I just want to say that this is the ninth public safety committee meeting and next month will be our full year of uh the convenings for public safety. I just want to say I appreciate everyone's participation, involvement and engagement, not only in the topics but just really just ways that St. Paul and our partners and our county has really been championing public safety.

We started the unit in January 2024 and prior to that uh these cases, they're um aggravated assault cases where someone is actually struck by a bullet. Um these cases were investigated by our homicide robbery unit.

So we began this partnership with Ramsey County Attorney's Office. And um, we began, like I said, looking at the um, Denver model and trying to apply it to St. Paul PD.

this public safety money that we were granted by the state allowed us to respond real time to these shootings. Um that so we were granted sorry $3 million over three years and that three years is actually ending um at the end of this year. So that money is running out at the end of this year.

I I really appreciate having this data look to look at and I always want to celebrate success. Um and I think actually the next slide even more points to the success of the department in particular and this unit. Um but I note that the decline started prior to the inception of the non-fatal shooting unit. Absolutely. And cities across the country are seeing significant declines in violent crime. So which is good news.

I'm overall really interested in hearing to the like the typical day of a sergeant um in this unit because I think one of the things that we had just I know for myself I had a lot of time to talk to our local east uh east side district you know police officers and folks that are out on the ground. we did a ride along, but I don't necessarily feel like I've had a chance to really hear um and see directly what a day in the life of a sergeant within the non-fatal um shooting unit entails and like what it all includes, especially surrounding like the back end.

When a firearm is used as a means to suicide, it is fatal 90% of the time. Other methods are fatal 3 to 8% of the time. And so when someone attempts suicide with a gun, there is little to no time for them to reconsider, to be interrupted, to be rendered medical aid.

This last year, 2025, 77% of our gun deaths in Minnesota were firearm suicides. So, a lot of the work that I do is talking about what gun violence looks like in Minnesota. It overwhelmingly looks like firearm suicides.

Basically, an extremist protection order is a court order that can temporarily remove the gun from someone's guns or a gun from someone's possession um while they're in a a crisis moment. And the idea is creating time and space for them to get the help that they need.

I just wanted to follow up on that to say in in the case of secure storage, that's not just a recommendation. That's the law in St. Paul. Thanks to actually thank you for reminding us. You were saying it but I just wanted to double down.

And so I hope that there are wins despite some of these things. And when you hear from the non-fatal shooting unit, and some of the investments that are even made with the amount of work and investments cities are making, at least here in St. hall to try and mitigate that and to respond to both non-fatal and fatal shootings that are happening in our city that those are results truly because of the work that you all do.