Sure our candidate today at this point in time we're interviewing our for our chief investigator for the border police commissioner. Our first candidate today is Courtney Blake's. Thank you for letting Mr. Bass in the room. Can you please allow him to turn on his cameras microphone
already there Mr. Bass are you there
Mr. Bass if you can hear us, we cannot hear you or see you.
Yes, one second
later
inspection No that's Mr. Tipton.
Yeah, that's me what the echo because I have coordinate on the phone and she's online. But she's saying that the system is asking her to join and she's already join
us asking her to join us panelists so she can be seen and heard by the board as on camera.
Thank you very much. That was a picture of me with the Omega sign Yes, ma'am. All right now
you and Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson and I'm
sorry all three
sir, thank you. Yeah.
I do. Okay. What's your name?
All right. Can you hear us okay? Yes. Hello.
Yeah. So coordinate. All right. Thank you. We get you in here. So coordinate again, I'm John recruited here with the city of Detroit. I have the honorable border police commissioners on the Zoom call as well. We have a few questions we're going to ask you pretty much question two, I believe maybe six are going to be situational questions. So we're looking for a specific situation, the tasks you had to take on the action you took toward that task and then the end result when Give me your response. I'm going to give you a brief overview of the position once the commissioners introduce themselves, and then we'll jump right into the q&a.
Sounds great. Thank you. Thank you.
All right. We will start with Mr. Ferguson.
Good afternoon. My name is Brian partisan on the board of police commissioners, and I am the chairperson and I represent this one.
Good afternoon. I'm border police commissioner at Hope vice chair at large and Courtney May I please have your last name. Blake's and your spelling there. towneplace
bla ke S
Thank you so much. You're welcome.
All right. As soon as Fernandez I am appointed as a commissioner to this board. And just for context. This is not the full board. This is the personnel training committee committee otherwise known as HR, which I am the chair of is Bernard.
Hi, Courtney. I'm attorney Linda Barnard. I represent district two. I'm an elected Commissioner. It's a pleasure to see you today and I enjoyed reading your resume very, very much.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Perfect Mr. Tipton.
Okay, I'll give a brief overview of description of the position under general direction. The chief investigator least the day to day operations of the OCI to enhance its overall effectiveness in the delivery of oversight services and initiatives in alignment with the city charter and the border of police commissioners. bylaws. supervise all OCI employees, and the performance of the duties in accordance with the city charter and the board's bylaws. itself reviews and evaluates our complaint investigation concerning the operation of the police department to ensure that the board members perform their duties as outlined in the city charter. Okay.
All right. So, we will get started and I will provide the same context that we're providing all candidates, which is that the chief investigator position is one of the top level positions here for the board of police commissioners. It reports ultimately up to the board secretary. I will quote my colleague Miss Barnard and saying that the board secretary is more of an executive director and it is not administrative. It is definitely a management level position, as is this chief investigator position, which you would oversee if selected anywhere between 25 I think to 30 employees as part of that organization. Do you have any questions before we get started? I'll give you just a brief format. Each of us are going to ask you a series of questions there based on different what we call categories or dimensions of skill set. And at the at the end of this will allow you to ask any other work related questions that you might have. But are there any questions to the process for now? No, thank you. Perfect. So question number one will actually come from me around technical experience. If you see us looking down looking up it's because we're taking notes and we have score sheets that we're basing it off of. Please briefly explain how your previous experience and or education have prepared you for this position. In particular, you can lean on experience qualifications, knowledge of investigations, compliance, police misconduct, civilian oversight, anything within that realm. Or even database management.
Okay, thank you. I am I'm no you have my resume. I am currently a director for a 24/7 Operations Center. We only just not have like just our operations center. We also have an investigations team and an open source intelligence team as well. All three of those business areas roll up to me directly therefore I do supervise on around 25 to 27 more fully staffed team members at any given time. I was looking at the job description that you know was provided to me for the OCI and basically what I have an understanding of and how I have can relate is supervising training. So training is a big key that I saw in his position ensuring uniformity amongst all of your team members that you have. Obviously you have strengths and you have areas of opportunities for each one, knowing how and when to utilize those understanding the communication styles when training, understanding their learning styles, everyone learns and communicates in a different way. And the more that you use that to leverage the more success you'll have, the more impacts you'll make. In addition, the job description also mentioned annual reports and having measurables and you know, being able to obtain that and things of that nature. I am responsible for gathering all of our metrics. We do them month over month to see where we are currently at where you know what our top investigations are. What has changed within those investigations. Where have we been able to make the biggest impact from our retail or from a business perspective and then driving that to make business decisions? We have also I've also overseen our investigations team like I mentioned so we have anywhere from 50 to 100 cases per month. I am responsible for reviewing and providing guidance and support for those cases. I may not work the cases individually any longer in my current role. However, I have to have a knowledge base when it comes to that there's a lot that goes into it as far as obtaining the surveillance obtaining all of the details of the report, separating facts from opinions when gathering statements or gathering information from others and then sharing that with law enforcement. We have had cases where law enforcement did come down obtain our footage, we have package deals and give that over to the prosecutor and things of that nature. So I do have familiarity of it. I'm not saying that I'm an expert or anything like that I do have learning to for sure but I do have the knowledge and I understand what is expected when it comes to providing the proper data in during an investigation what would be needed for prosecution. Perfect,
thanks so much. Question two regarding continuous improvement will be Miss Bernard.
Hi again. We are and I personally am a huge proponent of best practices and emerging trends. You may be aware of Mr. Kiyosaki his book which is for managers like yourself and others, where he talks about, quote, continuous improvement. And that is always been a benchmark for me within my career, so we're our question relates to the fact of what are best practices and emerging trends you would use to employ with investigation standards to comport with national best practices and recommendations regarding civilian oversight of police departments. I understand that that bedrock has a has there you have your own police authority, the whole you know the whole thing you got there are several police authorities that operate in downtown Detroit. Yours is probably the largest bigger than WC threes and all the other police authorities of the DFC, Wayne State University. Those are all police authorities that operate very similar to DPD. But ultimately, as you know, they they actually, you know, coordinate with these with DPD. And we had a big Congress on the block, ultimately, but about you in terms of this question. relates to what do you see how to best practices and emerging trends that you would like to employ with the investigation standards to comport with national best practices and recommendations regarding civilian oversight, and the police department actual police, not police authorities, which are statutorily created, as you know, by by the legislature?
Yes, it can definitely be challenging, I will say, but the continuous improvement like you mentioned, that's the only way that you're going to continue to grow. You have to be able to be vulnerable. You have to be able to hold yourself accountable when it comes to the civilian and police you have to be able to be relatable, building more meaningful connections. You have to care about and show that empathy as well. You need to be able to understand both sides, you need to have knowledge of the law as well. As knowledge of where the you know, what this upbringing of whoever it may be the civilians that they're going through. You have to be able to be relatable when it comes to that to having that knowledge from like a overall national standpoint, I would say would come with training as well as experience. You have to be able to fail forward and it's okay to do that. So recognizing what has currently had or what has happened previously, what's currently happening happening now. And where are your inches? Where can you learn like where's your growth, what is needed to move forward? And I think that by collaboration, which is something that maybe in this position and working for rock security, like you said, on a private sector level is most important. We have not been able to be as successful if it wasn't for our partnerships. And and I can truly say that I'm starting from what I started in the very beginning to come most 10 years ago now to where we are now. It really comes down to creating those meaningful connections, caring about your brand and caring about what you do every day and not giving up regardless of those failures. We're all going to fail and it's okay. But just understanding that and being vulnerable and holding everyone accountable to the same standards. Whether that's civilian police, whomever it may be,
but, but the but the the paradigm is different in the sense that as the chief investigator, you are reviewing investigate and the people who work under you are revealing what happened with a police officer and the citizen. I don't know if your experience if you've actually I know you mentioned that you do referrals to the prosecutor's office and everything like that. That's at a much higher level that's at a criminal level. We're talking about at a policy violation level. Perhaps a policy even for bedrock has been has been ignored. Or you know, certainly not not not been been. Whatever the word is. I'm just I don't know why I'm having a word scramble right now.
I mean, right.
Right has not been solid. Um, do you do you investigate those sorts of complaints of I have, and I know many people have had issues with bedrocks security, and the black cars and all the stuff that they've got. What do you do at Bedock? When I complained about my interaction was one of the people who was your police authority? Do you?
We do. So from an investigative standpoint, the first thing is you have to be able to take all the information and so you obtain all of the statements. If there's evidence, whether that's physical evidence, documentary evidence, I'm sorry.
But again, most excuse me for interrupting you use body cameras. You ready? So you do not. So it's based on what the officer says and what the person says. Okay, I'm just saying that's how they all operate most of them. Most of them around here. I don't I don't know about Wayne State. They may be different.
Yep. And then we watch on camera as well. So we take that timeframe and we do have camera the cameras do not have audio though. So again, it's all factual based on when it comes to what you see. You can't you know, take one thing or the other based on what somebody said, you have to take both into account and then watch the camera to determine what you actually do see on camera, then we write write the report up and then it goes to depending on whoever it may be it could be we, we contract out security. So when we do receive those complaints, we have to pass it over to their leadership. So basically what we do is we gather all the data and then pass it off.
Okay, but you make a recommendation regarding the data. That you collect. We can
vary level.
I'm sorry. I said that there's culpability or no culpability.
We basically on the severity level, so if it is if there's any physical things of that nature, we ask, obviously to remove from the account when it's more of a unwanted or something along those lines that you can't necessarily prove we either a asked to be removed or moved to a different location away from whatever it may be.
Mr. Chairman, just assume your colleagues have Commissioner burden has sit gave me a written question, and it's why do you want to leave bedrock? That was his question.
I just recognize I'm gonna stay in because I don't agree with this process. There's no question then we won't move forward with that if that is your question.
Okay. It's my question. Why do you want to leave bedrock? Thank you.
I'll do it. Not a problem. I will be honest it's not that I want to leave bedrock. I actually enjoy what I do. I am open to opportunities. I have been with the company almost 10 years now. I enjoy the impacts that I've made. I've enjoyed the challenges and things like that. I'm just keeping my options open when it comes to seeing what's available from a growth standpoint. Right now, there is nowhere else for me to move. So I do want to just put my name out there and just build connections, like I said in the beginning and just see what else is out there. It's not that I'm looking to leave it's not that I'm, you know, trying to leave as soon as possible or that I need to leave. It's more of just keeping my options open
to other professional opportunities. Definitely identifying other professional opportunities. Okay.
Perfect. Question number three will be around building and maintaining relationships. That question is assigned to Commissioner Burton unless he is abstaining as he has for all other questions.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to abstain, because I doesn't I don't agree with the taste process. Nor was the statements were rated by individual Commissioners. I believe that each individual Commissioner should have the opportunity to prepare their own statements for an interview on process. But we have not seen the full list of all the applicants that apply for Secretary or for the chief investigator position. So I'm gonna stay Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you so much. So I will actually ask this question and all these questions were provided by city HR as his process. What strategies have you implemented to increase morale and engagement to create a dynamic team environment while maintaining high quality and efficient?
That's a good question. I actually had that question. A similar question for you at the end. But um, to answer your question, How have I maintained morale in when it comes to building teams and things of that nature? I will say when I first became a leader, this was one of my challenges. I had I struggled when it came to understanding the human aspect, I was very task focused. So I did have to take leadership courses, internal leadership courses, to learn about this and how to overcome this and things of that nature. So with that being said, the first thing that you need to do is build a relationship build that trust and how do you do that? You have a conversation, you open the door, you wish you're vulnerable, you share personal things about yourself, you ask? You can do icebreakers. You can ask random questions, to try and get to know them on a human level first. You really want to relate to that person to get that trust built. Some is going to take some is going to be really easy. Some will open up and they're like an open book for you others it's going to take more time and sometimes that more time may be a one on one lunch it may be doing a back and forth question type of atmosphere or sometimes you have to just get out of the office and have a let's go bowling. Let's go which I have done. Let's go to the cider mill, things of that. So what we currently do is we do team buildings that are set up by a trainer and we focus on communication, we focus on trust, or we focus on high stress incidents. So it all just depends on whatever's going on in the business. We tailor those when we have a trainer that does that with us. In addition to that we also do quarterly outings, that helps build the more personal level relationships. So we want to work on both we want to make sure that our business is sustained by building those business relationships. But then you also want to have the personal aspect, like I mentioned. So that's where the bowling that's where the cider Mills, escape rooms. We've done all of these and we try to do these quarterly to get them out of the office and engaged. It's not easy to build morale, especially when there is adversity or times of change. And so you really have to think outside of the box and know your team members. That's what comes with building the relationships if you know them and you know what is expected of them then you're able to be able to tailor whatever however the business is going to what they need.
Thank you I ask a very quick follow up question to that which is if applicable, can you explain if you measured and if you did measure that strategy, how successful was it? I know you're talking about building relationships and outings and so forth, is there any kind of metric at the end that is kind of your pulse check whether it be a survey or anything else?
We have yearly surveys that we have to create goals on and that's where the measurables Come on, come into play. We also I personally I like to involve my team members and creating those goals. Set helps track the measures as are measurables as well. And then we'd have quarterly check ins. So every quarter you have a check on check in which is another survey it's just like only five, five to seven questions. And then at the very end is where we let the end of the years where we do like the full, like yearly questions where we create our goals for the following year. I involve our team members in that so that helps drive them to it keeps their motivation, and they're the ones that pick which outings we do. They're the ones that pick the cadence of how often they want to get together and things like that.
Thank you so much. The next question will be missed out around thinking systemically and inspiring change.
Thank you. Thank you, thanks systemically and inspires change. And thank you Miss flakes for agreeing to participate in this interview. Describe your view of a 21/21 century civilian oversight agency and tell us what efforts would you take to employ emerging trends and best practices for an improved investigative standards, oversight measures and initiatives?
Um, give me one second, let me think.
So from a civilian standpoint, you want to know how I would create an initiative that we were asking.
You would well we have some examples. We have law enforcement agencies as well as civilians who work under our civilian oversight marriage. So I imagine you would be coming from that understanding as a civilian so yes, your your thinking would be that of a severe.
Okay, and then you would want to know, like, what the trends and how we would evaluate the trends right. Okay, um, I first you would need some sort of data to go off of because you I would assume so. So you would take whatever information you would have that to be analyzed. I did see on your website, you have a list of the number of complaints that you've received per year, and I did see in 2021, there was a spike. I'm not sure if there was another spike and going into 2022 or not. So you would need to utilize that data to figure out where your trends lie. Once you have that, I would assume you would watch how we have we have like a top five or top 10 investigative category. And you would need to take that those numbers of whichever it may be you need to take that to develop your system or how to your process change. Ai, you would want to obviously minimize this and complaints as much as possible because you care about your brand. But at the same time the officers and who the citizens need the proper education to minimize those threats or risks, whatever you whatever you would prefer to call them. Man,
those Yeah, go ahead. Okay.
Thank you for your your response, Miss Blake. Okay, I'm gonna offer two other questions. To perhaps help me gain more insight as to how you feel about this particular item. How important is it to stay up to date on all of the changes in your industry?
We do yearly trainings so I think that it is extremely important, the more knowledge that you have the more educational educational background you can obtain and then you can utilize that in your department. I don't think that it should just be based on one individual though. I am more so sharing the trainings. So if there is a training opportunity I delegate other leaders to attend and then you bring back notes and then share that training with others. The more knowledge that you share with everyone that the more resources and the more you're able to effectively utilize those training opportunities. So I don't think there's just like, I don't think training should just be like stop or it should just be within one person. I think that it should be amongst all whoever is in a leadership role.
Okay, well, thank you for that response. And the last question that I will pose, what is the impact of not staying up to date?
Your business stay stagnant. So if you aren't able to grow or learn, you will not be able to be successful because you're staying like in time. Things are constantly changing around the world, as I'm sure you will know. You have to be able to adapt to whatever is changing around you to be successful. Thank you.
Thank you. Let me just finish up one quick note
all right. We will move the next question over that just want to make sure that we're on time with stay on track with time. Yep, yeah, exactly. 10 minutes left, and we have one question before we go and turn it over to you. Mr. Ferguson, your question regarding managing conflict.
Yes, this is managing conflict. ISIS. Right. Okay. Tell us about a time when you had to address a situation when it became hostile. And or created a hostile work environment. In you know, just tell us the situation and tell what your strategy was and what was the outcome. Okay.
Um, this sometimes happens when there is a high urgency incident occurring, I would say so we are having operations center there. Have you know, team members that have some experience, there are teams that are fresh out of college, everyone has a different background, and sometimes that can create conflict within the workplace. So one particular example was there is a unfortunate suicide in progress call at one of our parking garages, and we had to dispatch security to that location. There was someone on the ledge of our parking garage you have another team member that is watching this live and then you have another team member will have three team members at one time during this particular incident. So you have one team or those watching the person you had one team member that was dispatching and you had one person that was responsible for notifying leaders and sending out your emergency communications and things of that nature. When you dispatch, security, our security officers are not always trained properly in how to handle this type. You know, this type of emergency incident. Everyone has different backgrounds like I mentioned. So what one person thought was the proper route another person disagree. Therefore, they started going back and forth and I'm in my office. No English is not in the operation center but it's a little bit further back right can still hear what is going on. I may not be able to see what's going on. I can still hear what's going on. Voices were elevated and it was just literally over some some like something smaller, but it was over like what they thought should have happened. Another person wanted to go take lunch this is happening. So it was just more of like an internal conflict I would call it and as voices were raising and things of that nature, I get the alert on my phone to let me know what was actually going on. And I'm like, wait a second, they're arguing over this. But really, that's not what they should be arguing we need to focus at the task at hand. So I went in there and asked like, what was going on? How can I help and things of that nature. They all just like looked at me like I can't believe you heard what was going on type of thing because they weren't expecting it. I was like first The first thing is that we need to do is focus on what is going on. There is a life safety incident that's occurring. We will talk about and have an after action after the fact. So I didn't call anyone out. I literally just stated those two things like what is the task that's occurring? This can wait type of thing. We handled the incident thankfully the security officer was showed a lot of empathy and was able to get the person off of the ledge when law enforcement arrived. So they did not they were not successful with what they're trying to do, thankfully so my team members did not have to watch that. But all their emotions were heightened anticipating what was going to happen and I think that is what led to the conflict that I thought was very minimal. And then after the incident was taken, like after the incident had occurred, I pulled the one tumor that was upset about not being able to go to lunch and then was upset about who was dispatched because they thought somebody else should have been dispatched, which is what started the agreement like disagreement. I pulled that person aside and asked just ask them like, hey, like what's going on? Like, why did you feel this way? I'm trying to relate to them and ask them we're engaging questions when it came to like seeing where their mindset was at that particular moment. And then I would leave them to go to lunch and then when I when I really that person that I went inside the operation center, and I just had like an overall like, okay, like how are you feeling about this? This was you know, something that you just watched that could have went terribly wrong. And I just asked more questions to the team, got their feedback, and then after the other person came back from lunch that I originally dismissed, we'd kind of like just wrote it out on the wall of what went well. what didn't go well. And how we should handle these incidents going forward.
I'm about you, you told me that how about in a hostile work environment like you inside of a building and you got two different employees, you know, going at it with each other? How would you handle that situation? Like a physical contact, not even physical, verbal,
verbal, okay. You will need to separate them at that moment. You would have to I'm not sure if I'm only the one person or if there's someone else but you need to get them into different rooms and you need to be able to ask questions on what happened and why it was leading to whatever was leading to before you can start your investigation. You have to be able to write statements for both of them. You would have to if there was any witnesses you would have to obtain the witness documents or statements. You would need to then figure out who was the aggressor and who wasn't. I'm assuming there'll be policies regarding that as well. So you would need to figure out whatever the policy is and follow the policy based on if that person is, you know, separated if they're just relieved from duties at that moment, or, you know, if there's going to be further action that would need to be taken. But that's the like the basics, I guess what I would do.
All right.
That concludes the questions. That we're going to ask you. At this point. You have any questions for us, we're happy to take them.
Okay, I didn't have I want to know what the current state of the team was. And what is the team current like? What are the challenges that teams currently facing?
All right in full transparency, as Mr. Barnard indicated of the primary responsibility of the Office of Chief Investigator is around non criminal complaints against police officers in the Detroit Police Department. We have a backlog of cases which is still, you know, we had several 100 cases last year and that that number has been significantly reduced, but is not quite at zero. And then we obviously have independent of those backlog cases, new cases that continue to present themselves weekly. monthly, daily, really. So having a data driven process to avoid backlogs in the future would be probably one of my primary concerns. But the quality of those reviews and those investigations and those outcomes take precedence over everything else. Overall, with Dynamics on the team, that's something that we would expect the if selected, we would expect you to be able to come in in partnership with your leadership to be able to assess the situation and see current state of personnel and you know, everything that's typical of management, leadership, setting goals, objectives, expectations, and ultimately outcomes. Okay,
so currently there isn't there isn't like a sense, like structure I will be responsible for creating that correct.
Though there is a structure definitely a structure.
55 years has been a structure. There's
definitely a long standing structure that continuously gets improved upon, or at least should be. So that's what we're expecting and looking for in this candidate.
Okay, when you were kind of giving the expectations it was a little unclear like wait a second, am I developing it or am I just improving it? Okay, understood. Thank you. Sorry. Yes, make sense? Okay, and then my next one is How would my impacts and work be measured or viewed as successful for the board?
I'll answer that in two different ways. You have your traditional HR process with performance objectives, human capital management, etc, which I'm sure you're familiar with. So you would have those goals and objectives in place, again, with your supervisor, people, leader, whatever it is that you want to call them. And subsequently, your direct reports their goals will be cascaded from yours. So there's that traditional route in terms of the expectations of success when it comes to the board now I'll speak for myself. It's exactly what I just said. It's improving the process that's in place when it comes to these investigations. It is making sure that we never again have a backlog because process should be long standing. You know, there may be individuals who implement process and improve process, but individuals leave these roles are not ours. Like our contribution can be long standing if it's done the right way. So that would be my station if anyone else wants to add to that.
I would also add and as it relates to the Office of the Chief Investigator, the board's primary primary duty, as mandated by charter is to ensure that citizens are that we engage in civilian oversight. And even though we position ourselves to try to create some balance when it comes to those engagements between law enforcement and civilian, our focus is to ensure that citizens come from come away from those experiences, understanding that they have rights and those rights are being attended to by the board of police commissioners.
The ultimate recommendations by the various investigators, I think we have now about 13 of them those those those recommendations are based on their examination of all the facts and circumstances their investigation. They write a report on that investigation. That investigation report comes to us for approval or disapproval. So it's a very serious enterprise and it's one that directly involves the community. When you hear about issues throughout the country, George Floyd, anything else you want to think about? That type of issue, it's the type of issue that the Board of police commissioners would deal with and that the chief investigator would be point guard on because they are supposed to be looking out for the community and making sure that all of the policies that we have created are being followed to the letter because otherwise you'll have police misconduct. And police misconduct, as you know, results in not only people being hurt either police officer or the person in the community, but it also results in significant liability to the city of Detroit like a blizzard. Like just like for bedrock. If in fact, the security agent is going rogue or something like that. But more importantly than that, we want to keep peace in Detroit. We have we have a good police community relations, and that fundamentally falls on the chief investigator and the confidence that the community has and the fact that that person is fair, representing them and leaves no stone unturned in terms of reviewing the facts and circumstances related to a complaint. Perfect.
So no, we we started a little bit late. So that's why we're giving the extra two three minutes is there a closing question you might have that's a brief one. If not, we'll turn it over to Mr. Tipton.
No, that was all my questions. Thank you.
Perfect. Thank you so much. Mr. Tipton. Go
ahead. Courtney again, thank you for being with us. We're meeting with the board this afternoon. We're still in the process of interviewing other candidates. Once the board has made a selection. I'll be reaching out to that candidate to solicit a start date and present them with the offer.
Thank you. I appreciate your time today.
We appreciate it. Thank you
all right. And our next interview is scheduled for 1:40pm. So I will ask the reconvene at 151
Second, so let's just make sure again, Mr. James Joe is there James Jones in the room. I don't see his name in here. I just want to make sure that we're being fair. The candidate we did send emails out to the candidate, the candidate for some reason the phone number that we had on file for the applicant is not going through. We did try several attempts to reach them by email. So just want to make sure that they didn't log on they, you know, they received our email and logged on. We want to give them the opportunity to say they're here now, but not we'll move forward as Commissioner Hernandez has suggested what a German I don't see that kind of name here on any of the lists.
All right. If that's the case, again, we will reconvene we'll take a recess until 1:35pm so that we can interview the next candidate at 1:40pm. And hopefully start on time being stopped we will recess