Public Safety Committee (PSC) Meeting Transcript – 06/12/2023 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 6/12/2023 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 6/12/2023 Transcript Generated by SnapStream Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [2:00:21 PM] O'clock in the afternoon. So I'm going to call the meeting to order of the public safety committee of the Austin city council. It's 2:00, as I said, Monday, June 12th, 2023. We are meeting in the city council chambers at 301 west second street in Austin, Texas. We have a quorum of the committee here and we're also joined by council members Ryan alter and Allison alter. And we appreciate y'all being with us as members. The first item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes of the special called public safety committee meeting that was held on may 22nd, 2023. Is there any objection to the adoption of the minutes hearing? No objection. The minutes are adopted. Without objection. The item on our agenda for discussion is a briefing and discussion on the cronk associate inc audit of the 148th cadet class and long term process assessment that we have some people that have signed up to speak as part of public communication and I will call on our staff to help us call on [2:01:24 PM] those speakers. >> First, speaking in person for general communications, Reagan, April zo. Okay. Hi my name is Reagan Aparicio. >> Thank you all for allowing me to speak today and to be here. I'm actually here to just speak and make a general comment about the safety concerns that I have here in the city and being an austinite all my life, my son's father, Shaw, was found deceased and lady bird lake in April of [2:02:25 PM] this year. And I just feel like the negligence of the safety of myself and all fellow austinites need to be reevaluated. Eid I just really feel like as being here and being from the city of Austin and I feel like the law enforcement and the city officials need to do a better job at keeping us safe here. There's obviously things going on, just not at the lake around the city and I feel like it's being neglected and I'm hurting my son is hurting and all the other families that have endured this pain is hurting. So that's all I have for now. >> Mr. Ruben Clemente. Anybody knows why I'm you know, [2:03:26 PM] the reason why I'm here. >> Because the last time I was here for that public safety meeting and I'm fortunately, I feel I really wanted to confront chief Chacon, but he's not here . The day after that, I found my camera ripped apart. And let me rephrase. I've had my windshield smashed in my car Shaw by the police, by this particular unit of the police and some other weird things have happened to my vehicle. It was tampered with, which could have been major. I have complained about it to my David Simmons, who my state farm agent, which I informed. And I've been harassed by the police over a decade. He ended up telling me about another person he heard had been harassed by the police over a decade. And I have to apologize for that day. I was here for the special sessions, but when I saw that dps officer, I knew that my mouth was going to say something I'm going to regret because unfortunately, I had a friend of mine who was a family member that one of those little girls was the one who died there. That [2:04:28 PM] and I visited you body may first. That to send them pictures and I'm just here because I'm tired of it. And be honest with you, I just came from a hospital Saturday and I'm sick in which I had to call chief Chacon secretary Janet Deegan to tell chief Chacon to tell your crooked police officers quit harassing me. I just came from the hospital. It don't make no sense. And I made it clear. I said I wasn't going to be here today if it wasn't for that harassment that showed me that I needed to be here. And somebody needed to do something because something, something sinister is happening with this particular unit of APD. And unfortunately, I have to say, just like I'm the person that filed two complaints against police chief Joseph Chacon and neither one went to internal affairs and it was filed through my third complaint specialist Mia demise. And I'm still waiting on it. And I want to file a third one. And I'm a fourth and fifth and sixth until he gets control of his officers. [2:05:29 PM] I'm sorry, sir. Crooked undercover police officers. Thank you. I'll be back on. Fortunately sir, that concludes our general communication. >> Do you want to move on to our item? Speaker sure. We have one virtual item. Speaker for item two, Emily crow. Emily can you unmute on your end. >> Okay. >> I think I'm unmuted. Can you? >> Yeah, we can hear you. You can proceed. Can you hear me? Yes okay. Okay. Thank you so much for this time to speak again. >> I apologize. I can't be there in person this time. I just wanted to bring up, that I wanted to thank the city council for approving the massive light rail project as this is a momentous step towards getting people to their destinations [2:06:30 PM] safely via car alternatives. But we all know this project is at least one lawsuit and several years away from being implemented. We need a safe, affordable car alternative to travel east during peak entertainment district hours on Rainey street now, this is where the principle of harm reduction comes into play. And I know that council member Kelly is very familiar with this as she's an advocate for harm reduction. We know that people are not going to make the best decisions when leaving the Rainey street district. They are going to drink on Rainey street and attempt to walk home to east Riverside in the dark. They are going to leave their bartending or waiter jobs with a large amount of cash. You know, at 2:45 A.M. In the morning and attempt to scooter or bike home in the dark. Austin can decrease the chances of harm occurring between Rainey and east Riverside by implementing a night owl shuttle this night, owl shuttle would not be just another capital metro project to approve, but a gift of compassion to increase the chances of people getting home safely and reduce first responder burnout from having to respond to preventable injuries [2:07:30 PM] and deaths, especially those around lady bird lake. My hope is for the city of Austin to make the necessary safety improvements and implement a night owl shuttle so another family will not have to endure the agony of losing a loved one. I humbly ask for. I humbly make this request for the city of Austin and the public safety committee to practice harm reduction, to increase the chances of people getting home safely from the Rainey street district. This is in memory of Joshua Alvin crow. Jason John martin Gutierrez. Chris Clark. John. Honey. Cliff Axtell. Jake Waltrip. Randy Litchfield. Luis Ramirez. Fernando Ortiz. Santiago Becerra. And Julio Santos. The third. Thank thank you so much for your time and allowing me to speak. >> Thank you. That concludes our speakers, sir. >> Thank you very much. >> Members in public, I'll point out that we also have a council member that has joined us virtually, and that's council member qadri. So that'll take us to the briefing and discussion on the Creola associates audit [2:08:31 PM] of the 148th cadet class and long term process assessment. I'm looking at a whole group of folks you all pick who's going to talk and let's go for it. And we've got people that are on the are also virtual. >> Mr. Mark Ellis can. >> Mr. Ellis yes. Can you hear. Yes. Yes. Thank you. >> Can you hear can you hear us. Yes >> All yours. Okay >> Thank you very much. And I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Shaw thank you for inviting us. So I actually have two of my team members here, and we want to looking forward to giving you a, a kind of an update on the current scope of work with the police training academy and also updating you on an overview of all the work we've done to date since November of 2020. Before we begin though, let me just introduce myself and my team members. So my name is mark Alers. I'm, I'm a managing director for Kroll in based in [2:09:32 PM] Philadelphia, Ann, and I'm the engagement leader on our work with the city of Austin in evaluating the Austin police department in several different areas as well as we'll discuss today. With me are our two national renowned police experts in policing best practices. I'll let them introduce themselves in a second. Dan linskey is a managing director for Kroll in Boston, and he's the former chief of the Boston police department. And Rick brown, is a senior, consultant for Kroll. And a long standing had had a very distinguished career with the Pennsylvania state police and many high level positions. And he's been working as an independent monitor for the past dozen years or so with a number of police departments around the country. But let me just briefly turn it over to Dan and Rick. Dan, thank you very much. >> Dan Linsky. >> Ann with Kroll. For eight years now, consulted with numerous police departments on various entities and have enjoyed working with Austin. [2:10:34 PM] Look forward to our seeing any questions and giving you any information on what we've done so far and where we're going in the next couple of months. Thank you. >> Yes. And Rick brown, pleasure to see everyone. I've also been working as a consultant for the past 13 years and about ten years I've been working with Pio off and on on different projects. And my focus is use of force, and the reviews of use of force. Thank you. Can we test your mic again, please, sir? >> Would you see if you can move your screen closer to you or your mic, however you're operating and just test that mic because you dropped off pretty significantly? Can you can you hear me now clearly? Yes okay. Thank you. Okay. >> Yes, thank you. >> Okay. Thank you so if, if it's possible to put the slides back on, we've got a few slides . Just sort of help with this overview and presentation. And if we can go to the next slide. [2:11:37 PM] So what we, we thought before discussing our current scope of work, we thought it would be helpful to first provide an overview of the work we've done to date. As I've indicated, we were selected pursuant to an rfp process back in the summer of 2020 to do a comprehensive evaluation of the Austin police department, and we've been asked to look at a number of areas and the contract kind of put it in group a, group B. Group C, we've been referring to it as as phases a, B and C, but phase a, which all of the reports and work we've done to date in phase a are all related to the Austin police department training academy and the reports that we've issued to date are are listed here. The initial phase of our review involved assessing the APD training academy on its ability and readiness to prepare cadets for policing in a multiethnic, urban environment. Swint consistent with best practices. And we did a 4 or 5 [2:12:39 PM] month assessment. We looked at training curricula and lesson plans. We interviewed did a over 100 interviews and meetings with the with APD staff and academy staff and community leaders and so forth. And really did a broad assessment of the training academy. And in the report dated April 23rd, 2021, we recommended consistent with national best practices, that it was essential that the academy, adopt a more guardian centric approach to training that emphasizes service to the community. While at the same time continuing to prepare cadets and officers to effectively react and respond to crises and emergency situations when they occur. And we encouraged the department to incorporate more robust adult learning teaching methods. And we made a number of short term and long term recommendations that the city manager approved and that the APD leadership [2:13:40 PM] agreed to implement. And all of that was set forth again in that April 2021 report. And then based based partly on Ralls assessment city council at that point authorized, the department to begin the next cadet class. That was then the 144th cadet class, which started in the first week of June of 2021. And that was the first cadet class to to be implemented in the city for, I think, a previously had had been 1 or 2 years before a cadet class had been approved. Eid and at the same time of approving that, the city asked Kroll to act as independent evaluator of that cadet class to ensure that the department was effectively implementing Ralls recommendations. Is that APD leadership had agreed to so in this role, we examined how effectively the department was addressing issues of racial and gender equity, emphasizing [2:14:40 PM] de-escalation, incorporating diverse perspectives through community partnerships, and developing into a dynamic learning academy through effective and inclusive adult learning instruction and the final evaluator report was on February 16th of 2022. And I'll just ask Mr. Lenski if he just wants to give a few brief highlights from both that assessment and evaluation report . >> Thanks, mark. We initially saw a change in what the academy was doing. They moved away from some of the more militarized training programs with people carrying sand bags and climbing up and down the mountain, out and back the large hill that they used to do calisthenics on chito Chacon said an appropriate tone from the beginning. He emphasized the importance of training future officers to serve the community and to make sure they were treating everyone with dignity, respect the importance of critical thinking, adult learning and procedural justice. APD established the [2:15:40 PM] pilot community connect program that lasted two weeks and provided cadets with valuable perspective of community members prior to them entering the academy and they continued to emphasize, emphasize community engagement throughout the entire program. They included the groundwater analysis training along with the course, the history of race and police in Austin, which was well received . And there was a greater emphasis on cultural competency training throughout the academy curriculum in addition, there was an increase in physical training and more focus on de-escalation and the issues of mental health awareness. APD also created the role of the division manager, which was supposed to be a civilian co-lead of the academy. We will say that friction between sworn and civilian divide was apparent and has not yet fully been established. Academy training included increased community input through the curriculum review committee and the video review committee. However, both of those had some obstacles and shortcomings that were noted in [2:16:41 PM] our report. And there was a little bit of a lack of buy in from some members of the academy staff for changes and reform. And initially there was a lack of planning and coordination for the academy training personnel with classes, you know, basic first aid, not being presented until after advanced first aid types of issues like that that we identified as a need to fix going forward. We put our recommendations in a report and look to see that many areas where improvements needed to be made and gave them to the chief and the academy team. After our initial assessment. Mark, thanks , Dan and then shortly after the independent evaluator report, about a month later in March of 2022, we designed what we called audit protocol guidelines. >> And these were simply a list of areas and topics and sort of checkpoint points for to assist [2:17:44 PM] APD really in an internal review process or have an internal review mechanism, that they could follow with the intent of promoting the sustainability of the reform measures that they had agreed to. These protocols include or were meant to include a requirement for APD to report to council within 30 days of each cadet class to, you know, report on the progress and status of, of their ongoing, hopefully ongoing implementation of these reform measures. Now, these guidelines are also the focus of part of our current scope of work which we'll discuss in in a few minutes. And then finally on on December 1st or excuse me. Yes. On December first of 2022, the city manager's office came back to us on another academy related assignment, and they retained Kroll to review the progress and effectiveness of APD's collaboration with the academy curriculum review committee. [2:18:45 PM] During the 145th cadet class, which was mostly took place in 2022, and the as you many of you, I'm sure, recall, the academy curriculum review committee was a, a mechanism for community input into police training and it was a, the idea was to have a group of community leaders working with the academy staff to review curriculum review lesson plans, make suggestions on how to improve aspects of, of those lesson plans. So in this report, which came out on March 1st of 2023, we assessed how well academy staff and the committee members worked together in reviewing course curriculum and sharing perspectives on how curriculum can be more inclusive of community concerns and documenting recommended changes to curriculum. Now we found a number of shortcomings with that process. There was a lack of trust throughout the process. There were a number of obstacles that took place and frankly, there was a failure to progress [2:19:46 PM] through a lot of curriculum. There really wasn't as much progress made and everybody, I think, was a little frustrated with that. So based on that, we reported that out. But we recommended replacing the existing curriculum review committee with a new community input and curriculum review structure by creating essentially two separate advisory bodies, one being a community advisory council, which would be a quarterly meetings of community members with APD leadership to discuss broader issues of policing and police training that may have some impact on training that would then be brought back to staff to work on Eid and a professional advisory committee, which would be small working groups of subject matter experts, whether academic or otherwise community experts and so forth, working with a collaborative group of staff at APD on areas within their expertise to do the real hard work of, you know, curriculum review, curriculum reform, curriculum adjustments. And I [2:20:49 PM] don't know what the status of that is. I know APD is working on trying to develop this, this model, but that, that again, that report came out March 1st of 2023. And if we could go to the next slide. So this slide Eid lists the reports that related to both phases B and C of our work with the city. And these were part of the overall comprehensive evaluation of the Austin police department and not specifically related to the training academy. And I'll turn it over to Mr. Brown to first discuss our work in phase B. Rick okay. >> Thanks, mark. The first, phase B report examined a quality of analysis of the Austin police department's use of force incidents from January 1st, 2017 to December 31st, 2020. A 48 month period, including the role that race, ethnicity and gender characteristics potentially impacted APD's application of force. The second area was a [2:21:52 PM] qualitative review and analysis of approximately. 1321 department use of force incidents that involved 2960 uses of force, and that that time period was from June through November of 2019. And our team actually reviewed the police reports and body worn cameras, footage that was available. The third area was the department's public interactions with civilians, which is traffic stops, arrest citations, burns and searches from January to December 2020, a 12 month period and potential disparities involving race, ethnicity and gender. And number four, the next area was the department's recruitment selection Ann and promotion policies and practices and the potential impact on historically underrepresented groups such as women and people of color. The phase B report was completed and finalized on January 21st, 2022. There was a several key findings [2:22:52 PM] . I just want to point out the department when we did the review did not have doesn't have a comprehensive of motor vehicle stop database. So, so the traffic stop data collected prior to January 1st of 2020 has known errors and could not be reliably used to meet basic scientific standards. What we were able to do is examine Eid one year of stop data and that would be from January first, 2020 through December of 2020, thanks to the efforts of the staff and cleaning that data so that our team of experts in the data field could could look at that. The results of the study were mixed, given the complexity of how evidence of bias based policing is measured and the many identified weaknesses in APD's data collection methods, crow made a number of recommendations to improve APD, stop data collection moving forward and our qualitative review of 1321 use of force [2:23:52 PM] incidents over a six month period. We found issues of concern in 112 cases, or approximately 8.5% of all cases reviewed Eid in those cases, the significant number of those, the use of force was either inappropriate or caused by an unnecessary escalation of the encounter by APD officers. We also noted concerns and gaps in the quality of supervisor review in many of the use of force incidents. We also recommended ways for to improve his beside the data collection methods. We also recommended adjustments to policy training and supervision for the end of the phase B report. We had a supplemental report. We issued in may 4th of 2022. Pio reviewed and evaluated the department's administrative investigations of citizens complaints made against officers that alleged some form of bias or discrimination over a ten year period from 2012 to 2021. So that supplemental report is a [2:24:53 PM] part of this phase B process in this report found that while most APD investigations comported with department policy and resulted in appropriate findings, we highlighted several cases that were not adequately investigated or involved supervisory deficiencies. And this is one of our most extensive reports. It's 167 pages of review and analysis. And with that, I'll turn it over to mark for phase Singh. >> Okay. Thank you, Rick. >> And then as Rick said, phase see as the slide indicates, involve two reports. These are actually our most recent reports that we issued. The first in the end of March of this year and the second in April. In April. But as part of this phase, evaluation, we first examined mean APD's compliance with legal and policy requirements concerning race and sex discrimination in employment. And we reviewed their existing in the department's existing policies and procedures. We [2:25:53 PM] assessed APD's handling and response to internal investigations of internal harassment and discrimination allegations, workplace related over ten years and we conducted an anonymous survey of all APD employees regarding their opinions and experiences related to a variety of workplace climate issues. In that report, we found that the department's policies and procedures relating to race and sex discrimination in employment appeared to be compliant with federal and state law. However, we did highlight a number of individual cases that suggested there were gaps in training and supervision, and there was a failure to address in some cases, troubling workplace behavior and workplace culture issues that some of these cases raise. And then in our final phase report, which we came out in April of this year, we examined court filings of 112 police misconduct lawsuits against the city and or APD [2:26:56 PM] officers tirz from 2013 to 2022. These were mostly cases of excessive allegations of excessive use of force. But there were a few other few, few other additional alleged misconduct cases. The report highlighted some of the most egregious examples of the allegedly excessive and unjustified use of force during police citizen encounters, including cases that resulted in large verdicts and settlements. Yes, we did. We looked at the fiscal impact of this type of litigation. We estimated, I would say quite conservatively that during the period examined and understanding that not it really was not fully comprehensive because there were some older cases that had been purged and we were not able to include and there were a number of pending cases that had not yet been completed. But nevertheless, we estimated conservatively that during the period examined the city expended more more than $73 million in defending against [2:27:56 PM] police misconduct lawsuits. That was in terms of, verdicts, settlements, external legal costs and expert costs as well as internal resources utilized. We also examined the impact of lost police community trust, resulting from excessive use of force allegations and in terms of disparate impacts, while the sample size was admittedly small knell, we did find that the victims of police use of force cases, particularly those resulting in fatalities, were disproportionately represented by people of color. And we recommended ways to for the department to help minimize future adverse litigation from police misconduct cases and restore and build police community trust in Austin. And I would just note, many of those recommendations are consistent with some of the other recommendations we've made in our other reports. As well. And if we could go to the next slide . So the final two slides here, this, this and the next one, provide a brief overview and [2:28:57 PM] outline of the current scope of work, that we've been asked to do. So essentially all of our other work that we just outlined has been completed and this is sort of a new and additional scope of work that we were asked to do and that council had approved, I believe, by an amendment to our contract in March of this year. And this scope of work consists of two components. So first, work in the process now of reviewing and assessing the department's compliance with our audit protocol, or at least the, the priority audit domains. I would say during the 148 cadet class, this cadet class is scheduled to graduate in the first week of September of 2023. And some of the key areas of focus we are examining are listed on this slide. So we're looking at how effectively APD is using external subject matter experts to help teach certain courses that don't necessarily require, you know, police training per se, but we've been advocating and they've been attempting to [2:29:59 PM] do more co-teaching with, you know, an APD instructor along with a subject matter expert. We're looking at how effectively they're continuing with community engagement and the community connect program, how well they are attempting to incorporate adult learning and active learning concepts into their curriculum to make teaching more effective and learning more effective at the academy, we're looking at the roles and responsibilities of the division manager and training supervisor as, as many of you. I'm sure all of you are aware by now Dr. Craig Ann, will be leaving the academy in the next couple of weeks and is. It's a little unclear what the new role of the division manager will be or when that person will be replaced and what those responsibilities are. So we'll be focusing on that. We're looking at their de-escalation training, diversity and culture issues, mental health awareness, training and the crisis intervention training, which they've traditionally done. Well, we're also looking at [2:31:00 PM] injuries, separation and excerpts and seeing if there's any patterns or trends and we'll compare it to past classes. We'll continue to look at how effectively they're coordinating their schedules and other facility and staffing needs, as well as a number of other areas . In our priority domains, we expect that report to be complete Eid on September 22nd. Hopefully that's about two weeks after the this current cadet class graduates. So we hope to have a final report by then. In as far as a brief status update on the, on the audit, on this audit, we were on site in early may and met with academy staff and cadets, instructors. We met with the chief, we and chief of staff to the APD. We met with the Joyce James group, and we've observed several academy training and community engagement sessions. We're going to continue to do so throughout the summer. Will be back for further on site visits. This [2:32:00 PM] year they're planned and getting scheduled as we speak. And I'll ask Mr. Linsky to just provide a brief, brief further overview of things we've found to date. Understand this is all preliminary. And mark, as you said, it's still preliminary, but we're seeing that has faithfully implemented and is doing well in a number of the areas such as the training, the training and mental health awareness training. >> They've eliminated some of those past performance enhancement drills. Basically, it's kind of Marine Corps boot camp type of activities. They've brought them down into an appropriate time frame and it's no longer impacting class time and trying to do them in a way in which, you know, makes the injuries unlikely. They've increased community engagement with the community connect program, groundwater analysis, racial equity training has become part of the curriculum. The history of police and race in Austin is fully integrated into the academy, taught by a very dynamic professor from the African-American studies at UT [2:33:01 PM] Austin and they did a great job in coordinating the schedules with the latest classes. There's still some concerns that we're looking at the use of external subject matter experts continues to have a lot of friction and pushback from some staff members . There is currently very little supervisory involvement in curriculum review and the division manager, as mark mentioned, is leaving and we're not quite sure exactly what the fix is for replacing her and there's still some tension. Burns in that role has not yet been formally accepted. Going forward, cadet separations are high. 14 of 34 cadets have left, many for personal reasons. We're evaluating exactly why, to see if there's any one particular cause or concern. There has been not a lot of progress developed on the video library or implementing a effective internal review process for evaluating video content and there's a number of facility and staffing challenges that are still out there, including you [2:34:04 PM] know, lots of work to do. And at the same time trying to keep the city safe, where officers are going on the street to do backfill knell as well. Well, they have modified and altered the paramilitary training. It's still there and, you know, still could probably use some evaluation on exactly when it's appropriate and it's appropriate the learned skills program were initially our initial assessment had issues and concerns with safety for cadets and the training we found has been extremely well done and takes strides to keep cadets safe during a, you know, difficult processes and have have done a great job in making sure that program continues forward and encompasses the community and the all of the aspects of community policing, even in the learned skills, aspects of training. With that, I'll turn it back to you, mark okay. >> Thank you, Dan and with that, I think we can go to the next slide. So this slide is [2:35:07 PM] essentially our other phase of work, current phase of work. So again, said there were two components. The first was the audit, the second is the long term process assessment and this involves us working a little more collaboratively and in a consultative basis with APD to help develop internal processes , Luz and policies that will help sustain the reform measures in the long term. So these would include both measures that have been implemented so that they continue to be so zo as well as other measures that still remain a work in progress. And all of these measures are Ann objectives are consistent with city council resolution 37. This was from 2021 resolution Ann 37 and the reimagined police academy blueprint. So all of the goals and objectives, all of these areas that we're looking at are are consistent. We have, in looking at this, we've scheduled meetings every other week with academy leadership to address the items related to the [2:36:09 PM] priority audit domains and other issues of importance which are listed here include so in addition to the audit protocol guidelines and domain topics, many of which I just talked about in the, in the audit. Review, we'll be looking at them from a long term process assessment stage as well as looking at where they are on developing the active bystander for law enforcement training course, which is a peer intervention course. How effectively they're implementing concepts of procedural justice. Throughout the training, how effective they're implementing or looking at cognitive decision making and emotional intelligence skills among cadets, trauma informed training. We'll continue to look at physical fitness and health and wellness training. We're looking at the field training officer program to ensure and make sure the processes and sops are in place to ensure consistency among what cadets learn at the academy and what they then learn. As probationary [2:37:13 PM] officers when they're out on the street working with an fto. And then we're continuing to look at continuing education for active personnel and, and, and focus on the academy video library and seeing where what the roadblocks and obstacles are to developing effective video library and internal review process. So we'll be expect to report out on on this, this at the end of basically the end of the year, middle of December. I think our goal for trying to get that report out, and with that, we can, we're willing to answer any questions you may have committee members, anybody on the committee have questions at this point. >> All right, then I'm going to go to council members that are on the committee. Do you want. I was going to check first with the committee members. I was just wondering if there was another part of the presentation . Well, you want to ask questions about this part or not ? I got a couple of questions [2:38:16 PM] about this part, but I'll be happy to defer if somebody if we want to wait. Do you have more to the presenter version or are we arguing about something? Doesn't matter? Shaw no, the actually this is the end of the presentation. >> The next slide would have just been a question slide. So yeah. >> So council council member alter do you have questions? I'm not on the committee, so I'll go after the. Well, the committee hadn't raised their hand, so I'm trying to give you a chance to ask some questions. Okay welcome. Welcome to the meeting . Thank you. >> So I appreciate all the work that you have done. Mr. Alers and Mr. Linsky and Mr. Brown, we've had these conversations on multiple occasions, and I do want to say that I very much appreciate it. The professionalism and the care and the thoroughness of the way that you approach your work. And I think you have provided us with very clear road maps over the years. So I have a question for you, and then I do have [2:39:17 PM] questions for our staff, but I'm not sure if that this is the appropriate time, which is why I was asking before. So for Kroll , first, you created the internal audit protocol. And according to that process is when should we have begun receiving those reports? You delivered that in March of 22. Yeah I think our intent was at the time that that that would be something that would adopt and work on. >> And they would report out to council every, every within 30 days of each cadet class. So those guidelines of course were developed at the end of the 144th. So theoretically we should have reported out on, on it after the 145th and, and any future cadet classes. Hopefully we at least the process in some respects the audit were current audit and assessment we're doing now. To some extent our report [2:40:21 PM] out in September, I presume will be kind of an equivalent to whatever Shaw and maybe even more extensive than what you would get from, from APD on that. But I'm not sure you know, I don't know for a fact that they've actually reported out to you on it. Pursuant to those guidelines, I think it's our understanding they have not to date. And the hope would be that at least starting with the 149th cadet class, that they will continue. They will do so. So zo assistant chief Stan and I don't know how to pronounce the full name, so I'm going to go with Stan, if that's okay. >> I was just wondering Singh I don't recall seeing these reports. Have we received any of these reports? And if not, why not? >> I don't believe we've made the report out yet. >> I know there was originally Kroll was planned to come back for the 145th. And then where we're going to incorporate the [2:41:23 PM] report out to with the with their audit of the 145th. I'm not sure. And you remember where we went with the 146 and 140 and currently on the 148. So one of the classes that we've had is a tops class. In the meantime. So, I was just going to quickly say that we're going to be working with Kroll for their next scope of work, where the internal audit protocol is one that we're going to work on developing. >> As you know, we like to report out to council. And so we want to make sure that we do our due diligence in the future. But currently we haven't reported back. We haven't reported out for previous classes. Thank you. >> You know, I will speak for myself that I value these reports. This is what helps us to understand if we're on track and these reports are really important because I care about the product that you all are working on. And I know we have [2:42:23 PM] some folks from the academy who are here, and I think you know, as we recalibrate and we move forward with, you know, resetting the tone and thinking about, you know, what is the future of policing in Austin, how we train, how we treat our cadets like adults in this academy. So they're doing adult learning whether we have the de-escalation, whether we have the community key aspects. We have of, you know, the host of things that have been very clearly laid out that we're trying to see in this in order for us to know and for order for the community to know and to trust that we're we're moving forward, we need these reports. A lot of effort was put into that protocol. And it is very clear we have you know, very strong professionals who've been laying out these roadmaps. And it is our expectation that we are going to be following those roadmaps and implementing. And if there's a problem for implementation and you need resources because you can't hire [2:43:24 PM] the experts who are outside or there's a staffing challenge because the chief keeps sending your people out into the field. We know we need to be able to surface those and resolve those issues. So that you and the academy can focus on the task that we've given you, which I, for one, think is one of the most important things we can do for our police academy moving forward is the importance of that training. Singh so it sounds like we're going to get a Kroll report on the 148th, but, you know, after that, we can't we can't keep having Kroll there forever. We need to have confidence that it that it's coming, coming back. So for Kroll, what do you see are the biggest obstacles to us achieving our goals for the academy in general. >> I would say some of that is still working on the culture [2:44:25 PM] issues where change comes slowly . You know, we've had acceptance from leadership on what the goals are and responsibilities are, and there's been some tension on just how to get that implemented with staff. There's definitely was tension and I don't know if it's statutorily that that pulls into it as well between the civilian and sworn aspect of the division commander. Civilian division commander, trying to get the process moving forward for getting the curriculum changed, getting people to buy in. And there's some, you know, outside pushback on bringing in outside voices, although there's been some recommendations made and some good, good, absolutely great people coming into the academy and speaking, we certainly think they could be more of that and that that should be implemented further as as often as possible. And I would just add to what Dan said, I think that's actually a good part of the long term process [2:45:26 PM] assessment. >> And the reason for this current scope of work, which is to help APD actually have the processes in place in writing, whether in the form of, you know, sops or just other written processes that require them for every cadet class to consider the important criteria and factors that we've been trying to focus on these last couple of years. So if they do, in fact can implement and start reporting out on a set of audit domains and guidelines that they can internally review and evaluate every class and they have processes in place to ensure that at the start of each cadet class, they're they're they're actually looking at and focusing on these issues that are set forth in those processes. I think that will go a long way to ensure the sustainability of these measures going forward. And I think, so I [2:46:26 PM] think the current scope of work is really designed to address that and hopefully by the end of this year when we when we have our we've been able to have these discussions and look at every, you know, all of the domain topics and develop processes. His work with staff to develop processes that's acceptable to them and then workable I think I think it'll go a long way. >> I have a few steps that will be taking throughout the rest of the year to accomplish a lot of these recommendations. But I didn't want to interrupt you, mayor. >> Well, apparently what I'm trying to do is get the full report from Kroll out. And then I was going to turn it over to you all to give a report to so if you don't mind, hang on. Let's make sure everybody's got their questions asked of Kroll and then we'll we'll turn it over to you. So anybody else have councilmember alter, are you finished? >> My questions from now on are probably for staff. So thank you. >> Okay, good. Anybody else got questions? I want to make sure I understand hand you've now twice [2:47:29 PM] at least according to my memory and the way I've taken notes and I've heard this said before Shaw but when you answered councilmember alter's question about how what needs to happen, you mentioned culture and you mentioned tension with staff, you also have mentioned external teaching. I guess what I want to make sure I understand is, is who is it that you're referring to? I don't need names, but who is it you're referring to when you say that there's tension with the staff, including tension as it relates to external teaching? I'd say frontline instructors in the academy, sir. >> Okay. Has there what has been offered, if anything, to try to change that other than just letting it continue. [2:48:29 PM] >> We've hosted conversations and discussions and, you know, some of the pushback was, you know, these cadets currently aren't getting trained. >> The way that the old cadets were. And they're not as effectively prepared for the street. And then we say, okay, well, you know, what is it that they haven't got? And they say, well, you know, they didn't get the training, the regular training. And in fact, when we show them and sit down with them, they got all of the regular training and in fact, additional training, additional knell de-escalation training. They get additional physical fitness, additional, additional use of force training and, you know, it's just not accurate that that's the case. But yet that perception seems to precede some of and I'm not making sure I'm clear not all instructors, some of the instructor still feel like that, you know, changing the curriculum, the way they have has impacted the, you know, the way in which cadets are able to serve on the city streets. And we don't think [2:49:29 PM] that's the case. And we push back and said, you know, you're if you haven't prepared them for the street, then that's you know, failure on your part. Right. But the curriculum is the same curriculum that's been taught and it's enhanced. They're actually getting more training. So we disagree with that assessment. But yet that thought has continued. To burn a little bit. And we're trying to figure out working with leadership of the academy, how to how do we change that? How do we, you know, give them information, training, support it so that they can, you know, see that there is a possibility to do things a different way. And it's still good. Okay. Rey from police organizations that change is hard. Police officers do not like change and they also do not like things the way they are. So somewhere in the middle we'll find hopefully some guidance to help them get where they want to go. Okay >> You also mentioned that replacing Dr. Cregan, you don't you're not sure what's going to happen there. And we'll we'll [2:50:30 PM] find out about that. But the other thing you said is that there's not full acceptance of that position. Can you expand on that? Yeah that's correct. >> When it was designed, it was thought to be that there would be kind of co-leadership of the police department because of what we understand is some text and statutes and some things that stand in the way of that. You know, Dr. Chris Chen would be asking for information and trying to get some curriculum processes done and, you know, receive pushback from supervisors saying that they don't report to Dr. Cregan. You know, they she needed to go to the academy commander to ask those types of questions and to get that information and that, you know, whatever reason that exists, that's just not a good way to function. And I think it's been impactful in trying to change some of the things, that we're trying to change there. [2:51:31 PM] And I think those tensions have existed throughout the process. They have been adapted burns to it and trying to change the role and codify exactly what it is. But it seems, you know, there's a resistance to have sworn police officers listen to civilians who they feel don't have the same experience they have as sworn even though Dr. Chris Chen has both sworn law enforcement experience and her academic experience as well. If I if I could just add one thing to what Dan said. >> We did address this issue back in our independent evaluation report. It was actually a significant issue and we reported on it in February of 2022. In response to our concerns that were raised during that evaluation. Academy actually, and chief Chacon signed, ultimately signed right before our report was issued a revised set of standard operating procedures on the division manager and training supervisor positions to make sure to make clear that [2:52:32 PM] essentially we, the authority of the division manager. What on issues of curriculum review and, you know, adult learning concepts and all of the things that take place at academically at the, at the training academy that that position, had the authority be the equivalent of commander authority and that basically any violation of a request from that position would be a violation of the sop and essentially a violation of the chief's order. So but what we found out and what we've been finding out now is that effectively was never enforced. That sop really has never been enforced. And it doesn't appear that there's really been any progress made on that. And this continued friction that Dan's talked about between civilian and sworn, we found that that was clearly still in place when we were down there in may and talked to a lot of folks at the academy about it. Thank you all. >> Anybody have any other questions before we go to. [2:53:32 PM] >> Yes, thank you. >> Thank you very much, mayor. And thank you all for being here. I'm wondering if you had any other suggestions on how that might be able to be enforced so that we can correct that problem over at the academy ? >> Well, I don't know the particular legal issues and contractual issues that the department is struggling with. You know, I had a similar situation at Boston police and when I had tension from a commander who didn't want to work at the direction of a civilian leader, I moved them. But I don't know the contractual issues and legal issues that APD is struggling with. And I think you know, they need to look at what they're doing inside to see if there's some challenge. As I'm told, there may be some state statute that is different in your state than in Massachusetts. That complicates the process. >> Okay. That's all I had. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Let's go to our staff and ask you to feel free to make a presentation. >> All right. [2:54:33 PM] >> Thank you. I'm assistant chief Jason Staniszewski. I'm over training, recruiting and special events. First, I want to start by thanking Kroll and their team for the work they've done regarding the review of the department's training and. And review and reform. I know that we've come a long way toward implementing the recommendations, but I also recognize and acknowledge that there's still much more work to be done. I also want to thank the dedicated members of the training staff, including those that are in attendance today. The chief and I recognize that they are truly passionate and committed to making this the best police department in the country to ensure development and better guidance on areas where we can when we hit a roadblock, APD has requested regular meetings with Kroll to assist us as we develop long term internal processes related to their recommendations. Starting next week on June 20th and continuing through the end of the year, training staff and leadership will be meeting with members of the Kroll team to [2:55:33 PM] discuss the process and the priority audit domains as well as the areas that are more challenging for APD, such as the areas that we've been discussing today and the areas that we identify as challenging. We're looking forward to working with Kroll and applying their continued guidance on how APD can continue to successfully move forward. The meetings that I just referenced will be bi weekly. They'll total of 13 meetings and they're going to cover 22 areas of their recommended actions. The first four meetings will be covered will be regarding co facilitation of instructors between APD facility and community subject matter experts . So this was one of the ongoing issues that Kroll was referencing. We have increased our our budget for external instructors as we've been working with several in the past and we continue to work with more as we are developing a [2:56:33 PM] process and selection for outside subject matter experts. We're also the next meeting after that will be in reference community engagement and community connect and during that meeting we're going to also talk about at the academy instructor evaluations. So we're going to make sure that we have a process set in place to actually review the instructors to see how they're presenting their course content and if it aligns with the recommendations and what we want the instructors to be teaching. Our third meeting is going to be incorporating the incorporation of adult learning and active learning into the academy and the courses and the progress on the professional advisory committee, which is part of the pac and the cec that we are developing to review our curriculum with the outside entities and the civilians. And then our fourth meeting before we return here will be about the roles and responsible entities of the training manager. The training supervisor and the [2:57:33 PM] training specialist. Those are all going to be I'm going to be in each one of those meetings along with commander Lyons and the appropriate Trejo Singh staff, civilian and sworn, will be attending these meetings during this time. I will also continue to meet with Kroll on an individual basis to make sure that the recommendation actions are in line with our current process and to see if Kroll has any individual recommendations they need to make to executive staff about the direction that they think may not be occurring or may not be occurring fast enough. Executive and command leadership have been and will continue to be holding mandatory meetings with the academy supervision and leadership. We recently had one of these meetings, and this is we went strictly over the Kroll recommendation burns the importance of following those recommendations. Burns why we're doing these recommendations and the clear expectations are going forth with what the supervisors and leadership at the academy [2:58:33 PM] should be doing. Commander Lyons and I also meet bi weekly to go over progress and to make sure that we are hitting our milestone burns like I said, I know we have quite a bit of work left to do and we'll continue to define the process for curriculum and video review implementation. Ann as far as the curriculum review advisor committee and the recent audit that they performed on the racial profiling class, we received those recommendations about two weeks ago. We are working on providing a reply to their recommendations and the implementation of those recommendations into the next racial profiling class, which will be in July. And also by the end we will continue to work on [2:59:33 PM] the process for the pac and the pac, which is the professional advisory committee and the community advisory council that we've been talking about. I do want to talk about staffing. I know we we've kind of mentioned that recently. The within the last year, we have added an additional lieutenant out in the training academy and to corporal and detective positions. One of those detective and corporal positions focuses on cadet training. And the other one is on continuing education. So we have added three sworn individuals as we have hired two full time civilians, an organizational manager, to focus on improving performance and processes and a training special that we are posting for a community engagement specialist at this time. And we hope to have that filled in the near future. We talked about Dr. Cregan leaving. I do want to acknowledge how valuable she's [3:00:35 PM] been this year. She she's advanced our academy greatly and even though she's leaving as a full time position, she will be with us for the next year on a contractual basis. Her focus will be on the scheduling of the cadet classes that Kroll has talked about. The testing because we want to make sure that the test we are giving the cadets are valid. And the questions actually pertain to the training. And there a true gauge of if the cadets are learning. She's also going to be assisting with processes for the pac and cacs. She's going to work on the external subject matter experts that we were talking about, which is identify Singh, a process and a selection and will continue to work with commander Lyons on that. Importantly, she's going to be working with Kroll. So even though she's leaving our full time position, she's going to work on the processes and communicating with Kroll and identifying all the areas that [3:01:35 PM] we need to move forward with. And lastly, she's going to also assist with the icas grant, which is the de- escalation part . We're we're getting a simulator and with with practicals and so much and so forth. So she'll still be here with the Austin police department. Like I said, she is a very valued member of this this team. And we are thankful that she's willing to continue to with the areas that she's had the most impact with us moving forward. We talked about the position we will be posting and with having the additional position they're going to really be able to focus on the developing, enhancing and implementing and managing of the full scale complex learning models to address APD and civilian needs. They will be able to assess the training and performance across the department, review and revise existing curriculum, monitor and [3:02:35 PM] evaluate the effectiveness of training pro grams and strategies and then work collaboratively with the academy personnel to identify and implement process improvements. And lastly, this individual will ensure that all course content aligns with city diversity and belonging goals. We have. There was mention of some friction between sworn and non sworn. That is something that we are working on that is part of the culture in the past. It's unacceptable. My. Direction from day one as long as the chief is, is that we treat everybody with dignity and respect at any time . That does not happen in my expectation is that that I'll be notified. So we should hope finally be able to report out on the next reporting about any instances that occurred and [3:03:35 PM] corrective actions have been taken. >> Members of the committee, anybody have questions? Councilmember qadri all right. Councilmember Allison alter, thank you. >> Chief stanescu honoshowsky rey. How long have you been over the academy now? A little, maybe. >> Maybe a year. A little bit less. Great >> Thank you. I appreciate your remarks. And your you're leaning into these next steps and showing up for these meetings and being there. I think your presence really matters. And having that buy in at that assistant chief level, in addition to chief Chacon, who's made it clear that the academy is a priority in my conversations with him anyway. So you've been there about a year. What are the two things that have gone really well in the academy in that time period [3:04:37 PM] . >> I would say the dedication that our staff and officers and detectives and supervisors have toward moving the department forward and helping the cadets get to where they actually at and what have been some of the challenges, obviously, some of the challenges that we've talked about today, staffing challenges is a big part with trying to have more classes. We've had to increase the frequency of our classes. So when I say increase the class, if we have a class every four months, whether there's 30 people in that class or 100 people in that class, the instructors are are present. So the more actual cadet classes we have increase is the necessity of the training. So staffing along with the staffing of the department is a major hurdle that we've been trying to get [3:05:39 PM] over. >> And so what are your highest priorities moving forward? >> Our highest priorities is I believe right now is the curriculum reform and setting up a process that will allow us to review curriculum and make sure it's the best practice and setting up a process where you know, we're always going to be looking at our curriculum and how we do things and never lose sight that we can always do something better. >> So we've talked a lot about the Kroll reports. We have very clear blueprints, you know, to follow. We were supposed to have an audit protocol that we were supposed to get reports out. How will I, as a council member, other than the report coming out from Kroll in December, how will I know that you're moving forward and implementing? Well will changes be reporting out for sure on the audits? >> And if you certainly have any questions, I know we've met in [3:06:40 PM] the past Ann and do you have any questions in the future? I'm certainly available to meet face to face or email and I'll be able to address any of your concerns. >> Thank you. And then we're coming up on budget. What resources do you need to be successful in moving forward in the in the direction that's been outlined today, whether it's financial or otherwise. More Shaw if we if we can fund the civilian positions that we have, I think we have one in temporary right now. >> But luckily we have been able to get a lot of the items that we've been looking at. A big one, of course, is facilities that Kroll is talking about. Since we share it with ems and AFD. I mean, just as an example , we have one gym among all three entities and when we're trying to run so many cadet classes through, sometimes the scheduling conflict for the gym. So I know we're have been looking at a adding a facility [3:07:42 PM] out there, an emphasis on growing public safety facility out there is a big one. So on that item, I think I've mentioned this to you before, Shaw putting a facility is going to take time. >> We have partner government organizations that ACC and esd that have empty facilities that conversations could be had and you'd be able to solve that problem, very imminently with space. If you can have those conversations and get with the Wright, the Wright folks to do that with out even building potentially the facility. So I hope that you'll have those conversations because there's plenty of space in these other organizations to do the work. We have been exploring that. >> For the meantime, especially with the continuing education classes and the cadet classes and the tops classes. So we and I appreciate the information on that and the support and I believe we did community connect [3:08:42 PM] at rcc this this year. So we're able to have the current cadet class at a totally separate facility during their first week to concentrate on the community connect portion. >> Great. I'm glad that that worked out for icad. I understand that at one point we weren't doing the full icad implementation and that we didn't have the simulation portion. Are we now doing the simulation portion of that icad which is the de- escalation training? I can let Dr. Corrigan speak about that. >> Yeah, we are doing the scenarios. We have a new lieutenant over advanced education and she's been really spearheading that effort as well with commander Lyons and so I believe that it's going to actually turn into a 16 hour training where before for cadets, it was 12 hours, but for in-service it was eight. So they will be running those scenarios which are currently in with individuals Wright and then we [3:09:43 PM] are going to get the simulator for the grant and we're going to be working through utilizing the simulator for de-escalation scenarios. >> Thank you. And chief Stan, you may recall that when we were having the conversation Ann over the contract in February or so, I raised the issue that I wanted to make sure that every officer was trained in icad and able. And I hope that we're still working towards that. >> We are moving forward with able and cap for the entire department from the chief all the way down to cadets. >> Thank you. And you mentioned earlier, I think colonel mentioned that there was about what, a 40% attrition rate of the current class. Do you have a sense of what's causing that? >> Unfortunately, that is correct. On this class, some times it it comes in waves. But for most of the exit interviews that we perform on the cadets, most of them list as personal reasons and they realize that [3:10:44 PM] during the cadet training that this might not be for them in their line of a line of work. Mok and that's kind of where we're at on that. But you are correct, the attrition rate is on this particular class is a concern for us. >> Okay. Well, I hope through the process with Kroll, that will we'll hear more about that and get some more ideas of how to avoid that and then finally, I want to thank Dr. Chris Chen for all of her her incredible work and leadership and guidance through her time as director of the academy. I know it has not been an easy challenge that we put forward to you or to the rest of the academy staff, and we really do appreciate your work. And Dr. Crandon is one of my constituents. So I also want to be especially thankful for her, for her work and recognize that and, you know, for the folks who are here from the academy, we this work is really, really important. It is going to determine the future of our [3:11:44 PM] police department and its relationship with our community and the work and the time that you put into those lessons and rey rethinking how we are presenting those so that folks can learn them in a more effective way and in a way that it allows a bias towards de-escalation, Ann and understanding of the community and is trauma informed is really, really important to the community. Ann and it is across the spectrum, no matter what one's views are of law enforcement. You know, when I have conversations out in my community about the future of our police department, people care about the academy and they say, we want to have the best trained police officers and it matters to us as a community and so, you know, as you're thinking about your work and the challenges and the difficulties of implementing the coal Ann and the change that you're dealing [3:12:45 PM] with, you are on the forefront of the future of our police department, and it's relationship with in our community and the academy and those academy forums is how we move forward as a community so that everyone feels safe in our community. And so I just really want to underscore that. Chief, you have a big task ahead of you, especially with Dr. Crane leaving and I hope that we can very seriously implement these recommended burns other questions. >> Councilmember vela. I think that was very well said. >> I would just echo the sentiments, particularly with the sense that folks have out in the community of where we should be going. And you know what direction that the police academy and the police department in general, you know, want to move in. I mean, again, I think the recent vote probably showed that I think as clearly as anything else could. But, you know, folks really want us to move forward in that kind of [3:13:46 PM] de-escalatory that and I would just reiterate, council member Allison tirz comments. Thanks >> Any other questions or comments? Thank you all. We'll stay in touch. And I want to doctor, thank you for what you've done for our city and I'm glad you're still going to be consulting with us. But good luck to you, members of council member qadri was having some wi-fi difficult and so he missed the initial part of the meeting . He moved that he be shown voting. I on the minutes. I'll second that motion. Is there any objection to the motion? Ann without objection, it it passes . Additional comment. It's councilmember Kelly. >> Thank you. [3:14:46 PM] >> Thank you, mayor. I just wanted to mention that today marks the solemn second anniversary of the tragic mass shooting that unfolded on sixth street, which forever etched a painful chapter in our collective memory. And I wanted to give pause today and just thank all of the public safety officials who are some here in the room. And then those outside of the room who responded to that. And saved lives together. So thank you very much for that time, mayor. >> Sure thing. Anything else? All right. Is there anything else? Anybody else that's on online or out here in the audience wants to say before we call it quits? All right. In that case, without objection, the public safety committee of the Austin city council is adjourned. It is 3:15 P.M. Thank you.