Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

The Public Safety Committee to order. Roll call, please.

Committee members Coleman. Here. Johnson. Jost. Here. Kim. Here. Maker. Yang. Here. Chair Bowie? Here. Five present, two absent being members Naker and Johnson Hort? Excused.

Well, welcome to our second Public Safety Committee meeting of this year and happy Black History Month everyone. We just have one item on the agenda today. So, we are light but mighty with our topics. This was a topic that actually rolled over from last month's agenda to ensure that council members had adequate time to engage our Executive Director with any questions that you may have. Also for assurance, we want to just make sure that people know that we're going to be moving the opioid settlement dollars budget topic to next month.

So that was supposed to be on this month's agenda. We want to just give the new administration some time to present to us a comprehensive plan. So that would be coming along. But nevertheless, if you have any items that you wish to review in the Public Safety Meeting, please share those topics with me or the Chief of our Policy Officer Tim as well. So, moving on to our agenda, I just want to share with you all that I'm so glad to invite our post board Executive Director, Eric Missal.

And he, like I mentioned, being the Executive Director is here to discuss the standards process and procedures and educating the council particularly around their jurisdiction and their role. Many of you may know that this you know topic has came about in the aftermath of protest that took place on November 25 on Rose Avenue on the Payton Phelan neighborhood. And, counsel unanimously voted to do three things on December 10 which was to conduct analysis including a public discussion on the ordinance on four-three-sixteen. Also, to work with the Post Board to conduct a thorough investigation into SPPD's use of force during the November 25 incident. And the third thing was to direct the Office of Financial Services to perform an audit of SPPD personnel, operations, equipment, and supplies which we have received.

So, last month we had a chance to hear from PCR particularly around their process and how they took a vote to authorize an investigation. So, we now have here the Executive Director to review not the specifics of the investigation resolution, but to talk about their role and their function as a Board and to ask any questions particularly around the process. So, nevertheless, we're going to just read into the record their agenda item and also welcome Mr. Missal to the stand. So, Polly, you might read it.

Welcome, mister Misto.

Okay. I'm told I don't need to touch the mic, so I'll leave him alone. Little shocked. Not a full gallery. I thought this was gonna be the huge topic of the week, but nonetheless, thank you for having me and giving me the opportunity to talk about the Board, talk about what we do, and most importantly, kind of set the ground level assessment, if you will, of what we do and what we don't do, what we can do and what we can't do.

So that's my purpose and then, of course, to answer any questions you have. I just need to be clear about one thing before I get started. I cannot speak about any ongoing investigations. I can't speak to any complaints we may or may not have received or their status. That is all private data, which I'll talk about a little bit in the presentation just so you know. The only time we can talk publicly about such issues are when and if there's final discipline issued by the Board.

Thank you for that.

Please just yeah, keep that in mind. Okay. So very quickly, I won't spend a ton of time on this, but just to give you some background. We the Post Board itself was created in 1977 by legislation. It was one, as I understand it, one of the first licensing boards for police officers in the country.

So we're very similar to, as you'll hear many times, nursing, board the bar, medical practice, cosmetology, you name it. So we're purely a licensing board in that respect. Many states use certification as their baseline, not licensing. So Minnesota is a little bit unique in regard. 626.84 is our enabling legislation.

If you ever wonder what authority the Board has or what we do or why certain policies are required, it's all in 626.84. That's everything, both the limits and the scope of what we can do. Chapter two fourteen of Minnesota Statutes governs licensing boards generally and administrative procedures. There is a section in there on the where the post board has called out specifically. The majority of it applies to all licensing boards in terms of how investigations are done and so on and so forth, including the provision for due process under the Administrative Procedures Act.

Chapter 6,700, that is our administrative rules. Just like the DNR and just about any other government agency out there, We have a set of administrative rules. The statutes, as you'll read in six twenty six, are fairly broad, and they'll say things like, the Board shall promulgate rules in this area, and then we do the rules from there. We're comp we did a comprehensive review, or I should say, update of the rules, particularly as they were pertained to officer misconduct in 2023, and you can imagine why that was. That was, of course, post 2020 in the George Floyd murder and so on.

Right now, our rules package is dealing with pre service education. So what is it we are? We're, again, a licensing regulatory agency. We're a part of the a non cabinet member, but a part of the executive branch of the state government. Members are appointed by the governor, including the appointment of the chair of the board.

We oversee these five areas: preservice education, testing, licensing, continuing ed, and violations of standard conduct and licensure. So you can see the parallels between us and, again, some of the other licensing and regulatory boards out there. Members, we have 17 appointed by the governor. They're due four year staggered terms, and you can see the list there. I won't read it to you. There's clear for obvious reasons that a heavy representative of law enforcement, both management and union level. Yes.

Thank you, Chair. And I have a question about Mr. Missiles, I got a question about the licensing and regulation that would have existed before 1977 for peace officers. Could you talk about what that looked like before the post board?

Well, first off, I was 11 years old, so and I didn't live here. But as I understand it, it was very limited. It was just I don't know if they did certification or what, to be honest. I know licensing came into being in 'seventy seven. But it was primarily my understanding is prior to that, it was mostly it was called, in fact, the training board. I think the POT board, which is, I think, not probably the acronym they wanted, the POT board. So it's peace officer training. So they were focused on training. I think the licensure piece came and says, I understand it, in 'seventy seven to increase the professionalism and require an actual license.

Thanks. And then just so if there were peace officers that had the training or if there was some type of certification, before 1977, were some of them grandfathered into the license in that situation, or did they have to go through the entire process like anyone else?

I honestly have no idea. I don't know what happened back when that transition took place. I do not know.

Thanks. Sort of a great question, and we have a question from CP.

Yep, Sure.

Yeah, just a quick one. So this is for

can

you sorry, describe who falls under a peace officer, right? So is it it's police officers and sheriffs and their deputies. It's anyone that what is the license? Like, who falls under that definition here in Minnesota?

So we regulate only licensed sworn peace officers in the state. That includes elected sheriffs, your police chiefs, your deputies, and, police officers. It does not include corrections personnel. It does not include I'm trying to think of what some other states do. Primarily corrections is often the question. They are not in our jurisdiction. So state troopers would be peace officers, DNR wardens are peace officers, tribal officers are peace officers, the ones that have a compact with the state.

Okay. That sounds great. And so just to clarify, so it's sheriffs and their deputies, correct?

Correct.

Okay. Perfect.

Now the sheriffs might tell you a little different story because they're the chief law enforcement officer and they're electeds, but they are in fact under our jurisdiction.

Thank you. And I have a follow-up question to that. Is there an even geographic disbursement of these chiefs? Like, for example, I can imagine that some of the priorities or the issues that inner city chief will deal with versus rural Minnesota. Can you talk about the if there's like geographic requirements for these appointments?

Yeah, so good question. That lies entirely with the governor's office, and I'm not privy to the decisions they make regarding who they pick. I get the sense. I can tell you as a practical matter, it appears they do pay attention to geographic spread, if you will. For instance, our two police chiefs, one of them is down in Scott County, Shakopee, and the other chief is from Alexandria, so further outstate.

Then sheriffs, same way, we have I'm sorry, did I say chiefs? I was wrong about that. The sheriff is Scott County, Shakopee. The other sheriff is out in Douglas County, so also Alexandria, chief from Alexandria. The other chief is from Duluth. So they do I think in essence, a practical matter, they try to pay attention to that. But again, they just tell us who is appointed.

And one last question just because I wanna just make sure it's relative to the city of Saint Paul. Do we have anyone from the city of Saint Paul appointed to this board?

You do. Okay. I think he's commander now. He was promoted in Western District. He's investigations commander Jim Yang. Okay. True Jim Yang.

Thank you. Yep.

Sorry. Excuse me.

Go ahead. Councilmember Johnson. Sorry.

Yeah, no worries. Thank you, Chair Billy. I have a quick question just on the 17 members appointed. Are there any vacancies at the time, or are they at full capacity? Do you know?

Are there any vacancies now? Yes.

Yes. Which are the vacancies?

So the one vacancy we have is one of the peace officer positions. That's the last one that needs to be filled. The enforcement former law enforcement officers, current faculty members, one of those was vacant until like a week ago and that was just filled. So we have one vacancy currently.

Perfect. Thank you so much. That's a great question. It seems like there's a follow-up.

Yes. And then just the thought process around the elected official book pointee at the bottom, is that because usually like the with the town that small, is it due to capacity that that's given to a seat there? Or could you elaborate a little bit on the elected official position that's outside of the metro, but

That's been around less than 5,000 people? You're talking about the rationale behind that? Yeah, that's been the case since I came to Post in 2017. That's been in the statute for, as far as I know, ages. I don't know what the original rationale was for that. I assume it was to get some outstate representation, but they say about assumptions.

Okay, thank you. And just point of clarity, the legislation or the legislator actually are the ones that define or determine who what the makeup of this Board, the Board

is It is on statute, correct.

Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Okay.

All right. To talk generally, and I think this is one of your concerns or one of things you want to know about more importantly, as far as jurisdictions when it comes to misconduct of peace officers in the state. There are two basic areas that we have jurisdiction over. One clearly is criminal convictions. Felonies in this state are automatic revocations.

There is no hearing. There is no due process. It's an automatic revocation of license. Now there are other crimes, criminal convictions, which we do take action on, and many do end up in revocation, typically, for criminal convictions. But those are handled through the I'm sorry, through the due process and the Procedures Act.

The other piece and one thing I'll say about this very briefly, one of the reforms that was done in 2023 allows the Board to take action in an engage use an engaged in standard versus just a conviction. Prior to 2023, it was only convictions. We can we have cases now, and this is part of the reasoning behind it, where, for instance, a person gets an officer arrested for domestic violence. They go through the court system and they plea it down to a disorderly conduct or something like that. Under the old rules, because there was no conviction of one of our standards of conduct, we could not take action.

Now, depending on the egregiousness of it, the Board has the authority to use the engaged in standard. In other words, get all the paperwork and stuff court case itself, even though they pled to a lower charge, a lesser charge and still take action because they're considered to have engaged in domestic assault. It's always one of the things from 2023. Violation of standards of conduct, I had sent that link to you at some point here. That is really the key and the crux of what we do.

There are it's a whole list of things in there. And, basically, if the for the board to have jurisdiction and take licensing sanctions action against a license holder, it has to fall either under the criminal statutes, again, a criminal conviction or within 6,700.16. And the example I use is often is if you have an if there's an officer with an agency that is just, for lack of better term, a terrible employee, they're always late, they don't show up, they get subpoenaed for court, they don't show up, none of that is in our jurisdiction. We are dealing with misconduct not being a terrible employee. Employee.

Now, of course, the agency can fire them and shall fire them and take whatever sanctions they want. But from a licensing standpoint, that's outside of our purview, to give you kind of an example. Policy violation yes. Yep.

Council VP Kim. Yeah. Thank you. How often do licensing violations conflict with police contract contracts? So if you were to, like, unlicense someone, how often does that come into conflict with the union's ability to do, like don't you know, not saying things, but just, punish them, follow their sort of, like, recourse.

So our jurisdiction in terms of discipline, again, because there is this there are two silos here. There's the employer employee relationship, and then there's the regulatory board licensee relationship. Those are separate channels. The union will hate me for this, but we don't really care what your contract says. It's irrelevant to us because we deal with licensure issues.

If it falls within our licensure jurisdiction, now it doesn't say there's not due process, there is under the Administrative Procedures Act and two fourteen. There's a way we have to conduct it, they get due process in front of the court of administrative hearings if it goes that far. There's all kinds of due process but has nothing to do with contracts. Contracts is between the employer and the employee. Is that up? Take care.

Yeah, Yep. Appreciate

So policy violations, and I'll talk a little bit more about this in a second, but basically, they can only be enforced against the Clio, not the individual officer. And I'm going talk a little bit about those differences in policy. Before we get there, as far as reporting misconduct, we get misconduct reports a couple of ways. Again, part of the police reform legislation, Chiefs are now required to report through a misconduct reporting system. Anything anytime they find a violation of either standards of conduct or model policy violation.

When I talk model policies, I'm talking about just the one that's post promulgates. We have about 20 of them, 16 are mandatory for optional depending on whatever, other conditional. And so those so that we get them in a variety of ways, but the the the key of what we need in order to take a complaint to the complaint investigation committee, which I'll talk about, is that the complaint has to tell us what misconduct the complainant, the person believes the officers engaged in. What standard of conduct violation do you believe happened? And we review it.

We take a look at it. It gets simple everything gets submitted to the complaint investigation committee, which is they have delegated authority from the board to take in complaints, review them, decide how they want to proceed, and I'm very much surface level, so I understand if there's questions. And then but anything they decide goes before the Board for final decision, either if they recommend discipline at the conclusion of looking into it, the board can decide either yes, we accept what you said or no, it's not enough, go back or we don't think there's any violation here at all and they dismiss it. So it's totally up to the board.

And the council member, Colvin.

Thanks, chair, and thanks so much

for being here. Could you go back to you said that is that as of 2023 that chiefs police chiefs are required to report violations?

Well, actually, I'm sorry. That was 2021.

2021.

Okay. So '20 yeah. My thank you for catching that because that was not a rule change. That was a statutory change. So since 2021, they have had to report misconduct.

And have you all noticed curious how that change has played out. Have you all noticed a significant increase? Are there kind of trends that you can speak to in reports that have come in as a result of that?

For sure. I mean, there's no question that the volume our volume has increased quite a bit. Our volume has also increased from the public, from the general public, I can safely say that, because quite frankly, and I don't feel bad saying this because I've said it in public and I've said it to to the face of law enforcement. The post board was a paper tiger for probably forty, fifty years. Nobody even knew who we were.

A lot of officers didn't know who the post board was other than they issued their license, you know, every three years. So it's been a really a sea change, a fundamental shift in the paradigm of what post board exists, why it exists. And this board is much, much different, and these rules are much, much different than they were for forty, fifty years, relatively unchanged. So all of that perfect storm, us kind of rising to where we're now a known quantity by the public because of George Floyd primarily, everything has increased. So whether I can, as my stats professor would say, whether I can point to a significant that this particular statute led to that rise, I don't know that I have that data.

But we're definitely up.

Can I ask one follow-up question on that? And it might be that you don't have this data, but I'm curious about reports that end up resulting in the revocations of a license. If you've noticed as the number of total reports coming in has increased, are we seeing a comparable rise in licensure revocation? Or is it that many of the new reports are coming out to be unfounded? And I'm also curious if there's a difference in kind of percentage of reports that lead to revocations based on the initial source of the complaint, it's coming from a fellow law enforcement officer versus the public?

Now, please keep in mind one, this is anecdotal. I do not have data. These are my observations since coming to post in 2017 and some idea of historically what has been the case. My sense is that the and I'm not sure this what you gave, but this is my sense of it. If with regard to the egregious violations that and when you talk about revocation, we're talking about pretty egregious stuff generally, right?

I don't know that those have increased or decreased. What I will say is the post Board is, to the chagrin of some, much more active than they used to be. So and that can be for a number of reasons. But I would say, overall, the accountability is exponentially higher than it was. Has there been more bad behavior out there?

No, I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that. I would say the post war has changed in terms of the action they take on things. Not only that, there were and and when I say this, and I'm I'm careful to say that my predecessors, the people that were on the post board, public members, law enforcement, etcetera, I don't it's isn't about blame. It's just an observation. They weren't expected.

The expectations that they had back in those days were not anywhere near what they are today. So the post war is a shift with expectations and thus you end up with more action. Again, that's quantifiable to more bad behavior, I don't believe so. I just think that there are some things that weren't in jurisdiction back then. The criminal conviction is a good example. When I started in 'seventeen, there were cases where that came forward and I was looking at them, I'm like, why aren't we going after this person's license? Well, we couldn't because there was no criminal conviction under the statute we needed. So that has changed substantially as well. Does that help answer your question?

Definitely. Thank you. Thank you.

I have a question from VP Kim. Comment and a question. I have to imagine that as I'm looking through some of the Minnesota rules and the printout that we have, one even includes maintaining membership or participation and activities of a hater extremist group as defined or criminal gang as defined, right? So I'm sure in the way we're like the let's say the progress of our policies and lawmakers, right, who run rules our judiciary committee up at the state too. I think it's just like a very sort of telling like evolution of this as well.

I think that's such a great point that you're making, Councilmember Coleman. The question that I also have is, and it's okay if you don't know this offhand, but I sort of wonder around the same standards of conduct and how closely they mirror or are different from federal standards. Are they exact? Because I see some here around driving while under the influence of alcohol. And that seems to be like a pretty universal one that maybe the federal government would have a standard for. Can you speak a little bit to sort of how these might be different than federal standards? Are they close? Are they different? Is every state varying in their standards or is it pretty universal?

Unfortunately, I'm the wrong guy to ask. I'm not familiar with federal standards. Yeah, I'm just going leave it at that. What I will say this is the what I see here in Minnesota and for those who don't know, I came from a different state. I came from next door from Wisconsin.

I did my thirty years there And I considered Wisconsin, Minnesota, a lot of our Midwestern states to be some of the most professional police services in the country, especially from what I've seen across country and sometimes when I travel and go to conferences. So I would say this, the and I think that's again, I don't want to I have to be careful not to get off on a tangent here, but I think part of the outrage and concern that we've seen from community is because we are all used to a certain professionalism, a certain level of police that we have all experienced and we should expect and experience and what we're seeing is not the case. That's as much as I can say.

I appreciate that. Just then a follow-up question. With your experience in Wisconsin then, are these sort of standards of conduct different in different states then?

Again, just based on my experience, just two states. Yeah. I think a lot of them are a lot of them are the same. I I'm heavily involved with my colleagues across the country. There's a wide variation I can tell you in terms of what post boards can do, do, do. One of the things, as an example, is Wisconsin was very is very heavy on the training side of things. They have a standardized use of force, they have instructor development, they have all that kind of stuff. The state actually puts on training there. They have academies. They are not so strong on the certification licensing end as we are here.

So you'll that's what you'll find. You'll find that variation. Some are really focused in one area, others are focused in a much different area. We are not involved in training, which I've been mentioned to you the way that, say, Wisconsin is. But we are much more heavily involved in the regulation and policies, training, required mandatory training for CEs and so on.

And we have a question from Councilmember Johnson.

I guess my question is really just to kind of understand some of the what sparks the formal complaint process. For some of these standards and things that are outlined here, my assumption would be that right, if someone's brought up on these charges, that there's communication happening and that an actual person or officer wouldn't have to go through and fill out a formal complaint if they're but I'm wondering about the communication piece on the back end. For example, we did have I can think of one incident in my ward where an officer ran into a property in my ward, and there was reports of potential use of alcohol. I'm just wondering, and it's not our officer, but I'm just wondering like what exactly

Yep.

What does that look like? Is that something that's triggered automatically? Do people have to go back through and like actually fill out a formal complaint to get the post board to respond, or is it something that the post board just watches?

Yep. So there are there are a couple of things that play there. One is since 2021, the chief so we're talking about Saint Paul. The chief or his designee would have to and assuming that officer was arrested for DUI, they would have to report that because that's a potential violation. And they report it through their system.

Now they have an online system because they're doing it, obviously, way more, and and we were trying to get away from paper. You know, same case, let's say, some reason, and the chiefs don't. They they are religious in reporting this stuff. Say for some reason it wasn't reported but a citizen says so and so and I know as an officer and was arrested for DUI last night, they send that to us then we would monitor it. Now here's the difference.

Here's the one thing you have to keep in mind. If there is a criminal case pending, even if it's a misdemeanor, say basic first offense DWI, we are we do not take action until this is resolved. And the reason for that is for a lot of reasons, but among them is one, the evidence is going to be developed over here under criminal procedure, the blood alcohol, the so on and so forth, this and that. And if we start poking around and I order an agency to do investigation, they can compromise the criminal case because licensees have to cooperate with us. They don't get a and over here, you have the Fifth Amendment right to self to not self incriminate.

So we stay clear of the criminal ones until they run their course through the system. Does that answer your question?

Yes. Thank you.

I guess

just for clarification, so is there something with House and the Pulse Board where after a criminal procedure or conviction or sentencing, is there a trigger in terms of like, there some type of alert, I guess? Because you mentioned that, you know, obviously they wouldn't self incriminate and report themselves, but aside from We track it. The chief Okay.

Yeah. We track it. My standards coordination unit, they're the ones who do the compliance reviews of agencies. They're the intake for complaints. They run that whole process and they track it. So we'll get word from the chief officer such and such got arrested last night for DUI. We put it in our tracking system. And then not only that, these days, because there is a self report mandate under our rules for licensees, they have to report it themselves. And typically, what happens is we will get a letter from the law enforcement labor services, their union reps, an attorney saying, I represent so and so. He or she is reporting this possible violation of standards of conduct.

So they also inform us and then we track it. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. All right. I'm going to just finish up this slide and try and get how are we doing on time? Okay. Okay. I'll make it quicker, I guess. The one thing I do wanna emphasize, and I think this came up when council member Bowie and I talked, we're not the internal affairs investigation for the state agency. We are just not.

We personnel investigations, that kind of misconduct, the things like I talked about with the officer who doesn't show up, yada yada, that is a local agency in your governing body such as yourselves. That is not in our jurisdiction. So, violations of agency policy, that is not in our jurisdiction. That's for, in your case, chief Henry to, do his internal investigation of the officer that allegedly violated the policy the department policy and take whatever disciplinary actions are appropriate. As I said in the slide they are implemented in force by the agency.

We do not have jurisdiction over those local policies. We do have jurisdiction over those, I mentioned the mandatory model policies. And I want to point out that the reason we have jurisdiction over those is not because post bar decided one day, hey, we should have a policy on professional misconduct and all of you agencies have to follow it. It ended up that way because the legislature gave us that authority. They put it in statute.

So if you look at '66, you'll see pursuit policy, you'll see use of force policy, all that kind of thing. That's where we get our authority. We don't independently have that in terms of policy. And this in this case, if someone does violate one of the mandatory, model policies, that again lays lay with the employer, the chief, the sheriff, to discipline that. Where our authority comes in on these model policies is whether or not the chief law enforcement officer, the Clio as we call them, adopted the policy, whether their policy is same or similar to the one that was promulgated through statute.

And that's what we do during compliance reviews in part. Our officer or our standards coordinators, go to these agencies and they say, we want to see your policies, these 15 policies. And as long as they are same or similar to the post port policies, they're good to go. Now if a chief or sheriff would be, and they don't, but if they would say, I don't like your policy, and I'm going to put this one out there, and we determine it's not, then they can be disciplined. The chief can be disciplined. Does that make sense?

Question from the Council Member Thank

you, Chair. I just want to make sure I'm understanding. So it's similar to what you said about your like, the licensing agency on behalf of the profession more so, and these are employer employer policies, employer employee policies. Is that kind of a correct analogy

Yes.

How these are being determined? Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

Now the exception, for what it's worth, and we had just had a case where, an officer, continued a pursuit, end up ramming the car. It was in the oncoming traffic. It was and I say it because it is a public public document now. And that's a violation of the pursuit policy in most cases, right? But in this case, our jurisdiction fell in because it was unauthorized use of deadly force or we determined the board determined that it was and revoked the license.

Now that person went through due process, went through the Court of Administrative Hearings, lost there, went to the appeals court, lost there, and that's where it sits right now. But there's a case where, yes, some mandatory policy was violated, but the behavior itself was something different. It fell under the standards of conduct. Okay. All right. Very quickly, I think there was talk about the training. Do we offer training? We do not. As I mentioned earlier, some states do. All we do is set broad learning objectives.

That's what our authority is. This the legislature starting in 2018 aside there was use of force and there was pursuit prior to that or emergency vehicle operation. Then they added the additional bias, you know, implicit bias, Cultural diversity include implicit bias, conflict management, de escalation and that. Then crisis intervention training. Then most recently was investigating crimes of bias and need at least an hour in a three year cycle, blah, blah, and so on and so forth.

Okay? Those are determined by legislature, by the legislature. And we, of course, enforce that. When an officer comes up for their license renewal, our system automatically checks to see if they've got these mandatory learning objectives as part of their 48. If they don't, they can't renew. And the chiefs are primarily responsible for getting that done.

And then a question from council member Joseph, and it seems like just Jill's.

Really quick. So the forty eight hours thank you, Chair. The forty eight hours, that's over a three year cycle, so that's sixteen hours per year, basically. Roughly, yep. Yeah. And I just asked that question because it basically, the state would have to modify if they wanted more or less. I know other licensing licenses require more continuing education than that

per year?

There is, again, wide variation across country. Wisconsin had twenty four hours a year, so seventy two in a three year, but they don't run a three year cycle because they're not licensing. So you'll get these variations. Not only that, take Wisconsin, for instance, they don't define what those twenty four hours are in. Whereas Minnesota is much more clear cut and has to be this, this and this. So there's give and take, there's pluses and minuses, pros and cons to both.

Okay. Thanks.

Yes. Okay. So I'm just going to close very quickly with regard to our license, our data. Many people make the mistake of thinking again that we're an employer, that we somehow are involved in that relationship as I mentioned two silos we are not we are a licensing board and so our data the data we have on officers or on licensees generally comes under 13.41. Everything that you guys have with your city and stuff is 13.43 personnel data. And then, again, disciplinary procedures are subject to two fourteen. So, I'll try to wrap it up.

Wonderful. Well, thank

you so for that overview and just the clarification, particularly around your roles. I do see a question from VP Kim, and I have some questions as well. I'll just look for my colleagues to ask any questions or make any comments.

Yep. Just like cursory Google search for folks, a tier three Minnesota educator license requires seventy five hours every three years. So it's just to offer that up as a little tidbit of information. The question I have is around submitting complaints. So for millions of viewers at home, like what does that look like, right?

We're encouraging folks to like try to get an identification of an officer, if you can, to videotape it so that officer's behavior or actions are clearly connected to that person. What does a good submission look like? What meets its muster when you're looking at good submissions? And is it required to connect an agent with the activity? Or if you can't, how is that determined later? Like if you aren't able to identify the officer and you submit the complaint, does that impact the complaint, or is best practices to have the agent identified and you submit with the activity?

Yes, and by agent, if you're

Sorry, I may not

I just want to be clear.

Yes, any peace officer, thank you.

Okay, yes. And that's why, as I mentioned in the one slide, we need specificity. We need were talking about what claim what do you think they violated. I can tell you that we get thousands of complaints from citizens about, I don't like how he or she did the report. They lied about me in the report.

They said I was resisting and I wasn't, that kind of stuff, even about the judges. And all of those quality of service, that sort of thing, quite frankly, 80% of those I'd say 90% of those are we do. We look at the body camera. We look at whatever information we have are absolutely baseless. But just as a general rule, those complaints about quality of service do not fall in jurisdiction and they will be, in all likelihood, dismissed unless something else is uncovered. That applies to the standards of conduct.

But by and large, having the agent's name or badge number with the activity is the most important like submission.

And what area do you believe they violated that falls within our jurisdiction? Because again, you can have a name, you can have a badge number and they were rude. We don't enforce rudeness. Should we don't enforce politeness I think is probably the proper way to say it.

So they have to cite which standard of conduct they didn't

meet. Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

And a follow-up question to that also is what is the information that's provided to that complaint after their case have been dismissed? Because I imagine that, you know, there's other alternative avenues for accountability for them.

So two things. One, in terms of a complaint that goes through us and then gets dealt with, we follow-up with a letter. Now in the more egregious ones, it's even, like I say, where there's actual discipline, then the person, obviously, anybody has access to that final discipline, revocation, suspension, whatever it is, because that's all public. But as far as getting back to the person, we again send a letter, we let them know that either it was in jurisdiction, it wasn't, or that it's closed, no further action. One of the things because we do run into so many of these where it's a complaint about quality of service and so on and so forth, one of the first things we ask people and tell them to do is, have you started with the agency itself?

Did you file a complaint with St. Paul PD about how this officer treated you? Because that's really the majority of those things are going to fall within that relationship, not into a licensing issue because of the narrow scope of our jurisdiction.

Got it. Thank you so much. And then following up from your last slide about continuing education, can you share what are the because I know we can do a Google search here, but since we have you here, what are just like the main learning objectives, and how have they changed over time?

So as it pertains so in pre service, meaning before they even become officers, we have four ten some learning objectives. And they cover all these different areas. That's what we're doing under rule making right now, plus we're revamping all of that. Set that aside. C is very similar.

Many of these learning objectives are set by statute. So as the statute changes, then we have to adjust learning objectives, promulgate that out to the vendors, whether it's League of Minnesota cities, other ones that provide a lot of training, then they have to adjust their courses to meet these learning objectives. All courses, if you're going to get post credit, particularly in the mandated areas, must go through us. And then we review them to make sure they're meeting the bulk of the learning objectives. In some cases, they have to meet every single learning objective because that's what the statute says. And then as long as they do, then they get approved. And then when the officer or the licensee takes it, they get credit for that mandatory learning objective.

Got it. And then for a point of clarification, you said all the courses that an officer takes to apply to their number of hours needs to be approved from the post board by the post board first.

Correct.

Okay. And I just asked that question because I remember this was some years ago, but there is a lot of controversy particularly with the city of Minneapolis around a warrior style training that was provided. It's not prohibited. Yeah. And so, but was that in the aftermath or like did was that not approved or if there are some trainings I'm sorry, you should respond so I can be able to understand you.

You said So the warrior style the this the the prohibition warrior style training came out again during that whole time frame

Mhmm.

Around George Floyd's murder where they're all it was part of the reform. As I recall, I don't all the sessions, legislative sessions start to run together, so I kind of forget which one it was. But but that's in statute. So like right now, and in fact, you may have there was a dust up probably two years ago with an outfit out of New Jersey, where I denied their ability to teach officers in the state because of comments and whatnot that they had made at a conference in New Jersey, which was clearly warrior style trash as far as I'm concerned. And so we suspended their courses as far as getting credit and told them, you have to come back and show us that your course content does not actually violate the statute regarding warrior style training.

Ironically, they never did.

Wonderful. Thank you so much for clarifying that. Any other questions?

So, thank you, Chair. That just made me think of because you said that you since you approved continuing education that the licensees are allowed to submit, then you can say certain courses are not acceptable, and that's basically what you did in that situation. But their courses would be acceptable, like, anywhere else. It's just that for our purposes, are not.

Correct. So, yeah, long story short, if they want post credit in this mandatory learning area Mhmm. We look at their course, are they meeting the learning objectives? If they are, green light, you're good to go. If they're not, then there's a there's a back and forth, a process.

We have an online system, so they send it back and say, you're missing these objectives or you're not describing how you're going to meet this particular learning objective. And so there's that back and forth interplay. But at the end of the day, if they don't respond or they say, I don't have any of that, we'll just say, then, you're no good for you don't get approval for mandatory learning objectives. Now they can some vendors will do this, where they'll say, maybe it's it's in use of force, but we say, we're not going to give you credit for a mandatory use of force course because you're not covering this, this, and this. They'll say, well, that's fine.

We don't really care. We'll just put it in for general ed. And that's fine. They can do that as long as it's because general ed is far more broad, as long as it's law enforcement related. But it can't violate warrior style training as an example. It can't violate anything else, but if they just want to get general ad, that's fine. But then the officer, the chief, whoever, when they send their people to that, they then understand and in fact, this is an ongoing battle where we continue to. We're finding ways to better inform them. If you send your officer to this for three credits, do not think that this is three credits that's gonna give them credit towards their renewal. It's just gonna be general ed because the vendor did not meet the criteria.

So I guess a question. Have you had a situation where a licensee did submit that for credit and then ended up having to submit something else? Or do you I guess, I know you said you can revoke licenses, but if you don't renew on time or don't meet the requirements, is there some type of a suspension or something?

Well, we're just at the front end of renewal right now. Every year it's about this time of year, they have to do it by June 30. So we are every day constantly sending out emails, reminders that we give them Connect. They go into their portal, they can see which of their officers are due for renewal, which ones have all their credits that they need and in the right areas, ones that don't. And again, the system will not allow them to renew these that don't.

They could renew these if they want. So they have x amount of time to get it. Our biggest problem, quite frankly, is we have thousands and thousands of courses. We have lots of vendors. And not all vendors, as you can imagine, because you're just dealing with a population, are as good as others at complying to they'll say, for instance, they'll title a course emergency vehicle operation.

And then the chiefs unknowingly send their officers to this emergency vehicle operation, but they don't check close enough that it's not post approved. It's covering some other stuff. And they think they've met that burden. They haven't. In which case, more often than not, we tell them, well, got about thirty days to get them into a course that complies. And if any licensee expires because they did not renew in time as of midnight January 30 or I'm sorry, July 1 it would be. Whatever, thirty one or thirty days?

Just thirty.

Thirty, I think. Anyway, whatever. They are the chief has immediately automatically sent a letter saying, this person is expired. They do not have a valid license. They cannot work until they get their renewal in. I'm I talk with my I to God I'm half Italian, but I'm not.

I have one more question. If their license is revoked for that reason, or just for any reason, that's public information on your post.

Any final discipline is public information. In fact, if you haven't been on our website, you can go to the public search. You can if you know of an officer in your jurisdiction, punch his or her name in, and it will come up. And anything that's public will be there. If there is final discipline, you'll see a copy of the final order, the report, their training that has been submitted to Post. Now, as you alluded to earlier, they may have taken other training through the agency that's not reported to Post because they don't care if we have it or not. That wouldn't be there. Thank you.

And I have a question. Know I had said it earlier when we were speaking in preparation for this meeting, but I just wanted to share that, you know, the council have passed a separation ordinance or in the process of strengthening our separation ordinance understanding that the required training is really mandated through state statute in a scenario where our current legislation particularly passes some statute to strengthen or require a separation ordinance or require some level of change in behavior in terms of how an officer should operate particularly in the midst of a federal arrest. Do you based from your experience, have you seen that there's like training providers for that? Has there been any request for your particularly around what the evolution of our laws being strengthened to make sure there's clear distinction between federal agents and our police officers? Can you speak a little bit to that?

I know we're kind of imagining, right? But I do think, you know, based off of our St. Paul delegation, you know, the impacts from ICE have been just very expansive and we anticipate seeing some level of changes in that statute.

Yeah. As I mentioned, as you now understand, I mean our everything we do has statewide impact. So that's one. So if you do that locally within and you have those policies for your PD on how they interact with ICE and so on and so forth, absolutely, that's obviously your purview and you'll do that. But it wouldn't fall into us.

The only way that that could be applied statewide is if the legislature says it, puts it in the bill and tells us you're going to provide guidance or you're going to provide a policy that everybody has to adopt in this manner and it's subject to the to our jurisdiction. To your first part of the question, this is new for all of us, as far as, what people are I'm sure that as just like we're having this conversation here, I'm sure that's happening across the country in different states, but I personally don't know of any training or that's ever been an issue about how locals interact with federal law enforcement because it's never been a problem before. Mhmm. This is something new for all of us. Mhmm.

So, unfortunately, I don't I don't have any input or guidance on that.

Yep. No.

Appreciate that that feedback. Also, you know, we've covered a lot here. So, are unless there's any other questions or comments to be made, I just want to say thank you so much

Any time.

Director Miso for your time today and just walking us through this process. I've learned a lot particularly around the jurisdiction and authorities. I feel like this had been really helpful to just help clarify you know any of our actions or any of our policy agendas particularly at the state and at the local level. So, I also wanted to thank my colleagues for being here and just bringing some thoughtful questions. If there is any policy related items that we want to further explore or you have any questions, I can also share the contact with Mr.

Eric with you all. You can relate that to him. But, thank you so much director, you are excused. Thank I appreciate everyone's participation today.

Thank you.

And so with that, we will be adjourned soon. I just want to let people know that we will be moving forward every Wednesday ten a. M. For some people who are used to the one p. M, moving forward we'll be having this meeting at ten a. M. So again, if you have any questions just bring to my office either through Polly or me. Thank you everyone. Take care.