Teddy. Thank you. Are you ready? Yes, ma'am. Okay.
So the board and all of those that attended Let us pray. Dear God, we thank you for an opportunity to come together to serve this great community we call the city of Detroit. Now Lord God as we go before your presence, oh God, with this meeting of God let everything be decent and in order oh god that the business at hand will be discussed in fairness and in favor. We thank you in advance for all of those that are present Oh God those up whether in person or by zoom, oh God and those that could not make it that we ask that you keep our city safe, keep our residents safe. We thank you and we love you and we honor you in Jesus name. Amen.
And I'm and I'm secretary, roll call please.
Yes, Madam Vice Chair, any hosts?
Good afternoon,
Vice Chair any hold at large Commissioner Linda de Bernard. Attorney Linda Barnard, present to district two commissioners Cedric banks.
Commissioner Willie Ebell.
Awesome district court
commissioner Willie E. Burton. Commissioner Lisa Carter, Commissioner on the Ricardo more present. Commissioner Hazel's Hernandez. Commissioner Shem Holly president, Mr. quantix Presley here, Mr. Chair, we do have a quorum. Thank you.
Now like to have a approval of the November 17 agenda.
Hello, support.
Any discussion? All in favor? Hi. All all's that's been approved. Approval of the minutes for November 2020. To support.
Any discussion? All in favor? All right. All in favor. Aye. Aye. All right. Any approved disapproval Okay, change report.
Oh, wait,
that's the chair. Oh,
yes. I'm sorry. Excuse me. I'm going out on I'm going
by this right here and I didn't give the introductions at this time. Yes, please. Do. The chair. Sergeant Quinn starch and Alan Quinn and media services are handling the board's audio and visual needs today for the Board's meeting. Our court reporter is Mr. Don Handyside and the following Board staff members are in attendance board parliamentarian Dr. Francis Jackson, Assistant Corporation Counsel Adam Saxby and Miss Teresa Gladstone, community relations coordinator, Mr. Robert Brown administrative specialist, and this giant Underwood administrative assistant, Mr. Candace Hayes, administrative assistant director because prenup was pillow director of police personnel is attending via zoom in from Chief Investigator Lawrence Akbar, supervising investigator and Italy Cromwell, acting supervising investigator LaTonya Sloane and supervising investigator Rosalie magical and our American Sign Language interpreters today. Dr. Stephanie Beatty, is in is in attendance and Mr. ukata Thank you so much.
Do we have any representatives?
Yes, sir, through the Chair, Mr.
De Butler, who is the second precinct Police Community Relations Council president is here in attendance mr. Murray overall of State Representative Tyrell credits office, and she is the author vice president of the Fourth Precinct Community Relations Council. And on Zoom, President Mark young of the lieutenants and sergeants Association and former Police Commissioner William M. Davis.
Thank you so
much. So I apologize. DPLA bytes. President Ron Thomas. Thank you.
Thank you. Um
Who do you have with
good afternoon, honorable board with me. I have has indicated the vice president the great Police Officers Association around autonomous independent
oversight agency CFO.
Present today and a host of other department members have joined us virtually.
Oh, fantastic. Fantastic. Again, thank you for attending today's Board meeting. The department will share today some information regarding crime stats, trends, and other critical incidents and events for our consideration. Earlier this week, we learn more about the recent officer miles shooting debriefing incident that occurred near Myers and Midland and as chiefs wise plans to suspend several PPD members to officers and one supervisor and place another DPD supervisor on administrative duty. The investigation is still pending. But chief white shared that he made these decisions now based on his concerns about implementing the following GPD policies during this traffic tragic encounter. The board looks forward to receiving more information in the coming weeks to ensure greater transparency and accountability and all our actions regarding this case. We extend our condolences to the family and our thoughts are with those that are all affected by this tragedy. The board along with Mayor Duggan and chief White continue to review and evaluate measures to address the mental health crisis in our community. We agree with the steps to flag addresses known for mental health related crisis. The board looks forward to hearing more updates from the department regarding any policy changes and overall proposals. We also look forward to contributing to those policies changes and overall systematic changes regarding this critical important matter. The board of police commissioners has been a longtime advocate, in effect to educate the public about mental health services and to help divert those with mental illness from criminal justice systems to the health system where they belong. Chief white and some veteran police commissioners might recall that the Board interview candidates for Chief of Police during August 2021 including meeting at a well respected mental health service provider and before then, AC white left for Michigan Civil Rights department. He started that up as a palette that a forum for the Board held on mental health and an ease to race stigma and decriminalize mental illness. Sort of board has been very active on this issue for quite a while. And these two recent tragedies underscore the urgency for solutions along with the public. The board of waste investigation alongside the Michigan State Police and any needed review and evaluation by the Wayne County prosecutor's office. Investigations, fines and outcomes are vital for transparency and accountability to our community. Just as important as a resolution to the mental health crisis with leadership from the mental health care community. Also today, we will have presentations from the department regarding use of force quarterly report and our Office of the Chief Investigator the whole CI
complaint investigation unit.
Last week, the more held this community. The more held is committee meetings on personnel and training, budget, policy and citizen complaints. personnel and training committee also met yesterday. A formal report from each committee will be made today. And I want to say today I'm going to be making some changes on a committee. So effective today. The partner scenario and training committee chairperson Commissioner bell will be removed and I will replace him with Commissioner Hernandez effective today he will be the new chairperson of personnel and training committee.
Shape revenue afternoon sir.
Yes, for my report. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry, we just had a barricaded gunman conclude and so are you ready?
Do you want to take a minute? No,
I'm good. If it pleases the board I can get started with my report. Yes, sir. Okay. Good afternoon. I'll start with our usual report. Update on the injured officers are four members currently in the department who are disabled and recovering at home due to injury. One sergeant was a second precinct two police officers from the seventh precinct. One police officer from the ninth precinct. We have 19 members that are currently quarantined isolated with COVID. Last week we had 34 So we're moving in the right direction. Now 15 of the 19 that have quarantine are positive for COVID. And last week, that was 30. So the numbers are again moving in the right direction, our crime data. We're looking at a 3% uptick and homicides about 30% of our homicides, roughly 30% relationship Nexus meaning that our victims know the person that has victimized them. Some of those 30% are domestic related homicides continues to be a tragic statistical report for us. And we're working very hard to see how we can impact that non fatal shootings. We are down 14% over last year, this time, robberies were down 8% And our total Part One violent crime is down 13%. We're proud of that one of the few major cities in a country right now with a surge of violence. That's seeing a downturn. In our Part One violent crimes. It's a testament to the hard working men and women of the Detroit Police Department. But still we are not satisfied with those numbers. Our mental health runs grand total. We've talked about these numbers and we can hurt conversation about mental health. Obviously it's on the forefront of all of our minds for the mental non violent for 2020 to 2463 runs responded to mental violent arm 1078 mental violent, non armed 4373 overdoses one down 5094 This is all 2020 to one down overdose district Gen overdose 363 And that involves a lot of things including everything, not just drugs, suicide in progress 1278 suicide threat 2335 I communicated our chief duty officer report to the members of the board over the weekend just to illustrate since the last tragedy that we had a number of violent mental runs including one involving a young man in a vehicle who wanted to commit suicide and refuse to get out of the vehicle. The officers were successful in getting him the help and the treatment that he needed and getting them out of that vehicle and getting that weapon recovered. But moving on to an officer involved shooting on November 10. At 6:20pm officers were dispatched to the 15,700 block of Meyers on a mental violent and I won't call her who was the the subjects mother stated that she and her seven year old grandson were assaulted by the subject she further stated that her daughter was schizophrenic needed to get some help. And she was armed with knives and a bat and a gun. Now to call it say that quote please come or I'm going to have to shoot my own child. very tragic event. Second call came into 911 where the mother stated that her daughter was a felon and pointed a gun at her. Also in that first call. She indicated that her mother attractive at her daughter had gone outside with a weapon. She was partially clothed she was in her underwear. She had pointed a gun at both her and her mother meaning her so the the the decedent had pointed the gun at her mom and her grandmother. During this crisis. officers arrived on the scene and attempted to negotiate with the subject and to have her come out of the house. She refused. The officers fearing for the safety of the children inside indicating she had indicated the mother that is that the one child the seven year old are struggling to hit. He was bleeding and had been struck before quote before. So fearing for that child and knowing that she was out of balance. The officers made the decision to enter the home and attempt to free the children once inside there was a struggle for the weapon that she was in possession of. And unfortunately, she was shot by officers. The investigation is still active. And there are a number of different components to this investigation that I spoke of recently this week with the media first we start with a tragedy. In and of itself. We respond to 1000s of applicants illustrated mental health runs violent mental health runs we have already began to discuss alternatives to response but what happens when a person has a weapon and they're a danger to themselves or others that that process has to focus on the safety aspect. More than really the mental health and mental health piece is a component that got us there based on the mother's call but once we arrived and there's a child inside the home, that is at risk that has to be addressed. Because have those children been murdered. I will be asking the question Why didn't we go in and our officers trained to go in into into secure my investigation that's far into the arrival the actions the actions of supervisors, stepping on apart from the exigent circumstances that took them into the home, which validates her ability to enter the home is independent meaning I'm looking at policy process directions from me the strategy, the plan, the supervisor response, and that aspect and only that aspect. I have concerns with the deployment of our strategy and our supervisors on the same as a result and isolated only to the strategy that was deployed isolated only to the supervisory oversight because my expectation for supervisors is greater than that of police officers that we have the same standard ethical responsibilities. You have the same law enforcement responsibilities, but as supervisors we have an additional layer where we have to take command and control of a scene. I was troubled by what I viewed as a lack of supervisory oversight and as a result, I made a decision to suspend one sergeant and to put another Sergeant administrative duty pending the outcome of the portion of the investigation that involves him. I also made a decision to suspend two of the eight officers that were on the scene for a variety of reasons as it relates to the strategy. And that's where we are with that and as was indicated by the commissioners already or by the chair as I walked in. We will conduct a transparent investigation led by the Michigan State Police and with as with all altering vials, shootings, all of them. We will turn our findings over to the prosecutor's office for her assessment of any laws that were violated by our department and we will act accordingly. Whatever her findings are, internally we will do continues to do our own investigation and hopefully it'll be concluding around the same time for any administrative findings. We move on to the second incident and it's also involved in non fatal shooting on November 15. At 3:30pm officers were on routine patrol and they observed a gold colored GMC Yukon a spot on Ellis with a broken driver window light and an improper plate. The vehicle turned on to joy row from Alice without signaling and described as a stop sign at join Hubble. The officer stopped the vehicle to investigate a dirt road and Strathmore close vehicles got the passenger of the vehicle fled on foot wrapping at its waist but running officers gave chase and observe the subject who was armed with a handgun and hand turn removed the weapon
and for safety one officer fired a shot two shots. I was dragging stuff here one time and his leg. Officers rendered first aid who requested medical attention as a subject was treated at a local hospital. He's in stable condition. The weapon was recovered. He also was in possession of a ski mask and we are looking into exactly where he was going or where he was coming from. So the weapon was recovered. The ski mask was recovered and he is in serious condition and will be facing charges when he was released from the hospital. Incident Number three is a carjacking had an erratic car. Our crime pattern looks identify connecting four separate carjacking incidents of Lyft drivers which occurred on the east side from May through October. In each case to arm subjects approach the Lyft driver responding to a request at ride in order for them to exit the vehicles at gunpoint and so what they did was they set up a dummy account. They were called Lyft drivers specifically out and once they got there these two subjects would order them out of the vehicle and robbed them the subsequent advantage of cell phones wallets and clothing and where we picked up on the pattern was at each robbery. They would take their clothes they would strip them down and then in one case they pistol with one of the victims. Were working in conjunction with the ATF investigators were able to identify a suspect utilizing various technology methods and research so he had some unique abilities to fraudulently make online requests which is something that was new to us and now that we know it we will not ever unknown it and we will be looking for it. A subject search warrant was conducted in connection with the case recovering several stolen vehicles and his residence which led to multiple arrests, one of which was a subject or setback that was identified in a carjacking pattern. This week that suspect was charged in federal court on two separate carjacking incidents and we anticipate charging the other to next week. We're still working to identify an additional suspect. Very, very busy week of crime of some very good arrests and certainly some tragic situations. As of today. We started the morning at 6:40am where a male 60 in the 8500 8800 block of rhodopsin shot and killed his neighbor and then proceeded to barricade himself in his home the neighbor who last year around this time, received a package that belonged to him from Amazon. Something transpired that we're looking into. He was not very happy with police service. When he made the complaint he then take matters into his own hands. Goes over to the house demands as packaged back as assault takes place to which he was charged and recently convicted of. So just to track with you last year package gets delivered next door. This week. He's charged in a case where while attempting to get the package back he'll assaults the person physically that has the package. This week. He's charged with a misdemeanor and it's very upset that he who he feels as the victim of the package staff is the one that got charged with assault. So this morning, somehow he ends up encountering his neighbor and shoots and kills her from his home, leaving her as a street dead. officers respond to the Run shots fired in progress upon arrival. They find her dead in the street as they're attempting to. She's obviously dead. She sat twice in the face and there's no signs of life. As they gather information, they recognize that the person whose house are standing right in front of his back the person who shot her, they go to the porch to try to make contact with him. He's He's erratic he's threatening closes the door refuses to come out. We bring our hostage negotiation negotiators in we bring our special response team we bring our crisis intervention team and our mental health co response. Civilian therapists respond and we start dialogue with them. At which time he indicates that he has several guns in his home. His family makes the scene and says that he is an avid gun collector and is in possession of upwards of 20 weapons. My last count that they recovered was over 10 But I have to confirm that but getting to the course of events, the barricades he indicates that he's going to kill himself, his family in the case that he's suffering from mental illness. He has had bouts with mental illness his entire life. And that you know he is very troubled by the fact that he is convicted of a crime that he felt he should not have been. He indicates he calls the news himself indicates that he is not going to he's not happy. He is suicidal and he feels that the system did him wrong. We we hold that location for several hours talking to him. After about two hours he indicates he doesn't trust the system. Once he talked to me, I talked to him. Our negotiators talked to him. He said he will only come out if I will walk and talk with him so he can give me his side of the story. We were able to get him to do just that. We were able to get him out of the home. I walked him to the vehicle. He's crying. He's clearly having some form of mental break. But the good news is that he is in custody at a hospital. And after he stabilized we'll be getting the treatment that he needs we unfortunately the neighbor's dead. As we indicated we recovered upwards of 10 guns. They're still in the house right now looking for other weapons. Also, there was a lot of wildlife in the house go up birds and some other animals that DC Hayes can talk about. But we've had a homicide this morning and right before I came in the 7700 block of Asbury Park, a victim I can't give you a name. Female in our city lives on our city was shot three times in her left leg. Another victim was shot four times in the right leg and one victim was shot in her chin and we will confirm this this is like half an hour's it's very hot. Officers responded to bublik location for shots fired the victims were already conveyed to Grace hospital. Turns out that be the person at the home shot. These victims we don't know why yet. I'll know sometime this evening. He then barricaded himself in the home. So the officers negotiate with him. And the last update before I walked in is that he was safely taken into custody.
So that is my report.
And I'm prepared for any questions.
Thank you. Hold the record. Commissioner Carter has entered and Commissioner Hernandez and for your Information Commissioner Hernandez You are now in the chair Carson. personnel and training committee.
Alright, um, Commissioner, thanks.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. This year. She played good to see you back. I know we haven't seen you What about the no questions is no hard questions. Nothing but just good to see you have seen in about what three four weeks how was your vacation cheat what had happened?
How was your vacation through to try to have one been working? And if you didn't see me I was probably on the scene or something else is going on but I haven't had a vacation. Oh
okay, thanks. I'm also
thank you through the chair as chief white. You did a great job doing so but just it's to help me out a bit more. The incident where officers are being suspended. You're you're making the delineation between not the actual use of force, but the strategy or procedure. Could you could you elaborate a little bit more on what might be the provoking the suspension of these officers?
Yeah, and so obviously you know, through the chair that disciplinary matters involving officers will will be dealt with in closed session. So, I am intentionally not being directly specific, somewhat vague on some some facts intentionally but cryptically speaking. We have a any use of force, whether it be an IAS officer involved shooting or any other use of force are several different tracks that we have to look at. If criminal track is an independent track that I don't look at. I shouldn't be looking at criminal investigations against our own department. There's an inherent conflict with that, that it makes sense that we wouldn't right so you have to bring in an independent body that independent body is what we call our homicide task force which is led by the Michigan State Police and they take a look at if the entire investigation regardless of what they find every aspect of what they find. They turn the entire packet over to the Wayne County prosecutor's office for review. I purposely stay away from that. I don't want I don't I don't want to guide any of that process whatsoever. What I look at is the things that I'm briefed on preliminarily, the officers arrival policy, what policies that they adhere to what policies that they didn't if there's any use of body worn camera, a number of other factors these are things that I look at and you know review checkboxes on look at video, audio and things such as that. The purpose of that and the goal for me is to solve for the insurance that our policies are being applied appropriately. Now, some of these policy applications are not you know, so egregious that it leads to termination or not. It could be something as simple as vehicle positioning. It could be something as simple as two people approaching a house as opposed to one you know, everything is in play. And, again, it's important to recognize that it's separate and apart from the actual use of force and all that comes with that. So in theory, the entire process of using the force could be well within policy, the threat assessment, all of that could be well within policy and you can still have a policy violation on a separate piece. What as a supervisor. The expectation when I promote someone to sergeant and above is that they take command and leadership on the scene and direct they're not just there to watch they're there to direct. I did not see that. And that gave me pause and concern. And that's why I've made the decisions that I make and my level with regards to the two officers you know, separate and apart from the use of force, I have some concerns with some aspects of of the planning and the implementation of the plan. And that's partly due to the supervisors lack of supervision. They were kind of position x somewhat independent, which in some instances is okay. I sit in a seat where I have to look at everything, every single thing and it's not easy. You know, you you you don't get to celebrate 99% success rates and a job like this right. I can tell you all day long that the SRT, the mental health and numbers if you statistically look at them, I look at numbers all the time is were overwhelmingly successful. But, you know, confidence in this compartment. And credibility is is also important. And you know, when you're looking at that, yeah, the way I look at it, it's like confidence is confidence in an agency is just collected on a reservoir right? And it's not an ocean, it's a reservoir. And as we know what reservoirs they dry up. And so they have to be replenished, to keep the reservoir wet, to keep it to keep water in the reservoir and, and confidence. It's like that if you you can't have an erosion of that confidence because you will drive that that community reservoir up. And so it's important to me that we look at every single aspect of this and make sure that we're doing the best thing we possibly can now do we need to do better and as it relates to our how we're going to address the the absolute crisis of mental health in our city 100% And we're going to, but we also have policies and provisions that must be followed and I absolutely get that if those babies were hurt. I'd be sitting here saying How the heck did that happen? Why didn't we go in that that's that's separate and apart and I'm not gonna go too far into that, but even with that, we have to follow policy Precisely. Precisely. There can be no deviation. You have to to the letter, and I have some concerns with the supervisors directing that and I'm gonna hold him accountable. That's it.
Thank you. That's very clarifying. And let me also commend you for your due diligence and to say to our community, we really have some work to do. You know, as this holiday season emerges, this higher level of violence that is occurring in our community. It's something we all have to figure out a way to make some impact to ensure that not only our families are safe, our communities safe as well and so we can't leave our police officers out on an island. And so I'm encouraging us to have the tough conversations. So the game we can ensure that we're keeping the violence down in our community. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for that if I may. I just want to if you don't mind. Commissioner personally, I would like to expand on that to you know, when we get these calls, is critical incidents in these calls. You know, officers are oftentimes going in dark, they don't know they only know that little bit of information that we get. And when a family member is viewing a family member who they know as violent. We have to believe them, right? Because they're now calling the police on someone that they know. And so if the person's B we don't know him. So we don't know the nuances of their personality. We don't know if they are off base, but all we know is that you have called because you will know that and love them feel that they are so violent, and that you are concerned for your own safety. And so we believe you and we we position ourselves to not have you hurt or and to not get hurt ourselves. And I think what we are seeing and as part of our rollout in a couple of weeks that I'll be presenting to this board of what we can do better is we have to talk through the crisis before it gets to the point of calling the police. If you see this person who needs the services of a mental health facility, we have to get them there before that it's not going to go away. It cancer doesn't cure itself, right. It doesn't it doesn't you don't you have to have things done. You have to go to a hospital you have to to get chemo in order to be stabilized. You don't say well, it's you know, it's not it's not bothering me today. It's, it's there. And when you have these types of conditions, and we have victims of these conditions, mentally ill are victims. They didn't ask for this. They can't control it. But those of us who are not suffering from it who witnessed it must be proactive and engage long before it gets to the point of violence, where we have to bring in the police and ask the police to look at the very person that they call and told us things about differently than they do. And that's the issue. That's part of it. And if we're going to be successful in this, we have to be more proactive on the front end before it leads to to someone in crisis, doing something that either puts themselves or others in harm by grabbing weapons, including pulling guns on family members. And holding kids and homes. Those are crisis and we are trained to deal with those crisis. And if and if we knew the person if we said well, that's not really as dangerous as it looks, then maybe we could do something different but we're reacting to what the complainants who no one loved them are saying and we're simply believing what they told us and reacting accordingly. I hope that makes sense.
No, very much so and I hope your passion is persuasive to those who are hearing.
Commissioner more.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Chief. Do you believe those suspicions will rise to the level of suspension without pay come before this board or just don't investigate?
That it will. Three of the four will actually strike that all three, there's only three suspensions they will and I will be submitting paperwork to this honorable body for that consideration.
Okay, and just lastly, the squatter eviction report that I asked for we still good on that.
And I should have it. You did not get it.
We'll get that to you, sir.
Okay. And is that report available to the board and to the public or just a board?
Yes, the board at this time after the board review. And at the board's pleasure we can make the decision to release it to the
public All right. Thank you,
Commissioner Banagher.
Good evening, Chief. It's good to see you. I want to thank you. First of all, for responding to the request of the gentleman who was barricaded to talk to you personally, I know that wasn't on your schedule. Clearly. And in many leaders fail to become personally involved when people ask for them. And you did that and I just want to commend you for that. I'm very impressed by that I would have done the same thing. You're not scared you you willing to step up to the plate and handle situations. And I commend you for that. My my comment with respect to what you were saying with respect to mental health issues is is one actually that I'm personally familiar with. The police have been called to a friend of mines house who is taking care of his sister. She's mentally disabled. They've been called like 30 times to the house. He told me every time she'll call and say that something has happened to her or that he assaulted her he and his son hit the child's her the woman's nephew. They live together the three the brother, the sister and the sons, the brother's child. The police are frequently called very times. He says they're covered here comes ambulances to police department beaten on the door. You know, we have this complaint that your sister says she's been raped in the middle of the night. Anyway, my comment is that that because there's a tremendous waste of resources. Every time they come in every time there's no problem. There's a strong there's a whole litany of these cases at least calls excuse me, it would be helpful probably, if the department could when they've had repeated calls to a residence or to any establishment and there is no justification for these run. That's a lot of money and a lot of resources that that perhaps the police could could notify if it's a husband or wife, whatever it is about the cause and we won't have to keep wasting these resources. I've told him to file a formal complaint but he really just wants the situation resolved. It isn't the only one like that, you know, at least hysterical calls that don't have any merit. And you've seen ambulances, police officers to detect all that kind of stuff. Just Just a comment. And I hope you can address it. That's all. Thank you. Thank you.
See, Thank you.
CHAIRPERSON Ferguson and Thank you Chief white for being available and sharing all about police business. I learned the answer. Okay. I think one of the incidents that you described earlier, and you gave incident 123 I think it was two whereby you did note that CIT was present. Lee I know what happened with CIT perhaps Perhaps not being present at the first incident, which involved the young lady and her mom had called.
Yes, so she was a CIT trained officer was present. Here. Okay, but I just want to clarify, you know, and I don't say this lightly. This was more about the fact that two children were in a home with someone with a weapon, and we were told that she was a danger to the children and less about the mental illness. Okay, that I just want to make that clarification.
Thank you for that. One other questions? Oh, we're in precinct eight. We're looking forward to command and now you know we've lost two in less than two years, apparently, you're about to appoint a commander to precinct eight.
He was stealing my thunder there. So I just want to know, the last one we retired. Yes. It's took another opportunity. You just promoted your new commander at number eight last week and that is Commander Newsom. And he's just met with the US attorney to talk about crime fighting strategy a couple hours ago. He's excited he's been installed. Now he's that's his command.
Okay, because I got a column only yesterday to pose a question to you. So I will be able to text some people and I'm sure there'll be Jesse later. Thank you again. Chief white. For your leadership. You're welcome. Thank you. Mr. Hawley.
Thank you, Chairman. Thank you chair. Cheetahs always do to see you. And I appreciate the work that you do. I can stand as this and it's a few minutes that I have with you. Do we have an idea of the finish to finish a minute in the city of Detroit? I'm gonna keep indices to it. I have mental health. I don't. And the thing about it is we asked him, we really ought to, if this is the priority, I'm not talking about you. But we ought to know that the percentage of mental health we have in the city of Detroit in addition to that, go to your report incident one where was fatal and incident or where you had all personnel, you hit I I think I kind of four or five personnel to intervene and to help with the situation. Yet only maybe the CT three T person there it incident number one. He helped us in terms of understanding this a little bit more, another minute or two at a time. So what's the difference between why you had four or five different people helping you with incident one and only a 12 people incident or not? The kind of personnel it is even though the children are there, still recognize it that it was mental health that we're going to see about?
Well, again, we had a number of officers that both of those cases one CIT trained person, the what's you're characterizing as incident one, the concern that I have with regards to the supervision revolves around some of the deployment. And I'll leave that there because he's obviously entitled to due process and I don't want to jeopardize that. Like there was a CIT trained person there, but again, you know, everything that we do, Commissioner is trained to, you know, none of this is random, no matter how random it looks, the way that we stop a card whether we walk up to a car, the way that we walk close to the car, when we pass a truck, we we tug on it, we get to the door, and instead of standing in front of the person, we stand to the back and the reason for that if they had a gun they would have to do that right and when you would see the gun before they shot you, every police officer trains to those things. So if I were to see an officer that was standing straight towards a car, a car door, that would be a violation of a policy. Now have a look at it if that police officer was involved in the shooting I would look at that as one of the considerations as to how long our policy is something that's simple that they were they that they put themselves on the line of fire doesn't mean that they didn't have a right to fire back. It just I'm gonna ask these questions. So as it relates to your question in numbers, we're looking at all the event and investigation isn't complete, like today's incident, because we had a homicide. We immediately deployed our SRT which we have great success, I believe the best in the country. Certainly one of the best, but I believe the best they came out we brought our negotiators. They train around the country all the time on how to be the best negotiators are negotiator, a sergeant Deanna Wilson, who ran lead. She She established a rapport with him. He He's crying. He's saying no one's listening to me. I want to talk to the chief. She says chief, he was talking to you. Okay, if that would bring him out of the house. Get him hurt. If he keeps him from walking out with a gun. And one of them 19 guns. He's got Yes, what I'm about to do. I'm about to go talk to him. And that's what we did. And I'm not trying to be the hero because I'm not the heroes. I'm just saying this is some unusual request. We're gonna do everything we can to have these results. We don't want this to happen.
Let me ask you this because they go she's gonna tell me my time is up. I know you concern I know. You're passionate and have concern as a minister and as a just a human being. I had my entire with a mental health when I was in seminary. I know what you go into, and others
but let me ask you this.
Know what we have these conversations about another? How do we have an apart my naivete? Do we have a dashboard that basically can identify that we've been to this house before to this house before so that we could prepare? So you see where I'm going? I do. So I cannot apologize. On I
apologize. I get it. And I just will say yes, we have a dashboard. Yes, but we're up against a number. Are you prepared for me to answer you? Are you doing your question? Okay.
We do have a dashboard.
Okay. But you always balancing out a number of different things. There are privacy rights, and we talk about them a lot. Right? And so I can't just have all information about every house and so you have Detroit, but if we have houses that we've been to before, then we record that and then the officers one of the things that we just instituted we is just returning, you know, I'm sorry, returning is that we have a special alert now for mental health runs. We have special protocols for mental health run. We send certain units for mental health runs. We're getting ready to even come out with an even more robust response to mental health runs. But we've got to stop the numbers to and stop the numbers involves getting the people the help that they need, so they don't have to call the police. These people family members aren't calling the police because they're not worried. They just don't have the resources that they need. To get help. So we've got a whole component that we're getting ready to roll out in hopes of reducing the interaction with the mentally ill because there are certain runs the police shouldn't even be called to. If they're non violent. Why are the police even being called for? Someone needs to get them to the hospital, but when they're violent, harder the problem with the mentally ill violent, is they're unpredictable. And if they're unpredictable, then they pose a threat to the communities
that just tell me to shut up. To me just one more twist I know this is old fashioned outdated, but there was a there was a time we hit when we called beanbags in terms of deterring mental health and trying to basically put a barrier or something I use do you use I'm sure you've been in this industry law enforcement for a long time. But is there something there that we can basically try to implement or at least try to put a barrier to help us with this? Can I leave you alone?
Bob and me sir,
through this chair,
If 20,638 calls to service, we have 16,884 times that we've made contact with a mentally ill person this year in 2022. And it's important every opportunity to deploy everything we possibly can we do but when a person produces a weapon, and they're trying to shoot you
or they're trying to stab you,
the officers are making split second decisions. We look at them, we analyze them and we try to make the best possible decision when there are times when we can call our SRT, what would be the x and all those other things and we're going to be looking at even additional non lethal weapons systems. But even those won't be foolproof. They won't be we had a guy in California they run over 25 cadets running in the street. Right. Okay. He's a little crisis. Right? What we're seeing right now is a result of something we never thought could happen. COVID COVID changed everything. It completely isolated people. People couldn't go they couldn't socialize. Kids couldn't go play basketball. They couldn't they couldn't go to sporting events. They couldn't have normal socialization. The impact of that is being felt now depression is up. Okay, Bipolar depression is up these numbers I'm not making them up, just Google them. Statistically people are struggling people are people don't want to go to work because they got used to not leaving the house people have anxiety with leaving the house. So it's so many different components is driving this. And when you look at as I started talking earlier about homicides, you know, you're looking at a city our size, that right now, if I can find my numbers, of course that's the one I can't find. You know, yes, we have a homicides in Detroit 264 This time in 2021 71. This year, someone who kills somebody because they bumped into him or drove them off the road. You could argue they're suffering from mental illness, because their decision making isn't right, who does that who so so those are your unhappier, those are classified as mentally ill. Those are people who just shot somebody because of road rage or, or because somebody is dating somebody they shouldn't these are these are all these components that we're not even capturing but what we are capturing are those 20,000 that I just told you so when you talk about weapons and and all those different things, yes, there every possible thing that we can do to be better is on the table. But the the uncomfortable conversations about mental illness aren't happening in the uncomfortable conversation as these are circumstances where family members are calling us because they feel threatened by people they love that need help. Is there an intersection that could happen before the 911 call? Where they get them the help that they need where they don't even have to call? We have to come? Someone said earlier about the person who calls and says someone's raping me and trying to kill me. And can we not come? No, we have to. We have to come each time because maybe one time is happening and if we don't come I'll be sitting before this board and this community trying to explain why we didn't. School cause the cause of death for school we just shut down the school today. We know it's it's it's likely fraudulent but what if it isn't? Just barricaded across the street from the 7000 block of every part was a school. You have to put school on lockdown. So these are complex issues that need complex solutions. But yes to your question. We are looking at everything Monday after Thanksgiving. I think it's 28. We're announcing a complete overhaul to to mental health that includes introducing a number of different non lethal alternative some that we already have some that we don't and expanding on that but again, I don't want to to falsely state or miss characterize it as more that problem solved because it isn't because if you walk into a building and someone has a knife or a gun and they charge at you, and they're mentally ill, we don't have time to get to the beanbag. And that wouldn't be that wouldn't be a true statement for me to make to you that this will solve the problem. The problem is bigger than one solution.
Okay, Mr. Carter
Good afternoon and through the chair, Chief, he said something that really spoke to me about people getting the help that they need before they call up have to call the police. And I think that it's important that I know that you worked with D when on training, I believe with the CIT officers Yes. And when I think about mental health, I can only think of two really agencies that come to mind team wellness and we've done a panel with teen wellness with what they provide the the resources that they provide, but I think that it's important that the community knows what resources are available. And I think that we're not doing a good job of providing those resources that are available. So I would ask that, Mr. Chair that you bring Dewayne to the table to do a presentation about what they offer and its chief if you could expound on what they've done for the police department. I would appreciate it thank you.
Yes, ma'am. Thank you for that question. So be one has been a good partner, a very good partner and in fact they were there today with us on the barricaded we had a a mental health professional. Two of them from the went on the ground civilians Now police are close and helping us. So they've been a good partner but I think it's you know, we're looking at doing a number of things with them and I agree with you Commissioner Carter did a presentation to this board would be appropriate and enlightening. One of the things I'm going to do is bring in a civilian steering committee on mental health because I think it's too much behind the door talking and we need to show the community. Look at the numbers look at what we're dealing with showing them real videos and showing them what we're dealing with every single day because they only get the ones that that that we're dealing with in the media or from attorneys, but they don't get the 1000s and 1000s. And I think it'd be great to hear from the community. Let them see. Certainly those community members who are suffering themselves. I have family members that are suffering. So we're going to have a community forum. We're going to start a steering committee. We need clergy at the table. You know, to help us we've got we're expecting a huge uptick in our homeless population this winter, because a lot of the money that was available last year has been cut off. And so you know, there's a completely there's a total nexus with mental illness and homeless population. So just so many different pieces, but if we could start with the wins presentation, he wins again, a good partner and we're looking forward to working with them. Yes.
Fantastic. I would like to the board to know in that audience, that I've been to some CIT training glasses and I'm telling you it's it's something to see. I've actually participated in some to see how they talk a mentally ill person down and it's, it's phenomenal what they do. Just give them a chance and they can do it.
Mr. Chairman just is I
have to have the roll around the room. Go ahead, Commissioner
Bill.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to say she outstanding but I'm totally frustrated. We talk about millennials we have always hated instead of the high point now, but what we have is a saturation of guns, guns, guns, guns. That really debate because we take 260 homicide, if not more human, that's homicide dealing with guns, the frustration is available. So as we know, the National Movement is not happening there. So we just reality, people have guns and they are going to use them for whatever reason they think of impossible. We can't get to the core problem because we can't deal with the guns and American just the most violent country in the world is USA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Commissioner Hernandez.
Thank you, sir. Through the Chair. I'll start by thanking my colleagues. I mean, I think going last have a page filled with five questions that either each of you asked or chief white you already addressed. But I do want to take us to a Fourth Precinct school lockdown that happened there earlier this week. Is there anything else that you might be willing to share about that incident as well as today's and more really education from an educational standpoint for our youth, as they're engaging in these again, what could be potentially fraudulent threats?
Yes. So Commissioner Bernard talked about the costs, right? Just the the exorbitant costs involved with these deployments, he's you know, we have to bring everything to the schools and we're working with dpscd You know, on these on these lockdowns, and these threats, but you know, social media, social media, which has zero culpability in anything, you know, they no one holds them accountable. You can post anything you want about anybody at any time and these kids use it as kids, so they do the same thing we would do if we had it when we were kids. And so one kid says, Hey, this is how you can get out of school. The other kids do it. Now, here's what the kids don't know, maybe cars federally, they can be charged a felony at the state level. There's terrorism charges depending on what they write. And this thing could haunt them for the rest of their lives and they can completely change the trajectory of otherwise successful life and I one silly posting on Facebook. When we see it. We can't take it lightly. So we go into our shutdown lockdown protocols. DPS comes in with their police department we partner with them. VC Hayes, who will be up here in a minute and runs our crime control strategies department. We do complete workups on the kids we pull their social media page. A lot of kids think that it's private is not you know, it's it's proprietary so they, you know, the information you submit belongs to social media. So we do a search warrant. We pull it out. We track you, we charge you and it was a kid charge excuse me board I'm gonna ask when we charged one yesterday. In the morning,
so,
so you know, he had this device that's gonna follow him forever, and it costs a fortune. There's some talk about recouping these calls from parents, you know, which you hate to do it, but somebody's got to control this behavior. And so this is a bad situation. So if I can say anything, you know, when you play sin, it's gone forever. And you know, when something is non proprietary, what that means is you just gave it to someone to use and when you when you give Facebook and I know I'm making myself sound old because that's my little social media, but Instagram, and all these other grams or whatever else is out there. That's their stuff. And that's why they're able to reuse it. That's why they're able when we put out a search more or send them a search warrant, we can get it and we're gonna track it back to you and the kids that reads it read these agreements and if you go 50 pages into an agreement, I guarantee you it says if a policeman wants it, we gotta give it to him and he's got time to read it.
I think that's the excellent piece. We need to educate the youth to let them know that that's just me. I think we need to be proactive. Let them know. This is what we're doing. We're getting search warrants. Because this information is not your worst but
so if we could do again a form maybe this connection can bring in some kids from some schools, talk to Dr. BD and, and maybe get you know, some seniors from different schools and let's just go down I will be more than happy to show them in real life. What's happening. I don't know if if Holly, if we've got a warrant for him, we're sending out an arrest came knocking on the door, and we're, you know, they'll open it we're gonna open it and we're going to make an arrest because we don't know if he's going to be we can't have a situation that happened back in Oxford, right? We Well, we're not we're, we're not gonna take this stuff lightly. Right. We're gonna we're going to act appropriately and we're going to be on the ground because we can't have that. So it's very, very serious and the kids are taking it lightly. But the last thing about this we found in our investigation that this actually started out of state, and they had one picture of a threat. Right so somebody once you had a picture of a threat, they wrote the threat and had some pictures of somebody that's going to shoot up the school. It would it almost went viral. So he sends it to one kid, they use it at their school that he sends it to another kid, they use it at their school. So it's so we know throughout crime intelligence, that is the actual same threat that's been moved around all over the country, but each school has to react to it when they get it
Oh, yeah, one more go ahead. So I do. Thank you for that. And I'd love to be a part of even organizing a panel for you to address that and educate. The second piece is is more of a call a call to action for my colleagues on the board, as well as a thank you I think you know, recently a few weeks ago, we went on a ride along that I think was entirely eye opening. And without sharing too much. You know, given the situations we encountered and so forth. We went from a homicide scene that led to evidence from an entirely separate St. So officers are dealing with multiple situations on site. We then transported over to the east side, and we encountered a ShotSpotter run. Thanks to ShotSpotter we were then tied over to another run which involved Greenlight. And then at the end of it, we ended up at the FRAC center on the east side where you spoke with kids. So I can't thank you enough for the emotional. I think management that you do and undertaken this entire department, situation to situation minute to minute. And so I you know, encourage everyone on this board if you haven't yet done so if you don't actively engage in these ride alongs please do so. We can't do this work the right way if we're not engaged in that, you know, we did a ride alongs years ago or we're former officers that doesn't matter now. We need to be able to do it now. So that we're better informed to actually provide oversight. So thank you. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, nice. Hang
on. We're gonna move on. We're moving on to oral communication.
Let's just get into what I wanted to show people. If you want to speak today in the meeting you want to give Mr. Grant for that Commissioner. I know that