Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. Calling to order the public safety standing committee for the city of Annapolis. It is June 3 at 02:06PM. So we'll now have the roll call. Alderwoman O'Neil. Present. Alderman Gay. Here. And I'm here as your chair. Approval of the agenda, and we're gonna with, some slight movement. Office of emergency management is not quite here yet, so we'll start with the fire department. And, and we have a motion to adjust the agenda.

Motion to approve agenda as amended, removing, meeting minutes 5.5 and moving Pineapple's fire department ID 3525 to the top of discussion.

I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? I hear none. Okay. Next on the agenda is the appointment and reappointment AP thirty seven twenty five. The reappointment, miss Kathy Sulloch, Police and Retirement Plan Commission. Can I get a motion to approve this reappointment?

I'll, make a motion for a favorable recommendation, for miss Stewart.

Okay. I'll second that motion. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. All opposed? I hear none. It will be forwarded to our colleague. Next on the agenda, general discussion, ID3525, Annapolis Fire Department update AFD. Good afternoon, gentlemen.

Deputy fire chief.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. And today, we are focusing on Ward 2.

It

was email, but oh, I didn't even see that. Standby.

We can move forward without it if if you're okay with that, ma'am.

Okay.

Sorry.

That's okay. This is the worst thing that happens today. We're doing really well.

Right. I concur.

There we are. Thank you. That's right. I can pull it out.

Oh, okay. Can

Yes. You see Yep.

There we are. Okay.

I think we're ready.

That looks lovely.

We have a woman O'Neil here who represents war two, so that makes it even better.

While he's loading, we'll just go over an overview of what is contained in our presentation. We'll we'll talk about citywide response statistics, for the last month and year to date. We'll focus on Ward 2. Our response is there. Any operational challenges which we may have or find in Ward 2? And then just some general updates of how we're doing work in our department. Is it frozen again? It's frozen.

Frozen. Well,

yours is working. It's not ours. Sorry. Sorry, ma'am.

Not my IT day.

Oh, not that. Mm-mm.

The other one seem to

be working. That one's just frozen.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Sorry for the technology, ma'am.

It's alright.

If you could, go ahead a couple to talk about our overview of what we were gonna discuss. Ward 2. And Ward 2. In calendar year 2024, this, Annapolis Fire Department responded to 13,684 unique incidents. Of those, 1,347 were in Ward 2.

In calendar year '24, you were our busiest of the city's eight wards. So far this year, we have responded to 5,494 responses. That includes city and our mutual aid partners, into the county and the Naval Academy. So far this year, 591 times we've been to Ward 2. So, again, just over 10% and currently are still our busiest ward within the city. Again go ahead, ma'am. I'm sorry.

Do you have any idea what makes

No. No. Not wholly. There are we do spend a lot of time, and I touch on this in a in a slide a couple down. We spend a lot of time at a couple particular locations within the ward. The Marsh Blum Senior high rise, we visit there a lot. The Naval Academy Stadium due to special events, we see a lot. So there's some there's some high value not high value, but high frequency response areas within your ward that I think elevate that number a little bit. And it geographically, your ward's fairly large too encompassing from Admiral Heights all the way through to West Annapolis.

Great. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am. So so last year, we've we've left left this slide in each presentation because I if there's only folks from Ward 2 viewing today, I do want them to know that we're trending downward in a fire loss dollar valuation. Last year, we had a great year. We only had a $450,000 property valuation loss from fire within the city. And as you can see, that's down significantly from the past years. So, again, Ward 2 is geographically large. We don't have tremendous amount of challenge with anything in Ward 2. Largely, your ward is mostly residential, which is which is fine for us. We handle that fine. Single family and multifamily dwelling.

There is some retail and mixed use occupancies. Again, the Morris Blum senior high rise in 2024, we visited there 336 times, and so far this year, one forty one. That's that's just an I think some some of the demographic of the age that that population base requires our services and help a little bit more proportionately than than the rest of the population. And, again, it's not problematic. It's just it's a fact of where we go, how often. And I did note also that you have the Navy Marine Corps Stadium within your ward, so some high profile events occur for you also.

We were also dealing with the elevators being down in Morris Bloom much of last summer.

So we did that that was a challenge for us last summer with the elevator replacement project. I I feel great about the partnership that we have with OEM and how we were able to work through that challenge with the contractors and come up with agreeable solutions, that minimize the impact for for number one for the citizens while maintaining safety for them and for our crews. So we work through it.

Great. Thanks.

Our new fire engine that we've been talking about is currently at the dealership, Atlantic Emergency Solutions in Baltimore, where it's having the very final items installed before we take possession and delivery of it. We look forward to that happening within the next month or so, and then we'll need to install radios and just some minor things and should be able to get that in service at the Forest Drive station pretty promptly. We've continued to work with our vendor for our new fireboat. We've finalized most of the design details for that. It's scheduled to go into production, in either July or August at Metalcraft Marine, and they're telling us a twelve month delivery from when it goes on production.

So next summer, we'll see that. I'll turn it over to my colleague for some other other departmental updates.

So as we've been talking about the last few months, our strategic planning process historically. The last time we did this was in twenty o four. We are using the Center for Public Safety Excellence model. The committee established a diverse cross section of the fire department. We currently are working with a internal group of stakeholders and have a focus group that is working on developing our plan.

The next stage is, as I mentioned last month, we are coordinating with the city PIO and acting city manager to coordinate external stakeholder focus groups to then have a final document, draft document to the fire chief by September or eventually review by the city council. Some other notes. As the fire chief has mentioned, we have four firefighters who are in recruit school. Two have recently passed, firefighter one and firefighter two, and two others had just begun their firefighter training. They started EMT.

But all are doing well and progressing nicely. Additionally, we have two firefighters who are detailed out of the field who are in paramedic school. Their positions are being backfilled with overtime. One is at the Howard County, Fire Department, their internal paramedic training program, and the other one is at Anne Arundel County, Community College. An additional note is that today, the fire department hosted a private company who is developing cutting edge technology for the fireground that was identified at a recent conference by one of our lieutenants.

We will be training with their technology over the next couple of weeks to get some data for the company as they work to build out their their product and hopefully make it available for the fire service.

Can you can you repeat that again, cap Lopez? What is that again? I

So it's it's a it's a piece of technology that is being developed for the fireground to improve safety and Fireground? Fireground fire department activities in a in a active fire situation. We call it a fireground when you're at a scene rescuing people, putting out fire, that that sort of thing. It's called the fireground. Oh, okay. It's a it's a local idiom.

So the device they're developing actually mounts on a firefighter's helmet, and through the technology, allows it's it's called a see through device. It it will use thermal imaging technologies to go through smoke, identify persons, allow a better vision of the room that may be obscured by smoke or darkness. So they're in a development phase, and they have identified, I think, 20 departments across the country to test their device with and provide feedback for their continuing research and development. It's being supported by, DHS, Department of Homeland Security grant funding. So we were identified as a department that they wanted to work with.

So we have a, actually, a group of our personnel today who are doing some training evolutions with their company, And then we will retain a few of the devices for two weeks to continue to work and then provide some structured feedback to them.

That's great.

Great. It's exciting. It's it's nationally, it's a very small percentage of departments who are identified to work and help with them, so we're proud that we were able to be a part of that.

And that will be in your city manager's report the next go round. Is that correct?

It will. Yes, ma'am. Along with the feedback we provided. I it it may be good it may be great, or they may need to go back and continue some development, but but that's why they're testing, and that's why we're a part of that.

Great. Congratulations

Thank you.

For being chosen.

And that closes out our report for this month.

Okay. Aldwoman O'Neill?

I don't have any questions. I know that you guys do a great job. You were on my street last week, apparently a gas leak, and everybody was very fine to the neighbors that were all coming out asking questions. So I appreciate that.

Thank you. Thank you for your kind words.

Thank you all so much as Thank you. Be safe out there. Thank you. Next on the agenda is ID3625, office of emergency management update. Director Simmons.

Good afternoon, chief. How are you today?

I'm fine. How's the panel?

Everybody's doing well. So chime in anytime.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, sir.

Kevin Simmons, emergency manager for the city of Annapolis. Hope that all is well.

All is well.

This is our update for the public safety committee. We usually talk about two things, the food Friday program and we talk about overdoses. As per usual, this is the outline of the food Friday program. It gives boxes of fresh and canned fruits and vegetables, frozen meat, rice, pasta, and other non perishable foods to residents of Annapolis. We do about 300 boxes.

We do it at Racken Parks. Food is provided by the Anne Arundel County Food Bank. We've been doing this for seven years. I take it not means I'm right. So we're talking about Ward 2 today.

Some food Friday stats is that we service 76 families, a 186 individuals, 30 seniors, and 61 children, and most of our business is in the Clay Street area with 47 individuals and and 15 families, which is about 20% of our deliveries in Ward 2. Here's a little heat map. It it shows our distribution of food Friday boxes around the Clay Street corridor mostly. And you can actually see where they go Obery Court, New Vernon, etcetera, Town Pines, Clay Street, West Washington Monument, Pleasant Street, etcetera. Any questions there?

Great job.

So let's talk about, substance use disorder. War two compared to previous years, war two's reported overdoses in 2024 was the third lowest since 2015. And 2015 is the year we started keeping records on substance use disorder. So this is the fourth. It's the third lowest.

So that's non overdoses all of last year, recorded overdoses. Ward 2 reported the fifth lowest number of overdoses compared to other wards. In first place, the lowest was Wards 5 And 7 tied at two apiece. Second is Ward 8 And 5. Ward 3 I mean, I'm sorry.

In third place, Ward 1, and then fourth place is Ward 2. We had five fatal overdoses that were reported in Ward 2, includes one pending. In 2023, Ward 2 had only one overdose. Again, when we total up all overdoses in the city of Annapolis, it always runs about ten percent. So we could get overdoses down, but it seems like our fatals always are stuck at ten percent.

Narcan uses reported was only about thirty three percent of all the overdoses in Ward 2. Here's the locations of overdoses. Two on Glenwood Street, two on Calvert, two on West Washington, one on Brewer, one on North Linden, and one in New Vernon. And Glenwood, West Washington, Brewer, and New Vernon were all fatals. So identified hotspots of seventy eight percent of wards to overdose are along the or within the few blocks of Clay Street.

Overdose by demographics in Ward 2, by age group, by far the 25 34 age or age range by far out distance. Some of the other ones tied with them is the age range of 55 to 64 at both of them at three last year. Remember, we had nine total overdoses. The 35 44 year old range had two and then one is 65. War two age ranges align with the historical trend citywide.

However, 25% of the age group of 55 comes from Ward 2. The other fifty percent is from Ward 3. It has fifty percent of the most at that age range. And then overdoses by race, six were African American and three were white. In 2024, sixty five percent of all overdoses in the city were African American.

So I always like to show the heat map where all the overdose activity is for 2024. The red is the locations of the overdoses, The green is outreach programs provided by the mayor's office and NAM. The police department is APD, SUD, and the office of emergency management and the fire department. So these are outreach locations all in green, and you can see where we have a high concentration of red where the overdoses were, then we have a high concentration of outreach to follow-up.

Can you explain the outreach activity? Is that people on the ground? Is that

That's that's people on the ground and what we have the four programs and and the police department they deal with a lot of juveniles. Right? The fire department, they have a teaching component. They're at houses of worship, businesses, etcetera. They're also at outreach events.

The office of emergency management, OD free, does a lot of statistics, data trends. Once we get the data trends, we we relay that to other folks to respond with the outreach program. The mayor's office, they do a lot in engagement especially with young people, African American groups as well. So there you have it.

So that would be even a pop up resource fairs in the summer as well. Does that include that as

Right. And what we don't talk about as much, but they are great help is the health department. So they have their programs too and they're they give blanket covers to Annapolis as well. Any other questions on on that? Thank you. Alright. So let's just finish up with the hurricane outlook. Hurricane seasons runs from from June 1 to November 30. What they are predicting is a pretty active hurricane season. We are a coastal community, so we can expect if not a hurricane, a tropical storm, some try some type of tropical weather of some sort.

So they're looking at thirteen and nineteen named storms, six to 10 hurricanes, and three to five major hurricane this year. So we're gonna have a pretty active year. Just so you know what type of categories these hurricanes are, category one is about 74 to 95 miles an hour that gets you some damage, some roof damage, maybe affect power. Category two is up to a 110 miles per hour major damage, major roof damage power likely affect, be out for several days. Category three up to a 129 miles per hour is devastating.

Major home damage power, and water will be affected possibly for for weeks. Category four up to a 156 miles an hour, catastrophic damage. This will take months and months to recover from. And then 156 miles per hour per hour plus catastrophic damage, many homes will be destroyed. We're talking Katrina type things right there.

So we're gonna be affected being a coastal community like we are. We just don't know how. So just to kinda kinda let you know what's happened to us in the past, we had Isabelle in twenty o three. That was a category five that was downgraded to a tropical storm where it got to us. That was the highest flooding recorded level in Annapolis history at 7.16 feet.

Irene, that's a year after I got here that was a category three downgraded to a tropical storm, trees down citywide if you can remember that 9,500 without power. We opened up a shelter to shelter residents back then. Sandy, which Sandy came at the tail end of hurricane season around Halloween. Category three downgraded to a post tropical cyclone, did some damage in this area, especially Western Maryland. We had 2,600 to 2,800 without power.

We opened up a shelter for residents then, and I do believe with Irene and Sandy, we had the National Guard in Annapolis. Ida, which which happened during COVID, category four downgraded to a tropical depression that spun up a tornado on West Street and Parole, and we all remember 09/01/2021.

Yes. We do.

And we still have a family recovering.

Say that again.

We still have a family still recovering from

there.

One family. So we don't recover till everybody recovers, so we're still working. And then also in 2021, we had Debbie categories one storm downgraded to a tropical storm, the tenth highest flooding on record in the city of Annapolis at 4.5 feet. So the challenges will be kinda getting through the hurricane season unscathed, so we're making all our preparations right now. We'll have a we'll have a press release come out tomorrow and start making sure that the Annapolis residents, citizens, and visitors are prepared.

If I can ask you to do one thing for for anyone in city of Annapolis is download prepare me Annapolis app so they can they can stay in touch with our messages and what we want folks to do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any questions?

I do not have any

I do not have any questions.

Oh, yes, actually.

Go right here.

When we talk about the efforts and having boots on the ground, currently, in Ward 2, there are not any Dispensaries for Narcan, like we have in Ward 6 and

When you say when you're talking about the the Narcan vending machine?

Vending machines. Thank you. All I could think of was dispensary.

Thank you. Well, we've been talking to the health department about getting more vending machines. I I think that's about, I wanna say, thousand dollars. I'm not sure. But we would have to identify some places in in the war too. If you can remember with the wellness wellness mobile, we were looking at putting that at Pleasant Street. There was a there was a space between the row of houses. We were thinking about we couldn't get the vehicle up there. We we tried to be creative on where to put the well mobile that that didn't work out. But at the time, Ward 4 and Ward 6 were having the most overdose.

So we've we found it prudent to get to put it there sometime during the week and then Ward 6 sometime during the week. We have I think Shirley Gordon lives on Clay Street or used to. Yes. She was great about making sure because he had something on her door said, Narcan's here. So we have a couple of people on Clay Street that do have Narcan and people know where it is. As you know, I'm on Clay Street just about every other day.

Right.

So so I feel comfortable with that.

Okay.

But we can always do more and we're gonna look for for opportunities to to do better. Not that we're doing bad.

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Not a problem. Any other questions?

Thank you.

Thank you much. Have a good afternoon.

And last but not least, ID3425, Annapolis Police Department update. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon.

Give me one second. Are we ready? You ready? Oh, no. Okay. No, no. I'm sorry. Just let me know when you're ready. Okay, we're gonna start off with crime trend. K.

Good afternoon. First of all, thought that we would start with, crime trends, index crime or, group a, I think we call it now. We still refer to them as part one crimes. Can

introduce yourself and your team?

Oh, I'm sorry. I made an assumption. To my immediate left is captain Lamar Howard. To my immediate right is deputy chief Stanley Branford. To his right is, captain Thacker. To his right is Keisha Blue. And to her right is captain Miguez. I'm sorry.

Thank

Yes.

Just before we close-up, gentlemen, just wanna remind you next month, July, we'll be focusing on Wards 5 And 7. Thank you so much. Sorry for the interruption. And

as I always do, I'll just give an overview, and then I'll have captain Howard to speak into more specifics. And and then, I guess, everybody at this table is qualified to answer any trends when it comes to crime. But overall, crime is down by 8% this year, and that's all crime, both crimes against persons and crimes against property. In 2025, we've had three homicides compared to just one last year. Of the three homicides, two suspects have have been identified.

One suspect is now a defendant. He's in custody. The other one, we have a warrant for his arrest. We're still looking out for and then one is unsolved. And I think the three locations was the homicide involving the victim, mister Wells, on Tyler Avenue, 1300 Block Of Tyler Avenue. The other guy was Oaklawn. The 18 year old male, that's the one that's unsolved. And then, of course, the homicide of mister Sims on Clay Street that involved the shooting of the 11 year old boy waiting for the bus, stopped. So that's an overview of our homicides. Shootings, were up slightly.

Shooting victims, we had seven so far this year as compared to, four the same period, last year. Shots fired reports, have, 12 as compared to 13 last year. And then then so the total, noncontact shootings, discharge is 22 so far this year as compared to 18 last year. But I did, I was looking on my iPhone, a little bit before I came. I looked at trends nationally.

What I'm proud to, report, thanks to the men and women that are sitting at this table, even cities comparable in size to Annapolis in terms of population and a whole lot of dynamics, other jurisdictions haven't had the success that we've had. So I'm quick to account for our crime, not in terms of the size of the city and the or the or or or the paucity or the the the the the low numbers are credited to good police work and good, proactive, policing and a real plan that addresses the needs, the cause the causes of crime and then a plan that demonstrates how we are gonna react to crime for the things that we didn't prevent. And that's the cornerstone of how we arrived at these numbers. You have to do either two things, do your very best to prevent it. But then once it occurs, also do your very best to find out who was responsible, especially violent crime, and hold them accountable.

So that's the overall

Chief, I have a question. Mhmm. We got a couple upticks in a few categories there. Can you tell us possibly why?

Well, you know, many of them is is, especially in violent crime. We know that property crime often is a result of drug addiction when you're breaking in cars and those things. Stealing cars is a little more trickier. Sometimes they're used for the sole purpose of committing robberies and and also exacting revenge or or or or retaliation for neighborhood disputes. And so that accounts for, you know, a lot of the property crime.

Of course, the number one issue here in the city of Annapolis for a slight uptick in crime or neighborhood or community disputes. Most of the suspects and the victims are known to one another. You know, we've had a few incidents this year that resulted from social media. And then there's a culture that we're experiencing now, not only in the city of Annapolis, but it's a national trend. And the the culture is that young people have more access than guns, I think, than any time in the history of our country.

And I say young people, people who are 18 years of age, not even legal adults. And they're willing to use those guns very quickly to solve the simplest of disputes that a generation ago may have ended up in a physical altercation, but definitely didn't rise to the level of deadly force. So those are the kind of trends that we're seeing. It's a social problem. I say that all the time.

I say it quickly. I know what I'm talking about and I don't mean to sound arrogant, but they're social problems. They're not crime problems. And if we continue to treat them as if they were crime problems, then we're gonna keep missing the mark and not mitigate some of these things. You know, this is this is no parent accountability, a weakened system, juvenile justice system. This is a whole lot of things. Guns that are plentiful that have been allowed to permeate these neighborhoods. You know, this hostility amongst our youth, I don't know what that is a result of. I don't know whether it's a result of COVID. I know I've seen an uptick in hostility since the COVID pandemic.

And so those are some of the the explanations as to why we're seeing this. And I think that we're kidding ourselves. I think the reason why Napa does so well in responding to it because we do take a social approach and a community approach along with our enforcement. See, some jurisdictions is all about enforcement. That's what drives it.

You know, you have your calm stat and these accountability sessions where commanders are beaten up and in terms of what they're not doing to increase the arrest numbers. But we do it differently in Indianapolis. We try to balance it because we know that the only way you're gonna prevent crime is try to change the thinking and the behavior of the individuals. Take the reason away. Try to identify what the hostility is and do our very best.

And, of course, we're not perfect, but to do our very best, like, through reentry and programs like that to try to give people hope so that they don't pick up a gun to exact revenge or to express their dissatisfaction with whatever the situation may be. In addition, once you cross that threshold and pull that trigger, then we're gonna pull out all the guns and revert to traditional police police work in terms of holding people accountable in the court of law for their actions. And I think that we're still trying to perfect that balance so that they integrate or tough tail tough dovetail, I'm sorry, with one another accurately. So I I I think that I hope that answers the question. That's what we're trying to do and that's what I've been trying to do since I've been here.

That's the community policing model that I

Just kinda thinking through what you're talking about and and we've had a a few discussions, not in any great detail about human behavior and kinda the more you reiterate something over and over and over again. And, you know, we talked about the the you know, back in the sixties when you had the littering problem and, you know, there was a message, a public service announcement over and over and over again, and you can see the the changes. That might be something that you and and our superintendent doctor Bedell and the mayor may wanna get together and start targeting public service announcements toward what you see as maybe social media, and certain human behaviors, especially with youth through through, doctor Videl and even, miss Maddox Evans, who's executive director of the housing authority. I'm just thinking through while you were talking. This might be something we wanna do on a consistent basis that we wanna, do it over and oh, we have a great communications team here and so does the school system.

I know that for sure. And that might be something we wanna do on a monthly basis, that just that just hits those messages over and over and over and over again until we start to see and we will, I do believe, we'll start to see some changes in behavior because it's done we see it on TV all the time and when we had, you know, smoking a bear and don't put and forest fires and way back in the day. But even now, those commercials are are targeting certain audiences. And if you hear it and you see it a thousand times over, you're more likely to probably follow it for whatever reason. But just thinking about it, I think that's something we need to really take a look at that we wanna do.

And I know you do have have regular communication and meetings with doctor Bedell, so the next time you all speak about it, that might be something and even, you know, with the county. But I think we all need to get together and and and and do these targeted messages over and over and over again because they have worked in other arenas in the past. Does that make sense?

That makes perfect sense. As a matter of fact, I had an idea and I probably shouldn't say it but they're gonna steal it but this is one of those ideas that I hope they do steal it and other jurisdictions start doing I think it'd be nice if myself and Doctor. Bedell and maybe a pastor that's willing to do it, we get together and talk about that very very thing and talk about the fact that we need more family, faith and education and so that we can have less police courts and corrections and find a way to craft a very clever message. But as you was articulating that, one of my favorite commercials from the nineteen sixties used to be lock your car, take your keys. And they used to show the kids stealing the car and they'd go over the traffic light and it shows that then it switches to the police officers.

They had a fatal accident as a result of a stolen car. And then at the end of it, you probably remember that saying because you're old like me. And then at the end it would say lock your car, take your keys. And so you're absolutely right, there was a whole lot of them. Do you know where your children are at 11:00?

They used to read Right. They would hammer those points home and and so that's a good idea and we we can start working on that. But I did have the idea that you have an educated superintendent myself or chief award and public safety people, first responders education and the clergyman say, hey, this ain't the way to go. And appeal to a public service announcement that we gotta come together because if we don't, then we we're we're we're we're only intensifying. We're escalating instead of de escalating and and so those messages are very powerful mediums to to make their point home.

Let's try to put together some sort of with everybody as we've got all the brainiacs sitting at the table today to put together a a a plan along with your strategic plan.

And my deputy chief chief just reminded me. I'm sorry, ma'am.

No. Go right ahead.

No. We're starting a podcast too next month. We're gonna be getting out messages regularly, having guests. I'll be doing them regularly, so will OEM and and the fire chief. And we're gonna have public safety points and interviews and talk about topical issues, not political ones, but topical ones. Some are more rooted in politics. We're gonna talk about demystify some of this stuff because there's a lot of people that still have this fear of customs and and that's legit. They had a fear of these this this proliferation of handguns. That's legit. You know?

How can we, you know, send our children out on as we get into the height of the summer when you have very hot days and children wanna be outside, you know, playing in the water or doing what children do on hot summer days and and they remain safe. And and so, yes. Yes, ma'am. We're gonna have a lot of messaging. We're gonna start our podcast next month with with Cortland's, vigorously working on that now so it can be, top notch.

Because school closes in about two to three weeks, so that would be great. But, also, those thirty second bites, that people really kinda hone in on that you can do throughout the commune different communities. Doesn't matter which community it is, but just targeted the podcast and and the method of just the thirty to to fifteen fifteen to thirty second sound bites that people can really hook into. And and I know miss Stevenson is great at putting things together, and and Cortland is as well. So working with them and and really, coming up with a strategic plan that, joins with the one that you're already doing with your crime plan, but I think that really would be extraordinarily helpful.

We've never in my thought process, we've never done anything that we really, really target and hone in on. And I think it will make a a a big difference in changing attitudes and minds and behavior. And we all need a behavior change and a behavior switch and a behavior gotcha moment to kinda do that. And so I would, like to see something by our next public safety meeting in July, if not sooner, because, like I said, school will be closing on the thirteenth in Anne Arundel County Public Schools. I think it's the thirteenth.

And, so we really would like to roll into something like that that people can, hone in on and and really be a part of it and some slogans or whatever we can use to to really define what we wanna do. So, I hate to put more on your plate, but I think it will be advantageous and helpful.

Oh, I agree, madam chair, and we will. We were working on it. Cortland updated me yesterday and we will have something, very soon.

And it'd be nice for next the next month.

We'll have it definitely by then. We'll have something really, I said next month, but this is June already. Still thinking May.

Safety meeting. Can we have something for

the meeting? Yes, ma'am.

Some whether it's a a clip from a podcast or just a thirty second

bite Absolutely. Yes, ma'am. Absolutely.

That'd be great.

And then by the way, let me correct the podcast. We should have that done sometime late next month. Yeah. Next week. Next week. I'll go my deputy chief said next week. Right.

And I'm sure Mitchell miss Stevenson will put something out, maybe a press release, with Cortland as and as well to let everybody know that it's coming and that's something new we're doing and exciting. And, people may have suggestions. And you also I'm just throwing this out here too. You may wanna have people in the community who wanna join you in in giving the message.

Oh, absolutely.

You know, the thirty second bite. You might wanna have someone from the Clay Street from war two who might wanna join you in in in this thirty second sound bite. People like to see themselves and and and be a part of something that's working and something that's advantageous for everybody. So that's another little wrinkle, I won't call it, but another little additive to put to that. So I think that would be a lot. And people like to see their neighbors on on screen. Mhmm. It it it helps to to to push the message out.

So Yes, ma'am. So you can work

with all the woman O'Neil since we're talking Ward 2 today. Mhmm. And I'm sure she has some people who would love to do that in the community. So, I'm just kinda throwing out things at the moment.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Consider it done. Appreciate it. Yes, ma'am. I think I've covered well, I I know we can talk about where Ward 2 stands in in terms of its ranking with the other wards. We know that homicide, they've had zero in in the ward. Let me yeah. You yeah. You're ahead and and and and take that. I'm sorry.

Good afternoon. So just to piggyback off of, you know, what chief Jackson, just articulated. So as it relates to the homicides, for, 2025 compared to 2024 were neck and neck three. As it relates to the nonfatal shootings and the dischargings, we're up 1%, and that's specifically due to a specific group that's in our neighbor's backyard and our neighbor being Anne Arundel County that has due to a social media beef, they've come to Annapolis at Liberty discharging various communities, causing the uptick in the violence as far as the nonfatal shootings and the discharging. We're currently we we we have a strategy.

It it seems to be long term, but I wanna put a little oomph in the the d taking these people away, not giving them the opportunity to come back to Annapolis to continue that same behavior. We were able to subtract two. So that was a lull in the action for a time period. Started back. Now that, this same group is aware that law enforcement is on to them, they're kinda discombobulated.

So we wanna go in now with our partners, and, we wanna serve them a final blow, and and put these people where they rightfully belong. So, there's a strategy in play now, to to to dismantle this group of folks who just find it within their in their will to come here and just indiscriminately and shoot up shoot up our communities. So we we should have something concrete within as a matter of fact, we have a meeting tomorrow to outline this plan and to get this going forward. The attorney general, I'm sorry, the the attorney general's office is, taking lead on this event this investigation, and, it's a a spirited collaboration between the APD, the Anne Arundel County Police Department, and our federal partners. So that's the uptick that we see as it relates to the nonfatal shootings and the discharging.

The majority of these are strictly they've been committed by this one particular group. And since there has been a lull in the action and the chief kicked off the summer crime plan, we're trending in the right direction. Over the last thirty days, we've seen a a reduction in the discharging, of 33%. Right. The non the non fatal shootings in the last thirty days, a reduction of 50%, as well as all shots fired calls, a reduction of 40%.

So we're definitely turning in the right direction as we get into the hot summer months, and we wanna continue to build off of that success. So we know going forward that that we have a lot of work to do, but I think I think the trends that we're seeing now is the spirit of teamwork between patrol, admin, and operations, being on the same sheet of music and just doing what we can to make Annapolis that much safer.

That that's extraordinarily encouraging, and congratulations on on what you're doing and recognizing what the issue is and and addressing it head on. And and I do believe even I'm just gonna say this. A couple that with the with the with the PSAs and getting the word out and the and so the community is now part of your prime plan as far as lowering, what's going on, untoward the in in the community. So I that is huge. That's definitely at least 90% of it, but putting the icing on the cake is is the other 10% where you're where our residents feel a part of of the crime plan as well through something as simple, for lack of a better word, as a PSA involvement.

So thank you.

That's right.

And it's gotten back to me. It got it's gotten back to me. I talked to the mayor Saturday, and it's gotten back to me that, the community at large beyond war two, which is the community at large has been very pleased with the activity that they've seen involving our officers. So I have to thank captain Thacker. His learning curve here was very, very short and he's made an immediate impact.

So the troops are now motivated to go out and do some of the more traditional things. As part of our duties are to go out and and we have warrants and criminal summons as they should be served. There shouldn't be a back log and if it is a back log, we should be able to show that we took some of our discretionary time to do those type of things, serve a warrant, their orders from the court and they shouldn't sit there on the shelf and not get served once a judicial official or judicial authority signs it. We're commanded by law to to serve those warrants. So, this that's the kind of stuff that citizens I'm not talking about people who have criminal justice and law degrees.

I'm talking about citizens are saying they're seeing these officers more active and and and and and in doing carrying out these duties, they still remain respectful to citizens and polite. And that's the kind of force that I think that we as a city envision our officers to be. Even we have to do the unpleasant things like hold people accountable and take them into custody, you would hope that it's done with the minimal amount of force, number one, and that the officer still is able to deescalate so nobody loses their dignity. And and and, you know, things happen in life and people have to be held accountable in a court of law, but we do our very best to try to do it in a way that doesn't leave a sour taste in the mouth of the community. So

And, chief, I'm gonna stop you right there. Wanna thank Captain Thacker. Couple things since he's been been on board. Number one, the the unfortunate young man that was, hit struck by a car on West Street, and he's been there front and center to provide us with information and direction on what the city can do in that situation even though West Street is a state roadway, and we had the state folks out there and and our, delegation from the state and the county as well in the city. But just wanna thank him for that presence and and direction for that and and only being here a couple of months.

But the other thing is too, I guess, it was about right before he left for vacation, we had a a meeting with with, the store manager at Safeway. And, the gentleman who's new to the Safeway store at that location came from Arnold, and, I think we were quite impressed by what, Captain Thacker had to provide to us direction and and information and strategy on moving forward because we have talked about several times that Safeway as well as Coles, seems to be I see captain Howard Shana's head. Mhmm. That is the bane of my existence in Ward 3 when it comes to thefts that and and captain Howard and I have talked about we we don't want it to raise to the level of of of of a robbery. But, the, the new, store manager was extremely pleased with the meeting we had, and then he had the assistant store manager there as well.

But, also, we talked about when you returned that we would go to Kohl's and do the same thing. That's something we haven't done, and so I think it was extremely important that your presence there was was, at that meeting to give us, direction on how we can prevent things from happening and and to really address that. So I look forward to meeting with the Coles folks in the next week or two or whatever we can we can schedule. But when we get and I'm I'm thinking about all this because people need to know, and when you when we get done with the presentation, I want each one of you to kinda give the audience, the viewing public, the listening public, just two minutes about yourselves and what background you've brought to, the city of Annapolis. And Kat Miguez has been here and and been in the trenches a long time.

And I was just talking to someone recently who had great kudos about her work since she's been here with the police department, but two minutes for each of you all when we get to the end. I just want people to know what we have here. I think it's tremendous, and and people need to know. And so we're gonna do that. So excuse me for cutting you off.

Oh, no, ma'am.

Go right right ahead.

No, ma'am. No, ma'am. I I don't have much more to say over other than, I think the biggest challenge, with all eight wars, to be honest, and war two is no exception, is those quality of life type crimes, The stolen autos, the lust and the thefts from autos, the the the the the street crimes like purse snatch and all quality of life things. And then the the offenses that are not counted in our index crime, like, we're going into the summer months now and we'll have to be mindful that more people will be out, more people will be enjoying libation, especially in downtown. And it filters out to other wards too.

I mean, it's in the neighborhoods as well. And we have to be mindful to make sure that we are on top of those quality of life type crimes like having too much to drink and driving and, you know, loud music and things like that. But if, we could talk about real quickly, I can give or I can I'll he can do it faster than me, give, captain, Howard, an opportunity just to kinda go over all the index crime. Separate from the homicides. Yes, sir. So you can do that now. And that's how I think it's that's how we'll end it.

So we'll go to the next category, which is rape. War two was tied for last, with one rape. It wasn't domestic. We go into the aggravated assault. It's like I talked about earlier regarding the dischargings and the the number of shootings that we had specifically tied to a group that's in our neighbor's backyard.

The majority of our nonfatal shootings are ag assaults or coming specifically from this particular group. So that's what's encouraging about the aggravated assault. Outside of that one particular group, there is no discernible trend, which there is no war in factions between communities here that is situated here in Annapolis. So that's encouraging. So, and we'll we'll continue to, you know, keep our foot down on the gas, working with the attorney general's office as well as our partners in Anne Arundel County and our federal partners to dismantle this group as fast as we possibly can.

We wanna do it the right way. We wanna make sure that we dot all of our i's and cross all of our t's and make sure that when we visit them and give them silver bracelets that they're gonna sit and they're gonna stay. So that's the focus going forward as it relates to the aggravated assaults, the shootings, and and things of that nature. Robberies, war two is six. Again, no discernible patterns as it relates to the robberies.

Burglaries, war two is third. One domestic, the other here we go. Five residential, no force, which means that either the door was unlocked or a window was unlocked and the perpetrator had easy access into the residence.

And that's another PSA. But go ahead.

I'm sorry.

And that that goes right into what the chief was talking about, the quality of life crimes, the thefts, and we can drop right down to the thefts. War two is tied for third tied third. 42 from motor vehicles. 20 shoplifting, eight from a building, three motor vehicle parts, 15 all other, so on and so on. The motor vehicle thefts. Ward 2 is six. Last out of the eight wards, they had six. One suspect known to the victim. But here's the key. Six of those the six incidents, the vehicle was left unlocked.

Left unlocked. And we've been talking about this for every ward since we started these presentations. And to the Annapolis PD's credit, you know, we we put this out so much that I could almost regurgitated verbatim lying home in my bed with my eyes closed, the things that we put out to everyone to safeguard themselves from being victimized by folks coming in their houses, going into their cars, lock the doors, take all your valuables out, Ad nauseam. But it still it still persists. So we'll continue to do that. The education piece along with the enforcement piece, and we'll we'll strive each day just to, you know, to make Annapolis that much safer.

And I'm gonna stress again. Get get get a couple of people in the neighborhood who live in live in in in in the different wards and just say, would you be willing to say, lock your car, take your keys, kind of thing, because people like to see their neighbors on camera. And then more more likely, I think I mean, not that they won't listen to you all, but if they see their neighbor on camera saying this, it might resonate more. Just put it this way, it can't hurt. That's how I see it. So we can try that as well. So

Jens, I was talking to a gentleman right here in Annapolis in, one day. This was a couple years ago, and I saw him get out of his car on Main Street. And there was a lot of people out, and it was daytime. But I was dressed like this. Well, you all know I'm never dressed, but I was dressed like this. And I said something to him. I was by myself. I said, well, sir, I'm chief of police here in Annapolis. First thing he said, I was a white male. He said, I know you are.

And he said then he smiled. I said, well, you didn't lock your door. He said, yeah. He said, I don't have anything in there. He said, look, I have to weigh the cost of what's in there versus what my insurance deductible will be. And so when I decide to leave my car open, I'd rather for them to come in my car and I don't have anything. If they take any, there's nothing in there that's of any value that would be less than the deductible I would have to pay if they broke my window. He said, I had nothing in there. My deductible was $250. I had nothing in there of value, so that's why I left my door open.

And I thought about it and then I think I went to Chicken Roof and I was sitting there eating my sandwich. I said, damn, darn, that makes a little bit of sense when, you know, because it would cost him more just to lock his car. I know you guys say you lock your car because that's the thing to do, but I didn't lock my car because I'd rather for him just to go in there and rummage around and not find anything than to break my side mirror. And he had a nice looking car. And it cost me 250 or $500 deductible.

The only reason why I put that out there is because a lot of times it's a complex issue and we talk to it blue in the face, but people's motivations are interesting. And so I learned from that a little bit. So as a part of how we get this messaging out, we have to take that's why a lot of people do it because they figured it's it's it'll cost them more if they lock the car. That satisfies us, you know, when we play McGruff and take a bite out of crime. But for them, it's an economic thing. So I'd rather leave my door open and they rummage through it and not find anything than then break my window and it cost me. My deductible is is is more than anything I would've they would have found anyway. Interesting. I'm not saying it's interesting. I'm not saying it's right or wrong.

Right. Just an interesting analysis. So just to give you some perspective and to view some perspective. But we gotta find a way because we don't know the motivation for them breaking into car, you know. I mean, the cars can't be hot wired as rapidly as they can like they used to in the old days because the way cars are made now, they're pretty much computers.

But who knows what they're gonna do once they get in there and we have to be mindful of that too. So we'll continue to study that and and try to come up with a good messaging because that's one of the biggest quality of life problems that we have is stuff from autos. As you see, we have 42 in war two and only six stolen autos. And of those six, I believe they were unlocked with with the keys in them. And as my mama used to say, those are more trifling than the other ones when you leave the keys in the car. Yeah. And I

That's another dynamic.

Yeah. And I think the transportation article has a law there's a law against leaving your keys in a car and and people can gain access. But we'll study that, that dynamic. And if you permit me, I'd just like to say one more thing that we're doing, our crime plan a little bit, give an overview of that. We still have we've been in the neighborhoods.

We've had a couple of movie nights. We've had a couple of other events headed by captain Howard and his his people, and they've been very well received. On Friday, I drove it took me three hours to get there, a little over three hours, but I met with the depart department of recs director, you know, Rosalyn Johnson and we went to Saint Mary's County and looked at this very sprawling, extremely beautiful camp that we wanna take some children from Annapolis, particularly in your ward as a result of the shooting that occurred. We had talked about it at First Baptist at the at the community meeting, at the town hall. And it can accommodate literally hundreds of kids.

There's several acres and there's so many activities you can do. At some point, because it was it was Rosalind's idea, so at some point, I would hope that the council has the opportunity for her to talk about it. But the land is owned by the DC Department of Parks and Recs and they very warmly received us, Washington DC Parks and Recs and I think they offered us 80 slots. We can take 80 young people and their parents to the camp. We haven't set a date yet, but we also plan on just showing children from Clay Street a different, environment.

Let them get out and and the air smell, smell differently. Nothing surrounded by nothing but water and peace. And not only that, but we're working on, bringing clinicians to the camp to talk about trauma and how to manage trauma, how to identify it. So we're gonna put together an agenda, myself and Roslyn Johnson, and then we're gonna set a date sometime probably in the fall. But the camp, they they gonna they gonna support us by having children experience a chef that's gonna cook food.

They're gonna experience campfire food and they're have a chef to actually cook them meals. It's just opportunities that many of them will never never get and then I plan on being there and speaking on making healthy choices and and and how to protect yourself and how to walk away from an event that could ultimately be deadly. We don't know that a great percentage of our children, I don't remember the percentage, I used to walk around in our head, but young people in urban environments all across the country, many of them die from encounters of people that they'll never if they just walked away, they may never see them again. And so, you know what mean? The guy bumps into them that they don't know and next thing you know, it's a stabbing or shooting and had they just simply walked away and deescalated, they would have never seen that person again anyway.

So why die over things like that? So that's some of the things we're going to work with these young people. And then encourage them just to have hope. And so I'm really looking forward to seeing how this camp is going to develop and I'll keep you posted. I'm sure that Roslyn Johnson will keep you posted too because many other participants, if not most, depending on who agrees to go will come from Clay Street in that area because that's where we promised the residents at the town hall that we would we would we would work with them to deal with the trauma.

And we'll talk to everybody. We'll talk to Jen Corbin and and and Lieutenant Thomas and get as many experts as we can to help us participate in that. And then, I think the last thing is in along crime, think, captain Meeghes, you helped me craft a statement for the department with Anderona County for hate crimes, if you wanna talk about that a little bit.

So one of the grants we were able to partner on for, it actually covers three different fiscal years. The Department of Health through Anne Arundel County and the Anne Arundel County Police Department applied for hate crimes grant, a federal grant, and, they're putting out a press release about their activities and our activities with that grant. So that grant provides for some overtime for us, for our officers to do outreach when there is a hate crime, and then it also provides for some equipment purchases relating to hate crimes as well. So they've been announcing their activities. You may have seen they had an event at the West Street Library recently. So great.

And she she helped me with the press release, and then I read it. I was at the camp. I didn't tell you that part. I was at the camp looking at that beautiful water, and I said, damn, I'm smart. I didn't realize I was that smart. So thank you, captain The words were wonderful and, you know, so I get credit for saying it, but I just wanna give her a shout out for for putting that together for me. So thank you, captain Miguel.

Great. Thank you so much, chief, and and and and, leadership team. Old woman O'Neil, questions, comments?

My only comment is, I think we'll see you on Thursday. You're gonna be on Fortina Nick Way in Clay Street with Hotdogs and Hamburgers, five to seven.

Yes, ma'am. Part of the crime plan. Yes, ma'am.

Yeah. Yes, ma'am. That. Mhmm. So we're trying to get the word out for that.

Yes, ma'am. And many people come out and then just mingle with us and and just have a good time and and that way we want the support. So when we have to come there with warrants to hold people accountable for doing really bad things, we want the neighborhood to know that we care enough to fellowship with you. But we also want we care enough to make sure that your neighborhood is free and clear of trigger pullers as well. And we have that to do with bottled water and we have a lot of work to do this summer. But hopefully if we can stay active and focus, we can all come together at the end of the summer and talk about what a great summit was in terms of minimizing or mitigating the violence.

Right. Great. Thank you. Wonderful.

Thank you so much for that information. And we're gonna go around the horn. We'll start with captain Megazda. Two minutes or so to just tell us something about yourself. I think that the public needs to know what stellar type of people we have on the command staff with, Annapolis Police Department. And sometimes the other thing is to we need to be reminded. Sometimes we forget, and we I'm not gonna say we take you for granted, but we need to be reminded ourselves about who we have working for us each and every day '20 47366. Right. Captain Meegeth.

Yes, ma'am. So captain Amy Meegeth with Annapolis Police Department. I've worked for the department for twenty five years. My family moved to Anne Arundel County when I was in high school, and I've lived here since. My first experiences of Annapolis were actually visiting, to pick up midshipmen.

I had, friends whose parents sponsored, actually, relatives that were midshipmen at the time. So it was very limited with the traffic getting into the city during those busy periods and getting out. Then I attended Saint John's College for a year, and that was my first experience living in the city. My first experience with Clay Street area was actually walking to the free clinic that used to be in the Stanton Center. So it was a community benefit even for for college students at that time.

I I ended up moving to the city. I became interested in criminal justice. I did a ride along with our police department at that time and became a dispatcher. So I did that for two years and then continued on to be an officer. I've worked in every division in the department, and this is my first time in administrative services though, so it's a learning curve because it pretty much includes anything that's not a a police matter, which I feel pretty confident in handling.

Along the way, I finished my undergraduate degree, not at Saint John's, and I just got my master's in public safety leadership, just this month.

Congratulations.

Thank you. So I'm very happy to be here. I love Annapolis. I'm a like I said, I'm a county resident, though I don't live in the city. You know, my kids go to public schools and I just feel very connected with the community and I hope that they feel the same about me.

Great. Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, director Lakisha Blue. I just joined the department on March 27. Prior to that, I've worked for Baltimore City Police Department for twenty seven years. It would actually be twenty eight years, June 17, coming up. So I started out 1997, joined the department, as a community service officer, which was a civilian position.

Somebody decided it wasn't a good idea because we were in uniforms. We had badges, but we had no guns, and we were supposed to do, like handle neighborhood disputes, things like that. And somebody said, oh, these kids are gonna get hurt because we were young young people at the time. In 2000, I switched over to, join the police department. I went into the the police academy.

I went to patrol Southeast District Patrol. From there, I went to the district detective division where I investigated burglaries, robbery shootings, things of that nature, stayed there for approximately two years. After that, I went to criminal intel unit where I worked computer and electronic crimes where, we investigated child pornography cases, things of that nature, white collar crimes. We work with, NW3C, National White Collar Crimes, and the state police. We had a memorandum of understanding with the, state police.

And I also went to school for computer forensics, went to, FBI school for network intrusions, while I spent time in criminal intel. From there, I was promoted to sergeant, and I was sent back to patrol, in the Western District. I was in the Western District for approximately two years. During my time there, I served as the community I did patrol, and then I did six months in community relations. I worked in community relations for approximately a year.

From there, I went to internal affairs. I worked minor minor investigations and serious investigations. I was promoted to lieutenant while I was in, internal affairs. From there, I was the commander of they centralized everything because at one point, you had, complaints that the minor complaints were handled by the by the districts, and then the more serious complaints was handled by internal affairs. So I was the commander when they decided to centralize everything in PIB, and I was supposed to get everything consistent because everybody was coming from various districts.

So I was the lieutenant of that unit. From there, I was prom I was promoted not a promotion. I was still a lieutenant, but I was moved to the ethics division where I, supervised more, serious crime, like police corruption, where, you know, officers was indicted, things of that nature. You probably heard of Gunthery's task force. We worked closely.

We had a FBI task force, that worked out of that unit that I oversaw as well. From there, I was promoted to captain, and I retired to come here to serve a Minneapolis police department, and I'm I'm glad to be here. I look forward to working with everyone. I'm I I probably took over more than two minutes, but that's my background. When I am a mother say it again. I'm sorry.

What are you doing here?

I am the director of the internal affairs division here. Yes.

And you're gonna say you're a mother, but go ahead. I want you to complete that

I am a mother of three.

Alright.

Yes. I am. I'm a mother of three. I was married. My husband, was, was murdered in, January 2025 while I was a captain in Baltimore Police Department.

And that was that was a traumatic event. But I'm here, I persevered, and I'm moving on. So thanks for having me.

Thank you so much.

I'm captain Guy Thacker, and Lakisha Blue keeps me out of trouble. I'm a thirty three year policing professional. I too also came from Baltimore. My career began in 1992. This predates a lot of the super cool technology that we have today in modern day law enforcement. I think the chief and the deputy chief could tell you the condition of Baltimore Police Department, late eighties, early nineties, these police stations might have these old antiquated computer terminals.

I was there.

So you you know. So that's how my career starts, but it was pretty cool at the time because I broke in in a traditional way. I broke in as a foot officer in the Eastern District, which was one of two very challenging districts historically for Baltimore City. I came in with a college degree. I'd gone to Towson State, political science, public administration, minored in geography and urban planning. Thought I was gonna be a school teacher. Thought I was gonna teach language arts in Anne Arundel County. At the last second, Ron Daniels calls me. I had applied to police departments. There was a recession going on.

And he said, you still wanna be a police? I said, yeah. I think I do. And so told the Anne Arundel County School Board that I was going to go a different direction, and I thought if I was a total bust of being a police officer, I could always go back and teach school. But the whole teaching thing never really left me.

In in my career, I spent twenty four years in special operations. Now the chief has talked about that background. And that background, if if you're in that community, it's a community, all jurisdictions that kinda work collaboratively. It forces you to understand that you have to build relationships and whether it's for equipment or personnel for very unique set of problems. I build myself as a I I present myself, I'll I'll put it out there.

I I believe I'm a team builder and a problem solver. You can give me a unique set of problems. I've if I don't have the answer, I leverage relationships to find the answer, find the best course of action. I'm I'm not shy about making decisions. I'll make decisions. This is where Lakisha will keep me out of trouble. But there's a great rapport and cross dialogue that's going on amongst the peers right now in the APD. I can can assure you of that. I love being a cop. I love wearing the uniform. I love being on the street. I love engaging with the community. I did retire from Baltimore. I'd always admired Annapolis. This is my home county.

I too grew up in I grew up in Glen Burnie, went to Old Mill High School. But I always admired the city of Annapolis, what it had going on, the cool vibe. When I was done at work in Baltimore City for the day, and I wanted to go out and enjoy the evening, I would come to Annapolis. And so now I'm here, and my my mission is to keep Annapolis humming along the way I know that it can be, and that that I would enjoy nice summer evening walking down by the docks, or up on West Street, or near the parole shopping center, all those areas. They're super cool. I intend on keeping it that way. And that's me, Guy Thacker. Here for a while.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

I am deputy chief Stan Branford. I am a Taurus, five ten. About two hundred and ten pounds. Anyway, my career started really right after high school in 1978. I enlisted in United States Marine Corps where I stayed there for ten years.

When I joined the police department, was a little older than most people who went into the academy at the age of 21. That was an advantage to me because I had that discipline going in and it worked well for me. I am a thirty six year veteran of law enforcement. I spent the first twenty nine years in Baltimore City, retired in Baltimore City. I started in the Western District, which was the one of the most challenging districts, in Baltimore City.

At when I was in the Western District, that's when I met, chief Jackson at the time. He came over as a brand new sergeant. And, coming from the Northeast District, he was a little mystified in how we policed in the Western District. Throughout my career with Baltimore City, I retired at the rank of colonel. I commanded the Eastern District.

Well, first of I spent most of my time, probably about twenty five years of the time I spent there in investigations. I commanded the Eastern District, the Eastern District Commander. I commanded the homicide unit twice, and I actually retired as chief of all detectives when I left, Baltimore City. Not a whole lot of exciting things. I know I met, captain Howard, one of my sergeant in homicide, captain Thacker.

I remember meeting him for the first time, during the riots. That's how we actually met. Always knew about him. Other than that, myself and chief Jackson have been friends for a very long time, and we actually live been neighbors for the past thirty years. Yeah.

It it was right within walking distance of me. I'm happy to be here in Annapolis. My job is to keep this team together, get things done, result oriented, and try to do it in such a way to keep morale up and keep the team together and keep us communicating. And everybody here at this table is capable of getting the job done is the a team, and I really appreciate everybody here. And I really appreciate getting me guys over there.

I call her the a team since I've been here, and I saw her from a sergeant coming up. That is not a task that you cannot give her that she can't complete, and I go to her for everything. So thank you.

Thank you. And we're gonna jump over you chief the cap Howard.

Okay.

Good afternoon again. My name is captain Lamar Howard. I'm to a carpet dagger from from Baltimore City.

So am I.

I transitioned as a young soldier coming from the European Theater. I came to Maryland in 1993. I finished up my last couple years on active duty, and then I transitioned over to civilian law enforcement. I was fortunate enough and blessed enough, to be accepted by the Baltimore Police Department. I entered the academy.

I too started in the Eastern District, which was a very, very challenging environment. We would often win the Golden Casket Award, because of the violence that was associated and still to some degree, still associated with that geography. I was blessed, very blessed and fortunate to have as my first shift commander, chief Jackson. Chief Jackson, would come into roll call, and he would always talk about education. That's something that I kept in the back of my mind during my tenure with the agency.

Deputy chief Stanley Branford, while I was in homicide, managing a squad, working multiple shifts, he supported me the entire process as I went back to school to finish my undergraduate and graduate degree. So I'm truly, truly blessed and appreciative of the leadership that was afforded me as a young officer with the Baltimore City Police Department. I spent twenty six and a half years there. The bulk of my career was in criminal investigations and operations, street units that were focused on removing handguns, drugs, and things from the streets of Baltimore. I learned a lot.

Those assignments prepared me for today. Those skills that I still have on my on my tool belt, are very helpful, in a time of crisis. So I'm truly appreciative of that. I I'm I've I've been here now. Believe it or not, I'm going into my third year here with the city of Annapolis. I got a phone call. I'm very grateful that I received that phone call, and I'm happy to continue to serve, along with my colleagues here to, continue to, make Annapolis the shining light here in the state

of Maryland.

Thank you. Miss Jackson, put the timer on for three minutes, please.

No. I'm a be surprisingly

I will be shocked,

not surprised.

You'll believe it when you hear it. Right? Well, I'll say something funny because people don't realize that they see Stan and I driving together, but he says something that's very, very true. And if you ever come to Baltimore, we'll show you better than you tell you. We're neighbors. I can literally walk to his house. So if I we would come into work, I would just ride by his house. Why bring two cars and we could save the city some gas money? Because we live that close to each other that we can walk. Not only were we colleagues thirty something years ago, but we all been neighbors for the last thirty years. So that's why I kept laughing. You know, why take two cars and we can Walk

to his house and jump in his pool.

Yeah. So but my journey's been an interesting one. I'll be quick. My journey's been an interesting one. I started out in policing forty three years ago. Forty three years ago in 1982. March 10, I graduated from the Baltimore Police Academy assigned to the Northeast District in 1982. I spent ten years in patrol as a as an officer, and then I came to the Western District where I linked up with Stan, and that was in 1992.

Mhmm.

And that's how long we've known each other since 1992. And I stayed there for a couple of years and then the the abbreviated, I rose through the ranks and I retired in '19 I mean, 2004 as a full colonel in the Baltimore Police Department where I was in charge of two positions at the highest rank of colonel, and that was community outreach and administration. One command, I commanded 27 Powell centers. In those days, we had three we had a Powell center for each sector in Baltimore City. At 27 secondtors in those days, 28 secondtors.

I commanded those and other initiatives under Ed Norris. And I retired under Kevin Clark in a year 2004, 06/30/2004, to accept an academic position. I remained a college professor and program director at Baltimore City Community College for fifteen years where I taught sociology and criminal justice to undergraduate students. I also lectured at Towson University, University of Baltimore, and my alma mater, Coppin State College. I'm a proud father of two Morehouse graduates, and my oldest boy has an MBA from NYU.

So I I raised two African American males. They lived their entire life in Baltimore City. It was my mission not to lose them to the criminal justice system and prayerfully through violence. But after I retired, my journey was a very interesting one. When Baltimore City went to consent decree as a result of the in custody desk for Freddie Gray, the mayor then and the police commissioner asked me to give up my faculty position and consider coming back into law enforcement.

So they hired me the short version is they hired me as the inspector general. I'm certified through the Association of Inspector Generals at John Jay College in Manhattan, New York City. I hold still do hold a certification as a certified inspector general. I did that for about a year and a half while Baltimore transitioned into the consent decree. I helped them get into the consent decree and sort out the paragraphs and how to approach them.

I get a call from my deputy chief amongst other people and said he had the opening for the police chief of police chief of police in Annapolis. Well, out of 71 candidates, was chosen as chief of police in Annapolis. I hold a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice from Coppin State College, now university. I hold a master's degree from Johns Hopkins. I was in the very first class of the police executive leadership program.

That was thirty years ago I earned my master's from Johns Hopkins University. My concentration is community development. Also pursued a doctorate degree, finished all my courseworkers in the dissertation phase from Capella University in public safety leadership. And on July 19 no. July 17, on my birthday, my sixtieth birthday, mayor Gavin Buckley nominated me to be the chief of police.

That was in 2019. On my sixtieth birthday, he nominated me to be the chief of police for the city of Annapolis. And I think my first day at work was the thirty first and I've been here since the 07/31/2019. And so that's pretty much my my journey. I had no intention.

I thought my days in policing was over with, but I think almighty god saw fit to bring me here for a reason. And I think I'm very proud of the work that we've been able to accomplish and to bring community policing, which is still unfinished, to the city of Annapolis. And I think it's one of the best departments that you'll find, not only in the region, but I'll I'll put this department up against any department in The United States, really. It's not the biggest, but in terms of understanding neighborhoods and and and having a good rapport with our citizens, I I just think it's one of the best out there.

Thank you, chief. Old woman O'Neil, any comments, questions? Or

I know that was over three minutes, but

But but what I like about this team is diversity, and I'm using that term loosely, and and all the experiences and opportunities you all have had. And I on a personal note, I know what it's like to work in Baltimore City. And it's and what I've told people over and over again, it's not much of anything we haven't seen there that we can't use those tools here to to, fix what needs to be, what's broken. I'll use that loosely, but what we can improve upon. And and having someone who's been here like Kat Miguez, I mean, she's got the historical and the and and the baseline and the foundation of of what's going on here, but we add to that what you all bring to this table, and I think it's tremendous because I'm the only one here that can say that because I know what it's like to work there and what challenges and what you can overcome there and what you can learn from there and to be able to use those those skills and talents to be able to bring what we need here in in the city of Annapolis.

And I'm so proud to to be your public safety chair and to work with all of you all on a on a daily basis in many ways. But, a great team and and a great strength that we have here that, like chief said, I I put our team up against anybody, anywhere because I've seen other teams, and and this is tremendous. And thank you all, and and we pray for your your your safety as well as the safety of all the folks that work in public safety here in the city of Annapolis because that is extraordinarily important. Miss Berger, you have anything to add? Okay. Thank you so much. Miss Jackson. Okay. I think we can get a motion to adjourn. So moved.

All in favor, aye. Aye. Aye. And we have three forty four.