Health Safety Education and Services - Regular Meeting

welcome back to this weekly meeting of the health and safety committee with denver city council coverage of the health and safety committee starts now

Good morning and welcome. My name is Darrell Watson. I'm honored to serve as the chair of the health and safety committee and also as the city council member representing all of the fine district 9. today is June 10th. We have 1 briefing from Denver police and 1 item on consent before we roll into the presentation. Why don't we have introductions by council members and I'll start with our council members that are virtual. I believe we have council member Flynn and Sawyer. We'll turn it to you.

Good morning everyone, Councilman Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2.

Good morning, Amanda Sawyer, District 5.

Thank you both for here and then we'll start on our right with Councilman.

Good morning everyone, Serena Gonzalez-Quiqueirez, I'm one of your council members at large.

Good morning, Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6. Thank you everyone for being here.

We'll turn over to Denver Police Chief Thomas who will have you introduce yourself and all of our colleagues from Denver Police and turn the floor over to you.

Well thank you Councilman Watson, Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas. Happy to once again present on education-based development and so I'll start with the agenda if you want to go to that slide. And so we'll be presenting on the what, why, and how of education-based development. We'll also talk about eligibility, example scenarios, survey results, and our community engagement, along with program changes based on feedback and guardrails that we've established. Now, a lot has been offered. Next slide, please. No, no, sorry, one back, sorry. Now a lot has been offered about what education development is and isn't. And so for the record, from our perspective, education-based development is an alternative to traditional discipline for lower-level violations. It's focused on behavior changes through training and coaching. It addresses root causes of mistakes. It uses targeted training and counseling, and it's designed to improve long-term performance. And more importantly, what education development is not is it is not a replacement for discipline, it is not a change to the discipline matrix, and it is not a bypass of internal affairs or the Office of the Independent Monitor review. So the core idea ultimately of education-based development is to create a faster and more meaningful accountability without reducing oversight. And I want to emphasize that point of without reducing oversight, which we understand is very important. So why is education-based development needed? First, there are a number of challenges with our current system, and we've discussed this before. There's a large number of lower-level cases. Minor cases often require months to resolve. Longer timelines impact ability to correct mistakes efficiently, and education development would create more current development and training timelines. And so all of those challenges, I think, have negative impacts on officer morale and productivity. Now, more broadly, there's a growing movement which recognizes that in the current system, officer development has become far less important than punitive outcomes for minor mistakes, and those penalties don't address the why. Also, programmatically procedural and restorative justice has become widely accepted, widely accepted practice in favor of retributive justice. And so just to put a finer point on the current challenges, as you can see, the bulk of our cases, which are those that where an oral or written reprimand is the most likely outcome if the charge would be to be sustained, it's taking six to eight months to resolve those cases.

All right. Good morning, everyone. To introduce myself, my name is Wendy Shea. I am special counsel to the Department of Safety. But I'm here today because in late July, I also assumed the role of being the acting deputy director over oversight of Denver police discipline and Denver fire discipline as we look to replace a role that had been vacated. In that role, I worked very closely with our executive director, executive director Al Gardner, to hear the ideas as well as the concerns about education-based development as well as the draft policy. And I worked alongside him after we listened to those concerns and ideas to make what we believe are meaningful changes to the draft policy that address several key areas that we believe needed to be implemented to fully take this vision to where we wanted it to go. So. I think pretty much everyone's familiar with our disciplinary matrix, but just to provide a little context here. For violation, there's conduct categories that then determine the penalties that will be assessed. There's five actual conduct categories for the Denver Police that range from A to F. They all have a specific definition. One thing that Director Gardner wanted to make very clear and did in the revisions to the policy is that currently what's going to happen with this policy is that there's only certain types of rules and regulation violations that are eligible. And it's only for conduct categories A and B. Conduct category A is conduct that has a minimal negative impact on the operations or professional image of the department. Conduct category B is conduct that has more than a minimal negative impact on the operations or professional image of the department or that negatively impacts relationships with other officers, agencies, or the public. There is also specific appendix that's attached that sets forth this only the specific rules and regulations that are eligible. So that was something that there was concerns expressed and they were fair concerns that it wasn't exactly clear what might be eligible and what's not. I also want to take this opportunity, we're going to discuss it as we continue to go, but should there be a question as to what conduct might fit into these categories between the Denver Police Department and the Office of the Independent Monitor, the process still allows for the Independent Monitor or the Denver Police Department to escalate the issue to be resolved by the Executive Director. And that's something that's made clear in this policy every step of the way, that the monitor has a role, recommendations are made up to the executive director just as they are in our disciplinary process, and then he will make the final call if it's needed. Some examples just really quickly on the A through B were discourtesy, generals, duties and responsibilities. Again, these very minor type of violations. So that's what we did. Just go ahead, sorry Esther, thank you very much. For what's not eligible and what is clear here is anything that C through F, F is termination, terminal type conduct. But all of this, use of force, deceptive acts, bias-related incidents, any of this, repeated misconduct, which we'll talk about in a minute, is not going to be eligible. Again, should the independent monitor agree with the Denver Police Department and believe that a violation falls within a C category, Denver Police believes it falls within A or B and may be eligible, that can get escalated to our executive director to make that final determination after he listens to both sides. Next slide, thank you. All right, so the chief talked about this a little bit about some of the benefits of education-based development. I think one of the keys here is it promotes timely and meaningful accountability. Officers are asked to accept responsibility and in fact will have to enter into agreement if it's determined that they're eligible to participate in this program. So that also demonstrates that willingness to improve. The other key here is we believe this gives us the opportunity to strengthen community trust through positive interactions with police officers. And the reason why is, again, this key of being able to mentor, provide our officers the tools that they may need to hopefully correct the conduct moving forward and not be in a situation where they're in discipline for months or even a year and not being able to take that opportunity for things like discourtesy. All right, so the current disciplinary process, I think everybody knows this. I'm not really going to go through it right, but we get a complaint that's received. It gets investigated by our Internal Affairs Bureau. The OIM looks at it, either certifies it as thorough and complete to move through the process or returns it to ask for more investigation. Once the monitor's office has certified it, it goes to our conduct review. They make a recommendation. The monitor's office gets to make a recommendation. The chief determines what we're going to proceed on. It goes all the way up for the final order to be issued by the executive director's office. So the disciplinary process with education-based development. So let me discuss this in a little bit more detail. So one of the keys here is that still gonna have an internal investigation. There's two real reasons for this, right? We need to make sure that the conduct actually is eligible. The second reason is it may not be eligible and may still need to go through the process and we don't wanna delay that piece. But it also, the officer may decide not to accept education-based discipline because this is voluntary on the part of the officers. So if in fact they're determined to be eligible, they have the ability to say, yes, I'll participate. I agree to participate or I don't. If they don't, we continue with the process. Should they agree and then not complete what they were supposed to complete during the time they were required to do it, we're right back in the process. Okay, so if the officer doesn't accept the agreement, that's just what I said back to the same process. It's like that circumstance never existed. Or again, if they fail to comply with what they were required to comply, immediately write back in that process and it's like it didn't exist in the first place. Again, just emphasizing the fact here of eligibility is ultimately... if Denver police and the monitor's office agree or if there's a disagreement, it gets elevated to the executive director who makes the final decision on that issue. So I can have the chief talk a little bit more on some of these example scenarios. One thing that I just really want to point out is it's really important to note that a lot of this training or mentoring, coaching, what's ever going to be part of EBD is going to be individualized to the situation. In other words, there can't be a one-size-fits-all because then it defeats this purpose. So a lot of the training is going to be developed based upon the circumstances that we're seeing that's going to be specifically targeted towards the officer. With that said, in the policy, before the training plan goes out, before the offer of EBD goes out, the monitor's office has the opportunity to review, will have the opportunity to review all of the training and provide recommendations and input before it goes. If there's a dispute between DPD and the monitor, gets elevated to our executive director to make the final decision as to what that plan and the agreement should include. But there will be potentially some generalized training that may be helpful. And the chief will talk on this. I'll turn it over to him in just a second. And that generalized training is what is being worked on right now. I believe we're even partnering with the DA's office to do that. That again will be shared before it's finalized with the monitor's office again to get those recommendations as to her thoughts when she sees that as well. But chief, let me turn it over to you to talk a little bit more.

Yeah, just to talk a little bit more clearly. So all of you are aware of the fact that our academy is 26 weeks long. Our operations manual, I think everybody in the room is old enough to remember that the yellow page is as thick as that. So quite a few policies and procedures to go through. On top of that, there are... there are constant policy changes, rule changes, legislative changes that occur every year. And so there's a need to put out training bulletins and make sure that everybody is clear on all of those updated policies and procedures. And I think it's easy to understand how someone could forget or just not understand how to handle a particular issue. And so, And so in that particular instance, under the current system, they may go through a six or eight month investigation and then ultimately wind up with a written reprimand and at the end of it still not really understand two things. One, not understand what the actual correct action that they should have taken is. The second thing that they may not have a clear understanding of is what the impact was on the individual that was involved in that particular incident. And so we think that in each of these situations, whether it's a report writing issue or a matter of discourteous conduct or an equipment handling situation, We think that through the education-based development, we can make sure that at the end of it, they clearly understand what the correct action we expect them to take is going forward and make sure that they understand what the community expectation is, because I think that's actually equally as important as the correct action, understanding the impacts that their missteps and their mistakes have on the community.

Okay.

So just to talk a little bit about the community engagement and the survey that we did. So initially, during some of our initial drafts of this particular policy, we had meetings at every single district. where our internal affairs commander presented on the policy and the procedure. At the end of that, there was a QR code that was presented to individuals so that they could scan the QR code and provide some feedback relative to that presentation. We also engaged with the Civil Service Commission, several community groups, some academic partners, and ultimately had meetings with the Citizen Oversight Board and the Office of Independent Monitor. One of the recommendations is that we go even further in terms of seeking community feedback, and so we posted the most recent iteration of the policy on our website and asked for feedback and for people to weigh in on whether they supported or did not support the policy. And so you can see that there was a number of responses over the course of about a year, and the majority of those responses were supportive of moving forward in the direction that we are.

And one thing just to add as we're proceeding through that, we even had a hearing officer, someone that presides over the discipline for DPD reach out and wanted to talk to us and provide her recommendations. And we did that, and we have that, and that actually provides some valuable feedback. And by we, I mean that meeting occurred with the hearing officer, the executive director, Chief Thomas, independent monitor Castle, and me. So we could really get that feedback because it's important too, right, to have the people that are sitting and making decisions raise issues that they had seen and thoughts that they had had regarding the policy. So we're going to talk about some of the feedback and how it was addressed. So the program name, everybody knows this, it got renamed to Education-Based Development because it's really not discipline. Hopefully, it's not intended to be discipline, but the policy does provide. Let's say the officer is eligible for and has education-based discipline and successfully completes it. and then we see that officer come back on that substantially similar type of situation, discourtesy, we'll use as an example, that can be used as what's called an aggravating factor in the disciplinary process. Two things happen there. They would no longer be entitled to go back to education-based discipline, but the second thing is key. We look at the fact that they actually were provided this mentoring and guidance Apparently something happened, it may not have stuck. That means when we get to figuring out what the penalty is, that penalty may be aggravated depending upon the circumstances. That's specifically in the policy and it's an important piece because it's not like this is getting, it doesn't have any impact, let me say it that way, if they don't learn anything when they go through the process. It does and they're made aware of that as well. Eligibility, again, it was a much broader window when this draft was initially put out there. In listening to all of the concerns about that and also having executive director just think about it, he really landed on let's pilot this and go with A through B and those specifics that I told you that's an appendix of what that is. That's very important so everybody comes to the table and understands what's potentially eligible and not. And then again, we have that whole process when there's disagreement, if there is, between DPD and the monitor for our executive director to resolve it. Officer admission, what this is, is this is an acknowledgement for them to be eligible for education-based development. They enter into an agreement and part of that agreement is they accept responsibility. They admit, right, that what they did needs to be done better and they will do better in the future and that's hopefully why they're going through this process because they also want to develop, learn, do better. Training, so it's a 90-day completion window. Again, as I said, that training will be individualized. There may be some more general training that we think benefits the officer, not training they've been through before. And I want to highlight that too. And all of that training and the agreement goes to the independent monitor first for comments, recommendations before it's finalized. Any dispute? can be elevated to the executive director for a final determination on that. So I've talked about this a lot, but OIM review is at every stage of the process just as it is in the disciplinary process. And it is specifically written in the policy. And that was something that Executive Director Gardner wanted, thought it was very important, I do too, and it is specifically written in here. That whole process, timeframes, all of that. So we're all working from the same page and we all understand what the expectations are before this gets started. Transparency, if somebody is eligible and agrees to education-based discipline, there's a whole part of the policy that talks about IAPRO. IAPRO is our database where we keep all of the disciplinary matters. Everything, including the agreement, all the training, whether or not it was successfully completed, all of that is included in IAPRO. The monitor has access to all that information. So her and her team can also see how it's proceeding. Did the officer successfully complete it? If not, are we right back in the process? But another really important part is feedback. And what that didn't address that I just want to point out in the policy, The executive director actually added a couple things that are really, really important. One is, external complaints, if in fact what they've complained about is something that an officer's eligible for education-based discipline, they're going to be notified about that. They're going to be notified about what the training program is. They're going to be notified about the results. And then they're going to be asked for feedback. And they're asked for feedback through a form. That's been developed in conjunction with the review and recommendation of the monitor's office. Should they not complete that form, we have in the policy that IA needs to follow up with them and see if we can get some feedback. Because that's what's really important to see if this is going to be successful or not. Hearing that feedback from the community member that it may impact or not. So that was something that was really important. Another thing and a very key point that the executive director included in this policy is regular meetings with not just him but the independent monitor. where Chief and his team will present about what cases went, how successful it was, what they're seeing. So those discussions will be had. That can be an opportunity for what's working, what's not. But again, that's something that's specifically built into this policy, even in more information about what's going to be included in a written report. And there are bullets of what DPD is going to be asked to provide in a written report before they meet with the monitor and the executive director to make sure the information is there and it can be appropriately covered and questions can be asked by anybody. There will also be an annual meeting that's also in here to provide and discuss as more data is gathered. So I think those are important points. And then just to sum up, I, the internal affairs bureau for DPD is still going to investigate the level of review. The opposite independent monitor has remains absolutely unchanged. Officer, again, as I said, may decline to participate because it's completely voluntary. The disciplinary process then will proceed. If they fail to complete training, it's going to return to our disciplinary process. Anytime we see these repeated patterns of misconduct, it is excluded from the EBD process. The policy also specifically lays out when an officer is eligible and when they're not. So if they have been offered and successfully completed, like I said, within 18 months and they end up back in the system no matter what that is, they're not eligible for EBD anymore. So all of this is now explained in the policy. And then we talked about, just a little bit ago, the monitoring and transparency, so I won't go through much of that anymore, but there will also be a public reporting dashboard, just like we have now, with the disciplinary process and all of that. They'll be reporting on how many officers have been offered EBD, how many officers accepted EBD, how many were successful, how many worked, so that the community and anybody that wants to see that is able to see it and ask questions should they have them. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you both. Chief Thomas and City Attorney Wendy Shea. Thank you all. Esther Lee Leach, our legislative liaison for the Department of Safety. I appreciate your engagement and coordination of all of these meetings. We do have a queue for City Councilmembers and so we'll start first with questions from Councilmember Flynn and then Councilmember Gonzales Gutierrez. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Chief and Wendy, for the presentation. You know, in so many areas of society, we are looking for positive ways to handle instances that require correction. and especially for low-level matters that you've outlined here, the A and the B. And I think that this is also an opportunity to sort of unclog the jam that occurs when officers wait for up to a year for a level A or B resolution through the disciplinary process, and hopefully with a more positive outcome. As I said, we look for that in so many areas of society today. But what would help me understand a little better visually would be, Chief, if you could give us a specific example of a discourtesy or some of those other A and B level violations so that I can understand what is a discourtesy and what fits into some of those other A and B, some specific examples so that I can better understand.

Yeah, I appreciate that. So, you know, I mean, obviously, you know, discourtesy is someone who engages with someone in a discourteous manner is short, is unprofessional in their dealings with an individual. But I think maybe a scenario, and I've offered this scenario before, which I think is something that would be eligible for education-based development. This is something that I think frequently happens when we talk about reporting requirements and policy requirements. So let's say, again, there is a car accident, it happens on the border between Denver and Sheridan or Denver and Aurora, and the officer responds to this accident He strongly believes that the accident occurred in a different jurisdiction, and so he's not responsible for taking that accident report. And so he tells the person who's already distraught because they've been involved in this accident that he can't take the report. They're going to have to call this other jurisdiction. They do that and then the other jurisdiction actually clarifies or somehow gets clarified that it is in Denver or even if it's not in Denver, our policy actually states that when there are those jurisdictional disputes that the officer will complete the report. And so I can certainly understand how an officer might be led to believe or lead themselves to believe that that if it didn't happen in Denver, then I'm not responsible for making that report. And so what the education would look like is helping them understand some of those more specific policy points as it relates to jurisdictional disputes, And then there may be additional components on critical thinking. And then I think probably the more important piece of that training module will also include helping them understand the impact that it had on that community member because in this in this significant delay between determining who's ultimately responsible for this um for this accident report this um you know community members had to make several calls they've had to sit there in an intersection for a lengthy period of time and gone through the frustration when all they needed is somebody to take their report so that they could move on with their day So I think that through an education-based discipline module, they could walk away with a clear understanding of what our expectation is as a police department and also what the community expectation is in those types of scenarios.

So Chief, so what does that look like now in the current system?

What that looks like now is In similar situations as that, it may take a number of weeks, months, sometimes up to a year because of the clog in the system for that case to be heard, a determination be made that it's a sustained violation, and then they get served with this written reprimand that says you violated this particular policy and And when they read that, there is no clear understanding of, okay, well, obviously I was wrong, but when are you gonna tell me what I should have done instead? And so I think that through this process, we could do a better job of making sure people understand what the correct steps to take were, what our expectation is as a department, and again, what the community's expectation is.

Last question then, do you have any estimate of how much more efficient this can make the process while retaining all of the public disclosures and involvement?

Well, it remains to be seen just how much more efficient it will be. I suspect that it will be significantly more efficient in terms of reducing the timeline on these cases. But again, I think the more important outcome aside from the timeliness is the opportunity for there to be true accountability, for there to be a true opportunity to coach and train and make sure that an officer moves forward with a level of understanding that they didn't have before.

Thank you. I appreciate that information. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Flynn, Councilmember González Gutiérrez, and Councilmember Cash.

Thank you so much. Mr. chair. Thank you everyone for being here and providing this update. Sorry, I was writing down a few questions as you're presenting. So, a couple of questions, I guess has. Has there been, so of the community questionnaires, right, that you kind of cited and provided some basic data on, it looks like they were yes, no, unsure types of questions.

Yes. There were no like- Well, so the initial questionnaire had, I don't know, six questions. And essentially it was whether or not they thought it would be effective, whether or not they thought it would have an impact on community safety, those kinds of things. And so that's where people answered, yes, I believe, no, I don't, or I'm unsure. The second opportunity that we sought to gather feedback was just putting the policy online and allowing people to make whatever comments they chose to make. And so reading every one of those comments, it was easy to determine whether or not it was a comment in support of or a comment against. Both of those comments offered suggestions sometimes. There were a handful of times, as I think it shows, where reading it was really difficult to tell whether or not they were actually in support or not in support.

Who put together the survey or the questionnaire?

How was that created? So the Internal Affairs Commander, the Conduct Review Commander at the time, and myself, we put that questionnaire together.

Was anybody who has like experience in creating like questionnaires and surveys, because it sounds like a lot of the questions were more in the affirmative rather than trying to get at, you know, really. That understanding of, like, if it is only asking if they support it, essentially, rather than asking if people have concerns.

Sure.

And then there wasn't any open ended questions in the questionnaire. It sounds like sure. And so there wasn't anybody that has like a background in kind of research and analytics and in helping to develop that questionnaire.

No, I don't believe so.

Okay. Um, was the independent monitor, did they receive a copy of the raw data from the questionnaires? Ultimately, yes, so they have that information, like, they have all the comments that were made. They have the responses that were received and all of that. Okay. Was there any demographic information collected of the questionnaire? Like, where people live.

No, the only information that we have relative to that is those first six meetings that we had were all in our police districts. And so the demographics generally were the demographics of those six police districts.

So we don't know if the people that replied to the questionnaire online actually live in Denver?

That's correct.

Okay. I'll just say on that front, like with the questionnaire and development and all of those things. I know when we worked on our R&O policy, we tapped into people who have that expertise in developing surveys and questionnaires and how to best do that, how to make sure it's available in different languages for language access, and then also having a mixture of different types of question in order to gather the information you're seeking to gather, which is that actual feedback. Um, and I am a little bit concerned because we also don't know if the responses came from people in Denver. And so that makes it very difficult. And as 1 of the at large members who represents the entire city of Denver, I would have a lot of concerns. Not knowing of whether or not those folks are actually living in our city and have the experience with with. I'm curious, and maybe I don't know if Wendy or Chief, if this is something you would answer on how long the independent monitor would have to review in the review process. So you talk about how the monitor has an opportunity to review. Is there a timeframe on that review?

So with this one, and the chief would have to let me know that. So the draft went through several iterations. I don't know that the monitor along the way at least responded to that. I will say with respect to when we made the changes from the executive director's office, we didn't necessarily put a time limit on that for the monitor. This has been something that has, gosh, I don't know. If it's a year now that we're almost at or where are we? So over a year. So this process is a very slow, almost deliberate. And like I said, when we got to what the executive director and I were looking at, we wanted to make sure we had the opportunity to go back and watch things to the extent that they were available, listen, do all of that, and then give the monitor the extra opportunity, even when he made changes to provide that feedback. because she'd been involved in far more of those discussions and things like that.

I'm talking about the feedback that's, I'm sorry, I'm talking about the process that you are proposing. So in the process of a disciplinary or a complaint coming through and that review process and what you've outlined on the slides, How long will the monitor have to review those cases individually?

So it's in here. So there's a difference between the IA part where there's not necessarily like a restriction or when they're looking at it, decide if it's thorough or if they want more questions. It is in the policy of how long they have if DPD determines that they think it's eligible to look through and that process is in there. And that was a process that the OIM had the opportunity to come back and make suggestions or recommendations to.

What is that timeframe?

So there's different timeframes, so I can send that to you, but I don't want to speak off the top of my head. I feel like it's five business days mainly between when, if DPD thinks it's eligible to give the monitor the opportunity to look at it, determine, and then it still proceeds through the process because it would go to the conduct review commander. Those two, meaning the monitor and conduct review, can discuss. Still not in agreement, then elevated to...

So if those days expire, whatever the different timeframes are, does it just continue to go through the process regardless if the monitor has been able to respond?

So in my experience, the monitor and all of us would respond, but it wouldn't just be, well, the monitor didn't respond. There will be some extra steps taken, because that would be the question that that would have right? Because the cannot under this make a unilateral determination that it's going to be. Eligible, so I hope that answers your question and we understand there's going to be circumstances where. something may happen, they can't respond during that time, happens all the time. We just need to continue and hopefully have that cooperative, collaborative environment there of, you can't respond in this period of time, when do you think you can get us something? And that's where we are. It won't just be, sorry, you missed your deadline, we're done.

And my last question for you, and I know that the monitor is here, so I hate talking about somebody when they're right there. I have a few questions for you, Monitor Castle. How many times can an officer get

So that is in here. So it depends on, so there's certain things with eligibility. Like for example, they have not had EBD offered or successfully completed an EBD agreement within the prior 12 months for any eligible A category. That's one. Another circumstance is they have not been offered or successfully completed an EBD agreement within the prior 18 months if it's a category B. violation so that's in here and then they can't be currently under any other active investigation whether it's administrative or criminal they're not eligible so that's set forth in there so then they they are eligible under certain circumstances Correct. And that all depends, like I said, depending upon, because you could have a discourtesy that doesn't fall within one of those A or Bs. It may be significant enough that it's a C, D, right? So it's all dependent on a lot of what the conduct is, who, where it really falls in those conduct categories. That's the first step of determining if it's even eligible at all. Okay.

I think it would be helpful to get a red line version of the policy updates, because when I was looking at the policy that's posted online, it's the old one, because it includes the C categories online. And so it sounds like that has been updated since the feedback that it is only AB categories.

So there's a substantial difference. I don't think that policy has been published yet.

That's correct. And so it was actually a request by the monitors office that would not keep changing it online. And so we left it there.

Yeah, that makes total sense because then it can get too confusing. I know that all too well about something else. But if it's possible for council members to receive a red line copy so that we can see the changes that have been made since the one that's posted online currently, is that possible?

I think we could share the changes in red line that director Gardner. Because that's essentially again, it went back to the monitor. I want to make sure that her privilege is also protected, but the way the policy looks, what's the final version and the changes that were made in that final version?

We can absolutely see who made what changes. I just want to see what it looks like. We see what it looks like now in a red line showing. What has been changed the next, the final version, the current version, I should say right now. Real quick, if it's okay, Mr. Chair, can I ask a few questions?

That's fine. And I'll say about a red line piece as well. Individual council members can have individual briefings with you all as well. So I think demonstrating or presenting that red line in additional briefings, I mean, we see confidential information all the time. So I don't see that as a problem. Yes, please.

Okay. Thank you, monitor. Good morning, Castle. I have a couple questions for you. I just think, could you speak to whether or not, one, I want to make sure there aren't any discrepancies when it comes to that you have everything that you need, and have you received all of the documentation? And as far as the review process, from your perspective, do you feel like you've had ample opportunity to provide the feedback? That's two questions in one, sorry.

Thank you, Councilwoman Gutierrez. First of all, I think that there is a disagreement in terms of what information we have received.

Oh, and did you introduce yourself? I'm so sorry.

Yes. I'm Elizabeth Bettis Castle. I'm the independent monitor. With regards to the questionnaires that were put out to the community, we did not have We did not partake in that. That was done by the department. And the questionnaires that were filled out, we were sent summaries by the department of comments, but we were not actually sent the questionnaires. We have repeatedly asked that we be provided with the actual questionnaires and have made that demand pursuant to the ordinance. I believe it's 2-390 that states that we are entitled to any data, programs, information, everything, anything that we need as the independent monitor to make a determination about a policy or training or discipline. So I believe that they have refused to turn that over to the OIM. I believe that's a violation of the ordinance and I continue to demand that they provide us with those questionnaires. I've also requested all of the training, curriculum, information that they have for training that they already have in place. My concern is that this is going to get rolled out, and we're going to be working on the back foot, and we're being asked to make a recommendation about whether the OIM agrees to education-based discipline. I don't know what it is. I haven't seen the training. I don't know how it addresses the issue. I don't know how it addresses the complaint. So I'm asking to make a decision in the blind. So I'm asking that, also pursuant to 2-390, that that be provided to us ahead of time. Whatever they have, give it to us now, not later. With regards to EBD, again, it's difficult for... to have this conversation because you don't have the final draft in front of you. Due to deliberative privilege process, I can't comment on what recommendations we have made, but I think that it is, from what I'm hearing the Chief and Wendy say, is that EBD is not a one-time thing. EBD can be offered multiple times. For a Class A violation, within 12 months, if they complete the program. For a Class B violation, within 18 months, with no limit. So that is concerning to me because that opens the door to having EBD. EBD is discretionary. I'm not aware of what the rules are to identify which officers will qualify for EBD and which ones will not. I look forward to seeing something like that. I interpret this to show that EBD can be had multiple times throughout their career. Now, whether or not the department will do that, I certainly would hope not. But unless it's in writing, there's nothing to prevent future police chiefs, future discipline commanders from interpreting it in that way. With regards to aggravation, My concern about that is, so under the current discipline system, under the current matrix, the importance of a finding of sustained is it goes, it is counted if you have repeated offenses. EPD is not discipline, so it cannot be counted pursuant to the matrix and pursuant to the discipline handbook. Now I understand, I believe what they're saying is they will take it into consideration in terms of aggravating or making a decision if someone should have education-based discipline again, but it is simply not. a legal method of aggravating because the handbook says in order to aggravate, you have to have a sustained finding. EBD is not a sustained finding. It is not discipline. So we'll stop there.

Thank you so much. I'll stop there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much. Next in the queue, we have Councilmember Cashman.

Thank you. A lot of my questions were just involving the monitors, so I appreciate those comments. One thing, Chief Wendy, that I'm kind of confused about, the officer decides whether they want to participate in this. Why?

Well, I think similar to like mediation, we would offer an officer an opportunity to mediate a complaint and they have the option to decide, yes, I would like to mediate that or no, I would not like to mediate that. And so I think that it's appropriate to offer an officer an opportunity to either receive punitive discipline for misconduct or to receive an opportunity for training and a different way of correcting mistakes.

I'm trying to think if there's a kind of a similar situation when a resident I'm not seeing that.

I see a number of parallels. I think there are parallels with respect to restorative justice in schools. If you remember, there used to be a program, curfew program, when individuals would get picked up for curfew. they have the opportunity whether or not to go through a diversion program after being picked up for curfew or to not, and then just get that citation for curfew. And so I think that this is something that is consistent within the education system as well as within the criminal justice system, where there are opportunities for deflection, there are opportunities for diversion, and the opportunity, I think, rests with the individual who has committed the infraction.

Thank you. I think that answers my questions. I would just say Mr. Chair that I'm concerned in general with what appears to me to be a weakening of the monitor's role in the establishment of policy from DOS and So I hope we can move forward in a direction that reverses that and that the monitor is in fact restored to a more robust position in overseeing policies coming from the agencies. Thank you. That's all I've got.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Cashman. And I wanted to welcome to the meeting Councilmember Lewis and Council President Pro Tem Romero-Campbell. Producer, I'm curious, are any of the virtual participants requesting to jump into the queue? If they are, I think I see Councilmember Lewis, I believe your hand is up. If you'd like to join the queue, please join in.

Thank you and thanks for the presentation. I really appreciate it. I do have a few questions just based on the questions that have the presentation, the discussion with the independent monitor as well as DPD. I'm curious, does the officer have to say to a community member that they were wrong or is acceptance just about accepting the EBD or actually saying like in writing that they were wrong? I'm just curious about what atonement looks like.

So I think what atonement looks like is when offered the education based development, atonement looks like accepting responsibility for not having met the department and community expectation. And that is indicated in the signing of the agreement to move forward with the education based development.

Um, so then do they have interaction with the person that they harmed in terms of that?

They do not. The only interaction moving forward, and certainly that's an opportunity during mediation, but in the education-based development process, the only continued engagement or interaction with the community member that is harmed is the survey that they are sent and then the follow-up that is conducted by the Internal Affairs Division to get answers for how they feel about how the process was handled. Anecdotally, I will say, having spent three different tours in Internal Affairs at various levels, I can tell you that quite often when complainants call in to make a complaint about an officer's conduct, particularly for these low-level violations. One of the things that they often say is, you know, I don't really want the officer to get in trouble. I just want them to understand what I expected or what I think they should have done and how this whole thing made me feel. And so I think that that is one of the clear goals of education-based development and the modules that we'll be presenting to the officers.

Okay, I appreciate that. And then I had 1 question following the share out from the independent monitor. It sounds like that. They haven't received the data that they were happening to be. They were looking to be able to receive specifically the raw data as it pertains to the community surveys. And the way, at least I'm hearing it is that it hasn't been transparent and I wanted to just better understand why that information hasn't been shared the raw data specifically and what the resolve might be as you all are moving forward to make sure that the independent monitor has what they need. You have what they need and the collaboration that you all presented at the beginning of this presentation is in actuality and in practicality and not in theory.

Yes, so the, the sort of the, the QR code survey that we that we conducted during the 6 community meetings that we that we did. The information that was made available to me, and I'm not a tech expert, but the information that was available to me was presented to the Office of the Independent Monitor. The much more in-depth and much more thoroughly engaged survey that was done or community feedback loop that was created online. All of that data, all of that raw data was presented to the Office of the Independent Monitor, except we did redact names and addresses of those people because we thought that it was important to protect their privacy.

Okay, thank you so much. I might want to hear from the independent monitor to just make sure that we're all on the same page that that redaction is how they how she. Is also experiencing that because it's it sound like it was a bit different. And so if I might hear from the independent monitor. Thank you.

Certainly. What we received was a kind of an Excel spreadsheet with numbers and a summary of comment. I don't know if that's all the comments. I don't know if that's part of the comment. I have no way to independently verify what is on that spreadsheet. I'm asking for the actual questionnaire as received by the police department for our review. I'm happy to come copy them if I need to. That is not raw data. That's a summary. I'm asking for the raw data. I have multiple reasons why we need this information, especially because the department is presenting that they have overall favorability for education-based development. That may be the case, but I can't confirm that. I can't verify that without actually seeing the surveys. I want to make sure also that we don't have repeated one party repeatedly filing multiple recommendations or filling out the form multiple times. We are not the general public. The Office of the Independent Monitor is covered by deliberative process privilege. We hold sacred extremely sensitive and confidential information. We hear from community members every day and we maintain their privacy and as does the department. To indicate that the Office of the Independent Monitor cannot be trusted with the names of community members makes absolutely no sense to me. We are not the general public, we are an independent agency, a city agency, and there's an ordinance that says you must share, you shall share this information with us. So I do not accept that explanation.

Okay, thank you. That's actually really helpful and I really appreciate that. Is there a way chief Thomas that you all might be able to find some resolve where the independent monitor has what they need as well as. You all being able to have with you all need I, I do stand in agreement with the independent monitor that that. It seems like, in order for them to be able to have an opinion about, or to be able to collaborate as it pertains to that, they would need specific information that may not be available to the general public public. But like. She isn't she's right her office isn't the general public and so what. What what is the approach in order to be able to resolve that?

I appreciate that. What I would say is that we have turned over the raw data as it relates to the responses that were presented online to the policy. And it was upon a city attorney advice that we redact the names and contact information.

Okay, so the short answer is, is that there may not be any resolve here. I'll just follow up with this last thing going back to the. The admission, so I just want to make sure I understand. So, without an admission, if an officer fails the, do they start over? And is there an opportunity to then claim that they did nothing wrong?

No. So if an officer does not follow through with completing the education-based development, then it goes, the investigation has already been completed. And so now it goes through the rest of the discipline process. So it goes to the Office of the Independent Monitor for them to make recommendations. we would, you know, we would make a recommendation as it relates to where that infraction falls and what level of discipline is consistent with that particular infraction. And again, along the way, the Office of the Independent Monitor would have their opportunity to provide feedback. And then ultimately, we would have the hearing at which that final disciplinary decision would be made.

And I see we have the members in queue and so this is just just for my memory. You, I think the last time that you all gave gave this presentation, you mentioned that the folks who would be developing the curriculum, we're going to be in house. Is that still the case? Or am I misremembering.

No, we have a professional development unit and so they have, you know, they are developing curriculum as it relates to this. And one of the reasons why we aren't able to turn over, you know, exact curriculum is because we don't know exactly what the curriculum is to offer until we know what the, you know, what the violation is. And so each module is going to be very specific to the violation and the specifics of that violation. So it would be, you know, we could certainly provide an outline of our emotional intelligence module or our critical thinking module, but as it relates to specific policy violations, you know, we would have to build that after we have a clear understanding of what that violation is.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Chief Thomas and thank you to the independent manner as well. Those are my questions here.

Thank you council member Lewis council member Sawyer and I know councilman is all the chairs. You're back in queue. I'll ask a few questions 1st, and I come to you then we'll, we'll close out, but councilman Sawyer.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks, you guys, so much for this. I really appreciate the update, and I just want to acknowledge how far we have come from some previous conversation about this, and so thank you for all of the work and collaboration that you guys have done. Something that Chief Thomas said I found a little disturbing, and I need some more color around it. Chief Thomas, you said that the department redacted the names out of the information for when sharing it with the independent monitor at the advice of the city attorney. Is that right?

That's correct.

Okay. Wendy, is that you or is that someone else in the city attorney's office?

So I think to hopefully... quell some of this. This issue is more the broader on deliberative process and the way it applies and all of that. So we need guidance from the actual city attorney here, and that is not who's waiting. So just deliberative process itself, we have reached out as the independent monitor. So we have to have some guidance there. And then once we have that, we can figure out what that is. Because what we want to make sure of is privilege isn't being waived. So, we don't have to also give it out to the public if that makes sense. So I think there'll be some clarity there for us coming fairly soon and then we'll be able to determine how to proceed.

Yeah, I really appreciate that Wendy. Thank you for the clarification because that's kind of exactly what I was looking for. I will say that the city attorney's office, this is not the 1st, independent agency that we have run across who has not been able to get information and conversation from the city attorney's office. That's why I was asking whether it was on your end or whether it was at the city attorney, because this is a really concerning trend that is happening in our city right now related to the city attorney's office and the inconsistency with privilege and where it applies when it's convenient and where it doesn't apply when it works for the city attorney's office. So I really appreciate that, Wendy, and thank you for kind of giving me that clarity because this flags for me a pretty big issue within the city attorney's office that I think is extremely concerning. And I just want to make that really clear right now. It is not okay then what I am seeing go down inside the city attorney's office right now. Thanks.

Thank you, Council Member Sawyer. Council Member González-Guterres, I'll have you ask your questions, and I'll just close out.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. One thing I failed to ask about when you had talked about the restorative justice component during the presentation, I was curious if there is someone that is trained in the evidence-based practice of restorative justice. It is an evidence-based practice. It's not just... And I guess further on that, and this could require maybe follow-up, is understanding then what... do you all see as restorative justice in these situations? And it kind of somewhat comes on the tails of what Councilwoman Lewis was asking around with the part, you know, if there was an interaction with somebody, like what does that actually look like in these scenarios?

Well, I would answer that, yes, we have consulted with a number of university partners, and so we do have an answer for and understanding of how this is really a restorative justice practice. This is a practice that is engaged in by a number of agencies, a number of large agencies, In fact, the city of Philadelphia just recently came up with a very similar policy. Actually, it goes quite a bit further than ours that just recently started, you know, after we started talking about ours. And so this is, you know, something that I think that the criminal justice or I think law enforcement is seeing as a better opportunity and better way of addressing lower level discipline.

So will there be somebody brought into the department with that type of expertise in restorative justice or will there be training?

We have a continued partnership with someone that is an expert in restorative justice.

Because it is evidence-based. And so usually with evidence-based, you want to practice it to fidelity in order for it to be effective. OK, I may have added another time more questions about that. I do want to say I agree with Councilman Cashman. With regard to the office of independent monitor oversight and the concern, it does still appear scaling that back. What I want to say, though, chief is that I do appreciate that you have leaned in and have attempted to gather community feedback. Although I have concerns with how that feedback was gathered as far as with the questionnaires and the fact that we don't know if these people live in Denver that responded. We don't we don't have information to back that up. We don't have demographics. which I think are important, as we know, right, with the history of our community and policing in our community. I think it's important to know those things. But it is more than I think what we have seen take place with Director Gardner's directive on the sheriff department when it comes to a similar policy change for the sheriff deputies. So I will say that I greatly appreciate that, you know, you took that feedback over a year ago and have been working closely to try to meet those needs. Lastly, I think before this goes any further at all, the mayor's office needs to fill the two, or now three, I don't know if anybody's here for the mayor's office, yes. The two and now three vacancies on the citizen oversight board. Those vacancies, the two, at least one of them has been open for over a year, I believe. We've had two now, and I believe now there are going to be three. If we need all of these infrastructures in place, if this were to go forward at all, those vacancies need to be filled. And I'm sorry, I know you all are here before me and I'm like, sorry, mayor's office back here, but I can't express that more. I'm so concerned that those have not been, I've seen other mayoral appointments happen and this has still sat there vacant. And I don't know why. So, I don't expect an answer on that right now, but that's what I would urge if anything of this nature and now with the new sheriff. That that directive going forward, we need that in place. to complete the picture. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Gonzalez Gutierrez. I just have one quick question. Actually, it may be a two-parter. I would like for Chief Thomas or for the City Attorney to clarify once again for folks who are approved for education based development as far as when and how those folks can adopt or choose in how frequently can someone do that talk through that again I always want to make sure that from my understanding that someone number one can't go through halfway go through this and then a year and a half later comes back again, or that someone chooses or is not successful in going through this but uses it to skip the regular discipline process. I just want to make sure I'm clear and that it's clear to the folks who are listening that this is a development training. And if someone is not successful and chooses not to do it, what's the responsibility as far as discipline?

So I'll take the first shot and if Wendy has things that she can add, she can certainly jump in. So an officer commits a category A infraction. They agree to go through education-based development. Within 90 days, they complete that program. They cannot do that again for 12 months. So if another low-level violation comes in that's similar to the one that they just violated, they will not be given education-based development a second time within that year. Category B, same circumstances, now we're extending that period 18 months before they can be offered that opportunity again. Now, if they accept the opportunity to go through education-based development for either a category A or a category B violation, and somehow they fail to meet the expectation, they skip the class, they, you know, they don't cooperate with the process to get them through the agreement and to the training, then within that 90-day period, that completed investigation is put right back in the pipeline on its way to conduct review so that it can complete the process so that ultimately there is a discipline for that infraction.

So over a five-year period, can any one individual police officer have several iterations of, say, like Conduct A? They can go through...

Well, so I would say this first. One of the reasons why we are engaging in this particular process in the first place is to reduce recidivism. So I would certainly hope that there's never going to be an instance where someone has five infractions within a five-year period of time. So I'll start there. The other thing that I would say is there is an analysis that takes place as to whether or not an infraction is worthy of going through education-based development. Certainly, one piece of that analysis is, does it fall in category A or category B? Another part of that analysis is, was this intentional misconduct or was this a mistake? And those things are identified through the investigation. The other is, does this person seem to be making the same mistake over and over and again, despite the fact that they're receiving training? And in that situation, they would not be offered yet another opportunity. And I liken this. again, to mediation. So there actually is no limit on the amount of times that someone can go through mediation. But I can tell you this, that the times that I spend in internal affairs, and I trust the staff that's there now, if there's someone that has been offered mediation, let's say a couple of times already for being discourteous, they're not going to be offered that opportunity again, because it's clear that that's not working. And so I think that the What we're hoping to see from this program is a reduction in recidivism, and we want the training to stick, we want it to work, and when it's clear that it is not, it's not going to continue to be offered.

And just if I could add just really quickly, so a lot of this is based upon what's already in the disciplinary handbook, and that's what's key. And two things, I just want to back up. So we talked about aggravation. I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with the independent monitor here because I'm looking at the specific language of the disciplinary handbook right now. So, as I explained, if an officer comes back and it's at substantially similar conduct, it can be looked at as an aggravating factor, meaning the penalty may end up being increased. And one of the factors that's in here is whether the prior history, not discipline, but their prior history demonstrates a continuation of a pattern of that same or similar conduct. The handbook right now, too, in the disciplinary part also talks about if there's an appreciable amount of time between one conduct and another, that it's not considered right as part of this aggravation. That was part of the reason of looking at this within that 12-month window and the 18-month window. to kind of reset some of this, right? We don't want officers to be penalized in ways they shouldn't be penalized. We also don't want somebody to be able to say, you know, this is substantially similar, but yet they can still participate in EBD. So it really was looked at thoughtfully to make sure that we could do what we're saying in the policy, and that it comports with what's in our disciplinary handbook.

Very helpful. Councilmember Lewis, I believe, is back into the queue.

Thank you and I just have 1 quick question that I totally forgot to ask my apologies. I know there was some discussion with chief Thomas and executive director Gardner about the community review board on and I was just curious where you all had landed in terms of that community review board. If you all were moving forward, or if you're still in discussion.

I'm not sure I understand the question. So community review in terms of review of whether or not specific violations can move forward in the education-based development process or a community review board to determine the viability of the program itself.

The first part of that.

Okay. So, no. So, you know, I think that The independent monitor, who is obviously the representative of the community, I think they are the ones that are working in collaboration with us to determine whether or not specific cases are eligible for or should be moved forward with education-based development.

Okay. No conversation around a community review board, but having the placement of the independent monitor instead of in lieu of a community review board as a part of the process that you all have formalized.

Correct correct because I think anything outside of that will be extremely cumbersome.

Okay, thank you. That's my only question. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Council member loads. I look around the room to see if there's any final questions or online as well. Please raise your hand if you do. Seeing none, I mean, this has been a year's worth of dialogue, and I also want to concur and say that this process has moved forward quite a bit in the last year. I appreciate the steps taken for input advice, and I appreciate the direction of the director. I appreciate the inclusion of the Office of Independent Monitor. Obviously, there are some steps on privilege that are being discussed by the city attorney's office, and we look forward to the conclusion of that. We look forward to the continued discussion within this committee and other committees on the outcome of this process. And with that, we have one item on consent that has not been pulled off, and with no further questions, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you.