Community Police Review Board - Regular Meeting

which are activated by which are activated by pushing the talk button or the push button. Um, and you'll need to wait for the chair to acknowledge the speaker before proceeding. So, will the clerk call the role? Uh, chairman or member Beasley Day, member Bryant, member Bird, member Christensen, Vice Chair Deell, Member Grant, member Smith

here, member Han, 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 the granting of an excused absence. At this time, we ask for a motion from the board to grant an excused op absence. Second. All in favor? I.

All right. Uh on to declaration of conflict of interest. Do any of the board members have any conflicts of interest pertaining to items listed on the agenda? All righty. Seeing none, we'll be moving on to public comments. As noted on the agenda, public comments will be only in person. Zoom will still be available for viewing and wordly translation. Um, before public comments, I'd like to go over a few board meeting decorum rules in regards to public comments. Uh, please be respectful of all presenters, board members, staff, and members of the public. Please refrain from clapping other than following a presentation. All speakers are encouraged to state their name and city of residence. All questions must be directed to the chair, myself. Please do not block the view of others by holding signs up during board meetings. Time limit for public comments is three minutes but may be limited at the discretion of the chair to manage the business of the board. Speaking over others or interrupting while others have the floor is not permitted. Cell phones should be turned off or shall be set to vibrate during meetings. Does anyone wish to speak on any item under public comment? This is for items not on the agenda and you'll have three minutes to speak. And I know tonight we do have um a presentation regards to the protest that happened on June 14th. So if there are any public comments um in regards to protest, let's be sure to keep them um in regards to like all of protest and not directly regarding the June 14th protest because there will be a presentation about that. So, if you can please hold those comments until after the presentation when I open it up for public comments. Okay. So, is there anyone out in the public that would like to speak?

Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on to consent item A. Consider approving the minutes from the community police review board meeting on June 18th, 2025. Would anyone like to remove the consent item for further discussion? If not, I'd like to call a motion to approve.

All right. All in favor say I. I. Right. On to new business. Item A, uh, information on protest regarding June 14th Modesto protest. Presentation from staff by Chief Brandon Gillespie. [Music] Well, good evening, chair, members of the CPRB, and community members. uh Chief Brandon Gillespie and uh I appreciate the opportunity to provide an overview of what the Modesto Police Department or Modesto Police Department's actions and response on June 14th, the June 14th protest. I'm here to offer uh facts, context, and the transparency regarding our approach and the reasoning behind our actions. The first amendment of the constitution guarantees the right of the people to peacefully assemble. As a department, we are fully committed to protecting that right and these constitutional protections coexist with the ability of local governments to adopt reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions for the sake of public safety. Restrictions with the courts, restrictions which the courts have consistently upheld. We also have uh two primary applicable policies that we use at the Modesto Police Department as guidance when dealing with public assemblies and mass arrests. These policies ensure that both constitutional protections and operational safeguards during mass gatherings. And those policies are 466 and 412 uh which I know was sent to the board uh and obviously available online for the public to review as well. Getting on to the Modesto uh the city Modesto ordinance um that we have

restricting certain items. Uh the municipal code um the municipal code that some in the public have been critical of 4-23.02 was adopted in first in 2019 and amended in 2021. The ordinance prohibits specific items during public assemblies including masks intended to conceal identity. The ordinance is contentneutral, constitutional, and was a proactive response to disruptions we saw happening around the country, combined with growing concerns about the Straight Pride event that was being planned locally. Straight Pride organizers had invited the Proud Boys to attend their rally. And in addition to local counterprotest groups, there was credible evidence to believe that Antifa groups outside Modesto would attend and counterprotest as well. part of the ordinance adoption. As part of the ordinance adoption, the city council at the time and the police department emphasized that they did not want to take a wait and see approach when it comes to public safety in our city. In 2021, based on what we were seeing around the country and our own local protests, additional prohibited items under this ordinance were adopted by the city council, including metal containers and ga uh gas masks, helmets, laser pointers, umbrellas, riot gear, and loadbearing vests. For the past six years, this ordinance, including the mask provision, has been effectively used during protests, including the Straight Pride protests, where we've used early warnings that led to high levels of cooperation with our overall ordinance. It has served as both an educational tool and a deterrent to escalation. It is important to remember the why behind this ordinance. Past protests both nationally and locally have shown that individuals involved in violence, destruction, and unlawful activity at protests have used these prohibited items in our protest, have worn face coverings to cause violence, chaos, intimidation, and destruction. This is a

fact uh why and why courts have consistently upheld the right to peacefully protest and that ability to coexist with the ability of local governments to adopt t reasonable time place and manner restrictions for the safety of the public. Let me reiterate the ordinance is not about targeting ideologies or messages. It's about public safety. It prohibits not only face coverings meant to obscure identity, but also weapons, protective gear, and certain containers, items that have been used to escalate uh protests into violence. Our primary our priority is to safeguard everyone, protesters, residents, business owners, and our officers. More and more states and cities appear to be considering mask restrictions. According to the Associated Press a Associated uh press news article from June that quoted Ellie Page, a senior legal adviser with the International Center for Nonprofit Law, at least 18 states in Washington DC uh have laws that restrict fa uh mass or other face coverings. The center said that in Octo since October of 2023, at least 16 bills have been introduced in eight states and Congress to restrict masks at protests. Local ordinance prohibiting face coverings and masks go back decades and several have involved the Ku Klux Clan wearing face coverings at rallies. Several case law decisions have upheld such ordinances as lawful. We've used this ordinance lawfully and consistently with the purpose of deterring violence and safeguarding our city. And just to reiterate, uh these are are not from our local protests. this uh in 2019. Uh these photos here were just taken off the internet to show uh what typically uh black and yellow u uh Proud Boys attire and things that we were seeing here. And on the left is typical Antifa attire of what we see and have

seen around the country in different protests. Community concerns. Prior to the protest, we received communications from concerned commu community members about the potential violence, especially in light of the chaos seen in cities like Los Angeles and Fr San Francisco in the days leading up to June 14th. And this is an excerpt of an email that we received uh from a concerned business owner uh in the downtown Modesto business area, very aware of what was going on uh uh in LA and other places and concerned about the violence that could spread to Modesto. and and I'll talk about that in a minute, but the LA what was going on in LA did spread to other cities throughout our country and our state. The unrest in places like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and elsewhere uh led to hundreds of arrests, injuries, and property destruction. Our community wanted reassurance that Modesto would not face similar outcome, and we were committed to ensuring that it did not. You look at Los Angeles, June 6th through 11th, 2025, uh, looked like there was approximately, from the information I gathered, approximately 560 arrests. The LA police chief stated that his officers were overwhelmed by the number of people engaged in violence and vandalism in their city. In San Francisco, on June 8th, they had over 140 people arrested and two officers were injured. And in Santa Ana, California on June 9th, they had uh a protest, a smaller protest, about 200 uh people and 10 people were arrested during that protest. And again, these photos were taken from uh the internet with the uh Los Angeles protest and seeing what was going on on there and definitely show there was plenty of masked people uh committing violence uh in that city. the known information that we had leading up to June 14th about the protests here. Uh we had two different

protest main protests that were scheduled with significant online likes and potential presence for counterprotesters. So what we knew and what we were tracking via social media platforms is the ICE out mass mobilization protest had over 2200 social media likes. the No Kings National Day of Defiance protest uh and talking to one of the host organizers had received just that alone. Remember there's multiple organizers for that event had that uh organization alone had over 700 IRSVPs to the event. So we knew that the day was going to be uh busy and we knew that uh this protest uh and again we looked at it as as a larger protest. We figured the uh first protest so uh so so close in proximity to the Crusader Park protest uh would likely merge and they did. Other information that we had uh there was rumors uh we heard from different sources that there was rumors that the Proud Boys would be in attendance to counterprotest. And then we also had seen comments on social media uh with with people uh in uh um advocating uh for violence and and other types of uh destruction. As part of our commitment to safeguard protesters, we deployed a bomb dog early in the morning at 7 a.m. uh to sweep the protest areas including GarcA Park and the tent tent street plaza to ensure the safety of the intent attendees. Uh the information we had is at 10 a.m. there was the ICE out protest at 10 Street Plaza and ultimately after the event concluded that later we estimated somewhere between 100 to 150 attendees and 11:45 was an initial safety briefing for the No Kings protest at GarcA Park and again ultimately we estimated somewhere between 2 to 3,000 people although I've heard estimates of 4 to 5,000 people but our best guesstimate was around 2 to 3,000 people. Uh at

12:30 uh the Nokings protest was scheduled to march from Garcada to five points at Mckenry and Needam. Uh and then at 1:30 scheduled to uh march back to Gusa Park. Uh it was not a protest, but I put this up here because it was in very close proximity at Mancini Bowl. Uh was the Junth celebration at GSA Park that began at 100 p.m. that day. So, our enforcement strategy, our response included a visible professional police presence to ensure the safety of everyone, provide early education of laws and ordinances, and take a zero tolerance approach to violence, destruction, and violations of the law. We provided multiple forms of notice, including signage, personal warnings, and PA announcements in English and Spanish. Most people cooperated. those who refused to cooperate. Uh some of those were arrested and were arrested in a a strategic manner to preserve the peace and ensure that we had a peaceful day that we did not have to declare an unlawful assembly. When we looked at uh how we deployed our personnel, we deployed a variety of teams both marked and unmarked uh and marked and unmarked vehicles each with clear roles. Uh we had plane closed personnel which were completely plain closed and in plain cars to make sure that they could monitor uh the events and the crowds for any type of uh you know agitation or issues. Uh also they would uh drove around to look at at people approaching to make sure any uh we could be noticed ahead of time if any counterprotesters showed up uh and can deal with those issues or uh also any type of prohibited items coming into the uh into any protest area. Our goal was to try to provide warnings to people to let them know they could not have those have those items in there. Our traffic unit uh was also deployed and responsible for keeping pedestrians out

of the roadway and for general uh traffic enforcement. Uh we also utilized our airplane Sky 1 and we had UAV UAVs often called drones um that were responsible for overwatch and assisting with any operational needs since we knew there was going to be a lot of people. uniformed contact teams. Those were uniformed officers uh and uh most often that day was in marked patrol cars that were responsible when we did observe somebody with some type of prohibited item of trying to make initial contact warning people they couldn't have those items. And then we also had uniformed arrest teams and those teams uh were in unmarked vehicles uh and they were responsible for a few things. are responsible to be the primary contact teams to arrest somebody should that need to occur and they also were responsible uh for addressing any type of armed or uh seriously violent issues that may arise that day. They were our tactical team uh that was that was playing a dual role that day. Uh the real-time crime center uh was up and running. We have a lot of cameras around the city including the parks uh and uh downtown in the 10th Street Plaza area. Uh and that uh was responsible for uh using the department uh cameras to monitor the events. Uh direct personnel to anyone that needed to be contacted and just generally assist the enforcement data. When you looked at the end of the day, uh there were five arrests that were made for violating the mass subsection of our ordinance. There was one arrest for obstructing officers. There was one noise violation citation. There was 18 traffic citations uh for mostly unsafe beh uh behavior like hanging out car windows. People had flags or different things and were sitting on window seals, things like that. And we had five vehicles that were towed. Two of those for reckless reckless driving.

So these are the photographs of the five people who were arrested for violating the mask ordinance. As seen here, the individuals uh arrested wore masks uh clearly to conceal their identity um and in violation of our city ordinance. Contrary to some public statements, uh these were not snatch and grab operations when we decided to arrest people. We had lawful cause. We gave warnings and we acted with the deliberate strategy to prevent escalation and protect both protesters and the officers. One of the mass subjects, this one here, this is actually a photograph taken from the Modesto B article uh that was written after the fact. uh one this first person was arrested uh within the crowd uh and then again to avoid continue to further escalate uh four others were strategically arrested away from the plaza to avoid that escalation. We use clearly identified police officers as you can see uh this officer here is in a Modesto PD uniform clearly identifi identified as a Modesto police officer um and we used did use unmarked vehicles. The unmarked vehicles uh prevented the arrestes from retreating into the crowd and increasing the chances of crowd escalation. It reduced the safety risk for officers and remove the arresty remove the arresty. That's why we took them out very quickly from the area. It'll uh remove the arresty as a focal point of the crowd also reducing the potential for confrontations and we've seen that in multiple protests. And I can go back uh to one of the early straight pride protests where myself and the previous police chief uh actually um a protest that was uh going down Mckenry had a subject that needed to be arrested uh committed a law violation um but was in the middle of the crowd and we actually and we were in an unmarked car

in our uniforms and once he was on the edge of the crowd near Mckenry and Bowen we actually are the ones that ended up getting out of our vehicle and arresting that person before they could uh insert themselves back deeper into the crowd. We do this uh for safety reasons for everybody and I've been in multiple situations and uh not just protests but large uh events and crowds when you arrest people and there's crowds around that can incite very quickly and turn to violence and chaos and that's why we use those tactics. Uh many have uh this dis and public comment have said that we use ICE tactics and other things like that. These are tactics that law enforcement has used for decades uh in many different situations and scenarios. uh and because ICE is using similar tactics uh in different cities uh does not make these ICE tactics. These are law enforcement effective tactics that we have used uh for decades. So I want to clear up uh that misnomer. What did happen that day in my view is that there was very contrasting approaches uh that the organizers took uh for the different uh two different protests uh uh that I was asked to come back and talk about. Um at the Crusader Park uh the organizers communicated clearly with their attendees even so much that they would actually chant out to their attendees the rules of staying on the roadway and not violating uh uh staying on the sidewalk. Excuse me one second. And the crowd would chant uh that back to uh back to uh the organizers. They promoted lawful behavior. And I'll show you an example of that here in a minute. Uh and they assisted with crowd control. They actually brought their own people with uh reflective vests to help people lawfully cross the road. Uh in contrast to that uh what we observed at the 10th Street Plaza is that the organizers distributed literature encouraging people to uh uh conceal their faces in

violation of our ordinance. They began chanting chanting loudly when officers provided PA announcements and were trying to warn people and make them aware of our ordinance. and the group as they marched to GarcA park uh just walked straight across the intersections not caring what color the lights were and and and if cars were coming and cars had to stop. This is a uh a flyer that was uh distributed via social media uh from the progressive Democrats regarding the protest uh and and advising their attendees. And if you can read it, it says, "Do not engage with counterprotesters. Obey all traffic laws. Stay on sidewalks, use crosswalks, do not block driveways, roads, or entrances to businesses. Um, find tra uh find safety personnel for emergencies uh uh and aggressors. And according to Modesto municipal codes, no poles, masks, metal, or glass containers. In contrast, this is uh what was posted online and then handed out at the 10th Street Plaza protest. Um, and if you can, uh, I highlighted a couple things just to show, uh, uh, the mindset is there was an icon that says mask up. Stay anonymous by covering up, wear a mask, glasses, dark clothing, and a hat to protect your safety identity. Uh, there's another one that says senses open. Keep an eye on keep an eye and ear on the cops and other white supremists to create a plan in real time in case there is violence. So, these are these are the contrasting approaches that each one of these these groups took uh to their attendees. Here is some uh photographs uh from one of our cameras in the downtown area of one of the organizers handing out that flyer that I just showed to attendees. I will note uh that again going back to

the people that we arrested, we focused on the egregious violators of uh the ordinance and the face coverings to conceal identity. You'll notice in this photo that some of these attendees, which we saw at both protests, uh uh are wearing more of the medical masks that you would typically see. Uh none of uh those people in either protests that were wearing these type of masks were were addressed or arrested. Uh we focused on the egregious violations of those that were clearly trying to conceal uh their identity. Here's another photograph of of this being handed out uh uh to to the attendees. Again, in my opinion, not very good advice to uh tell people to uh violate our ordinance. But I I will be the first to tell you that we're a learning organization and there were challenges and there were opportunities uh that that that we will work on to make sure that we handle everything better. We have the same and and I'll summarize this at the end, but we have the same uh goal as most pro protest groups in our city is to have a peaceful protest with zero arrests. Um and I'll go through some of the challenges and the opportunities um that that we've taken away from uh what that what happened here uh on June 14th. Challenges um we have cameras around the city. Some are are are directly connected to uh the fiber network in the city. Some are on cellular network. Um, we had a camera and again I don't usually provide operational details of what we do and strategies the police department uses, but I think it's it's uh there's a good context here because one of the other complaints that we've heard uh is that we again we treated these groups differently and specifically when it came to uh the GarcA park uh group having a PA uh PA system and talking on things like that. So, we do have uh we had two cameras that uh really gave us a view of what was going on in the Crusader Park

protest. One is actually out on the south side of Needam. Uh the other one is actually in Gusa Park and uh because of the amount of people that showed up to the Crusada Park uh rally. it actually overdid the the cellular network and our camera north of Mancini Bowl where actually a lot of this activity was taking place uh froze up and we actually weren't able to have uh a a any u uh camera um observation from our real-time crime center on that north side of of Mancini Mancini Bowl. um that hindered us in being able to see what was going on because we relied on those cameras both in the 10th Street Plaza uh and at Garcetta Park to try to get a good view of what was going on. Um so that was a challenge that we're going to work through because we expect that there's going to be more protests in our city and GSA Park is one that uh that uh people go to and often use. Uh and so we're working through those issues, but that was ended up being an unanticipated challenge that day um that we had to deal with. uh opportunities. Um we have the ability and we're going to increase signage and we're also going to ensure the accuracy of our social media posts. One thing that we didn't even realize until after uh we actually read the Modesto B article that said our our social media post uh was cut off and didn't include specifically the mask ordinance. It's a template we've used uh for many years. And uh to this day our our PIO is not exactly sure why that got cut off. We posted it uh believing the entire ordinance was posted. That's what we do with every protest. or most of our protests, I should say. Uh and uh uh and we need to make sure we go back and after we post to make sure that everything's everything's there. We're also going to increase signage for years, and this goes back to probably um 21 or 22, uh we've started to put signage out around the city, uh mostly because of the Straight Pride protest. And so there's signage uh of our ordinance of prohibited items along Mckenry by Planned Parenthood, up by Briggsmore Mckenry. Um there is uh a

sign in Garcetta Park. There's one in Ensulin Park. Um but what we didn't have that day, there was not one of those signs in the 10th Street Plaza. Uh there is one uh north of the 10th Street Plaza uh on at the center plaza on K and 10th. Uh but there's actually not one in the middle of uh 10th Street Plaza. um based on, you know, our PA announcements in both English and Spanish and a few people uh throughout the day as we could were uh um uh personally warned as they as they approached the event. I don't know that that would have changed anything, but I want every avenue of potential educational warnings that we can. So, there will be additional signage put up uh at 10th Street Plaza. Um we're going to enhance the specific directions uh and by direct birectional communication between the real time crime center and field personnel. Um, we always can improve when we're talking to people. We want them to understand the why behind what we're doing. So, uh, in addition to warnings that say you can't have a mask or you can't have that flag pole or you can't have whatever it may be, we want to make sure that we're giving very specific directions on what we intend them to do and the consequences of those actions. And so, uh, we'll be improving our communication uh, direction-wise. U, but then another complaint that we heard uh, um, is is when people were arrested, they weren't immediately told why they were arrested. and and in cases in many cases that was accurate. Um we had uh our real-time crime center like I said is is using their cameras to observe violations uh after we've provided uh warnings and decision has made been made to arrest somebody. Um oftent times that person would be would be uh identified through the real-time crime center and then our arrest teams would go in and arrest that person. that arrest team didn't always know. They knew that ex, you know, certain person need to be arrested, uh, but they wouldn't always immediately have exactly the charges of what they're being arrested for. That doesn't make it unlawful arrest. It's a lawful arrest. Uh, but ideally, what we want to provide so we don't get the complaints that we did is when the arresting officer arrests somebody, they can immediately

tell them why they were arrested. Uh, so then there's no claim that we didn't tell people why they're arrested or there's a delay in people understanding that why they're arrested. I will say in at least one occasion even though the person wasn't really told they were actually told officers uh is it because of the mask violation or the mask. Um so I don't want to leave anything to assumption and we're going to work on the birectional communication because in any large event there's going to be multiple assets that we're using or multiple people and and and technology we're using that has to relay information back and forth and not and and big big events. You go back to when we had XFest and different things like that. It doesn't have to be a protest. Uh there's always different levels of communication and that's something that we're going to work on improving. Uh face coverings won't be utilized by our officers during protests. Um again as I mentioned we used uh one of our tactical teams as our arrest officers and also as our response to any s serious violence such as uh you know weapons firearms and things like that. Um and some of these officers uh uh daily jobs um they wear plain clothes and so um uh in in two two location or two two of these people on the tactical team did initially wear face coverings um because in their normal jobs if they're ser if whether uh they're serving search warrants uh and are using different tools they wear face coverings sometimes to protect their faces from that or if they're working plain clothes obviously they don't want to be identified. Uh we will not either use people that need that don't need to be identified um or if we use any type of tactical teams that normally wear a face covering because of safety reasons when they're breaching doors, we won't use those personnel. Um there were two and and again we weren't we didn't even realize at the beginning that wore those. As soon as we realized that they were wearing them, uh they were told to take them off. Um but uh that's on that's on ultimately me. Um and we will make sure that going forward though uh that face coverings won't be utilized by our officers during protest. It's not

something that I want our officers using and and and and it can look bad. Um so we're not going to be doing that. Um unless there's some overriding exigent circumstance, which I don't anticipate. Um we're also going to focus on developing protest group contacts uh so we can answer questions, we can assure m a mutual understanding of the applicable rules and address any safety concerns. We've done this and we've tried to reach out uh and mo every almost every protest that we've had uh from straight pride or whatever it may be uh to different opposing groups to try to get develop leazison. Doesn't always work. We don't always have contact information or people sometimes don't want to talk to us and that's fine. Um but where we can and when we can we want to re be able to create these liaison uh so that we can address any safety concerns. there's a mutual understanding of what uh what uh our expectations are and what we're going to enforce, you know, um and and those things. I think at the end of the day, I've seen in our experience it very very very beneficial because if I can have a point of contact and we have issues and I can have a group police themselves and we don't have to get involved, that's a win-win all the way around. I think I think it's stuck. There you go. Um, and so in summary, I think what I I I want I mentioned this already, but in summary, at the end of the day, the Modesto Police Department wants what most protest groups want, a peaceful event with no arrests. Um, our role is protect the constitutional rights while ensuring the safety of everybody in our community and and protecting our our businesses and and our citizens. And I would say that on June 14th, more than 99% of the participants did so lawfully and respectfully and MPD's enforcement actions were strategic and solely focused on maintaining public safety. Uh but as a learning ex organization, uh we are always committed to continuously improving our practices and our service

to our community and our review of this event, I believe, reflects that commitment. And with that, I'm h happy to answer any questions. [Music] Does does any uh members of the board have any questions? Brad.

Okay. Is it working? Yeah. Okay. Just a clarification on a on a protest like this, are is the group required to get a permit to do this or is it something that they just show up and No. Uh for for protests, you're not required in most cases to have a permit. Okay. And I don't believe either one of these groups had a permit.

Wendy. Uh Wendy. Thank you for giving this presentation. Um I really like when you talked about the why um things are happening and I think that it opens the door to I would like to get a better understanding from the the protesters that were there what their why is. Um was the reason they had on mask and different things like that uh to if it wasn't to commit crimes, what was it for? because I think that there's other reasons, you know, um that people are fearful for ICE and things like that when they do go to protest that perhaps protecting their safety is important, too. So, I'd like to know after um will we be allowed to ask any more questions after the audience has a chance to

Yes. I I'd like to uh delay my questions until then. Okay.

Anyone else on the board? Chief, um I know at our briefing yesterday, I I asked you this question. I'm going to ask it again on the record. Um the uh city ordinance um basically says that you can't wear a mask to conceal your identity and uh there are exemptions or um um I guess exemptions is the best word for a mask being worn for religious uh purposes and for medical necessity. Um, in reviewing the policy, uh, 466, um, I know it says for planned events, you put together an operational plan, and you've touched on some of that that and the and the actions that you took preceding the event. Um, I I I I would suggest in the in the future we have a discussion and we can all, you know, have input in this. Um, but ultimately it's going to be up to the city manager and probably the city council as to whether they want to um amend the ordinance, add additional language uh or whether you uh as the department want to amend your policy uh regarding this matter to have more clear direction for the officers to determine whether or not a person is wearing this mask as a religious uh you know, requirement or whether it's for a medical necessity. Having said that, um I think trying to determine whether a person is wearing it for religious purposes is probably a can of worms. Uh I mean, I'm I don't know how many religions there are in the world,

but I suspect there's a lot and I don't know what all their doctrines are. Um and I suspect that trying to be specific about that is going to be problematic. Um, and I think, you know, encouraging your offers officers to use discretion, which it seems to me was done in this case, uh, so that they're not violating some violating somebody's constitutional rights, uh, is the ultimate goal. Um, so I I think it would be of interest to us, at least for me anyway, to u revisit that section of the ordinance and see whether or not we want to make any recommendations for potential amendments. Yeah, I I agree. I think that was uh you know a complaint that uh has been brought before before this board uh last time um and that we didn't ask anybody uh you know if it if they had an exemption. Um uh and and that's and that's correct. You know I it could go both ways, right? We provided uh PA announcements and nobody came up uh to our officers that I'm aware of and said, "Hey, I have a exemption because um I have a medical necessity or have a religious whatever the case may be." Uh, and I agree that's uh that's something that we should probably look at uh and try to be as clear as possible because at the end of the day uh um you know and somebody said this last time, nobody wants to go to jail for 12 hours uh and then have to ultimately prove their exemption in court later the day later because ultimately that's where that's where those exemptions get argued and and decided is in a courtroom. U but if we can prevent and not have to take people to jail because there's a legitimate reason. So be it. At the same time, I go back to the why we have that mask ordinance there is because of public safety and what we've seen around the country. Uh again going back decades to to start with the Ku Klux Clan. um is we want to make sure that also that you know everybody just doesn't use it as a loophole to say oh I just uh I have met I have a medical necessity or or I

whatever the religion we're trying h how we figure that out legitimately from not that's a tough that's a tough thing and I absolutely think we should continue to work on it I know uh I shouldn't say I know I'm aware of um some cities that in their ordinance simply say you cannot wear a mask. Agreed. And they don't give any exceptions. And I don't know that that's where we want to go, but that's certainly an option. Yeah. And that would eliminate some confusion and and you know, from my perspective anyway, but that may be too aggressive. I don't know.

Yeah, I appreciate you pointing that out because I believe there are cities that just have no exemptions. I guess it makes it easier to enforce because there are no exemptions. Um, but again, you you teeter on you teeter on the constitutionality of of uh of that coexistence of of protecting people's uh constitutional rights with the ability uh to make sure that we local governments have the ability to keep their public safe. So, thank you for your comments. Thanks. Is there anyone else on the board? Nancy, I had a question. Yes.

of that email in my recent experience or protests of similar nature in the area have escalated into acts of vandalism and theft. You know what I don't specifically know. I know that uh at a couple straight pride events we've had to declare unlawful assembly because of of of violence. Um I do believe in and I could look at some of my colleagues. I do believe in uh sometime after 2020 when we had a large protest downtown. I think there uh was some level of graffiti or a few windows broken. I'm getting some head nods so I think I'm I'm recalling that correctly. So I think we have had incidences in our past. Now if it said uh I have to go back to if it said recent past um that's not terribly recent. Uh but uh but no I can't think of anything I h I can't think of unlawful assemblies we've uh we've we've had to call it straight pride events. Um but that's the only viol or destruction that I can think of recently.

Is there anyone else? Hello. Um, just a just a couple questions about uh the PC question. I mean, yeah, the PLC point of contact. Um, just want to get an understanding of my first question would be what is that briefing look like? What does that entail? And then, um, number two, um, would be Why do you why do you think you guys are unable to contact some of the PC's? Why do you think that's an issue? That's the first question. That's the second. And the third question is how do you how do you what is your strategy to make sure that you can have these PC's?

Yeah, I appreciate the question. I think I think it's a two-way street. Uh we can't force people to talk to us. Um but I I think to your first part of the question is what does the briefing look like? Uh it looks like anything our point of contact with any group wants to have whatever they want to share with us. Uh from our side, what we would want to know is what kind of crowd are you expecting? So we can make sure that we understand uh the larger the crowd, often the more difficult it is to keep people out of the street and different things like that or even to control the the the behavior of the group so we can give help give strategies on that. Uh you know um make sure that they're aware if we are going to have resources there that what they're there for like our traffic unit is going to make sure they're trying to keep people out of the street. So, you may see officers coming up. Um, early warnings. We talk about that a lot. And, and then also, if they're willing to, uh, hey, give us a phone number because if we see so and so in violation of X, Y, or Z, and it's your group, we're going to call you and ask you first before we have to go arrest somebody to have that person comply with whatever it may be. And we've done that at at many different protests. Uh I I'll be honest with you, taking protest aside, when we talked about repealing the uh the cruising ordinance, uh that was a commitment we got from all the car clubs is we're going to cruise up and down Mckenry, um that's fine, but give us points of contact. So if we see ex club doing, you know, doing hopping cars as they're driving down Mckenry, we're going to call you and say go talk to that person and so we don't have to tow their car or give them a citation. So I think those are the benefits of it. Um but uh but we don't have contacts for every potent every group that uh is out there and so uh you know we've talked about internally maybe we just have to put a message on an Instagram page uh or something like that or try to find a contact. I I I I don't believe I I believe there uh we can try to find a way to reach out for sure. Uh, and I

think we can uh make sure that we do that. And I think the uh one of your questions might have been um what prohibits people from talking to you or something to that effect. Yeah. Like what do you what do you think is the reason why you're unable to talk to some of these PC?

I think just in general I think people uh um may think that we have alter alternative motives. We're trying to get intel on them so that we could go arrest them. People don't like the police. People don't trust the police. Right? So there's many reasons why people would not talk to us and we deal with that all the time. And so, um, you know, it's it's it's a relationship issue as most as as are most things in this world. And so, um, I know that there's, uh, potentially people were never going to convince that we don't have an alterity or motive other than to try to get them. Um, but that's not the case. At the end of the day, we we would love nothing more than to sit around uh, in these events when we have to come in and do nothing because people are leaving uh, their families. are coming in often on their days off and now to have to go out and and make arrests and get involved in in melee is not something that we look forward to. So, um it it's really building those relationships and trust to understanding that we all ultimately want the same goal in these protests.

Okay. And then um my last question is to follow up with that. We'll turn off mic. Um, I'm glad that you said that, you know, as far as PC's not wanting to talk to the police department, you know, due to other things that they may have. But I think now this is my last question in response to that. So, let's just say there's a group that just hates y'all. Just everything about you guys, the way y'all walk, everything. So in that in that way and you have contact with the PC and you know they don't like you and they don't like your department what is your way or how would you ensure that that person isn't targeted because in a way for a person with some experience that that has been brought to light a lot of times is that you don't necessarily want to contact law enforcement with a protest. Why is because you guys would come in different you know maybe militaristic form or you know stuff of that nature. So then it's like okay but if I'm talking to you guys how do I can ensure that I'm safe during that because yes there are plenty of people that may follow me right like maybe thousands of people but however how can I ensure that I'm protected and I'm not necessarily just ripped off the street when I'm trying to actually engage with you guys. Yeah, I I think the points of contact are are are important for that because if we can when we have time, now I'll tell you if if if a fight breaks out and all that type of stuff, we're not going to be calling points of contact and saying, "Please have those people stop fighting." We're we need to take action. We're going to take action, right? Um but barring that and we've had this successful um in in very opposing groups and that people that don't necessarily are fans of the police. This is we have points of contact that for groups that don't trust us but will at least give us enough information uh especially they'll give us information when they think counterprotester groups are coming

because they want to be safe. Um and and we we develop those relationships at the end of the day. And again, some some people just don't believe us because it's coming out of my mouth. Um, but we don't target groups based on content or message. We can't. And that's why when we talk about ordinances, we have to understand that it doesn't go based on whether we like somebody's message or not. Whether we have an ordinance for a mask or anything else, it doesn't matter whether anybody likes the group or not. Every group that comes to protest and exercise their first amendment rights has to be allowed afforded the same opportunity. And so what I would answer to your question is that uh the biggest thing I could do for a group that doesn't like the police is be very clear about what we're going to enforce and why so that they can make a decision at that point whether they're going to cooperate with that law. Because at the end of the day I related to speeding. If you don't want a speeding ticket, don't speed. If if if we all decide we're going to speed a little bit, then you're subject to getting a speeding ticket. And not everybody gets a speeding ticket, but you don't want to be the one that gets caught with a speeding ticket. So, I would say uh we have these ordinances in place. We want to make sure that we educate people beforehand so they understand and that's what that point of contact can do. If nothing else than just a transactional piece to say, here's the law. We're going to enforce it. I think that that helps a little bit. Then it then it avoids the I didn't know type of issue.

Okay. Frank, um what was what was the ratio? I since you had some um optics on social media and stuff, 200 2,200 likes or whatever and you so you were anticipating the 10 a.m. um protest. What was your in the end there was 100 to 150. What was your ratio of officers to um to protesters? How many people did you deploy at that at that site that morning? We had about 35 to 40 officers deployed to this event in all the various uh capacities that I showed you. So 3 to one to 5 to one. That was kind of the

probably Okay. Um, I was I was just curious, did you ever detect any um, aside from the violation of the mass, did you detect did any officer detect there was going to be either violence or destruction of property or or harm to a citizen?

Uh, not that I'm aware of. I wasn't made aware of anybody committing violence or screaming. If you're that's what you're talking about, somebody screaming, "Let's go smash windows." No, I I wasn't aware of anything like that. And um because I was just curious on in terms of uh discretion, maybe they were crossing the street inappropriately without uh I know there's a lot of stop signs there, so I don't know if you're you can't wait for a light down J Street, but um if I'm just curious if with that kind of force 3 to one would observation because at some at some point when Can you engage people? Can you expect to that to escalate other people into violence or I'm just kind of concerned there there's a tipping point at some point when an officer uh engages may say that person resists and it looks like it's violent would and other people determine I got to get engaged for my my co-protester. I mean, I'm just kind of concerned that there when you're making these equations and value decisions in your discretion, how important is a mask ordinance versus keeping the peace? Could it could we just let them walk down the street and not have engaged them? I mean, did or do you not make those qual qualified decisions? You just kind of say that's a violation. Um, we're going to

Well, I think to your point, we did use discretion. I think people people walking crossing the street or being out in the street. Uh we didn't we didn't cite every person that stepped out into the street or did something like that. There was people at this protest and there was people at other protests that that had uh masks on as well and we didn't we used our discretion. We didn't uh uh target we didn't target people with medical masks. I I think there was actually a few more in this crowd and the 10th Street crowd uh and then there was uh some in the Garcia crowd that had masks on. Um but again because of the dynamics and and uh what our officers are doing, not everybody uh got arrested. Five of the pe the most egregious did and we did use discretion. We arrested that first person in the crowd and we made the strategic decision not to go in and arrest the other four people in the crowd at the same time uh to avoid escalation. So um I go back to what the city council and what I support is uh and what you see around the country. Um we could have let people walk down the street with flag poles. we could have let all the things all these things individually are benign. But what we've seen in protests around the country and we've seen even protests here that we've had to call unlawful assemblies is that uh the wait and see approach um isn't something that our city council at the time was interested in. Uh I think it's a good approach um because you can have evidence of looking around the country at protests. People show up and it's violent or there's no destruction till it's not. And when you can when you can set expectations early and ask for cooperation, which has been highly effective uh in the six years that we've had this ordinance and we did this at the Straight Pride Valley when the when the crowd was uh small and just showing up to Straight Pride rallies, we'd go up and have officers tell people you can't have that mask. You need to remove it and take it out of the area. Uh metal contain bottles and containers. Um we've done that. uh and this is I'll I'll be quite honest this is the first time where we had uh very very little cooperation and so it's been an effective tool uh but to just um to just allow people and hope everything goes

well is not an approach uh that was wanted to be adopted uh when this ordinance was passed I don't think it's a good approach um to just wait and see what happens and hope everything uh turns out well but that's why all the preceding things are important it's important to provide uh education and warnings and signage and all of these types of things. So, everybody has every opportunity um to cooperate and have a very peaceful protest. And and again, I say by and large, 99% of the people did that that day and it was a very peaceful protest. And I I chalk it up to a very good success because guess what? We didn't have to unc uh uh to call declare an unlawful assembly and people got to exercise their constitutional rights to protest. So, I would say uh I don't know that you were saying this, but I would say in contrast, we used a lot of discretion that day. Anything else, Frank?

No. Trish me. Okay. I guess just popped in my mind. When you say egregious behavior, what did that look like that day? That the that sparked Yeah. the flame.

So, when we talk about the the the face covering ordinance, right? we talk about the egregious behavior. Um, you again, we didn't we didn't we didn't go nitpick because somebody's wearing uh what we would probably mostly refer to as a medical mask or things like that. The picture that I showed you to me is the egregious violation of the mask subsection of this ordinance. I would I would be very confident in standing up in front of anybody as I am to you today and telling you looking at those five photos that those people were were wearing those to conceal their identity. uh at the end of the day they may not and that's something that if this ultimately uh goes to court they'll have to convince not me I'm not the one who decides they'll have to convince a judge or a jury that ultimately that they were wearing it for one of the exception reasons but I think uh common sense sometimes re uh uh you know uh uh prevails uh and I think most people uh in any u situation looking at those would would agree that those most likely were not for medical except exceptions. I would tell you we we provided warnings. Not one person walked up to our officers and said, "Hey, I'm one of the exceptions because of X, Y, or Z." You know, people want to claim things after they're arrested, and that's fine, and that that's where the court process works those things out. Um, but when I say egregious violations, I think those were pretty egregious violations of the mass subsection of our ordinance.

Thank you. All right, Brandon. Thank you. Um, I do have a few questions. Um during the presentation you had stated that more and more cities have the mask mandate. Sure. By chance off the top of your head, do you know in California how many cities have that mandate? I do not off the top of my head. No.

Okay. Um, and then I know the email was in regards to, you know, protests of similar nature that have escalated into vandalism, theft, and, you know, you had talked about LA, San Francisco, and Santa Ana. Do you see a correlation with Modesto having way less population of 220,000 versus Los Angeles with 3.8 million people in their city? Um, have we ever had anything happen in Modesto that looks like any of these larger cities? Um, I know you kind of stated that there was some vandalism that happened downtown, you know, five years back. Um, I would love to see, you know, the photos of that if that's a possibility maybe in a meeting that we have later. Um, so yeah, if maybe you can just respond to that part of the question.

Well, I I would I would tell you that um number one in 2020, like I referenced earlier, after 2020, uh there was a protest downtown that uh we had to um uh that it got cha chaotic. We had to uh arrest people. We had to declare unlawful assembly. We had to push people out of downtown. Uh we had to use uh our tools um to and and arrests were made. Um we've had to declare unlawful assemblies uh like I mentioned at the straight proud rallies on at least two occasions. Um so I use those I I put Santa Ana in there specifically because it was a a small protest. It was 200 people and 10 arrests were made. Um we had depending on your estimates two to 5,000 people at ours and six arrests were made. Um so um and again I didn't what what I want to tell you is I don't I don't look at the correlation. I look at what h was happening in LA was 100% spreading to other cities. Uh you know I didn't talk about Seattle or New York or other other things like that. And this was all preceding a week ahead of time up until this protest. So, uh, as as the police chief and as a law enforcement agency, to not be prepared, uh, and think that this could not spread to Modesto because we're, uh, uh, not the same size, uh, would be irresponsible for me as the police chief to not prepare to protect our citizens, uh, because we have seen protests. Uh, this, this, uh, depending on the estimates, is probably the largest protest that we've had in the city in my tenure. at least our straight pride events. Um, even the downtown, uh, the one I talked about in 2020, I think we estimated like a thousand people or so. Um, but four, three to 5,000 people, largest one that we've had, uh, in the city of Modesto. So, um, I don't I don't look for correlations. I look for what's going on. And I think there was a real concern, legitimate concern from our community members, as there should be, and our police department. And up until the day of the event, we kept deciding

at what scale we were going to scale this up or down to. uh because we just didn't know ultimately how big or small this was going to be. We had to go on the intelligence that we had and the people that would talk to us. Uh and it was it was actually ended up being larger than I thought.

Thank you. Um and then I was going to ask a question about the um the warnings that you were giving out to people through PA announcements um and what language it was, but you did reference that you said them in both English and Spanish. So I just thank you for that. Um, and then we asked about the Okay, so one thing I did want to ask is you did kind of bring up as well um some kind of team to maybe deploy out to the protest. Um, when I was at the Nickel conference last year, there was um an item that we talked about public order policing. it was a more modern approach and I was you know thinking maybe CSOS can be utilized during protest if that's a possibility to go out and to inform people you know in person walk up to them and tell them these are the codes for peaceful protests or 12466 these are policies procedures um so we can definitely talk more about that at other meetings um and then I also wanted to just inform you guys about um a study that was done in 2020 in regards to that wave of protest um from a man named Clifford Scott. He's a psycho psych psychologist in the UK and through his study he found that only 7% of protest became violent. So that's just something I wanted to put out there that you know people come out to these things to speak up and to voice their opinions and to to have that first amendment right that we all have. And I don't think anyone is going out to destroy their own city. I mean, at least not here. But I do commend you for wanting to protect the city as well. Um because no one wants to have to deal with, you know, broken windows, vandalism, stuff like that on their businesses or on their their property. Um

um so we can also talk about that later. And then next, I just wanted to ask if you are able to tell us like where the arrest took place, possibly the arrest. Um because I know that the email was talking about Grassada Park and their concerns with Gusa Park area. So kind of where did the arrest take place? Was it more towards the 10th Street Plaza or was it alongside the walk or was it at Crusader? It's kind of just all around all around.

All around everything there. Okay. Um, and then I think, um, I can't remember who brought this up, but the municipal code, um, does it specify the type of mask that is allowed for protesters to wear or does it just say medical, religious purposes, or does it have any kind of specification on the types of mask?

No. Uh, I can look. I think I have it. I think I have the actual language here somewhere. I can look at it real quick. Um, but it says mass bandanas. Um, uh, let me let me see if I can find it real quick.

There we go. So under section 4-23-02 of the municipal code and it's subsection A wearing a mask, scarf, bandana or any other accessory or item that covers or partially covers the face, shielding the wearer's face from view and conceals the wearer's identity except for coverings worn due to religious beliefs. practices or observances are due to medical assessment. Thank you. Thank you. Um that's all the questions that I have for now. Is there anyone else on the board that has a question? Okay.

It's not a question.

It's um it's a suggestion, maybe recommendation, opportunity. So, um because I'm very much like I just like to just to provide some type of solution. I don't want us to just keep, you know, just talking about it. So looking at some of the things that you had as far as the challenges and opportunities and I want everyone to really pay attention to this. Um you did say you talked about cellular con uh congestion and then for opportunities increase signage enhance specific directions and birectional communication. Face coverings won't be utilized by officers. MPD will focus on developing protest group contacts to answer questions. Perfect. Okay. So this is what I got as far as recommendation possibly for the police department. Um for my background I do simulations, right? do it at the highest level from the hospitals all the way down to the state up to the state. And so for me, I was wondering would this be a crazy idea for you guys to do some type of simulation tabletop exercise or functional exercise to where you guys can practice these meaning you guys p part of part of the the inject or one of the events that takes place is you guys have a cellular congestion, right, during a protest. And then also you guys can have opportunities to where you guys can have increased signage and test all of these things, right? But however, um may not be as juicy the word I want to use. I'm just being being cool cuz we up here. Um but you know that would take community collaboration as well because they would need some type of example or they would need some type of people to actually volunteer for this type of event. Why is because preparation is a big thing. Yeah, we had a protest with 2500 people to 4,000 people. Um, and that's quote unquote the biggest uh protest we've had in this in this city. However, that probably will not be the last. And so I was just wondering if there's an opportunity presented for the police department to partner with the community to create a simulation that practices these things, that shows that they're actually working with the

community to actually fix some of these things rather than us just continuously talk about it. Yeah, I don't know that I totally understand. I think I get where you're going. So, but I'm open to definitely having conversations with you. I'll break it down. So, if you I Yeah, to your point, I think I get the most of it. I think there's going to be further discussion that needs to be had between you and I or whoever to to to look at something like that. Like, it doesn't even have to be live. It's just simulation simulation based to where um like we do at my job, we create what we call a master scenario of events list. We don't necessarily do it as a full functional to where it's I'm sorry I have a loud voice, bro. So, um people online.

I I get it. So, um when it comes to Okay, master scenario events list like it has injects on there. So, it tells you in which area what happens. So, like at 9:00 a.m. protest happens. You guys get a operational phone call stating that oh, we have a protest here. It's 5,000 people. And then you guys would set up your guys' IC like you guys do an operation operations unit or whatever you guys have to do. And then you guys would practice doing exactly what you guys do. Whether you guys uh put these opportunities in here or not. It's just the fact that you guys are testing it. So then you guys can find the gaps that you guys have. Rather than coming it from in a live scenario where you make mistakes, you can make mistakes within the functional exercise or the tabletop. And then when it actually comes to a real life scenario, you probably have zero arrest.

Yeah, I think I understand what you're saying and and and definitely open for more discussion. What I will tell you is that after every event uh especially large events uh we do what we did here. I provided you some of the uh what we call an afteraction report of what we do and what we learn from. Uh we do we do we do tabletop exercises for many things including uh including uh protest. So we have a mobile field force team that goes out and practices and they combine uh we do a lot of that stuff. I guess uh where we can have further discussions is uh how do we integrate community members into that? I definitely would be interested in maybe having a further discussion. Um, but but uh we learn from every single one. And so it's not about having zero arrests or making mistakes because I can promise you that we'll probably make mistakes in every event that we do. I don't I don't know that anybody does their their job perfectly in any industry. And so we'll learn and we'll grow from every experience that we have. U but I wouldn't say that arrests are based on us making mistakes. It takes our community and our uh and cooperation to help avoid those arrests.

Yes, sir. And and lastly, I just want to say you did say during this conversation that the goal is to have zero arrests. Absolutely. And that takes community cooperation. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'm just I'm just saying because you did say it's very

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Austin. Um All right. So, we're going to go ahead and open this up to the public for any public comments. Just a reminder, uh, each speaker has three minutes to speak, and it must be in regards to this agenda item right now. Um, yeah, you'd like to come up. And then just a quick reminder, um, if there's any questions, please address them towards me and then, um, if we need to get them answered, then we can do that. I had to be okay. Hi, my name is Martensia Flores. Um, and I have a statement here. Um, statement of gratitude and concerns regarding the June 2025 protest in Modesto, California. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the police officers who upheld the law, protected constitutional rights, and helped maintain public safety during the no king protest held in 20 in June 2025 at the Gracada Park in Modesto, California. Their professional and respectful conduct ensure a peaceful demonstration and their commitment to the public service deserves recognition. I especially wanted to thank those officers who respected the rights of individuals to peacefully protest regardless of the difference opinions or appearances. The protest was organized in response to the growing concerns about actions taken by the Trump administration including immigration enforces practices, civil rights issues, and cuts to federal services. Pro protesters also voiced objections to the military parade scheduled on former president's birthday which many saw as the display of author authorization and symbolism during the no king protest at Gracea Park. It was encouraged to see that participants were not that participants were not targeted or

arrested for wearing a face mask. I was present during the protest. um this respectful approach helped faster foster a sense of trust and safety within the community. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the protest that occurred in downtown Modesto. Many residents were deplete disturbed by the heavy police presence, particularly the visible display of firearms which created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation rather than safety. It is troubling to witness discrepancies in how protests are policed in downtown Modesto. Some individuals were arrested and there have been serious concerns raised about violation of their civil rights. Families and children continue to feel afraid in the armed math and this highlights the urgence needed for accountability and fair treatment for all members of our community. We must not allow arrest or police responses to be influenced by biases whether based on appearance, political beliefs or other unjust factors. Discrimination in any form has no place in our justice system or our community. I remain deeply appreciative of the officers who serve with the honor and integrity recognizing that at the end of their shift they too need to return home to their families. their commitment to pro protecting our rights and unfolding constitution and vital to maintain peace and trust in our society. Um moving forward, I hope we can continue to support law enforcement efforts that are rooted in fairness, equality, and respect for all those individuals while also addressing and correcting the instances where these values were not upheld. Um the families that were arrested didn't get to go home to their families to their children. They were waiting for them. Um there is laws in regards to face mask. There's

also health um health services agency that we do promote mask if you still choose you choose to wear one due to medical due to it's your right and it is still dur co we're still co there's still different viruses um and thank you for the opportunity and the time and for hearing me. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Is there anyone else from the public that would like to speak?

I turned in a card, but if we're just going if I'll just go now. Um, uh, at the end of the day, uh, this is a bad law. Uh, in my opinion, it's unconstitutional. It's vague. It's over broad. It's almost impossible to enforce. Um, which is why it led to being enforced in what the chief just admitted, a discretionary way. Uh, what was the most egregious? Meaning it wasn't a medical mask and you also had a hat and sunglasses on. I had a hat and sunglasses on that day. I didn't, you know, happen to wear a mask, but that would have been the egregious. Um, this is deteriorating the community and police relations that we've been working for the last se few years to try to build up. Uh, I think it's going to open the city up to lawsuits. Um, and it makes us look like a backwards anti-freedom city. There's two other cities in the state of California out of the hundreds of cities that have laws about masks. Uh, in California, a court already ruled uh, a mask ban invalid. It was because Iranian Americans were protesting the new regime in Iran in the 70s. And the court said that they had a legitimate fear of retaliation. So, if you have a legitimate fear of retaliation, whether it's from the Proud Boys or the police or your employer or you're undocumented, there's a hundred reasons why you might want to wear a mask or conceal your identity because you have legitimate fear of retaliation. So, this, you know, the a court has talked about this and I'm probably going to go over my time, but I got so many things that I I find problematic about this. Um, the ordinance was adopted in 2019, added in 2021, 2020, 2021, 2022. This was COVID. We went from saying if you're in a big large group for your

personal safety, you should wear a mask to saying if you wear a mask in a big large group, that's considered a rally or a protest, you could be arrested. It's ridiculous. Um, the the language is so vague. U, Mr. Bryant, you you hit the nail right on the head. What's what is my religious belief and how do you prove I don't hold it? Um the Supreme Court usually says we don't question your religion. Meaning I could make up a religion as long as I truly believe in my religion. So that's the standard for believing what your religion religion practice belief or observance is. Uh medical necessity who decides if it's a necessity the chief said go to court and ask a judge. So, I practice my first amendment right. I go to p to jail for 12 hours. I get a court date. I have to take the day off of work. I go and I have to ask a judge to say this is my religious practice or this I believed was a medical necessity. I didn't want to spread my germs. I didn't want to get germs. I don't see a judge holding up that law. Um the the last thing I'll just say is the there's a problem with the law. There was a problem with the enforcement. Um, I was at the No Kings. I actually didn't go to the other protest, but I was at Gresa Park all day because I had my kids. I wanted to be at the playground. I saw dozens of people wearing masks that day. I barely saw the police there. What I was told was that, well, because that protest was there at 10:00 a.m., we arrested the first people that we saw. Well, you knew that protest was going to be there at 10:00 a.m. You knew the other protest was going to be at Grassada Park. Why weren't police waiting there for the first group of people that they saw wearing a mask? This whole idea of this crowd had a certain mindset. The chief used that word. They had a mindset. They were out

to do something. He's assuming the mindset of somebody before they committed a crime. I got so much more to say, but I guess I have to leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. All right. Um, up next I do have Nora Garcia.

Hi, good evening everyone. Um, a lot of my questions were addressed, so I want to say thank you to the board for being so thorough in you guys' questions. Um, I do want to point out a few things that I have not heard addressed. Um, I did not hear during the presentation an address of the confiscation of the organizers megaphones during the ICE out protests. Um, I know one of the points brought up was that people were jaywalking and um, not following the rules and commending the no kings protest for their education of their attendees towards safety. But I was at the at both protests actually and at the 10:00 a.m. protests, the organizers were trying very hard to give people direction to not step on the street, to not harass the police, to not um crowd or or do any sort of violent acts against the businesses. They it was like hurting cats. It was impossible for everyone to hear everything. As much as we were chanting the rules back because we did that also, it was impossible to fully enforce safety protocols because MPD confiscated the megaphone. And I don't see the megaphone as a banned item up on the ordinance. So, I'm not sure why that happened. Um, we heard both that arrests were not targeted against any specific group of people and that officers used discretion to make arrest. It seems contradictory to me, but whatever. If the targeted arrests were made strategically to avoid escalating violence, why weren't the arrestees given the option to remove the mask or get rid of their poles before they were arrested? If the whole purpose of this ordinance is to avoid possible violence and confrontation, why escalate uh straight to grabbing community members and dragging them away from anyone who could document the interaction? Was the purpose of the

arrests to scare the community into compliance? I have no doubt that people violated the ordinance and people may very well not have had a valid exemption, but we haven't addressed the fact that the community has brought the demand to repeal the ban. Uh people hide their identity, as many have said before, to protect themselves from doxing uh for both from counterprotesters and officers. They also feared deportation for themselves or family or targeting of ICE themselves uh even if they do have residential status. We've seen I know the chief brought national news multiple times as a reasoning for the mass mandate. But national news also shows us the the fear increased fear of the community of ICE. So it stands to reason that people will want to protect their identity. The possible benefits of the mask ban must be compared against the possible damage to the community. MPD spends millions of dollars, I don't know how much, but it's a ridiculous amount, on technology to stop and identify crime. The heavily armed police presence at the ICO protest and multiple arrests over a petty mask ordinance demonstrates that MPD are perfectly capable of making arrests regardless of whether or not the person was concealing their identity. is the argument from MPD that they would be unwilling or sorry unable to prevent legitimate threats simply because the perpetrator wore a mask. That's it for me. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Up next, we have Leah Hasset. Hi, my name is Leah Hasset. Um, I'm from Modesto. Uh, I've spoke on this a few times at other meetings, so I don't um I just wanted to throw in my um my two cents again for repealing this mask ordinance and for repealing the um flag pole and the wooden post for our signs. It's almost like it's designed to to have us just give up, you know? It's really, it's really seems like a very targeted protest to shut down speech. Besides that, it does just seem like like a real no-brainer, a really lowhanging fruit to get rid of this ordinance. Um, and it also seems very clear with, you know, using the word discretion is it sounds like a good word, but what it really is is it seems to me a cover up to just target people. Um, it reminds me of so many other things that people get pulled over for because of the color of their skin or because of any reason, but a profiling, last I heard, is is against the rules when police do it. Like, that's my understanding. So, my tags are always out, you know? I'm never have my like my tags on my car have been like past due for so long. I've never had any any trouble whatsoever. It's just an example of no me not being targeted. But oh, anyways, back to this. Um, one thing I just wanted to say was that the crowd control and the direction and

the safety monitors which were designated at the 10th Street 10:00 a.m. uh ice out protest. They were absolutely on duty. They were absolutely clear and they remained um diligent about telling us what to do as we walked to meet uh the other protest at Graada. So I just want to say you know you are not correct about that. Um and I just want to let you know about that information. Um such such good crowd control. um some dur at the park when some I guess there was some news about something going on in another part of the park like an arrest being made um and people started kind of you know as you will kind of wanting to go toward go towards that and one of the organizers you know like intercepted and say let's stay together you know just really really professional volunteer but professional and I appreciate that as for wearing masks um I've been to protests recently and also during you know hot co times and masks were always mentioned um and encouraged absolutely as a way to stay safe and I can see that it's important to stay safe you know by not giving each other illnesses but also to keep yourself safe because apparently there's a lot of surveillance going on and I didn't know there was so many cameras all around our town taking pictures and I'm I'm really shocked and upset to find out about that But um yeah. Okay. Thank you for listening.

Thank you.

All right. Up next we have Steve. Before I make my comments, I would like to remind the committee that um this Monday marks uh the three-year anniversary of Modesto Police uh Department Sam Muny murdering Paul Chavez Jr. Um as he lay in the shade on the lawn resting after a mental health crisis. Uh, Muny showed up with his gun pointing at him, yelling at him while he was resting, and the family has got no justice to this day. Um, I would like to point out how eerie it was for me to sit and listen to Brandon talk. And I hope you guys are all picking up on the nuances of this historical moment we're living in. We are on the precipice of possibly having to live in a fascist under a fascist state. And though some of you guys might be psyched on that, I don't think most of us are. So Brandon's entire presentation, to me, all I heard was they had no reason other than political reasons. They created the opportunity. They first created the opportunity when they dictated these laws to the city council. The idea of democracy dies the moment Brandon gets to make up all the laws. He's been derelictked in his duties and some people think he has a handsome smile. And I want to encourage you guys to not be beguiled neither by his smile

nor by his use which is done quite well of status quo illogical police narrative control nonsense if there's no reason to uh to oppress the citizens. Why is he doing it? That whole spiel he gave was just to say that they created the pretense and they followed through. And anyone who was paying attention heard that. And anyone who know is aware of this historical moment, I'm I'm sure you're uh you got a little goosebumps on your skin from listening to it like I did. It's disgusting. The other thing about his presentation that I found pretty um a dominant trope throughout is that he has different intentions than many of us. He has different desires. The reason I became involved um advocating for victims of police violence is to the left of me. One of the reasons Modesto Police Department has a problem with systemic misconduct. We also see what's going on in the world on the news. We have every uh reason to want to be concerned to protect ourselves and we should not be physically violently targeted for simply standing up for truth the way that everyone did. Nobody did anything warranting arrest, let alone being incarcerated for 12 hours. Also, he lied. Not everyone was um given what or I I was not told why I was arrested. Um the entire time I was begging them to tell me and they out outright refused. Um and and I was never g given any warning or asked anything. Um, and I don't know if he misspoke, but he did state earlier that that was the case

with everyone who was arrested. So, I just want to make sure there are a lot of problems with this guy's presentation, and I hope you guys are seeing through that. Thank you, Steve. Is there anyone else in the public that would like to speak on this item?

Hi, my name is Madison Condit. Um, I was hoping that you were going to come with more statistics because as far as I was able to research, there's not a lot online because when people are arrested, they're it the police don't put down whether or not they're wearing a mask. So, I haven't been able to find anything. Um, I thought maybe you would have some way of finding that information because it just seemed you just keep saying the same thing like you can see it all over the country, but what what does that mean? Like what are the numbers? Where are you seeing this? Like are you seeing that on the news? Like what news are you watching? It just it seems so vague and like possibly biased. And then the arrests in LA, 560 arrests. Arrests for what is that? Arrest for the the mask. I thought that the ordinance that we have came directly from LA's. So if LA has that ordinance, right? And they can arrest people for wearing masks. Are the 560 for masks or are these for the violence for for for violent protesters? And if it's 560 for violent protesters, then what is the I don't I just don't get it. Then what does the mask ordinance do? Did that prevent violence? I just like it's obviously creating a uh you know a wall between you and the community and you admitted that the relationship with a lot of people is not there. And there's people here that have said that they did trust in the police had no problem and and that behavior made them have a distress that they didn't have before. So if if we know all that, I'm just I I just I don't understand why I don't understand why you're you know I just you didn't say anything about you know yeah I could see how this ordinance is vague and and you

know you just doubled down on it and I just don't quite get it. I just feel like the numbers aren't there and the research isn't there to want to keep this ordinance that's clearly creating a problem. It just seems like it's not worth it in the end. So, thank you. Next.

Hi, my name is Anna. I'm a concerned community member and resident of Modesto. Uh, first of all, I want to be really explicit that just because someone is wearing a badge and gets clearance to put together a formal presentation does not mean they are telling the truth. Um, I want to remind everyone of the power imbalances in rooms like this. Law enforcement often get to control the narrative, especially when they intimidate and harm community members. I also want to remind folks that there is a track record and well doumented history of police violence and repression in oppressed communities across this country, especially against black, brown, immigrant, and poor communities. The chief of police's presentation ignores this history and erases this context. We have a right to protect ourselves and critique the state without intimidation and profiling from the police. It appears to me that the concept of public public safety has been weaponized by law enforcement to target people they feel like they can easily overpower and disregard with brute force. As has been lifted up and is clear in the presentation just provided, there is a very obvious double standard with how MPD approached the No Kings protest versus the Tent Street Plaza protest. People at No Kings were also wearing masks. They were left unbothered. This quote unquote zero tolerance proactive form of policing does not increase public safety. It endangers it. Taking this approach just leads to confirmation bias. They assumed we were suspicious and then used the excessive public resources at their disposal to make their narrative true. I also want to lift up that the experience of being arrested is humiliating, scary, and traumatizing. Especially when you are a peaceful protester. Especially when you are a young person who is systems impacted. Especially when the cops assaulting you or carrying guns and wearing riot gear and pulling up in unmarked vehicles. Being detained and held in a cell for hours is isolating and dehumanizing and traumatizing. The

impact lingers long after. That is what the cops did to these protesters. Imagine your child or loved one experiencing this. Would you stand for it? If there is any part of you that feels like dismissing the violent and degrading nature of this incident by MPD simply because the people arrested aren't people you feel you are in community with, I ask you to really sit with this detachment and disconnect and really think about what actual safety needs to look like in our community, including psychological safety, and what it looks like to care for people even if they don't share the same background or blood as you. Finally, I want to end by emphasizing our demand to repeal this inequitable, unjust local mask ordinance that's been weaponized by MPD to violate our community members. And I also want to highlight our demand that police be held accountable for their egregious actions against our community. Just an FYI, the ACLU stands with us and everyone will be hearing from them soon. We ask that the community police review board stand with us, too. Thank you.

Thank you. Next.

Hello everyone. Um, I just wanted to start by saying that I really appreciate the transparency provided by the MPD today. They're so right. People broke the law. Laws that are designed to silence speech they don't like. However, I think the laws don't go far enough. In fact, I have some suggestions to help suppress free speech even further. One, no chanting. It can be annoying to some sensitive people, so please just stay quiet. No shoes. If you're willing to protest, you should be willing to do so barefoot without any comfort. No signs or clothing with any political messages because this can anger some folks and lead to violence. No groups larger than 10 people at a time. Some people might be intimidated and think you're part of a violent gang. No backpacks cuz who knows what you might be hiding in there. No glasses of any kind. They might protect your eyes from any rubber bullets that might be fired directly at you. Now, obviously, I'm just joking here, but the point is that these ordinances have been meticulously designed to stifle free speech. They have been designed to prevent people from protecting themselves against police violence, which has been very clearly demonstrated historically throughout this country through the civil rights movement, during Black Lives Matter protests, and now during the anti-S anti-ICE protests. In fact, I find the enforcement of th this ordin these ordinances, especially the anti-mask ordinance to be an egregious example of state violence being used to stifle free speech from people who wish to remain anonymous. Anonymous speech is historically important throughout the history of this country going all the way back to when the British ruled uh the Americas. Now, when people go out to protest injustices, these people are often the targets of those injustices. So it's important that they be allowed to protect their identities from being further targeted from something like the modern Gustapo that is ICE. In fact, what has happened here is so egregiously against freedom of speech that I am now in active communication with the ACLU and they have taken great interest in what has happened here and they're going to help

us fight against this grave display of suppression of free speech. So be prepared for, you know, some upcoming lawsuits. We'll see where this goes. But thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else from the public that'd like to speak on this agenda item?

Good evening, folks. Uh start with some good. I don't always get to do that. Uh, I was really impressed with the questions that were asked by this board tonight. Uh, I'd also like to shout out member Grant for attending the most recent city council member. I know that ruffles some feathers in the community a little bit, but I think it was the right call and that's what we need to see more of. People being active in the community and then speaking truth to power or promoting accountability in the community. Love to see that. Uh, and I forget myself. I should state uh my name is Anthony and I'm from Modesto. I feel it's important to say I'm from Modesto because based on the chief's presentation I would think I was in San Francisco or Los Angeles I don't know if he knows which streets he's policing because to me when he cites extraneous data from other communities that are not our own that do not resemble our own that seems like a fear tactic heck now I get that that context exists in the community he and he will say oh I'm trying to provide the context what was in our operational plan that was happening that might spread to Modesto okay then why didn't he mention about the fear around ICE that was been in the news much longer than what was going down in Los Angeles and San Francisco. That's what caused what happened in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Yet, it was absent from the report. That's about intimidation. When MPD wears masks but tells us that it's unsafe to do so, that is about intimidation. Forgive me if this is egregious, but I am no more of a threat when I look like this. than I am right here. That that is about intimidation. Trying to police the way, hey, that we express our First Amendment freedoms. Modesto is not LA. We're not San Francisco. And we're not going to be intimidated. When the chief says that they don't use ICE tactics because police have been doing this for decades, that doesn't mean it's not an ICE tactic. If you're doing the same thing as ICE, that's an ICE tactic. Hey, ICE has only been around since the early 2000s. Where do you think ICE learned it

from? The police. Not Modesto police specifically. But you get the point. So when they say, "Oh, it's not ICE tactics." That's patently false. Oh. Cannot underscore that enough. What I'm looking for from this community police review board is to make a strong recommendation to the city council. Well, for the removal of this ridiculous mandate. I would point out going back to their chief's presentation, looking at the summary, uh, Modesto Police Department wants what most protest groups want, a peaceful event with no arrests. Uh, we brought the peace. They brought the arrests. It was already peaceful. There was no need. I didn't see discretion. I saw bias. I saw intimidation. And we are not afraid because we know we are just in our purpose and the community is with us. Please, please make this recommendation to city council. And I know our chief mentioned wanting a point of contact. If he'll join us in moving for this removal of the mandate, I'll give him my phone number myself.

Thank you. Is there anyone else from the public that would like to speak? Okay. All right. Um, my name is Nick. I just want to state uh most of my thoughts are going to be a little incoherent. I won't be as uh articulate as the last speaker. Um, one of the things I wrote down as my notes is that um the chief spoke about uh being proactive in his response. I thought the law was supposed to be as a response to any crime that is committed, not a preemptive thing. When that means what you're doing is you're um can't think of the word right now, but you're basically um being prejudice in your response of the law. Um, and if so, I was at both these protests, the No Kings and the um the 10th Street Plaza one, and what I had saw was that it was more proactive in targeting people as opposed to um in a prejudice manner. And if so, uh if this law the uh or law or mandate about the masks um is against the law, why why is it more of arresting people? What what is this specifically targeting of the masks that is necessary for cops to roll up, grab people and just essentially disappear them? I was a part of both of those protests, the marches and watched all of those. We had no idea what was going on. We had no response. We had no um no nobody was told what was going on. And if so, that is a very uh weaponization of the law to specifically to target those peoples for a mask ordinance which seems egregious oversight of what of use of the law for just the masks. Uh, additionally um

I was at that first protest and I was in the middle of where that first gentleman was uh taken and he was taken in the middle of that protest. He was not on the law of it. He was specifically targeted because he was at the center of the protest where the other speakers were in an attempt in my own opinion. I'm not an expert, but in my own opinion, to grab them and in sight. It was not something that he was talked to. It's not something that he was advised against. And I understand of what the chiefs have brought up about being um talked to and having those having those um concerns. But as the the last speaker talked about, we had brought the peace. There was no incitement. There was no um aggression. All that we were out to do was talk and complain about what this current administration, not only locally, but state level and nationally, seems to be doing with um law and targeting of people of color, um people that are in weak spots because of uh economic situations and not only uh ethnic situations as well. Furthermore, um like the last speaker brought up as well of the police tactics not being ICE tactics and that is something that has been normalized. That is also the problem. If these tactics are normal for police to roll up hard with vehicles, unmarked vehicles with tactical gear, that is also the problem that many uh civil rights attorneys and organizations have brought up. That is normalization of weaponizing the state to a militarized state. That is the same tactics that they use. And if we want to talk about being in a democratic country, which supposedly we still are, those tactics were not used. And like I had previously stated of if this is just breaking the mandate, why were they not talked to, advised or you know given the opportunity to take their masks off? And the masks that I saw that were targeted were very it seemed opportune that they

were specifically targeted. I myself wore um a facial covering and I did not see myself or others being targeted as well. So it was very um judicial. Um I have many more thoughts but I will bring up the last one that um

yeah if you could just oh uh one last thing of if the the chief wanted to bring up how this was the largest protest in city history then that is also a reflection of the city's opinion of this police ordinance regime and all this stuff. And so if he wants to administer laws that are not a reflective of what this own city and their citizens are interested in, then that uh either needs to be repealed, reviewed, or people in charge need to be held accountable for that as well. Thank you. Thank you.

Is there anyone else from the audience that'd like to speak? Go ahead. Um hello, my name is Emanuel Vasquez. I'm a resident here of Modesto. I've lived here most my whole life. Um I just wanted to point out some fallacies and what uh Chief Gillespie was saying. uh when he compares the CV bicock a CV bipok protest to a KKK rallies or straight pride rallies uh he's making a false equivalence that a massed peaceful assembly is totally different from organized hate groups uh so when you do that you're misfring the actual protest uh like to debunk it to knock it down uh uh when you raise concerns of violence violence from other major cities like LA uh that's a red herring that distracts us from this city's reality, from the concerns of the people in this city. Uh and Brun Brandon said he he said you deployed about 35 officers to the protest of about 150 people. Uh that is very drastic in my opinion. Uh this I don't know if CV Bip Park has a history of violence that I don't know about. Uh but all those uh fallacies he uh he stated uh that's more of an appeal to fear uh without basis without reason. Uh it's not a police strategy as he stated. It's strategical uh and it's used to suppress uh the people. Uh courts have consistently held that government may not treat demonstration demonstrations differently based on the message or promoter as was shown in the agenda or the handout. Um but Modesto Police Department's deployment clearly shows disfavor towards the CV bipok while granting uh preferential treatment to the other protests. Uh that is in my opinion clear discrimination. The

constitution requires content neutrality uh even in the regulation of protests. Uh NPD uh did not hold up to that standard. Um, and more of a ethical moral question, uh, aimed at the the the chief and the police department. Uh, is it not your duty to protect and serve our community or is it to intimidate us, incriminate us, and humiliate people? You see, when you serve people, you have to have humility. You cannot hold yourself above them. And to protect someone, you must place importance and value on their life. Uh so your actions of the police of you and the penis police department on June 14th showed neither humility nor that you value the people uh in this community. That's the message that it sent. Uh and I just had a question for Tremenorio. Uh I'd like to know how many officers were deployed at the No Kings protest. uh because if the cameras were not working uh wouldn't that uh be reason for increase in uh police presence there instead of having 35 officers uh be deployed at at the CV by park protest.

Thank you. Okay, I'll uh I'll look into that question for you. Is there anyone else from the audience that'd like to speak on this agenda item? Hello board members. Um my name is Ann Marie. I am a resident of Modesto. Um I just wanted to reiterate some things that were said today and bring up maybe some things that haven't been addressed. Um there's been a mention of the uh protests in LA. Um and I feel like it's kind of being used as fear-mongering to point to um dangerous protesters that are the problem. And that's why police should have discretion to um arrest um when they think necessary. Uh but the protesters in LA um they're protesting ICE tactics which are an offshoot of um the problem of police violence. Uh that's why we're out in these streets in the first place. And we have a constitutional right to protest. Um and the power dynamic is in favor of the police in these cases. They are armed and most cases legally protected um even with evidence against them i.e. uh Joseph Lamadia and Sam Muny here in uh Modesto who um killed people and were not held accountable um to the full extent of the law. Um and when we have a right to protest, we don't have to um work with the police. We have the right to um peacefully protest. We don't need a point of contact. um at least in my opinion and I think other people would agree with me um there is a lot of evidence to show that um police are not um interested in public safety. Hence why I mentioned um the officers that murdered our um community members. Um

and there is video evidence of the day of the protests of people being forcefully arrested. they were threatened um at gunpoint and they were not given reasons um for why they were being arrested. We didn't know until later that it was because of the municipal code. Um again, there was no um ask to remove the mask before being arrested. Um and if if the chief wants to talk about uh deescalation, then why was that not um why was there no uh ask to remove the mask before arrests were made? And why were there so many more police officers at the ICE out protest? Um, and why did they Yeah, why did they pull up on people with weapons? Why did they break someone's finger when they were being arrested? Um, if people were resisting arrest, it's because the arrest was unlawful. Um, and there is evidence to support that. Um, and the to conclude since I'm running out of time, um, the municipal code is problematic. Um, I ask that the board recommend to the city council that it be removed. it's difficult to enforce um and outlawing masks fully if you go in that direction um is abbleist. The co pandemic is still ongoing and people need to protect themselves. Um people also have religious reasons for masking. Um so there's no um there's no point in making it even more um also people have a right to uh protect their identities. As we can see there's a lot of um a lot of uh observation from cameras. Um, so if the police can mask themselves to protect their identities, why can't we? Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else from the public that'd like to speak? Okay.

Hi, good evening. Um, I uh wanted to reiterate what a lot of uh other people here were uh mentioning tonight. Um, and I wanted to um just kind of offer the perspective of uh the need that people feel maybe to uh protect their identity in a situation like this um for safety reasons is evidenced by the fact that in the presentation we saw so many detailed photographs of people at the protests. Um, I think as everyone I'm I'm sure here knows, um, there's a lot of pressure right now coming from the federal government for, uh, the state of California to, uh, no longer be a trying to pressure California to not be a sanctuary state anymore. Um, if that happens, then it's basically open season in my understanding. Um, law enforcement would be able to work with ICE. Um and so with all of this surveillance infrastructure in place in our city and with this mask mandate in place um that is um heightening that risk to certain um certain members of our community. Um and the result would be people no longer feeling like they can exercise their first amendment right. Um, so I think that was a good illustration in the presentation that we have there were drones at the at the protest. I remember seeing at least one. Um, and there are cameras all over our city. Um, those were some in the plaza, but you see them all over town. Um, and so um, I just wanted to, um, to offer that perspective. Um and in the broader context um we have uh members of the community that um that may have you know that that violated a municipal ordinance and the result of that or or the act um the ordinance they

were violating was wearing a face mask. Um, at the same time, we have police officers who will murder a uh another human being and every excuse is made under the sun why that person should still be allowed to be in our community with a gun. Um, and in this case, you have somebody who wore a face mask at a protest because they don't want to be identified presumably or they had a medical condition. um and you know the the uh doctrine is you know throw the book at them um you know to the full extent of the law and so I wanted to highlight that double standard as well. So thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the public that'd like to speak? All right, seeing none, I'll bring it back to the board. board members. Um, if you could please press the talk button and then Sami will go ahead and let you talk. So, Wendy,

I think we've heard a lot of uh valuable information over the last week or two and I want to commend the um citizens, the residents of Modesto for coming out because this is what democracy looks like. And um I think that the the stories and everything that were told were to me were very very compl uh compelling. I have um I'm going to speak from two hats here. One is uh on on behalf of our committee uh Brad and Nico and myself, we uh are on the subcommittee to talk about reducing uh arrest, youth arrest, especially with Latino youth. So, we talked about that. Um, and our recommendation, our committee recommendation to the board is that uh the board writes a letter to the city council um asking them to review and possibly amend the ordinance. So, that's uh a request from our subcommittee that we're asking for the board to do. The next uh message is coming from me as an individual and as a board member and I want to talk more about solutions. Um I think that mistakes were made on a lot of different parts. Um I heard somebody talk about risk and benefits. Um I think that the best thing that could come out of this is to use this as a teachable moment for everybody on all sides. I personally am in favor of dropping the charges of all those that are arrested. I think that because the ordinance is was so misunderstood just like mask just it's it's too broad. It's not enforcable. Um it's this whole thing has been very damaging to the relationship between law enforcement and

the community. So, I I emphatically believe that these charges should be dropped. And the and the you know, some people will say, "Well, it it could just be a misdemeanor." But you know what? A misdemeanor can have really, really long-term effects. A misdemeanor can stop you from getting a job. A misdemeanor can stop you from getting housing. A misdemeanor can stop you from getting admitted to college. A misdemeanor will follow you for the rest of your life. all because of of a mass and and people trying people sincerely trying to exercise their constitutional rights. I see a lot of flaws with this. I I do see that there's some legal consequences and it's just not worth it because a lot of money will be spent forcing people to defend themselves, having to go out and hire lawyers to defend themselves or in this case you may get a lot of volunteer lawyers because there are a lot of civil rights lawyers that really look at this as kind of a crazy kind of thing too. So, I think it's I and I also respect um the the police department's point of view and I think they're placed in a really awkward position of having to enforce something that ordinance just based on what looking at people and in this day and and time where the mask and different things there's so many different types and for so many reasons. How can you really say that it's not for religious reasons? I can take any kind of mask and draw anything on it and say in God we trust or whatever. Or if you were to come up and ask me what is it for? I could say it's for re religious reasons. How can you dispute that? How can you prove it? And should that be what the officers spend their time running around trying to pick out different people in a in a crowd to uh

try to figure out, well, why are you wearing that mask? And then if you don't do it equally, then it is, you know, it just opens up a can of worms. So, I really would um be in favor of of dropping the arrest, using this as a teachable moment, uh doing like Austin said, bringing everybody together um to sit down and and maybe have a uh ad hoc committee about revising that ordinance. and a committee that includes community law enforcement, maybe a board member or so, some scholars, some constitutional um attorneys or something like that so that we can come up with something that's a little more practical. That that ordinance seems to be kind of outdated because things change. That was postco and things change. We're in a different era right now. And I think we also have to be sensitive to the fact that people are protesting for a reason. I mean this ICE thing, how would you feel if somebody was coming to take your mother or father or sister or cousin away and the manner in which the the cruel manner in which it's being implemented and all of these people just rolling up in unmarked vehicles and and snatching up people and putting them in cars. So, I think we have to be sensitive to all of that. Not what's going on in LA and all these other places. We got to learn our our community here. We're different here. And we don't need to over react or rush the judgment or whatever. And you know, I don't see how uh it would be like Austin and I sitting in front of a bank and somebody looks and says, "Oh, I think they're about to rob the bank." and then they arrest us before we even walked in the door to take out a deposit. So, I I just, you know, really strongly am advocating for dropping the

charges. not only dropping the charges but also for putting a community and a law enforcement and a um civilian review board um committee together and taking a a better look at the ordinance and presenting something that we think it should be uh to the city council otherwise I think it's going to be very very problematic and so that's my suggestion Hi. Is anyone else on the board?

So, uh, Wendy, I do have one thing I got to ask because you did have two questions. Um, which one did you want to which one did you want us to kind of look into? Did you want us to look into creating a big group like an ad hoc committee for it or did you still want us to kind of take uh, as a board look at something to take up the city council? Because it was like I heard what you said, but I was like I was trying to tie it in together. seemed like one was different from the other. An item on the agenda. So, this is getting kind of off the agenda item discussion.

Okay. So, do I have to wait until the agenda item? I mean, until our report or can I clarify? No. Right now, we have the discussion regarding the June 14th. Um, well, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about solution. Now we're getting into a different topic that's not on the agenda and in aspects of the the municipal code. Is that correct? Also, the municipal code is not on the agenda.

See how confusing this really is? That's crazy. You know, I'm just going to say one second or one second. One second. Um, so during the presentation, you know, the municipal code was brought up. So there was a discussion about well what Wendy's discussing is a different subject than what the presentation that is on the agenda our report from our committee is on the agenda and that's when you bring that

okay so I'll I'll bring that part of our committee subreport recommendation to the part on when we get to our committee reports and then the all the other was just my personal opinion as a board member. I'm not sure how to respond to that. So, we'll just uh we'll go ahead and move forward for any other comments from board members regarding um the discussion of June 14th protest. Any other comments? Okay. So, I I do have a few comments. Um, Brandon, um, on the topic of the cameras, um, you know, there were some individuals that brought up the cameras, are you able to tell me when the 10th Street Plaza camera was placed? And also, is that camera still there?

Hello. There we go. Uh, the camera is still there. uh and uh it was placed before the protests.

Okay. And then um in regards to the mass, u more of a question on could have there been a possibility that officers could have removed the protesters that were in violation of that code, municipal code. Could they have either written them a citation, used desri and and given them the proper mask? You know, our officer is able to then hand out say this is the mask that you can wear. If you don't pull that mask down, then we will be enforcing this code on to you. Give them the proper mask and then go from there as in if they're going to remove it or not and abide by the this municipal code. And then is that municipal code an arrestable offense or is it also just citable?

Uh well I won't get into discussions of of those specific arrests and what could or couldn't have been done. Uh but I will answer your question that violations of the municipal code this particular municipal code are misdemeanor. So they are arrestable offenses. Okay. And are you able to answer? There was a question brought up um about police presence at No King versus ICE out when the No King protest camera was down. Did you have uh solution to that?

Uh we had those 35 to 40 that were assigned to the entire day. So there wasn't specific people assigned to each protest. It was 34 35 to 40 people assigned to the day uh of the protest in general. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. All right. Um, one more time, is there anyone else from the board that has any questions?

I I have a comment. Um, I live half a block away from Grace Park and I saw what I It was interesting that um while I was out doing my yard work and stuff, I noticed the people that were going to the the event that started in uh the park and then moved to down to um on the street to Five Points. And I was impressed with the number of folks that were families, a lot of kids, a lot of a lot of moms, a lot of dads, a lot of cousins, a lot of uncles and I really was uh you know concerned that you know having seen that that these things can get out of hand and I was concerned for that and I heard the the loud cheering and things like that but uh I was really impressed that it didn't for I I think it was partly the the police proactivity and I think it was a lot to do with the protest. protesters that it was a peaceful thing and I was just I was really pleased that that happened in my neighborhood that we could do that and um doesn't matter whether I agree or don't agree it was the fact that we can do that in our in our city and it doesn't have to get out of hand which now the next one that we do uh the next protest we've learned something we can move on and and do that again so that people can have their right to protest. Thank you, Brad. All right, so I will be closing out that agenda item and we'll be moving on uh to new business item B, the first draft of the CPRB annual report, January 2024 to December 2024 discussion. And this will be a presentation from staff. Um Nancy

Um, one second. I'm sorry. Do any members of the board would you like to make a motion to take a fivem minute recess during this time? All right. All in favor say I. I. All right. We'll be taking a fivem minute recess and we'll be returning. Thank you.

Let's bring the meetings to order. We have everyone take their seats, please. And we will continue on where we left off. Um item 4B, the first draft of CPRB. So Nancy, if you can please uh go ahead.

Okay. Yes, there you go. Um, Chairman Solario and I are going to just break up the presentation. Um, other committee members are Latricia and Brad uh Brad Han and Latricia Beasley Day. And um but for tonight's purposes, I'm I'd like to start um basically with the first 10 pages, part of which is directly based on last year's report um which describes the history and the ordinance and all of that. And then the portion of the report that um begins that has a summary of the meetings and the training we had that is pretty much based on my notes which undoubtedly at times could have been more thorough. So I'd like to start out with the first 10 pages of the report. Did anybody and then we'll go into the recommendations separately. So, did anybody have uh corrections to offer to the summaries about the training and the meetings um and the subcommittees? Um either corrections or things that I might have uh we might have omitted. Um it would be good if you could bring those up now or um otherwise I will give you a minute to respond to me. But if there are no questions or comments about those pages of the background and the training summary and the meeting summary, uh I think we could just move on to the recommendations.

Uh, nobody has any comments. It doesn't appear. Uh, Ken does. Am I on? Okay. Um, it's not really, you know, a question or a request for an amendment or anything, but in the in the um duties of the CPB, the second page, uh, all those items that are listed there. Check. One second. I'm sorry. Um, maybe get closer to the mic. I don't think it's rec catching. There we go. Now, that working? No. Yeah.

Um, I'll restate that the list that's on page two of our duties uh for the CPRB are all accurate in my opinion and I think it is um I I think we need to emphasize to members of the public. Um uh the item uh is the fourth bullet point where it says prepare and submit an annual report to the city manager in the city council outlining the CPRB's activities and any recommendations related to all of the CPRB's review of information including but not limited to officer involved shootings use or force and complaints. And then they're we're supposed to receive complaints from members of the public and directly refer those complaints to the city manager for investigation by MPD. Uh I think it's um it's inferred there but not clearly stated and I think you know we need to make it perfectly clear that we have no enforcement authority. Our our role is simply an advisory role and and to make recommendations and and to forward complaints to uh the city staff, city city manager andor city council and and for their dis discretion as to whether they want to refer it to MPD and um and then we we um you know have done what our responsibility is. But but I think oftentimes there's a misconception by the public that we have some authority to make enforcements of uh personnel rules and that sort of thing and we simply don't.

The only reason these are listed in this I think that's that's a good point to make. These are just copied from either the original No, it can't be in the original ordinance. I believe it's in the bylaws. So, these are set out in the bylaws and um maybe let's we could think about how we might want to you're you're thinking we should try to express that in the report in some fashion. Well, well, I I just it it seems to me that from the comments that are made here by the public um in in good faith, I think uh my perception is that there there is um some uh perception by the public that we have an enforcement role and we simply don't. uh we are simply an advisory uh group board and we make recommendations to the city manager and city staff and to MPD and it's they can either act on those or they can just uh decide not to act on those. Um but but that's our role. It's it's not one of enforcement and I think sometimes that's misunderstood. Anybody else for this first part of the report? Okay, let's then move to the recommendations. And what we'd like to do is just go over them one by one and then discuss them one by one unless there is no discussion or question. And I would just like to point out that I

think maybe last time when we met and or the board MAD and our subcommittee presented a report, we we did say that we would welcome any communication from any board members with um a recommendation that you would like the subcommittee to discuss. and then perhaps include in these recommendations having heard none what these recommendations reflect discussions in our subcommittee and I don't think that we necessarily think that the board as a whole is going to um accept that or accept it without question or amendment. And so this is your our opportunity as a board to comment and change, reject or whatever. Um that being said, I'm going to cover the the first three recommendations. The first one um is a request or a recommendation to MPD to provide us monthly updates on critical incidents and uh on incidents on which we've been briefed and on cases that might be of particular interest to the community that are ongoing and partially this came up because I don't think until maybe the Y reporter to a very recent meeting that we heard that the um the defendant of the police shooting maybe for our first briefing

the bike stop he fired back at the officer. I believe that one we did not know that that had been resolved and he had been sentenced. So that's partially where this this came from. So is there discussion questions about that recommendation?

Okay, I that working I don't mean to take up all the time here. Um in in that recommendation there's a reference to the uh Lamontia arbitration and I've asked this question before about um whether we can receive updates on the status of that situation. Um you know it's our understanding that arbitration has been requested and we don't know where that is. At least I don't and I don't know whether anybody on the board does and and I've been told that that is uh a personnel matter that cannot be discussed um previously and I'm a little confused by that because we're not asking for specific information regarding the case. We're simply asking for what is the status of it. You know, has has you know an arbittor been selected? What what step in the process is it? That's all we're asking. It It certainly isn't within our perview to look at the details.

So, is this um a possibility that we could ask our city attorney here? Is there some prohibition against or receiving information as to an update on an arbitration matter, which to my knowledge there's only one. And only as to the status. I'd have to do some more research on that to see what exactly could be potentially disclosed.

I I I suppose if the board And then Brad, if the board wants to make that recommendation and the city attorney advises us later that that is not a kind of information or they advise MPD, then we could still perhaps receive updates on other incidents but not an arbitration. Um Brad um this public record matter public record I think that's what we're going to get. We're going to get anything beyond that if it's available to the public. You do a public records act request. That's the kind of stuff you get is what data is available to us and it's going to be different and the answer might be from whoever's given it is on that particular case we can't give you any information and that's it. And I think that's really all we're asking for is just what where is this in the in the process. So, we're not asking for for um data that are personnel records or things like that. Just that it's just that these things go on for so long. Sometimes you somebody asks you in the street what's going on. We don't we don't know because

well I think we've posed the question in our recommendations and and we'll see what if any action is taken um by the city manager andor city staff uh regarding the comments that we've made in this first recommendation which specifically mentioned the mafia situation

and and if I could just weigh in just really quick so you're discussing the draft report tonight you're discussing each of the recommendations Um, a suggestion I might make is that you know what you're discussing here and then we could I mean the subcommittee can follow up with with staff with our legal and things like that if there's something that could be part of the report um then I think that that could be a good time to discuss that and then bring back bring that back um you know after the subcommittee works with our our legal that makes sense. Trish, did do you have a comment or question about it?

No, not specifically. I was kind of tracking with that. I think what you're asking is, can we find out if we can include a request for status updates on cases that we have been privy to to some degree? So, we know whether arbitration selections been done, hasn't moved forward. You're I what I'm hearing from Ken is we're just asking for status update. So the request to staff is may we request understanding whether or not we can include that in our recommendations. Um and I think what Ken was also getting at on the first part that the board uh bylaws listing of what we have is another request. Can we add a reference to us being simply an advisory board versus an authority board? And it's just asking is that something we can include or not or another place to include it? All right. So, it is it fair to say that the board members agree with that recommendation. So, that our final annual report unless we have some other discussion um that recommendation would stand.

Do we vote or Well, I mean I guess if we could vote or we could just That's I I I'm sorry. I thought I included that. We can say that. Just a brief aside, I'm uh it's Wednesday. I'm leaving Monday. Um and I'll be gone till a few days before our next meeting. Uh I have no problem anybody else picking this up and scheduling a meeting of the subcommittee and finalizing things. on vacation. No, I'll be out of the country. I'm not

I think as as stated, it's perfectly fine. It it it conveys what we're after in my opinion, and it's up to um you know, city staff whether or not what we're asking for is permissible, I guess, is the way I would put it. Okay, let's go to number two.

Okay, number two. We're asking that MPD or we're recommending that MPD uh publish racial, ethnic, and geographic data on traffic stops and um on use of force incidents, the geographic data on use of force incidents. Um right now we are getting the monthly data on use of force incidents, how many and a breakdown, but we're our recommendation would be that we get um geographic data on those incidents and arrest and in a manner that we can all make sense of because we also talked about how the RIPA data is difficult to isolate for us. So um comments questions

just add on it's the manner that is accessible to the public as well not just to the board itself. Yes. All right. Um there's is there any comments on number two? No objection. All right.

Okay. I'm not seeing any. So we would leave that in our recommendations. Now it's a whole separate question of course you know what MPD is going to respond to our recommendations but you know the these represent what we are recommending. Number three is um this was a recommendation made by OIR that we are just um joining in to evaluate the costs and benefits of pretext stops and we're well aware of MPD's response to that but we at least some of us on our subcommittee felt that it was an important statement to make on behalf of the board. So comments, questions about that. Uh that being said, Nico, right? Um on to recommendation number four, ensure that officers involved in use of deadly force are interviewed before the end of the shift in which the incident occurred. Again, we join in recommendation of O Brad.

Yeah, this is this is one I've I've been working on, thinking about doing a lot of research on. And there's it's it's a very complex situation because the officer uh may be asked to give a voluntary or ordered to to give uh uh you know, that's that's something that needs to be defined. Is this a voluntary request for voluntary or nonvoluntary? the voluntary can be used certain ways, the nonvoluntary can be used certain ways. There's fifth amendment rights. There's all kinds of different things in this that that Brandon discussed at the time we talked about it. And um I would be more uh willing to say to to look at the possibility of that to make it a little bit more scientific because it it's very convoluted. And there I talked to a person that's an expert in this about people's recollection. It's not about is he gonna is the person going to tell the truth or not. Is is the recollection actually valid because of the the heat of the whole situation? And and if you ask me right now, I'm still shaking from just the whole the adrenaline thing. And it study some studies, they're not all, you know, one way, but uh the the some studies say that at least one sleep cycle gives a much better the person a much better they are able to process things much better. Um, in addition to that, the the the mandatory one that's that the police department asked for, that's one we're talking about right now about the the the day of, I think, um, that's always going to be followed up by a review of the police camera. That's something that we have that really makes a big difference in all this. And there will

be discrepancies almost almost you can guarantee discrepancies between the recollection of the officer who was in the middle of it and and the ca and the camera. And that's because I I didn't think I had my hand on the gun. I thought I had it over here. You know, just things like that that may or may not be a big deal. But I I just am I'm I'm tr struggling with making this a mandated activity without more research on it. I just I think there's so many there's so many moving parts in this thing that um and and we're trying to get to the truth and that's what that what's the best way to do that and u so that's my two cents on that. My turn.

Yes. Again.

Um I'm going to relate this to my experience uh in public safety. Um and and having been an incident commander uh on uh emergency scenes. Um, we always did and and for the for the members of the public that that aren't aware of this, I was a battalion chief in the Modesto Fire Department and we always did afteraction reports and we did review of the incident uh for uh training opportunities for things that we could do to improve what we did and uh the fact of the matter is it's and it's not it's not the same but there are some similarities. Um the focus on uh the completion of the incident was to restore our apparatus, restore our people to uh an active response mode. And if there were uh extenduating circumstances that that we determined would prohibit that one of those individuals that was involved in that incident from being able to perform their duties, we relieved them from duty. uh but we always did an afteraction uh analysis of the incident but that might occur a week later. So I I I can understand uh from the chief's previous comments to the OIR recommendation about it not sometimes being as practical as they were stating and and as we're stating here. So I think there needs to be some discretion included in this recommendation.

Anybody else? Um, I agree with that. I don't feel like we're in a position to um mandate that on the chief and department. Um, I like how Ken stated that right then. I think he had opposition to parts of how OIR stated it. It wasn't an absolute, you know, anti, but without having valid data to Brad's point as to why we should shift so hard on a a firmer recommendation to that, I'm not really at peace with. So, I I'm agree with those two board members.

Is there anything else? Any other comments from board members? Can I can I make another comment to clarify what I said? You know, we said here in in the first word, ensure that officers are involved.

I think we need to add something in there that infers the practic practicability of that. Is it practical to have the officer make a statement before they go off ship? Like I said, in my experience, we had incidents where we made the determination. We, meaning the command staff, made a determination that this person isn't capable of performing their duties and they need to be, you know, removed from duty, sent home, or sent to the hospital or whatever the circumstances dictated. And and and in that situation, uh I mean, I don't know whether that occurs in MPD or not, but I can see the potential for it. And And I think there has to be some discretion on the part of the command staff of the MPD as to whether it's practical or not.

I guess my question is there where do where do we go from here? I it feels like at least three board members have real reservations about that recommendation. My suggestion u Nancy and and you know obviously everybody's got their opinion here but I would say ensure if practical that officers involved simply have those words

and I have I'm one of those people that has a slightly different opinion but I I would look at I would like to look at investigating our our request is to investigate this as a possibility. That's okay, too, right? I'm all right with that.

Yeah. So, that we're we're still we're still looking at it. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be. Uh because that same person that I talked to, I mentioned if they keep everything the way it is uh with the the next day or two days later and they add this, is that going to be a good thing or bad thing? Well, probably couldn't hurt. But I don't want to disrupt. I think we just need to study it a little bit more before we get to that spot and hear more data.

I have a question. Um Brad, when you did your research, you said that uh given 24 hours, it's better re like membrane cycle or something of that nature, one sleep cycle. Um, some of some do three three days before they'll talk, right? I was that's exactly why I was asking that. So, Chief, how many days do you guys allow in a situation like that? How many days you guys allow? There's not a specified time frame, but usually I would say within 48 to 72 24 to 70 72 hours usually. Usually two to three days.

Okay. So would it be would it be wrong for the board to look at a a possible 48 hour window because it kind of correlates with right wouldn't that meet in the middle you know look like they were talking about 72 we were talking about 24 48 one one sleep cycle with right with discretion offered because then you know everyone can kind of get their things together within the the 48 too. So would that would that suffice a little bit? Is it kind of like a me in the middle kind of that that was me? I'm done talking to you. I mean, with the the discretion to the staff sergeant or whoever does the interviewing. Um,

right. I'm sorry. To leadership to leadership. With discretion to leadership. Um, if we give them that 48 hour window, it's just their discretion. Is that what you're saying? That they can go beyond the 48 hour window if they based on circles down. So then if we go over circumstances like just like what Trish was saying if circumstances weren't so if we put it if we put it at the discretion with the end of shift then I mean

no but see end of see end of shift usually when I see end of shift before they go home they get their interview but it's up to discretion so then so then they do it within 24 to 72 hours anyways It it would appear then there would be no reason to do a recommendation if we're going to if if what and I think it's e even in the rags or in the manual that it's to be done within that time frame that you just outlined chief isn't that isn't it in the manual the 24 to 72 hours we I don't know you have time

I don't think So that's why he just asked the question of how long do we usually like to do it. It's not in stone. It's not in writing. That's why I was saying like if it was 48 hours it would with discretion. Yeah. They could still do what they needed to do. It's just in writing now because they just said he was about to say like I don't know if it is in writing or not. And you know, and then Brad also brought up the is it going to be a voluntary or involuntary as well that I think is all settled. I mean because

I think I think that Dawson I I think I agree with you because my concern is that if this happens at the time when he called me out of bed and I went down there and we stood on grassy null till my feet were freezing and they still were out there working. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. if it wasn't possible to do by the end of the shift because that that person was still, you know, the whole scene was still being processed and all that and and uh I just I don't think it's I think it's as as in a timely manner we take care of it. I think that's and that and that's what you're doing, right, Chief? And and I kind of have to agree because

I just don't want to put an end to shift thing and when it happens at midnight and the guy's right to go home. That's exactly what I was about to get at because I was at first I was just like, "Yeah, just just pass it through." But then I started reading it and I was like, "Dang, end of shift could be like in an hour."

Yeah. It's like then you got to get in and then it's like you got to get what if it's 30 minutes and then you don't even get a real a real good report from that person in the moment and then we're talking about trauma and everything and I just you guys know me like so I just know like when it comes to this I just I just think the 48 hours with discretion and that's just fair and then just and then just um if we take it out completely There is no time frame, you know what I mean? Like there's nothing in writing that that establishes a time frame to get it done. So I feel like if we just took it away doing ourselves, we're not doing ourselves a favor. But if I feel like if we implemented the 48 hours, it actually helps the police department because they still get discretionary period in time to meaning they don't have to necessarily go through the full 48, but they have time after. So it actually helps out both of us. It puts something in writing that we have and that we can follow and go off of. And then it also helps the police department have something that's in writing that they can go off of as well too because um not to put you on the spot, chief, but when you did say something as far as, oh, we we we think about doing it, you know, maybe 40 to 72, I think it's just best we had something in writing that says that's what we do rather than us like, you know, thinking about it. You know,

that's just that's just me and I'm officially done. Sorry.

Yeah. And I think just to just to clarify since you mentioned it, um we what we try to do is typically we take all the factors that you guys are discussing into account uh and then try to come up with the best time to interview uh the officer. That usually occurs within uh anywhere from 24 to 72 hours in general. So just to provide clarification on on how we do it and if Lieutenant Kber who actually uh coordinates all the interviews as IIA lieutenant wants to add anything, I'll let him do that. Yeah, I mean that's correct. And one other just thing to to keep in mind is every the fact pattern of every situation is also very different. Uh some of these critical incidents are very straightforward. You have one officer, one suspect, one gunshot, for example. Uh some of we seen recently are much more complex involving multiple officers. So, you know, if talking about the end of shift, I think if if an officer is getting off in an hour, putting that together is is not we're not going to get a good interview.

It's not possible. And and interviewing an officer a second time is possible, but it's not ideal. Uh, one thing uh by law we have to do if we interview an officer a second time is provide a transcription of the first interview, which taints the second. So having time to put it together is very helpful. Thank you for that information, Brian. Okay. So we have some edits to make on recommendation four. Yep. Okay. So thank you all for your comments. I don't I don't know if there's any other comments on the recommendation four.

Okay, let's move on to five. um commit to specific timelines and measurable goals, other known as smart goals for implementing policy changes and training enhancements. You have any uh comments on this? In other words, um in other words, for instance, tonight we talked about protest and you know, MPD says there's things that they want to work on. they can come back to us saying, you know, here's our smart goals on timeline specific of like we're going to by this time next year, we'll have this many um signage up at known protest spots that show the municipal code in regards to protests and things of that nature. So, it's just more of a timeline based so that we can also keep them accountable to what it is that they're agreeing to during these recommendations. May I ask a question on that? Yeah.

Are you referring to anytime they bring something up that they want to make a change on or are you also including anytime somebody from us or community is requesting an evaluation for No, just more of the policy changes and then training enhancements that they already have in place. Yeah. And that they're making changes to and that they are going to bring up to us. Yeah. Um yeah, I guess I mean in your mic. Oh. Oh, was it just a silent question?

Okay. Um the re the question I was going to ask is that is this kind of like um I was just trying to correlate it. So with this would that be similar to uh measure h and the clinicians that they were supposed to have and like they had like basically had to come up with a timeline and that's is that what you're kind of getting at with this re I mean it could it could work for there too but I think it was going to be more catered towards the board and kind of what we do here because measure H is more of a city council. I thought it was more so like because when I'm reading it they do a the board has a

no no worries. Okay. Um are there any other comments on recommendation five or any clarification needed? I might then based on your just put before policy changes before department policy changes and training enhancements. Okay. Just add department there.

Okay. All right, on to number six. Provide deescalation, body camera, and communication expectations in the police department policy manual in a way that promotes clear and enforceable standards. Um, I know here we're probably going to need to give examples of specific policies um where we can see this um come into action, but is there any other? Yeah, okay. Timmy made it easy.

Uh, this my question is this assumes that this is isn't happening already, but that provide deescalation by the camera communication when we've heard we've heard reports from the police department about all of those things in their policies. So, what's what's this going to do that isn't already done? That's exactly my question. It is in their policy. It is in their handbook. Yeah, they have policies on all these things. Unless and if there is a a blank spot, blind spot in their policies or something like that. Is is that what you're addressing or

Yeah. And like for example, maybe the body camera was shut off during an incident. And so now we need to know what the enforceable standards are for that. What is MPD doing to, you know, how are they correcting this mistake made by officers if a body camera is shut off during an incident? I thought that you reported that already.

Yeah, that's all part of our discipline process and and progressive discipline. I think I've sp spoken on that before, but happy to answer any clarificate clarification, but that's all part of it's individual circumstances and we abide by a progressive discipline model. Um, so it's all circumstances, but there we don't Yeah. I mean, there's expectations in our all of our policies about the expectations of conduct and use of equipment and things like that. So, if if I was in your spot and I got this, I would say, "Okay, here here are the policies. Now, if there's something we need to change, let's talk, right?" Because you're they're already in place.

Yeah. I guess I like you I don't I'm not understanding exactly what the ask is.

Well, maybe part if I could add um what we discussed I think it was it last year maybe there was um a complaint filed it was the second time the officer hadn't uh had shut off her her c camera I believe. Um, and I think there was and the response for the second time was to provide some additional training. And I guess what we were maybe trying to get at here is if it was clearer. I mean, I it says you don't turn off the camera. pretty hard that that's not clear. But that officer um despite it being clear had the camera off twice and the second time you it seemed like it was particularly detrimental to a determination of what occurred. And I and she had additional training. And I I guess I mean maybe if the expectation is always that it it is going to just be on a case-byase basis then um I guess one would say then the the expectations were clear in the policy manual. And if if I could just offer a little bit, I did I looked up um last year's annual report and I do see that this is a recommendation that was placed within the annual report of 2023 as well regarding body warn camera. It's recommendation number two.

In the big picture, I don't think it hurts anything to have it in there. I overall feel it's redundant, but it shows that it's something that the board is tracking. And if that provides value for position of the board, it doesn't hurt anything. It's just all in all it's redundant. We know what's in the policy. So I mean we just need some sense of the board that either we don't need this and it can be admitted or we'll leave it in. So I think it's fine to leave in. It's just I was just searching to see if there was some specific thing that was being targeted that needed to be done. You're unmuted. It's okay.

Yeah. Um, uh, Committee Member Bryant or board member Bryant, um, your microphone, I don't know if there's some technology stuff, but yours is a little bit lower than all the rest. We did our best to try to up the levels. We're going to have to follow up after this meeting. So, Okay. Is it on? It is. Okay. Um, it's my impression reading this that the intent of this recommendation is to to make to ensure that there that the department is emphasizing deescalation and everything else there.

Yeah. And and so I I I I guess I agree with the comment that it doesn't hurt to leave it in there. And I think it's it's making a statement about what our intent is and that is to improve dees or or to ensure deescalation techniques are taking place and that we are holding you know the officers to the highest standards that we have set in the policies. So just want to make sure that they, you know, shall follow those standards.

So if if there's not a problem, we'll just leave it in. Uh and the chief has heard our discussion tonight and we can go from there, I think. All right.

Um on to number seven. Engage the community police reboard and community organizations for input when developing policy changes to the police department policy manual prior to adopting policy changes. I think this was more um I know that we get emails about updated policies um things that might have changed, but I mean I'm not aware if there's other community organizations that give input on those policy changes or there's a way to include community and just to update us on what it is that you guys are wanting to do and your reason why on updating those policies. So that's just kind of where that is coming from. if there are any board members with any comments.

I h I think it's a great I only thing I struggle with is prior to adopting the policy changes. I don't know he's he's doing policy changes all the time and I don't think he wants to not and get them going waiting on reporting to us about it and and it's just a report. We're not going to say, "Oh, I don't like the way you're doing it. You should do it different." Right. It's just

right. But it also can can keep us updated as well. Um if they do it, say, in a setting like this where they're just updating us on the changes that are being made. Um and not only for the board, but for the community as well, because policy changes could be made and the community might not know about it. Um, so that's just kind of so how you're saying that there I get I hear that. But the statement here is um getting input when developing policy changes as though it's to influence how they change their policy. But I think their changes to policy come when they see needs to it. Time to go home.

Oh, the the verbiage of develop developing policy changes. to engage CPRB and community organizations for feedback when there's a change is one thing, but the way this reads for me is for input when developing as though looking for feedback and permission and I don't think we should be Yeah. finding permission for their policy changes.

I agree. I I do have something to to say about that, but like uh maybe I'm reading it a little bit differently because when I think about engage, it's like kind of like in it's kind of like what they've been kind of doing a little bit like they send us an email and I felt like that's kind of like where where it kind of goes. I didn't see I didn't I didn't kind of take it as they have to come to us before they even finish anything. I was just I was just taking it as like when they when we say enga like I was even I thought if we said involve it would be different but I felt like engage is like hey this is what we're doing you know I mean we're doing it like we're doing it but like how do you feel about it or like

it's not necessarily like hey like we're creating this policy um right do we have your support to do it or move forward with it I got from it like um hey like we're changing this hey hey hey like it's kind of like what we get already kind of like we're getting emails but more so of like if you're thinking of something new think of us more so than just like that's kind of how I thought about it like if you're thinking about if you're thinking about a new policy like involved like think about us I didn't think it was more so of like hey like we're thinking about this new policy um we have to go through you guys to pass it like I didn't I didn't take it as that okay I didn't take it

yeah no that's not what But but if the verbage does have to change, it's all good. I'm I'm for it if the verbage has to change just for just for clarification purposes. I I perhaps feedback input, but close enough. Um and maybe we want to take out prior to adopting the changes. Yeah. Okay. Right. We can move on then. Yes. More. The the other re Oh, there's more, Brad.

Yeah, we got a few more. Um I'm going to take up the first one which is the board recommends that the city these are recommendations to the city or maybe just to the city manager because but we'll say city manager and city the first one is to provide funding to the for the CBR CPRB to do outreach uh to the community for example uh maybe developing written materials. We've tal this was a recommendation from one of the subcommittees and so we tried to incorporate that here. Um so anybody have an issue problem comment about that?

No objection. Back to Nico. All righty. On to number two. Provide a Spanish inter one. Number one, we also mentioned uh polo shirts and a tent and business cards. Okay, we'll add that in today. Swag gear with our names and just to make us look a little a little more uniform. Okay. So it would be assistance in developing written materials and a tent buying a tent table and okay and clothing and equipment to identify

name tag business cards cell phon oh okay we we'll amplify that one all right so let's move on now to number two provide a Spanish interpreter at the board's monthly meeting and translate materials provided to the CPRB into Spanish. The current method of translation services relies on the availability of the internet connection and some technical savvy which limits accessibility to members of the community.

No objection here. All right. On to number three. to provide funding for up to four people from city staff and members of the CPRB to attend the Nicole annual conference um on a reoccurring basis. I guess it should kind of add into there um because Nicole is a a yearly conference um and we don't want to get too much into this because that is another agenda agenda item for tonight. But since you um specified four members from city staff and then it says members of the CPB, is there a specific amount of num number? It's four all together

and or yeah, four all together. Oh, okay. Andor members. Okay. On a recurring basis.

Okay. So moving on, we are going to open this up to the public. If there are any members of the public that have any questions or concerns regarding the recommendations that we just brought forward to you, please come forward. You have three minutes to speak. And again, this is only on the recommendations. things. One, um, I got a physical copy of these draft recommendations, but it is not an attachment onto the board agenda that's online. I've heard, but I'm not sure. I haven't done my own research, but I know like there are laws about when the the agenda needs to be posted before a public meeting. I've heard that that's supposed to include all attachments, presentations that go along with the agenda. I I could be mistaken on that, but I think it's important for folks that can't make it here in person that are listening online. I do know that there's people listening online, they don't have this in front of them to be able to see and fully participate. I made the same point about the OIR report, which is still not on the city's website. MPD's response to it is, but the OIR report is not on the city's website. So, on on the board's website. Um number two, the conversation about um giving a statement um after a use of deadly force. I just wanted to to point out and remember this is about cases where use of deadly force. This means somebody lost their lives in an incident. So I heard mention of you know we we want to be understanding to the police officer at the end of their shift that they need to go home. We're only talking about incidents where somebody lost their life. I think it's important uh to to to make it the point to get that interview as soon as possible. That was the OIR's recommendation before the

end of the shift is considered to be optimal. Investigative purity of the officer statement is best preserved by interviewing him or her as contemporaneously as possible. That's why I think it's it's pretty standard that officer reports are supposed to be written as soon after an incident as possible because when you go to court a judge will give more weight to statements given as soon as possible because the memories um are fresh on your mind. So it was OIR's recommendation and they've worked with dozens of you know a dozen at least police departments and have looked at all of uh you know the research and evidence I would hope and they in their opinion think that it should be within the shift. So 8 hours or at least as soon as possible. If it's not possible it's not possible but if it's a couple hours after the shift that's as as soon as possible. Um, number three about what which information the board can access as far as investigations are going. You made the point about public uh records requests. So, I would hope it would be the same information that anybody could get if they give a public records request. I would recommend if you feel you're not getting that information to do a public records request as a board member and just get that information and come share it with the rest of the board at this meeting and the public. Um and number four, um I like the recommendations to the city. I've been making this point. It goes along with these documents not being online. If you go to the city's website on their homepage, there's a calendar. the these meetings are not on that calendar. It has stuff about free composting and that the Twalamy River Committee meeting was cancelled today, but it has it doesn't say that this meeting is going on. They don't post anything on social media. I

follow their Facebook page. They put out infographics all the time. They didn't do one about your draft report being available at this meeting. They didn't do one about the OIR report being available. So I I ask that you keep harping on that point that the city needs to do more to publicize these meetings and the transparency is part of the purpose of this. So we need the city to do its part. Thank you. Thank you. We have any other members of the public?

Hello again. Appreciate the thoughtful discussion. Um, I want to highlight uh recommendation to MPD number four. Uh, I'm not sure how much it'll matter in the grand scheme of things because when the OIR report happened, chief already said he disagreed with the recommendation. Uh, but I do think it's important still to make those recommendations. Uh, and to that end and, uh, I'd mention what I brought up uh, when we had the OIR report. Uh, Journal of Experimental Criminology did some research looking at the effect of memory accuracy with recall specifically of officer involved shootings. uh and found and I quote quote no support for the position that delay improves officer's memory. Uh to that end, I think that having a stronger recommendation around perhaps not end of shift, but 24, I really think 48 even would be pushing it in terms of how long to get that first uh check-in. And I recognize there's issues of practicability. He But I think that would be really important, especially when we're seeing what I view as really a pattern of misconduct from MPD. He I think the community would be protected by having those uh uh reports from officers come as soon as possible. Um when uh I teach psychology to my students, there's this concept called flashbulb memories. Very vivid memories that people recall after particularly traumatic events. Uh and while people are very confident in their flashbulb memories, uh over time, I they become less and less accurate. Uh you can interview people that will tell you who they know with confidence that they watched on live TV the 2001 911 terrorist attacks and then later when you look back and go uh you were asleep, you were at work, but they were just so confident after the fact. You asked them the day of they would tell you the accurate story. So I think that's important to keep in mind and I recognize there's not a firm consensus in the academic literature about it. But I think there's substantive weight to say that this recommendation and uh as is I think is appropriate. Softening it

I think would be a mistake. Uh I could even see value in enhancing it. Uh and then regarding recommendations to the city one that I brought up way back at the King Kennedy Center just a general thought not pertaining to things mentioned today but a new recommendation. Uh, I do think perhaps in like 2027, 2028, maybe when some of y'all's terms are cycling over, uh, asking the city to expand the membership of the board to have a youth representative. I'm thinking like 13 to 17, I think that would matter a lot. Be someone who could speak more meaningfully than any of us could on how to reduce uh, youth arrest, particularly Latino arrests. Uh, that's something that I think would be a really strong recommendation to make to the city. Y'all do some good work here. I'm thankful for the work you do here, but we need to bring more voices into this space. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other members of the public that'd like to speak on this item? All right, seeing none, we'll bring it back to the board. Any members of the board have any further comments? All right, seeing none, we will be moving on to new business 4C, Nicole Conference 2025, attendance um by Scotty.

Yes, thank you, chair. So, chair, members of the board, um as you recall this, every year, you know, the city um provides budget to send up to two people to the NQL conference. Um and so, you know, just acknowledging the recommendation here that uh that uh you'll be pos you know, likely making in the annual report. Um this this coming conference is in October. Um and so I wanted to just you know, gauge all of you here. Um if there is anybody that uh you know the members of the board that would like to be you know attend this conference staff obviously we um assist you with the administrative portions of arranging the travel and etc. Um you know so you know one of the options are you know like two board members a board member and a member of the staff or however you decide that you'd like to move forward. Um so I just I just present that to you Mr. chair and the board to consider and

okay let us know who would like to go. Um so this year's this year's conference is October 26 through the 30th and it will be held in Minnesota. So um board members if we have volunteers that want to step up and say I mean Austin already said he's [Laughter] you might need to send all of us Scotty. I'm just kidding. And uh you may you may just consider, you know, just talking about who attended the the first one and then the last one that we just had as well.

Yeah. I mean, I attended the first one and I also attended the second one. Latricia attended the second one. Scotty, Simei also as well. Um I think it's a great experience and as many of us that can go, I think it would be very helpful for the board. Um there's a lot of things that they talk about. I mean I got countless of notes that we have still not talked about from the conferences. So um yeah I don't know if there's anyone here on the board that has any comments. Yes.

I'll say um it would make sense since the um opportunity to go is more limited this year than it was last year that we try and cycle more of us through it. At least have that part of the focus with that. if my schedule allows and others aren't like clamoring for it, I will make an effort to be one of the people that go.

Okay. Um, they do have like early registration where costs are a little different. So, we can get an early registration by August 15th, I believe it is. Um, so if you guys can check your calendars and then just kind of let us know, but I know Austin said he's he's down to go. Could we maybe have the suggestion that we get a general email out to all of us from staff and you guys collect the response of availability? That would give us a starting point on who's even able to go. How many is involved?

Uh yeah, we could do that. Um if we could take a poll on that and then um bring it back. I think that it's just kind of about the process. So if we were to, you know, come back to the next CPRB meeting that's in August and then we got the registration stuff like Nico was just the chair was just advising. Yeah. Um, we're sending two. Yeah, we have a budget for two this year and I would love to go again, but say she had to check her calendar. Well,

I'll be more than happy to step forward. If you you make a motion. Turn me on. Sm Well, if you just can't go, Trish, this Trish will go for you. I'm here for you, girl. Okay. So, board member Hans. So, board member Hans's question. Yeah. I mean, you can make a you can make a motion. Um you can make a motion for the two, maybe one as a backup, you know, something like that. You made the motion.

So, we'll make a motion for Austin and Trish to go to the Nicole conference in October with if Trish is not able to attend Latricia, somebody who hasn't gone, right? Or Nancy, everyone would like. Everybody picking you up, commission. So, you could have two and then two as backups. I mean, and then maybe put them in a particular order if that's what you'd like to do. Okay. So, because because Nancy hasn't gone, Latricia, I'm sorry, but I'm going to put her in front. Go right ahead.

So, a motion for Austin and Trish to go to the conference with backwards in order of Nancy and then Latricia if Trish is not able to go. Is there a second to that motion? Second. All right. All in favor say I. I. Hi. Uh, Trish, I heard a second or Trish. That's who I heard was was Wendy. Oh, I'm not supposed. Okay. Bird. Okay. All right.

Um, this is an item that needs to be opened up to the public. So, is there anyone in the public that'd like to speak on this item regarding the Nicole conference? All right, seeing none, back to the board. No comments. All right, we did. Good. Yeah, we did. We voted on the motion, guys. All right, on to item five, staff comments and reports. There's going to be an update from Stephen. I'm glad you're still with us, man. Y

good good evening everybody. Uh thank you uh Chair Solorio and uh probably to um the board's relief at this point. I am not scheduled to give a big formal presentation or or talk at length about a completed project. I really just wanted to to say hello with this regular slot on the agenda uh to let you and and the members of the public know that I certainly have been following tonight's discussion with with a great deal of interest. I think both the major topics uh regarding the the June 14th protests and the the second report of your board, both of them certainly overlap quite a bit with with my responsibilities and interests in policing in Modesto. So, I certainly will be continuing to to track both of those things. And I just want to say quickly as you work on the the uh processing of tonight's comments about your report and and consider making little adjustments to any of the recommendations, certainly I I want to uh reiterate my offer to to be a resource if if anybody has any questions or I can be helpful with the the final weeks of that process. And other than that, I don't have anything. And thank you very much.

Thank you, Stephen. Um, does any member of the board have any questions? Seeing none, um, is there any I'm going to open this up to the public. Anyone from the public have any questions for Stephen? You got

I just have to make the point one more time because I think it's it doesn't make sense to me. The OIR report is not on the board's website. If you go to the civilian review board's page on the city's website, there's a documents and presentations or something like that. You click on that, there is MBD's official response to the report, but the report itself is not on there. Their first report is also not on there. Your first report is also not on there, but MPD's response is on there. doesn't make any sense to me. I got a physical copy on the because I was here the meeting in April when it was released. I wanted to make copies of it and scan it in myself, but I wrote on it that first day and I'd have to go back and white it out and then write my comments somewhere else so I remember what I wrote and why I wrote it. We need to put Can that happen like yesterday? Can we just put the report on that page that says documents and presentations? It seems just ridiculous that it's not on there. Um, I do want to make another comment cuz this is the first time I've been able to make it to a meeting after actually reading the whole thing. Um, I kind of made a comment earlier about uh the chief not uh accepting the recommendation on officer interviews. I already made that point, so I'll skip that one. Um but also I uh the um issue about pretextual stops was also something they did not want to accept. That was a recommendation that is another issue that I'm afraid will deteriorate community police relations if they know that that practice is allowed even though other police departments and I know it it the Supreme Court has ruled that it is okay. I do know that but police officers

I apologize. I apologize but this has to be catered towards the internet the independent police auditor update. So his update and we're kind of getting into more of the this is the OIR O I'm talking about the O report. I understand first time I was able to read it and make a comment. Uh yeah, I'll I'll finish my quick my quick point. I think it's interesting Connelly is state that's that's what

so nobody can get a copy of the OI report now because it's not available online. You can't show up to this meeting and make comments about your thoughts about the OIR report. Well, it's it's about his is what he spoke about right now. His update is just how the meeting is supposed to be. Okay. So, you're saying I can't finish my comment right now? Yeah, there's a public comment section where you can make a comment about anything with the reports. Okay. I'm very confused.

Yeah, the the comments at this point are related to the the items that are on the agenda that have been discussed. So, it's not an open public comment section right now. So, at the beginning of the meeting, there's an agenda item that's titled public comments uh in person, and that's that's where the public can make a comment about anything within the scope of the board's work, but as it continues through the meeting, the public comments need to be related to the items that are addressed. And the on this this subject is Mr. Connelly statements that he made. So the comments need to be related to what Mr. Connelly just said.

All right, moving on. Mr. Chair, if I could just I provided my card to to the speaker and we're going to connect. There is a there is a place that we're seeing that is online, but some of these other things we just want to make sure that we can coordinate and if there's uh if there's kind of sometimes there's multiple paths to certain documents online. So, we want to make sure that that's consistent. So, staff will be we'll be following up. Okay. Um we do have another public comment.

I'll keep this one quick and on topic. Uh, in fairness to the previous speaker, it is hard to tell what's going to come up in the OIR update. That's a standing agenda item. Uh, just some brief language on the agenda saying what we might expect from the update because I think a good faith interpretation could be I will withhold asking about OIR until we get to the OIR step on the agenda. I don't think that's trying to breach decorum by any means. Not that that was the accusation, but that seemed like in good faith to me. So maybe just some language on what we might expect in the update. A bullet point or two could go a long way in helping clear up some confusion. Thanks. Thank you so much. Is there anyone else in the public that'd like to speak on this item? Okay, closing public comments. Is there anyone from the board that has any further comments for Stephen in regards to his update? All right, seeing none, we'll move on to staff comments and reports. Scotty Douglas, at this time, staff may make a brief announcement or report briefly on his or her activities. Uh staff doesn't have any uh comments and reports other than what I just provided. Thank you.

Thank you. This also is open to the public in regards to any updates. Um and actually I just wanted to just note that these sections here under the current and then the following sections, those are intended asformational. I've Yeah, we'll have to update this then. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, because we'll have to update this. All right, so moving on. Um, we'll move on to item six, board comments and reports. Policy goal number eight, review use of force policy to minimize likelihood of death resulting from use of force. Do we have an update? Okay. On to policy goal number one. Improve relations between the community and the department. Is there an update?

Hold on. No, mine is. No, we have not met. Okay. Um on to C policy goal number three, reduce youth arrest particularly among Latino youth. We uh our committee did uh speak and we uh would like to make the recommendation for the board to send a letter to the city requesting um review and possible amendment of the ordinance. Do you want to include a form in an ad hoc committee to review that? That that can be the second recommendation.

So we would have to make a motion to either in integrate it into a current ad hoc group or we'd have to wait until the next meeting so that it's agendaized to create another ad hoc group for this. We we can't um establish another ad hoc. Um, that wasn't what Yeah, that that's according to the city attorney, it has to go in that order of establishing another ad hoc needs to be agendaized. Mr. Mr. Chair, that the city attorney can I think we can make a motion at this point to establish thinking back at how we established other ad hoc committees. Yeah. So,

came out of Okay. So, establishing an ad hoc of the CPRB. So you have the three right now, the three standing. Um you could um create a you know make a motion to create an ad hoc that is for this specific thing and that that CPR that the the ad hoc to the CPRB bring back an item that's agendaized, provide that to the board and then your board can make a decision on recommendations to the city council and the city manager. Can this ad hoc committee um consist of members from the community or does it just have to be board members?

It's uh so officially it's three it's three board members but you can have other people um I don't know if you want like if we meet outside of this they wouldn't be they wouldn't be board members. Yeah. They can just join in on the meeting. Yeah. They wouldn't. No, they'd be they could be on your committee, but they like just so you understand, they're not they don't become CPRV board members.

Yeah. So, in other words, so you could have the three subcommittee members meeting and if you wanted to invite others to be part of that just conversation, things like that, you can do that because that's not a violation of the Brown Act. It's okay. because they're not I mean they're not CPRB board members and they won't be considered as CPR board members but they'll be invited by that subcommittee to provide input to your subcommittee. So I guess the subcommittee would consist of us three no or could it be anybody?

It's any three. Are there three um besides Wendy who obviously wants to be one of the three are there two others that would like to join that with her? But by by default, Nico or the the chair is a member of all the ad hoc committees. So he would be a member and then the bylaws state that the chairperson appoints the the committee members. So if you have two other members that would like to participate,

a total of four because I'd automatically be in that ad hoc. It actually works better with the ad hoc members if there's if they're limited to three because then you can you can discuss with a fourth member among the among the board without violating the Brown Act. So if you were to have a discussion you could you could the three members could talk to a fourth member and that wouldn't be a violation of Brown Act. So only a.3 that' be my recommendation with the understanding we can bring in other people. Correct. Yeah. Okay.

I'm willing to be on it, but if somebody else wants to, I would step back. So we are making a motion to create an ad hoc committee to review the municipal code. At this point, I don't even know it off the top of my head. 4-23.02.

And I will be appointing Wendy Bird, Brad Han, and Latricia Beastley Day. That's No, he he has to be on a Yeah, that that would be four. So, you get the point. But I think he said it has to be three. Yeah, three three words. Is that what you say? That's automatic. I don't have to appoint myself. No, but you're but that makes Yeah. So, if you have four members and you can't you can't consult with any other board members without violating Hey, Lucricia. I'm sorry. You're not on this committee. I know. That's all right guys.

Eco, do you have time to be on the committee? Well, it's like automatic though, so He doesn't have a choice. I don't have a choice. He doesn't have a choice. Wendy, Patricia. Yes, that is my motion. Do I have to repeat it all, guys, or did you just get a second?

Can I just confirm you? Did Did I hear Wendy, Nico, Latricia? Yes, you did. That's fine. Okay. Because the the only reason I mentioned that is because as the city attorney just indicated, you could have three and then the board chair is by default on the subcommittees. So you can have up to four members total. Nico's one of them. So then you could have three other ones. Sorry. So originally so

we are waiting for confirmation. I think we're waiting for them to answer question. Yeah, but I can't

Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Sorry. Just so Mr. Chair, are you on all three of the subcommittees? Well, and by default I am. And so is each of the subcommittees just two members each? No, there are three members. That's what I was trying to Yes. No, it's there's three members per committee with me being the fourth. Yeah, that's how it's been since we established these. Yes.

Okay. So, sorry about that. we we uh consulted. So, um what the city attorney was just talking about here is that it does work better if there are three total members on this subcommittee, you're going to have members of the public and things like that. Then that way, if you needed to consult another person, there's um more of an opportunity to consult somebody on the board rather than if Nico is like going to be with all, you know, if Nico's one of them, if if you're one of the members, then there's just three of and then if you needed to consult somebody else, you're not violating the Brown Act. If there's three plus Nico as the the default we were talking about that's the fourth that's all you can talk you can't talk to anybody else beyond that and so that's what the city attorney was talking about so what his recommendation is sorry John I'm trying to play attorney here um but I just you know just to confirm then so if it's if it is like we said earlier three members including you Mr. chair. Um, then you would be able to consult with other uh members of the board.

Did you follow our motion, Sammy? I I need I need to make a comment here. Uh, we have three subcommittees present. One for policy goal 8, one for policy goal one, and one for policy goal three. It's my understanding that there are three members on that board. not including Nico. So we are currently in violation of what or I don't know if it's violation but we can't talk to anybody else on this board regarding anything we discuss in those subcommittee meetings. Am I accurate in that?

Yeah. and and you don't I mean that's typically what's happening is it's it's a it's a tight group of the four because if you needed to consult with Nico as the chair that's the possibility but in this case if you wanted a little bit of flexibility in that then you then you know if there's only three and it includes the chair then they then they would be able to consult one or two or sorry at least other another um you know member of the board so that we're not violating the Brown Act. I think my question or suggestion if it's appropriate what has been working for us is three members independent of Nico or the chair meeting when we have reports we bring them back here anyway we've only I think once wondered should we reach out to Nico for more feedback but we felt we had enough information at the time right

so if everyone who agrees the three that have said they're willing are going to function the way we have been functioning that we're not talking in between meetings to additional board members follow the same protocol we've been using. Those three who feel they have the time to focus on this without adding more to Nico would still get the job done. Is that compliant if they're in agreement of that? Yeah, that works.

Okay. So, a motion to establish an ad hoc committee in regards to municipal code 20 for what the chief said. I can't I'm sorry guys, it's a long night. Um 423.02 code 423.02 2 with Wendy Bird, Patricia, and Brad. We have a second. All in favor say I. I.

I. Okay. Now on to board comments and reports. At this time, board members make a brief announcement or report briefly on his or her activities. Anyone on the board have any comments, announcements? All right, seeing none, on to item seven, future agenda items. Um, just in the parking lot, future agenda items. Is there something you want to go over, Scotty?

No, we don't need to go through it. Just mentioning them there. Um, you know, for the future, we have a presentation of homeless by the homeless alliance that was originally scheduled for tonight, but obviously we've rearranged, you've rearranged the topics. Um, policing and homelessness is also one that's out there. and then final draft of the CPRB annual report. When that's completed and brought back to be finalized and um adopted by the board. Okay. Thank you. In August, this is going to be on the agenda. Yes. As of right now, it will be Yes. As of right now, yes.

Okay. And on to Hey, adjournment. I just want to say thank you all for being with us through this long night. Um we appreciate your comments. We appreciate you guys speaking up and we'd love to see you at the next meeting, August 20th, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. here at the chambers.