Community Police Review Board - Regular Meeting

it having reached past the hour of 5:30 p.m. I'm going to be calling the February 19th 2025 Community Police review board meeting to order will the clerk please call the RO member Beasley day pres member Bryant present member bird present member Christensen pres member Jal here member Grant here member n member Han here chairman Solio here chairman Solio board member Smith is absent this evening we would like to ask the board to consider her request for an excused absence which meets her crer for the granting of an excused absence at this time we ask for a motion from the board to Grant her an excuse motion thank you a first and a second all those in favor all righty so on to agenda item one uh Declaration of conflict of interest do any of the board members have any conflict of interest pertaining to items listed on the agenda okay seeing none I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comments so if there's anyone out in the audience that would like to make a public comment please come up one at a time and you will have 3 minutes to uh speak publicly all righty seeing no public comments at this time I will go ahead and move forward to consent

item um would anyone like to remove any consent item for for discussion okay seeing none we'll be moving on to new business motion approve oh okay sorry guys uh we're going to need a motion to approve the minutes from the last meeting move second all those in favor okay motion carries okay now on to new business um today we'll be having a presentation and a presentation by judge Ruben aobos [Music] that's on Wheels you [Laughter] know are we ready yes okay first of all I wanted to introduce myself I'm Ruben Vios I'm a judge of the Superior Court here in Stan I had them for 10 years and I grew up in this room um as I'm looking around here um I remember coming in here when I was a little kid my whole life went to Franklin down street Mark Twain m high school so you could say what a third to a sixth of a mile in each Direction um away from here uh went on to UC Berkeley for my undergraduate the Martin Luther King Jr school of law for law school um and then I was in private practice for the better part of 16 years

public defender for the first first part of that um and then in 2015 uh approximately 10 years ago I was appointed to the bench uh I've been a judge of the spe court for 10 years most of that in juvenile including a stenus of presiding judge of the juvenal court I want to get a little bit about my ethics out of the way some disclosures if I may because it's very important that I do this to make sure that I stay within the rails of our branch of government so first of all um as a judge I have a duty to not um involve myself in in the government working of other government organizations um I when I was a board member I would come to meetings I would go to meetings I would sit behind the day as here as a speaker or as a member um as a judge we're not allowed to do that however um under standards of judicial Administration 5.40 the juvenile court judge is in a unique position and has a position of Outreach a duty to reach out to the community to answer questions to uh try to find common Solutions and so I just wanted to say that I'm here in my capacity um as a juvenile court judge having been invited um and so that that takes care of my ethical obligations so I don't get written up um the other thing I wanted to say is that um I'm not um law enforcement um I'm not the police um I am not a a partisan I'm um you could say I'm neither what um an eagle or a chief I'm a ref um and so I just wanted to kind of get that out of the way um I I um understand that that kind of

the call of the question for me is if I had any comments um as to ways to reduce youth arrest in general and specifically amongst the Latino Community uh I can tell you obviously this is something that's near and dear to my heart um I will tell you that as the judge of the superior court I have um been to three funerals of what I call my babies my children who appear in front of me I have been to more graduations than I have to funerals but the number should be 100 fold it should be a thousandfold and that certainly it's not the case um I will tell you that um as a juvenile court judge what I balance every day is um as I tell my children and youth and families to appear in front of me I believe that every single night that they spend in our juvenile hall is a failing it's a failing for them it's a failing for their families it's a failing for the courts um I I think the the chief probation officer agrees with me in that assessment who's in charge of our Hall uh I would guess the police chief might agree with me in that assessment um and yet of course we have a duty to keep our our our city safe and I can tell you the most heartbreaking thing in the world is when someone spends a night in our juvenile hall partially because of their conduct but also because I don't have a safe place to reduce to release them too um and so I want to tell you that it's um I I have a duty under the law to intervene to the least amount necessary to fix the problem or humiliate the problem okay so you know I I want the members of the board I want the members in the room to think about things that hopefully existed in their homes as they were

calling out um I'm going to start with your refrigerator door okay I want you to think about your refrigerator door when you were growing up were there pictures on that refrigerator door were there um you uh track uh certificates and awards were they outstanding citizen student of the month did that happen in your household did you do that for your children so many of my kids don't have that so many of my kids don't have the um the reaffirmation the support the structure to say he kid just did a beautiful job and I am so proud of you I am so proud of you and um and when I say that I want to make sure it's understood I'm not criticizing the parents that are in my courts either because uh we have generational Cycles as I'm sure you're well aware um we have kiddos when I say kiddos I mean anyone 18 or younger um in the home that do not um they not have parents in the home that are being raised by grandparents that are being raised by what we call non-related extended family members things of that nature um and so I can tell you what what I do is try to bring the refrigerator door concept to the youth and families that appear before me we have something in my courtroom called judge V's wall of success okay and so we had to figure out how we're going to do that because juvenile proceedings are confidential so the first step was how do we create that that feeling of refrigerator door in a way that that preserves confidentiality and whatnot fortunately for me my sister is a long-term Elementary School teacher and I come from a family of teachers my brother and I are the ones that that strayed into the law and became lawyers and so I called my sister over and she helped me put up a bulletin board and so

on our bulletin board we renew it every year on January 1st and we have different little places where we honor High School graduations extracurricular activities jobs getting into college Career Technical education and we have a separate board that's just called awesome and the reason why is because sometimes um someone else's success metrics like graduating from high school or going to college or you know Magna c l and all that other stuff it isn't the same as what the kids and families that appear before me are experiencing so when a kid makes it a month without smoking dope that's awesome and they get a sticker on the board and you would be surprised um or maybe not but I will tell you that I doesn't matter uh the level of the crime doesn't matter if it's a simple a crime a more serious one including up to the ultimate uh offens of murder when I have the youth and families that appear in front of me and they're doing well and they're succeeding I get a little sticker and I said you know what little Johnny we're putting a sticker up on the board because I want other youth to know that success like yours is possible Little Johnny's charged with killing someone and and I'll tell you without exception you see a smile on their face I see a sense of accomplishment and I've even on occasion had people say hey that's my up there judge V so I can tell you within the court circumstance I have a duty first of all to intervene as little as possible to affect the rehabilitative uh needs the other thing is I we try to reward everything um we have what I call a compliment sandwich in court and when I say that I don't want to give the impression that it's one of these things which I think has been criticized on occasion that you everyone gets participation levels that's not what I'm

talking about I mean honoring everyone for what they are able to do in the way that they do it and so when I got a kid when I have a kid before me that's struggling extremely I find a way to give them a compliment sandwich okay so we start the court proceeding with what they're doing well and then we end with what they're doing well and then we have some hard conversations in the meal and I'll tell you on occasion I got to look real hard to find that bread for the salmon but but if you look hard enough you can find it so I would say that those would be the methods that we use within the court to um try to reduce um arrest I I will tell you and recidivism I guess is to stay within my Lane recidivism would would be I think the way that I look at it I'll tell you my wish list um would involve more robust programming um nonprofit or organization support in the community and when I say that when I talk about my wish list I am not being critical of uh the judges before me nor am I being critical of the probation office or the various programs we have within the community because we have several and they are both in the in the in the government world and in the nonprofit world and I think our Two Worlds work together well that being said um generally this is over it's an overstatement but as a as a as a general rule people are not detained in San Francisco until after they've been adjudicated meaning after they've been found to be responsible for committing a certain crime so you think about that for a second how does that work well they have robust services that provide all kinds of wraparound services to Youth and families or before that now I'm not saying that we can do that but

and I'm also not saying I think San Francisco is not a uh really far out example and the reason why I say that sure it's a lot larger than we are but they have one juvenile court in the city and county of San Francisco we have one juvenile court in the county of Stanis so it it's not too far a comparison to connect the two the difference of course is that they have a lot of Community Based money involved in supportive nonprofit Services uh so again Limited in my role as to what I can do I can tell you within my ethical obligations under the standards of judicial Administration part of that is to bring people together and so uh a duty of convening you could say and so I certainly in a way that would be appropriate and acceptable would would love to be a part of of any meetings with folks who might be interested in either bringing a new community based service to stanas county or even better for existing programs to find different and new best practices and way to serve our youth and families so I think that's it I wonder if uh there are questions I well let me say one more thing um this is a tough one um told you I've been to the funerals I will tell you that generally speaking if I were to oversimplify the problem with the that what keeps me be up at night with my kids for the young men and boys it would be two things in this order guns first and finding a family outside of the home second whatever you want to call it okay but guns certainly first and foremost for my young ladies um what

keeps me up at night is uh folks outside the home that are uh giving our young ladies a life that they're not ready for a life that's not appropriate for them a life that that deprives them of their youth and their childhood and Proms and you know going to claes and getting hair Bangles and whatever else the cool kids are doing nowadays um that's what keep me up at night and again it's it's an oversimplification not all of my boys have gun problems and not all of my young ladies are uh facing the risk of of being trafficked but I would say that that far and away it's an overwhelming theme and I mentioned that to say if the goal is to keep people safe in the home so that we don't have to keep them safe in the hall those would be the areas I think of need basing where what questions does do any of you have for is there anyone on the board that has any questions for before the question I got I know about half y'all if not more it's so wonderful to see you all here this young man was in my when he was a kid he would be in my office doing his homework his mother worked in my office so it's great to see up there ni and not now and that's why and that's why he called me Reuben which is fine with me go ahead Mr H as it relates to um are the you you mentioned that that were're talking about how to help with uh especially with Hispanic youth uh you know help that situation do you see any trends that are related to to race or any other things that that are um that kind of stand out to you sure I'll tell you this we're looking for an equal opportunity um I don't want to say

employer but uh a place where anyone can can become a member it would be within the gangs and I will tell you that it used to be that um that when I was a baby lawyer with some of these police officers who are here um quote unquote Latino gangs used to be that I will tell you that the youth before me who are suspected being involved with gangs specifically Latino gangs if you know as the Latino gangs are of different races and ethnicities and when I say that I mean of all Races and ethnic so that as far as a trend I would say um that's law enforcement could speak a lot better than on the point than I could but I'll tell you that um you know when I was a kid there was the X gang and the Y gang and they seem to be divided among race um that seems to be less of an issue as far as a youth that appear in front of me which is all I'm speaking to so so the gangs are the more the common denominator than anything else well I I when I what I said was the guns first The Gangs I think what I said specifically were the forces outside of the home that are trying to give them a new life but yes need gangs reason I say that is because my kids have access to guns I think before they become entrenched if you will in in a gang lifestyle the gangs are the real real excuse me the guns are the real real scary one for me judge I have a question for you yes sir of the youth you see before you what would you say is the ethnic M makeup of the total population that you're engaged with okay let me um I don't want to

answer that question in a roundabout way but let me answer that question in a roundabout way um I will tell you that uh the better part of a decade ago when I started the outgoing probation officer this would have been three probation off officers um back uh pulled me aside and I believe she had a little bit of freedom because she was on her way out um and she told me that she and the court had started a program that was dedicated to reducing reducing ethnic disparity in incarceration juvenile court involvement um some people in the room may remember the meetings they were held in this very room there were there were meetings that were held to look into that um she told me the reason why she started that one day she was out walking the hall um and juvenile hall she's out on the on the on the on the field and pretty much most of the kids were out playing and they were that day they were playing soccer and she told me she said I looked out and I saw brown brown brown brown black brown brown brown black black and just a few white kids okay and she said that's when I noticed that we needed to do something about that and will tell you that before I ever got there probation um really based on the work they came up with through that committee started moving on to a computer-based metric that would kind of assign points to people and making a recommendation do they get detained or not get get detained in a way that would take race out of the equation um and I think we saw some progress with that there certainly was more growth that needs to happen I will tell you that um my kids are Latino they're African-American they're Asian they're they're Caucasian um I'm not prepared to tell you what the

breakup breakdown is compared to the county population I would say that that historically and I know this because I teach judges Statewide um um African-American youth this was a 2017 study so it's going on about 10 years old um and it's pre pandemic and the pandemic changed everything okay African-American youth were detained 9 to1 to caucasians in the juvenile justice system in California um Latino youth 4 to1 to Caucasians um Asian uh youth at slightly less than 1 to1 to uh Caucasian Americans and then the the reason I remember the stat is because they say mixed which I guess is me was also less than one to one I don't I don't know what that staff means but I I would hope that we're better than that but I will also tell you that moving forward um from 2017 by 2020 um the state passed a law that was designed at looking at just that uh racial disparity when it comes to sentencing charging decisions things of that nature and it's something that all judges are now required to look at in one form or another I can't do be better statistics than that okay thank you thank you sir thank you judge for being here thank you m um I am a big proponent on prevention and and intervention programs yes ma'am and um I know the youth in Modesto constantly complain that there's not enough here for them to do um let me interrupt you I was the one complaining about that when I was a youth CH we got a lot more to do now I just wanted to say that but go ahead okay so I I really think that more of the city's money needs to be spent and invested on

activities for youth uh do you think something like a rad Escape rink would would uh work here in Modesta um I'm going to think on that question for a second before I answer just give me a second to think on that I have an answer to it um I'm trying to figure out with whether that's within or without my Lane to answer that question so I will say this um I um teach new judges State one and as part of that we have youth both from this county and San Diego County who are formally involved in the juvenile justice system that are now functional members of society they are they're working they're getting their masters they've got great jobs they're giving back to their communities all right so they speak to these new judges about what things were like when they were kid that led to their circumstances and when they talk about what got them from the safety of a of a home if they had safety within the home um to somewhere else be that a gang or be it being trafficked or whatever the Common Thread was um that they didn't have they didn't have safety they didn't they didn't have a positivity one of the youth who um addresses the judges the comment that's question we asked is how do you get out of the gang how do you do this how do you do that his answer was I went to Ginger College because folks aren't claiming in the library right and so without I think it would be inappropriate for me to recommend this or recommend that but I would say the more healthy positive um options that our young people have where they can go and be safe um the less likely they're going to try to find that somewhere in an unhealthy way

great question judge follow up on that um I to thank you for being here it's wonderful to hear these things um at the community meeting here last night Chief guspy mentioned in his comments that um he would love to have enough officers on the street to be able for an officer to get out of his car go play a pickup basketball game with kids in the community and uh presently he finds it very challenging and I don't want to put words in your mouth Chief but his Staffing levels are such right now that that's a challenge to be able to do that um it's our responsibility on this board to make recommendations and my thought would be if we can recommend some alternative uh I mean obviously ideal would be to increase the Staffing levels to what Chief moleste thinks is is appropriate uh in absence of that you know from the budgetary constraints that exist if we could develop a Cadre of folks that would complement the officers that could accomplish that do you think that would be a positive step as far as engaging with the youth and maybe reducing some of the stigma of law enforcement with that gotcha I'm going to pass or punt as it relates to should the county spend money on this that or the other thing it wouldn't be appropriate for ban I will use two brief examples that I think might speak to something that you're saying um aside from being juvenile court judge until about six months or a year ago I was um the care Court Judge which is a program Stan County was a pilot um Statewide although now it's a program uh Statewide originally there were just eight of us counties um and the reason I use that as an example is

in becoming a care Court Judge I became acutely aware that law enforcement not just the chief um but several of the other departments have really been doing an awesome job trying to find new ways to reach out to the community uniforms um who's going out there what are you wearing what do you look like who's the first person on scene when someone is is not handling when someone's struggling right how do you do that in a way that's safe but also doesn't um es so um I'm not here to speak to funding as to what would work what wouldn't work I can to tell you that as the care Court Judge I saw um these community-minded folk that were out there in the front line and I I was very thankful as a judge the second example I want to give is you know I go to these trainings up and down the state and find best practices and what not um LA County biggest county in the state biggest County in the country more judges in La than in Most states um one of the best practices that they use there is to come up with a concept called Chasers okay so the Chasers are folks that are getting you know someone's struggling Little Johnny's not going to school little Susie's not going to her counseling or whatnot these Chasers um are going out there and figuring out what's going on with little Johnny figuring out what's going on with little Susie and if the obstacle is is transportation helping to figure out Transportation if the obstacle is not Transportation but transportation is used as the excuse okay well we've ruled that out let's talk about what we going get you the program and I know that um those community-minded folks that some of whom are are um a part of government like probation offices and whatnot some of whom are part of nonprofit organizations do a tremendous job we have we have an organization here in Stan County that follows a similar

approach and that would be Legacy um I know that that they have part of their their program is to follow kids around and see what's going on how come you're not at your program how come you're not doing this what can I do to help you get you there um and so I I think um I I think that's very helpful thank you I I I I got my own kid at home he's a real good kid I got to tell him at least twice to put his put his towel away right so so the more that you can um remind these kids and be there and help them the better outcomes we get thanks thank you judge for being here and thank you for all your Intel I have a question for you you know you were talking about um new cbos to sit down with you first of all how do we reach you sir you have cards or something you going to leave sir um I wish I had cards I just thinking today I got to M some for cards um but I will leave my email Miss bird has my email and she it to yeah and the cell phone and my cell phone and she's welcome to give both my email and the cell phone to the members of the committee who want to reach out to me awesome and have you heard of a program called Advance piece Advance who advanced peace I have not all right it's a program um that has been implemented in Richmond California also Stockton and Fresno to help people uh our gang members or youth that are out on the streets with the guns put their guns down and give them an alternative program even become entrepreneurs and things of that nature so I'd love to sit down and talk to you about that program and see what we can excited I I I look forward to that all right wonderful I think I saw a hand in the back oh yeah it was me um it was just that like same same thing um like when I was in Nashville Tennessee when I lived out there and went to school we kind of did

something similar to where we a part of our fraternity we had to kind of have like a big brother like take a little sister like from the local high school and we would have to get a troubled youth and we would have to essentially follow them around and everything like that and so I would like to see a big brother program here that's similar to that cuz I think it would help out a lot and also the utilization of sports a little bit more um I know our pal has like created more so of like a a soccer team I even think our police department has even tried to get into boxing which is one of my favorites but I know how big that is for students and youth but U one of the biggest things I know that kind of saved me and my friends is that we played AE basketball and we would travel around like we wouldn't just travel locally we would travel all over California and that opened up a lot of our eyes like when we had I want to say 12 players a lot of us I want to say nine out of 12 did not have a career pathway or like any type of real plan for their lives after aou it just opened up more avenues for them like as far as what they see and what they're around and I would say like out of the 12 we pretty much all went to college whether we played or not and I just know like exposing kids to those things too like from their environment that they're currently in would also help them out too so I would I would say that I'm actually happy that the police department is taking on some of these things taking on some of these things and so um really good to hear the discussions thank you for coming out and very pleased to hear everything that's going on I have a response to that first of all I got to tell you that as a father who has taking my kiddo to many a meeting like this I want to tell you I'm assuming this is your kiddo back there what a well behaved child that is first of all um and so aren't you precious I just wanted to say that um the other thing I wanted to say in response to what what you indicated was um few months ago I was my son and I and my mom

travel the country and you we fly somewhere grab around check out four or five states my son is seeing 40 States we were in Buffalo um a couple of months ago and so we went there to see Shirley chisms great of all things okay it's pretty awesome and then as I was leaving I thought what else is Buffalo known for and I thought of the um tops uh Supermarket murder where um more than 10 people were were murdered um I think I think about 3 years ago and so I said do I do I go by there do I do I show it to my son and I did we went there was a beautiful Memorial and we talked about community and we talked about policing and we talked about um food deserts and all this other kind of stuff right reason I mention it across from this Market which is the centerpiece of that neighborhood there was a sign and big sign like one of these cloth signs itself with rivets on a fence and it said fathers f a t h e RS with dots in between each of the letters so I'm a curious chap I want to figure out what that means so I go with it turns out well before the uh shooting some 20 years ago there were other community shootings that were happening on or about schools in Buffalo and so a group of fathers got together and they said you know what we're going to divide up the week and five of us are going to be there at the beginning of school every day and five of us are going to be there at the end of school every day just to walk kids into school walk them out seeing how they're doing what's the beef who's beefing on who what's happening and you know I I can't speak to the program I can tell you that in reviewing the um website it appeared to be a tremendously successful program it came about by just parents getting involved and and using that that power numbers to come together so yeah all of that's very

exciting yeah fathers out of Buffalo Google it and maybe you'll find out what they are is there any other questions from the board I do have one yes sir so um kind of going back to talking about guns and weapons and stuff like that with the youth I was curious on based off your knowledge how do you feel as a board we can we can assist either the police department of the city on you know do youth does the youth need more knowledge about guns about weapons on what they can do you know what the effects are of using them um you know maybe on them safety even if they're youth we can have officers possibly do maybe uh a classroom thing where they go in and they kind of teach the kids about the gun and what's safe or not safe about it kind of things like that so I was just kind of curious on some of your thoughts on that sure um I will answer that question and stay within My Lan I will tell you trends that I've seen over the bed part the last 10 years first of all I don't have any problem with gun safety I think everyone could use more gun safety I will tell you this that in my 10 years as judge eight years in juvenile court one shooting was a what I would call a gun safety issue okay was a kid not knowing how to safely handle store or use a gun playing with the parents gun and something bad happening now I'm not saying we haven't had more we have there's one that comes to mind every week I have cases where kids have guns and they shouldn't um and kids get hurt with guns or kids hurt somewhere with guns or kids ruin their lives with guns or you know a parent gets a 2 a.m. phone call that their life has changed forever okay so gun safety awesome I think more

of us could use it um certainly I don't think it's going to change the um um I'm trying to not be flipped when I say this um I've never seen a seized gun that had a gun walk on I'm not B Chief house but i' I've not I've not I've not seen it okay um I I I think now I'm going to go back to my Schoolboard days to answer your question because I think the answer is the same here in when it comes to courts and whatnot I think the answer is not necessarily more education just time just time is it the more time we spend with these kiddos the more time we have them engaged and involved figuring out what their deal is if it's boxing if it's whatever it is you know um our uh my high school went been up to high just down street here um one of my high school teachers saw that we were reading Holden Coffield and we were interested in off fencing right like not stolen property but with the fake swords and so he um set up a fencing program at the school and all of a sudden we had a couple hours a week with that teacher and you know I I was you know the fourth place Spencer on the team of four but I learned a lot working with that guy and so so I think time more time we can spend with the kiddos the better results we'll see thank you okay um one more time is there any other questions from the board okay seeing none I will be opening it up to public comment so if there's anyone from the public that would like to comment on this agenda item please come up one by one you will have 3 minutes of spech if you can please just step to

the hello good evening board um public Community thank you being here um I just want to say really appreciate um um everyone's comments here tonight about really like focusing on prevention versus intervention um I feel like a little bit more um at ease with like how we're approaching this um I really like like that um the main goal here is like um having time and activities for these children to have and so that way like they have things to do they have a place to be safe back um and while I understand um the judges being extremely professional and like giving us these examples I um kind of want to follow that route and say that I definitely agree that like as a city we should be um having more activities I remember here growing up here and coming here into this very room like I remember we had like programs so like grows to and like we would go do stuff around the community go to like um local businesses stuff that like have take us out of the out of the house cuz again um parents here are busy things are going up in price um people are working more jobs um parents are tired or sometimes even children don't even have access to Safe parents so having this community to take care of these children would prevent um them have to have any interaction with police because I understand I know that whole idea of police wanting to play Hoops with children or stuff like that but we don't necessarily like uh need um these figures who have authority to be engaging with these children it's more of like the community our neighbors our family or friends being there and having a saf to hang out um that would allow them to have these better behaviors more social better social skills um and so I really just want to say that I'm a big proponent on that because I feel like like kids doing more in this community to prevent like more D rest because that's what's going on a lot of kids go

because they're not getting the attention now if they get the attention from adults who actually are a role model and they don't necessarily have to be police um that would prevent more uh you arrest thank you thank [Music] you is there anyone else from the public that would like to make a comment hi my name is Rond I'm a member of the people of acting Council I'd like to find out a couple of things about the youth in this community a lot of them don't have good Role Models because we've seen in our time as adults that some some young kids as we grew up became parents and their parents wasn't that diligent with them so they've raised kids that they aren't diligent with so how do we break that that trend of kids not being totally held responsible for what they do you know we want to be time and consider it to you but a lot of them don't give us that back in return they want to be disrespectful and and I'm saying things that are are raw because a lot of times we want to treat every kid like they all have a

good point in life them don't and I think that having the uh having the merchants in this community offer of jobs because a lot of of our youth aren't athletic and aren't book smart they need to use their hands and their physical labor during that time of getting the paycheck they can also put together in their mind this is what life is all about they can quit trying to be bullies quit trying to be other things that they're not put the guns down that sort of thing and be aware of what they have to to do to be good adults they may not had the greatest example at home and that's so a lot of times we're missing that that they don't have that example at home so by them getting some examples outside the home they can somehow put together what a life should be and that's not always involving violence taking from others is trying to work hard to make the living to stay out of that type of uh situation they need to really we need to find uh Merchants that will help our youth you know by making them hard workers and finding out what they do

know sure we go through some pain of them being hired and fired but then they get in their mind that hey what's the part of life no one's going to give me anything I got to make my own way and so um hopefully uh that can be taken into consideration with the board so that uh we can stop looking at okay we don't have to treat your situation with kid gloves these kids are over 18 now they're considered to be adults and they have to be aware that they have a [Music] responsibility gu it's a little piece of what I have thank you thank you so much [Music] thank you for coming to the west side to the m King Center you know I wanted to say something to CH I de with about four may5 CH police he the first G that makes all the events to me when you to miss one we didn't have to use the building we was out there 105° in the park gu what J was right

there I've been a community actors in this town probably close to 30 years I'm a little little warrior well like uh wheny say she sends on that adjective in your washing machine I get it stirred up but the bottom line is about equal rights and I love this and I think that the police or maybe you can go to another neighborhood and what on this and back to the Jeep I don't know if I told him this but I know I told every four Chief I run into more African-American police officer back in the day I used to go to all the graduation see y don't know that but I've been there I got pictures to show you every one of them but when the chief says I got my own officers stand in certain area the reason I say that because I I don't know if I told him that is when I was coming up as a boy in Texas the police officer grew with the neighborhood he knew your grandmother he knew your mom your aunt everybody and that if it was a problem to be solved not being a snitcher would whatever they were doing they would get more more because they trust him like here an example if Little Billy is a little or whatever a little misunderstanding that police that's coming on he doesn't know that he L to

kill it but if the police officer grow the neighborhood he No Love Billy maybe act or whatever just put him in the police car and take him off cuz he knows his parents and like I said when last night when he said that I said dang I was thinking I I don't know if I told him about that but I did I missed it but most all the chief that was here I always tell let your officer grow with the neighborhood because he's going to know the kids you know he's going to new their family and I appreciate that sheat but you said 6 months but I to be honest with you I was just keeping her in De you know let them grow that neighborhood because it's important most of the probably the killing that we have by officers is that they don't know the person they don't know that he has a problem sometime you can't get through 911 say hey that's mik he didn't take his medicine maybe that office didn't hear that call you know you know I sit on about seven boards in this town I was looking at one of my I said on the senior citizen and Veterans I have a lot of people up my mind brother well over eight years I guess Mr Jones do a lot in this neighborhood just to make it better we're doing good here um I come sometime I've been late but I appreciate this look at us mixed

mixed up that's what we want you know from all nationality different things different C that's what we need it's beautiful and you know you got Michael Born I guess train police officer how to you know approach because I got pulled over by by police and the light was out and I kind of got H attitude and Poli he off told me he says What attitude and I looked at him I said I apologize I didn't know the tail light was out this this this is the white car and I didn't know that it it was out but look at the train maybe it went through the training he reversed it on me what attitude and then I thought about he you know what I had to apologize to him you know what I'm sorry man I'm looking at something I but let me say this to the we need to get involved you know I have happiness of you know looking at all these people here that's good but look they right [Music] downtown is that the third wednes yes sir Sebastian I don't mean to call you Shir 5 minutes it's up minutes yeah if you don't mind just W for can I get just 10 let me just Bor listen this I'm getting older I'm 63 now getting older listen get involved in your neighborhood

in your city we always point a finger but we really don't know what happened but I say this here you know I always say boots on the ground slash that been my boots on the ground but y'all guys are here next month in God's will go down and cuz I know he get tired of living down Ain nobody out there go down and let's find out maybe you can play a part so keep up the good work you guys doing an excellent job and CH I'm not kidding I've been through four you're you're talking my best and I'm being honest because you're there you know last night the sh even come on his problem would but any a way I don't know but I'm just talking but guess who was here this cheat my police and I admire that thank you thank you okay and just as a reminder um Sebastian did get that five minutes but for everyone else it is a thre minute uh public comment so you'll hear a buzzer go off and your thank you appreciate Fus Westside um I as a former hood kid myself um I grew up in this neighborhood a lot of my friends were part of the gangs they were you know we were roaming the streets um often times I mean uh I would be the good conscience for the group but um it wasn't you know those things those situations didn't always end up uh in positive ways um and so one of the things that I want to stress is that Ruben is right uh we need time in these neighborhoods um you know now was a community organizer and someone who works for a nonprofit in town um who's who are who were now piloting youth

programs um you know time in these neighborhoods are are the most key things to solving a lot of issues with youth um one of our city strengths is National Night Out I think that we need to make these programs more robust spread these out throughout the summertime throughout the year so that we could engage with youth create Community um Mr Bradon you have neighbor Modesto neighborhoods in correct um which are looking at creating these community events all throughout Modesto um and I think some of those some of those Solutions we already have we just need to adapt them to different communities like Southside this has a Salvation Army but are in need of more resources need of more events um we have you know here the madx use center it's under renovation right now we need a place to to bring kids um madx you s save me you know it was because I was able to meet the Marvin jobos of Modesto the Ruben Vos of Modesto the Mia of Modesto that I was able to find my way to fulfill a passion to help people and I think we just need to be spending more time and really seeing how we can fulfill the lives of the you thank you thank you so much good evening my name is Gina varis and um I just like to say late I would like to say I would just like to say you know I grew up on the side of town and um at the time it's been you know a few years we had a lot to do the park saved me because we had the swimming pools we had the activities in the park I mean and you know although it was pretty much in the summer but still we had things to do we had skating rine we had different

things to do but that's so you guys they've taken all that away for you so what do you leave them you leave them to negativity it says the devil idle mind is the devil's workshop so if you leave nothing for them to do they're going to just pick up off of each other feed off of each other and that's what's been happening you know the other day I was at down at a store on this side of town two young men it was in the middle of the day I was like you should be at school old woman said I got kicked out I said okay uh I get your name and your number so I can get you in you know help somebody get you in there they gave me the well they gave me the Instagram they didn't give me the number and didn't give me their full names but I reached out to the to the school to let them know hey these two young men they should be in school you know and so the President John Irving told me I need their names I need their full name that you know to get them but I'm looking at it as there's nothing for them to do even in the school make it interesting I when I was in high school you know I was busy at different times but they made it where I can do um things to graduate early so I got busy I I got busy doing the school year in the summer I mean they're idle and we're not helping parents are not parents are busy a lot of them and there are a lot that's just not doing anything with their kids it used to be a time when grandparents was there to you know tell them stories about how they grew up and the things that they got into so they love we don't have that anymore we have us and it's going to take us as a village to help our children our children are suffering on the I live on the North side over at Prescott High School a friend of mine me and my friend we helped out at the groc I mean at the store they get out of the store they were stealing alcohol police didn't they were like

police not doing nothing so we went in me and our friend we stood at that door but after Comm you know we were talking with the kids they got used to us and it was like okay so we said well hey let's do a girls group a lot of the girls and they was like we're excited we need to get involved we need to get these kids busy get them out of these cell phones off of this you know online all the time there's more than that so I just want to say you know hey even like the police okay I'm okay thank you so into the community even more not in your uniform sometime you got to come in plain [Music] clothes hello everybody um I do definitely agree with um what most are saying here and I feel like uh it's important to kind of re what the judge has mentioned is that having those robust programs uh and also other same kind of like preventive tactics because I feel like for a while and why we are talking to this about the issue of reducing rest is because I feel like the city and folks feel like we have a dependency on the police to kind of solve this issue and the issue is is that and it's been known for a long time the the main causes for for crime and it's been known since the 60s in the current commission it's poverty and social dysfunction the police do not have the tools to fix those poverty issues okay it's just the policeing and so a lot of the folks here are right it's about funding and investing uh in these communties um it is about showing the kids that we care by funding them by providing all the supports thatu we can

um providing a safe productive environment because what I want to ask the board here is that if we fund an invest communities and do you have a stable home because we're able to fund and and and and provide that for them a safe environment Equitable opportunities a supportive and healthy network uh an opportunity for for for self-sufficiency How likely are they to join games or engage in activity that leads to arrest and I think that's what we need to focus on um and not only that though but I feel like we need to reach out to those both it's not so much of hey let's solve this for them cuz let's look at the audience here how many of them are the youth that we're trying to support why aren't we reaching out to those youth why are we bringing them into the conversation because they should also have a say we can't figure it out but why can't we bring them in and I feel like that's what we need to focus on um and so what I want to ask the board here too is that how can we maybe find ways to pressure or push the city council or the city or the county for more funding for robust programs I know we're at fear of losing a lot of funding uh due to the political climate but I don't think that should uh keep us from trying to push that you know but as the committee police review board I think that is a part of revie uh the police and stuff like that is ways to do more preventive measures so the police it's there's no dependency on them for this they can focus on much more High case stuff okay while we can support the community and we don't need the police to play games with kids or anything like that but I feel like that should be a responsibility of the social workers Outreach workers community members folks folks may be formally in those situations that can support and Mentor

the youth but those are the questions that I have and maybe yall can continue that conversation thank you thank you so much [Music] hello um point you heard a lot of folks make funding and programs and first I want to say awesome work and you know I know Austin especially but I'm sure others you know pushing the idea to have a meeting here I think you look at the crowd compared you know I go to a lot of the regular meetings over at City Hall and this crowd is is much much bigger so good call on the idea and following through and I know behind everything like this there City staff that did a bunch of work so I thank everybody that helped make that happen um about funding um I think there there's something I'm going to go like way back and bring something up that just needs to be said when we talk about any equality and funding historically not just our area but especially our area because of Agriculture and the industries that we have for a long time 100 years or more we lived in a pretty segregated Society with first and second class citizens and I think we all know who those first and second class citizens are when you get a head start in owning land and having the know how to start businesses to work the land you're going to have a wealth inequality that's you know G to put people at a far disadvantage so I just want to you know we're here and I know specifically going back to for together we talk about why the Latino youth rate um you know was so high so I'm kind of specifically talking about you know the Latino population of this area and that historical inequality and I I you know

I'm a big proponent of people have responsibility over themselves but I think it's just something as a community that we need to talk about or else we're not going to get past these problems so we have this whole history of a A Century of wealth inequality we have folks that saw their Farm worker parents you know working 12 16 hour days coming home dirty getting you know half a night sleep and getting up crack a Dawn and getting back out and working and when you see that generationally when you have you know maybe it's an uncle a cousin to somebody in the community a family friend who might be involved in drugs or gangs and you see the money that comes in when you're watching somebody else who works day in and day out with barely enough money to pay the rent those shortcuts can be very very tempting uh and you know I've seen it in my family I have very strict parents so I don't know if I would have been called it at at risk because I was afraid of what my dad would do to me but I had cousins I had cousins in rival gangs and we had you know violence at at family events things like that that I saw so I I know you know how that that Cycle Works and I know that we talked about a lot of people were talking about even the you know robust programs I Was Here In This Very building we what we were looking over there um and you know I was very surprised to hear uh it was um supervisor wiro say something about that government can't solve these problems with and opportunities and then the very next person it was a city council person was talking about measure Al and the money that came in and the specific problems they solved with that funding and I was like so I think there is an ideology that like we can't just throw money at things and we can't just solve

everything with a program and maybe there's a little bit of Truth to that but I know programs that helped me summer school programs that I went through in high school that got me into college um when I was younger there was Little League you had to pay for it and there was the kids knew which kids had parents that paid for them to be a little league and which parents didn't have the money to put their kids in the L leag uh when I was in that summer school program a college prep program for low income firsttime uh college students it lost its funding two years after I was in it I actually worked as a mentor for the summer for the high school kids and then the funding got cut and I know kids in the town that I was living in that didn't get a chance to have that opportunity that probably didn't go to college for that very reason because they didn't know how to fill out paperwork they didn't know how to apply all these things that that program taught me and so yes it is going to take money we're going to be spending it maybe on the police department on the back end let's put that investment into the front end there's lots of programs in lots of cities like ours that we could learn from some of them were named advanced ke I know I participated in theal collaboration Court in sane County where it was a lot like we were hearing the judge talk about actually keeping people out of jail because once you're in jail or juvenile hall you just start getting a part of that culture and it showed you put someone in jail for 3 days or more they just start getting into used to that lifestyle and so the point was to actually keep them out but you had to place them in some kind of program I know I went over my time but thank you is there anyone else in the

public thank you all I'm really glad that we're having this uh cprb meeting here at the king KY Center in particular I know it took a lot of work to get this going so just huge thanks to all in attendance today uh equ what a lot of members of the public have said already I think social program funding is really at the heart of what this community needs I want this to be a place where when people grow up they can say they're proud to come from Modesto and they can point to all the specific things that they love about this city I think that starts with funding things especially for our youth uh I have the privilege of being a public school teacher so I get to interact with our youth a lot uh one of the classes I teach is economics so specifically we talk about how how our Police Department as well as our uh County Sheriff's Office mentioned that they are currently understaffed and I don't want ineffective policing on the basis of lack of Staffing but I'd rather see the solution be done rather than increasing supply of policing and reducing the demand by funding those social programs and that way we can uh operate at a uh level that is seen as appropriate by those involved often have the most intimite knowledge um I think by reducing the demand for policing we can create a better vesto for all folks involved uh and in particular I think here at the king Kennedy Center it's important to keep in mind where some of those programs would be best served Southwest Modesto needs a lot of love I went to Modesto High go Panthers uh but I teach at gregori high school very different populations very different needs I'd love to see more support here on westo in particular and I'd love to see Creative Solutions as to how we can get some youth voices in here we have some youth in the room tonight but maybe that's things like hey trying to reinvigorate he maybe cprb needs a youth rep I'm talking under 18 youth rep on that board with y'all there as a audience voice maybe that means hosting at a local middle school or high school I know it was a big ass to get this going but I hope that we can continue pursuing Creative Solutions because we

sure need it there's a lot of love in Modesto oh it's going to be a lot of work to solve these problems but I know we can do it together thank you thank you so much now is there anyone else in the public that would like to come up and make a public comment [Music] okay seeing none is there anyone on the board that would like to make any further comments okay seeing none we're going to be moving on to Item B a presentation from staff um imigration and police and by Chief bran well good evening board and members of the public Brandon gesp your police chief and before I start I I think I won't take three minutes but I want to uh to give give my gratitude uh to judge Bill Lobos I think I think everybody can tell by uh his presentation tonight the passion he has for our city uh being somebody who grew up here locally and knows our community uh we are just more than fortunate to have him as a judge in our community and so uh thank you judge um the other thing I just wanted to mention is kind of I felt like this is almost continuation of of last night's conversation uh that that really I get excited about because we talk about uh what kept coming to my mind as I was sitting here listening to everybody uh is there's a lot of eagerness for Solutions uh and and many some of the programs uh were mentioned tonight and I just started kind of jotting some down but I think one of the things that we need to consider and I we always often hear this even a critique of our own city services is that we do lot but not a lot of people know about it and so when I look at the boys and girls CL Club when you looked at um John Iran last night that talked about project

uplift uh you mentioned tonight was also Legacy Alliance but sah Vista I saw Perfecto I don't know if Perfecto's in here but he was here uh outside when I came in but the West uh uh West Medesto Community collaborative provides mentoring services and things like that so there's a lot of activity going on in Modesto and a lot of things because one one thing that I think we all know and and was really uh uh apparent tonight is it's not going to be a one one siiz spits all solution some people will be attracted to sports some people will be attracted to a roller a roller ring some people will be attracted and find safety in computers or uh or or you know academics or whatever it may be um and what really came came kept coming back to me and I wanted to make sure that I reiterate tonight is it's going to take all of us it's not going to be a city problem 100% the city and the medical Police Department are partners and and need to step up and we need to be part of the solution the county the state the feds um but our private sector as well this is a public private partnership and we have a lot of generous people when you look at the Sant Community Foundation when you look at a lot of different things there's a lot of opportunities it's really kind of harnessing all of those resources together uh in my opinion uh to really make make people aware and connect our youth with some of these programs and and build on and expand some of the the things that we heard last night and tonight uh I know that Mano can be a model uh for breaking uh the cycle of of disparity and and uh and opportunities uh for our youth especially and so uh Wendy and has been a huge proponent of this and we've been talking about this for a while and I hope that these continued conversations moves us closer to making some of these things a reality but um but I think uh what I was really impressed about tonight uh in the conversations that were here was really focused on Solutions it's it's often

easy for all of us myself included uh to point out the problems and that's often times what we what we see in our media is just pointing out problems let's all commit to be part of the solution let's not be afraid to fail we can't be afraid to be embarrassed because we tried something that didn't work it didn't work we'll try something else um but I really uh I really apprec appreciate the conversation tonight so that was my diet tribe I think I stayed under uh three minutes um and then I just wanted to really provide some information tonight quick and then uh obviously answer any questions about immigration immigration has been a Hot Topic obviously since uh a new Administration came uh into power and I want to be very clear we posted uh on our social media I met with a group of mostly Spanish speaking residents uh a few weeks ago with my assistant chief Ian Valencia um and I'm happy to continue the conversation here tonight because I want to be very clear uh on what uh what where where our interaction and what our roles are with with IM when it comes to immigration uh s sp54 cille 54 uh is very clear on law enforcement agencies in California on our interactions with immigration officials and to kind of uh simplify it as best I can uh is unequivocally we do not engage in general immigration enforcement uh and what that means is uh immigration enforcement because of some someone's status uh is not uh something that the Modesto Police Department or any uh agency in uh California uh will be involved in uh where the law allows us to interact uh and cooperate with Federal uh immigration offical officials when it has to do with somebody who has a Judicial warrant uh for some type of serious or violent crime or is wanted on some type of serious or violent crime in those in those instances when there's a safety issue to our community because of the typ of crime uh those are instances

where we will cooperate with uh uh IM Federal immigration officials uh and really the way I like to explain that is um I don't care about somebody's immigration status if somebody is a danger or community and wanted on serious or violent crime uh I my duty is to protect our community and make sure that those people are apprehended so that's regardless of immigration status but those are kind of the guidelines of when we're allowed to uh uh cooperate with immigration officials uh uh per sp54 we are not allowed to even ask uh uh somebody's immigration status uh when we come into contact uh with somebody uh and and cannot take any type of action even if we become aware of someone's uh immigration status um just for a violation of of a immigration status and so um our our success in keeping our community safe is dependent on our community we don't work in a vacuum uh my belief in the way that we police our city is a community policing model uh the input uh from our community on how they want to be policed uh how we want to be kept safe and everybody wants to be kept safe we've talked about and I truly believe when we talk about our youth a lot of where things go wrong is because people find safety in different places and sometimes that's negative influences but we want to be uh everybody wants to be safe and so um uh we rely on our community for that and so and being involved in General immigration where somebody is fearful to talk to us because of their immigration status is not something that we're going to be involved in and so I want to make that that very clear uh we need our all of our communi help whether someone's documented or not uh to help solve crimes and keep our community safe so um it's kind of a quick overview um but I hopefully that that differentiates between what we do and what we don't do and when we will cooperate with Federal immigration officials and when we won't um but uh local law enforcement on this

County and I've talked to the sheriff and I've talked to all of our police Chiefs in the county uh all agree uh on what I'm talking about tonight that we we do not uh uh we do not engage in in general immigration enforcement so with that I'm happy to answer any questions from the board or or the public thank you Chief is there any questions from the board I have okay chief um you mentioned um s sp64 and it's um s sp64 is that what you said 54 54 I'm sorry uh and you said that uh you know prevents you from um enforcing Federal immigration laws other than it involves a VI criminal whatever um in in your experience since this new Administration Federal Administration has taken office have you seen the federal authorities in the community more prevalent than it was prior um we don't we don't we don't uh uh uh really engage with uh Federal immigration uh in in the in the history of my career uh we'll deal with Homeland Security as Homeland Security which is under ice has agents that are involved in like narcotics trafficking and gangs and things like that so we've had uh HSI um agents that have been on different task force or or come into the city to work narcotics again not General uh immigration enforcement so those are the interactions that we've mostly had with um immigration enforcement um it's been very rare um I have seen over the last few months uh or I'd say even the last month uh I have been made aware of a few times that uh immigration officials have been in in the City of Modesto uh and so uh I can tell you on both the occasions that I'm thinking of we have not assisted them in any way uh we were

notified that they were here uh and uh uh we did not assist them thanks Chief what's the latest uh ruling on being able to go into hospitals schools and um and churches again I'm speaking speak out a little bit out of my term because again I'm not a federal law enforcement agent agent uh but I can tell you from a local perspective again we wouldn't be we wouldn't be going to any of these places for any type of immigration because because we don't do immigration enforcement um but I think from what i' what I understand there's been a some type of uh at least at least from what I read uh there's some um lifting of allowing federal agents to go into those locations I'm not aware of anywhere in san county or anywhere that where that's happening uh I was just contacted by a community uh stakeholder the other day because there was a rumor that uh there was actually going to be immigration check uh checkpoint going on somewhere in County uh and I do not believe that occurred and that is not something that I have been aware of or um or something that that uh but from what I understand is even a tactic that immigration officials are using do we have any other questions from the [Music] board okay seeing none I will be opening this up to the public so if there are any public comments on this agenda topic please step forward my question is um you said there's going to be uh checkpoints um is there any way that you all as police officers and Santa CL County can you prevent

that and I apologize if I I misspoke so that was a rumor uh that a Community member had actually called and talked to me and was relaying a rumor that their immigration officials were going to set up a checkpoint I do not believe that actually occurred and that is not something that I heard uh have heard that ice or immigration is going is doing so that's kind of the first thing I just want to make clarify in case anybody misunderstood that that did not happen as far as I'm aware I don't think that's anything I've been hearing that's going to go on um but to your second part of the question is no federal law enforcement has uh their own uh jurisdiction and their own uh you know sets of of authority we have I have zero control over what federal law enforcement or federal immigration does in in in our own Community um my family I'm I'm married to a Hispanic family I mean a husband and um and they're scared they're they have their papers and they but they're they're hearing you know rumors that they pick it up anybody you know like the interpret ation when um Trump president Trump said that um you know criminals so we interpret it as if you hear illegal you criminal right you're breaking the law so but they're my family have their pies my husband but they're still scared because they're thinking they're going to pick up you know random people and take them back to Mexico and it's not so you know it's not easy to get back from that so how do we ease the fear or you know from that because my the whole family is here yeah and I wish I had a good answer for that what I want people to understand is at Le at least at a local law enforcement um level um I do not want our community whether they're

documented or not to feel afraid to interact with us whether it be on a traffic stop whether it be because they're reporting a crime um we we want uh cooperation we don't want somebody to fearful um to report a crime for fear that they we would find out they were undocumented and something would happen to them I want I want to ease the fear at least that fear uh that we will not uh contact uh immigration officials we will not um uh take any action detrimental to a community member who's undocumented because they reported a crime or because they were on a traffic stop and they found that they were undocumented that does not happen at the local local level as far as Federal immigration goes I understand understand the the fear uh that that I've I've talked to many community members and have expressed the exact same fear that you just mentioned uh and and and again I feel for those community members and that's why I think it's important for us to very clearly clarify what our role is so that uh hopefully uh those in our community aren't feel fearful of our local law enforcement I sorry I just wanted to take a moment to say it is a school night I got a kid with math homework I was hoping to stick around but I have to I have to get on home so I thank you for the invitation welcome to come back to explore this uh this conversation another day thank you everybody thank you so much hello everyone my name is Jasmine um and I have a few questions one's a little more legal but I'll start with the one that kind of branches off of the speaker before me um so as um police officers I know um protecting and serving your community um is something

that I like to refer to when looking at police actions and um I really appreciate that it's clear the perspective of community members is all community members regardless of um immigration status um because we're really all here together um and um I guess my question kind of is um maybe also clarifying what the person said before me um if obviously there's a lot of limitations between the interactions between um immigration and police officers but I think there is still more and to protect and serve these community members some that are undocumented um I think that we can do more um as a community and as police officers um if you are going to become aware of something um like a checkpoint or like a raid is that something you're willing to share with the community or that if you're able to um or is there a way that you can um spread more information amongst all of this disinformation um that's very harmful to the community I know a lot of people that have a hard time still participating in the community because they are so fearful um and remembering the last time there was um mass deportations in our history a lot of um citizens were deported um and so it's a very valid fear and there's generational and personal trauma that people have um and so it's not something that we can really dismiss and it'd be nice to know that um the police were here to protect and serve us as community members um also um we have these red cards called know your right cards that are going around our Community um and I wanted to know um from a legal standpoint what uh some perspectives might be on these cards if

they're aware um people have been instructed to hand these to immigration um or even police officers if they're confronted with them um so it says um don't open the door if an immigration agent is knocking on the door do not answer any questions from an immigration agent if they try to talk to you you have the right to remain remain silent do not say anything without first speaking to a lawyer you have the right to speak with a lawyer if you are outside of your home ask the agent if you are free to leave and if they say yes leave calmly give this card to the agent if you are inside your home show the card through the window or slide it under the door and then this is what um those are kind of the instructions for the person and this is what it says um I do not wish to speak with you answer your questions or sign or hand you any documents based on my Fifth Amendment right um and it talk about the Fourth Amendment right um to not have search and seizure um and um yeah if there's um any agents that might be acting outside of the law are the police able to support us as community members thank you I will try to remember all of those questions so if I forget one Just sh out um I think the first one uh that comes to mind trying to take it in order uh is is if we will notify the community of any uh federal law enforcement actions uh ahead of time uh and the answer is no um federal law enforcement or immigration official specifically that's we're talking about um again uh have their own operations we may be notified at some level of what they're doing that typically are not involved in the specifics of what it is unless they request specific help if they requested specific help it would run very high up the chain our chain of command where we would have to know exactly every detail of who they're looking for and things

like that before we would ever get involved so generally uh if they were to just say they were in an area uh they don't need our assistance I don't know what they're uh looking for uh and we're not going to interfere in any type of other law enforcement agencies investigation and so um so the question I think is we're going we become aware of some type of immigration action in the city ofest ahead of time where we put out something to notify people of that the answer would be no um the uh second part which I I'm going to skip to the end I know there's a few questions down in the middle so you have to have to remind me of those um you know I'm not in a position where where I'm prepared to give any legal advice on the card that you talked about um but I I would say that I think people should seek legal advice uh on what their what their rights are uh people do have the right to remain silent in our country and uh do not have to talk to the police department whether or or any law enforcement officials whether you're documented or not um but when it comes down to kind of nuances of things like if a police officer pulls somebody over again this is General I I don't I'm not differentiating here between somebody who's documented or not documented um if we're going to give you a ticket you're required to sign uh the ticket if you refuse to sign the ticket then the law that I take you before a magistrate which means I take you to jail and so having someone say Do not sign any documents um I guess that's a decision that person has to make because typically what we do is we get some of citation that appear in court later and they leave um so that's where you have to be very careful about what advice you're giving people because a lot of it is very situation dependent I've seen some cards before I don't think it's on that specific one necessarily that talked about um if someone comes to your door a warrant uh don't let them in or

make them slide underneath the the door type of thing um you know there's there's legal standards on what law enforcement officers have to do before they can force a door open and one of those requirements isn't that they have to provide a copy of the warrant uh depending on the safety of the officers and things like that they have the legal Authority uh to come in and and secure a scene before they provide uh the warrant so what I would say to some of that is before you just take a card on face value from anybody uh and and use that as legal advice I would talk to somebody in a legal profession to make sure that that uh that everything that's on there is accurate if that Mak sense um but as far as in general uh you know people are not required to talk to the police they have to make that decision whether their benefit or not because as we do when we read people the rights anything they they say can will be used against in the court uh potentially right so uh I know you had a couple other questions in there do you mind saying those yeah so if like you said there's still constitutional rights everyone has um and if immigration is acting outside of those laws who can we call are the police able to regulate them at all like if they break the law are they in inspector so uh so at every level of of the of the government whether it's local municiple we have a complaint process obviously people goes through if they're not happy with that there's civil action that people can take lawsuits and things like that and that's that same at the federal level they have a complaint process an investigative process they can go through as well and then obviously there's you know people file lawsuits and in both state and federal CT as well so there are accountability measures that people can take for even federal law enforcement should they believe that they're acting out out of uh out of the scope of the law I'm sorry was there any more I want to answer all your questions okay thank

you um I'm going to ask question you um I think they want you to come I think they want you to come up if you have a a public comment please just I just want understand so in case whatever you take to any undent people um for a little minor but not harm no you know like just something like that so do they have to sign if you take it for example if you take someone for 3 days for example to jail but they didn't do something har or like that you know um you make them sign and take them um I'm not sure I completely understand the question but if I understand what you're saying if we get somebody on a minor uh a minor violation and they go to jail uh it is not dependent on local law enforcement our police department at all once we once we take that person to jail and they're in the custody of the sheriff's office um that wouldn't be incumbent upon them and their guidelines for notifying ice depending on the crime uh to uh to have ice come pick them up so um that's probably something more appropriate for the sheriff's office because we don't have a custody facility um and we don't transfer people from any type of custodial uh jail situation to immigration officials so so they real you know you we we just enforce local uh state law and Municipal codes of the city ofo and if we were to book somebody in jail it would be booked book them on jail now we would not place any type of immigration uh detainer because we found they undocumented or something like that on themine for any type of modation you

know how you like ofation or something like that like um drinking dring you know so that's I I think as far as whether whether uh a dii or whether any type of specific crime would um would precipitate immigration officials to come pick somebody up from jail is a question for for them I I couldn't answer that question thank you ch thank you are there any other public comments related to this agenda item please step forward and you will have 3 minutes to make your public thank you um when going over use of for statistics previously uh I believe Chief stated I don't want to put words in your mouth here uh but that use of force came about often times uh from flight which comes about from Fear uh so fear leads to flight and flight leads to use of force potentially even abuse of force I guess my question and maybe this would be a follow-up presentation maybe be something the chief answers tonight it's not my perview uh but I'd want to know what is NPD doing to build trust with our migrant Community because right now I feel that trust is lacking uh and there's certainly a lot of room for uh Improvement there because we've got a lot of folks that are really afraid to interact with the police especially because of immigration status they don't know the law that the chief has hopefully pointed out tonight um but I think out of fear of cooperation between MPD and federal immigration authorities that doesn't really happen uh people are really uh scared in their own communities and it shouldn't have to be so my question is what is MP doing to build trust with our micr community members thank you thank

you sure thank you for the question so really what we're doing is uh participating in any community events that were invited to like I talked about uh previously we just met in South Modesto a couple weeks ago with uh mostly Spanish speaking uh group of of residents uh who had the same fear of what was going to happen to them and their families um we have posted on social media knowing that not everybody accesses our Facebook account or things like that uh meetings like this we were talking about uh we were actually going to put this immigration topic later in the year but because of the time of it we felt it was important to have it uh tonight why we why we kind of fit it in with jeos um so those are the things that we're doing uh part of project resolve uh which is a a Community member and law enforcement group that meets quarterly just met recently uh and had a very similar conversation and and so what we're trying to do uh even forums like this is to reach people in the community that are that are stakeholders or representatives of other groups that can help spread our message we know that we goes back to we can't do this alone um we can get the message out there understanding that people are going to be still fearful and I know many of you represent uh stakeholder groups and so I asked uh for your help and making sure that you spread what we're talking about tonight and the role of of local law enforcement s sp54 in California to make sure uh that we can do our best to make sure that our migrant community and undocumented Community is not fearful of local law enforcement as much as we can so those are the things that we're doing always uh open to suggestions or other community meetings that people would uh invite us to where we can spread that message as well thank you hello again um two things one to try

to add a little clarification to the red cards um and I'm not a lawyer just claimer I have a law degree but I'm not a lawyer and if you want to know the difference is a little thing called the bar exam but the the thing about not signing something cuz that's a very good point about not signing a ticket that might get you into worse trouble but the not signing thing I know is specifically if an ice agent is asking you to sign something so that's it's it's a pretty uh important difference you might want to mention to people I haven't actually looked at those red cards in in a while so I forget like exactly what they say but um yeah the best advice is to not talk about your immigration status to anyone except your attorney that you're talking to and the thing about not signing because you can sign away certain rights if you are undocumented um and so that's why I know that's on there um it's it's specifically if an ice agent I don't think there would be any situation where an officer would have would try to get somebody to sign one of those papers it's like that you don't have the right to an attorney I'm not exactly sure what it is but if an immigration officer asks you to sign something you could be signing away a right like that um that was the first thing number two um uh I know that the ACLU of Northern California actually years ago maybe under the first Trump Administration um did a report about um after the truth Act pass to see if law enforcement was still working with ice in one way or another even even like maybe they not even knowing that they weren't supposed to do something maybe the law is just unclear and there's gray areas and I do know that our Sheriff Department was

specifically mentioned in that report it was a gray area where I basically called and you know they're not supposed to say hey can you hold Joe for us until we get there to pick him up we know he's getting out of jail they're not supposed to coordinate that far to say okay yeah we're going to keep them longer than we would have because we're waiting for immigration to get here but the the incident and they you know public rest request got emails from the sheriff's department and it did say it's like hey uh what time are you releasing prisoners today how long would it take me to get there from Stockton and the staff from the sheriff's office said oh it takes you know about 45 minutes if it's tra we usually let people go after three so it was I don't think they got in any trouble over that because it is kind of this gray area maybe didn't reach um this um you know threshold of like coordinating with ice but you know I would ask like is it Modesto Police Department policy to you know refer that type of email to a superior to not answer it at all if it's just general information you know is it is there any more clarification we you give on policy thank you oh that's a good a good question Tom and I haven't thought about that but I guess if there was general information about how long it took to get to Modesto or general things like that I don't I don't number one I think most uh well especially in the current environment any emails that we got from Ice requesting information would rise up to a Command Staff level uh uh level and I'd be aware of it and we talk about what our response would be uh that's would be my expectation um but but it

but in general if they asked how long it took to get us general information that wasn't divulging any type of immigration statuses or specific information about people I'd have to think about that more but again I don't want to the intent of uh the intent of sd54 is to make sure that we understand that all of our community members are important uh and that we want to make sure that people are safe uh to help keep our community safe to report crimes and so I I wouldn't want to do anything that I thought would undermine uh that credibility as best as best I could if that makes sense thank you are there any other public comments have one okay so as I was taking kind of first questions I had and I think it may have been answered I just want to make sure there's clarification on it because I was going to ask are there areas here that serve as as sanctuary s and I think um TIY has mentioned that there may be now I is able to kind of lift the safety of those uh same sites and I wanted to ask is that like clear is that that that's what they can do are they actually able to enter Sanctuary sites um and if that's the case uh is the local police able to enforce Sanctuary sites to continue to be safe spaces um that's kind of I just wanted to ask that clarifying question to because I think that should definitely be a thing that the public should be aware of you know because we do have folks not going to work out of fear we have a lot of kids accident in school right now a significant amount due to

that fear so if we can kind of get clarification on that that would be great thank you so again and I some a little bit I feel like Ruben a little bit he did much better job of uh of punting as he called it different question so uh I I will put a disclaimer that I am not an expert on on federal law because that is not what we deal with uh I I kind of get my information from multiple sources like you guys do uh and from what I understand but don't quote me on this is that uh that uh the current Administration has has allowed immigration officials uh latitude to go into some of those otherwise places they didn't used to go so take that for what it's worth but do your own research to verify whether that's accurate or not um but secondly I think the the the question is we do not have any control or authority over federal law enforcement so if they were to go into any of the places you mentioned uh we would not have uh jurisdiction or authority to stop them from carrying out whatever law federal law enforcement duties that they that they were doing I hope that answers your question thank you thank you okay do we have any other questions from the public or comments okay seeing none is there anyone on the board that would like to make a comment on this agenda topic item seeing none we will be moving forward um onto staff comments and reports we have a quick report from the Independent police audit update from Steven good evening ch CH sorio and members of the

board I heard you say a quick update so I'm I'm going to take my cues from from the chair here uh but I hope you will indulge me for a minute I I want to just tell you a couple things that that you already know uh in light of the fact that we're in a different venue tonight and and um pleased to be here like the chief and Lieutenant CER and and some of the members of the board this is actually my second consecutive night at this facility uh thanks to the event that was hosted by the NAACP and thank you board member bird for putting that together and for inviting me to be a part of it I just want to speak very briefly about what the role is of the independent police Auditor in the aftermath of the forward together process that that all of you folks are very familiar with uh oversight new levels of oversight and engagement with the police department was a big initiative of of a big recommendation of that group um big outcome from that process and there were two prongs that the city uh ended up choosing one of them of course is your board which has the the resident level engagement and and your public meetings and uh efforts at at learning and serving as a liaison and making recommendations based on your experience as as residents here is is a obviously a key part of of that initiative the other piece of it was to add an outside monitoring or auditing of internal police processes for the first time and that is where I come in I work with an outfit called oir group and we are not law enforcement we don't we work on behalf of the city but we're actually independent of the city and we do this kind of work in a number of different jurisdictions and basically through our relationship with the city and the contract that we have um we have access to otherwise

confidential um internal Department materials investigation files or records in areas of of important public concern including uh the citizen complaint process the internal affairs process for investigations of Officer Mis conduct use of force review process critical incident review process there are a lot of protections and confidentiality rules that restrict access to those materials but through the the again recommendations of the of the forward together group and the will of the city council and I'm happy to say the cooperation with the police department I have had about a year and a half of of working with the city and and providing oversight of the the police department in terms of evaluating uh some of those processes and trying to make sure that they have legitimacy and credibility and and Effectiveness based on the experience of of myself and my colleagues so very happy to be here tonight it was a a lot lot of positive energy in the room and and the concerns that were raised and addressed and and um I think tonight has been a very good follow up to that that's all very valuable information for me to have as as a non-resident of Modesto but somebody who is certainly very interested in in the the city the operations of the city and I think police community relations is a is a key component of that and certainly a lens through which I try to um make my work as effective as possible so here's the quick part I I again along with my my opportunity to be here last night I just wanted to let you know that that the the annual audit process is is well underway I actually sat with Lieutenant CER for a couple hours to go over a number of questions that have come up in my initial review of of the the case materials that the department has provided for me and I am still on track

to to issue a public report and and present that to your board in April this year so I will look forward to seeing you again in person at that time and thank you very much and of course if anybody has any questions I'm happy to answer that uh Stephen I think at our last meeting um we had a brief discussion about um the use of for statistics and how to best analyze those and um if memory serves um you said one of the agencies that your firm contracts with was pal Alto and that they had hired an outside agency to evaluate their statistical data and offer them opinions about what it meant and what they might uh what strategies they might employ uh relative to that information have you had an opportunity to do that and if so what was the outcome of that so thank you for the question and and to be more specific it it was actually Rippa data the the racial identity and profiling act data that that uh police agencies are responsible for providing to the state paloalto is one of the cities that we work with and as as you mentioned they uh well over a year ago based on the initial numbers that they had accumulated they actually hired a team of academics from the Midwest to do a qualitative analysis of of the statistics and see what insights they could provide that I am uh able to provide you at least was an update as far as timing uh I will be in palto in April when when uh we we're making our next presentation to the city council there and I think that same night will be when that information is is shared publicly so it will take a while but I promise I haven't forgotten you and I will get back to you with with any insights that come out of that process thank

you is there anyone else on the board that has a comment I Just Want to Thank You Stephen for coming last night my pleasure man thank you okay so I will be opening it up to the public if there's anyone from the public that has a comment on this agenda item please step forward okay seeing none I will be closing the public comments I I have that effect on audience thank you very all right and just bring it right back to the board are there any other what is a comment this heent yeah he's an independent police auditor I'll reopen public comments Sebastian for many years I asked him from police G why don't police officer be drug tested in a situation like what they done to me I thought my I mean I thought the guy was on drug to to beat my window out my reer he was hyped up on something so is there a problem having when there's a situation going on whe they shooting or they're beating the hell out somebody is it a problem is that they can be drug tested do we need to try to cuz when I drove buses for ground I here six months see drug tests sorry I may be on the wrong

subject yes well at least I got it out there thank you all right seeing that there are no further comments from the board we'll been moving on to any board comments and reports so at this time um if there are any updates on policy go number eight review the use of force policy to minimize likelihood of death resulting from the force um nothing to report but however um we did have an amazing event yesterday um I can honestly say there's a good amount of people there I think it was like 60 70 people in the building last night very good turnout and we were able to kind of talk some of these things through as far as like what we can do as a community and what we could look forward to as far as working with the police department and working together so I think when it came to the use of force event last night I think it was really really good and discussion was even better nothing in report from our group thank you Austin uh policy goal number one improve relation between the community and Department she didn't grab a mic so it uh I am very sorry I missed last night's uh session here I was at the Town Hall around the traffic that's more of my day job responsibility so I had to be there but I knew we were well represented so looking forward to hearing some more about that uh we had our first meeting my subcommittee has kind of Taken on um through some of the encouragement from uh board member Austin Grant uh the concept around a know your rights event uh that we are we started meeting we had a good initial concept conversation yesterday not something we're looking to have pulled

together until fall um with a plan to take our time to really vet the process the Insight the information the stakeholders so that we bring a nice well-rounded uh event to our community that's all I have thank you and policy goal number three reduce youth the rest particularly among Latino you judge uh B Loos was our committee's um response he we invited him to present to everybody and so we thank him again for coming and that was our report thank you Wendy and now we'll be moving on to Future agenda items next month is it is it next month that will be okay so next month we will be having our agenda items as Community engagement and activities presentation by Lieutenant Brian clber and then an update on officers at school programs as well by Lieutenant Brian clber and that's it our meeting is adjourned the next meeting okay our next meeting will be March 19th it's the third Wednesday of next month and it will be back at the chambers correct faulty Chambers on 10 Street thank you all for coming and enjoying us tonight