Thank you. Good evening. Welcome back to the use of force ad hoc committee today is Thursday, September 24 2020.
I forgot my watch. We are going to get started tonight. The first item on our agenda is the excuse me, consider approval of use of force ad hoc committee meeting minutes for September 17 2020.
If you've had an opportunity to look over the minutes, I'll need a motion and a second.
That Rhonda made a motion.
Who second.
Oh, Pam and Pam made the second. All in favor please raise your hand and leave it up for a second so that we can get you on camera.
Okay, motion carries.
Next on the agenda.
Receive a report hold discussion and finalize report to city council with the committee's findings conclusion and recommendations related to the use of force in the police department.
And then I'm going to turn that over to Sarah first and then I think Patrick.
Hi committee members. So Patrick is with us again this evening. He's the consultant that has helped us with the last couple of meetings and he'll be taking you through a few slides.
As you consider delivering the final report to city council.
Thanks, Sarah. Good evening, everyone. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen to review the, if you can give me those rights to share my screen.
I'm not sure.
Billy should be doing that right now I got it. Okay, thanks, Billy.
Everybody see that.
I'm gonna bring everybody back over to my home screen I have two screens here. Hope everyone's doing well as I do this.
I think I have everybody on my home screen.
I'm going to walk through read these aloud to give you a chance to process this you've seen this material that Sarah has sent out this PowerPoint. There's nothing really included, I don't believe it all in the PowerPoint tonight that you've not seen before in previous
meetings, most specifically last week.
Think of this as a chance just to refine it a little bit there's no no intention to do any voting tonight. It's really to polish it up. If there's anything that we didn't capture you may recall for the meeting last week, you voted you identified
what your recommendations were. This is a chance just to polish those up just a little bit. The intent is not to revisit them at all, or to have another vote, or to make dramatic changes to it.
It's really just so we don't expect this I don't want to jinx us, but we don't expect this to be a very long meeting. It's a chance just to do a little bit of polish case someone read these aloud, and as we go through this.
We are now at the Thursday, September 24th meeting, you can see the means you've and you go back to June 24th I believe it was your first when you're close to them.
We're now incorporating recommendations and finalizing the report to deliver the city council. So the intention of tonight is this is the last final meeting of this ad hoc committee on October 5th the city council have a luncheon, where
the committee's report recommendations will be presented to them for their consideration.
And we'll go over a little bit more that in detail, a little bit later on this evening.
So that's the timeline.
I doubt there's any questions I'm not you know if there's comments or something just raise your hand, but this is really a recap.
This is the draft report, we didn't include the entire report. I believe Sarah was it sent out to them I can't recall the entire document was sent out to them.
Yes, it was on Monday evening as well as earlier today. That's right. Yeah, thank you for that reminder. So you have received it it's fairly lengthy.
It really captures the essence not minutes per se but the essence of each of the meetings and what was covered by the chief and Michael and Todd and other city staff that presented the material included in the report are the recommendations, and
some other information. So I would encourage you to take a look at that. Again, there's nothing that's being introduced in that report or this evening that you've not seen before.
So, this is the table of contents for that reports fairly lengthy.
It's pretty comprehensive I think Sarah and the staff did an excellent job I had a chance to review it.
It tells a great story just kind of from where the what the group was convened to do what it covered what its discussion points were, and what the recommendations are.
So, the next one and this is similar the same actually of the first recommendation may recall this from last Thursday, you had a discussion about policy and training so I'm just going to read this as a chance for you to process this as well
can read just kind of read it aloud just to kind of keep us moving here. Policy and training first recommendation, does the committee have any recommendations for updates to policy language or training regarding use of force.
The committee voted unanimously to support the policy and training recommendation as presented below. This is the same recommendation as contained in the memo.
The first bullet point after review the committee felt that they could not offer any specific recommendations or changes to the policy policy meaning to the use of force.
See, you discussed it. There's a lot involved there. The outcome that was you seem pleased, satisfied with what the policy was and you're not making any recommendations to change the policy.
The second bullet point to continue on understanding escalating situations the police department should investigate continuous opportunity, regular training for officers on mental health, diversity and inclusion in persons with physical or intellectual
disabilities, and LGBTQ individuals.
Such training should be delivered should be balanced to manage proper staffing for the department and other mandated trains, the police department should track and share general metrics on training.
This is your first recommendation.
The same language as last week, you voted on this, this is your first recommendation.
I also wanted to make mention, I think it's appropriate here since we're mentioning the police department is specifically here, that throughout your meetings, chief Dixon and members of his staff have attended, you've had some good conversations going back and forth.
I think he's done an excellent job of implementing a variety of the conversations you've been having. He didn't wait until the report, he was doing that when he started, and he's been doing it since he started with the city of Denton.
And obviously some of that is accelerated based on the conversations you all have had, and he's participated in.
And I think he's done an excellent job of briefing you on some of those actions he's been undertaking, and in some respects not waiting for the delivery of the report, because there are some things he could just make administratively or managerially, and he's put some of those things in place.
So unless there's any questions, I'm going to keep moving on.
Again, no surprises here, same language as last week.
The second recommendation is transparency and accountability. There is a slight change at the bottom of that, but let me read this, give you a chance to process it.
Same language as last week, transparency and accountability. Does the committee have any recommendations to enhance reporting of information to the public?
The committee voted unanimously to support the transparency and accountability recommendation as presented below.
The committee made two changes from the draft recommendation in the memo to one, clarify that it should include all use of force complaints, not just improper use of force complaints, and two, to add the second bullet point to acknowledge that any loss of human life is tragic.
Specifically, the recommendations are the first bullet point, the police department shall create a report that includes data on officer response calls where use of force was used, and summary information on complaints filed against police officers for use of force and their disposition, including if the complaint was sustained and training was recommended.
This report shall be posted and presented online in a friendly, consumable way. The frequency of the report shall be at least semi-annually. Where possible, data should also be presented in a data dashboard format.
The slight change you may recall the conversation you had last week, the suggested language for the recommendation is as follows. If there is a tragic loss of life due to the force, the Denton police chief and officials are encouraged to acknowledge or issue a statement reaffirming the value and sanctity of human life and commitment to transparency and accountability.
Hopefully that captures the spirit of that. You had some back and forth, good exchange of conversation last week. We thought this language captured the spirit of what the conversation was. It's not to make a decision, it's not to admit any wrongdoing or who's culpable, it's simply to make a statement about the sanctity of human life coming from key officials, including the chief and likely the elected officials.
How's that language sit with the group? Pardon me? Yancey? I think it's good. Okay.
Yeah, I like the language. I like the language. The only thing that I thought I sent the email in and add is if the chief or whomever should give that statement, it should be in conjunction when the investigating department or investigating
department is actually giving their statement, not as a separate statement before or after. It should be in conjunction when they give their statement. Okay.
Pam? I like that language very much. Thank you. Okay. Patrick, when we're having discussion, if you could bring down the slide, just be able to show who's speaking, sorry. Sure. And then we can bring it back up if there is any further discussion. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's okay.
Comments about that, the recommendation. Yeah, it looks like, Willie, do you have your hand up? No. Kenyon, do you have your hand up? I was trying to say Kenyon and then Mr. Baines.
Yeah, I guess I have a question about when does the investigating body make a statement? Is it pretty soon when they get the case or is it like they don't make a statement until their investigation is over and all of that?
Thanks, Kenyon. I'll ask Chief Dixon to respond to that if you might.
We get to the investigating agency, but typically we make a comment to the media very soon after the event occurs, you know, within an hour or so from us being on scene and getting the initial preliminary information, we try to get that out.
And then the investigative agency may not be making a public comment, Chief, then for some time thereafter, once they're selected and then they have something to share with the media. I'm just throwing that out there.
Yeah, correct. It's not immediate. Right. And it'll depend on whoever that agency is or entity who's going to be conducting the investigation.
Okay. I just feel like it would be really important for the police department to make a statement in regards to what we have laid out pretty quickly to, you know, for community members like that's what they're wanting and needing.
Okay.
Mr. Baines.
I was wanting Yancey to clarify for me a little bit of the caveat you just presented.
Help me understand the inclusion of that statement you made, Yancey, please.
The reason one of the reasons why I think it'll be important that they do it in conjunction with the investigating agency, and I'm just going to use for example, not saying that it happened and how tragic, it may be but if it's a school shooting,
and then the suspect shoots 10 to 12 kids, but then the police department go in there and have a business with the suspect. I don't think it would be wise for the chief to go out and say, we value the sanctity of human life, after we actually just kill
the suspect or done whatever we need to do with a suspect that just took innocent children lives I think the public will say well now we're valuing the suspect life as opposed to the children's life.
I think that the investigating agency should put out their point of view first, letting them know that an investigation is taking place, and then the chief can come back or either before the investigating agency make their.
And then afterwards he didn't said, he or she have said, we value the sanctity of human life and then it goes totally against what the investigating agency says.
Can I ask you chief, maybe to share with the group, what the past practice has been when there's a situation like again see described. What's your typical approach after the fact and you're getting ready to meet with the media.
Is it when somebody's taking the life who was a suspect at the hands of the police department. Can you share with the group just kind of what the protocols are for that.
What occurred just very basics, because keeping in mind that one of the processes that we were lucky to have in place already is we already have a third party that comes in and conducts those investigations, and I've talked about this before.
They give me enough information to give me a brief overview but they don't give me a lot of details more should they, because we're asking them to conduct an impartial investigation.
It's really important that we stay out of that. And we don't muddy that water because later on that can come into play on a number of different ways. So once I get the initial briefing from the investigating agency.
I'm going to go to the media and give them a very basic statement of the facts as we know them, and we'll preface it with these are preliminary facts as we know them right now, they're very likely to change, because oftentimes, as the investigation
goes along, things do change they shift because of forensics and witnesses, etc.
We'll make that statement, and then we will let them know that any further statement will be coming from the investigating entity, unless there's some reason that drives us to come back in front of the cameras again, unless we do it jointly.
If we don't want to do it jointly then we're open to do those as many times as as they like, but it's very important that we not get in front of them, or have the appearance of any kind of impropriety at all in kind of an interfere with their investigation
if that makes sense.
Okay.
I guess, I guess, in response, in response to this, this recent conversation, I'm a little confused as to what is the most appropriate, because I was thinking that if there were a loss of life there the statement about
the value of, of all lives, and I just wasn't sure I just wasn't sure how you know and I realized there's some complicating circumstances when you have investigating agencies and, and the, the, the appearance of police officials at certain times can be.
Mistaken or taken out of context so I'm just a little confused and uncertain as to what is the appropriate timetable for this kind of statement.
Well that comes out in the initial press conference and if you look at back at the press conferences that we have held since I've been here, we have talked about that on every one of them.
So this isn't something new this is something that I already do when we go in front of the media in the very beginning.
I think that makes sense was from your discussion you had thanks chief and Mr Baines.
I recall from your discussion about this point in particular was just to make it as a point of emphasis to the mayor and council.
Not to imply that it wasn't being done, but just a point of emphasis of my capturing the spirit of what you're trying to do in this recommendation was to emphasize this as a to start ongoing practice.
Not as a, not to fix something that wasn't happening.
I apologize if I, if I, if I don't anyone made anyone feel uncomfortable I'm just was trying to understand the time, the appropriate time to thank you.
Yeah, yes, Mr Raines.
I think Nancy had his hand up. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, yes, yes, I'm sorry.
I was going to agree with you, Mr Baines your statement should be made, I just don't think that we should provide two different, different press conferences or press release I think it should just be at one time.
Everybody is on the same page we can go ahead on and identify that investigative agency.
That way, the chief himself, you know he can say whatever he is want to say, as far as the value of safety or human life but also let the public know that getting PD is not the investigating agency in this so I'll question comments need to be
from the investigating agency. So I wasn't implying that it shouldn't happen I'm just saying that it should be done together not at separate times.
Okay, that clarifies it for me they're both being done at the same time that helps me. Thank you.
Comments about this.
Keep it as is, doesn't sound like there's any recommended change the timing of it. It's as the point of emphasis that that it gets done the timing of it obviously is soon thereafter in coordination as the chief shared with the investigative agency,
so as not to send a mixed signal. The point here was I think was just about the sanctity of life, not to send mixed signals but the loss of life.
Any other comments about this.
Okay, I'm going to share my screen again.
So I need to be able to share that.
I'm having some, where is it.
There it is.
Sorry I had trouble finding it.
There we go.
The next slide. The next recommendation I should say is the civilian oversight, and to read this to you.
So number three civilian oversight does the committee think civilian oversight is needed if yes what option is recommended by roll call slash voice vote, the committee voted first on if civilian oversight should be recommended.
The committee voted 10 to six that a civilian oversight option should be recommended.
We then voted on what form or option of civilian oversight should be recommended. Each committee member was asked to provide their top two options from the matrix.
Of options. The votes were as follows option one receive four votes option to 12 votes option three two votes option for six votes and option five four votes. The top two options were option to have an advisory board to the chief 12 votes and option for a hybrid model with a monitor and a citizen panel that is not part of the police department received six votes.
A subsequent roll call voice vote was held for committee committee for the top two options with option to receiving 10 votes and option for receiving four votes with one abstention.
The committee men civilian oversight in the form and advisory in the form of an advisory board to the chief of police. We move on to the next slide.
The board would establish the structure of the board, its makeup, civilian sworn or combination of both the appointment and removal process for its non sworn members training of board members and its scope, which would include review of statistical data slash trends and
the use of force complaints, disciplinary acts, training and policy.
The board would meet at least semi annually twice a year. Again, this is the same language that was included last week when you made the vote.
I'm going to move on to the next one. Hopefully you have maybe the hard copy or you can pull it up on your screen because I want to come back to all of you as a group to discuss this advisory board to the police chief.
The next bullet point documents created by the board would be subject to the Texas Public Information Act to the extent allowed by law.
The recommendations by the board are not binding on the chief police because they're an advisory board recommendations by the board and the chief's response are subject to public release to the extent allowed by law and subject to required redactions of confidential material.
Next bullet point, the police chief would issue an annual written report and or brief the city council on the advisory board's work, its recommendations to him and his response, including which recommendations he rejected, accepted and implemented.
The final bullet point this process can be implemented immediately without any changes to local government code chapter 143 by the legislature or through the meet and confer process.
You may recall that that was a discussion you had last couple of weeks ago with Michael, city attorney that presented that then last week as well with Todd Heilman discussing just the legal aspects, depending on your recommendation.
What could be done soon to sort of the near term solution that can be done without by simply by adopting an ordinance, you would not necessarily have to make it you don't have to make any changes or meet and confer with the Denton police association.
So I hopefully have a copy of this that you can refer to because I'm going to come back. Stop sharing my screen and find out what questions or comments you have about what I just read, which is what you voted on last week, just and it's laid out a little bit differently tonight.
Comments questions about the advisory board recommendation thoughts.
Canyon I'm sorry, yeah, Canyon and Mr Baines.
Yeah, I have a question.
Pardon me if I'm not understanding this, this advisory board meets twice a year, or they report to the chief twice a year, I'm confused about that part.
Okay.
We'll respond to that just a moment. I can you Mr Baines.
Oh, I just wanted to say that I felt that you captured the essence of the conversation. Well, and thank you very much.
Okay.
Todd did you respond to Kenyon's question.
I'm Patrick Gary.
Oh, I'm.
I'm trying to see everybody here. Oh, Gary.
Thank you, Mr Baines. This is what I understood to be what we voted on the last meeting. Thank you.
Okay.
Anybody else before.
Todd, did you want to address Kenyon's point about the frequency of the group meeting, is it twice a year or what have you.
I don't think that there's any concern with even doing it quarterly I think it's more of just an issue that in a good way there's just not a lot of volume for them to for the police department to review but if we want to recommend that make quarterly, I don't think anybody's opposed to it.
We didn't really talk about the meeting frequency but I think month to month is probably not going to be enough. We're hoping not enough caseload or issues to really justify that but it doesn't really matter to us if it's quarterly recommendation or semi annually.
Canyon, and then Mr Baines.
I mean, I think I would love to see quarterly, I think, partly because having been on these committee meetings which we had to go over time just for the learning curve that with having to have training, at least up front there might need to be additional meetings
maybe without the chief for the training but you know that's, that's the only thing I was thinking about.
Thank you, Mr Baines. I was simply going to say, I didn't know if you could structure the language to say that we will do it quarterly unless we determine that semi annually is sufficient.
Okay.
Thoughts about Mr Baines suggested language to conclude that Pam.
I was going to suggest if there's a need for it, and we make that recommendation. Yeah.
Other thoughts about that, that seems like a simple change so about frequency.
Other thoughts about that.
I'm assuming that people are comfortable with that language, unless someone objects.
This recommendation.
Pam.
One more thing I felt like you did a really good job and outlining what we talked about last week as well. Thank you.
Sure.
Donna, look like you had your hand up.
No.
Okay.
This is like an auction remember you move your hand you just made a bid.
Other comments.
Willie did you have any comments.
We can't hear you really.
No, I, I, I abstained because I didn't think it any of it was necessary. That was my vote to not do it at all. So that's why I have no comment.
So the next step will be to forward this report, these recommendations with a slight change recommended by Mr Baines to the city council.
And they'll be considering that at their meeting October 5th.
Sarah or Todd I don't know if you had any other comments to share with the committee about would they be receiving any more emails about the report or that meeting or since this is the final meeting we're just about to wrap up.
I don't know if you'd explored that yet.
When the final report is ready to go and the, the work session materials are put together with along with the PowerPoint we'll go ahead and make sure that the committee members see it.
We're going to ask obviously our chair and vice chair to, to come to the council workshop and and help present the findings, since this was a more of a citizens committee that driven committee.
And I just want to thank everybody for spending all these weeks with us and taking all this time out of your lives. It's an extraordinarily complex subject as you've all learned and and really we've really appreciated a fresh set of eyes on this and it's really easy for us to get used to doing business day to day.
While it might not seem to all of you that you know that there's been a huge difference made, we have been adjusting and pivoting all along trying to figure out exactly how we communicate with the public, how you want information, whether we're doing a good enough job presenting
to you how our trainings lining up procedures so it's really been invaluable for us and I appreciate it and I'm sure chief Dixon does as well but I'll let chief speak for himself.
I just want to take a moment to really thank you all. We really do owe you guys a great debt of gratitude because if you remember when we came together in June, it was not this cohesive.
And I think it's been very beneficial to everybody involved in. This is just one small example of how we can all come together, going in one direction for the same goal and really get things accomplished so I'm really happy with the way it turned out.
And I can't thank you guys enough, and hopefully you don't quit coming to us to learn more about us to work with us and to bring us ideas because there's always room to keep improving.
Okay.
Cheryl Did you have any final comments for you wrap up. I just want to thank everybody for this participation process, it is difficult. Hopefully this has inspired you to continue to want to serve in local government or the nonprofits.
Because there is a lot of work to be done. And just thank you for participating in this process.
And just some final comments from my vantage point thank you all for the opportunity to work with all of you. I know these issues you're all passionate I love people's passion, you all have that in common you love Denton, you know the best days for the community are in front of it.
Democracy is messy. And this was democracy in practice trying to and it's difficult even when you're all in the same room but when we're doing it virtually, but it's exchanging ideas and listening, active listening and try to understand people's points of view and trying to work through
it much like Todd and the chief was sharing, and Cheryl was sharing is trying to find that common ground, and those are going to be continuous conversations one of the things that I think you all take from this is a little like inside baseball.
Insider's knowledge about the law enforcement may be different than you had in June. And I think obviously the chief and the officers also have a little bit continually increased perspective about where people are coming from and I think, as you all were sharing,
it's that exchange of ideas and trying to understand better. What's the role what's the role of the community what's the role of the police department what's the role of the council, there's lots of different roles and responsibilities and building a stronger community.
And this is another step in the dent in chapter, another step in the dent in history. And I think it's wonderful. And again it's trying to work through all these things and do it in a professional collegial way.
So I appreciate that you all were able to do that and brought me in as a way to help the group kind of find its footing and thread the needle.
So I'm delighted I feel an honor that I had a chance to work with people who are passionate about their community and trying to build on the success.
Thank you Patrick. Thank you for everything else. I wish you all continued good health. Thank you all. Good health to all of you. Safe and healthy.
Todd, Chief, Sarah, thanks for everything. Cheryl, thanks for everything. I'm sure we'll be in touch. To the rest of you. Again, continued success to all of you. Good health and safety to you and your families.
Thank you. Thank you Patrick. Thank you all. Good night everybody. Enjoy the rest of your evening. Thanks to everyone. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Reigns. Thanks everyone.