three o'clock. Recording in progress. It's important out there. So
he was outside, wasn't he just
I seen him.
I saw him. We when we was coming. Yeah, thank you, Commissioner, absolutely, you're a blessing. I really appreciate you.
Let me know when you guys read ready. All right.
Good afternoon, everyone. Today is October the 31st 2024, 3pm. The board of police commission is called to order right now. We don't, we do not have a quorum in right now, but the quorum look like it's coming. And so until the quorum gets in, let's go to the secretary,
good afternoon. Chairman woods, the incoming information correspondents received this week is the weekly, Oh, I see OCI, I'm sorry. Report that's under tab 11 board members. That's the only piece of incoming information at this time. And the announcements of the
meetings upcoming
for this month are as follows, the next board meeting is next Thursday here at police headquarters at 3pm thereafter, the next community meeting is at the bustle Recreation Center, and that will be on November 14, at 6:30pm and those are all the communications from the board secretary's office today.
Okay, alright, thank you very, very kindly. If one of our staff members can ask Commissioner Burton to step in, that'll be here you go, right here. All right, thank you. So that will give us, I believe,
well, not quite 123, but yeah,
we just to give us a quorum. We have a quorum. Introduction of commissioners. You
Commissioner woods, present Commissioner Bernard.
District Two, present
Commissioner banks, Commissioner bell or some. District
Four,
Commissioner Burton,
present on the behalf of district five.
Commissioner Carter is excused. Commissioner Moore is excused. Commissioner Hernandez, Commissioner Presley, Commissioner de Walsh, present. Commissioner Smith, you have a quorum, sir.
Thank you very kindly. I entertain a motion to for the approval of the October 31 2024, agenda, support motion made by Commissioner Bernard. Second
invocation, oh, yeah, yeah, thank
you. We do need prayer. Uh, let me finish the motion though. Any questions, second by Commissioner the wash, any
discussion,
no discussion. All. All in favor, say, Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed, the motion is carried. Let's, I think this the chief Chaplain right. Let's have him come and do invocation.
Let us pray right to the kind of God our Father. We, thank you for this council. We, thank you for the efforts to improve our department and therefore the city. We pray for your continued guidance and peace and clear communication. We thank you for the leadership. We thank for all those that are willing to participate in the change and the full progress of our city as a whole. We acted Your grace and Your mercy upon to our officers, their families and the city as a whole. We thank you for all things in the little they are. Mitchell peace provide the necessary value we need to hear each other out and to move for the next ones. This is my prayer in the name of Jesus. I pray Amen.
Amen. Thank you. Chaplain Davenport entertain a motion for the approval of the minutes of october 24 2024 moved by Commissioner Bernard. Second, second, by Commissioner banks, any discussion? All in favor? Say, aye. Anyone opposed? The motion is carried. Introduction to the bop. See staff,
Mr. Chair. Currently we have chief investigator, Jerome Warfield, Attorney Dante Goss, Mr. Robert Brown, Miss Johnny Woodward, Underwood, Miss Candace Hayes, Miss army CEO Joshua, Miss Mary Barber, Miss Jasmine Taylor, Mr. Drew freeze, acting supervising investigator, Elgin Murphy. Our interpreters today are Dr Stephanie Beatty and MS Chicago, Nichols, court reporter, Don handy side, Sergeant Quinn for audio visual, Charles Henry for media services, video and for the chief of police office is Deputy Chief Hayes.
Okay, thank you very, very kindly. We're going to go to the chairperson report, and out of my report, we have a very honorable and distinguished leader here who is doing a great job to be able to keep Wayne County safe, and that is in the person of The Wayne County prosecutor. Prosecutor Kim worthy, thank you, and let's welcome her as she presents in the board. Thank you.
It's my pleasure to be here. It's been a while since I've been here. I think it's before the pandemic, actually. And I'm here because I wanted to just make an appearance, and also I wanted to address a few things, but let me just tell you something about me, and the reason why it's important is because I want you to understand where I'm coming from when it talks about certain cases that we've been doing lately, hearing about it's not it's on, is it? Yes, all. Okay, closer. Okay. So as you probably know, I started in the Wayne County prosecutor's office when I was right out of law school. Stayed there for almost 12 years, and the last six of those years, I prosecuted mainly homicides. So I'm a veteran of over 100 homicide juries, 1000s of trials, 1000s of hearings. And after that, I came and I ran for the bench, and at that time, is to Detroit recorders court, and then it morphed into, or morphed into, the Wayne County Circuit Court. I was on the bench for almost nine years. Please don't do the math, and then I've been elected for this is my 21st year. And the reason I say that is because I want to just talk about a little bit about process and procedure. And this is probably not news to most of you. Most of you are probably well versed in this, but I just want to go over it anyway. We have a Public Integrity Unit in our office, and that is a group of prosecutors who are specially trained to do cases where police officers are shot or killed and or people who shoot and kill police officers, as well as police officers who discharge their weapon. And I think you know that when we do these cases, we always expect whatever police jurisdiction is is involved. Of course, here's Detroit, but of course, we have 43 cities in Wayne County, so we deal with over 90 police agencies, not just the 43 cities, townships and municipalities, but also we do a lot of work for the feds. We do a lot of work for the state. We do the Mental Health Board, we do the airport, we do many, many other entities within the city, within the county. And so when we have a case that happens, we always encourage that police department to make sure an outside entity looks at those cases. And so then they will do their investigation, they will then make the recommendation to us, and we will re interview everybody that they have submitted to us. So these cases generally take a long time. I know the public is really apprehensive and wants us to move faster than we move, but I am sure all of you within the sound of my voice would prefer that it's done right instead of being done fast. I've been often criticized for years, decades, probably for taking too long, but I feel very, very strongly that the power of the prosecutor to sign their name to a warrant is an awesome power, and we should be right when we do it. The prosecutor is the gatekeeper to the entire criminal justice system. We are the ones to decide which cases get into the system in the first place, and I am not afraid under any circumstances, even if we believe someone is guilty as sin. If we can't prove that case beyond a reasonable doubt, then we don't issue it. And we take a lot of criticism for that too. So it's not helpful when we have certain cases, the public, people in this room, but mainly the public who like to criticize the work that we're doing now. Don't get me wrong, I can take criticism from anybody. That's not my problem. But when we have cases, especially high profile cases, and we have everybody having their opinion and making their their their predictions about what's going to happen and how long it's going to take, or they want us to issue it within about two or three minutes after it happens, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but by not, not by much, because they think that what they've seen in the media, what they've been told by public officials and others is true, and so therefore, why aren't we making our decisions? We are the ones that have to stay, stand up in court and prove cases beyond a reasonable doubt, and we want to get it right. So we often will have cases that are high profile on nature, and I'll just take the DR Hoover case. I heard a lot from some of the people in this room, as well as the public who were saying things about that case that were not true, that were wondering why we were taking so long that riled up the public about the case, that poisoned our jury pool and our jury pool to come, because that case has not yet gone to trial, and when I announced the charges in that case was over a year after that case had happened, but if we had made our decision based on the information we knew at that time, it would not have been right. It's not sustainable, because when we issue these charges, we want to make sure that we can go into court and prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. So we're not just looking at the arrest, we're not just looking at the investigation, we're looking at what we can sustain to a judge andor jury, because I'm not interested in violating anybody's rights, even if we know that person is not someone that we'd all be want to be around. They've committed murder, they've done whatever they want to do, or what's not what they want to whatever they've done. But by the same token, we are not going to issue those charges unless we are sure that we can prove this case, but don't be on a reasonable doubt. And what happens when people let their opinion be known or ask questions and forums about cases that they do nothing about, because I'm sure that all of you know that half of the things that you know disrespect to any reporter that may be here, but a lot of things you read in the paper about a case when I'm looking at it, when I'm reading about it, I don't recognize it because most of it isn't true. And so we can't base our decisions on what people may like, what they may not like how fast they want us to move. And so it's just appreciate. Just be appreciated if we let everybody know that please don't make opinions now, because when it comes from people with with some authority, when it comes from public officials, when they start talking about a case that they do nothing about, it really helped. It really handles it so it doesn't it doesn't help, and it really hurts what we're doing, and so I would appreciate your assistance in that. So when you hear someone that should not be talking about a case, especially if it's a high profile case, then I hope that you will caution them. The other thing that's a little disturbing to me is the cases that we get, and no offense to anybody's race or anybody's ethnicity, but it seems to me, when you have high profile cases, the cases that get all the attention are cases when a white person has been killed or mutilated, and then we don't seem to look at or care about, and I'm not saying we don't care, but we just don't hear the firestorm about young African American boys and girls that are killed. And so I really would like us to really be temperate and to really be strong about our emotions and really, really respect the decisions that we make and the time it takes to get there. And that's why I started by telling you about my background and what we knew we know what we're doing. We work with our police agencies. We work very well with the Detroit Police Department. We work well with the other 42 agencies that I have to work with. And sometimes it takes time. We get impatient. I get that, I understand that, but you want me to get it right, I'm sure. And that is why, also we have a conviction integrity unit, because oftentimes it's been gotten wrong, because people are rushing to judgment. They're talking about cases, charges are being made, juries are being had, people are being convicted, and it's not always the right thing to do. So we have spent over the last seven years, five years maybe we have exonerated and or given new trials to 35 different men, all of them African American men, except for one. So that's what happens sometimes, when you have situations where people rush to judgment, don't take their time. I will take the criticism any day and any night when you when I'm accused, not the people in this room, of taking too long. We want to make sure that we get it right. And that goes from the Samantha wall case to the DR Hoover case to the many, many others cases that we do. If you take the work that we do in the Wayne County prosecutor's office, Michigan has 83 counties, and if you take the other 82 counties and add up all the cases they do, it's gonna be less than the one Wayne County. We do 70% of all the criminal trials in the state of Michigan. We do 67% of all the jury trials. So we are the ones that are faced with all of this work to do, but we still want to take our time on each and every case to make sure that we get it right. So I want to just talk a little bit about one more case that we are probably going to announce in the next couple of weeks, and that's a case where the and again, the bailiff went to it's a 36 District Court bailiff. They were not Detroit police officers that fired any shots. And so we want to talk about this, because we want to make sure that we understand that when we prosecute cases, or we're looking at cases to prosecute, we do look at the agency that they're from, whether they're from Detroit or Westland or Wyandotte or developed or wherever they're from. But in this case, this was a 36 District Court bailiff, so I understand there was some chatter from this body, as well as other people, of wanting to us to release the body camera. Let me, let me just tell you something about that I am not a proponent of releasing evidence that I'm going to use in trial. It doesn't do anything that credits the jury. It's never the whole story about a case. It's a piece of evidence that we look at, and we cannot prosecute and subject people to prosecute life in prison without the prosecutor, parole if we're looking at pieces of evidence. So whenever you see body cam footage or any other footage on TV or otherwise, it's not the whole story. And so there's only a piece of evidence, whether it's DNA or forensics or Shot Spotter or anything, it's a piece of evidence that we put together during that investigation along with our law enforcement partners to make a case and be able to prove that case beyond a reasonable doubt. So I can tell you when there's resistance, usually about the body cam evidence, it's coming from me, because I can only advise lots of law enforcement. I can't tell them what to do, but I would prefer that it never be released until we make a decision. Now, there are cases that are exceptional, but again, one of the cases where we've received a lot of blowback is a bailiff case. We will release that when we make a decision, like I said, we are very close to making a decision, maybe in the next couple of weeks. And so it doesn't help when people in positions of authority keep badgering me or anybody about releasing body cam material. We want a jury to look at the evidence, make a decision, make the correct decision. We want to make sure we have the right person that we're prosecuting and not based on what people think or what they may have seen on TV. This is not law and order. This is not a legal procedural. We do not have 44 minutes from the time that the case happens until the time it finishes in trial. That's not reality. It's probably a good representation of what happens in the legal system, but it's not reality. And let me give you one quick example when it comes to DNA, for example, you example, I am sure that most people think you can get DNA in a snap, and we have done much better over the years in Lessing the time that it takes. But if you watch a regular Law and Order episode, you'll see the crime happens. Two homicide detectors go out. They go and see the medical examiner. The medical examiner happened five minutes ago. The medical examiner already has the DNA results back and not only did they have the DNA results back there, but picture of the guy who did it. So examples like that. When we talk about forensics and every type other types of evidence, that's just not reality. We have to do things right. We have to set a course. We have to maintain our positivity and our sense of justice. And to me, and I think you know anything about me, it doesn't matter who you are, what you do, what you look like. If I can prove the evidence against you beyond the reasonable doubt, then I'm going to prosecute you. Now we then I also just want to mention on the other side, before I conclude my remarks, we also have, and I'm only going to mention this because you probably don't know, we also have 15 diversionary programs in our office. So if you've done your first term offender and you've done something that's a minor crime, we have in the Wayne County prosecutor's office in the last 15 years, diverted 25,000 people from the criminal justice system because we believe in second chances. We believe in giving people options, and whether it's mental health or homelessness or veterans or a sobriety court or drug court, I think I said mental health court already. We want to make sure that people have a full, full and fair opportunity to get their lives together before they're saddled with a criminal conviction. So we do that on the one side, we have some very different things that we're doing that other offices in the country. And let me just remind me, when I came in as the assist, as the elected prosecutor in 2004 I was laughed at and ridiculed because I wanted to approach the criminal justice system a different way. I wanted to give people a second a chance at second chances to make sure that we had people that we can they can continue with their jobs, continue with their lives, without being having a criminal conviction. But on the other hand, if you kill somebody, you murder someone, you carjack someone, you molest a child, you have an unsecured weapon in your house, and a child gets killed. We're going to go at it a different way. But each time, no matter how heinous the crime may be, we're going to approach it the same way, to make sure that we have all the evidence, if we look at it, that we make the right decisions. It doesn't matter what the outside noise is. It doesn't matter how many protesters we have at the door. It doesn't matter how many hate letters I get. It doesn't matter about that at all. What matters is justice and fairness and morality and whether we can prove that case beyond a reasonable doubt. So the reason I go through all that is because I want to just make sure that people understand sometimes justice takes time. Sometimes doing the right thing takes time, and I can withstand the noise and the criticism, because that's not what's important. It isn't about me. It's about the system of justice and making sure whatever the family is going through, let's say it's a loss of a loved one to make sure that they get the justice they deserve. But first years also have a secondary function that's just as important as the first we represent all of the people of the state of Michigan, not just the ones we like, not just the ones who we fancy, not just the ones that are famous, everyone. That means also that we have a responsibility toward each defendant in a case, we have to make sure the prosecutors have to make sure that justice is brought to each defendant. They have to make sure that due process is examined, due process is done. Due Process is the name of the game. We are just as responsible for that as we are in prosecuting cases. So I just wanted to stop by here and say all that. But please, I implore you, when you hear about something on the news and it seems open and shut to you, and it seemed Why is Kim worthy taking so long to charge this crime? Why is the police department taking so long to charge this crime? It is because we want to get it right. It used to be when we had when I was trying cases back in the day, and I asked you not to do the math and figure out how old it was, but when I was trying cases, we didn't have the internet, we didn't have body cameras, we didn't have social media. We didn't have any of the things we have now. We didn't have shot spotted. We didn't have DNA when I started. So you know how old I am, so we didn't have the forensics that we have, and forensics are changing every day, so we could walk into court and make a decision fairly quickly based on the evidence that we had at the time. So but now it's different. Now one single prosecutor may have 27 boxes of materials that they have to go through, 3000 pages from Facebook, another 2000 pages from Instagram and on and on, plus all the body cam footage, plus the shots the body cam, the green light, the surveillance, the Dash Cam, it takes time. The last thing we want to do is bring injustice to the family. We want the families and the citizens of Wayne County, in my case, not just Detroit, but Wayne County. We want to make sure that they are heard, that they are seen, and that they are represented fairly and efficiently. So that's kind of what I wanted to say today. I'm here to answer any questions that you may have. As you know, I feel very strong about doing the right thing that we can we are not perfect. We are human. There is no perfect system, everybody. My office is not perfect. We try pretty doggone hard to get it right. We will take the criticism. That's okay, in my view, as long as justice is done,
Commissioner banks, oh,
thank you, chair
and let the Let the record reflect that Commissioner Presley and Commissioner Smith is here.
Sorry, I have a cold, so not coming through as strong as I use it. But go ahead,
Commissioner banks,
thank you, Mr. Chair worthy, I've been following your career for quite some time. I think back in the 80s, I'm not mistaken. You prosecuted and Edwards and Hudson. We
didn't have to say 80s, did we? But it was in the 90s. 90s. Okay, that was me. Okay.
I thought it was you, yeah, okay, back in the 90s. And how we go handle what's going on with this Jameson Williams case. We know that he's a famous man here in the city of Detroit, played for the Detroit Lions. He caught with a gun, and he didn't have a CEO. So he's so different than a janitor or a man with a Walmart. So like we do with every other case
that we do, we're going to look at the facts and evidence, we're going to make a legal determination about whether we can prove that case beyond a reasonable doubt, and that's it. We're not going to rely on the outside noise. We're not going to rely on who he is, but we're going to be fair to him, because that's part of our responsibility as well. So I don't know my people are reviewing it now. They have not briefed me and so, but I know that they're going to do the right thing, and we're going to do the right thing despite any criticism with any criticism that we expect to get from either side. That's one of those things where some people are going to be happy, some people aren't. Whatever decision we make, we're going to do it based on the facts and evidence. But I don't know at this point, because
I have not been briefed.
Thank you, Commissioner Bernard,
joining us today, my sister Council, I'm very proud to see you here, and obviously have been a supporter of yours and you of me for many, many years. My My question relates to what you were saying about body cam evidence, and particularly the case that that you referenced my and I understand everything that you said, and I agree with you 100%
but how do you compare
your position on that
with that
of other district attorneys and federal attorneys throughout the United States who release body cam footage within 30 days, like our sister city, Chicago, For example, and Copa, which is almost the equivalent of our BL PC, we're not quite as advanced as they are, but in any event, it's a large city, huge crime issue,
probably,
probably 80% like you said, of the state of Illinois, in terms of criminal activity comes out of Chicago, but and they release their video evidence within two weeks to 30 days. And
that's their prerogative. I just don't want them to agree. There may be some cases where that can be done, and it's certainly not going to be released by me. So there may be some cases where that can be done, but in my view, what that does is it puts a unnecessary slant on it one way or the other. It's losing is never going to be the only evidence that's had. We have to review it. We have to review it along with everything else that comes down the pike in that particular case. I think it can sway juries in the wrong way. I think it can get the public all riled up. It may not be even a decision we can make at that time. It may take a while. I just personally do not believe in that. I believe that we should look at the case, that we shouldn't have the public involved in that. And that doesn't mean I don't want the community involved. That's just not what it means at all. It just means I am the one that's charged with getting it right, and I want to make sure that we try, we try the best we can. And to me, getting it right is not releasing evidence. If you release that evidence, why don't you just release the DNA, which, as you know, by law we can't do. We can't mention. Why don't we release the statement the defendant made? And we can't do that by law either. Why? Because it prejudices the jury pool and it goes against the rights of that particular defendant bill.
Do you feel that's Do you feel that that's the case as well in like Chicago and so forth, where the video was released, in a matter of days. You
can't speak for Kim, my friend, Kim Fox. I can't speak for that. I don't know what that. I don't know anything about Chicago. I don't know about Chicago politics. I don't know about Chicago law. I'm an expert in Michigan criminal law. That is what I know. So I can't speak about whatever everybody else does. What I can say is that Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Houston, LA, New York, every borough, New York, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Boston, I can tell you that we work together collaboratively because we have our own organization called APA association of prosecutor attorneys. I didn't start it. I've been a member for a long I'm on the board. The reason why we focus on APA and not in da, because we have different issues. When you are elected prosecutor or da from a large jurisdiction, I'm quite frankly, interested in hearing what they do in other jurisdictions. We steal from each other all the time. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel. It doesn't mean that we agree lock step each day what everybody else does. And so it's a different and it could be, it could be one of those cases. There may be a case. And there has been one case in the past which I won't mention, but I thought it was a good guy. The good thing that that video was mentioned was released early for various reasons. But again, that's that's gonna be very few and between now, I can't I can't control what the police do. If they release it. They release them. I have to deal with it. But generally, as any police chief, I've had for years, very sad to lose this one. I've had nine police chiefs since I've done this job, and they had nine different agendas and nine different issues. And sometimes we agreed, sometimes we didn't agree, sometimes we got along, sometimes we didn't. And my positions have always been the same on everything
chief white. And let the record reflect that Commissioner Hernandez is present through the
chair and Madam Prosecutor, thank you for being here as well. I just want to make sure we're not conflating the issues. Commissioner Bernard, you talk about Chicago releasing video on 30 days of body camera. We have looked at that, and they don't release all body camera video in 30 days. What you're speaking of specifically is the officer involved shooting. The bail of shooting, once again, is not a Detroit police officer involved shooting, thereby making it evidence that officers were there, but they did not pull the trigger. They did not shoot the subject in question. As a result, that is evidence. Now I have made a policy decision outside of the prosecutors, conversation with me regarding this issue on officer involved shootings, it still creates the same dynamic for the prosecutor difficulties and things such as that public opinion, but I'm willing to take the risk in an effort to be transparent with the community that we would release all body camera video involved in an officer involved shooting within 45 days. We have recently had discussions on that topic, and we're even moving off of that. That's a policy decision that we implemented that was not in existence ever, but it does not capture those areas that are not officer involved shootings. There's no agency I have found in the United States, and believe me, we have talked to many that releases all body camera video, regardless of the circumstances, in 30 days involving crime, it's just not the case. Because there are, there is evidentiary value, and not all. It's evident value in all body camera footage, but in non officer involved shootings, you're infringing on the rights of the person who has been victimized that is not occurring. I don't know who's telling you that, but it is factually incorrect. It's
also, let me just piggyback on that. Let me just echo the fact that the bailiff case, as I did say, but I want to make sure that it sticks, was not a Detroit Police Department investigation. It was an investigation of the bailiff from 36 district court that did the shoot, that allegedly, if the shooting in that case. So therefore, it wasn't even the purview of the Detroit Police Department to
release that video on that microphone,
if,
if the if an officer's body cam captures a crime, I'm committing a crime against the chairman, or something, whatever or anyone in this room. That body cam footage, obviously, is something that your office would be interested in, of course, but it's also something that the community is interested in. I don't, I don't understand the distinction, if you will, between body cam footage that is collected by an officer shooting someone within a situation and body cam that reflects me shooting him, for example, it's
not an officer involved shooting. I know that, that's why, and I know that you heard me say that I am not a proponent of that anyway, but I can accept the policy decisions that are made and we have to deal with it. I am not a proponent of it not being released before charges are had. And oftentimes, what we will do, oftentimes, sometimes at our press conferences, we will actually talk about and show the footage at that particular time, after we've had a way to wait to examine it, because remember, sometimes you're saying things from one angle, and sometimes there are multiple body cams. Sometimes it happens too fast, and you didn't see what you thought you saw. And so we've had cases that I can come back and talk about it another day where that's made all the difference. And sometimes it's the difference in whether the person's gonna be charged or whether the person's not gonna be charged. I am certainly a proponent of anything that's gonna help us get to the truth. So I remember when body cameras first came to Detroit, we did a search, and we brought in Las Vegas, because Las Vegas, they had just had that shooting where 500 people were shot, or something like that. We brought in other agencies and other prosecutors office across the country to make sure that we had a good policy that we could deal with when body cameras came out, and so we stick by that policy. Now there's I'll just give you a very quick example of the disagreement between myself and almost every other elected prosecutor in the Michigan so we had a case where there was a well known anchor who was being harassed and stopped, and when the Detroit Police came, it was in a jurisdiction of precinct where they had body cameras, one of the first and they came into the house, they took the necessary reports, got the cell phone numbers of this person and their children, social security numbers, although I never understood why. Please get social security numbers, but that's beyond that's something else. And they cut all this information. And so all recorded on body cam footage. And the officer got a very disturbing call from his wife. One of the officers went outside, took that call, all on body camera. I do not believe that that is something that's relevant to the case. I do not believe that the victim's name and address and Social Security name and phone number should be in a body cam. I believe in privacy rights of citizens. I believe in privacy rights of Detroit police departments, whatever department in our policy, for example, I don't want to know when officers are having, you know, normal discussion at the table, having lunch. I certainly don't want to know when they're in the bathroom, going to the bathroom. I don't want to hear all that. So there are certain things when there's a police citizen encounter. Yes, we want to look at that, but anything relevant to the case we're not going to look at. We're going to maintain a full and fair copy of everything that happened. We're not going to disturb that. We're going to let the defense attorney come to our office and see it. We're going to give it to the judge so they can look at it, determine that we didn't mess with the tape or anything. But when it comes to showing something to a jury, we want to show what's relevant, and so we want to make sure that privacy rights are protected. So that's just one of many things that's in our policy. So I believe in anything that's going to help us get to the truth, body cam, cell phone, any type of forensic evidence, anything that's going to help us get to the truth is going to be helpful. But that means, as I said earlier, it's going to take us longer to decide what we happen to do. In that case, it used to be when I was coming up, long time ago, when you did a search warrant case and you had a police department with a lawful search warrant to go in and, let's say, go into home and search for drugs, and then they would have, we would we could make a decision very quickly on that when we didn't have body cam or surveillance, probably 20 minutes, half hour, and then take it to court, and a Jury or judge could decide about our evidence. Now, when we have a simple, I'm saying simple, but when we have a search, one like that, we have seven, eight different body cameras we have to look at, let alone ring camera, green light, surveillance, dash cam. And we're not gonna, we're not gonna just not look at everything, because sometimes we find information and something as innocuous, maybe as jail calls. We will listen to in a case of a jail call, we have 10 and 12 hours of material. We may find one look at it. We're going to make sure that we find something that's exculpatory to a defendant. We have a duty to turn that over, and that means we have to look at everything. We can't look at everything when it comes to the door, but that trial prosecutor has to go through all of that material, just like we have to go through 3000 pages of Facebook material, 2000 pages of Instagram, like I said earlier. So because we have this technology, which is a good thing, this is all a good thing. I want offices to have body cameras. I want to be able to narrow any avenues of untruth. But people have to understand, then don't look in my office and say, Well, you need to make that decision. I'm not going to do like, No, I'm not going to do that. I'm looking at everything we have and then make a decision in all cases, not just the cases that you all hear about, not just the Hoovers and the bailiffs and the wall cases and everything else, not just that, but every single case that comes down the pike. And we do 18,000 or 20,000 cases a year. So again, we do the best we can with what we have. And let me tell you, if we ever think we've made a mistake or if a witness has recanted, we my prosecutors know at the earliest attempt that you have, if you feel that we don't have the right person, then they're duty bound to come to us. I'm not someone that's going to hang on to stuff. There are some jurisdictions very near to us. It's not Oakland County that are very near to us, that will co sign everything that the police walk through the door and again, but that's their job. But my job is to make sure that we can take a case to court beyond a reasonable doubt. So that's why we're going to see every single case that we have, and that's why it's going to take sometimes we can issue a case quickly, sometimes we can't, but we don't need people's opinion and opining and subjectivity trying to tell us what to do and tell us that we are taking too long. And these people have never tried a case in their life. They've never they don't even know the evidence that we have, they never even walked into the courtroom, but tried to tell us what to do. And I want to make sure I'm not swayed by that. So that's really the main thing I came to say. We want to make sure that you understand why. Because I'm sure all of us, there's nobody in this room that wants us to charge someone that's not guilty, and the time to make it right is the time at the beginning of a case. And sometimes you go to the end of the case, and sometimes, God forbid, you have to have a CIU that finds something else. But we will do that. Deal with that too. I'm not going to walk away if it didn't happen on my on my watch, if it happened 40 years ago, I'm still responsible. That's the same thing that happened with the rape kids. They happen now, some of them 50 years ago. But it's my responsibility as the elected Wayne County prospect to make sure that we bring justice to as many people as we can who have their lives sitting on the shelf in a crime lab.
I want, I want to say thank you, Madam Prosecutor. Also you know, yesterday, someone walked out of the courtroom, out of a prison because of your courageous actions last week. It was an officer who committed bank robbery and all of that stuff. And I and you exonerated the gentleman on last week. And I think everybody need to take a look at that, that press release from the prosecutor. Your words were very, very powerful and very, very strong, that that is not tolerated in Wayne County, and it's certainly not tolerated city of Detroit for officers to conduct themselves in that type of fashion. And I thank you for all of the courageous work. As you said, 35 I think you at 37 now you didn't include those other two that you just just recently did on yesterday and on last week. And certainly I know that you just got your budget double for the conviction integrity. Don't say
that too loud, I guess. Yeah. So let me just add to that. And I want to, I want to make sure this is clear, because we talked about people who are brought to us that people want us to charge that doesn't account for in any profession, the police officers, the teachers, the prosecutors, whoever that, do an excellent job. Every day we are seeing people that are brought to us by a police department to make sure that those in their ranks are lawful and law abiding and doing what they're supposed to do. And I think everybody knows in Wayne County, we will. We're not afraid of that, you know, like I said, like that, and I'm not holding myself. I'm just saying what the truth is. We've got to be willing to make to admit when we make mistakes. We've got to be willing to take the slings and arrows when people think we're taking too long. And we've got to stand tall and make sure that justice is done. And like I said, we're not perfect. We don't always get it right, but we should have tried damn hard to get it
right. Well, we thank you very much, and we appreciate you immensely. I think this, commissioners Smith,
thank you through the Chair.
I just want to say thank you, Madam Prosecutor, you've been a name that has rang in my household for quite some time. My step father, who was once your supervisor, who you work with, Morton tacking, probably wouldn't recognize it, because we are two different colors, but
was one of my first doctor, attorney, supervisors when I was a baby prosecutor, yes,
yeah, so. But I just want to thank you personally. I had a case that you just got from up under you that the whole city has been going crazy over that was very personal to me. I thank you for taking your time. I thank you for the findings. I thank you for the soon to be conviction. I just want to thank you, and that's with naziah Here
they thank you. That was a heartbreak for us all. But again, let me just leave by saying the bailiff case was not a Detroit Police Department officer. It was 36 District Court. I would have been upset if chief white released evidence in a case where it's not one of his officers,
you heard that, Chief, what I sure did. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Prosecutor. God bless you.
Okay,
the prosecutor will receive me. Okay,
yes, go ahead.
Blessings to you and your household. Who's here, secure, worthy love? Is he in charge with anything? Because when he did not hear on the scene, he should have had down. That's the protocol, because they outrank him. Well, first of all, that's not factual.
That's not factual. And what you just said, and like I said, from the very beginning, we are near to making a decision whenever the other in that case,
in a couple of weeks seen in the media. And that's the problem. We gotta believe something. Well, you
do, but you have to no one recognize it, not and like I said, like I said before, no disrespect to people in the media, okay, they don't always get it right, and they don't have the evidence to be have. And just like you see on TV, this is one thing. Well, I will say this. Like TV, we don't tell everything so you don't know everything that we have, and that thing that you don't know about may be the key, and whether we make a decision or not. So again, that's a case that we will be making a decision on soon. Last one, Commissioner
Bill,
thank you, Mr. Chair,
I go. Can I go out there? I mean, Commissioner Bill, police,
finish up. Finish her before, because she, she has to go to are
you? Are you know, I'm also, I'm all set. You good,
yeah, all right. Commissioner Bell,
Madam Prosecutor, I just wanted to say thank you for my years experience. I recall when you first came to prosecutor office, and 1971 and 70s, the police officer had the opportunity to sit in the jury box until judge Crockett changed it whole scenario. And I want to say that I speak to the academy class in their class about Mali case, malas green, historically, that changed the whole probability of police offers not just for Detroit across this country, and we deal with more justice equals justice for all police officers are not above the law. And I just want to say to you, you did an outstanding job. So just keep on. Keep on. Keep on. Thank you for the Chairman of inviting you here, and I hope that the board take time to listen to what you had to say over and over again. But the bottom line is, we are not the shifting for the community. We are for the police commissioner. We have a higher standard of what we see on TV and what we hear in the community. I've been a commissioner almost 13 years. I haven't had one community person come to me walking the hall video camera, since the gallery here, but we should not be the cheerleader. Thank you, madam.
It's interesting because when I did that case back in 1993 we did that case with no video, no, no, that we had forensic evidence either. We did it an old fashioned way that we tried cases at the time, we relied on witnesses that were truthful and were not afraid to come forward, and two juries believed them. And so now we have so many other tools, which is great, but we wish we'd have those tools back then, but I don't know if you all know that that's the first case in the United States of America where police officers that were on duty were convicted of murder. So very proud of that case still. But also, when you think about it, you think, have we really come and I'm not talking about Detroit, I'm talking about across the country, have we really come that far from there, right? And so that's another thing, but that's a whole topic for another
conversation. Cannot go live change on that. Go ahead. Thank you. Prosecutor, there is, I'm advocating for family, and I they sent me a video. I literally saw DDD, the detective when he's interrogating a young man that helped a man for 14 years. Prosecutor worthy. He's been in there 14 years, and the second name is Detective Shay with the Detroit Police Department. I got the video the family sent me, and he committed his conduct. The gentleman had sold the alibi, but he did not say that. He gave my alibi, and now he's serving 14 years in prison. His name is Mario Willis, and the families reaching out to me. I'm just trying to help him fight for him all I can. I know the mother. She's a prominent lady. My name is Maxine.
She don't say the mother name on that. Sorry. Is that the case with the firefighter? Yes,
I know that case.
Yes. Okay, thank you
very aware. Okay, let's
go. I'm all set here. She aware of it. I'm all set. Okay,
thank you. Thank you, Madam Prosecutor, and enjoy your harvest day. Hallelujah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Alright, let's go to the budget presentation by Drew freeze, and Then we go to the chief of police report you
you may be hurt, may be heard. I'm sorry.
Thank you. Chairman woods, honorable board, it's good to see you walking through a couple budgetary items today, those being information regarding the market research results for OCI senior and supervising investigators pay looking at the city's budget timeline, looking at a in Progress, working draft for the B C's fiscal 2022, five to 26 submission, giving a private support on communication with DPD to receive the police department's budget draft, and then asking for feedback and considerations for the board of police commissioners. Applause, back when labor relations started working with the union on the union investigative pay for the OCI team, a market research study was done to look at standard compensation. The titles that were reviewed were the OCI investigators, the senior investigators and the supervising investigators. This was conducted in September of 2023 and cities across the nation were polled. We go to the next page. The results of that market study helped the city and the union come together on the on the agreed upon, on the agreed upon salary increases that have actualized for the OCI investigators, their salaries increased, on average, from 54,500 to 62,000 these actualized as of when the contract was signed, which is July 1 of 2024, and the salaries were increased in early October of this year. Part of this research shows what is the standard rate of pay for seniors and supervising investigators, and we can see these below in the green. Now, before the board is the opportunity to learn from this market research and look at what is being recommended in that proposal. From the from the market research, we can see that these bands across investigators, senior investigators and supervising investigators do not overlap, and it is at this time that we just using this to share this information, turning the page to the budget timeline. At the end of September, the fiscal year. Budget cycle began for the city the week of November, 11, drafts are submitted to the budget department throughout the city. The end of January, a review draft back from the budget department is given back to the OPC. Late February, the city budgets are finalized. Early March, the mayor presents the collective Detroit budget to city council, and mid March, department hearings are given with City Council.
We can turn the page. So where we are at in this cycle is building the B, O, P, C, budget for next year. We're looking at a working draft. And essentially where this is at now is pulling everything forward in what our capabilities and the size of our staff is in the current year, and projecting that forward into next year. So the size of our OCI team the same our capabilities, including the the wing swept case management system, is the same, and now presents the opportunity to add to this budget and to include increased capabilities other budgetary initiatives that we hope to accomplish in next year. So this is, this is what is being presented to the board as we seek you feedback and budgetary initiative ideas in review. From what took place last year, we increased the budget by more than $800,000 which represents a 21% increase when the budget was submitted last year. This large increase was for the purpose of clearing the backlog. Originally, what was submitted is bringing in 28 task workers to the OCI team. What was decided upon is that, instead of temporary workers, we increase OCI team by six investigators. What was accepted by the city is that was a one time payment, and so in June of this year, those six investigators, based on what was accepted, could potentially go away, and the word that was used in the in the Budget Committee meeting, is catastrophic in terms of what that new team of OCI investigators is accomplishing. So number one on the budget priorities going into next year is making sure that that this is not a one time increase, but this is our team moving forward,
turning the page.
Mr. CO was the CFO for DPD he's been a great partner. The BC did not receive dpds budget on the timeline in which they submitted it to the budget department, allowing for enough time for BL PC to review that budget. So going into this year, we've been in partnership with Mr. Musargo and aligned to that. We're hoping BC receives that budget in a more appropriate timeline. The communication here, and I can read commissioners arco as the budget department has locked in the baseline with the mayor's office. We now sit at the beginning of the budget cycle for the 25 to 26 fiscal year. I want to thank you for your continued partnership and commitment to deliver dpds budget for the BPC for review as guided by the city charter. The BPC is requesting you see the police department's budget draft on the same timeline of when it is to submit submitted to the budget department in early November. Mr. Zarco, this is formal request to receive Detroit Police Department's 25 to 25th 26th fiscal budget draft by Friday, November 8. This cadence allows for the board of police commissioners the needed time for review of head of whatever the budgets are finalized in early 2025 thank you for your help and advocacy in this deliverable. Commissioners are responded. I realize the board's desire to receive dpds budget requests earlier than previous years. However, I would like to clarify to you and the board's presentation and submission of dpds budget request is done by the chief, and I am going to work with him in his office to facilitate requests. Also, I'm not sure if budget draft requests will be ready by November 8. PLP, sees response back to Mr. Zarco. Mr. Zarco, thank you for working with Chief white to facilitate B, o, p, c s, request to receive D, p, d s, budget draft for review as guided by the city charter. Thank you for the feedback on November 8. If this date is not feasible, the P, O, P C would ask to receive D, p, d s, budget draft when it is sent to the device budget department the following week, November 13, deadline. Thank you for the partnership, commissioners arco. We're still awaiting a response from commissioners arco, but I wanted to give that update to the board. It takes us to our last page. Considerations for brpc At this time, you
seeing on the horizon the budget submission. Just this morning, this budget draft that's being presented was sent out to to board of police commissioners to ask for the feedback and budgetary initiative ideas. Want to call it again that these six OCI investigator full time employees are number one on a priority list going into next year. And then it has been told from the budget department that the total city baseline has shown that there are less available funds for increase than last year's budget cycle submission. So although we were able to increase the budget by 21% from last year, we have been told that there's less opportunity to increase by that much going into next year for our OCI team. As it stands today, the OCI investigators have increased their pay by 14% and is now in line with compensation market standards, whereas the seniors and supervisors maintain unchanged pay, which is currently below market standards. And then finally, consideration on the alignment with DPD, on sending their budget draft to the P O, P C, that concludes my presentation. Thank you very much.
Yes, sir,
thank you. Chair.
Appreciate the report. Obviously, I'm familiar with the content, given that I'm on the Budget Committee, I just have a question, if we could bring back the slides. I can't remember slide four or five, but are we at any risk? And I'm just intending the pressure test, are we at any risk of not being able to contain the additional six investigators that we added if we're not approved for the 2526 budget? I know you mentioned the 21% increase, which resulted in instead of task employees, it resulted in the six full time investigators. If we don't get approved, are we at risk of not being able to retain them? It's
been my understanding from working with the budget department that they they understand how big of a priority this is for the BBC as well as the mayor's office as well as City's Council, and there's a lot of alignment that clearing the backlog is a priority for everyone. So when I say there's zero risk, no, but I think that there is a very good chance that we will maintain this the current size of the team for the OCI and the greater board of police
commissioners, and that factors in the increase in salaries. It does Perfect.
Thank you. Thank you for this presentation. Sorry about that. The this is really a large measure for the for the chief, there has been a tremendous influx of cash money to the city of Detroit as a result of their of the various federal legislative initiatives that were have been initiated in the last year or so. Those are our those initiatives are gone. Will be gone next year. It has impacted our budget, and certainly impacted the department's budget, what sort, what's, what's your projection with respect to what's going to happen with this, the revenues, not just the DPD, but us, because we're all in tandem together, as well as with the city. Because it's my understanding, at least from other people, that the 200 officers that you hired as a result of the big influx of cash that we got, in large measure, we don't have a way of paying for them in the future, you know, but their total compensation, benefits, all that kind of stuff and and my question to you drew on The same point is, what's your projection for the commission as a result of this tightening of the of the budget based on national debt, everything else
through the chair, Commissioner Bernard, as It relates to the budgetary the budgetary issues that you inquired, I can forward that to the agency, CFO to get you a response. I am unable to speak to that intelligently. And last thing I want to do is provide this body some inaccurate information, so I will take that as an action item and get a response for you by next meeting.
You I know that we're part
of the microphone microphone.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I know that we're part of the general fund, but I mean, we've got to look at the reality of overall funding and how for the city of Detroit, and how that's going to impact the commission and our staff
Absolutely. So when we look at where the BPC budget has been over the last five years, I would say that it's been underfunded as a department in the city of Detroit. So that increase in this last year for 21% I think, got us back to close to whole. And so our approach going into next year, understanding that there are less increased funds available, is to think about it the same way. Give our priorities of what is most important and ask for what is needed to be asked based on the judgment of the board, and then in the current fiscal year, any favorability or money that's being that is not being spent, we do our best to utilize those funds just as like what we're doing in the current fiscal
year. Commissioner,
thank you, Mr. Chair. I would just have the commission note on the page that indicates the 2025 draft budget. If you look at that page, you'll see that last year's budget was 4.5 million, and what we're asking for in 2526 is 4.4 million. So it would seem to me that we're asking for less. It should be approved. In fact, that also includes the six new mean, the six investigators, right? And then the increase in the OCI staff, including the projected increase that we're still waiting for, for the supervisors of the OCI. Is that correct? That is correct. So all of those are included, and we still are asking for less this year than last year. So what I would recommend is that we increase that budget and ask for everything that we need, rather than submitting a budget that's less that would be my recommendation through
the Chair. Yes. Thank you. Commissioner Garza de Walsh, this is, this is where the numbers that are at now halfway through that process, which is why we're asking for feedback from the commissioners of what else can be done and to then add to this budget request.
Thank you.
That's correct. Thank
you. All right,
what can be done is we get grants, which is what I've been saying for three, four years. Now, we don't have a single grant, which makes no sense. The Foundation, of course, can act as our fiduciary but we have to actively pursue federal and state grants which we're entitled to. So that's the problem, yep,
yep. And so Mr. Fleas and I have been in a robust conversation, as well as bringing in Commissioner Dewas, who is to chair the Budget Committee to explore those options, and we're looking at that. He has talked to some of the grant folks for the city of Detroit, and we absolutely, absolutely going to pursue that. And I'll just say that, you know, we are now at a staffing level where we are spending the money now, and we also exploring bringing in task workers where we would be able to spend even more money of the budget now. I think what it was is that we wasn't spending the money and we didn't have the positions filled, and that brought us under a lot of criticism, and now we are right sizing the ship in terms of staffing, and they are doing a tremendous job and doing these investigations, and in fact, we'll be working with the Chair of the citizen complaint committee and this board to have a press conference within the next two weeks to be able to say where we at with that. And I think this, again, this community is going to be utterly amazed in terms of the direction that this board is going in. And so thank you. Is anything else before you close up, Chairman, I
just simply, frankly, want to congratulate you on what you've done in terms of pushing us forward, in terms of filling positions that was your initiative. I mean, you said we need to do something about this and and you actually did it. So I do think a lot of that credit goes to you, and, of course, also to my fellow Commissioner, Jesus, we're moving the right direction. And thank you for that leadership while
work for that guy down there, you know, saying I did what he told me to do, absolutely right, you know. And we got to we as a board, got the job done, because there's no high 18. So thank you and have a pleasure. We're gonna go to the chief of police report. Thank you.
Good evening to this honorable body and those in attendance, both virtually and in person. My name is Franklin Hayes, Deputy Police Chief, and I will be providing, yep.
Sorry. I will be providing the Chiefs
report
for today's meeting. Want to start with our crime data. We continue to trend favorably in our efforts to continue to reduce crime here in our city. Year to date,
try to cut all the pork out the diet. I got to take my grandson to trunk and treat to so, you know, let's go.
We're down 39 less homicides, actual victims, 182 less non fatal shooting victims, which is 221 over this time last year. We're down 197 less robberies. Down 745 total Part One violent crime incidents here in the city, we still continue to work with the those that are in the mental health crisis. Have we responded to 12,797 calls for service this year, which is approximately 800 more than last year. We are thankful, bittersweet, but we will have a partner at D when here shortly, that will hopefully get the residents here, certainly the city of Detroit and Wayne County, the help that they need, because this is not a policing issue. Want to talk three significant events. One was a fatal shooting that happened in the 12,000 block of Bram when officers responded to the scene and found the victim lying in the backseat of a vehicle, shuffling from a gunshot wound to his chest. Detective determined that two suspects dressed in all black approached the victim and witnesses as they sat in the vehicle and announced a robbery. The suspect took the victim and witnessed his property then shocked the shot the victim while he was in the backseat of the car. We're asking anyone with information on this incident, contact Crime Stoppers at one 800 speak up or Detroit rewards TV. Children getting shot unsecured firearms is not acceptable. It is not okay. And we had another incident that happened this past Wednesday in the 4000 block of West Grand Street, where, after an interview of a three year old that was in critical condition with two gunshot wounds to the stomach and the right side, it was determined that the father was the suspect, And he was placed under arrest. The detectives are now preparing a warrant to be submitted to the Wayne County prosecutor's office, Madam Prosecutor, who just left to hold that individual accountable. We also had another child shot Wednesday morning at 7:03am in the 15,000 block of 10 field where someone shot up the house and a nine year old was grazed in the back. The men and women assigned to organized crime, commercial auto theft, began the work. We are proud to announce that there was an arrest made. Four individuals were arrested, and the firearm utilized in that was recovered. They've been responsible for some other crimes here in the city as well. They went on a trip to carjack others, a small spree, but they are now in custody and will be held accountable. The last incident is one that just a slap in the face of the legacy to those that serve this country, and that is that on Wednesday the 23rd that morning, under darkness, the statue of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Jefferson was defaced, cut down and ultimately stolen from its place in Rouge Park. We put a plea out to this community who was absolutely outraged again for the disrespect, and working through tips and information, we were able to recover the statue. We made an arrest where the individual confessed. So now we are working with Director crystal Perkins, GSD and the generous donors that helped fund this project, as well as the artist to restore and bring the statute back home where it belongs, and still hold the individual accountable responsible for that. Yesterday, we had a visit from the White House where the White House Domestic Policy Advisor came to audit the department. We did receive some ARPA funding, and they were designed the program for specific things. So it was a check in. So they came in, in essence, audited us to make sure that we spent the money how we said we would spend them. And from that, they were able to see our fleet enhancements, our new helicopter, some upgrades in the real time crime center as well as our training center. So that went extremely well. We did what we were supposed to do, as the White House came to check and see and listeners, you mentioned chair today Halloween, and indeed, each of our precincts, we encourage the community to stop by. We enjoy free candy. We'll have entertainment, honey houses and also face painting, so we look to enjoy an evening of fun with our community here tonight. Commissioner, I've trimmed the pork as you directed, and that completes the chief's report, and I can answer any questions that you
may have. Yep, Commissioner, banks,
thank you for this year. Blessings to Union household, Deputy Chief, Deputy Chief of when does, when does it require when an officer needs to be retrained? Because, as I looked at the video with Detroit Lions, wide receiver Jameson Williams. They were showing that on the news and Sergeant on site. They had a sergeant on site. He was calling around. Jameson Williams did not have Cpl. His brother had a CPL on site, authority on site, calling around, asking other officers in his CPL, carry Jameson Williams, CPL, didn't have a Cpl. That's just basic protocol, one
on one,
my CPL cannot carry my brother's Cpl. I'm I'm not a police officer, though, and it appears that Sergeant, Sergeant on site authority may need to be in some retraining. When does that come to mind with TPD staff and authority. So, yeah, so through the chair. So now that was mentioned, that was no hearsay. I saw the video on Fox two news.
Yes, thank you. Through the
Chair. I just need to make public comment in the sense of for the record, the comments made by our colleague are not factual. None of us know what the facts are. I heard the video does. It's irresponsible to come off, especially in the seat that we're holding, as if we are presenting facts, or if, as if we're in court right now.
Do you want to hear the video? We're not. I heard the video. Detroit called so all around the people asking in his video, his CPO Gary Jameson Williams,
Commissioner banks.
Video, excuse me, I heard the video. That's facts.
I think what Commissioner Hernandez alludes to, did you hear the body cam video, or did you look at a new port?
Need the process to carry out? That's right? Yeah, you
know that was that's that's a sound bite. That's not the video. It's just
irresponsible to make comments that are ridiculously preliminary and ongoing investigation. If we can't comprehend that, I can't help it. Well,
I'm just letting you know what I heard the sergeant say,
you heard the news report? No, that was a sergeant. Well, I'm saying you heard the news. Excuse me, sir, the you heard a news report. You didn't hear the body cam video, you know. So that's, that's, that's what the news reports it. I'm sure. We don't know how long the body cam video is. We don't know exactly what happened in this situation. We don't even know the law, okay, you know the law is the law, you know. And I tell you this, that I wouldn't want any African American young man to be treated whether he's Mr. Jameson or whether he's my cousin. This commission has been actively involved in advocating against some of these stops that has been going on, you know? And so we don't want citizens, whether you be a football player or whether you be Joe Blow on the street, to be treated in an unconstitutional way. And so we need to get the facts out, you know, because we don't really know what happened, you know. And I think that mister Jameson deserve due process and for all of the facts to come out in this situation, and then we can allow the facts to speak for itself. And we heard Madam Prosecutor that said that this case is before her, and that he will be making a decision in this case, you know, and so I'm sure that the deputy chief would not speak on an ongoing investigation. I know he wouldn't do that, but you know, but you want to speak on it? No, sir,
I
would not speak on that matter, as you indicated. I would just say department takes every opportunity we can to train our officers to ensure that they are delivering the best policing services possible to the residents here the city of Detroit,
that was through chair, that was going to be my attempt to refocus us, is that despite, you know, our opinions around what is facts or not facts, I think that the commissioners question was, rather, when does department trigger training, when it needs to be had? And so I just wanted that to be addressed, despite the details of being murky,
right? All right, absolutely.
I'm trying to chair other microphones.
Yeah, use this microphone
just as a final note on that. First of all, you have to have probable cause to search a vehicle hover on the subject, so, or at least reasonable suspicion. I mean, there are other issues other than just the gun. I mean, if you stop me, you don't have a right to stop, to search my vehicle. You have to ask my permission. Quite frankly, even if there is an ever even if I have a license that says I have a CPL, there are a lot of issues. And I think that the chief knows that as well. So I think he's looking at all those issues through
the chair, yeah, yes, sir,
you know, question for the chief, you know, appears that the officers made a good stop. Number one, the question that I have in mind is, is that who gave the order for the officers not to arrest also, will you be making a video and audio available to this body
through the chair, as chief white indicated yesterday, this is under an internal affairs review, and a warrant has been submitted to the Wayne County prosecutor's office based on the decision, and when that charging decisions come down, we will then take the next steps in transparency.
But the question I asked, I raised here is, who gave the order for the officers to stand down. They made a good stop. Somebody had to give the order.
Was a good stop. That's not
good. Yep, yes. Speak through the chair. Again.
You answer the question, Chief,
again through the chair that is under Internal affairs investigation. The report will be made to the body, to this body, once it's concluded.
What's the time frame for this, for this investigation?
Through the Chair, I
believe the chief indicated 30 days. Okay,
all right, all right.
There's been nothing else we're going to or topic. No, through the Chair, I
got another question. The question, another question I have is, on the behalf of Detroiters, reaching out concerned about a sergeant that was killed here in the city of Detroit by the same department that's the office involved shooting, we have a policy that this board has adopted and approved, When will that video and audio will be made available to the to this board, as well as
the 911 calls through
through the chair, within the time frame that the chief has committed to to releasing all officer involved videos. That will happen, sir, we are well within that time frame. Okay,
I will make sure that closer to the day, and I bring this up again understood, because the public has a right to want to know what's really going on here, especially we as commissioners, need to exercise our fiduciary responsibility to get to the bottom of this for something like this to never happen again. We're talking about a 16 year veteran officer who was a sergeant who, you know, who, who was loved by his by this department, but something went wrong that day, and we don't we want to know from our fiduciary responsibility what went wrong, but we won't know until we hear the 911 Call, until we see all of the available
facts,
absolutely anything further. There has been nothing further. We're going to go to all communications.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, we have 11 speakers. I'll call the first three speakers, Minister Eric blunt, Miss Bernie Smith, black bag brew,
Commissioner woods. Chairperson woods, yes, sir, I'm very disappointed that you would bring the prosecutor's office in here and let them have a one sided narrative about what happens to citizens. Why not also bring in a wrongfully convicted person, fresh out of prison for 20 years? Maybe then we'll hear the other side of this story. We'll do that. You should have done it right here, right now so we could hear them both at the same time. That's my real issue, and that's the real scandal here, because don't forget, she at least mentioned that 99% of the people released under wrongful convictions are black men. But not only that, all this release of information, I believe she's absolutely wrong about not releasing Hollywood camera footage. It's a piece of evidence. No, it's not everything, but it's a piece of evidence. And when the police have a suspect that has not had due process, they still release the name, the picture, the video of what may have been this person. And yes, police have the constitutional right to lie to citizens, but a citizen lying to police is criminally charged with a felony. How does that happen? And also the police, if you have a suspect that hasn't had due process and all these things, him worthy says she wants to wait to release the video, you can still take that person and have them under custody for 72 hours
without being charged.
This is a sick and corrupted system, and you gotta get it right, because not only black men, but all people are in danger of this. One hour in prison is enough to change a person's life forever and their families and their communities. Thank you. Thank you.
We may be hurt.
Thank you. Let me, let you know I've been with the police department under Coleman Young since 73 I've learned quite a bit about the citizens and the police department, and when you have people come up here that complains and complain, I said it last week, if you don't have a solution, shut your mouth up or investigate yourself now you're talking about him. Kim was my daughter. I started with her in her campaign. When she became the prosecutor for staring hutch, I had a business right a block away. When all this happened, I was able to see what they did to that young man the police was across the street at a liquor store, and they were looking out the window at all the blacks that was in front of that liquor store. And when they saw Starsky, I don't know what he did, and he got in the car with his friends, and they followed them, three blocks down on 2030, and one. I can tell you about it, but we don't have the time to tell you, and that's when that happened, and that's when Kim became the prosecutor, and she did that case. I watched her grow through the years. I worked on her campaign. When she was the judge, she was a good judge, and then she became the prosecutor. So I've been in this city a hell of a long time, and I know the good ones and I know the bad ones. So as far as my police concerned, I love them dearly, and I've always told you they have risked their lives when they put that uniform on to take care of all of us. And we don't realize that. I realize it. I happen to be 92 years old, so I know what I'm talking about, and don't ever compare Detroit against Chicago, because that's my hometown. So I know what Chicago would do. We have a campaign going on. Say nothing about it, but I'm telling you, vote and don't vote with Trump, because he's a racist. I encountered him myself. I can tell you about it right here in the city of Detroit. He wanted to build a hotel
here. Okay, that's time, all right, next speaker.
Next speaker is black bag, Bill burn and after Mr. Wilburn, Lieutenant Mark young. You
that's it. Hold on.
I think it's election.
Come on up. No, not, not you guys, he's first and huh,
agitated.
Bless heart, man. Hey, there was y'all can start the clock now. Last week, I had something to say to you. I showed up in person. I've been talking to people that you was locked up with over at Ryan all the time, and I told you, when lock call you to ask, tell them yeah. Rubinski Ruth went to waves, told you what I told you last week, what you so upset about, and what you did was these board members voted to subpoena the record. You went in the next morning, and you told the Acting Secretary to send a letter, because you've been talking to somebody over at the Michigan State Police now, board members, citizens, residents, taxpayers, city of Detroiters. Man, as you sucked the board's attorney, you did the same thing Willie Bill did. And then Jim Holly the snake oil salesman that too. And contest plastic and purchasing and you just trying to follow in a footsteps. Now, Hey, man, listen, Nini asked me for some help. That's what she gonna get. And her birthday was 1013 she didn't get what she wanted. On her birthday, Kenisha birthday, 1015 she didn't canisha did. Man, somebody killed her. She didn't shoot herself. The police, Detroit Police is trying to contend that Tanisha was left handed. It's trying to continue. She took a gun and shot herself in the abdomen, left side. She's left handed, diamond hand. Never use her right hand for nothing to shoot herself in the left side, in the abdomen, through it the womb. No bullet fragment recovered, no suicide weapon at the scene and lies then told by the suspects who turned into witnesses, and Jeffrey Hudson changing the original determination of homicide to suicide. And then you doing what you did. You serving the board's authorities just too much. Mimi. Gotta get with the F she won't you standing in the way you got to go somebody on this board make a motion and remove this Chairman from his position next
and To everybody here. My name is Chief Master Sergeant, Bill horn, Detroit chapter, tuskegederman. We are here. Cost of the incident. AC talked about a while ago, when I first heard about it, I got mad. I mean, I really got mad. I really have a Vietnam flashback on somebody. And you know, because this was a slap in the face to me, that's all we've been to. And I've been with the tuskegeever since 1948 so I know everything about him, about Jeff and everybody else. Jeff was a guy that everybody loved when we had the
dedication out there, 38 of his old students showed up, took his dedication. Debbie Stabenow, Rashida talavi, Debbie Dingell Coleman Young, he better have been there, unless I would kill him. But
you know this, this really hurt. And when I, when I got the call and said that they had found a statue, I was drunk for joy. I'm here on behalf of the Detroit chapter Tuskegee Airman and my partner. He's going to speak a few seconds to give this this book by Colonel Justin. It's called red tail. Red Tail captured. Red Tail free. This is Story of of Colonel Jeff himself. Tells all about his story, and I'm going to present this to Detroit Police Department, just trying to show them some kind of thanks for what they did. They did a job that I really appreciate.
Also I want to add on to what Bill said. You know, you always hear that the bad news about the police, but when they do a great job, people don't even appreciate it. They don't appreciate it. Now, see something, hear something, say something, communities got to get involved too, you know. So on behalf of the Tuskegee Airmen Detroit chapter, also, I want to present this to the chief. This is a hat I was a military policeman, so I know how hard it is to be in a police officer. And also on the back of there is a first combat unit in Vietnam, the 1/73 Airborne Brigade, wow, right. And also blue history, bass Reed was a black slave, legendary black hero Marshall. He was the first black us deputy Marshal. He arrested over 3000 people. He arrested his own son when his son committed a crime. So Wow. The long range. He was a real Lone Ranger. God bless you, sir,
God bless you.
Ask for your service. Want
to say something to
him, to our veterans from the Tuskegee Airmen on behalf at a point of order to our veterans who've served this country honorably, there have been many books and movies about the struggles that it takes just for you to fight for our freedom on behalf of the men and women of the Detroit Police Department. We thank you. It is our pleasure to serve you and certainly to bring justice in honor of the late Lieutenant Colonel. Thank you for the gestures chief white. We'll absolutely enjoy them, and we will memorialize the book and the other items here at Detroit Public Safety headquarters. And again,
we say thank you. Wonderful applause. Mr. Chair, if we can, if we could do after the meeting, thank you. Next, next person.
Our next speaker will be Mr. Vincent Bennett, Miss Williams and Mr. Foster, and then we're going to zoom you.
Sure, can you have a seat?
Good evening to everyone. Good evening to the board. This is my very first time ever attending such a function of this magnitude. I was invited by Officer yesterday. I was here to get some assistance with some community service, and she told me to come to the she invited me to the meetings that come out, and I can be some distinguished people such as the board, and maybe I can get some added assistance in my community. I live in the ninth precinct district area of the city of Detroit, and yeah, this gun violence stuff has been getting completely out of control. And the reason why the officers are having such a hard problem doing a horrific job, and they doing the best that they can, you know, I think everybody that's in this room feel the same way, because everybody in this room had the same kind of goal. But the only thing we have to do now, I think it's all of us work collectively together, you know, we have to put away somehow personal indifferences on our bias opinions on whatever that circumstance may arise at that point in time. Because, like you said, Commissioner chair that you know, it it take all of us, you know, and it take and, and as the process, Madam Prosecutor was speaking, you know, we can't, we can't let things distract us. First of all, we all got to do. We got to, we got to listen to the facts. The reason why we don't have a lot of people speaking up saying something is because, such as myself, we can terrorize, you know, and I don't want to, like the investigator came out today to my house before I came to the meeting, and, like I told him, I said, Hey, I don't want to contribute to the problem. I'm here today to talk about, let's, let's, you know, all become team players. Let's continue to be team players. And if we do that, I think we can get all of everybody job and have a great solution as the resolutions that we all have here, sitting, you know, at the table before I'm gonna come back again, I'm here to speak. I'm here to even do intern. I'm here to help assist, but I'm also here. I just wanted to say that, you know, okay, thank
you. Thank you. Can
I ask you one quick question? Yes, sir, this year, brother, you mentioned a ninth precinct, right? That's correct. I live in a ninth precinct. I can, can we talk afterwards? We need some type of help system. Yes, sir,
let's talk afterwards. No problem. Thank you. Have a great day.
Next
speaker, yep, go ahead. Go ahead. Deputy Chief,
thank you. Mr. Chair. Also second deputy chief, Kyra joy, hope is in the audience. If they can connect, we can begin right now making sure that we get the services that our resident needs.
Absolutely you may be heard through
the chair, abuse of authority, equality and justice for all I've been complaining about officers in the shelters. So Cheyenne is an officer that was at 1200 Well, 12 900 West Chicago, the officer I was complaining about concerning her daughter, um, Officer Holdman worked here, and he's the officer also, but she was, she's she was at 3426 Mack, but last night, well, 2am this morning, class of 24 one of their office got into a fight at the shelter. They was going blow the ball. This is not acceptable when you are in the shelter, and I'm quite sure they have they weapons too, because you're not going to leave your weapons unattended. You in the facility taking up space for homeless people. I've been complaining about this, definitely chiefs. I mean, hay said there's no officers in the shelter because it have to, because of Chief White House to sign off on it, whatever the case is, I'm fully aware of officers in that facility, not just the class of 24 it's a lot of people that's been on the force for a long time. And I'm not going to give them the courtesy of the you know, out of respect, I'm not going to even mention they name, but we going to talk about that one. The bottom line is, I don't care what nobody say in this room, if you're not going to do your job correctly, don't nobody need to be around sitting down and acting like everything is okay, like when our mark was for the commission, had your job when I made complaints not conclusive, so he got fired for all this illegal stuff. So I'm going back from 21 all the complaints I didn't made against officers not respecting a job. They badges abusive authority.
Thank you. Right?
You stop being disruptive in this meeting, sir,
thank you.
You continue to be disruptive in our meeting, sir
to the chair.
Someone is clapping that's not being disruptive. I mean, people do that in solidarity when they speak, when someone that they agree with they're speaking. You had a lady that was in the meeting, but you had a lady that was you had a citizen that was just speaking at at the podium, and he was clapping on the behalf of something that she saw
that order to make a motion at this time to remove girl was as chair, you may, you may be heard, sir, being disruptive. You out of order, sir.
You just point of order. You Disrupt. Abuse me. Excuse
me,
yes, sir, you may be heard.
Good evening. Um, good evening through the chair. Uh, just few things, uh, this evening. I don't know how commander Decker has done my op store much better in this situation. In light of the news, I hope that you guys keep DC Hayes in mind for some line of promotion or level. He's done a very, very good job out here being visible in the community. Thirdly, when we have citizens up here that come up and over a year, I'm not sure if anyone else heard it, but she's been in the shelter over a year. That's too long, and we could find some type of social work and get permanent housing that may alleviate some of these grievances that continue to come in on a weekly basis. Um, fourth,
at the time is not clicking.
Yeah, that's all right. I'm sorry, but fourth thing is, when it comes down to our investigations, I think highlighted 60 million in dollars in overtime, we need to be more considered about what we are actually saying,
Hold on. The time is not clicking on the screen. Someone needs to keep over time. Let me know when the time is working, or someone take the time.
I'll take over in just a moment.
Sir. Oh, yeah, yeah. So
I think I apologize. I appreciate you all. I think that's important that we do better management. I know community have a lot of Outlook and rage about things, but I think that time and effort investigating what went on with the young black man, as I see him, could be further used and as having a new policies. We don't have to keep spending money on overtime to to appease things. We have to better use our finances. And just like I equally advocate for anybody else. I advocate for some form of compassion for that young man as well. So there was a sergeant domestic violence. One of the things I continue to advocate for, and question is, how are officers with these issues living outside of this community, and if they're doing these behaviors outside of their community, how are they conducting themselves in uniform within our community? And so those things have to be evaluated. No use this last time. I as well, am an Air Force veteran. I as well, invaded Iraq, oh three. And they're just coincidental with the same unit this young man was talking about 1/73, airborne brigade, March, 26 of oh three. And then, just to further give the public some information about Tuskegee Airmen, we often hear one side of them in the Red Tails. It's very important that you understand equally the other side and the contribution that was made to civil rights in the form of our former mayor, COVID young. And if you ever get time, hopefully you could Google it today. It's called the Freedom field mutiny. We need to feel good. Freeman Field mutiny. And I appreciate you guys the
service. And thank you, thank you for your service, and thank you for all that you do for this community next, next year. Yes, the
security officers out there, they say, when you close that door, it locks. So yeah. So people go, keep knocking on it if it's closed. So yeah, and it was locked.
We got this. Mother Smith, yes, thank you sir quite well, yep. All right. Next speaker,
we're going to zoom. Our first speaker will be Mr. Dante Smith, then Mr. Former Commissioner William Davis, and our last speaker Is Miss Denise Lyles,
you may be heard.
July, Javonte Smith, good afternoon.
Good afternoon. So
I want to say very, very interesting to see the prosecutor here. I'm so sad I missed that. I want to thank Chief white for leaving, because he makes way for one of the best publishers I've ever met in my life, Chief, Chief medicine. I want to also talk about the fact that there will you serve all of that time in prison. And you know, you know of duvante Sanford, correct, and how his his pipe was under the same prosecutor, all the juvenile lifers that you're supposed to be working to bring home, right? You know of all these people who have been in these situations under the same prosecutor, and you bring your hair like your friends with her, which you probably are, because that's that's how you act. So I'm not gonna get off you, though, when I'm talking about Sergeant dowdy and homicide was doing a terrible job, Batman needs to be investigated. There's an active complaint against him. I also want to talk about the fact that Sherman Lee Butler was murdered, and we tell the commissioners that, oh, we don't have all the evidence. That's why the transparency of this board is to help get evidence out to citizens, to residents, so we can know what's going on. We don't care what you got. If you don't give it to us, you find something right? That's the whole thing about that. I did witness something good today my officer. I see an officer with a CIT situation at a gas station in all the CIT officers, officers responding kind of quick. I You guys got to get credit to Chief white for that, but there have been so many mentally ill people murdered under this department, under this this current chief, who's leaving out under his watch, which is very, very, uh, unfortunate, um, also this board. The purpose of this board is to question the officers. Is to question, what happens with officers? We even got DC. I got complain against the DC, a deputy chief of police, not not Franklin Hayes, but DC. Hope we got her line on me for no, no apparent reason. You know, so we have bad leadership. Sometimes, sometimes we have good leadership. Sometimes we have bad leadership. Not talking about DC case, he does a pretty good job. But you know this, this meeting is to talk about bad officers, not to specifically praise. We can talk about some of the situations. This is for bad officers.
Thank you. Next caller.
Next caller,
good afternoon. Can I be heard? Yes, sir. Okay, I think this board should do a better job and should intentionally lobby the mayor and city council. I have some issues with this board, but I think one of the things I need to do is to increase your budget, especially in so much as the number of police officers have increased and the number of police officers now associated with transportation, you know, with DLT, you know, it's been a major shift. So I expect even more complaints to come in. I think this board should do a better job and making sure the number of backlog cases are completely eliminated and the job can stay up on the cases so that the backlog doesn't build up again. I think you could do a better job of that if you increase overall staffing and you want to make sure people are paid properly. You know, I've come from a strong union background. I was UAW chief Stewart for UAW supervisor with the city way back when, before some of y'all even knew what the city was anyway. I think that more needs to be done. And also I think more needs to be done as relates to officers that falsify official documentation. Like I said, I did 34 years in the water department, and during that time, if a person falsified official documentation, they would be terminated. It appears if sometimes you can falsify official documentation, you know, with the police department, and you just get a vacation, you know, a paid vacation, or you get a reassignment to an easier job. You know, we need to make sure that we don't have black, especially black men going to jail needlessly, or being harassed needlessly, or or, you know, just spending any time in jail when they shouldn't be. You know, we need to make sure everything is above board. You know, I think that each and everyone on this board can do a better job, and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully we'll start doing a better job. Thank you.
Next speaker,
before you start, is ironic that we just did a whole budget presentation, and saying that this board brought in a number of staff members, and they doing investigations like never before, and but it's being said that we're not doing that. I'm like, I'm there's a baffle with this. But next speaker, the chair, excuse me, Commissioner
William Davis was elected. He's our honorable Premier, my friend and one of the best friends, one of the best you're not being heard. You shouldn't he's out of order.
You out of order because you sit
up here trying to call her talk
about another accident. It was elected behind his back. I know he can hear me. He can hear me clearly.
Miss Lyles, yes.
Can I be heard? Yes, you may be heard.
Good afternoon, everyone. Um, first and foremost, I support my police department and 10th precinct totally. But I also want to know about the training, and when I say training, empathy training. And just last week, one of my brothers passed of a massive heart attack, sitting in his car in his driveway. The EMTs asked my niece why his daughter was also there, and her father is on the ground dead, asked my niece to look in his car to see if his ID and things were in there. She's in the vehicle, searching for his ID, and the officer tells her, get out the car. Get out the car. We need to check for fentanyl. First of all, you know nothing about this, and where's your compassion when this family member is laying on the ground dead and she's like, EMT told me to get come in here and get the ID. Well, we have all the information we need. We have his name and we have his date of birth. He said, Yes, I'm the one gave it to him. So my plea is that not only new officers, but older officers, go through empathy, empathy training, we constantly trying to build a connection between our police officers and the community. That's no way to do it. Thank you. Thank you.
Any more callers, that's it, sir.
All right. Thank
you so much. So let's go to the human resource bureau.
We're calling you up humans resource,
five or six zooms,
I apologize, not a problem. You may be hurt. Good
afternoon through the chair. I'll be presenting the human resource Bureau Report for the month of September. So for the current staffing, the department was filled at 95% or sworn, they were filled at 96% and vacancies 4% for civilians, it was 88% filled for the police assistance. We were at 97% fail. 3% vacancies for the swarm recruiting July plus since beginning of the fiscal year, we were at total applications, 2022 in processing. 431, withdrew for archive. 725, hired 52 during that fiscal year. 363, temporary disqualified. Permanently disqualified. 212, and awaiting in Coles was 235. For the imcos testing for the written test schedule was 168. 88 appeared during that time. There were 66 that 67 that passed, 76% passing rate. There was 21 that fell, 24% failure rate, six, reschedule three withdrew, and 80 no shows for the physical agility. 179, schedule 90 appeared. 43 passed, which is a 48% passing rate, 47 failed. 52% failure rate, four reschedules. Two withdrew. 89 low shows. For the graduation class, we had a total of 34 that graduated in September. Total new hires, we had a total of 5717 sworn, 40 civilians for the Detroit residency, 585 Detroiters, total sworn non Detroiters. 1994 police assistance, which is also including your sworn numbers, 15 Detroiters, 18 non Detroiters. For your civilians, 437, Detroiters, 289, non Detroiters. Of those new hires, they are a total of 22 civilian Detroit residents and four sworn residents. We have one intern that's still here for attrition. Made a total 2413 sworn 10 civilians, one police assistant for the leave of absence for sworn we had 15 FMLA continuous were sworn six for civilians FMLA, intermediate, 79 sworn, 43 civilians, prepaid parental leave. We had 17, sworn three civilians, medical leave. One, sworn three civilians, military one, sworn restricted, 121, 45 for sworn 11 civilians, 26 disabled for sworn, 30 sick for sworn, and six civilians for the suspensions, we had a total of 2624 police officers, one sergeant, one lieutenant, and four monthly separations. We had a total of 13. That was eight police officers, three sergeants, one lieutenant, one detective. And for your drop, you had a total of 511 also on November the 14th, I think you may have already received the flyers. We are going to be doing our VPD great over at Triumph church East Campus. That is a safe community where citizens can come out and ask questions about joining the police force. We'll have representations from 36 district court. Sir Metro will be there. We'll have a plethora of BPD representatives there, from background investigators to our actual members that are on the force from various different units. And our HR consultants will be there as well. And then on November the 16th. So that time, it's going to be four to 7pm on November the 16th, we're going to be doing our hiring fair at 6050 Lynwood, our training center, from 7am to 5pm and then I got one more thing, six.
So this is not in your notes, but I just want to say, as of today, we have 59 vacancies. So we have come a long way on recruiting with pay raises. We just want to thank everyone we have gotten. It's taken a lot to get to here, to just be down to 59 vacancies. So from the mayor to the city council board, please commissioners to our staff here, to Chief white we still have ways to go. Anything that you all can do to encourage to help the most, to pass out our flyers, to have us to come events, to where you are. We would greatly appreciate it, because we are really trying to get to zero. So with that being said, that concludes our presentation.
Any questions?
Do you have you done a salary comparison for the adjoining police departments here in Wayne County, for like war Warren and everyone else. I'm just interested in knowing what the what the footprint is, quite frankly, for our our department, versus sister departments. And I asked that because I had referred a young African American man to the department, and he was turned down. He has since been hired by by Wayne at a salary higher than ours. I thought our salary was the highest salary in Wayne County, but apparently that's not the case. But I'm just interested in the in the footprint for hiring within Wayne County. We did listen
to that a couple of weeks ago. What I will say is that some of the agencies, and I don't have it in front of me, so I won't quote numbers, some of the agencies did receive an increase as of July the first but I haven't boarded like I said, for all the counties, but there were some counties, one being one of them that did have a significant pay increase, we'd be
interested in seeing how we how we rank, with respect to the southeastern Michigan police departments. Okay, thank you.
Oh yeah. Go ahead.
Were you gonna say something?
You go first though. Okay,
thank you. Chair. Blessings to you in your household, Director, we had, uh, 168 people take the written examination.
Only 6767
pass. That's less than half. Why? I mean, what is the written examination of? How can you give a little briefing on that false or it's multiple
choice, but the written examination is, it could be a million, I mean, and one reasons why someone does not ask. I mean, it could be, maybe they hunt out the night before. It could be. Maybe they, some people have a issue with test taking skills, so I can't really, per se, answer that question. I can tell you that even if they don't pass the first time, we do give them another opportunity to pass, it is not an expense to them. You actually assume the cost of that experience,
that expense.
Okay, I'm all said. Chair, thank
you President,
thank you Mr. Chair. I'm really pleased to hear that we're at 95% the last time I was on the commission, we were, I don't think we were rarely at 95% so that's really good news. What concerns me is that we still have a significant number of applicants, or I should say, the police department, officers that are non residents of the city of Detroit. And I've been told in the past that there's nothing we can do because the law says they can live wherever. Well, I think, as a department and in recruiting, there is something we can do. We can totally or not totally, but at least give major emphasis to recruiting from the city and from different, you know, organizations that work with city residents. So I guess my question is, what are some of the efforts that we're doing to recruit Detroit residents to the department?
So we heavily advertise and market all of our billboards are up in Detroit. We also want all of the high schools, all of the colleges that are here. We also do when the city councilmen have their events. We're also out in their events. They actually have all of our flowers fires that they have disseminated as well. So we're out at pretty much any place there is an invitation to go and recruit. We're there any organization that reaches out to us. The military reaches out to us, athletic gyms and things like that. We're out everywhere. So it's not that we are not out. We are out heavily recruiting in Detroit and outside of Detroit.
If I could just follow up, Mr. Chair, yes, and that's really good. I think that what we need to do, though, as a department, is we need to, we need to be upfront in front of that in terms of we go to the organizations, we ask if we can have an event. I'm talking about nonprofits, especially nonprofits that serve Detroit residents in very many ways, and so I think we need to be the ones that are asking them, What events do you have? I'm just throwing out some ideas, and we do. Okay, good. Thank you.
But if you have some recommendations, I will be more than happy to take them. We'll
definitely do that. Thank you.
Just quickly your report. One of the sheets is red writing. Can hardly read. I just if you could just make it maybe yellow or lighter microphone, I
see what case he's on. Thank you. Yeah,
alright, go ahead, Commissioner.
I'm just piggybacking off of Commissioner the wash, even though you recruit from Detroit, but we maxed out. Director Detroit police maxed out, what? In four years? Yes, even though they maxed out in four years, 7580 $90,000.85 whatever, they still can move. Boom. Deal rose blank,
right? Okay,
don't make a difference if we recruit for me the
comment and response to my colleague, most of the city of Detroit workers live outside the state. I mean, both at the executive level as well as at a staffing level. So we can criticize our department, but the fact of the matter is, is, if there's no requirement whatsoever, other for the mayor, that anyone being in terms of his executive staff in the city, being a resident of City of Detroit, we only have one person that has to be a resident, and that's the mayor.
All right, all right, okay. Question that I have is that we have a suspension that's without pay. I've seen that it's been lasting Since 2020, what? What is, you know, can you explain that?
So I cannot explain that. However, I can get with disciplinary,
yeah, please get us answer. All right. Thank you so much. And All right, thank you great, great report, and thank you for your tenacity. I see you out in the community myself, personally, and you always out there doing what's needed to be able to recruit I see throughout the city of Detroit and so thank you for your leadership. You're welcome. Yep, having said that, we, we did the announcements and all of that. Any new business? No new business. What is the pleasure of this board? I have a memo, okay, oh, yeah, okay. All right, I see that. Oh, the budget committee is on a new business. All right, thank
you, Mr. Chair. I'll be very brief the budget committee, as the executive fiscal manager indicated, we met last night, and I have a budget memo regarding our meeting that I would like to read. It's very brief. Yes, ma'am, dear colleagues, on behalf of the Board of police commissioners, Budget Committee, please see the key follow up from the committee meeting held on October 30, 2024 committee chairperson myself and Chairman woods were at the meeting. Staff attendees with the board secretary Lydia Garnier, you rise executive, fiscal manager, and the points that I want to make. The major point is that fiscal year, 2526 BOC, PC budget, as we move forward with the new budget cycle for the city, we are asking our four fellow Board of police commissioners to share their feedback and budget initiative ideas to help build the BL, PC budget. The budget committee will reconvene next Friday to refine the budget draft, incorporating your valuable suggestions. Please submit your input by Thursday, November 7, the Committee will compile and further develop the building, the building of the budget for the upcoming 2526 fiscal year,
we will lose our quorum when Mr. Burton leave. Still got six. As long
as you start with the quorum, you're fine. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. The committee will compile and further develop the building budget for the upcoming 2526 fiscal year. The Budget Committee will then bring the updated the OPC budget draft to the full board for approval ahead of the submission to the city, which is November 13. That's their submission date, deadline. Thank you for your collaboration. The next budget committee meeting is scheduled for November 8, 2024 at 2:30pm Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair.
Great. Great work. Thank you.
Yep, yeah, we there.
Excellent report.
Thank you.
My question is,
please grab that mic.
My question is, thank you. My question is for OCI. I'm looking at the case loads here. Some one person has one case. Another one has eight. Other people have 124 I'm trying to understand this. And number two, the printout that you gave us is not readable at all. The print is way too small. The pages, page after page you can't read, but the summary page is the one I'm referencing, which is case loads as of October 29 2024
through the chair, as relates to as relates to the print on the page. We'll fix that, and we'll absolutely make sure that that's larger and where you should be as relates to the case loads. The case loads vary depending on those investigators that are currently in training versus those investigators who are more experienced and have larger case loads. We have six, seven, I'm sorry, seven investigators who are still in training. They are in their sixth month, and one, I think, is in their ninth month, being with the Office of the Chief Investigator. And so their case loads right now are somewhat smaller, only because they're still in the training phase,
but, but how can a person be a full time employee making what 70,000 almost 80,000 a year, and have one case or three cases, or eight cases, versus people who are have 208 cases? Everybody's making the same amount of money, essentially. So two, two things.
One, no one is making 70 or $80,000 as an investigator. 6070, let's do the second, the second. Second point is these, these with the reports that you have right now in front of you are weekly reports, so they change frequently. As a matter of fact, I just did a preliminary one just right now, which even, which doesn't even close, include the cases that closed today. We have over 100 cases that actually physically closed in our office during the month of during the month of October, when all is said and done, when all of those records are tallied up, we're probably closer to 110 and 120 cases that are actually closed with in addition to that, there has been another 160 cases that have been submitted for review to be closed. So when you look at the overall production of the office again, this is a it's a snapshot, but unfortunately, it's an unfair snapshot, because what it does not capture is the full gravity of the work that's being done in the office. And again, this is just a snapshot in time. That's all it is, and a week at a time at that here's
one other question, how can we possibly have 593 still unassigned cases, with all the people that we have and all the resources that are being put into this, I mean, I'm getting comments even from city council members again for what three, four years we've been talking about, backlogs,
those cases are not through the chair. Those cases are not unassigned. They're in a backlog status on purpose, and the reason that they're in the backlog bucket is simply because most of those cases are cases that came over to us from the OIG when, when OIG took over 1400 cases out of our office, they brought back to our office another 1200 cases, the 593 cases that you see there is was left over from the 1200 cases that we've already reinvestigated and that we've already closed as a result of that investigation. So we are well ahead of the curve as it relates to, as relates to clearing up that backlog. So those is what's remaining from that 1200 cases that we received back from the OIG office.
But what's the projection for clearing up to 593 so I can stop hearing about it at every city council meeting that I go to? Yes, ma'am. Attack me when I get there. Yes, ma'am,
the projection is March, I'm sorry, April, May of next year. And the reason why it's April, May of next year is that we only received a full staff, as you know, at the very beginning of this year. And again, a number of those individuals are still in training, even though our production has increased significantly. Prior to our staff being full, we were closing about 45 to 60 cases. Now, again, that's well over 100 cases a month since we've had the full staff, even with the new people still being pretty as a matter of fact, some of our new investigators are producing a lot higher number of closed cases than those who have been with us for a while. So around the office, people are working extremely diligently getting it done. What we cannot do is be gimmicky in the way that we close these cases. We have to thoroughly investigate every case. We have to make sure that we follow our SOP and the protocols that are already set in place. So we have to be thorough with it and but we're making our way through these cases, I think, a very good clip.
All I can tell you is that your this, this sheet here does not reflect that a person has one case and another person has 208
Well, this, this, let me
say this, this sheet? No, this sheet is absolutely not up to date, our our average our average case size, just so you know, our average case size, especially when we started our timeliness initiative, our average case size is about 100 110 cases or less, right? So when you see the one, when you see the one investigator, there were only eight cases. That's not all that's in her case load. Her case load is actually over 200 and the reason why it's only eight is because we give them to them at a measure that it will not overwhelm them while they're still in training. So there are cases that are assigned to them that are not in this particular document, but we know the bucket that that they are assigned to, this is a weekly update. That's all this is. Is a weekly update. And
I can't nobody on city council or any other agency come in and micromanage what we're doing. You know, we're our investigators are working very, very hard, and they doing a strong job in doing this, you know, doing their job. And so we look forward to reporting out to city council and to the city very, very soon, as relates to the fine job that is going on over in OCI, you know, and so, like you say, it was a snapshot. What is pleasure this
board chair, this is for Chief Investigator. Chief Investigator. Now,
Commissioner was that 593
impact log he was talking about the sheep was not accurate, right?
No. So this is a snapshot. This is, if we get this number today, that number would not be these numbers are four. Let me, let me just go back a little bit, right? These numbers are generated overnight at eight o'clock AM every night, right? And these numbers right here are not reflective of what is taking place this week at all, right? So even when you look at the number 593, in the backlog bucket. Please know that those cases that we have deemed as backlog are those cases, and if you remember maybe just over a year ago, there are those cases that we found in our office that I personally did an audit on, and found that these cases were deemed as close and they were not fully investigated. Those are in that backlog bucket. And in addition to the cases that came back to us from the OIG, they ended up in the backlog bucket. And so what we have been doing, again, they ended up to be over 1200 cases. What we ended up doing is giving them out to investigators a little bit at a time, in order that they not be overwhelmed, but they're able to make their way through them. And they certainly have that number was much higher than 593, when we first started backlog bucket
right now, see, we got one more. Mr. Chair, yes, I'm here now, Chief, I haven't asked you, and I'm gonna slowly stand with the backlog because I wanted to hear
them. Please don't interrupt. We're not just save that answer. Yeah, yeah, okay, now.
But a motion to adjourn
that question was already asked and answered two minutes, I can
motion made by Commissioner Hernandez, second by Commissioner Bill adjourned. Any discussion. Thank you. Then no discussion. All in favor, say, aye, aye. Anyone opposed, the motion is carried. Thank you.
