Okay, the time is now 10 03 a.m.

and we'll call this public safety committee meeting to order.

Um Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll chair core?

Present councilmember Castillo Angiano.

Present.

Councilmember Castillo.

Councilmember Spears.

Here we have quorum.

Thank you.

First item on the agenda is approval of minutes from May 19th, 2025.

Can I have a motion to approve?

Motion and a second.

Is there any discussion?

And there's no folks signed up to speak.

Okay.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

Motion carries.

Okay, so the only item on the agenda today is just setting an overview of what this committee is charged with, the subcommittees that we have.

So we just thought we'd take today to level set on what we're assigned to do, set our subcommittees, and then talk about a little bit about what we're already doing in those two subcommittees.

Um and then we'll take some ideas at the end for what you guys want to talk about over the next several months.

So sharing this charge, this is the uh charge from the mayor that was sent out uh several weeks ago, but um I'll just go ahead and read it.

The public safety committee shall oversee matters related to public safety associated with fire protection, emergency medical services, emergency preparedness, police and law enforcement, animal care services, street lighting and shade.

The committee will create an interpersonal violence subcommittee to identify policy solutions to address the persistently high rates of interpersonal violence in our community.

Additionally, this committee will create an elder abuse subcommittee to identify opportunities to address the unique public safety concerns impacting our seniors, i.e.

financial fraud and physical abuse.

So we're gonna have two presentations on those um subcommittees here shortly.

I did ask members previously what they wanted to serve on for subcommittees.

So councilmember Castillo and I will serve on the interpersonal subcommittee, and then Councilmember Castillo Anguiano, and then eventually Councilmember McKee Rodriguez and Councilmember Spears will serve on the elder abuse subcommittee.

I wanted to see what y'all thought thought about for us meeting.

We have some stuff already for the October agenda, but coming back to November and sharing what you think might be ideas for how we could move those two areas of focus forward.

Does that sound okay to come back in November?

Okay, Mira.

So we'll come back and Maria's gonna help staff those, right?

And so she'll come back and help staff those two subcommittees so that we can meet and figure out exactly where we want to uh focus in those areas.

Uh the other thing that I just wanted to share about how I see this committee moving forward is really thinking about community safety as a whole.

We talk a lot about uh we see a lot of the data.

I remember I get uh I think Councilmember Castillo and I got to serve on this committee last year and um uh last couple years, and so is Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

And we get a lot of data.

And Maria and I have talked a little bit about how do we make that data more digestible and uh really understand trends and why things are happening and focus more on the why rather than just um focusing on what we're doing as a result.

And so we're I think we can focus a lot about community safety, thinking about street lighting is a big thing that we're probably gonna get a win on this budget cycle, but continuing to focus on needs also and not just gaps and other ways that we can help support our community overall.

So that's the way I'd like to for us to move forward.

If anybody has does anybody have any other comments about the charge or um how they could see us moving forward with public safety for this term?

Well, I mean, I'm always interested in more officers in control.

Um to your point about lighting, it's always being talked about the mailboxes and how we can address that better.

I think that was a I think I'd like to bring that back in October.

Maria and I talked about because it was a previous initiative that we never fully got through public safety.

So um, yeah, bringing that back in um October is something I'd like to do.

And I'm I'm excited about the um assessment we're doing for the fire department, yeah, and how what we're gonna see there, making sure we're just maintaining mental health resources for our fire and police.

I have a long list, really.

Well, and feel free to share it or send in an email however you want, but definitely the fire needs assessment will also be on the agenda in the next couple meetings.

Anything else from your council members?

Councilmember Castillo Anguiano?

I don't think you thought on the street light gap.

Maybe do like some kind of gap.

Oh, your mic, sorry.

Uh like a street gap uh if if we can do some kind of analysis for street light gaps, um, quarterly statistics on fire and police, good neighbor program updates, and I can send this in an email to you as well.

Animal care service updates, violent prime uh reduction plan updates.

It's probably what I got right now.

Okay, that sounds good.

And one of the things I thought about with the gap analysis was taking a look at gaps versus needs and how we could prioritize, because uh learning a little bit more from DSD about how exactly they're tackling.

It seems like we've been tackling the easiest ones, and so maybe how do we rephrase that or reframe some of the anal um lights that we're starting with?

Thank you for sharing that.

Councilwoman Casillo.

Thank you, Chair.

A couple of areas that I'd like for us to um explore, and I really wouldn't have a great value in terms of looking at the current data and how we can change the programming, particularly around DART and the good neighbor program, uh, and also the intersection between placemaking uh and how to reduce violent crime, uh, particularly with vacant lots.

I know there are uh teams within PD DSG that are doing good work, but I think there's opportunity for us to uh recalibrate to make sure that we're having a greater impact.

Uh, and as folks have mentioned, right?

How are we going to ensure that our public safety uh members have the resources in terms of mental health and what that looks like, uh, what those metrics are, and is there opportunity for us to improve uh their access to those resources?

Thank you, Chair.

Uh great ideas.

I thought it would be cool if we could.

I didn't know that there was the um community, the I always forget the term of this, but there is a community safety in for environmental design.

Maria, do you remember the name of that?

The that's what it's called.

Okay.

Um that I'd love to see a presentation about what that looks like if we in how um to your point around vacant lots, could we transform them more into park spaces and um activate those areas with positive things for community?

So I love that.

And I don't I don't actually know that we've ever gotten a presentation about what mental health supports that our teams actually receive for fire and police.

So that would be great.

Sure.

And we have done a presentation in the past for both, but we'll be happy to uh bring a refresher to to the committee.

Okay, that would be great.

Um maybe I missed that, but yeah, I think it'd be great to learn more about how what supports they receive.

I know folks were just telling us that it's been hard to hire the um the psychologist for the firefighters right now, so trying to prioritize that.

Yeah, and and and that is true.

We we did um have um support through contract services and also through the police department, but um that has been uh an area that we're trying actually to see we can bring interns to start working with with those both departments and kind of create that pipeline.

So yeah.

Um I think that's overall something that we've seen for our professional services, like even with vets and ACS, it's been hard for us to recruit professionals from the community that want to come work at the city city level.

So thinking about what pipelines look like in those areas would be really good.

Okay, that's awesome.

Thank you all so much for that input.

Let's go ahead and start off with the two presentations that we have.

Uh which one would we like to start off with?

Uh, yes, um, councilwoman, we would like to start with the interpersonal violence programs.

And Erica Haler Stevenson, she is our violence prevention administrator at Metro Health.

And the presentation that you're gonna see today is really to give you an overview of the many different programs that are offered by the City of San Antonio, both to address uh prevention and intervention when it comes to violence, uh, and also the many different departments that are involved in this process.

So Erica has been doing a great job coordinating efforts across our city departments.

So again, the goal is to kind of give you that baseline understanding uh as we continue our work.

Erica.

Good morning.

Pardon my pardon my voice.

I'm getting over a little something, um, so you'll hear some throat clearing.

I'm also gonna be doing a lot of reading, which is not customary for me because I'm gonna be talking about other departments' work besides my own, and I want to get it just right to make sure that you understand correctly what we're looking at.

So interpersonal violence is part of what you've been charged with, and I'm gonna talk about a subset of that called intimate partner violence or domestic violence.

And I'm gonna talk about the terminology just a little bit in a minute.

Um, we're gonna be looking today at domestic violence as a whole and what the city is doing with that in 2019.

The city developed a strategic plan that set forth its path to make a major investment in what it does with domestic violence, and this happens across several departments.

So that's what we're gonna look at today.

I'm gonna go through the approach and what just a handful of the departments are gonna do, but you'll have a sense of what other departments are doing work, so you can follow up or get more information if you would like to.

Here's a list by my estimate of the departments that are doing active work on domestic violence, not to say that other departments aren't having a hand in some way, but there is some very intentional work in these nine departments plus the city manager's office.

On this slide, you have a snapshot of what's going on in each of them, and I'm not going to read all of it to you, but I am going to highlight about five of them today.

What's really important to understand is that we have our individual lanes and our individual subject matter expertise or disciplinary expertise, but it's all designed to complement each other.

So we work well together, we'll work well across the departments, and then we work well with other agencies and community organizations at the same time.

The city's comprehensive approach is focused on different tiers, including working with individual people, obviously, but then we work to increase the capacity for other organizations to provide services.

We improve the intervention and services system that surrounds us in the community.

We implement prevention strategies, so we're not just reacting to things that have happened already.

And the city as a whole has made a shift from a law enforcement driven approach to a victim-centered public health focus in its delivery.

Here's some of the terminology that I wanted to just give you a quick hint at because I'm going to flip between all three of these in the rest of the presentation.

If we're talking about interpersonal violence, that's that's the white space that you see on the slide, right?

Then family violence is a very large category that may include any kind of violence between family members, some some kind of degree of relativity, basically through marriage or blood.

Depending on whether you're talking about legally or non-legally, the definition will change.

Domestic violence is a smaller subset, and that usually relates to cohabitation or marriage in some way.

And then intimate partner violence is strictly related to people who are or have been in a relationship.

So that will negate maybe the aunt or grandparent that lives in the household, that sort of thing.

So as I go through statistics, you'll want to pay attention to which term we're using because it will make a difference.

So I'm going to start with the San Antonio Police Department.

They have done a lot of work over the last several years as they've kind of changed the face of how they're handling domestic violence.

Their public facing services focus on domestic violence, include the crisis response teams, which you have heard about.

Those are based at every substation in town.

So there's one at each of them.

And they work with people experiencing domestic violence.

They also have the special victims unit who works with felonies related to domestic violence and other types of crime.

And they have a volunteer core called the Family Assistance Crisis Team.

Finally, they have handle with care, which is a network process where kids who witness violence.

Sorry, let me flip my explanation there.

If kids witness violence and EMS or police see that having gone on, they're able to notify schools and say, hey, this kid had an experience that is significant in their life and they need a little extra care.

The school gets notified to activate any counseling services that they might have in school or after school or on contract.

And that is something that is done on standard through a 911 response here at SAPD.

Going from there, something important to know is the training changes and the staffing changes that have occurred with SAPD.

Since fiscal year 2020, SAPD increased the number of officers, detectives, and sergeant positions through CRT grants and city funds.

This allows the uniform officers to assist with outreach and education, and then makes the detectives available citywide on nights and weekends when they didn't used to be.

Part of my congestion is also the blurry eyes.

So one second.

In the state, you are required to have 12 hours of family violence training, and SAPD requires 24.

So they're getting double in the training academy.

Plus, they are getting in-service training for the existing officers every four years on what's changing in the law and changing in practice in their SOP.

We're going to go into a couple of stats.

We've talked already about there's a lot of data that you can look at, and I'm just pulling out a few highlights, things to help answer some questions and maybe direct us to other questions we could dig into.

So starting with calls for service.

So this means that police were called for assistance.

It's not the same thing as a report, there's a little bit of a difference.

You can see what the last three calendar years of data look like, and these are for domestic violence calls.

So not as big as family violence calls, which would be a lot bigger.

Domestic violence calls is a little bit narrower.

And you see it's stayed relatively the same the last three calendar years.

And in this committee, you're used to getting calendar year data.

That's how law enforcement data are usually reported.

And that's how we tend to report most of our work on domestic violence so we can match that kind of measuring stick.

And in this slide, you have two sets of data.

On your left side are family violence, sorry, domestic violence reports, so not family violence but domestic violence, a narrower set again, broken down in some categories, so you can kind of see what some of those differences are for the last four years.

You'll see that that has stayed fairly consistent, also.

There are things that can change this, and they're very complicated.

So obviously, population increases will change or population decreases.

Additionally, people's comfort with filing a report or approaching the police at all will make a difference.

So if reports go up or go down, that's not necessarily an indicator that you have more or less domestic violence.

It's an indicator that any one of the many factors are at play.

Additionally, something worth looking at and that we're monitoring closely since 2019 are the number of family violence homicides.

And you saw the all-time high was in calendar year 2020, and that was 30, and we are at 22 for the year of 2024.

Going into Metro Health.

In 2020, victim advocate services that were originally stationed with SAPD were transferred to Metro Health in an effort to make this more victim-centered public health approach.

And from there, the program has grown.

So crisis advocates were part of the original recipe, and we added case managers.

Now we have a continuum of care that takes place inside of one department, moving from that initial crisis support and safety planning and meeting immediate needs over into the long-term support that helps people shift out of the relationships that they're in and develop their own empowerment and ability to function independently.

We have additional things that we do besides this direct service work.

We do some work on local policy, public communications, community education and outreach, and very importantly, a group called the Domestic Violence High Risk Team.

That's an interdisciplinary, interjurisdictional group where we work with the county and the state across SAPD, Sheriff's Office, Metro Health, numerous others, including the district attorney's office, and we work together to unstick high risk cases.

Sometimes high-risk cases have issues going on in multiple jurisdictions, or we're working from a city arrest to a case that is being tried by the county district attorney, and right, so that's already two different jurisdictions working on it.

When somebody has a high-risk need, we're able to bring everybody together, figure out what is needed, kind of cut through red tape and just get in the same room, and it has made a big difference in a lot of cases.

Just a sample for you.

Approximately 10,000 people a year that has stayed fairly consistent per calendar year are served with those crisis advocacy and case management services.

And I pulled just a couple other things that I thought you might find interesting.

In addition to the needs that people have that are met by the local shelter, there's so much of a housing need that we provide additional support through temporary lodging.

And this is for folks who can't find a place to stay with a family or friend.

Something also that I thought was really interesting that you might find intriguing as well, is people are looking for ways to fortify their homes and make them safer so they can stay in their home.

And we dispense home security devices like alarms and locks and things like that that help people stay home and be safe.

Next, the city attorney's office.

The mission of the prosecution division of the city attorney's office is to facilitate and enhance the prosecution of Class C misdemeanors related to domestic violence, to quickly intervene, provide for victim safety, hold the offender accountable, and prevent violence from escalating to more dangerous crimes.

The office provides initial and follow-up services to victims and their families through two community services specialists that they have on staff, which involves direct crisis advocacy and safety planning, referrals for services, and coordination for other city and community organizations.

The prosecution division has a standard offer that it delivers to offenders in domestic violence cases, provided that they have no similar violations or offensive, injurious or threatening contact with the complainant.

So this is if they are eligible.

The standard offer is deferred disposition for 150 days, a fine and court costs, community service, and then sessions with either a licensed professional counselor or participation in the batterers in intervention prevention program, which ranges from 10 to 24 sessions depending on the defendant's history.

For the city attorney's office, again, this is the Class C misdemeanors that they're working with.

They're filing a range of around a thousand filings a year.

You'll see the difference from calendar year 2023 to 2024.

Differences are based on community demand, right?

It's not something where they go out and drum up business.

So they have to respond to whether the community is making reports and then there are reports to be dealt with in terms of prosecution.

Next, municipal court.

So that'd be the step after a filing from the city attorney's office.

Municipal court has a specialized domestic violence docket with jurisdiction over the Class C assault cases that have associated fines.

The court holds domestic violence offenders accountable and ensures ongoing judicial monitoring and compliance.

Its primary goal is to reduce recidivism, enhance public safety, and improve outcomes for offenders.

Over 1,100 assault cases were filed in the court in calendar year 24, and 69% of those were related to family violence.

The court facilitates interventions that promote rehabilitation and behavior change through evidence-based practices.

Interventions include court-ordered counseling, education and treatment programs to break the cycle of violence and foster healthy relationships.

Excuse me.

Referrals for counseling are made to local organizations.

Anger management classes are developed by or delivered, sorry, by Jewish Family Services, United Counseling Center, and the Center for Healthcare Services.

And then the United Counseling Center offers the batters intervention prevention program as well.

And then looking at some of their data for calendar year 2024, you will see the assigned deferred disposition at 477 cases for the year, deferred disposition dismissals at 326 for the year, and their completion rate at 68%.

Finally, human services.

Delegate agency agreements provide critical funding to community organizations with a focus on domestic violence intervention and prevention.

In FY25, DHS funded six programs in the domestic violence funding priority with a total investment of 1.3 million dollars.

About a half million of that was ARPA one-time funding.

Five agencies deliver those six programs.

The five agencies are the Alamo Area Rape Crisis Center, Bear County Family Justice Center Foundation, and Powerhouse, Family Violence Prevention Services, and an organization called For Her.

These organizations deliver the programs that you see described in the metrics on the right side of the slide.

And they do this work through crisis intervention, advocacy, case management, hospital accompaniments for victims of sexual violence, expedited review and processing of protective order applications, therapeutic interventions, developing safety and counseling plans, one-on-one counseling, healing circles, and a range of other services.

You can see that there is a pretty wide variety, and it's designed to meet all needs of different people.

Next, we'll move in to the collaborative commission on domestic violence.

This is a local organization coalition that Maria Villa Gomez is co-chair of, along with the Honorable Monique Diaz from the 150th District Court in Bear County.

And it operates in a larger kind of ecosystem where we know that we all come together and have a role to play, but these roles link to each other.

The membership consists of city and county leaders, prosecutors, judges, law enforcement agencies, nonprofit organizations, mental and health care systems, and higher education.

There are three focus areas that the CCDV is working on in its current strategic plan.

Data utilization, making sure that it's acquiring data, using it to the best possible, using it in the best possible way, making it available to the public, making it transparent, communicating with the community, making sure that people understand what domestic violence is, how to find resources, making them easier to find, and focusing on a way to build healthier relationships in kids.

That's a little more challenging and ask, working through school systems, considering limitations that exist, but it's something that we're determined to do.

Finally, I just want to flag some things that are coming up.

I'm keenly aware that we're about two weeks away from October, which is domestic violence awareness month.

And if you were the existing members of council, remember that we tend to do a lot of stuff in October.

And that is because we're trying to highlight the city's investment in this effort and how we work together.

So you will see some things happening.

Check your mailboxes the first week.

You'll find some ribbons in there for your team.

Excuse me, one second.

We'll be releasing an annual statistical report from the CCDV, which will show more of what you saw in these slides.

This is kind of a snake preview.

We encourage everybody in the community, including yourselves, to observe the Purple Porch campaign, which is when we light or decorate our homes or buildings in purple in solidarity with people experiencing domestic violence and to raise awareness, and there will be other community activities.

Finally, uh the annual CCDV symposium is on October 3rd.

There are still virtual seats open.

It's a hybrid event and in-person slots are full, virtual still open.

It's open from eight to five.

It is free.

Go to ccdv.org or hit the QR code and you'll be able to go to registration.

Are we moving straight into the next presentation?

Thank you so much, Erica.

Thank you.

Let's start off with council discussion, then we'll shift over to the elder abuse component.

I'll go ahead and start off with my colleagues if anybody wants to begin.

Go ahead, Councilman Castillo.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the presentation.

I had a couple of questions regarding the emergency lodging.

I know you mentioned that this is, or if I understood correctly, it's outside of the shelters that these are being tried.

You know, how is the funding allocated?

Uh, and how would an individual get connected to that service in terms of emergency shelter?

Okay.

So if the shelter is unable to accept someone, sometimes people have broken rules in prior stays with the shelter.

Um, maybe they have a pet and there's not room for a pet, they're not willing to go without the pet.

Um, or sometimes people will not go to the shelter because that is their choice.

Um, if they're not able to stay home or with a friend somewhere safe, we have hotels under contract where we will post the person for five days.

It's not a solution to the housing epidemic, but it does help them find time to arrange something more permanent.

Um, it is something that we pay for through our funds and we track in the program and it's part of our budget.

Thank you for that.

And then in terms of the municipal court, uh, I had an opportunity to attend and uh just sit in with the Ropel Court and some of the services that they provide to offenders to rehabilitate themselves.

Um do we know what the counseling and education treatment looks like?

Uh, and do we track in terms of if these individuals that go through uh the missile municipal court counseling education treatment if they reoffend, and if so, do we have that data in terms of how many are re-offending?

Let me see if anybody is here by chance.

Nope, I don't think so, and I don't know that, so we'd have to get back to you.

Okay, I appreciate that.

Thank you.

And then what I I didn't mention in my opening comments in terms of like the overall scope for the committee.

Uh, I think similar to the collaborative commission on domestic violence, there would be um uh value in having a similar conversation, particularly around youth violence.

Uh, and I understand, right?

Uh, as you as you say in your presentation, right?

If youth and children are seeing specific trends, they're likely to absorb those trends and potentially act out, and then we see the increase in youth violence, and it runs in alignment with the data of domestic violent cause with 78207 in particular.

That's also where we're seeing the trend of youth, right, getting involved with um just really violent crimes.

Um, so that's something that I would also like for us to explore, right?

What resources are being provided to youth who are offending, and then of course, I'm sure the data will be evident with the same trends with domestic violence uh statistics in terms of uh zip codes.

Um that's something that I like to for us to explore, and then with collaboration as well, um, continuing to work with the county, whether it is something like the Roflego court.

I understand that they're seeing a reduction in funding for that court system too.

Um but if we're seeing the trend of you know domestic violence offenders go up, how can we continue to collaborate to help fill that gap in terms of uh rehabilitation of the offender?

Um I did would like to get an individual briefing in terms of uh the component that's housed with PD, because I did receive a letter and I'll share it with y'all from uh someone with a couple of thoughts and comments with that partnership.

Okay.

Um but we could talk about that piece offline, and then um lastly, right, again, going back to that collaboration component.

Uh, I do think there's a lot of uh value in terms of whether it's municipal courts or the county courts to talk about how we are um sharing that responsibility for individuals.

One for accountability for the victim, but two also ensuring that we were uh rehabilitating offenders.

Thank you, Chair.

Which court did you mention them?

Oh, okay.

Refleo.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Uh and and just a follow-up to the question that was asked around the lodging nights.

Is there a reason why?

Is that like what kind of going off of what she asked?

I was shocked by the decrease in the amount of usage of those lodging nights.

Just based on demand.

Um, and sometimes people are having an easier time getting into housing with family and friends.

Um weather plays a role, economy plays a role.

Um, there's a there's a lot.

Um, and it's uh difficult when you're in a position where you're responding to what's the community is driving because it can be wildly different from one year to another.

Great.

Thank you.

Councilmember Spears or Councilmember Castillo Angano.

I I thank you for the presentation.

Very good.

I look forward to diving deep on many of these things, but I wanted to go to slide nine.

So I see kidnapping went way up in the past couple of years.

Is there do we have any information about why?

I'm gonna see if there is an answer right now from police department.

Maybe we call it kidnapping up in the left.

Uh they'll indicated they'll research it.

Okay.

And then I put the slides together, they did not.

So you say the offense code was reclassed on the stalking.

What was that?

Could you explain what a reclassification of an offense code means?

Stocking was results.

Good morning, Assistant Chief Justice Alamay SAPD.

Uh reclassification is just when the elements are different than what was initially reported, we will reclassify that case to the appropriate offense.

Okay.

So we just don't have a stocking category anymore.

No, we we still have a stocking category.

So your specific question is the zero number.

I'll look into that and get back to you.

I I think that was a different area that they moved that offense to.

It might have met a different uh standard, but we'll research and get back to you.

Okay.

And then um on the protective order violations.

I guess my question is like, how are we how how I'm gonna be interested in how we can effectively reduce that number a lot because if they're already aware, you know, that they're a danger, and then they just violate the protective order, the steps we can take to really impact that number.

I know it's my understanding on the county side that there's issues with getting a lot of those um served and and timely served, and so I'm wondering if there's some kind of crossover issue there.

Okay, it's just something that I wanted to bring up and highlight.

So I think that's all I have right now.

Thank you, councilwoman.

Uh, this Eric, and I know you're just showing us the data uh to demonstrate how things change, but this is some conversation that Maria and I have been having is it's hard, and I had those similar questions, like when we see numbers like this, and these are the quarterly updates that we get, it what do we take from it, right?

What is the why behind what we're looking at?

Data is just numbers uh if there is no analysis that's going into them.

Right.

And so oftentimes I feel like the challenge is we look at numbers of how our community is progressing, but we don't dig enough into the why and how the solutions that we are implementing directly correlate to that why.

And so that would be the as we move forward, uh what I'd love for us to continue to think about and maybe we highlight just one of these and say for we'll just take the protective order violation.

Like these are the steps that we are taking to reduce this number more significantly, knowing that there's already something in place to hold these folks accountable, etc.

So digging in, and I obviously know that wouldn't come from uh you, but just thinking about for the team here, digging into exactly how what are we doing to directly address some of these issues, and I think our community would appreciate seeing some of that too.

Um Councilmember Castellano?

Uh and you actually make a really good point because I I I wanted to see um in slide nine if any of these involved gun violence, because one thought that I did have was if we could possibly or uh explore working with stand-up SA and Big Mama Safe House because they do a lot of intervention with things like this uh with crime, and then uh I think it's uh mom's demand action that kind of had like a gun accountability piece, and I wanted to see if the city um or if our local government can take a stance on responsible gun ownership and kind of what that would look like.

Okay, thank you.

Um I'll just wrap up with a couple of additional questions.

One of the things that I had asked about a little while back was if we're looking at an individual story qualitatively, because we often look at the numbers, and so Maria informed me that I think it was the C C D V actually did a couple of case studies on them.

So I'd like for us to either in the next meeting or maybe for our subcommittee be briefed on the results of the case study so we can truly understand from the um from the perspective of a survivor how they experienced all of the different components of the services that they received.

Um so I don't know if you want to comment on that.

Yes, thank you, Chair, for that question.

So um the CCDV working with the district attorney's office, Metro Health, and the police department, we looked at a couple of cases.

Um we did not interview any of the um uh victims, if you will, as part of that review.

It was just to see how we as agencies perform in that process.

Uh we we have a report that we can share with the committee in terms of some of the the gaps that we identified, uh for instance over communication with the victim when they get a call from PD, a call from Metro Health, a call from the DA's office, how can we make that more efficient so they don't have to go through the same questions over and over again?

So that's one example of an area that we're working on, uh, but specifically we that did not interview victims, but we're happy to share the that review that we did and the steps that we're taking to make improvements.

I'd love to see if there would be a way to add that component just to get from survivors what their experiences to, but I'm glad we did that analysis.

Uh but I just think talking to folks helps us better understand.

So if there's a way to add that into the C C D V's uh purview or even our uh committee's purview.

Definitely we will do that.

And then one other question on slide 13 with the reduction in the number of cases that the attorney's office was dealing with.

Why did it reduce so significantly for family violence?

I don't see them in the room, so they'll have to respond unless Liz will be able to do that.

I was just gonna say we will follow up.

Okay, thank you.

I was just curious about that.

And then lastly, the um comment that Councilman Castillo mentioned about youth violence.

In your chart that shows the difference.

Would that follow under would that fall under family violence?

Does youth violence get considered youth on youth violence is not unless it's in a household, it's pretty complicated.

Um so we would have to probably talk more deeply about what you're looking at and what camp that would fall in.

Okay, and and what we'll do, Councilwoman, because I was um asking the same question, just on the information that you have seen from the police department as is a broad family violence.

We'll get the information what that includes in terms of youth, uh children, um adults.

So we'll we'll give you a little bit of a very explanation so you understand what you're looking at.

This I think that the benefit of having this conversation conversations as well, depending on the interest of the council, we can start capturing data differently and presenting it differently.

So I think I've noting that youth uh specific subgroup that is something that this committee is interested in.

Yeah.

And just to clarify my understanding, interpersonal violence would be all three of these buckets.

Yes.

Okay.

Anything stand-up SA, Big Mama Safe House, they're working on gun violence, that's interpersonal violence.

Okay.

So interpersonal violence is any violence of one person against another.

Okay.

I promise I didn't tee up Erica saying this, but two of those organizations that she mentioned that did nonprofit support uh from that are delegate agency funding are cutting getting their funding cut from the budget this year.

So I know I shared with some of my colleagues, but it's one of the requests that I uh that we can hopefully talk about this afternoon because as you mentioned perfectly, they do a lot for our uh survivors in the community.

So I want to make sure that they still have the adequate funding that they need to be able to do the work that they were committed to.

Uh I think that's all I have for right now.

Does anybody else have any last comments on this?

Awesome.

Thank you so much for the overview, Erica.

Thank you, Chair.

So our next presentation is related to elder abuse, and we have uh Melody Woosley, our director of the Department of Human Services, and Chief Salamith from the police department that will be presenting the current efforts that we have underway.

The public safety committee last year, and I believe the year before, we discussed about expanding training to all of our city departments that provide services to the community so they would have a better awareness on how to identify elder abuse and be able to connect uh those members of our community to the services they need.

So similar to what we did with domestic violence, we'll give you an overview of the efforts that we currently have underway so that way you can discuss what are your priorities for this committee.

Melody.

Okay, thank you.

Maria.

Good morning, public safety committee members.

Um today, assistant chief Salome and I will provide an update on San Antonio elder abuse prevention and intervention efforts.

And so before we begin, I do want to acknowledge Lisa Centenno, who's with our adult protective services team.

She's here with us today.

And APS is really an essential partner, and they've been instrumental in helping us work through these uh issues.

And so during today's presentation, it will include an overview of elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation in Bear County, talk about SAPD and Department of Human Services practices to prevent and intervene in suspected cases, provide an update on the training that we developed for city employees, and discuss the role of financial counseling in coordination with APS in this work, and then highlight the key intervention and prevention and intervention strategies that are employed by human services and SAPD.

And so, as background, Texas Adult Protective Services receives more than 120,000 reports of elder abuse annually.

But only one in 24 cases of elder abuse are thought to be reported, actually.

And adult protective services also estimates that one out of every 10 older adults in Bear County are abused, neglected, andor exploited every year.

And so Bear County does have the highest rate of investigations per 1,000 adults in of Texas's largest counties.

And so we're going to start and I'm going to turn the presentation over to Chief Salome to provide an overview of crime data around adult abuse, and then I will come back and talk about some of the strategies that we're working on together.

Thank you, Mel.

Good morning, public safety members.

So just to set the understanding of what the law says in Texas, for the purpose of criminal offense, an elderly individual is a person that is 65 years of age or older.

And so when you take a look at these, we're going to talk about the property ones first, and then we'll look at the crimes that are the violent assaultive offenses.

But taking a look at the data, financial and property crimes remain the most common offenses targeting older adults.

Theft and credit card abuse cases are consistently high, with theft cases already at 387 year to date, nearly matching the total that we had in 2024.

Credit card abuse cases are at 112 year to date.

Several financial exploitation categories, especially fraudulent use and possession of identifying information and financial abuse of the elderly have seen notable increases from 2023 to 2025 year to date, which us indicate a growing trend in scams and identity identity-related crimes that are being committed against the uh older adults.

What's most alarming is that these numbers only scratch the surface.

In the earlier slide, APS reports that only one in 24 cases of elder abuse are reported.

So many uh older adults are suffering in silence, and um the true extent of of the harm that they are facing is is something that's far greater than what we're reporting.

And I'll talk a little bit about some of the reasons why that goes unreported.

Um there's a fear of retaliation, there's shame and embarrassment, there's sometimes a lack of awareness as to what's happening to them, uh, declining health and memory loss and dependence on the abuser.

So I think it just speaks to the problem that we are trying to address.

Focus now on the crimes involving physical violence against the elderly.

Our violent assaults remain steady, but they're significant.

Um they're not as numerous as the property crimes, but they're consistently high with injury to the elderly alone already at 388 cases so far this year.

This reflects again an ongoing and serious risk of physical harm to that particular population.

Talking a little bit about the typical abusers.

What are the abusers of these adults, elderly adults look like?

Well, they're both men and women.

They're all ages.

The resource line found that family members were perpetrators in nearly 47% of the incidents that have been reported.

Medical non-family caregivers were perpetrators in almost 13% of the cases, and only 6% of the callers did not know their abuser.

And again, these are vastly underreported.

We know that and the data suggests that.

So I'm going to pass it back to Mel.

Okay, so I'll uh start with a brief overview of risk and protective factors.

So older adults are more vulnerable to abuse when they are isolated and disconnected from resources in the community, when they're suffering a mental impairment or have physical limitations, or and or enduring some kind of financial hardship.

Caregivers, including family members, are far more likely to commit abuse if they have a history of family conflict and violence and lack caregiver training and resources.

And so protective factors include education and training for older adults, caregivers, and community members, such as what to expect when caring for someone with dementia, or helping older adults build strong networks.

Also supporting caregivers with respite, financial resources and training is important, promoting financial independence for older adults and helping them mitigate damage if they are victims of abuse, and encouraging community awareness of warning signs and how to report.

Both DHS and SAPD are trauma-informed care certified organizations, and we are active members of the elder fraud and exploitation task force.

Human services produces and manages training for city employees, and we coordinate interventions for suspected cases with APS financial institutions and with the task force as needed.

SAPD officers are trained as cadets to recognize older abuse.

Patrol officers work closely with adult protective services to coordinate and provide referrals.

The investigation division report criminal elder abuse, and the financial crimes unit investigates elder fraud and conducts training.

Earlier this year, at the request of the public safety committee, DHS collaborated with Adult Protective Services to develop a 45-minute training.

APS don't look away for city staff, and it was piloted in 10 public-facing departments.

The goal is to raise awareness around recognizing the signs of abuse and the mandatory reporting requirements.

To date, over 6,900 employees have completed that training.

And later this year, we'll be rolling it out citywide to pick up the rest of the city employees.

And so both the Human Services Department and SAPD are actively involved in community efforts to address the challenges of older adult abuse, neglect and exploitation cases.

Human services service on the Texas South Texas Adult Protective Services Board and the Elder Abuse and Exploitation Task Force.

And we mandate annual training using APS resources at all of our city operated senior centers and our partner part-time nutrition sites.

We host joint resource fairs and awareness events for our older adults and caregivers.

And we identify, refer, and coordinate on case resolution with APS, financial institutions, law enforcement, and the task force.

This is particularly important for instances of exploitation that are not considered criminal in nature.

SAPD also strengthened their working relationships with APS in the task force.

And overall key accomplishments resulting from this increased coordination include direct referrals now coming from APS to SAPD.

An APS investigator is embedded part-time within the SAPD financial crimes unit.

And a dedicated prosecutor is working to handle complex financial crime cases.

And so in human services, our goal is to ensure that older adults are healthy, active, and independent.

This begins with ensuring that we are providing ongoing opportunities for training of staff, including those that relate explicitly to older adult abuse.

Those that cover the fundamentals of aging to prepare prepare older adults, family members, and caregivers for more normal developmental changes that are associated with aging.

Our programming is designed to reduce social isolation.

We promote financial independence and protection by helping older adults safeguard their assets.

And lastly, we take a whole community approach to achieve our goals, including supporting community awareness events and campaigns like walk for a cause and finish the sentence elder abuse campaign.

And so I'll just quickly summarize human services core strategies to prevent address elder abuse and help older adults maintain remain active, healthy, and independent.

Our strong partnerships across the community to expand our resources and our reach, providing robust training opportunities for seniors, family members, and caregivers, and promoting financial independence and asset protection protection for seniors.

And so I'm going to turn it over to Chief Salome one more time to conclude the presentation.

And talk a little bit more in detail about the training that we get that allows us to recognize the signs of elder abuse.

So everything that we do starts in the police academy.

So crisis intervention training and victimology training is baked into virtually all of the lessons that we teach, all of the approaches that we take with the hands-on approaches and classroom approaches.

And this is important when we talk about what I mentioned earlier, how underreported this is and the and the types of barriers that are in place that prevent somebody from coming forward.

Um at uh every other every three, every in-service three years, every three years.

Um the one thing that uh Mel mentioned earlier, and I'm it's something that I think we're really proud of here is the trauma-informed certification that we got in 2023.

Uh we're the only major city police department um in the country that has that that I'm aware of.

And for us in policing, it just means it's just it's just understanding that people that we interact with who have experienced trauma.

We're not going to focus on on their behavior.

We want to consider what would happen to them, not just what's going on with them in the moment.

And in practice, it really is just about approaching people with empathy and with patience and avoiding actions that could re-traumatize them so that we can connect them to the help and the support that they need.

And again, I'm just gonna highlight that how important that is when we consider all the barriers that are in place sometimes for people that are willing to take that step to report to us.

Talk a little bit about the investigative process and some barriers.

So each referral that we get is reviewed for criminal uh elements of an offense.

So if it's financial in nature, that's going to be for our financial crimes unit to handle.

If it's physical in nature, that's going to be our special victims unit that's going to handle so those cases can uh go in both.

There's sometimes they could be a combination of both, and so you'll have different detectives handling those different cases because there's a specialty to them.

Uh once the offense is determined, a detective will then contact the victims and the witnesses, and they will start to gather the evidence.

And there's a lot of information that when it's when it's physical, uh a physical case, there's photographs, there's physical evidence.

When it's a financial case, there's a lot of bank records and and digital media.

Uh, we do work closely with APS.

They are a valued partner.

There's a lot of information sharing that goes on because their goal is to minimize and mitigate the risk to that individual, and we're trying to catch the individual, the perpetrator.

Um for us, a success a successful case results in the arrest or the filing of charges against the subject when we have enough probable cause to establish that a crime has been committed.

And I'll talk briefly about some barriers to successful outcomes.

There's a lot of victims who will stop cooperating once they receive restitution.

Uh once once the money's back in the bank, uh, either through the suspect or the bank reimburses them, uh, they they tend to not want to proceed with with case charge with charges.

Um it is difficult sometimes in obtaining uh timely information, usable evidence.

Uh that often is a result of a delay in reporting.

And so for us, the the critical uh evidence is critical right after an incident happens.

And and the longer it goes without being reported, the harder it is for us to then work backwards and try to track down a lot of case information.

And then just on the financial side, those records are complex, they're very slow, there's a lot of subpoenas, uh, there's a lot of uh warrants that need to be issued.

They often span multiple jurisdictions, even overseas, and so that those are sometimes uh challenges for investigators to get their hands on that evidence that they need to prove a case up.

All right, Chair Cor, we hear you.

Um we're looking forward to using data in a more comprehensive way to really tell our story.

Um that's an area that I think we are all uh invested in and really looking forward to to having some some uh more information so that we can have some better outcomes.

I'll just talk briefly about how we use crime trend data to drive our public alerts.

And we always want to prevent victimization.

I think that's where it starts for us, and the way we do that is uh by proactively letting people know it's whether that's the older adults who could be the victims, the caregivers, financial institutions about all the emergent scams and the methods that are being used that are targeting seniors, and and those change weekly.

I mean, they're very uh very simple scams sometimes from a text, very and very complex uh scams with with different emails that look legitimate.

Um we will use incoming case data to track that information to tell us what's happening.

That's through the detectives in the financial crimes unit, that's through our task force partners, that's our officers out in the street.

Uh using that information, we will then we craft targeted messaging with clear warning signs.

Um most importantly, we include steps for victims and family members to report that suspicious activity.

We want to tell them what to do and where to call, even if they manage to avoid that scam.

It's important that we know about it.

And then we uh will use that uh take all that information, we'll issue press releases and media advisories through SAPD PIO.

Uh we use the SAPD social media channels to share with our partner agencies and provide materials for banks for bank employees that are gonna be seeing this scam for the HEB clerk that might uh uh come across these scams, put those in senior centers and adult protective services to share, and we do that uh both in English and in Spanish.

And so uh that is the end of my presentation.

I just want to say that we're excited about the opportunity to work uh with the public safety committee, but especially with the subcommittee uh and to find areas that we can improve so that we can protect our elderly friends and family.

And so uh I'll turn it over for questions.

Thank you.

Thank you for those presentations and tag team presentation.

Um I'll start it off with council discussion.

Councilmember Spears.

Well, I just want to thank you for the presentation.

Um I have a lot of um elderly residents in my district, and so I'm real and this is an area I'm really focused on, so I'm glad I'm on the stepcommittee.

Um area that I I feel we also need to consider, or I know y'all are already considering is how we reach those who are isolated and are disabled and can't report, can't have no voice.

And so I see the many ways y'all are reaching out, but I know this is a big area that we need to kind of tackle and figure out.

So that's one thing that I just really want to focus on.

And um, I really appreciate the trauma informed training.

I think that's that's very that's excellent.

And so um I'm glad that we're doing that.

And um beyond that, I just I look forward to working with y'all on many of these.

This is a big problem.

It's a bigger problem than we are aware, I think, in our community.

So thank you for all your doing.

Thank you.

Councilman Castillo?

Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for the presentations.

The trend that we continue to hear from District 5 uh seniors in particular is um the the fraud and exploitation, particularly around uh unlicensed contractors and or bogus contracts like uh solar panel installations.

Uh I know uh the city of Benton, Texas has an ordinance in which they require a permit and have specific vendor hours for door-to-door outreach uh to solicit individuals for services.

So I think there'd be opportunity for us to explore what that could look like here to reduce those um predatory practices that I'm hearing from seniors in district five.

Uh I also believe that there would be value just given the trends again with like uh the fraud uh in particular in the financial abuse and forgery, uh, is working to auto-enroll seniors in the federal and state do not call registry lists.

I don't know if that's something that's already done at senior centers, but I do think there'd be uh value in exploring that.

Is that something that's being done already?

We're doing that.

Well, we're doing that as part of the financial counseling.

So as a senior that's participating in financial counseling is getting that advice.

All right, thank you for that, Melody.

And then in terms of the 40 per 47 percent uh that you cited, Chief, in terms of the offenders being did you say they're typically family?

Yes, ma'am, relatives.

Yeah, and I wanted to highlight that because what I hear from uh residents that share their experience, right?

Oftentimes there is an addiction issue in terms of the individual taking advantage of that senior.

Uh and I'm curious to whether if it's through SA core or through PD, right, when they're responding to these calls of the the the fraud or the theft, whatever the case may be, uh, if they are, and and again, right, it may be going based off assumption.

Um, but what I've heard from some seniors is like you know, they'll share that their niece or nephew has an addiction issue, but they don't know where to send them, right?

They don't have the money for rehabilitation, but there are services, right?

So I'm curious to like one, is that something that um PD can do or does, right?

If it's expressed from uh the victim uh to connect them to what those resources could be, and of course the ones that are zero cost to to the the resident or the family.

Yes, ma'am.

I think that's something that we can certainly look into.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Cassio and Yano.

Yeah, uh both of you had really really good points.

I think that I mean, whatever we need to do, we just need to make sure that we're making sure that our elders know that they don't need to isolate themselves, and I think that that's where we can just make sure that we start and tackle that.

Um, because one, if they're not isolated, they have things to do, whether it's community engagement, making friends, socializing, um, and then that was a really good idea of council member of the national do not call list because I actually did that myself because these spam calls are just ridiculous.

Um, and my my my grandma actually fell for one of these um do not calls, and they actually kind of took all her stuff, but thank God we got it taken care of.

So um definitely interested in seeing what that looks like, and yeah, just making sure we can take care of our elders.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for the presentations.

I appreciated the last slide, and you called it out, and it's specifically work that we're doing as a result and to be proactive and preventative.

Where which department does that work sit under?

I'm sorry, what on the last slide?

Yeah, like what where does this work?

Like who's doing who's taking lead on this work?

That's gonna be us.

SAPD will take the lead because we're gonna have the information first.

We'll be able to decipher it, and then I think our platform's bigger.

But like who within SAPD?

I guess um that's gonna be through our financial crimes unit.

So I don't know if he's here.

So deputy chief uh Jorge Suarez and uh Lieutenant Justin Masciati back there are going to be uh vital partners in this with the subcommittee as well.

And how many folks are in that financial crimes unit?

We've got 20 detectives that are assigned, and then we've got two supervisors, a lieutenant, and a captain.

And then they don't do they have like a social or communications or community engagement specialist position in that?

Uh we do not.

So that so who takes lead on like the dissemination of that information?

Yeah, all of that will get filtered directly through the uh public information office, and then that message will be unified, and that's a message that we can share across city platforms.

That's often how we share things with your respective officers as well.

So it comes to cities public cities C and E or We are able to coordinate that, Councilwoman.

So within the Belize Department, they have a communications team that they do a lot of the work, a lot of the social media, uh coordination with uh TV stations, uh uh, and they produce our own communication tools.

Uh typically those are coordinated for the most part with CNE when we need to do that.

I and we can definitely do more of that.

But the Belize Department has a team and resources to be able to do that.

I'd be interested in learning more about that in that department, how big it is, how it's staffed, curious um just from a curiosity perspective around like community engagement and what they're deciding to focus and um how we're relating that.

And then the only other question that I had specifically on the presentation was um from the benefits navigation and um financial counseling piece, how are residents accessing that mostly in senior centers, or what's the process for folks to get access to.

Yes, those are set up to um rotate through our senior centers and offer those services to to members of the centers.

So do the senior centers like sign folks up in advance?

Is that um yes?

So that they're signed up in advance if or if they're experiencing a crisis, they can um get access to uh benefits navigator or counselor.

But I will say that we also have financial counselors outside of the senior centers at our uh financial empowerment centers, and so seniors who are not attending the centers have access to those services as well.

Yeah.

I know when we were on the campaign show and I was talking to seniors that social isolation piece is real, and a lot of times folks don't know the services that they have access, like one um resident was telling me, Oh, I didn't know I could get transportation to the center if they they would come pick me up and take me there.

And so I think the more we just have to figure out continuously unique ways on how to tell people that there are these opportunities.

I know we've been working on the Kenwin Center, just a plug for I'm super excited about that coming online in district one, but just in general, like you don't have to live in the district to go to Walker Ranch, and people they'll come pick you up, and you know, so I just think the more that we can do to think about creatively and how to get people there because I feel like that's half the step, and make sure that the folks that are there are also ones that really need it, right?

When we go to Walker Ranch and we see the folks, like if you are already if you already know about the service, you already know the opportunities there are, you'll be more likely to use it.

But I often find that my most underserved communities are using services the least in like community centers in that way, and so or and also just ones that are not engaged in the work.

So think continuously thinking about how to get more folks to our senior centers, I think is uh uh something that we should continue to think about.

And we live and breathe that.

Um we also have a small communication and marketing team that works on those, not just for seniors, but all of our human services programs.

And um this is senior center month, and so there's a campaign, a new campaign that's started.

You'll see new billboards that are encouraging seniors to to get those services.

That's awesome.

Okay, glad to hear that.

Thank you all for the presentations.

I think it gives us good setup to work in our subcommittees to determine what areas that we can move forward.

The last thing on hold on one second, Molly.

Yeah, hold on one second.

One second.

The last thing that I wanted to say on the elder abuse one is I actually worked on um previously with council member Palaeus on a c session for elder abuse to like essentially tell folks about what elder fraud looks like, what tools and systems they have.

It was pretty successful.

It was actually really highly attended.

Wasn't I was kind of shocked at how many people came to it.

And so it might be an interesting idea for us to think about like I know you guys already do town halls.

Do you want to talk at all about the town halls you do um really quickly and how maybe we can escalate or um expand that work as well?

Absolutely.

So we do town halls, but we also uh a more effective strategy that we found is to host resource fairs, and so we invite partners that are able financial institutions, obviously adult protective services, SAPD, and other partners to talk about the different um strategies and get individuals there.

So our our goal is to connect them to benefits and frequently individuals that are coming to those resource fairs will say something that they is the trigger then for us to say this might be a case of um suspected abuse or neglect or exploitation.

So they don't frequently come seeking that specifically, it's through conversation or you know, I need help with food security because I'm having these financial issues, and then you identify that there's some other things happening.

And so the resource fairs are extremely helpful in in getting that um getting them in the door and getting them to connect to services, town halls, also presentations that we do at the senior centers.

Yeah, that's great.

And maybe we can uh as one of the things that comes up, y'all can tag team on what that looks like in terms of how we're spreading those out and how as council leaders we can actually um take a role in helping support those fairs because it was it was really helpful when we did it, and it was a panel we had folks from a lot of different um organizations come and speak, and I I know that it was really uh helpful to our residents.

Okay, great.

Um, do we I'll pass it back over to you, Maria?

Uh yes, councilwoman.

I just chair, I just wanted to mention uh lastly on um for today's for the benefit of our uh committee.

Uh one of the uh requests from uh the mayor is that we provide monthly updates on our meetings.

So what we included in our correspondence is that um uh we would we will be facilitating that within the next 10 days after the meetings take place, and of course, uh the chair will be sending that to the mayor and copies to the committee members.

And if there's any changes or anything that you want to make to that, just let us know.

Or would you like to let Molly speak?

Should we just yeah, I have signed up to speak, but apparently that come on up, go ahead.

It's okay.

Just super quick 30 seconds.

Yeah, we'll give you three minutes.

I was trying to find the place and I couldn't find out.

Like, ah, okay, super quick.

Thank you so much.

Um just super quick.

And and by the present, I did catch the presentation, so I am in the right place.

Um, just real quick four points, five points.

Elderly abuse to the unhoused residents on the streets.

Um while they answered the officers answered my questions about training.

Um apparently they only have it twice a year.

Apparently, it's not seeking through because the police officers are very harassing, um, very even with me, and I go to record the human sweeps that happen.

I reported it to internal affairs, but they have not taken it seriously, or they throw it under the rug or something because they never contact me again.

Um, so they're very, very they intimidate you or they intimidated me for trying to record the event.

Um, they're very abusive on the streets.

Um, point number two.

Ah, sorry, when we um SAPD and park police well, okay.

Yeah, I already said aggressively bullies people and myself when I go to record human sweeps.

Okay, number three.

Um, I have gone to oh yeah, I already told you.

See, I get nervous.

Okay.

Um so how are the officers being trained?

That's my question.

Are they just going to a computer and hitting next, next, next, next, next, next.

Uh oh, there was a question, and they have to go back and then find the answer.

And then next, next, next, next, next, done.

I did the training.

I mean, is that the kind of training that the SAPD cops are going through?

Because that's what I'm kind of thinking, because what they actually explained happens, doesn't actually happen because myself and the unhouse community are being harassed and bullied and intimidated so that they don't have to write up a citation, things like that when they sweep them and take their property away.

So thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

I promise I'll look up and research where the meeting is at, so I won't be late again.

Thank you.

No worries, thank you for coming.

Okay, the time is now 11 16 a.m.

and our public safety committee meeting is adjourned.

Thank you all.