that I as an officer have to call one?

That's not what Facebook says.

Well, where's the other thoughts?

Now, is it a best practice?

I would say yes, it is.

No, there's no kind of like hidden culture where hey, don't bother the sergeants.

Okay, uh, but I will tell you that I think where is the is the cases and the calls and the questions and the inquiries that don't necessarily make it to a formal complaint.

When I start to see a trend, that's when I will say, look, you know, to the to the lieutenants to the sergeants, uh, hey, we're starting to see this.

Go to training and ask them, are we training this?

Are we training that?

And so the follow-up, here's what I would never say uh, you know, uh, you know, Captain Gronhold's uh screwed up and he got a couple days off, and therefore we're gonna all learn from that.

We would never throw an employee under the bus like that.

But what we would do is we don't want to see if there was maybe something uh that was steering some of our officers to go a certain way, meaning they just didn't know, they didn't understand policy.

Um the nice thing with LexPoll is you have to keep current.

Every you get alerts, like what weekly Paul, where you go in and you have to read it, you have to confirm you understand that policy.

Now, we're all human beings, and we know that people just kind of go through it, understand.

But when you're out there and you're actually having to put policy in practice, you better understand that.

You better understand, just like in fourth amendment law.

Um, probably the most important thing is to get legal updates.

Use of course updates are at work too.

Qualify with your fire hour on legal updates, they're gonna keep you out of the course.

Other questions?

Yes, sir.

I was eight complaints with 65,000 interactions compared to other groups.

Uh again, I only compared to Bloomington because I came from there.

We had a little bit more, but not a lot.

Again, I never was a professional standards man, I oversaw that, but um I I want to say, you know, like I said, right around that five.

So for a city this size, uh, you know, that that tells you something doing something right, and again, are there people out there that don't feel comfortable complaining?

There are uh I want to stay in the shadows, I you know, especially as of late, I don't want to bring attention to myself, but we have taken steps, we've we put in our brochures my contact information in different languages.

Um I get people all the time that will call me, yeah.

I was looking at the website, and you know, my numbers there, uh well, but the the staff down at the front windows, they got to stack my business card with my cell phone on there, and they just simply call.

And I don't I don't I don't mind that because I think I'm in a better position to either take a complaint or answer a question than a support employee who's already busy, and they just they don't have the time to sit and listen to somebody bent about the action for police subscription.

Other questions.

Alright, I appreciate your time.

Um certainly any time want to reach out to me if you have something, feel free to do so.

Appreciate your time again.

Thank you very much.

All right, well, I'll conclude the six A real.

I believe uh short presentation you want to add in.

You want to add it?

I will go ahead and allow that.

Thank you.

This is not a question that you that you would ask, but of those three sustained, you know, how many of them were for excessive force?

None.

Um how many in the eight were because of excessive force?

None.

So with that, doesn't mean excessive force does not happen out there, but we take great pride here at RD to address number one complaints and concerns about excessive force, which there has been none, uh, at least not this year.

Um then we also factoring in our review of uses of force uh is is multi-layered, and that's what I want to talk about today.

And so I apologize for the screen football.

Um policy 300, which you all have access to, it references any use of force by a member of this department shall be documented promptly, completely and accurately and appropriate report, uh, depending on the nature of the incident.

What that refers to is many police calls, many different kinds of police calls uh require reports from our officers.

I probably gonna go in my own question real quick.

So the incident report is kind of the be all end all for our officers.

They write incident reports on a lot of things.

Within that incident report, if they need to use force on an individual, they will document in detail the resistance they encountered and the level, whoops, and the level of force.

And the level of force that they used in response to that resistance, which I'll be telling in a second.

That is that is detailed in their incident report.

Articulate factors perceived and why they believe the use of force was reasonable on its circumstances.

So all as far as those incident reports, they all get forward to a sergeant, the sergeant approves those, and then they could go on to records or the city or county attorney's office for prosecution.

Um all of our officers have to document their actions on certain calls, especially when they use force interport.

On top of that, uh, you may see also, or you will see in policy 300, it talks about to collect data for purposes of training, resource allocation, analysis, and other related purposes, RPD may require the completion of additional report forms as specified in the policy.

So those additional report forms is what I want to speak to today.

Those are called response to resistance forms.

We require officers, whenever they either use or show force to complete a report, it's in axon.

Um it's uh detailing at a high level what resistance they encountered.

Remember, they're they're speaking to it in detail in their incident report and their response to resistance.

We use the data that they put in there to analyze how we train.

If officers are using a certain type of technique that we think we need more training on, uh, we'll train to that.

We also have to report it to the post board, um, and and we put it on our uh public dashboard that's on our website, our use of force dashboard.

So we all that data comes from the response to resistance forms.

Um what I wanted to talk about too is just those response to resistance forms.

Again, the incident report is completed.

The response to resistance form, if an officer uses or shows force is also required to be completed.

So I just have a uh a general timeline of how those become are prepared and then analyzed on day one of that use of force, especially if somebody's in custody, that officer is required to do the incident report.

And you'll see the policies uh that reference that in our policy menu.

That R2R, so the incident occurs, officers write a report before they leave for ship.

That person's in custody, they gotta have that report done.

Then within one to four days, a lot of times it's the same day, and we're trying to make uh make the report preparation more and more effective for officers.

Um I can I can speak to that in a second.

But within within their block of four liaison, they also have to do that response to resistance report.

Uh what that is is at a high level, the level of resistance they encountered and then the level of force they used.

We have we require that to be done within one to four days before that officer goes off ship for four days.

Once they submit that report, it goes to their sergeant.

What the sergeants uh requirements are is they review that use of force to make sure that all the boxes are filled out and are axon uh response to resistance form.

They also attach all the relevant body camps for that incident to that form, uh, and then they they give a preliminary excuse me uh analysis of the of the use of force, use of show of force, um, whether this appears to be within policy or or doesn't appear to be within policy, they then forward that to their lieutenant.

So we're on this box right here.

Typically that's done in about a week.

Um sergeant reviews all the body cam, all the relevant body camp, makes that determination, then forwards it on, uh makes that not a determination.

The lieutenant makes a determination.

The sergeant will make that suggestion or or um, and then the lieutenant then reviews all of that and says, yes, this was in within policy or out of policy.

Most times uh it is the use of force is within policy.

So what happens after that?

Again, sergeant, then lieutenant, then it comes to me, or depending on the division that the captain is a um of where the incident occurred.

If it was as a result of a search warrant, then that would go through the investigations division channels.

Most of them come through patrol, so they go through me.

My job is to review and make sure all the data is filled out accurately on that response to resistance form, and then review every body cam that's associated to that either use or show of force.

And then the sergeant, lieutenant, and I all have to be in agreement that this force, this use of force was within policy.

If we're not, then that goes to uh Mike, the PSM, professional standards manager, and then he follows up from there.

Um I have several policies here within the policy manual that is as you know accessible online.

Policy 300 that pertains to this is our use of force policy.

321 is report preparation, 421 is mobile video recorders, 437 is our body cam policy, then there are also applicable state statutes that are involved in officers writing reports and use of force.

Uh fit 13.82 is law enforcement data.

There's a lot of stuff under that under that state statute.

626 is a chapter that pertains to police officers and was referenced already by Mike.

609 is our criminal statute.

60906 is use of force, 609066 is use of deadly force by police officers.

And then chapter 299 uh governs the BCA.

And so when an officer uses force or an officer is involved in a shooting, the BCA comes in and takes over that, and that is specified in that 299 policy.

So I tried to give you a kind of a high-level overview time, like timeline uh map of how uses of force, specifically uses of force get uh documented both in an incident report in high detail, then also this response to resistance, and then how we analyze and review those, yes sir.

Uh you require the show force qualifies the show reports.

Thank you.

Yes, when you point a firearm or a taser at somebody, uh that is a show of force.

Yes, uh a range from grabbing a drunk individual slide arm over to slot deployment.

Where do you define the portable use of force?

Yeah, great question.

This was just reviewed and reinforced to sergeants the other day.

If there is a level of resistance encountered that an officer has to overcome, whether it's putting them in handcuffs, whether it's taking them to the ground in order to an effective arrest, or do whatever needs to be done.

If an officer needs to overcome resistance, that's when they have to detail it in their incident report and do a response to resistance work.

So any force that needs to be overcome in order in order for the officer to officer to do their job.

Do you feel that this process poses any risk for hesitation by an officer to use reasonable force in the course of the viewing?

Do you feel that how do you mitigate if there are any fears like hey, maybe I should do this, but I won't do it because I don't want to develop me and work out?

Yeah, that is always a concern, and that is one of the reasons we we transition to to make documentation of both incidents and responses to resistance more effective.

That is why we've been we've been, as far as innovation is concerned, make it not necessarily easier but more effective for officers to do that.

I have not heard from officers that this tech this documentation is too onerous to continue.

I have not heard that sergeants are well aware of every time an officer uses force and shows force.

And so I have not heard that this is just this is too difficult to document.

But we are aware of that.

We are, you know, we want to make it as effective as possible.

The the standard the response to resistance, when I talk about integration of our of our um of our um like records management system, when they do their incident report and then they switch over into standards, which is by design kind of its own uh portion of our records management system, um, it will give suggestions for that officer to fill the name.

It'll ask, hey, you do you use this name on the incident report?

Is this the same person that you want to use on this response to resistance form?

Yes, they click a button and it inputs it automatically.

So we paid attention to that, we recognize that we want to make it as effective as possible for officers to do other parts.

And I don't if are there any other questions?

What I really wanted to reinforce is that any time an officer uses force or shows force, they have to document it, um, and then it gets reviewed three times over by sergeant, lieutenant, uh, and then myself uh for patrol for the patrol division.

We take these uses of force very seriously.

And then report that as well.

That is that dashboard is on our website.

Yes, and again, aside from um, let's go.

Yeah, go ahead.

Oh, just a question the policy or involved BCA.

That is actually a state statute, and it's it is in our policy officer involved shootings.

Um for any time where an officer discharges their firearm during the course of their duty, the BCA's force unit takes over that investigation.

Okay.

So in addition to shooting phasing, not supposed to be a wide continuum of uses of force.

You do the same with what the with the smaller plan.

Like the least, yeah.

Um just so we have an idea what the so you're not doing this all.

I would say I would say there's either it's either classified, well, we have two different classifications.

It's it's classified broadly as defensive tactics, but then included in those is like muscling techniques.

So, say, for example, a lot of times we we get resistance when putting people in handcuffs.

We'll try talking to them, de-escalating, but at some point we have to actually force their arm behind their back.

That's a lot of what we get, we would call that muscling techniques to get their arm behind their back and then they had cups.

That would be a defensive tactic.

That's a use of force of the.

That is still a use of force, yes.

Any time, any resistance an officer encounters, if we have to overcome that resistance, that's a use of force.

Pepper spray?

Is absolutely intermediate weapon use of force, yes.

Um we don't, in law enforcement in general, uh we've the our taser usage and and we have all this documented, and it's all on a public dashboard.

The times we actually taste somebody is very few.

The times we actually pepper ball or even use like a baton anymore is like zero, or not coverable pepper spray to actually spray somebody.

We do use pepper ball, not a lot, um, but those are like little paintballs.

Um yeah, it's just there's just not a lot of uses of force in the 65,000.

Um we we have very small numbers of uses of force.

Well, I just gotta say this is quite the contrast with say ice for that.

How they use well.

I don't necessarily want to get into that.

We locally, we have we don't yeah, and the tactics and techniques, I don't disagree with all of them, but I don't agree with all of them either.

Any other questions?

Thank you for your time appreciation.

Thank you.

We walked into the room, I think it's useful.

Okay, thank you for that.

All right.

So if you have an opportunity to work over the agenda for today, want to stuff in the ordinance that makes us exist.

And this, I'll give the commission here a little bit of background on why I was proponent of adding this to our agenda for today is A, it's the beginning of the year, and I felt that if it's opportunities kind of refresh what the origin says, but it fits into a larger picture of really some of the discussions you've had over last year about our own operating rules and procedures that we have as a commission.

So I figured that a good first start would be just simply discuss the language and take an opportunity to maybe read it over and say, hey, what do we think about the and really get people's opinions from this commission on if whether you're not whether or not you feel that there's still value in that particular component or not?

So before I get started, are there any questions or thoughts on this for the rest of the remainder of this meeting?

Yes, sir.

So your suggestion basically is that if we think there ought to be changes in the stat in the ordinance, this would be a good time to recommend them.

I would like to hear it, yes.

It would be an opportunity to uh voice your thoughts on it and your argument and reads yourself.

I have a copy of the ordinance in front of me that was pulled from January 28th 22.

Um there are other copies, we would love to know nature on the same page here.

But establishment, which is section 213.

Basically, goes over our the ordinance language that establishes us, uh, and that is we are appointed by the mayor, but um approved by the council.

We should have seven individuals.

Uh we have uh we are recommended to have one uh individual as recommended for by the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People.

Uh one individual multi-con human rights commission.

I think there's a question there because I'm not quite sure if that commission exists anymore.

One of the standard does not so these would be one of the changes, you know, things that we may need to revisit.

And then five individuals uh from the community uh based on interest and involvement in various social justice and human rights.

Um interests, and then the terms of agreement here being that we serve staggered three-year terms, uh, we'll serve until their successors are appointed and qualified.

Uh if there are any conflicts of interest, you would not be eligible for appointment.

Um, things like former current peace officers, city employees, former city employees, uh, individuals, um party to a litigation involved in the city and police department.

Um 213.1, I'm not going to read the whole thing word for word, but are there any thoughts from this body on any concerns or aspects between sections subsections A for H.

Mr.

Chair?

Yes.

I I would recall some city attorneys up.

So just note that I think the 2222 version is the outdated version of 213-1.

I'm just looking at what's posted online, and it appears that provision was updated in September of 2024.

Okay.

Um so the the sort of the establishment of the PPOC is one recommended by the NAACP, as well as uh six additional people recommended by the mayor based on their interest and involvement in social justice and human rights.

Okay.

Um so the organization that no longer exists is not included in the statute.

Wonderful.

Thank you for pointing that out.

Are there any other material changes from that section that you have noted?

Um not that I'm noting, at least in regards to 213.

Unfortunately, the one that's attached to the agenda is the 2022 version.

Yeah.

Okay.

I do believe that a majority of the substance of the outdated version is still similar, uh, but we can definitely cross-reference any concerns with the most up-to-date version if we don't mind.

Um I will go to suggest that be added to the list of the people pointing is uh a representative by a disability organization.

I'm not suggesting any particular organization for just to get a different review in the input on that for the uh subsection B on that.

Any other thoughts on section 213-1 and any subsection thing?

Alright.

I will move on to section 213-2 duties.

So maybe I anticipate some more discussion.

I'll go ahead and read subsection A.

All these establishment, the commission shall review and comment on the policies, practices, and procedures adopted or to be adopted by the police administration as it relates to the legal requirements of the state and federal.

And expectation of the community, commission shall also to the extent allowed by the Minnesota GA review those incidents in which a number of public alleged that a member of the department is engaged in conduct violating existing policy practice procedure or the existing policy practice procedures and model, the commission may make policy and procedure recommendations in the department of laws and educational initiatives that may be the benefit of a public handboard that department.

So if you put the teller going with some of this information, uh briefation that we have received today by our professional services in the standard manager, sorry, um relates to a lot of the functions that the tour is saying that we should we ought to be doing, right?

And I think there are these opinions on whether or not this is a component of the ordinance that is still relevant given the information we have heard.

So I want to open it up and for this particular groups on section right 2132A what people's thoughts are with the subsection based on the presentation today and the experience we've had over the past several meetings on the floor.

I would say since I started uh in on the commission, um we have not had uh the request or opportunity to be involved in any of those type of discussions.

Uh the great news, there's only been uh 10.

So there's uh a good chance that may they may not have fallen to something that would be to this um description, but that has been something that has not been brought to the table.

So I would question whether or not that is an expectation for us, or maybe that's an education between the departments.

Okay.

Yes, if it were to be uh maybe Bruce has an idea about this because might have been on the city council back and when this was initially adopted for you.

What did you say that was 17 isn't a CSGO?

So the thing is the line of cities have like a system review board, and those are I think uh clearly cities that have a lot of reason we have, right?

Um but I think that's what the NWACP, for example, had in mind would be that there'd be a forum for public complaints, right?

Um how to police department worth doing such a good job.

Should we have a role?

Um say maybe we have a secondary role, for example, somebody disagrees with the outcome.

I don't know how I don't know how we would get in to the uh personnel matters, for example.

So I think it's uh it's a dilemma.

Okay, I don't know how it's another commission.

I can't remember specifically what their official title was that seems to address more internal correctly there is another police civil service commission.

Yes, I think that's more aligned their duties.

Does that seem to be contradicting what this says?

Um I guess I don't think they necessarily have sort of the investigative authority, they more or less recommend the list for promotion to sergeant or lieutenant and that sort of thing.

So it's more, I guess, a personal.

What seems to maybe conflict a little bit about the current status is 213.2 and 213.4, as Captain Groundwell said, like when the police department is doing an investigation of a use of forced incident or whatever it may be, like there's a lot of confidential information there.

Um and obviously we need to abide by chapter 13, which is the Minnesota Data Practices Act.

So it's sort of a fine line where yes, some information could be potentially released, but other information cannot.

Keeping in mind that all meetings of the PPOC are open to the public.

Do folks on this commission have thoughts on relevancy based on your representation of the city of Rochester and its members, the members of the community, if this portion portion could be something that could be reimported to better serve the interest of the community.

What I mean by that is is it relevant?

Is it necessary?

Yeah, is there something that we could replace it with that would provide a stronger function for uh a better service that we can we've been spending the last year or plus reviewing policies and assuming with the impact maybe the citizens or to protect law enforcement if we're not aware of what potential maybe complaints or policy violations, or how can we evaluate whether or not there's a need for a review of policy, I would strongly want to protect the officer or the citizen making those complaints and maybe those details, but it could open us up just to the conversation of the policy itself, maybe not the incident itself, but absolutely uh something to us uh to evaluate to compare and see if it's something that needs to be addressed, if that makes sense.

I don't think we would need the actual incident to make that determination, that's their job.

It's whether or not the policy needs to be updated.

That would just be my thought.

I I agree.

Um, if there are things that are going to light that seem to be a violation of policy or something that could be worked on, I think that's what it would take priority.

Um I think be administered with statute is specifically the data practices pretty explicitly states what can be what helped.

So if we could find a way, like you said, to um review issues without reviewing the issue, right?

We could we can better place our time and make suggestions that might better the community report.

Good go ahead.

Um perhaps the uh building on it is you know if we had them uh a list of what policies were used during the event investigation uh apparently the details of you know who is involved or uh paper like that, but uh just you know what's this problem for as a question of you know this policy or that policy or um type that that would help us to determine what direction we might be wrong, but so it may not necessarily be failure to abide by policy if they think that there's a pattern of something happening that where we think we need a new policy, right?

So I think the key term there is pattern.

We're not looking at individual incidents, we're looking at a pattern of uh reaction community concerns.

So I think we don't agree.

We're changing the country assumes.

I'd like to know the department's thoughts on kind of what we've been saying, especially facing this way.

Yeah, sorry.

I was just going to ask.

We talked about Mr.

Harvey talked a lot about the complaints that we get and the small number of complaints.

You as a commission representing the community.

Are our are you getting complaints that we're not like is your form ringing off the hook about things that the police department is doing or not doing?

Um I would suspect no.

But that doesn't mean that patterns emerge that there'd be a body to help bring it forward.

I I would contend that we would already be aware of that, but I certainly understand.

I'm also interested too if you did you call it the citizen advisory board or citizen um do you mention or citizen review board?

I I that's interesting to hear that um and what that could look like.

Um yeah, I would I would mention yes that your phone is not written off the book and the complaints that we've we've given you probably news to you because people aren't calling you guys about things that the police department are doing in that.

I don't think it'd be uh I don't think it'd be something that we would be saying you guys need to fix.

It would be more so we'd like to put our energy into giving you our input on something that's that you're aware of, right?

You're aware of all the policy, and we still look over it and give our thoughts on policy.

So it would just be giving input on something that had come up.

Like we mentioned in the new business, I'll be asking for you your um feelings, your thoughts on uh the LPR and policy for 27.

So I would just think really what we're talking about is sort of that second sentence in 213 actually, right?

Like the the first sentence um kind of the last sentence.

So the first sentence starts with following the last sentence starts with the commission.

I think I think that stage, but really what the discussion here today is about is that I think Colin, you have a highlighted there.

I have it highlighted too is that portion.

So whether or not it should stay a part of the commission and to what capacity, both you know, covered by the data privacy and also what that part would think would be necessary.

No, to your point, I'm not sure we're the right group to hear complaints from people.

We're not, you know, I'm not a person who interacts a lot with people who are interacting with the police department a lot.

So is that remedied by uh citizen review board or how no, no, I don't think it I don't think it is, but I think it's remedied by appointing, you know, Bruce suggested we should have people from the disabled community, I think um where are who are the people that the police department is most interacting with?

I think is probably a lot younger than two gazers that are sitting at the end of the table, right?

So we need more representation from that that uh demographic, perhaps.

So yeah, yeah, I don't think it's I don't think it's suggesting that we review the incident.

Oh we don't we're not taking the complaints, right?

We would be the way I read this is it's suggesting we would be giving our input into an incident that occurred, whether or not about a policy and whether or not that policy can be changed to either help adjust course or that's how I read it.

So I I'm not saying that's how we read it.

That's what it sounds like, but that's our role is true.

Is to what we can watch, you know, which is side is engaged, yeah.

And so which yeah may or may not be in contradiction to the data practices.

Right, right.

Okay, and I think it's the allowed by there might just not be any allowed.

So by that statute, there may just be nothing allowed for us to look at, in which case that sentence could be rescinded completely, unless there's another way we could defer another deferred attorney.

Um that is very complex and it's very delicate matter, but I don't I don't know what the answer is.

Yeah, I think it's I think the reason why we wanted to look over this is because we want to make sure we're fulfilling what the ordinance says.

And we also don't want any open holes saying we should be and we're not, or we shouldn't be, and we are trying to.

So we just want everything to be clear.

And I understand like your your body is not the body restraint a points.

I get that.

But if there were systematic issues with the Rochester police department, I would expect more members of the community to come to people in addition to us and shed light on this.

We're not certainly not perfect, uh, but but we do uh as Mr.

I mentioned great concern about being received with respect to the community and doing uh our job at best and best of right.

Um I I guess about that fact.

Um, I think where my mind usually goes is right now we have some excellent people in positions that are fulfilling some their duties exceptionally, uh but as time occurs and people retire and change happens, you decide to sail off to me right here.

Um the systems in place, and my at least this is the personal opinion.

My need to remain robust enough that we can continue to maintain that level of integrity, right?

For any organization specifically uh more special for a police department.

Um in agreement on uh couple fisheries' assessment that yes, we have part of the ordinance that uh tells us we should be doing something, but we don't necessarily feel appropriate that we are the ones doing so.

Uh, one question I did have for our uh city attorney representative is um I wasn't here for the formation of this commission or the passage of it, but is there anything in state law uh requires us to exist in this form exactly?

You know, I um I'm not sure that that's the answer.

We can sort of go back and take a look at it.

Um I would say that like, for example, the first sentence specifically states in there that as they relate to the legal requirements of state and federal law and expectations of the community.

So I feel like there's probably some type of a law out there that says that a city of Rochester's size, for example, has to have a commission, such as the police policy oversight commission, where the police department um presents either proposed policies or adopting policies as it says to you all to get sort of um your impact as community members.

So I'm guessing I don't know what that what that statute or that law is off the top of my head, but by virtue of it referencing it, I feel like very probably.

So we we can look and like if the suggestion is is maybe just taking out that second sentence before we do that.

Certainly we would want to do the legal research on it to make sure that um we can do that, and if we do, do we have to replace it with something or what what do we need to do to ensure that the ordinance still is in for and then following that, making sure everything's good.

I I think the direction would be I don't think that with the way you know, as I said, I interpret this as we're reviewing things that have happened by the Data Practices Act.

I don't think we can.

I think it would be very beneficial to change this to you know, maybe if you guys see a trend, right?

Like uh certain policies, you know, spiking or whatever, you could suggest a selection of policies in a blind manner, where one of those policies within that selection is the one that you are having.

I'm not gonna say having trouble with, but have identified a trend in the other ones are either ones you want to have us look at or just a random pick to be reassessed and then present it in a way that you know we're gonna go through, look at it and do that way.

So that I'm not revealing sensitive information.

I don't want to be going over and being like, why didn't they do this, this and this?

Like I don't think that's what we're doing.

But we still want to review policy in the best way to suit both the community and the department.

Yeah, we have a policy oversight committee that meets once a month, and that kind of does it doesn't include you know outside the organization, but uh that's exactly what we do.

Uh policies will come up that have been changed, it could be just a couple of words, it could just be you know best practices that now we'll reflect in the end of this change or suggest change.

Police departments aren't obligated to change, and like open some suggestions, you can say, you know what, what we're doing seems to work.

I think this would complicate, we don't you know we we want to stay within best practice, but I think um you know that is something that has been discussed where maybe you if it's a significant change from policy that's kind of been the the you know, this is how we've been doing things for a long time, uh bringing that in in, but not not really, but but like next meeting look, these are some significant changes we're looking at.

Bringing that in, but not really like next meeting, look at these are some significant changes we'll look at.

I think we do that here in my short time here in Rochester.

I know we bounced a couple policies or more than a couple off of you guys just to get that feedback, especially, you know.

I know I keep talking about the technology, but I know a few of you have got backgrounds in technology.

We're talking about the drawings here, you know, last meeting.

There was some real you know good questions that are based not on just I'm kind of curious about stuff, but you come from and that's what I think the board offers to the police department is that that private sector for some, not all kind of a higher level of understanding of things to ask questions that maybe we're not thinking about or thought about this.

Is this a concern?

And you know, I would not not push back, but you should somewhat be convinced to the community as a member of this board because if somebody feels that they're not being you know giving the services they should from this police department and they're not comfortable coming to us, I would hope some connection.

I know we older we kind of but would say I'm gonna seek somebody out on POC, and then you would bring that to our so that we can address with that too.

I think we do I don't want to sound like tweeting our own, but like we invest a lot in the community and engaging with the community to any of the events that we're at or any of our officers at.

We you know, we have conversations with people and um yeah, so it's not just you.

Um we are having those conversations too with the common we have I think our our role um can't be as a committee of the police department serving the police department has to be an independent source of um feedback, right?

I think that's summed up in expectations of the community.

I think we could do it in the uh right before the troublesome sentence, and we could do a better job of um giving our communities expectations, right?

That's where I think our our independent function should fall.

Our subject matter expertise, so to say would you say, yeah, I agree.

If we strengthen somehow the expectations of the community dropping of the second second question, uh okay for practice.

We do a better job uh the oh years for the level.

I I absolutely agree.

Um I myself have made several efforts to kind of spread the word.

I think there's also a lot of competing noise out there, but for a lot of folks that just we they don't know we exist.

I've tried my best, but I encourage each and every one of you to also do the same.

Um but I appreciate it.

I'm just gonna keep us cognizant of time here, but I appreciate the input that you guys have provided to me today.

Um, I think the next steps will be to maybe for our next meeting also bring in a just a bullet point bulleted list of changes that we can propose, and then uh we can then send over to the attorney's office to see, hey, is this germane or sound based on all the legal approval statutes?

I'll continue having conversations uh with some of our city leaders as well.

But I encourage you to also continue getting input from the committee or the community as well.

Um, and I appreciate all the work and feedback from both this audience and the department uh in trying to strengthen the transparency aspect of the uh of this dynamic as well.

Um, just to kind of close off here, unless there are any other concerns on that particular subsection at this time.

Um, there are other aspects such as the uh escalation processes of what we are entitled to do to kind of bring attention to the mayor or the city council if there are things that we believe are not being contended to, uh, and then we also move into the annual report aspect, which I believe uh we have been doing annually, which have we had any issues with the annual report, any feedback from it's yeah, it's like to the mayor's office and I have perfect okay, and that of course the allegations of police officer and misconduct, which relates back to 2132A, um, and we may need to kind of make some tweaks there or recommend some tweaks is probably the more appropriate work.

Um are there any other thoughts on our our overall ordinance here that people have thoughts or opinions on anything we can okay?

Well, I appreciate the input.

I've taken some notes now.

Um I will document those and then let's talk about uh what we can maybe propose at our next meeting.

But with that, I will move on to new business.

Um I don't believe we had anything on the docket, but I will start with our commission here.

Um are there things that any member of this commission would like to bring for discussion at our next meeting?

And then we have one recommendation I'd love to take notes.

Um sorry, I was illustrating that.

Um in light of all that has occurred over these last several months, um a year and a half ago when I first started, we had um review uh policy 413, the whole immigration section.

I'm very curious now that we have um some unfortunate real life experiences and issues that have affected community.

It would be I think a wonderful opportunity to go back over that policy.

I'm curious on the city's input.

Um curious on we now can see how some policies uh have affected the city, citizens uh and so on, and I'd just like to look at it from a fresh perspective.

And citizens or residents.

Are you talking about an impact on residents generally?

I understand your designation, I guess, citizens slash residents, I guess.

I would assume there's an impact on both.

So all right, I've done that one now.

Anyone else have any policies or topics for discussion from the commission for next meeting?

Okay, so we talked about the bylaws and what it will proposed changes the path and our role.

So uh an update on that would essentially be that we have been informed that there are dynamics that city council passed before our tenure here, that we may or may not be empowered to make those changes to our bylaws at this time.

Um, still a discussion with the mayor and city council, and part of that is actually looking over those ordinance as well to see you know if our proposed changes will make it at all point to have a unique set of bylaws for us.

Um there are also government uh discussions that the mayor is having with other boards and commissions of the city to kind of understand where they're sitting at.

I think there was a puzzle piece in the bigger picture uh needs to be filled.

So I understand the frustration with that uh agenda item as well, but at this time it's really in a holding pattern until we better understand what it is our function is where we want to go with our vision, and then um then come to the decision if our bylaws truly do need to be changed or not.

Two points of clarification for the record, not bylaws but rules and regulations we were corrected on that time.

I just want to make sure everybody knows the statement we're talking about.

Um and that was set forth by city council as a blanket for all commissions, and then their ordinances can be tailored a little bit to choose uh how they operate.

Um, and then the other one this ordinance is separate from those rules and regulations, and that's why we're gonna need and what we just what we figured out and we can't do a resolution on that though is as understood.

And then the particular would be 213-1 subsection F.

Or, yeah, um commission shall make rules as it may be advisable and necessary for the conduct of the fairs.

There are some gray areas that need to be sorted out by city council that running okay.

I will hand it off to departments.

I just mentioned for new business, the relevant policies for ALPR and statute for ALPR is four or policy is 427.

It is also referenced in policy 804, and then the state statute for ALPR is 13.824.

13.824.

Okay.

Um do you guys have policy already created around this?

Yes.

And is it publicly re-released?

The the LPR policy should be on the website.

Should be on the website.

Just to so that we're all looking at the same issue.

We're looking right now.

And does the uh department wish to present on the policies of the whole and we certainly couldn't be very similar to uh the town hall we had last week.

I would think I would be in agreement unless anyone disagrees that uh give the department an opportunity to present the policy to us and their practices, and then we can then provide feedback to questions and answers with that.

We can't and I can go on in more details.

Sure, sure.

Absolutely.

Um how about the uh immigration policy?

Would this uh the department be willing to also kind of provide some input on that as first before we get into it?

Okay, wonderful.

Any other topics to be added for our next time?

All right, is there is there anything else else we can clarify for you on up front for the asks that we have?

Um no, just I have down that uh we will do some kind of presentation regarding policy uh 413 immigration and then the ALPR 427804.

Um then we will have uh by the end of the next meeting a bullet to list of what our suggestions or what your suggestions are for ordinance changes um so we can move forward with that process.

Um I miss anything.

I think that covers everything.

All right, I think barring that uh we don't have anything else.

We would be uh adjourning, so I'll take a motion adjourn.

Motion second?

Second, second approved.

Okay, all in favor?

Aye, all opposed?

This concludes us meeting.