Public Safety Committee (PSC) meeting Transcript – 6/10/2024 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 6/10/2024 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 6/10/2024 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. [1:59:44 PM] We are a-t-x-n the City of Austin's Government Access Channel 24, I will call to order the public safety committee of the Austin city council. Our meeting today. It's a regular scheduled meeting of the public safety committee. We are meeting in city, in city hall, in the boards and commissions room, and we have a quorum of the committee present. We will start with general public communication. And it's my understanding we have one person that has signed up to speak, yes, sir. There's one speaker. Ethan. Shahnameh. >> Take a seat over there. Make yourself comfortable and, talk to us. >> Thank you. Mayor yeah. Got me now. Thank you, thank you. [2:00:48 PM] now. Thank you, thank you. Mayor, members of the council, APD, everyone else involved here. My name is Ethan Cheramie. And if you can't tell by my accent and last name, I'm from Louisiana, we're running a very innovative program with new Orleans police department for alternative police response, and specifically, we respond to traffic accidents on behalf of the New Orleans police department. We're also working in Baltimore as well. And this year, we're going to do over 15,000 calls, responses for the New Orleans police department. We've had some initial early communication with, chief Henderson and a lot of members of her executive team, back in August of last year. We gave a presentation, in September and so on. And I believe, there may be a few questions, lingering with the city attorney's office, so with that said, we believe it's a very, very innovative program that can reduce the call burden on Austin police officers. We take the traffic calls, all the traffic accidents , and allow your officers to be redeployed to higher priority [2:01:48 PM] redeployed to higher priority calls. It's a force multiplier. We have a study done by an independent company on this. We're in two other major, metropolitan cities and we'd like to discuss expanding it, further with with you all. Yeah. >> Yeah. If you don't mind, what's your organization called? >> It's called on scene services. On scene services, is oss. And we have the whole presentation from back in August that I'd be more than willing to give to each of you individually , or perhaps at the next, the next meeting. But it's a real big timesaver and burden reduction and force multiplier for your department. So I just wanted to make all of you aware of that today. We'd like to pick up the ball where we left off and hopefully get the support of the council as well as the administration in working through the finer details that the city attorney may have, regarding this program. >> Great. Thank you for being here. >> Great. Thank you. Any other questions? >> Any other questions? And we'll visit with, manager and legal. So thank you. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. [2:02:49 PM] Thank you. Thank you very much. Members that will take us to our first action item, which is to approve the minutes of the public safety committee of April 22nd, 2020 for, council member Kelly moves approval and seconded by council member Vella. Is there any objection without objection, the minutes are approved. We'll now go to a discussion item that is a discussion item on community policing and strengthening relationships with law enforcement and community members. And I'll turn it over to our guests. And we welcome you and thank you for what you do, thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you all. I recognize your time is extraordinarily valuable, and I'm truly honored and delighted to have the opportunity to have some just a little bit of dialog with you, for those of you that I have not personally had the privilege to meet, my name is commander Lee Davis, and I am accompanied by lieutenant foster Rodriguez, who oversees community engagement, and also sergeant rey, who has spent an enormous time in that community policing, community engagement space. But I just want to say it is truly an honor to be here. And so I give honor [2:03:51 PM] to be here. And so I give honor to the mayor and all the council members, our assistant city manager, mint team, and their executive staff, who's here, who has given us great support in many of our endeavors, I just want to I'm going to ask for grace three times today, and the first two will will be I'll give you right now. And one is, please allow us. Grace, we're not entirely familiar with, the custom and practices and chamber etiquette. Etiquette. So if we utilize a little grace and the second time is not our intent to insult your intelligence, when we talk about some of the fundamentals of community and policing. But I do teach at university of Texas state university and Houston Tillotson. And I'm surprised at when we say community policing, how often we're not talking about the same thing. So I may dive just a little bit into the fundamentals, and it's not meant to discourage or or challenge your understanding. It's just to make sure we're all informed and quite frankly, for those that might review this afterwards, any time I get the opportunity to inform folks, I'd like to take that opportunity, I'll try [2:04:51 PM] take that opportunity, I'll try and move as quickly as possible. I think this will be about 15, 20 minutes, and again. So another third time, I'll tell you when I'll need some of that. >> Grace, with regard to your first two moments of grace, first, feel comfortable. You're going to be fine. Whatever you want to do in terms of this presentation. Second, we're kind of used to having our intelligence and stuff, and so I don't know about the rest of them, but I'm going to be disappointed if you don't if you don't disappoint, if you don't call me something bad before it's over. So thank you, we're honored. And, we've had the wonderful privilege of having our council members support a lot of our efforts. And so some of this may be review. So. But. Oh, I'm sorry. Our presentation up. Oh, there it is, right there. Okay. Are you controlling that? Oh, awesome. Okay, okay. I just really want to talk about. So while we have that up there a little bit about the how and why, Austin police department does community policing and why it's important to us. And there are a couple of those principles, those fundamental principles that I was alluding to, that I'd want to speak to, [2:05:51 PM] to, that I'd want to speak to, but again, I want to discuss community policing on a broad organizational level and then bring it down to the sector level and finally at the individual level. Next slide please. So that definition that you see I'm not going to ask you to read it, but it really the three things that jump out at me about that definition and that comes from the department of justice, it's a pretty decent, definition, but it has it's that community policing is a philosophy and that it focuses on two things partnerships and problem solving, I do like that they added that third thing, fear of crime. And the reason that that's important is because research tells us that when people are intensely worrying about crime, they go through the same emotional spectrum as if they've actually been victimized by a crime. So it's important that they included that on the definition. But one of the great difficulties is, one of the great difficulties about community policing on its own is just like we have this definition. There are thousands of variations of definitions of [2:06:51 PM] of variations of definitions of what it was, what it is. And it really just depends on who you ask. When you know, when I ask what is community policing? Whether I'm asking community members that are interested in social justice, whether I ask, professors, elected officials where they ask community members themselves or law enforcement practitioners generally, we get a bunch of different definitions of what community policing is and what community expects from them. But this, in this definition, note that it says community policing is a philosophy. The Austin police department expands that definition that says community policing is not only a philosophy, it's a practice. Now, irregardless of how many variations of definitions you get about community policing, the one thing that we are sure and confident is, is people know it when they see it. And but just for simplicity, today when we talk about community policing, we're talking about partnerships, community engagement and problem solving. Next slide. So what is the most difficult thing to earn. But yet [2:07:51 PM] difficult thing to earn. But yet it's the easiest to lose, right. Yes. And that's trust, and trust with law enforcement is of particular importance. It's because we're in people's lives when they're the most vulnerable. We trust is literally the life giver to police legitimacy. And like any relationship, any time trust is fractured when there's a breach in that trust, then it's consequential, very consequential. And with police department, it can have, consequences that are not only locally, but they can be nationally. And so, particularly police are what we call engaged and what we call a co-production of services, which means on one side of the coin, if we have community support, we can actually do our job better. But many times we forget to look at the other side of the coin that if we don't have community support, then it's exponentially [2:08:53 PM] support, then it's exponentially more difficult, if not impossible, to complete our law enforcement objective or the city's vision of being the most livable city in the in the U.S. So I was at a, international association of chiefs of police giving this giving a similar presentation. And one of the chiefs asked me, how do you know you have trust? Trust what is the litmus test? And the thing that I could come up with is I asked him is, do you have a seat at the table? Number one, if a critical incident happens and you do have a seat at the table, will you be sitting there alone? And so one of the things we know about community engagement Swint. And here's what my dad used to say. He used to say, if you don't have a seat at the table, you're probably on the menu. Right? And so how do we set that table? Are you clicking? Yep. >> It takes a second. >> Oh okay. Got it. So how do we set the table. First of all we recognize that community policing. And it's not in a policy. It's not a plaque on the [2:09:53 PM] policy. It's not a plaque on the wall. It doesn't house itself in a single unit. But it should be written inscribed in the heart of every police officer in every single police action, the byproduct of what we aim to produce is and create an environment where a mother feels comfortable surrendering her child to the police officer with the utmost confidence that not only will he honor that trust and honor his commitment to his oath, to his duty to serve and protect, but we will begin building bridges, that will ultimately result in more freedoms and more trust. But make no mistake that each and every interaction that that police officers have with community is, in fact, community policing. On some level. When we build that trust and when people [2:10:56 PM] build that trust and when people trust us, they invite us into their homes and they invite us into their communities, and they do it when the stakes are critically high. So you can go to the next one and that and I point out that that begins that young man's journey to his experience with police officer. And we bought more stake with the parents. Right so there's some obvious benefits of police, of community policing. Those are some of those, fundamental things I won't necessarily go through with you, but it's important to remember that a lot of police community interaction is post-incident. So it's police being reactive, responsive to some incident that has already occurred. But when we engage in community policing, it's the first time that we can document that. We are proactive. We're in front of the incident. I was at a gun. I learned this just Friday at a gun violence seminar when an individual said that the [2:11:56 PM] when an individual said that the violence doesn't start when the trigger is pulled. Amazing thing. And so, I just liked how that that resonated with me. But it's difficult to quantify how much you present it. So it's difficult for me to put on paper how many lives are saved or how many burglaries weren't committed because we were present, engaged in visible, how many homicides were stopped. But what we do know is with community policing, number one, the citizens have higher satisfaction with their police department. And number two, they feel personally involved and empowered that they're part of the solution. And then we also research tells us that officers who engage in community community policing have higher job satisfaction. But most importantly, again, it brings both community and officers at the table at their chosen level. Next slide, this real quick, this, principles of community policing, community policing is not new. And, just for your education, I think we're on the tail end of what community policing. It's going to be shape [2:12:57 PM] policing. It's going to be shape form of something very new, we've practiced community policing in America since the late 80s, roughly, but the principles are nonetheless important, the same. And so all those. Sir Robert peel was one of the founders of modern day policing in this whole, back in the 1800s. It's another story, but I like to focus on number seven because it never seemed more relevant than today. And what I'm not going to, again, not going to ask you all to read that, in a nutshell, I'll read it for you. It says police at all times should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are police. And this tenet really just prescribes that community trust the police to do what the community would do if they had the time and ability to do it. In a nutshell. So please do that full time and please serve at the will of people. And so I want to talk about that's when I get into talking about this is a good segue to talk about how we do that on the department level, at [2:13:57 PM] that on the department level, at the sector level and at the individual level and at the department level, this is where strategic planning, comes in, policy comes in. And what's the strategic plan allows? Policy and structure to dictate how the officers, what they do at the level on the ground. And so here's some examples. Having core values which are core values are integrity, courage accountability respect and ethics. And then we have an accountability tool known as our discipline matrix so that everybody knows not only what the expectation is, but what the what the consequences for not meeting that expectation. Ann. And then we have community based training at the academy. So every officer has community training at the academy. And then we have we've reinstituted our community police academy, which was formerly known as the citizen's police academy, but now the community police academy, where we welcome everyone. And then we have, if you're not familiar with blue Santa, every year, the Austin police department has an organization where we serve 7000, as many as 7500 community members who might find themselves in need each Christmas. And then we have our office of community liaison, which there are several segments [2:14:58 PM] which there are several segments of, of our liaisons that, that we have, our lgbtq+ liaison, our faith based community liaison, our youth leadership, youth, outreach, liaison, and a litany of others, our seniors and law enforcement together. But this slide right here is important, while those are examples, the community policing is entrenched in our organization, where it's covered at the very entry point into our organization for cadets are taught, basically a policy the when we have community, we have a philosophy, we have a policy, and we have an action plan. And the and I want to go over that procedurally just behaviors because that's kind of nationally accepted practice of how you treat people. And it's really fundamental. And I say one of the reasons it's important it starts with academy because it's the low bar. So you treat people with dignity and respect. You give them a voice [2:15:58 PM] respect. You give them a voice during encounter, and you remain neutral and transparent in your decision making. And ultimately convey trustworthy motives. And then we have our Sara problem solving model, which tells people how to go into communities and how to solve problems, so you have a philosophy of community policing. You have those principles of behavior, and then you have an action plan. So additionally, yeah. Okay. That's one. So when we're talking about our police strategic plan, that's a five year strategic plan from 2024 to 2029. Austin police department has never had that. Just a strategic plan for a five year plan. And one of the things that are incorporated in that plan is community engagement, which are a component of community policing. There you go, and so that's one of those important measures that we're that we're excuse me, going on there. Yeah. Yeah, we have plenty. So that's what it looks like on the organizational side. Now when we go ahead, when [2:16:59 PM] side. Now when we go ahead, when we start talking about the sector level, what we're talking about is problem oriented policing, community engagement, collective efficacy. An example of those would be. Coffee with a cop. Okay. Hold on. I want to point out so what's going on at the second level is we have quarterly. I wouldn't plan on doing this, but I'll do this. And this is where I'll ask for that. Grace so that picture, if you take a look at that picture, I'm at a community meeting. And what's going on there is the night before or week couple of days before we had a, an incident where a swat response hostage in a community and these types of meetings give us opportunity to debrief the community on that incident, solicit their input on where we put our resources. What's near and dear to them, and what keeps [2:17:59 PM] and dear to them, and what keeps them awake at night. But here in this incident is I have that sergeant who was debriefing the community after the incident was resolved and during the incident, I noticed that that sergeant was going door to door explaining the scope of the incident. It's calming fears, calling the schools, and that was the opportunity I presented him with the commanders coins. Now I've worked in this space for over almost a decade with this guy here. Right? And this guy thought that that was a that was pretty incredible that we recognized that guy that fast. And I think that's one of the things we have to do when our officers do good work, that we take the opportunity to recognize them. Now, he also let me know that I had never recognized him right, since I was a sergeant, since I was a lieutenant, and a commander. And if you would give me the grace, I'd just like to present rey with my own, my lieutenants coin. But my commanders coin. So now we're square. Okay, okay. So thank you all. So the next level [2:19:00 PM] thank you all. So the next level is, is when we're talking about the coffee. Okay. So we have coffee with a cop. That's a very casual contact with community members. And then we have this past weekend we had our first annual, autism awareness summit. Well, which basically is, awareness between public safety providers and autism community. And then we routinely do community safety fairs. And that's an opportunity. The last one was a week ago at the Q2 stadium. And that's an up close and, hands on viewing, with experience with our public safety partner, participants. But again, that's not an all inclusive list, we do have back, one of the things that's going going on that's really exciting is we have an open data portal. So when we know we're historically in the past, community members have called me and said, what's going on in my neighborhood? Or that very swat call was going on. Well, now the open data portal where we have our it analysts showing up that the community connect meetings [2:20:01 PM] the community connect meetings to teach the community how to use this tool where there's now transparency so their data matches our data. And so they'll understand what's happening. Another way for them to be connected with Austin police department. And so, I'm sure you all are familiar with the Austin police department, participates in the we all belong campaign from altura, we have a the beacon program is a, basically a mentorship programs for youth that are, aging out of foster care. And so that's a program. And then, of course, the cadets, any cadet that graduates the police academy when they go to their sector, they do a community immersion project where they're they're learning not only about their environment, but their, they're interacting with the community. And they have to present a project to community members or their chain of command. Okay. And so now, on an individual level, I'm wrapping up miserere. I know, on an individual level, every police officer is an extension of our public safety mission to make Austin the most [2:21:02 PM] mission to make Austin the most livable city in the nation. And so what I say when I say that, because oftentimes people say, let's send it to the community, engage unit and community engagement is not housed in a unit. It's woven through the fabric of the organization. And so every, it it's, it's a cultural thing. And so we can have policies that say our policy is to engage in community policing, but if you don't have a healthy culture, there's no saying that culture eats policy for lunch. So we have to have avenues where we engage our officers from the beginning and carry them throughout their process until they hit the streets to make sure that they're in the culture of community policing. And so that begins with we have our our values, our I care values. Make sure they're practicing deescalate and that every contact is community policing. So that's that family that we initiate. We united them that the officers had their child, rescued their child. Next, whether we're giving out [2:22:04 PM] whether we're giving out information in, in, upfront information to all communities, they have the access to the information of things going on in their community next, whether we're in the schools interacting with our students, because we got to start the now in the early on, whether we're interacting with interacting with local business owners. And again, all of our all of our every interaction that we have to the community now, that really concludes that portion, but yes, but I'd be remiss if I did not acknowledge, you know, I should instead of conclusion, I should say path forward, that I didn't acknowledge that there are certainly, pockets of our society, segments of our communities that, through whether it be through failures of society to address, they disproportionately experience the, the negative impact, of whether it be policing or just government, whether we have not addressed homelessness. Early childhood trauma, whether we [2:23:04 PM] childhood trauma, whether we address poverty, all those elements are things that we recognize that there are segments of our community that simply need more support and need, greater, greater engagement to create a better sense of self-efficacy. So that concludes my presentation. God bless you all. Thank you. >> Appreciate you very much, yes. Council member Kelly, thank you for the recognition. >> And thank you so much for being here today. I requested this briefing on community policing because as a council member, I believe we have a shared commitment to enhancing the safety and well-being of our neighborhoods. And I know that you all do a lot in that regard. I've read oftentimes that the first interaction that someone has with a police officer is typically negative, which is why I very much like the community policing model. It's more than just a strategy. It actually works. And it helps create those bonds of trust in a community. And I like to hear about those different ways that we can proactively address that, so that we have more positive outcomes. I do have a question in the video that you showed about the, the officer who was [2:24:04 PM] about the, the officer who was able to save the child from actively choking. It was my understanding that those were that device that he used was purchased by himself. And so I was looking in the budget, upcoming budget as potentially an unmet need to provide those to our officers so that, yes, so that we could have them with everyone. Is that something that you think would be, a good thing, I absolutely am open and always grateful for providing officers with tools that enhance our engagement efforts and help us build connection and support with the community. Had that turned out differently? You know, that relationship would have been catastrophic had we failed at that. That mission. I often say we do not. We no longer police in a microcosm and every interaction matters. It can go viral, you know, so yes, ma'am. So I'm very grateful for that, potential offer. >> So then for the assistant city manager, just so you know, I will be asking that question [2:25:04 PM] I will be asking that question in budget q&a. So maybe you all could prepare ahead of time, I appreciate that. And then my other question was, how do you see your staffing shortages affecting the ability to utilize community policing? Because in my mind, when y'all are running from call to call to call, you don't necessarily have time to really get out, shake hands, kiss babies, and play basketball . >> Yes, I almost passed it then, but it don't get him started. No. So certainly, we are experiencing staffing challenges. And inclusive with those staffing challenges. We've had a different things that have been added to the to our, our task which homelessness of course, so, so, one of the things that that often goes, missed is that when an officer is running call to call to call, you're missing things. And you're missing that opportunity. When someone stopped you to say, hey, I'd like to invite you to my barbecue or, hey, I'd like to show you this new thing that happened. And you're saying, hey, I have to run, you know, so that opportunity for building relationships certainly is [2:26:05 PM] relationships certainly is impacted, without a doubt. You know, there's no question to, I think what we're needing to do and what we are doing is trying to implement, like, for example, that data portal, you're having to utilize technology in more ways than, than you ordinarily would have to. And one thing we'd have to come to terms is we have to ask what what do we do very well and continue to do that? And then what are the things we like to do and what are the things we want to do, or what are the things we have to do? And so we've been asked to choose between those things. And there are certain things we simply can no longer do. There are certain services that absolutely have to be cut just as a result, of the what they call the staffing, you know, the staffing crunch, so there are some things that are notably, notably removed and particularly doctors, you know, that, that means that with the staffing challenge, doctors will have to backfill on patrol. So if we're not building relationships again, and I recognize that I said that every interaction is community engagement. But then [2:27:06 PM] community engagement. But then you have people that manage large projects that are heavily engaged in building organizations. So like, for example, I build organizations with, say, life anew or the CVI work or jail to jobs or and a number of other organizations. Well, if my time is pulled from that or our time is pulled from that, we just don't have that kind of build, that kind of capacity. So we're relying we're asking community to do more, and we're trying to find more creative ways to meet them. I hope that answers your question. >> Absolutely. Thank you. I do know firsthand how important our district representatives are, and I am so grateful for the fact that they accept the invitation I give them every time to come to a community meeting in my district, and I know our community appreciates that, too. They played an integral role in helping us get an abandoned homeless encampment cleaned up, and we organized volunteers. They connected the doctors, connected us with Austin resource recovery so we could get the trash taken out. I mean, it is absolutely amazing and I really believe that it is through collaboration and mutual respect that we can create a safer city of Austin. So thank you once again. And with that, [2:28:06 PM] you once again. And with that, I'll yield. Thanks, ma'am. >> Thank you. Council member, councilmember qadri. Yeah, I appreciate the presentation as well. Thank you, I had two questions. One had to do with the outreach. You guys showed the coffee with a cop, and then the community, meetings. I mean, in my experience, and I'm sure my colleagues, share this. You know, you go to neighborhood meetings, you go to certain events. It's you know, normally an older demographic, it's a it's a wider demographic, so, you know, doing outreach towards younger folks or people of color, communities that normally don't, you know, aren't aware or don't have a seat at the table is a whole different ball game. So how do you guys go about, you know, outreach and you know, you know, you know, whether it be religious minority communities or ethnic minority communities or younger folks. >> Thank you for that. So yeah, so we do spend a lot of time in, communities where there's high density population, socioeconomic disparity and limited upward mobility. We're very intentional about that, one a great example is our chief, meets with every, has, quarterly [2:29:08 PM] meets with every, has, quarterly . There used to be monthly, but meetings with all the pastors. Right. And I meet with them as well. And so we find people when I said earlier, credible voices that are already in the community, we partner with those voices, uplift them, elevate them, give them a seat at the table. And then we begin to train them in the world in the language that we work in, so that when they're trying to be game changers and movers, that they can get things done. Like we with coordination, understand what we need from them, and then they help us. Those kind of folks reach out, extend a hand to us where we're pulling levers to let us know. And the community know that we are in that community and we're partners. We're doing a project right now at givens park. So I learned to swim at givens park. So I have a you know, I, you know, I have a personal vested agency in that park successful. So, you know, coming in there being recognizing that there are some things in that park that need to be done that you, you know, just something as simple as visibility, lighting, how the, how the park is taken care of, you know, police officers, [2:30:08 PM] of, you know, police officers, can deliver because as when we're in those areas, I can call director of parks kymberley Mcneely and say, hey, what's going on with this park right here? Or raised working intently with those community members. And so they're of all ages, young, young, young and older, elderly alike. But also to your point, to the point that at the coffee with the cops historic and historical sense, you went to a coffee with a cop. And generally what you experience were the, an older crowd. But then we've gotten more creative and we says, well, you don't have to have a coffee with a cop. It can be ice cream, a Friday ice cream. And those things happen around the city, Friday ice cream and you can go engage a younger hip crowd. And then we stop mandating that it be a big thing. It's like, hey, these two officers go into that environment and just sit and watch and in and interact. And then we engage what they call harm focused policing. So whenever. So sometimes you can do policing in the neighborhood but you can't see enough. And so what we do is ask when you're in there that you're watching for [2:31:09 PM] there that you're watching for harm rather than watching for just criminal activity. Yes, sir. >> Great. And I'm sorry you had mentioned pastors, but that I assume you meant all religious, you know, rabbis, imams, everyone. Yes. >> So you can go broad. Got it. And then we. Yes, sir. >> Got it. And then my other question, sorry. I'm like making notes, when it comes to just building trust in general, does it help when you have an officer who's from that community? Right. And I guess the best example I can give, which it's a it was a bad call by a campaign that I worked on years ago, was they sent myself and, and colleagues of mine who were white to a campaign event at an hbcu and all the other campaigns had alums from that hbcu representing the campaigns. And then you had me and three white folks. Yeah. So we, you know, you know, we weren't of the community, right? So when people were coming, you know, to tables, they were often passing by our table. So does that does it help having folks from the community when it comes? Yeah. >> So, I think there is some [2:32:09 PM] >> So, I think there is some degree, some advantage of having cultural experience, so I work, outside of while although I'm the commander out north, our assistant city manager appointed to work on allowed me to work on some other projects. So I'm working on a community revitalization in the neighborhood that I live in, which is in east Austin. And so there is some advantage of having just cultural understanding. But it's up to me and other officers to expand that range of understanding. But at the end of the day, I think that when you have a police department that aligns with the city's vision, you have government Wright government that works. When you have that department that aligns with the city vision, and then you have that cross departmental collaboration and communication, then you have government, that works well. And then if you can get community buy in and community, approval now you have government that works well for [2:33:09 PM] government that works well for all. And I think that's fundamentally what our goal has been, is to figure out ways where we can be inclusive to not just the police department, because what a liberation it liberating moment it was to find out that many of the systemic problems that are happening in certain communities aren't solely a law enforcement problem. They're a public health and safety problem. And we learned a lot of that when we got into the into the homeless arena. And so we're at one point, you know, there was an expectation from the city, from some community members that when proposition B passed, we would end homeless and then we would and then the whole other spectrum said when the proposition B passed, leave our homeless alone. And there was very little bit in the middle. But one of the things we learned was to look at it from an academic perspective, say, just the homeless in general. And we asked ourselves, number one, we ask ourselves, and when I say academic, degrees of complexity with homelessness, they're like basically seven levels, seven being the greatest level of complexity, a level one. I had a triple homicide where I was the incident commander, and that would be about a level two, a [2:34:09 PM] would be about a level two, a triple homicide, okay. But when we looked at homelessness, I was like, well, is this something that's going to cause a multi-agency, multidisciplinary, multi-jurisdictional issue? And the answer, check that box, and then you say, okay, well, we got that. But number two is, is this something that's going to, happen over, or require the support of the community, the nonprofits and non non-governmental entities? Oh my gosh. We're at a two. Number three. Is this going to be over? Multi are we going to resolve this in a day a week a month, a year. You know what multiple periods. And then we say number four is this something that's going to have some type of economical impact, environmental impact and critical infrastructure. And we could certainly check that box. And then we say, hey, but are we a resource rich environment. Not just in money monetary resource. We mean in human resource. Do we have the human assets to address this problem? And then we say, well, is this something that's going to take a degree of sensitivity? Is this something that's going to incite the [2:35:10 PM] that's going to incite the community and or the a court as a media frenzy? And then finally, and most importantly, we say if we have all those, is this something that's going to impact the lives of human beings? And the answer that, yeah, we're at a we're at a level seven level of complexity. But that told us we're no longer in the arena of a law enforcement problem. We're in a public health and safety issue. And that's what gave us the, took us into that framework and to that world, or we got to bring more partners into resolve this rather than just a law enforcement. But we can carry that, you know, further in every aspect that we do start looking at gun violence and other issues. Are these a law enforcement critical issue, or are these issues that we need other partners around us? Can I add to that? >> Thank you. >> Sorry. Oh, go ahead, just two seconds, so every other year, doj conducts a national victim crime study and where they try to see how, people across the country see their, how they're victimized. One of the questions that they ask is how how much do you trust your police department? And what we see is that generally, there's some [2:36:11 PM] that generally, there's some disparity between races on how much they trust the police department. But when they look at their local police department, the disparity shrinks. And so policing becomes highly localized. So to answer your question about, do police, does it help if police represent the people that they're serving? Unfortunately, it's kind of a it's a it's a bit complicated because on some, on some parts there's some research that shows that it does, but on other parts , what's more important is having the community and the and the local law enforcement connecting and working together. And so we had a project called restore Ramberg, back about six years, seven years ago now, but what we saw was that we were able to increase community efficacy and complete and increase how well the community worked with the police department because of constant working together. So it really didn't matter the color as much as it mattered. The connection and how, how often the people [2:37:13 PM] and how, how often the people were seeing them. So it's like if it's my police, you'll see community members tend to trust their local police as opposed to a police officer that they don't know, and they've never seen before. Thank you, thank you. >> Do you want to add something? Yeah. And, what I think Sargent is talking about is that trust that commander Davis was mentioning in the presentation, it doesn't I mean, council member from downtown, you know, good. >> And, well, that, the downtown business owners, they want to see the same officer that they saw last week, the month before, and they want to the way that they build trust is by being effective. And if they come week to week to their shop and they say, we're going to do this, we're going to do that, and they don't perform, you slowly start to lose. It doesn't matter what your skin color is, your demographic where you come from. If you don't perform, you're going to start to lose that trust. And so, what we find with a lot of these neighborhoods downtown, it doesn't it doesn't [2:38:14 PM] downtown, it doesn't it doesn't really matter where you come from, but if you care about your community and you're there every night, you're there every day. You care about the folks in the community, the citizens see that that comes through in your work. And so it comes through in your reports, your follow ups. Hey, how did it go last week? Do you need anything else, and that shows and it's pride in in policing. Great. Thank you. Yeah. >> Thanks. Councilmember. Councilmember vela just a quick question and I don't know how much information we even have on this, but I know it's been a recent, efforts on the, community violence intervention specialist. >> I know that's been a recent kind of budget effort, an addition to the tools for, for law enforcement. Any sense of how is that going? Where where are we on, on on that aspect? >> Yeah. So, with respect to our one, our working relationship to community, CVI work, I, I, with regard to their expertise, I [2:39:16 PM] regard to their expertise, I welcome that we welcome, we'll partner with anybody that's willing to do the work, so, for example, hungry hill chase, right, I've had the opportunity to walk streets with him, and there's the reality is, there are spaces they can go that we can't go. And again, when I said the statement that, every bullet that is fired doesn't necessarily gets fired when that triggers pool, there are folks that are credible voices that are in the community that are, that are that are plugged in in ways that we might not be able to plug in and maybe to have, so I think that if there are folks that are willing to go out in the community and maybe calm fears or calm the calm that world, then I welcome that again. I don't we don't have all the research that says because it's relatively new of how effective it is. But, you know, as sitting in my chair, you know, if I'm commanding an area and I have a group willing to go in and do the work and calm fears or, you know, put, put their time and attention in to community issues, then those are the exact partnerships that [2:40:18 PM] the exact partnerships that we're looking for, and I, like, I said, conceptually, I appreciate the kind of thought process that goes into it. You know, these are folks that understand and can, a lot of sometimes older, been through that experience that can go into a community and be like, talk folks down and like I said, prevent that trigger from ever, getting pulled. Of course, we just have to execute on that, you know, make sure that our partners are doing the work. Make sure that that, you know, the resources they're there and that. But I think that's a really intriguing, area in terms of, of law enforcement. So but thank you very much for the presentation. Greatly appreciate it. >> Thank you. Great >> Anything else? Excellent presentation. Thank you very much. >> God bless y'all. Thank you all for y'all being here. >> Thank you, mayor, that'll take us to future items. Councilmember qadri. >> Great, yeah. One thing that I've been hearing a lot, is on workers comp issues, from the public safety commission. I understand they wanted to take it up and, and look at an APD report, but the public safety [2:41:19 PM] report, but the public safety commission chair was told that they can't be briefed on until council is so I would love for our community to be briefed on it so that they can also be briefed on it, and by they, I mean, I mean the commission. So so, yeah, that's a future item. >> All right. >> Anything else on potential future items, councilmember Kelly mayor, I think you have my list. >> I do, thank you. >> All right. Anything else? >> Mayor? >> Yes, councilmember. Alter good afternoon, I would like to have a discussion of overtime usage, particularly in the fire department, but probably across all the units. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. Is there anything else that anybody would like to bring up? All right with that? That concludes the agenda of the public safety committee of the Austin city council, we, without objection, are adjourned at 2:42 P.M. Thank you all very much.