Community Police Review Board - Regular Meeting

All right. Hello everybody. It having reached the hour of 5:30 p.m. I am calling the April 16th, 2025 community police review board meeting to order. Um before proceeding, I would just like to provide the board members some guidance on how to use the technology at the dis to speak. You will need to use the mics which are activated by pushing the talk button or the push button and you'll need to wait for the chair to acknowledge the speaker before proceeding to talk. Will the clerk call the role? Member Beasley Day, member Bryant, member Bird, member Christensen, member Deell here, member Smith, member Han here. Chairman Sorio here. Chairman Sorio, board member Grant is absent this evening. We would like to ask the board to consider his request for an excused absence which meets our criteria for granting of an excused absence. At this time, we ask for a motion from the board to grant him an excused absence. I motion second. All those in favor? I I I All right. Um, okay. Do any of the board members have any conflicts of interest pertaining to items listed on the agenda? Seeing none, as noted on the agenda, public comments will only be in person. Zoom will still be available for viewing and wordly translation. And does anyone wish to speak on any item under public comment?

This is for items not on the agenda and you have three minutes to speak. We have one. Okay. And these are for items not on the agenda. Perfect. Evening. All right. There we go. Um, just wanted to speak on possibly wanting to hear more about the uh shooting that had occurred. uh specifically um Jimmy Lee Rupe uh the Dale Road uh shooting and I know that there was a post like March 18th by MPD. Um, and so we wanted to just kind of bring up like can we kind of see if we can get the auditor to kind of maybe investigate that a little bit more so we can hear more about it because I think it's still under investigation and they're still not sure what led to the shooting. And I know that what we do see though is that it was mentioned um that this person did have multiple felony warrants for loot acts with child and other ones uh related to firearm charges. And that's one thing that was mentioned. Um, but regardless where we stand uh in CVIP is that any type of officer involved shooting we think should be investigated in our community. So, we wanted to reach out to y'all to see if y'all can support and maybe requesting uh more deep diving into that um investigation, asking the auditor to get more involved so that we can kind of really understand what what happened in that situation and whether or not that was really necessary for that shooting to happen. Uh but that's what I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Gillespie. Do you mind kind of responding to that?

Sure. There we go. Uh, good evening. So, we are preparing a community uh video, a community um briefing video like we always do after every invol officer involved shooting uh with multiple officers involved in this one um it takes a little bit more time to put together. So, we will be putting that out um I would say uh in the next few weeks um to make sure that uh we get it out in a timely manner. Um, and then as far as just reminding everybody how the structure goes, our independent auditor does review all officer involved shootings after uh the investigations are complete. So there's a a a criminal investigation and an internal affairs investigation that happens at the police department level. Uh the case is then reviewed by the district attorney's office. But once our our uh investigation is done and complete, the independent auditor will review um that officer involved shooting and provide findings in his next uh annual report. Thank you. Um and I would also just like to add on top of that um as the chair, we are um actually called after the shooting happens with the officer involved shooting. So, I was called um and within about an hour and a half or so, I was able to make it out to the scene of the incident. Um I was kind of guided around by Lieutenant Brian Klyber. Um he's not here right now, but I was there for about an hour and a half or two hours um asking questions, kind of looking at the scene, seeing how much work goes into it, how much um investigation, all that kind of stuff goes into it. Um, unfortunately I can't go into detail about what happened, but you know, I just want to let you know that we do have that responsibility as well on this board to get a phone call after officer involved shooting. We are informed of it. We do get briefed on it. We do have a little bit more details, but we're just not able to share because of the investigation.

Thank you. So, sorry, one more thing, chair. Uh and just uh again just so the public understands the the independent officer's office is involved in our major incident review team meeting that happens um uh you know within a week or two after uh this officer involved shooting. So the independent auditor was present of that. So they are uh kept informed about what's going on and then again want to reiterate they uh do an ultimate review of our investigation um and kind of talk about the legitimacy of that uh in the next annual report. Thank you. Uh I think that there's a lot of faith that's placed into uh knowing that an independent auditor reviews things. One of the things that that I have concerns with is that the timeline before when um a report on that can go out. So the the auditor doesn't uh provide um a report to the community until we get these annual reports and things like that and that could be months away. So is there any way to get a more a quicker response from the auditor? So officer involved shootings as you can imagine are very complex and they often take up to a year to investigate and close out from the police department and their review and just to reiterate their job is not to investigate and uh come to a determination whether it's within policy or law but they overall look at the department and how and and I don't want to speak for the independent auditor he can speak for himself um but to overall look at how well and thoroughly we did our investigation and point out uh things that improvements or or criticisms that they believe that we did within our investigation. So, I would say it's very difficult for them to do that. Number number one, they they aren't able to do that until we complete our investigation, which could take up to a year. So, I think more um

clarification to the community of of what the auditor's actual role and process is would be helpful. The honor, a reminder that this is not uh this item is not on the agenda. So it's not publicly noticed. Um so the uh responses is briefly brief. Okay. Okay. Um so then we will move on. Um so we are going to move on to consent item. Oh we sorry. Um yeah. Hi. Oh my name is Chris Parks. I'm live here in Maststone. Um, in November, um, I'd had a roommate that I had known through my Airbnb for years and, uh, he needed a place to stay. I let him stay. When it got to around $5,000 of him not owing me money, I told him that he had to pay or leave. I He did not pay. He did not leave. I kicked him out. He contacted the police. The police told him, which they actually had told me that yes, they had told him, that he could bust in my door, kick in my windows because he pays rent. I got a phone call from a police officer in a car asking and I told him, "No, I have proof. Everything is through Cash App. That's the only way I accept payment." He I can show you he does not pay rent. He's been milking me and taking my kindness as a weakness. And uh he put me in the hospital, shattered

cracked my chest plate, shattered my ribs. I missed two months I was bedridden. Missed Thanksgiving and Christmas. Couldn't do anything. Uh my memory shot. I enter Stanford next month because I usually can remember everything. I don't have pregnant pauses and it's on a regular basis and I've made complaints to the police department. I've done everything. And the DA didn't even press charges against him. And he's got a restraining order against him for going after his ex-wife's husband or boyfriend. And because of the threats he made against me, that's why I was like, I got to get him out. And the police allowed him to break into my house and beat the out of me for about 20 minutes before calling the police. I'm I'm very sorry to hear that, sir. Um I don't know if there's anyone here that might be this gentleman might be able to talk with and reach out to to help him with the situation. Thank you. Thank you for your comments, sir. And we have one more public comment. Hello. Hello. Um, I wanted to see if we get a status on Joseph Lamatia's arbitration. Um, it's been I believe two years that nothing it's still nothing's happened. Um, if we could get a status on what's going on with the arbitration or if it's going to happen.

Um, also, um, April 24th, we've made Trevor Sver day. Um, we ask everybody in the community if you could do an act of kindness in honor and memory of Trevor. So, I just wanted to ask everybody on this if I could give you a card and ask you to do an act of kindness on April 24th would have been Trevor's 34th birthday. If you could do an act of kindness that day in honor and memory of him, I'd appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. You want me to leave those? Um, leave them with Simmyi if you may. Thank you. We Another public comment. Yes, sir. Good evening everyone. Um, it's sometimes rare. I know I don't always see eye to eye with everyone in this chamber. Uh, but if I have something positive to share, I figure why not. Uh, I'm very pleased with the agenda topics for today. I know we were hammering out the calendar for the upcoming uh, uh, agenda. Uh, one of the things that came up in discussion from that was an update on the uh, officer at school program and we're always uh, uh, lucky when we get to have Stephen here with us in purpose in person. So, just feels like a very responsive agenda. So, on the back end, uh, I appreciate what you all are doing. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other public comments? Okay, I'll be closing out public comments. Okay, on to consent item. Uh, consider approving the minutes from the community police review board meeting on February 19th, 2025.

Do we have a motion? All motion. Second. All in favor? I I All right. On to item four, new business. Update on officers at school program. A presentation from Steph. So, he's coming up here because he probably won't do the best job introducing himself, but this is Detective Shawn Dodge, uh, who's going to be presenting today. He's our school engagement officer, uh, has done a fantastic job for the last few years, uh, working with our youth and our schools, and he'll talk about, uh, what he does and, uh, he's also part uh, has taken lead. And if those of you have been a part of our healthy room project, has taken uh a lead on that and continues to um to work with that initiative to again provide healthy rooms for youth in our our area. So Sean is doing everything youth in our department and couldn't be more happy to have him in this position. He's the perfect person for it. So with that, turn over to you Sean. Well, thank you and good evening. Um you know this is absolute blessing to be honest. I was getting ready to retire. I'd been with the Modesto Police Department at that time 26 years um approaching 28 years at this point and uh you know I joked with uh the chief when this was brought up of I would have done this for free uh because this truly is my passion. I do want to apologize we will be skipping over a lot of the slides uh because I didn't know really how long that I had uh to present.

There's a billion videos and a billion things going on. Um, I was talking to a couple of you about, you know, we really are just throwing things at the wall, seeing what sticks, and I'll tell you, a lot of it sticking. Uh, a lot of it is just engaging with these kids, letting them be heard, and allowing them to be with us. Uh, so, real quick, let's see if I can It's not doing anything. Oh, there we go. Uh, so I started 97. Um, I was a DARE officer about a year, uh, PAL director for about a year and a half, uh, SRO for about a year. Um, my my goal when I started the police department was to go into SVU, uh, special victims unit. I have a passion for working with kids. Uh, and I did that for about 15 years. Uh, at that point, I was about burned out. Uh, but I started engaging with youth prior to that. I had a nonprofit. Uh, some of you may know I used to run in gear, marathons and gear. And uh that was a lack of common sense a lot of the time uh running all over the nation. But I made some great partnerships through this uh that really stretched me uh and encouraged me to do think outside of the box I guess with community engagement. Um the this Calvip grant that came along about three years ago now uh was that opportunity to see if we can make it bigger. Uh this grant entails seven different schools. Uh so we have Mark Twain Junior High School, Robertson Road, Kersian, James Marshall, uh Burbank, Franklin, and Aspire University Charter. Uh but we also partner with different organizations over in West Modesto, Southwest Modesto. Um just because I have seven there doesn't mean I engage with seven. For example, uh on an average week, I was going to 20 schools a week. Um that was through a

program called 10K with a COP and through a uh program it was basically 10 minutes to win it. We'd play football and stuff like that during lunch with the junior highs. Uh so real quick I get involved in safety fairs throughout the city of Modesto junior cadets. It's more for junior high so they understand what law enforcement is. So we sit down instead of me teaching to them. I say hey what do you think about this? and we'll talk about certain things and sometimes we'll do little obstacles like uh this boy here. This is actually elementary. I'll show you this in a sec. Um but uh actually I'll do it right now, but I'll do this with some of the junior highs as well. So, what he'll do is a dummy drag right here. And it's just giving them the opportunity to maybe do something a little bit different as well. I explained to him that this is what we have to do to get through police academy. We have to do a dummy drag. We have to be physically fit and we're put under pressure a lot of times as well. So that they get get a little bit of understanding of where we're coming from. Uh the healthy room project which I'll talk a little bit more about. Um we're leading the nation at this point as far as pouring into these kids and providing a safe environment for these kids to study, sleep, and play. I have departments like Boston Police Department, Los Angeles Police Department, um Dallas Police Department talking and saying, "How are you able to achieve what you are able to achieve?" And it's all about community. It's not

about me just holding it all in and keeping it to myself, but reaching out to people like you and saying, "Hey, I need help. I have a kid sleeping on the floor and can you help me?" We did a project with one business today. We impacted four kids. We redid their entire bedroom. And we'll see some of this stuff here in a sec. Uh, kindergarten cop. I, believe it or not, believe it or not, can still sit crisscross applesauce right in front of you. I can paint finger paint. I can say my ABCs. And that's what I do. I'll sit down with the kids and interact as a kindergarten student. These kids will start kind of helping me with some of the questions and stuff like that. But it's the rule is I'm not a police officer. I'm a student in this classroom. And let's have some fun. Uh, I do it with junior high, too. And I got a D in math. got a D in math. Thank you very much. Um 10 minutes to win it. It's a football, volleyball, basketball program. We have 10 minutes to play a sports. We're running around. I'm referring. And this is all for junior high. Believe it or not, I've seen eighth grade and seventh grade students running out to the field to play. That's amazing. That is absolutely amazing. You know what? I'll hear cussing. I'll hear the bad words and stuff like that. And I tell them, you know what? I'm not the language police, but you're smarter than that. you're a lot smarter than that because you know what? If I start playing language police with these kids, a lot of times they're going to shut down. They don't want to talk to me. Now I'm the enforcer and the bad guy. So, you know what? You're much smarter than that. Let's let's try dealing with this in a better way. Um recess play uh program is 10K with a cop. Again, it's a running program. We just have a very short and very unorganized opportunity to do 10K with a cop at recess. uh saved me a seat working with junior high schools, hanging out, eating lunch with the kids, and doing sports and activities, which is put on by the leadership programs at Mark Twain Junior High School and the uh administration over there. And then I'll take part in uh actually back up there, Sierra Vista, start mentoring some of the kids. I'll

meet with them for an hour uh throughout the week, kind of pour into them, talk about what's going on, and start talking about how do they overcome or become more re resilient in the future. last thing back school nights, carnivals, etc. Uh so 10K with a cop was launched in 2017. I was SVU uh at that time and um you know it was a little bit hard my days off, my weekends, my first mornings and at the end of the night I was or end of the day I was out at schools running circles with the kids. Uh teaching resiliency, talking about, hey, everybody has a superpower. Your superpower is going to be different than mine. You're good at coloring, drawing, you're better at sports than I am. whatever it may be, use that superpower to pour into somebody else in the community. Make your community better, make everybody around you better, pour into your family, and pour a little bit of love with the superpower that you've been blessed with. Uh we combine that with running. So, we'll have that conversation and go forth. Let's run. Let's have fun. Believe it or not, running is fun. But you know what? You learn goal setting there, too. When we start in October, most of these kids can't even complete a mile, but they're setting a goal of doing a 10K by the end of the year. 10K. That's a lot for a third to sixth grade child. But I'll tell you what, we have third to sixth grade children finishing 6.2 miles at the end of the year. And it's a matter of breaking it down month by month. Okay, next month we're doing two miles. Next month we're doing three miles. And we'll meet at different schools throughout the the community so that they can show off their school that they can have a little bit of pride in it. Now, we started in 2017, led up to COVID. We survived through COVID. We continued to go right after CO restrictions were done. Kids came back and we actually originally were doing it at the police academy. We're doing all stuff, but you know what? Let's celebrate Modesto. Let's do something pretty cool. So, every year in March, we do a 5K, a 10K, celebrating these kids and a two-mile community walk free to the public. What I found is the parents are starting to show up. They want to

know, wait, what's this creepy cop doing with these kids? And you know what? They want to be a part of it, too. They're setting goals and running with their their families. They're making signs and supporting their kids. So, this was the very first one, and I'll show you. This was our very first one. Um the numbers weren't what they were this year. This year, we're over a thousand uh runners out there. More than half of them were kids under 18 years old, which shows that it's making an impact. Awesome. So, if you notice, there's a lot of We found that law enforcement with the kids. Now the parents want to know what's going on. They're showing up. They're actually running with the kids. They're cheering on the kids. And it's bringing a whole family together just to celebrate the awesome game we have out there.

10 km 5 just seeing all the cops all the different people just setting a good sign. Okay, sign it off. So, that was a high school production company through um Johansson High School that actually did that video. Why not hire somebody, you know, pay them, pour into their community or their their um mission and and encourage that? Um so, went through 10K with a cop, I was starting to notice something. Kids were wearing ratty shoes. Um some of them were breaking down, clothes maybe were bad, hygiene was bad. There are a variety of things. Uh but some of the teachers would also share stories of kids going home, sleeping on the floor, sharing a bed with a sibling. Um stuff like that. I'm going to skip this video. I apologize. Um well so through this I have a friend that was from Hawthorne Police Department very dear friend um that him and his wife from the she was with the FBI he was Hawthorne Police Department decided to teach his daughter valuable lessons of hey be thankful for what you have just appreciate it. and they'd take the daughter over to some homes over in the projects over into uh Watts uh specifically to redo rooms for kids that were at risk, no bed, sleeping on uh egg crates, whatever it may be, so that they may be able to get a good night's sleep. And they would provide a bed, desk, dresser, painted room. And uh he

approached me with this idea three years ago. Um, I'll show you a project that we're going to do here or we did about a month ago and I'll talk a little bit more about that. family struggling to make ends meet. But now there's a light at the end of the tunnel 911. And she did not instead That was the moment. Everyone's favorite color.

Unterm. here related for it's simple. provide them a a safe environment. Provide them with a bed, a desk, a dresser, but but there's a little bit more to it. Um, if anybody went through my phone right now, I have every family that we've had done room for. Every two to three months, I'm reaching out to that family, seeing what resources they need. Uh we joined forces with SaveMart where we're starting a new program from Sacramento to Bakersfield providing law enforcement with emergency food boxes for families in need if they come across it called the healthy foods project. Each of the families that are getting the healthy room project are getting healthy food as well. Uh since Monday just this week I think we are at 16 kids that we did this week alone. There's a need. There's a need and we're finally, I think, getting enough street cred, I guess you could say, credibility out there that there's other organizations saying, "Hey, we got this kid." Whether it be CPS, whether it be um Sierra Vista, Modesto City Schools, we're getting these uh nominations. And these aren't kids that are getting a reward. These are kids that are sleeping on the floor. Most time it's a kid causing a problem in class. It's not the kid

that's doing good in class. And you know what? They need a little bit of love. They need a little bit of love, too. Um, but what's really cool about this again, and I think I said this earlier, other agencies are trying to figure out how we are able to achieve what we're able to achieve. Um, Bakersfield had a great idea. We were approached with it about a year ago, year and a half ago, where now their academy is required to do a healthy room project before they hit the street. They are, they finished police academy, they're ready to hit the streets. They have to do a healthy room project in Bakersfield. Modesto Chief Gillespie is completely on board too. When they first start before they're hitting the street, they're doing a healthy room. And then I go there and remind them, remember this family. You have a connection right now. You know somebody right now in this community that you can follow up with. You need to remember that not everybody in this world is bad. That most everybody in this world is good and wants good. And you know what? Sometimes we get jaded. I've been there. I've been there. But you know what? This is really It It's warmed my heart. I've seen traffic officers smile, SWAT guys high-fiving and scratching their head as to how to put together IKEA furniture. It's amazing. It's amazing. Everything is brand new that we what we provide these kids. I'm not giving them handme-downs. I'm giving them brand new furniture. IKEA is easy to put together after you do it about 20 times. Uh but you know what they need? They deserve new they deserve that they deserve that extra love and they deserve a lot more followup. Most of the families that we're involved with um they're the single parent homes mostly mom in the house and that's it. So you know that that need is definitely there. Uh I want to go back over just to my stock uh my numbers. I don't want to take up too much of your time. Uh but

our numbers, Mark Twain provided this to us uh just last year. Unfortunately, I don't have this year's numbers yet. Uh those probably won't be available until the end of the year. Uh but I do go to Mark Twain on a weekly basis. Suspension rates dropped by just over 11% uh in uh 21-22 dropped another 8.45 in 2022 to 2023 and 23 to 24 another 5%. uh student suspensions have dropped dramatically uh more than half actually more than a uh three quarters uh and then the attendance rate has gone up uh they've also noticed that mental health services have decreased by 35%. Now, you know, when I was talking to the chief about this, yeah, there's probably other resources being poured into it, but I can guarantee me being over there has made a difference, and I'll take full credit for being part of that, or the officers that are showing up now and being a part of that. So, yes, I I think that does make a difference. In fact, uh, one of the student administrators had said project success, which is the grant that we're, uh, operating under, is making a significant difference in enhancing student participation, motivation, and academic achievement, ultimately contributing to the overall success and well-being being of students. Sorry, I messed that up a little bit. um it's working and I I truly believe that an officer in a school bridges that gap of trust uh with these kids. So I think that's all I really should be sharing at this point just because I know you guys have a busy schedule and a busy agenda. I do want to open that up to questions as well. Uh but real quick, you know, I should show them the the reveals. Do you guys mind if you see some reveals? So, healthy room project. At the end of every project, we do a big reveal. Now, we've done it a variety of ways. The very first time we went out

with the big SWAT truck, come out of the house, get them out, pull them into the the truck. We took them over the gospel mission. Probably not the best way to do it, but then we introduced them to the house. That was my first time doing it. But we've also painted alongside on a weekend, done it with the kids, and you know what? conversation happens there more organically and more on their terms or our terms. Sometimes it's like you stand back and you're like, who's gonna talk first? Is it gonna be the SWAT guy or is it gonna be the kid? And you just sit there and watch and it does happen. Um but we do a big reveal at the end which is just beautiful. Uh you're going to watch I have hundreds of these. Um they always bring a tear to my eye uh because I know each of these kids intimately. I know their family. I know their situation. Um, but just sit back, enjoy. Oh, can you start the video maybe?

So, there was a girl uh in there. See her crawling around? That's her closet. That's her bedroom. Uh we've been able to convert bedrooms or make bedrooms out of garages, living rooms, hallways, closets. That very last one was a new recruit. That's his first experience as a police officer. Do you think that's going to leave an impact? You betcha. Left an impact for me. And I've been a cop for 28 years. So, um, with that, I think I leave it up for questions. Is that right? Um, I don't know if I need to go way over those questions, but I know and I got it. Okay. Brad and Nico and I are on the subcommittee to come up with um uh ideas to help reduce arrest among youth, especially Latino youth. And I I really think you're on the right track with this. And I'm really I I think this is a great program. Rick, thank you very much. and I look forward to telling more people about it. Please do. What numbers do your step counter bring you at the end of every week? Uh yeah, sound like a oneman job, but it sounds like you do most of this yourself. Um it keeps me busy. It's my hobby. It's a passion. You know, a lot of people like um I guess you know, say boating, flying a kite, whatever it may be. Mine's this. Uh, I get in trouble every now and again because I don't turn it off. Uh, and my wife has to reign me in, but I'm blessed with a wife that actually pours in us, too. She's administration over at Davis High School due to retire and hoping that we can hire her through the healthy room project on the nonprofit to help me keep a little bit more organized for years to come. Um, the hope is to

re-engage with these kids. And, you know, I I it it's going to take time. It's it's a matter of setting that example. I know that the chief is very passionate about making this happen and getting more of us out there, more Shawn Dodgers, I guess. But I don't know there there's somebody that can think more outside the box than even me and have more creative ideas. And you know, I'm just setting the stage for somebody else. I'll be forgotten here years to come, but I'm hoping that stuff like this continues. Not likely you'll be forgotten. When you say you go to 20 schools and you do an hour a week at at Mark Twain, I mean, you fit all that in every week. Yeah. Yeah. um from from October to March is very busy. Um it really is. I start school at 7:30 and I'll get off at, you know, 4:00ish right in that area when after school programs are in there. Um but again, you know, I I benefit from this in many ways. Uh first of all, I'm a runner. Uh I think I said in the beginning, I ran marathons and gear. I have a marathon next week. Hey, I get my exercise while I'm out there training with the kids. And no better way to do it with a vest and a belt on, too. So, I'm getting some good work out there, too. Um, but no, it is a passion of mine. Uh, my off time, I'm working with kids, too, in different different capacities. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. I hope that there's someone that comes along to shadow you for at least two years before you retire. There are a couple that have dropped in and realize it's quite a bit, but there are a couple that want to continue continue showing up. I have one guy that continues to show up to the healthy rooms, and it may be just the healthy rooms that that person focuses on. That's great. We'll find somebody else to focus on something else. So, when the officers do that with you right now, are they on their time? Yes. No, no, no. I I apologize. They are on duty time. I misunderstood you. So, they are allowed to do it on duty. Uh, for example, the officer joined us today. He's he's got the freedom in his assignment to be able to go out there and do that stuff. Uh, they do have to get it approved by their supervisor, but that has been approved and it's been approved by the chief as

well. It's a smart investment. Yeah. And we do have people that do show up off duty on their own time because that's always an option as well. But but yeah, if we can allow it, we allow officers on duty to do it as well. Does anyone else have any questions on the board? Thank you. Thank you for listening to me. Um and I'm happy to share more anytime. I I do have a question for you. Um you said this was a grant. Yes. Uh California Violence and Prevention. No. Yeah. California Violence and Prevention. So, it's a grant that's for three years. I know the city of Modesto or Modesto Police Department is looking at reapplying uh in the future and uh I think that's probably going to happen because the guy that came out to evaluate us was pretty impressed. How much more time do you guys have with the current grant? It's till December, I believe. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And I can tell you we'll reapply, but either way, we we're going to continue this program. So obviously if we can get grant funding to help pay for it because that's what Shawn does full-time now. This is as uh as you pointed out um this is a full-time plus job and uh and that's what he does as his job now. He's he's worked in our special victims unit for a long time. U but uh we're moving over and and we'll continue this regardless whether we get funding or not. Okay. So currently there's no funding from the Minnesota Police Department budget that goes towards this. The Calvip grant pays for his position. Okay. But like any MPD funding or do we did it pay for his does it pay for his position or was that in kind? Yeah. Okay. I just want to make sure. And what was the question? The second question just like any Modesto police department funding like does it go towards is there anything in your budget that actually goes towards the project besides paying for his position? No. The only other thing that comes out of our budget is the on duty time. That's not covered by the grant. that is that is

just uh eaten up by us when officers go out on their own time but his his salary is paid for by the grant by the grant. Perfect. Thank you. Is there any other questions here from the board? Yeah, I I u first of all commend you for u initiating this program and for the length of time that you've been with it. Um do you have um partners in the community as far as businesses uh corporations that sort of thing? I I know you mentioned that that you accept the program accepts donation. There was a connection with the business community. Yes. uh you know for the at the beginning it was just us uh at this point we have savear we have several actually you know we we've got several organizations I think we counted up to 50 organizations locally uh that are pouring into it either financially or you know I know a guy hey we can get the food or you know it's it's a variety of things uh so we do find the funding every single time we you know if I go out to a board and say to Quantis Rotary and say, "Hey, I know a kid that's sleeping on the floor. I'm walking out with money." Uh to to be able to help that family. And in fact, I may even have some volunteers from that organization as well. Uh ultimately, the healthy room is just to uh finish with that positive experience with law enforcement. However, it doesn't keep community members from being a part of it. Just that I really want an officer out there so that the kid can say, "Cop, good experience, happy." But you know what? It takes a village. It's not going to just be law enforcement. It's going to be community members like you that are going to be able to help this program succeed and continue to grow. And Brad, did you have something? Yeah. Uh, I I just uh if we ever get close on the money,

you need to let us know as I I think that might be a good project for us as a a board to raise funds for this, you know, to do some activities out in the community and and and the purpose is to put back into the community through this. I you know, because this is this doesn't cost anything compared to the benefit that that happens. the some of those kids are not going to go to jail because they had a positive experience when they were third graders, you know, and I think that's really important to do that. And that's kind of what our our little uh subcommittee is about is to try and figure out ways to, you know, connect. Uh it's all about connection and I really appreciate you keeping the the cop part of this very important. It's it's the impetus for this whole thing. And while somebody like me, it would be great, but it really has to be uh along with the police because it really does it really does build relationships and that's what's important, relationships and trust. And you know, over the years it's been it's taken a hit. You know, the last three years have been a little bit rough, but it I think we're changing that narrative quite a bit. Thank you. I think just to add on what uh what you said, Mr. Han is that uh we're looking we we steal stuff from other stuff other agencies that we see as well. Mantika uh has for many years, couple decades I think, uh started a uh uh Mantika Police Chief's nonprofit foundation. And what they've been doing at least the last year, if not the last two years, two years. Yes. two years is they they have an annual fundraiser dinner uh where this past year we went to and they actually they have where they auction off things and and there's a cost to go to the dinner by you know people and tons of community organizations and people show up and they actually have donated a ton of money uh for the healthy room project there in Mantika. So we're looking at things like that to

help fund uh continue to fund these things because these rooms do cost money. And then chair to answer your question I was thinking about it. We do have other uh aspects uh where we've used asset forfeite money uh to buy I think uh the metals and different things for the thinking of the cop. Oh we have and uh the DA's office has poured uh asset forfeite money into this. Jeff Liero sees the value in this as well and is pouring the money into the program as well. Yeah. So there where where we can find the funds we've definitely uh supported both the healthy room project and uh 10K with a cop. Thank you. Uh any other questions from the board? Comment. Um it's okay. It's um it's sweet to watch the children and and their tears and their and their parents' joy, but I I think there's a tremendous benefit to see the officers getting involved specifically from the get-go. Reminds them why they're what the uh what the real goal is here is have a happy, healthy community and and their contribution to it. So, I applaud that for getting as many officers involved as possible. I appreciate that. I joke about being a lazy officer because I'd rather go out in the field and play then do a report. And uh you know, it's true. I mean, you're you're you're fighting the crime. You're in many ways, you're preventing that crime uh for a long time. I mean, way in the future. It's harder to do bad when you have a personal relationship with maybe somebody that's in that profession. Thank you. Is that a question? Okay. Wait, what up? Come on. Hey, I have a question. How do we as the community police view board get involved with some of the things that you're doing? Send me an email. Um, you guys, like, uh, you know, Brad Hoden brought up, you know, getting involved in doing a project like

that, that's a first step, and I'm I'm not against that at all. I I had a company that came out. They are not law enforcement. We went out there and did a healthy room project today, but I had some cops over there. And you know what? I had some construction workers crying. It's pretty cool. Cool. We will have uh we'll have Simmyi uh or Scotty share uh the your you guys' emails with Sean and we'll put you on the email list so that when he's sending out asking for volunteers or people to make an order to show up that you guys can uh at your leisure when it fits your schedule show up uh to be part of those. Yeah, we usually do one every month to two months. I know our next one's in June uh that we have a pretty big program and we're going to take the summer off for a little bit because it gets hot. Uh but come August, we're going to be hitting it again. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So, I will be opening this up uh to the public. Is there any members of the public that have any questions on this item? Okay, we have one. Clarify questions specifically or comments also. took questions when you asked um a a comment as well. Yeah, thank you. Well, thank you for that presentation, Officer Sean. Uh I was particularly interested in the are we making a difference slide and I appreciate that you acknowledge that uh uh the work you're doing is perhaps only one part of that uh equation because when I look at this, I see what is inconclusive info and I said that not as a condemnation, but it truly is a curiosity uh in which I'd be interested in more info. perhaps having this be an annual report that comes through this uh committee because what I look at this I see what might be a spurious correlation. Uh my school that I teach at is not one of the seven identified schools. Uh and we've seen really similar trends in our suspensions

rates and our attendance rates and our mental health services. Um and I would attribute a lot more of that to students reaclimating to the school setting after the CO 19 pandemic than I would from the particular programs. But again, it's inconclusive. I can't know which is why I want more information. So it truly is a curiosity, not a condemnation. When I look at this, the statician in me says, well, it feels cherrypicked, but that feels like too strong language because again, I can't know, oh, with the information provided here. Uh, but I do think trust building and relationship building is really important. And to that end, I've had the privilege of working with a lot of young people. This year alone, I've asked hundreds of kids, what changes would you want to see on campus? What would make you feel safer? I'm on my school safety committee. Uh, I've never once had a student say they want more cops on campus. Certainly not cops that have their uh weapon and holstered as it may be uh while they're on that campus. I don't think that contributes to a relationship of trust and relationship building. Uh if there are going to be officers on campus isn't I don't know that necessarily that there should be. I'd still want more information, but if that's the route that we're going to go as a community, I'd much rather see people uh without their weapon present uh at the very least with a taser over a gun, but certainly not a gun. Um uh because again, none of the students in any of their responses ever said they wanted more cops or more guns on campus. Um but I am also optimistic when I see things like healthy room and healthy food project. Uh and I'd like to see more of the police budget go towards causes like that. Um uh specifically, I know that uh I've talked in this chamber before about the militarization of the police department. I would love to see some of our funds that go towards militarized equipment go towards projects like healthy food or healthy room project instead. uh and while I think those programs could still be successful if divorced from the police department and it'd be remiss of me not to say that there's clearly joy uh in the hearts and the minds of the uh people that are being helped by those programs and I can't discredit that nor would I want to. Uh but I do think there's probably potential for exploring nonp police alternatives to similar programs. Um but I don't want to speak for my students

while I've read their writing hang on what they think would make the school safer. Uh I would reiterate a point I've made previously when we were at the King Kennedy Center that I really do think that a youth representative, someone in the K12 age group on this committee's board would be really helpful in the future and speak to youth uh on campus issues far better than I could. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comment. Are there any other members of the public? We have one more. All right, y'all. So yeah, uh we are kind of in disagreement about this. You may not like what we say but community members and hopefully y'all get a different perspective uh when you come here but essentially um yeah such projects do sound great. Um but what we want is that we don't want a dependency on police for these things folks. Um these look like jobs that specifically fit the roles and responsibilities of teachers, of social workers, of public health workers and stuff. And the thing is is also is that making a difference and working in education. I feel like that his taking credit for the work of the educators, the work of the administrators and the district itself because I also have been to Mark Twain working with teachers and students. I've also been to Franklin working with teachers and students and I know the grassroots efforts that they have made as well. And I don't want to take that like credit from them because they have been making lots of improvements. Um, and what we would rather have is we want more of that funding for the teachers to be at that capacity for the social workers who have too many case loads to have the capacity to do that. And it bothers us that they we are getting funding uh and grants specifically for police to do that work when these types of positions are getting cut. Uh the G230 teachers in the high schools who are trying to get kids to graduate, those positions have been cut. the the the student support administrators, their positions have been cut and moved

around and that's what bothers us because what happens is when we have that dependency, it seems like there could be a reason for that and stuff. And it says to change that narrative uh of views on the police, but I feel like it's doing so without addressing the actual reasons that cause that distrust of police. and we've been talking about it. Uh such as the broken windows policing that harms communities uh low-income communities, the disproportionate use of force against folks of color. Um and what ends up doing is having actually uh cops on campus uh has been proven to give more cops access to children. And in this case, what we do see is that the number one cause of of of youth deaths, it's gun violence. And we have folks entering these campuses with guns. How does that make it a safe community where we have pictures from parks and wreck? They're playing with kids, but they're holding on to their guns. And I do not think that is safe. And I do not think that is something that we should normalize. I do also agree with what my colleague had said. We shouldn't be having guns around kids at all. That's not a safe uh space for kids at all. Um and what we end up seeing too is that having more students on camp uh more cops on campus actually increases number of arrested youth. Uh there's a variety of studies for that for like 40% over 40% of schools having police and 69% engaging in school discipline enforcement. Mark Twain had police get called on to uh to arrest a kid. Uh and that is definitely something that is not needed uh to to kind of give them folks more access to that. I know my time is done, but thank you for that time. Thank you for your comment. We have another member from the public. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Um, thank you

for the presentation. Yeah, I just kind of want to reiterate what my friends have been saying. We need people need help in our community. We know that. Um, however, while this was a grant, I really think we need to divorce these things from the police. Police train people to obey them. And if they're not obeyed, they can be shot. And so my when we're talking about building relationships with the kids, that's good. But it's so that they obey the police officers. And so what we need is to be building a community that is not building relationships out of fear, not building relationships so that people conform to the authority. Because at the end of the day, this is seems like a really great program, but seeing the guns on the holsters in some of those videos really bothered me. Why are we helping people go into a safe space that's their home with guns? That's not safe. And we know this. There's a lot of gun violence that continues to happen across our country constantly and right here in our community. And so maybe we need to reorient ourselves of what can a what can relationship building be with a police officer? Do they have to have that gun on their holster? And I do not think they need to have that gun on their holster. All that does is show people you get out of line, this gun's right here. And that is very unhealthy for children. I've worked with children. I have worked extensively in social services and we need more budget to go towards social services. As my friend said, they have been cutting positions with MCS. Why are we cutting from education and we're not cutting from the police department? And I have been sickened and I've heard from so many people in this community that continue to see these militarized equipment in our community and they're like, why do we need this here? This isn't helping me. Well, I'm seeing poor brothers and

sisters out on the street sleeping. So, we need to while this is a great program, we need to also see, do the cops need to be doing certain things or do we need to be putting that money elsewhere? Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Are there any other members from the public that would like to speak on this agenda item? We have one more. Hey everybody. Um, quick question and sorry if I missed it in the presentation. How were the families chosen? I it sounded like there was like incidents that happened and you saw a need and you kind of like it's on. Is it on? Okay. Um, so it's either nominated by social services such as CPS, um, Sierra Vista, the schools, uh, there's a variety of, uh, organizations that have reached out and said, you know, we have a kid, we're aware that this kid could possibly be sleeping on a bed and, uh, that's that's how they're nominated. Um, we do have a couple times where law enforcement's gone in and seen that there's a family that's maybe in need. Um, but at the same time, we never force a family into that. Um, in fact, I've had a couple of those families that have turned it down in the past, and I can't do anything about that. You know, I can't force a child uh or a parent to to provide a vet. So, you know, if they feel comfortable later in the future, they have my phone number. They're welcome to call me or text me and we we may be able to do it later on. Thanks. That was just general curiosity. I I missed how they were selected. Um the uh second thing I wanted to just ask real quick is this the first presentation from the about the school police programs that have been at the meetings. Yeah. Okay. um when I think when I first heard and I don't want to

take away from the project and the presentation, but I remember when we uh well not we I'm not on the board, but when I heard that um there'd be presentations about police and schools, I thought it would be more of like a general overview about the officers that are working in schools, what their policies and procedures are, what kind of incidents there's been kind of like an analysis of that. So a my question is kind of is that still part of the plan on the horizon kind of thing. So Detective Dodge is the only one that we have in schools. We don't have any other SRO's assigned to schools. So there really wouldn't be a presentation on that because we don't Detective Dodge is the only one. And there's no is there a Modesto schools police? Modesto city schools has their own school security officers. Security that they're employed by Modesto City Schools. Okay. Um I know that it's been recommended in not here but in other places that um that there's been like more incidents when you have um a separate department for schools uh and there's actually been like less incidents with like between officers and students when the city's police department it's actually like doing that. That's just something I I'll try to find a citation for it but I know I just heard that. So, I was just curious if um that that's interesting that he's the only officer uh that goes into schools. Um the third thing I just want to say and kind of, you know, in agreement with the with the other comments about um you know, the relationship between public funding for programs that do things like this. Um again, don't want to take anything away from the work that you're doing. Um but it is a valid point to be made. Um, and I think that it fits with the February meeting that was at the King Kennedy

Center where where uh, Judge Baloo talked about the programs and there was discussion about, you know, the opportunity to fund social programs, social workers programs in schools and that there, you know, I mentioned a certain local elected official who said that, you know, government funding can't solve problems and I disagree with that and I think, you know, we see that this is the government. The police department is part of the government. They got a grant and they did a great project and that um you know sometimes we do have to look at what is the payoff for um you know whether it's a a raise in sale tax or other kinds of revenue that can be raised or can be taken out of other parts of the budget that can go into programs like this. Um that's all I want to point out in kind of agreement with the the other comments that were made. I think it's a very valid point. Thank you. Thank you. All righty. Um, is there anyone else from the public that would like to speak on this item? All righty. Seeing none, I will close public comments and anyone from the board. Are there any other further comments about this item? Okay, seeing none, um we will be moving on to a independent police auditor annual report presentation from Steve. Thank you, Chair Solorio, and good evening everybody. Uh it is not a great idea to be presenting after uh somebody who's talking about animals or really cute children. So I'm a little bit behind the eightball before we're even starting here, but uh I'm going to I'm going to do my best. Uh thank you for having me back. As the slide says, this is the second audit

report that the Independent Police Auditor Office, which is staffed by OIR Group, is is presenting to your board. um regarding the uh second annual independent audit of the Modesto Police Department. Next slide, please. So, if you'll indulge me for a minute and there we go. Uh this is all stuff that's very familiar to to you folks. I hope you don't mind if I replow this ground a little bit for just to provide a reminder for uh people in attendance tonight and anybody who might be watching, any members of the public who might be watching remotely. So uh OR Group was selected as the IPA for the city of Modesto, the first independent police off auditor for the city of Modesto back in the spring of 2023. uh OIR group has been providing independent oversight of law enforcement agencies throughout California uh and in other jurisdictions as well. It it's a private firm that specializes in in police practices and we have a lot of experience working with different places and seeing how different entities do things and working on best practices with policy and procedure and so forth. And uh as you all know particularly well, we are part of the the hybrid model that the city of Modesto arrived upon in the aftermath of the forward together um project where where a number of people in the community in in including some of of you folks participated for a long time and just talking about uh reimagining some services in the cities and some approaches that the city is taking with the idea of of uh improving the community and and meeting needs where they were identified. One of those ideas that came out of it in terms of recommendations was an interest in

having increased outside oversight of the police department. And your board is a component of that. We all got started at about the same time back in June of of 2023. And your board is obviously um comprised of of residents of the city who have a a special understanding and insight and investment in in the community. And then OIR group is the other piece of that. And as we we focus on police practices, that's our area of expertise. It's my full-time job uh doing this kind of work in here in Modesto and in in other places. And the the other aspect of the model besides your board is to have OAR group provide auditing services. And we'll talk a little bit more about what that entails. Thank you. So what's in terms of this particular report and the functions of of OIR group in Modesto? Uh those are all framed by the scope of work and the ordinance that the city passed back when all of this was being formed in the aftermath of forward together. And the audit report uh that is the focus of my presentation tonight involves a review of of pre kind of framed pre-desated categories and you can see them on the slide there. It's complaints and allegations of misconduct, uses of force by Modesto police officers, and critical incidents involving Modesto police officers. And the the content of of my report that I'm I'll be talking about tonight were cases across these categories that were completed in 2024. Next slide, please. So, in terms of the goals, in terms of what the IPA is hopefully contributing to the idea of oversight and police community relations, there are three major components of it. One of them is transparency. Uh there this is a level

of detail and a level of scrutiny that is unprecedented here in Modesto as far as having an outside entity have this kind of access to otherwise confidential files and records with the idea of assessing their legitimacy and providing some information to your board and to the public about these these important functions that the department is entrusted to handle internally. there is a increased accountability that comes as a function of this scrutiny and uh the way that that it has worked out here in Modesto in particular is that we make our report, we make our recommendations and then it just doesn't end up on a shelf somewhere thanks to your board's engagement with it and the department's willingness to to engage. The second piece of this process is for the department to digest these recommendations and come back to you to give a pres a subsequent presentation either next month or a couple months from now in which the chief is going to respond to each of the the 12 recommendations included in this year's report and and respond to any questions you have. So that's one component of accountability. We don't have the power to force the police to do anything. We don't weigh in on investigations that are pending and say, "Hey, you're this is the wrong decision. you should change it and I'm ordering you to do this or that. We don't have that kind of of role. We don't have that kind of authority. That's not the way that this is set up or intended. But what we do have is the the ability to review these things to make assessments about them. And if we had concerns, if we were troubled by things that we were seeing in terms of the way the department approached these processes in terms of the objectivity and and legitimacy and thoroughess with which the department responded to public complaints or looked at a use of force incident and and assessed officer performance, if we looked at the the department's own

internal systems and and found them to be wanting in in important ways, we would certainly be able to to share that with you. Fortunately, with some minor exceptions that that prompted some of the recommendations in this year's report, that has not been my perspective in the the year and a half, two years that I have been doing this. uh the the the basic impression that I have and that the report is meant to convey is that these processes while there's always room for improvement, the department absolutely takes these things seriously, they do review and investigate um public complaints in an objective fashion and do their best to reach appropriate outcomes. and and the recommendations here are really intended to take a system that is very sound and to try to improve some of the particular elements of it. Again, just based on our experience and seeing the way other places do it and and um focusing in on some issues that that that recurred maybe in some of the investigations and we'll talk about that more per uh as we go along. And that last goal there ideally is going to be systemic improvement. And last year, uh, I was very gratified by the police department's willingness to, first of all, take my recommendations seriously and to actually make concrete changes as a result of some of the recommendations in terms of changing their own practices, updating policies and and really do taking the uh recommendations seriously and and um, you know, not necessarily embracing all of them wholeheartedly, but certainly uh looking for ways is to make the department better if if they if they thought that there was validity to them, which is is of course uh certainly a big part of what we're here to do. We would like to see the department be as effective as it

possibly could be for for the sake of of the community as a whole. Next slide, please. So, we're going to be talking here at the level of kind of a high pass level. We're not going to get into the weeds of of individual cases, but the actual individual cases uh that the department completed in the previous year do form the basis for the my assessments and and the recommendations that that are included here. So, we take a look at completed cases and again the scope of work sort of defines what those are going to be. We don't look at every single case. the volume of them would be probably too high to be for that to be realistic. But there are certain cases that we look at all the examples of any allegation of biased policing. We're going to see all of those. Whenever a supervisor is involved, we're going to see all of those. And then we're going to take a sampling of of other cases again in effort to get a a a wide ranging look at how the department is responding to these issues. The key concept on this slide, I would say, is that access that I've talked a lot about in the past and is a a very very important component to the the mechanism of oversight here in Modesto. The access that we have, we can see all of the investigative files and records, body warn camera recordings from these incidents that we're reviewing. and the department has been a a very cooperative collaborative partner in terms of making sure that we have the access that we need to do our job. Next slide please. So I mentioned before there are three different categories of cases that are

part of our scope of work. The one that I want to start talking about tonight is the officer involved shooting cases. the critical incident review um component of it. Uh critical incidents could refer to a number of different kinds of events, but the the ones that um have happened thus far during um OIR group's tenure as the independent police auditor have been officer involved shootings. There have been three officer involved shooting incidents in that time. The most recent one was just a a few weeks ago, as you know. uh and presumably I'll have the opportunity to talk about that in the next report. And then the first two that again you have have been engaged with to a certainly a new extent in terms of the transparency and the involvement as the chair was pointing out at the the start of the meeting. Uh there were two cases. One that happened I believe in June of 2023 as we were all just getting started and then the the second one was in February of 2024. both of those the investigative processes the various investigative processes were completed in 2024 and so both of those got discussed in in my report. So if you look at this slide I want to go backwards a little bit and start with the the items on the bottom there and just to remind people because it can get um confusing and and kind of nuance the different processes that are involved in the aftermath of one of these events. And this is just a very simple reminder. We can get into as much detail as you'd like, but there is a criminal investigation whenever an officer uses deadly force uh that that choice to use deadly force is going to be reviewed uh to make sure that it is legally justified and the officers are potentially subject to prosecution if there's a determination that the force was not legally justified. So there is a

full criminal investigation process. That's not the main focus of of my work as an auditor. Uh those cases are put together by detectives and presented to the district attorney's office. Uh the other components of it, however, are are things that we do have direct involve as as the chief was alluding to at the beginning of the evening tonight. And one of those is the administrative investigation. So along with the the uh the criminal review, the department is going to look at it administratively and say, "Okay, this event that it's being assessed for its legality, but we want to make sure that the officers involved in this event. We're acting in a manner consistent with our policies, our training, our expectations." Those things obviously overlap quite a bit with criminal standards, but they're also different. and and it's important for the department to take its own um take its own eye or or review process for these things and not simply rely on the criminal investigation and have that be the end of it. And then I want to go back up to the top of this slide and talk about the the major incident review process which is a new process here in Modesto and one that we are are um very happy to endorse. It's something that we certainly advocate for in all the jurisdictions where we work. And that concept of holistic review is something that is is very fundamental to our opinion about best practices in terms of police accountability, police review processes. So there are the bottom line questions of was this a legal thing for the officer to do? Was this in policy for the officer to do? But it has been our experience that that there are so many more factors that are worth looking into pursuing, investigating, discussing

and potentially addressing apart from those two kinds of bottom line questions which are of course very very important but only a a a portion of of what's there for the the department to potentially learn from and adapt to. And what the the Modesto Police Department has begun to do and that coincided timing wise with with the start of your board and the start of of my role here in Modesto. They have a brand new major incident review process that takes a look at these incidents in in kind of a 360deree way. And not months and months after the fact as as you were alluding to as these other processes are working their way through the system, but within a week or two of the incident itself, the the uh the department is meeting with subject matter experts and command staff people and they're getting a a presentation, a very detailed presentation about the incident and looking at it through a variety of lenses uh and and not focused on the officer. accountability piece of it, but looking at the the decision-m, the tactics, the the equipment, the post incident uh medical attention, the um investigative steps that were taken and and how the scene was dealt with, community relations, all of those things go into the discussion. And as the chief said, we have been invited to those. They've had three of these events and we have been invited to all three of them. had the opportunity to attend in person and to be there as the department discussed these and and looked for ideas about making enhancements or adjustments and not waiting for the district attorney's office or the the the other aspects of the process that can be very very delayed and timeconuming because some of these things might be worth

addressing and correcting or or looking into further right away. So we are big advocates of the process. We think it's working well here in in Modesto particularly given that that they are so new to it. Next slide please. So, with regard to the officer involved shootings, we discussed both of the completed cases in a little bit of of detail, and I won't go into those. Um, I won't recap those other than to say we agreed with the department's ultimate administrative decision that the officers who used deadly force in both of those cases were were justified in doing so under the totality of of the circumstances. In terms of our recommendations with regard to this process, we had a couple things that that we focused on. And this can be a little bit nuanced and complicated. And again, I I I'm going to take this opportunity to encourage everybody. Uh, obviously that this went out to the board, but this this presentation is really meant to be a supplement to the the public report that is obviously available. Yes. Or will be available. Uh, it's going to be available to the public. Uh, there are copies of it in the back for people who are here tonight. But I hope everybody will really read it and because I I I certainly um don't want to do an injustice to any of the the detailed um review that occurred and the detailed work that the department has done. Our recommendations with regard to this process really focused on on post the the post incident day of uh investigation protocol. So what happens with the officers who are involved in one of these things on the day uh that the incident takes place and our particular focus was on the the

statement from the officers. Obviously a key issue that that people want to know apart from the bodywn camera which has made a huge difference in providing information about these events that was uh unheard of 10 or 15 years ago. The body warn cameras are obviously really really important. But the officer's statements about their perceptions, their experience, what they were doing and responding to when they used deadly forces is a critical component in any assessment. And the one thing that varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction is when that statement happens. We are proponents of a model where that statement is happening as soon as possible and ideally it's going to happen before the end of the shift. In other words, the officers are going to be interviewed formally about what happened before going home on the day of the incident itself. that doesn't happen in Modesto um for a few different reasons and we can again we can get into that if anybody has any questions and there are many many jurisdictions where the officers are not interviewed on the first night and sometimes it's it's a week or 10 days later um the in Modesto in the cases that I've looked at so far the interviews are occurring within 48 hours I would say in each of the cases but we feel like rather than allowing the officers to go home and potentially be exposed to a lot of different potential um interferences or sources of information that that is going to just complicate things. It isn't certainly there's a a a concern among some people about skepticism about the officers getting their stories straight, but it it doesn't have to be a a malicious thing in our view or a

conspiratorial thing for people to just have their their um purest ex um purest impressions or reflections about the event become complicated by outside information that that they might inadvertently be exposed to. between the time of the the the incident and an interview that happens two or three days later. So, we advocate a before end of shift interview and the department sees that differently and and I there are a lot of uh I think very sound reasons why that's the case. We acknowledge that. We talk a little bit about that in the report, but it's something that that I'm sure the chief will talk about um when when he responds to the report later on. The other thing I want to say about the investigative protocol and this is actually again something that different agencies do differently and I want to take a moment to acknowledge that I think Modesto gets this part right which is that one of the other big splits from jurisdiction to jurisdiction has to do with when an involved officer is able to review bodywn camera recordings of the incident in relation to when they give the statement. ment for the first time. In many jurisdictions, I might go so far as to say most jurisdictions, the officers are allowed to review their bodywn camera recordings first. In Modesto, they require the officers to give a statement first, a pure statement, if you will, and then they can watch the video, and if they want to supplement and and um you know, adjust some of their answers based on new information that they're getting or or having their recollections refreshed. We think that that approach is is the the more sound one from a best practices investigation perspective and and we are pleased that that Modesto has adopted

this approach. So we're kind of one for two there I guess as as we would um as would be one way to put it and uh again with regard to the timing there are some complexities there. I encourage people to read the the the written report to get into more detail about it. Last but not least, again acknowledging that the merc process, the initial holistic review that happens um the the coordination of that early piece with the wrapup at the end, the department when the when the administrative investigation is done, the criminal investigation is done, the department convenes a shooting review board and assesses the event to make a formal determination administratively about whether the officers acted in policy or not. And we just noticed that there was a little bit of drop off between some of the action items that were identified early on during the MERT process and then some of the the points that were focused on in the final wrap-up memo from the administrative review process after the shooting review board. And we would just it's kind of a um process thing or a logistics thing. I there's nothing malicious about it, but just in the interest of efficiency, we think that those things could be blended together more effectively. Next slide please. So next category would be allegations of misconduct, public complaints and internal affairs investigation. We looked at a total of 28 cases. Uh and again uh the the the components of those are all cases involving allegations of biased policing. All cases in which a supervisor was involved. We've always found those to be particularly sensitive because we want to make sure that supervisors are not being protected or treated uh more um in a in a more biased or favorable to them way than than the rank and file officers. And then we take a random sampling of other cases that we

literally just identify by case number and ask for for all the materials associated with them. Next slide. So with regard to these our key takeaways and again we had a few different recommendations that came out of this part of the report to reiterate the bottom line point which I think is is perhaps most important to people. We consider the process itself in its fundamentals to absolutely be a legitimate one. The department takes complaints seriously. They will try to make interview people. If they get a written submission and they and they want more detail or more information about what the person's concerns are, they're going to make sure that the investigator follows up with the complainant and and have a a a full-blown interview that goes on as long as is necessary to get the full sense of the complaintant's concerns. And the in the cases are going to be investigated and assessed with objectivity. in terms of other aspects of the complaint process or the internal affairs process that we that we um identified and want to just highlight a little bit tonight. One is the the whole idea of complaints as opportunities. And this is the whole holistic review concept. Again, this idea of maybe that this not a policy violation, but in the course of reviewing this, we see things about the way the officers handled this event that could have been done differently or better, whether it's a communication or a teamwork thing between officers or an officer safety issue. And the department does take the time to move beyond the bottom line question of in policy, out of policy, violation, no violation to say no policy violation here. However, we identified these three training points and we got with the the officers involved to talk to them about their communication or their teamwork or putting out better

radio traffic or positioning themselves better and using these complaints as opportunities to get better. is, I think, a sign of a process that is is particularly effective. Last but not least, there one of the things that we focused on that that um is certainly I think worthy of more consideration. It's something your um your board may want to give some some additional thought to is is a number of the complaints that we looked at uh had to do with people who had been stopped multiple times and that was a particular source of frustration, aggravation to them. And often times the the initial basis for the stop was not a call for service necessarily. It was in fact a traffic stop that was based on a relatively minor vehicle code infraction and equipment violation. A brake light is out. There was one, at least one, where somebody's had something hanging from the rear view mirror, which is technically a vehicle code violation. But to somebody who's been stopped by the police and maybe has an antagonistic uh relationship with the police, being stopped in right away, it it just um the the the temperature levels are are are heated. So to be clear, pretext stops are absolutely legal. That has been something that the Supreme Court has has evaluated and it's perfectly fine for officers to to from a legal perspective perfectly fine for officers to find a vehicle code violation, a moving violation, no matter how minor, an equipment violation, no matter how minor, and use that as a as a basis for initiating contact with a a member of the public and seeing what happens from there. But there are some communities where that that has been a friction point and there's a concern that that is um not done in an even-handed way. It kind of goes handinhand with allegations

of bias or discrimination. And so it's something that different communities are evaluating and looking at in in different ways. And again, because of the prevalence of of the complaints that we happen to look at and the complaints that alleged bias that involved this pattern where people stopped on multiple occasions and for initial violations that were relatively minor, it's something that we thought was noteworthy and maybe worthy of additional consideration. Next stop uh slide, please. Moving on to the force review process. that whenever an officer uses a certain level of force and and just a simple control, resisted control and and take down of someone with no injury involved, most of the force incidents in a given year are at that very low level of force where there's no injury to to the officers or the involved parties. But for every every time uh a Modesto police officer uses force, that is going to go through multiple levels of review that is not required by law, but that the department is is undertaking a much more rigorous process than than they would have to in in terms of making sure that their officers are complying with their policies and training and expectations. So beginning with the sergeant at the who's maybe responding to the scene and then going to lieutenant and captain there multiple levels where everybody's going to look at all the body warn camera all the police reports and and really evaluate this thing in a full-fledged holistic sort of way and there is that word again and one of the things that I thought was particularly impressive about the uh the cases that I took a look at is how many of them the the department said Yes, this force was justified. Yes, the force was in policy. Yes, the officer showed appropriate restraint after the person was in custody where there was an

excessive force or punishing force. However, we still we saw something here that is correctable and should be corrected and we're going to go ahead and document our followup in terms of meeting with the person, providing training, documenting what that training or counseling was, sending somebody to a particular class that might be uh relevant to an issue that was spotted in one of these. And those are the kinds of ways that a review process goes beyond accountability. And accountability hugely important. That's what the public obviously really cares about, but taking it also as an opportunity to improve things and make officer performance better and make the whole thing safer for officers and community members. Those are are extra steps that are are good to see when they happen and it occurred in a number of cases. Next slide, please. with regard to some of the recommendations and some of the the the specific areas where we um had you know moments of of concern or or interest based on some of the patterns that we were seeing in in multiple cases. We looked at I think six different cases that in which the use of the taser was one of the force options and saw there was maybe just based on this very small sample size and and again just looking at it through a particular narrow window. Most of the taser deployments were not effective in terms of a achieving the incapacitation and and uh allowing for the the you know safe taking of the person into custody after the deployment. Most of them weren't effective. They didn't work. And then the other thing that we noticed was that there were more at least a few instances in which officers were not providing the a warning to the subject before deploying the taser. And that is actually part of the policy that you're supposed to give a warning as long as it

is practicable to do that and not you know an officer safety issue or uh if if you have the opportunity to give a warning, you're supposed to give a warning as a way of potentially neutralizing the situation and convincing the person to stop resisting. And there were multiple cases that we looked at where that did not happen. So our takeaway from that is with the combination of ineffect ine ineffective taser deployments and uh the the warning issue that we saw we we just basically encouraged the department to kind of take a step back from the individual incidents and then look at maybe more collectively is there a need to go back to the drawing board and talk to their their folks about taser training and and some of the policy requirements and officer safety features and everything else. Second category there, K-9 deployments. Again, we looked at, I think, four of the cases that we surveyed happened to involve a K-9 deployment. And these were like the taser cases, the the use of the dog turned out to not be effective, that either the dog didn't bite or or there was something else that that kind of went wrong with it. and we encourage the department to to take a look at its K9 program and integ maybe maybe integrate it more directly with the regular use of force protocols that it has. And what I mean by that is the K9 is a specialized unit, a specialized tool, and they have their own training and their own requirements and they do their own debrief every time a a a dog is deployed in the field, anytime there's a bite. And those things are not in from what I could tell are not necessarily being married up as effectively as they could be with the the the main process in terms of making sure that shortcomings. I think that the the regular use of force process was sort of deferring to the K-9 folks and I saw a

few instances where there the there perhaps some additional followup was necessary and I'm not sure it happened. Maybe it did over with the canine unit, but it wasn't married up very effectively with the the regular tracking of things. And last but not least, deescalation. Deescalation is a key concept in in terms of evolving public expectations of law enforcement. I think law enforcement people would tell you that deescalation has been around as as long as policing. Maybe not with that particular name, but that idea of can we take steps to keep from having to use force or to be able to use a lesser kind of force. But the public has become very interested in deescalation as a concept and expectations have changed about the extent to which agencies are going to focus on deescalation in terms of their policies. They're going to require it more overtly and maybe review it and expect officers to offer more detailed explanations about what their thought process was. Could they, you know, if they didn't deescalate, why didn't they deescalate? What steps toward deescalation did they take? We talked about this in our first report last year and had some recommendations for the department, which the department was very gracious about acknowledging and and embracing. it was slow to make its way into the the review process for 2024 in part because it probably wasn't May or June until I had given my presentation and the chief had decided that he wanted to revamp some of the policies. So there was a little bit of lag time and by the end of the year I I certainly saw some enhancements in officer consciousness about it and and making their reports a little bit more

directly referential to to deescalation concepts and uh I think that the rest of the review process was more focused on it as a routine matter as well. So, a lot of it has to do with with taking things that are already being done in the field and just being more conscious about um acknowledging them or studying them or reinforcing them. I think there's room for that and and again, I saw some positive signs by the end of the year. S probably mercifully as far as most of you are are concerned. We have reached the end of my talking for for the time being, but certainly happy to to respond to any questions that you have. Thank you so much for that presentation. Um, are there any members of the board that have any questions or comments for Steve? I have one. Um, I know that you use random sampling, but if there is there ever a case where a family or an attorney or uh the community at large could request that you look into specific cases. That has not happened so far and it's not it's actually not part of the scope of work to be honest. I I think if that were if there were to be a particular incident again in the time period as opposed to something that that happened prior to the start of the office, but if there's something that happened in 2025 and and you know there was a request for for can you make sure that this gets looked at I I I'm guessing we could probably work that out. Nancy, your discussion about the textual stops I thought was interesting. And you you said in the report that some agencies have chosen to restrict the

circumstances um in which a protextual stop could be used. And I wondered in California what what percentage or some idea of the number of agencies that have done that and in California or else nationwide. So, two things. I would say it's a very small percentage uh overall, but there some pretty prominent agencies. LAPD, for example, which is the largest law enforcement agency in California in one of the two or three biggest in the country, uh changed to a a an approach where they're not stopping people solely on the basis of equipment violations. I know the city of Portland has done the same thing. San Francisco is doing something similar, but the vast majority of cities have not moved in that direction. And I will be very candid, it is not without um u counterarguments in in LA and and the places where they have implemented there's there's certainly some uh a group of people interested observers who are not thrilled with the with the step. So, it's it's something that has to be worked through with in terms of community preferences and and policy and and the department's responsiveness. So, it's it's kind of a complicated thing, but the short answer to your question is most agencies know, but some very prominent agencies. Yes. Has LA do you know how long? I believe it it's been within the last couple of years. Also, in that same discussion, you indicated about stops. that um there was complaint about um a wrongful traffic citation and empoundment of a vehicle and I don't know and the department found that upon

reviewing that complaint that it was not a lawful or wellbased traffic stop. The impalment was wrong. And I wondered if we're able to ask you what happened with after the that review was found by the department or or maybe we'll address that when we make your report chief. Yeah, I think tonight is is an opportunity for you guys to ask questions and for me to get feedback. Um I won't be providing any feedback to his suggestions tonight. Um, but I can take a look at that in the specifics uh and make a determination whether that's something that we can share more specifics on or not. I'm curious about that. And yeah, the K9 deployment that you indicated they were um although the supervisors reviewed it and maybe commented, sometimes they didn't comment at all. Um, but were you also able to review the K-9 unit assessments? I probably could have, but did not. And yeah, that so that is an excellent question in terms of what is being done outside the mainstream process that might be responsive to some of those things. Go ahead. Thanks. Um Steve, I I I went through your report, read from front to back, and of the um calls that you reviewed, um including the critical incidents and the officer involved shootings and that sort of thing. Um, I didn't see any mention in the report of any um of the cases

that you reviewed that were that it that involved a person with a mental health crisis. Uh, was that something you didn't look at or was that that just wasn't present? So it wasn't a particular focal point or lens of mine, but and now that you mention it, certainly it would it would have been a factor in the assessment that the department conducted. And I don't and I'm going off the top of my head here, but I'm not recalling a significant number of incidents in which mental health a mental health crisis or challenge was at the the root of the encounter in the first place. Okay. Thank you. This is where I think some more targeted um evaluations need to take place because there is a difference when you're talking about mental health cases and if you're just doing things randomly, you could you could miss it. So, I think that there should be some some better targeting. Is there anyone else from the board that has any questions? Okay. Um I did have one. Um, I was curious on the OIS investigations um, for the interviews. Now, do you know based off your knowledge if the officers decide not to give a statement if they are still able to review the footage after? Because I think I recall that officers can plead the fifth and not make a statement. So, you're you're talking about a couple of of related but different things. And without going too far in into the weeds, uh there is a distinction between a criminal investigation and you're absolutely right, officers have fifth amendment rights the same way anybody else does. And so the first thing that's going to happen is that a criminal investigator is going to contact the

officer and say, "Would you like to give a voluntary statement?" Because that's entirely the officer's choice. and the officers and again different jurisdictions do it differently just and different officers within the same jurisdiction might do it differently for a lot of different reasons but nobody ever has to give a a voluntary statement to a criminal investigation it's voluntary but what sometimes happen and I'll give you we were talking about LAPD before just to give you a very simple example what generally happens in LAPD in the aftermath of an officer involved shooting is they'll bring the criminal investigator in first. The officers almost as a a default practice because of their association's advice and just kind of the the way that they have decided to approach this. The officers are going to say, "No, thank you. I don't wish to participate in a in a a voluntary criminal interview. The criminal investigators are going to leave and then the administrative team is going to come in right behind them and basically order the officers to give a statement that is going to be used internally to evaluate the officer's decisionmaking and compliance with policy and everything else. And that can't be shared with the the criminal investigation because that would be a violation of of their fifth amendment rights because it's a compelled statement as a term of their employment. Now, now we're getting really deep into the weeds. In both of the cases that I looked at, the Modesto officers reviewed a transcript of their interviews and agreed to wave their their rights to not have that shared with the prosecutors and those those statements were in fact turned over to the district attorney's office at a at a later point. Specifically in answer to your question about the criminal investigation that the the Modesto or excuse me about the body warn camera video in Modesto they

do not even if it if it's two days later or whatever they do not allow the officers to watch their videos prior to giving a statement even if it's not even if it's happening a couple days later. And one of the investigative protocols is to kind of lock down control of that video because obviously it's sensitive evidence at that point so that gets taken care of in the immediate aftermath so that it's not going to be inadvertently accessed or shared or whatever. Thank you. Um and then in regards to the K9 um during that review process, were you aware of like maybe the age of the canines or anything like that? how long they've been on the force because I've seen in the report it was like they weren't releasing when they were being told to be released of the bites. Um officers were having a hard time getting the dog to release. Is that something that could possibly be the age of the the dog, how long they've been training? Um and do you know if maybe the type of dog that it is that they're using could be an issue as well? So the the short answer to your question is I don't know. Uh but I will tell you that that the points that you are making are absolutely things variables that that go into a K9 program and that handlers and people who specialize in this are absolutely evaluating and taking a look at if a dog is not functioning well in the field then obviously the whole idea of retraining that dog and making sure but dogs sometimes cycle out because they they are not well suited for the task for whatever reason and that is definitely something that that is is addressed internally. Have you ever made any recommendations on the type of dog that police department should use? I have not. And again, that's not an area of expertise of mine, but certainly there are uh it's pretty well established in terms of the breeds and the the the breeders and the sources of

of police canines. It's a very very established field. Having said that, um as it says in the report, the use of canines is is uh has become a little bit controversial. There have been um efforts in the state legislature that that did not succeed. But in the last couple of years, legislators have proposed, hey, we're going to restrict the use of police canines or ban the use of police canines out of concern for some of the different implications of them. But those initiatives have not failed, have not succeeded. My point is this is it's a high-risisk activity. Uh it's obviously important. They can be an incredibly effective tool for officer safety and for neutralizing situations. And I know for a fact and talked to the department about it, there are multiple instances where there's not a bite that happens because the dog is there and barking and they're saying we're going to send the dog and the person is is certainly willing to stop resisting at that point. So, it's a complicated issue. My only point is without weighing in one way or the other, keep them, don't keep them, it's really it certainly deserves the highest level of of scrutiny and protection or scrutiny and and review and investigation for a lot of different reasons. Okay, thank you. Um I do have one more. Um it was in regards to the tasers. um you know the failure to issue a warning prior to the use of the taser but also the tasers weren't very effective um when it came to the use of the taser and I know recently um we are going to be purchasing an updated taser. Do you have you ever had recommendations on maybe trying to use different methods besides a taser if they're not as effective or if you know how many cases

you reviewed like a percentage that the tasers were effective versus what said again simple answer is no I don't have that kind of of study I think you make an interesting point there are so many variables that go into it literally some of it's going to come down to what kind of clothing is the subject wearing. Uh if somebody's got a a really thick sweatshirt on, for example, then maybe the prongs go into the sweatshirt, but they're they're not having any effect on the person. So, there are so many things that that can go into it. Um but again, my point is not to to to uh substitute my judgment for the departments about these different options. And the taser can can and has been effective in terms of ending situations without deadly force being necessary. But it it's also like the canines a tool that where there's risk involved, where there's complexity involved and the the scrutiny that that it deserves should should kind of reflect that. Thank you. Um is there any other members from the board have any questions, comments? Okay, so I will be opening this up to the public. Uh, thank you again for the presentation. Are there any members from the public that haven't comments or questions regarding this item? Um, I haven't had time to review the packet. Um, oh, there you are. Thought you left. Um, I was just wondering as we were talking about looking at through different lenses or maybe even different cases, I think like a big concern in Stannisaw County and in Modesto is the high amount of people with mental health issues who are being arrested and you know the lack of deescalation because I have witnessed it

myself um because I've worked in social services and also uh through the the unhoused lens because we have we saw a stat last year, I think it was last year, and there was like 1,000 either citations or arrests to people who are unhoused, which I find insanely high and disturbing because that's not helping fix the issue. So maybe that could also be something to look at further. I don't know just just some thoughts because I know that's something like the group that we've come to CPRV that's something we have wanted to look more into especially our unhoused neighbors and and we are seeing as the economy and a looming recession they think I mean more and more people are becoming unhoused and we're having a larger community of people in severe need so just you know just some questions so thank you thank Okay. Do we have any other member from the public that would like to speak on this item? Yeah. Um uh thanks again. I I've said this before. I think when the last report, which was only like a sixmonth report, the first one came out. This is good to see. It's good to shine sunlight on this stuff. Uh I know it's probably, you know, it's not easy to to, you know, read and say, oh, you know, some stuff could have been done better, wasn't done right, but this is good. It's like pulling the band-aid off, right? Now we can, you know, clean the wound and sterilize and all that kind of stuff. I I'd love to see that there's recommendations and then the department changed policy. You know, that's like what this is all about, right? Um uh I like to see the you know honesty in the

report about some of the incidents um and the evaluations um of the incidents. Um the K9 you know issue is is a good example of that. Um you know to to see that you know one of the incidents where a K-9 was deployed that that the uh the articulated cause for deployment was questionable. you know, that's that's obviously concerning for somebody like me, but it's better than finding out, you know, because a a family member of the person that was bit, you know, is talking about it in public and we're not getting like an official look at it and then people start speculating as to what happened, right? So, um, you know, like I said, even though this might be a, you know, a tough uncomfortable process, you know, this is good and and I think it's, uh, it's a good process that we're going through. um doing this. I I like, you know, when there's there's comments about um you know, when that it's common for dogs to remain engaged because the person is remaining resistant, but you know, but that being bitten by a dog can kind of give you that natural reaction to resist the dog attacking you, right? um that the fact that that's just pointed out, you know, in this report. Um I've said things similar to that, but it's great to to see um you know, folks that do this for a living looking at actual cases that have happened and putting that opinion, you know, down on paper. I think it, you know, legitimizes those concerns um that people in the community have have been making, you know, for at least a decade or at least when I've been kind of involved. um you know in these in these aspects um the um uh what I feel like is still needed is a little bit more publicity and outreach to the community. I was doing, you know,

just a quick look at the city of Modesto's Facebook page. I see lots of flyers about events. I didn't see anything about this meeting coming up and this is going to be the meeting where the report is released. Um, and I'm not sure when it, you know, if it was just literally printed out and set out there before anybody else, uh, you know, public, uh, got a chance to see it, if it was online at all. I didn't I didn't see it. If it was online even a few days ago, that would have been nice to to post about and publicize, give people a chance to look at it um before this meeting. Uh, like I said, I don't know, maybe it wasn't ready. I'm certainly going to look at it more um from now um until the next meeting, but um I think that we we do need some more publicity about this meetings. We saw the turnout at the King Kennedy Center meeting. Um I think that if we're publicizing that the report was going to be released that maybe more folks would come to these meetings and I'm out of time. I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Do we have any other comments from anyone in the public? All righty. Seeing none, I will be closing public comments. And is there anyone from the board that have any other further comments? Okay, seeing none, um, thank you, Steve. And on to the next item, staff comments and reports. Steve, independent police auditor update, please. Good evening. Steve Connley, Independent Police. just when you thought it was safe to go on with your evening. I just have a very brief uh follow-up item unrelated to the report and I got confused. I talked to board member Christensen before the meeting and I was mixing up my subcommittees a little bit, but I just wanted to flag for the the youth arrest subcommittee. Uh I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to meet with some representatives of an organization

that does nationwide work in terms of youth in the criminal justice system. They actually had some interesting ideas. Some I was less enamored of, but they do a lot of work with departments and in terms of policy ideas and trainings that kind of are designed to help recognize that youth are differently situated than adults with in terms of their reactions and decision- making and everything else. And the goal is to equip officers to deal with them in the most effective ways possible. Similar to what the the commenter was saying about people with mental illness. Absolutely. the officers need to have the the background and training to recognize and and adjust to get the best possible outcomes in in those situations. So, I wanted to just flag that and hopefully the next time your subcommittee gets together, I can give you a little bit more information about that and see if it's anything you'd be interested in pursuing. Thank you. Thank you. That is it. Thanks. All right. Is there anyone on the board that has any questions? All right. Uh, seeing none. This is open to the public as well. Is there any public comments? Okay. Huh. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I will be closing public comments. Um, again, anyone from the board have any further comments? Okay. Seeing none, we'll be moving on to board comments and reports. At this time, uh board members may make a brief announcement or report briefly on their activities. Um policy goal number eight, review use of force policy to minimize likelihood of death resulting from use of force. I have a comment. Um I attended the um Patterson City Council meeting last night. The meeting started at 7:00. I left at

around 10:30 because there was so many people there and so many comments that um took place over the video incident on April the 1st uh where um a person was stopped and and um the incident led to uh the individual being tasered and then a a weapon pulled out. And so there were speakers from from every nationality there and they were expressing basically their overall concern about the the way they were being policed and um so it was really clear that this is not about one particular incident and there were you know mixed opinions about the video but most came away uh with that having a bad attitude is not a crime and that there was um in my opinion a consensus that the police officer overreacted and based on the fact that officers are held to a higher standard and they receive or should receive training and deescalation that um that situation should not have resulted in a person being tased or having a gun pointed at them. Um the good news was that several speakers kept mentioning about Modesto and and we are perceived as being the model and what they were suggesting was to have a citizens a community citizens uh review board with an independent auditor possibly partnering with the city of Modesto. Um, so I was really proud to hear that uh, Modesto is standing out in in terms of being the model for the for the rest of the county. Um, I'm sure there'll continue to be more um discussions about about that incident and then just how people are traumatized, you know, when you're

looking staring at a gun when you're looking at a gun or or even being tased and how uh you know who the officers get paid. you know, citizens pay, taxpayers pay the officers, and so there's an expectation that the officers are going to do more, take more responsibility in deescalating. Of course, in a situation, it's everybody's responsibility to deescalate. But again, just reminding that the officers get paid, they get trained, um, and they're held to a higher standard. And so, um, regardless of, um, you know what, and even looking at policies and procedures, there's questions about that. regardless of how the situation turns out. Anytime you have that many people um disgusted by the way they're being treated and not just on this one occasion and not just black people, but people of every nationality complaining about the way they're being policed, then you know, I I look at it as an opportunity more than a problem. It will be a problem if the um departments are not as smart as the MPD in trying to do something because these situations will get handled one way or the other. Either you'll find yourself on national news and you'll find yourself getting involved in a lot of different lawsuits or else you take a proactive approach like I think u Modesto was doing. So, compliments to Modesto for being viewed as as a good example to uh to remedying certain situations. Thank you, Wendy. Um on to policy goal number one, improve relations between the community and the department. Um I'll take that one. I don't have a whole lot to add. We have

attempted a couple of meetings and not had enough consensus of attendees to take a lot of steps forward but know that we're meeting and working on it. U worked yesterday to set it our next meeting time and uh Mr. Con Connelly I actually tracked with you earlier because the focus that we're on right now is around the know your rights concept and what we're looking at is know your rights is just a component of it. There's other components that are on our hit list. So what you were sharing with me actually may fit as one of the components. So I sort tracked with you. Didn't even recognize the difference. So when you share the summary with Wendy, I wouldn't mind having that as well. Please. Thank you. Thank you. Um poly school number three reduce youth youth arrest particularly among Latino youth. We don't have a report but I do um have a question to see. In fact, we're going to be talking more about um data at the uh last town hall that we had in February. Um we we just kind of did an introductory thing, but you know, in really in order to understand more about the context of what's happening, we have had a few other meetings where we do have a list of questions that we would like to um present to you and to the sheriff's department. Um and and and you know, one of those things we'll be kind of taking a look at uh what the youth arrest data is like and more context behind the data. What was it about? You know, was it due to calls? Was it due to traffic stops? Was it due to, you know, what initiated the first incidents and things like that? Thank you. That's it. Thank you. All right. Uh, moving on to future agenda items. Um, yeah, you have to turn your microphone on. I

just I'm figuring this out. You know, Sammy's challenging me over here. Um, so Scotty Douglas, deputy city manager, just to give a quick update on the future agenda items. So what we have scheduled so far is upcoming is the Modesto Police Department response to OIR's uh annual report for January 2024 to December 2024. And then the next one is community engagement and activities presentation that'll be coming up. And then also we'll be scheduling uh a revisit of the 2025 CPRB calendar of topics as we discussed earlier. um you know things sometimes are a little bit more timely if something comes up and so we you know you as a board um approved moving forward with somewhat of an open schedule for remainder remaining parts of the year but we will bring this back so that we can update uh calendar topics for the rest of this annual annual year. Okay. Thank you. One thing that came up tonight, I think it'd be good to have a a report, quick report on the mental health. And now that the dispatch has done done much differently than it was a year ago, and there is a lot of um sending out um mental health professionals. There's one on every shift or whatever that the whatever we're doing. I'd like to I think it is a underlying question that it would be just be nice to get a progress report on how that is and and how effective it is and maybe some of the folks that um are those folks that go out on the calls to maybe share a little bit of what their experience because that is that is an issue and I think you my recollection is we've done a pretty good job of trying to accommodate that but uh obviously ly the system the system system's never going to be perfect but if we get some

updates on that and and uh that would be good whether next month or whenever I'm not talking about a full-blown report I'm just you know how's how's update yeah just how's it going because that's something that that that is near and dear to everybody here for sure okay we capture that thank you can Um it is now your microphone's going off and on by itself. Go ahead. Um there was a comment from the public early on in the meeting um wanting to know about the status of arbitration with one of the officers that was involved in a fatal incident. Um question for city staff. Are you able to comment on that? There's no update at this at this time. I have no update on any time frame of that arbitration. Hansy. So, Chief Gillespie, will you be prepared the May agenda item? Is your response will is that time still good for you? I think I saw it was on future agenda items. I didn't see that it was May, but uh um we can as we get closer to the May meeting, if I'm uh I appreciate the the thoroughess and the thoughtfulness from the OIR group, I want to make sure that I do my due diligence and provide the same level of response. Uh if I'm prepared at the May meeting, absolutely. Uh but as we get closer, I may ask to push it at at the at the latest of June. But if I'm if I can have a thorough uh response and prepared uh by uh May, I'm happy to do that. But I don't want to lock myself into that if I'm not. Thanks. Thanks for calling that out. I mean, just because of the order on here doesn't necessarily mean that that's coming up next month and the month after

that. These are just future topics. Okay. I just thought we had that was what we had set in May meeting, but I could be wrong. Okay. I will try my best. No. And I understand if you're not prepared. I mean last year you were traveling and things did get delayed. I was just trying to confirm if it would be the agenda. No pressure. Um okay. And then for lastly for me I was wanting to get an update on are we getting a grant again for the Nicole conference this year and if we're going to be inviting any board members. Um I'll work with uh Chief Gillespie. I know that your staff is uh the ones that submitted for that I believe this last year, wasn't it? Yeah. Was that part of our Calc grant? I think it's I think it was a one time. Got it. But we can look at and see if there's potential other funding sources or options to do that. I I feel like it's a really good experience and as many board members as we can get to go to that conference. Um if you guys can please look into that and then give us an update hopefully next meeting. All right. Well, we'll look into it. Okay. Thank you so much. Um I just want to thank the public again for coming out. I appreciate you guys coming out here every time. We do this for you. And so um with that said, our next meeting is going to be May 21st. No public comments. Um our next meeting will be the future agenda item. After that, there's public. Okay. Um, are there any public comments in regards to the future agenda items? The end of the last agenda item, but I

didn't want to be rude and be like, "Hey, stop." But I know I asked this before is to clarify. Isn't there a public comment after every agenda item? because the public would comment in the beginning is for things not on the agenda. So, there should be a public comment after every agenda item. Um, and I'm using up my time, but I wanted to comment on the the the last uh just to agree with with uh what Wendy said um about the incident that we saw um in Patterson um and uh the need to promote this board and and do more outreach and publicity around it. Um, so that we'll just say other law enforcement departments in the county won't be uh won't shy away so much. I'm trying to use the the best language I can. Won't shy away so much from the idea of oversight and accountability um in their department that we've seen some quotes from the sheriff in the local media. Um, I think it's it's this is a good process. Uh, and uh, maybe the promotion of this can sway others um, to to be involved in similar thing. And just wanted to agree with Wendy 100% about uh, the the the kind of back and forth about the first video that came out and the second video. There was even some public officials saying, "Oh, this is concerning." And then when the second video came out, oh, I understand why the officer, no, just being, you know, we don't know what that guy in the car was going through when he got pulled over. You know, you could have a death in the family or maybe his passenger had just broken up with him or you don't know why somebody has an attitude. But again, Wendy said it just right. We have to hold officers to a higher standard. And in my my humble opinion in that video, that officer escalated the situation by proddding at that individual by saying, "What's your problem? Why are you acting like that? Why not just do your job? No reason to say things like that." My

humble opinion on the matter and why I agree with you. The K-9 issue um that I brought up earlier is another good issue uh to point out with the sheriff's department. A few years ago, Eloy Gonzalez was killed after eight minutes of an incident with the the sheriff after a K-9 was uh sicked on him and then in response to being attacked by a dog, brandished a hatchet at the dog um and then was shot and killed after eight minutes. That's not deescalation. That's not taking your time with somebody with mental health issues. Uh and that is why we need oversight for the sheriff's department. And with my last 30 seconds, I'll just reiterate my comment about the importance of uh doing outreach. Um before the last meeting that was canceled in March, there was an incident where uh it seems like maybe an armed individual um had a shootout with the police. You know, in the reports it was about a hundred shots being fired. Um I actually came down here. I I didn't do my due diligence and look at if this meeting was canceled. So, I was actually here and found out it had been cancelled. But that's another good example to show why and maybe this why I was making this. This could be a future agenda item exactly how the board um interacts with the department. I know that they can't say anything that would be, you know, talking about an ongoing investigation, but I know it's in the charter. Um and we heard about it with the is it called the M the MERT or whatever it's called. how there are meetings with the review board uh after incidents like that. And even if you can't say any specifics about an ongoing investigation, it's real important to let the community know that you met, that you discussed it, um that you know you are in contact with the department

and are talking about it. I think that goes a long way with the community of just knowing what the board is up to when there's a incident that's that's in the news like that one and and these headlines. Um, and I don't know when the decision was made to cancel uh the meeting. Uh, but it it wasn't a good look for that incident to happen and then have the meeting canled and not really any statements from uh the board about the incident even if it's just we're in discussion with the department. Um, you know, we're we're there's an investigation going on and I've gone over my time, but thank you again. Thank you. All right. And with that being said, is there any other public comments? Seeing none, I will be closing public comments, and the meeting has been adjourned until May 21st, 2025 at 5:30. Thank you.