all right good evening and welcome to the 2024 police civilian Internal Affairs review commission annual Summit my name is Aaron Hayes and I am the current chair of the commission I'd like to recognize the other members of the Commission in attendance tonight Vice chair Sarah florman commissioner Nancy rodenberg commissioner shal Webb commissioner Lara forstrom um unable to attend with us tonight are Commissioners Nicole schender and commissioner Deborah arer mhor also I'd like to welcome City officials in attendance Chief Axel Henry Commander Amanda Hugh Commander Jake Peterson Commander John kaj Jacob director Brooke Blakey deputy director Beth commer and coordinator Sierra Cumberland I'd also like to offer my sincere gratitude to the people in the audience and to those viewing the summit via live stream the involvement of community members is crucial to the success of a commission like the PC Arc and finally I'd like to thank the members of the St Paul police department for their hard and honorable work it's National Police Week and I would be remiss if I did not take the opportunity to thank the officers who spend their days and nights working in our community I am pleased to report that we've seen Improvement since our last Summit New State legislation has increased the transparency of our review process in response the commiss Commissioners have proposed changes to our operating procedures currently under review by City staff that will allow when Chief Henry departs from one of the commission's recommendations that every member of the commission gets to see the reasoning behind those departures previously this information was shared only with the pcch chair who was prohibited from sharing it that the entire commission will now be privy to the chief's thoughts represent a huge step forward and I'm grateful to our state delegation for prioritizing this important change still there remains a lot of work to be done and so as in past years I'm going to make some suggestions I ask that they be taken in the spirit in which they're offered after all the point of this commission is to help the St Paul police department serve the community with purpose I have paraphrased the poet juvenile before it is our job to watch the Watchers that is what our commission offers the department are outside eyes and objective discussions about circumstances that by their very nature can be difficult for those close to them to consider judiciously first the stien Commissioners receive remains laughably small I do not say this because I want or expect to be enriched by my volunteer efforts I think it's safe to say that none of the Commissioners do but it is a fact that that $50 a month is simply nowhere near sufficient compensation for the work being asked of community members Commissioners can put in 20 hours per month into this work to ask someone making say $15 an hour to sacrifice half a week's wages is simply untenable offering such a meager stipend pretty much guarantees that only relatively privileged members of our community can be Commissioners to me this seems both vicious and perverse don't we want people from a broad spectrum of our community to share their observations and insights I ask once more that the stien be raised to a more reasonable sum and moreover I ask that this discussion be decoupled from any general discussion of increasing stiens for All City commissions what gets asked of Commissioners on the PC Arc is quite different than what gets asked of members of other City commissions and I fear that a blind insistence on talking about them as if they are the same is tantamount to taking no action at all worse it's preserving a systemic roadblock to participation but another larger issue looms over the review process and that is the general difficulty in ensuring Community Voices are truly heard regarding discipline recommendations for those who don't know our process works like this when the pcch receives a complaint we commissioners review the documentary evidence including body cam footage and then meet to discuss the case after a thorough airing of the facts we vote on what sort of discipline we think is most appropriate and then report our findings to the chief who considers our recommendations and then issues his own final decision a disagreement with PC Arch's recommendation is called a departure and here's what significant it is almost always the case that the chief and the commission are in align as to whether an officer has behaved inappropriately it is however extremely common for the chief to say that a particular off officer's action merits discipline just not as much discipline as the commission deems appropriate the discrepancy is usually due to two factors first the commission does not have access to an officer's complete discipline record and so our recommendations are for the most part based solely on the incident under review I I'd like to ask for the city and Department's assistance in giving Commissioners more information about officers discipline records so that we have the necessary context for making recommendations the second common point of disagreement is whether a recommended discipline will survival grievance process and this is where the influence of the St Paul police Federation and its advocacy in officer discipline process begins to encroach on the work of the commission and it is where our community's ability to have input on our policing practices is dis is diminished the most frustrating aspect is that no one knows about this it happens behind the scenes cloaked in statutory secrecy no complainant Ever Knows the reasoning behind the disposition or discipline recommendations for their case and this is a problem because it gives our most vulnerable community members the impression that the PC Arc the St Paul police department and the city itself are all AR raid against them transparency breeds trust people are more willing to accept results when they are fully explained to them I therefore ask that not only the final disposition of our cases but the commission recommendations along with the chief's reasons for departing from these recommendations if there are any become matters of public record I'd like to conclude by thanking my fellow Commissioners for their dedication and hard work ours is a draining task we spend hours every month seeing community members on their worst days interacting with sworn officers on their worst days it takes a lot out of each of us and I know this but it's essential this grueling grinding work of ours we help keep the system honest so thank you all once again I hope you all enjoy the summit um I'd like to now introduce um off director Brooke Blakey of the office of neighborhood safety and DJ Brooks from the exe who is the executive director of world youth connect thank you oh okay good evening and welcome again to the annual PC AR Summit my name is Brook bakey I'm the director for the office of neighborhood safety and I have the pleasure of presenting this evening with a dear friend of mine the executive director DJ Brooks of world youth connect we had the opportunity this year to take some time really work with arrow keys I'll get it together arrow keys with World youth connect our office of neighborhood safety as well as the Harvard Kennedy government performance lab oh I got this one you got this one all right so um world youth connect is a youth leg uh nonprofit based out of St Paul we started off in the on the east side of St Paul I'm working with youth ages 12 to 25 to organize whatever um talking about things from policing our own communities to um just youth mental health um how young people want to be treated more human in different spaces and we started doing Workforce Development so from there we actually built out our organization pretty large now um we have about 70 young people in the city of St Paul um anywhere from youth on probation to youth actually going to go study abroad in Italy with the of him um working together so this project was amazing um for our young people we got training in partnership not only from the office of neighborhood safety but from Harvard itself so they send a c so you ask why are we here presenting well we had an opportunity the office of neighborhood safety was formed as a result of a 45 member commission um roughly two years ago and with that we got to hear a lot from um our adult folks about what is safety what the safety look like but in our work that we started we learned that we had not had a youth voice um very very loudly heard and so we worked with World youth connect to really talk about what our community based indicators so um co-designing this process was um easier for young people um being very ambitious they came up with ideas and ways to advertise this work um how to attract people into the work how we wanted to voice our opinion so anywhere from language of questions to length of interview they got to decide um another thing that they did was identify key points in the communities to make this process as diverse as possible as you know St Paul is very very diverse um so making sure that we really did push and get the voices heard of people from here about the safety here so what we did is we came up with the community- based indicators pilot and really what that was was a research project that was funded by the office of neighborhood safety using interviews and focus groups with young people to really develop and figure out what are our new ways to measure safety it this was co-design with youth from World youth connect and really figuring out what it is and how we wanted to know how those things work and so they were trained as co-researchers they led the Recruitment and Community engagement piece um they supported all of the interview facilitation and then they identified the supports of what the interview participants need and so what was really great about that was the opportunity that we knew that we were talking about very sensitive subjects with young people and we felt it very important to make sure that afterwards they had access to any type of um mental health supports that they needed to discuss all of the the things that we talked in case they were triggered with those things and so I think that was one of the most valuable pieces of the work really just um letting them know that they have support from the community was a big one um there there's a fear of badges in uh government Industries and people um when it comes to young people within the community I just turned 25 so I aged out of being a youth a little bit um but but while working on this project I was 24 um so I got to I got to not only work as a young young person on this project with young people but really div in deeper about how they felt I got to do a lot more wraparound Services about incidents with youth and police or youth on the train or just talking them through that process and we did pay all our participants too which was money is a motivator is it it's a motivator yeah all right so with that who participated in this research DJ so youth ages 13 to through 25 who live in St Paul for more than 3 years um why did we choose them cuz they had been they had been impacted by violence so we asked four key questions um they only had to say yes or no to these four questions only one of them so um were they impacted by violence in the last two years do they have a family member um who was impacted by by violence have they been incarcerated due to violence or have they had a friend or relative perish um we actually ended up with over 80 responses and people interested and we had to do a filtration process just because of time um all righty and the participants that participated in this came from what so as you can see um behind me um the east side of course was a third of our participants um we had a lot of participation from the East side we actually had to go back to get a little bit more diversity in the beginning um making sure that we represented not only those different ethnicities and races um and genders but really pushing to make sure that we did get the Frogtown Rondo area the downtown area Westside and other um the other area is pretty special because some youth don't know what side of the city they stay on um we did look at city lines we did try to explain what's the difference between you know frog town and downtown and the east side and where those borders are for young people they let us know that we were wrong sometimes so we worked hard um age demographic like I said was 13- 24 but most of these interviews did come from young black men ages 18 to 204 coming from the east side of St Paul and one of the other unique things is as part of the recruitment strategy we were able to really rely on some of our um other community- based organizations so JK movement y Jama Place esparanza United and safe Zone also provided us with individuals and recruitment strategies to make sure that we were reaching all of the various populations throughout the city open do doors for us for sure and we got to work with a lot of their participants too if you know JK movement ESP Panza United um they have youth there so our goal was not to just bring youth into those spaces but meet them where they were at while we were doing this process and so what safety topics did we hear from youth when we did this so we talked about in these came from those indicators so these are the trends of what we talked about a lot of times um we had open conversations so it started off with normally a general question of how's your day um just getting to know the young person asking them where they're from how old are they what school they go to do they like it um before we got into the real sensitive topics or talking about trauma um once we got into trauma one of the biggest things that came from this report where a lot of young people are on guard immediately they see people that don't look like them they see a large group of people they see a handful of indicators whether it be a broken window somebody who looks like they may be intoxicated off drugs and they instantly get off on guard they back against the wall and they don't feel safe yep the second thing that they talk about was feeling um unsafe on the train why were they talking about feeling unsafe on the train so the train as we know is one of the main sources of um trouble sometimes um especially the middle car it's called the party car for our young people um so they identified that the train was one of the places that they were on guard the most um even on the platforms or on their way to the train they identified that they did not feel safe A lot of times and were exposed to a lot of things that they didn't necessarily want to see you know or smell or hear so um the train came up multiple times throughout these interviews even for people who didn't get on the train um they utiliz stories and information from other young people to determine that it was not a safe space so correct and then we discussed multiple perspectives on police and what did we hear in that Arena fortunately there were good and bad there was not a whole lot of bad when it came to police honestly um a lot of people they want the power to go up to somebody else without having a badge on and really just correcting them telling them letting them know that they shouldn't smoke in front of a kid or they should turn the music down without feeling like they had to call the police a lot of times we heard that more um and more throughout the interviews um there were some perspectives from young people when I say a small percentage um maybe five maybe 10% said that they feared the police in some aspect due to an incident where they just did didn't really understand what was going on or they felt like the officer didn't understand it was always a miscommunication um or just they were having a bad day it ran into officer at the wrong time it's just like running into anybody else so got and then the last thing that I had immediately asked for um when we were talking about youth is social media and safety and what was one of the big things that they came out of the social media piece um a handful of young people avoid social media um which was surprising to us because as a young person I am highly involved in social media so um young people utilize social media as a source of news a lot of times right and what they're seeing on social media either discouraged them or intimidated them to the point that they didn't want to participate in community events you talk about Rondo days or parades and things that we actually canceled as a city due to safety um they saw a lot more of suicides a lot more death a lot more things that really brought them down on social media so it affected their mental health um that which didn't allow them to be social um we talk about covid social media was the only place we could be social as young people a lot of times so it it got brought up um and then on the safety aspect a lot of people thought it was a tool that young people use to actually set up fights or you know post their guns and into intimidate other people um we learned that young people don't want to do that that wasn't the goal that wasn't one of the things that they wanted to publish and they also did talk about being viewed a lot of times so how social media is used as a government tool to be watched so it did put them on guard it did make them not want to be on social media more um which was upsetting to hear Sometimes some of the stories were really really difficult to hear yeah absolutely so with that what did we learn from youth about signs they feel safe and so when we ask youth if your neighborhood was safer what would you do we organized that into these shared topics and indicators and into two categories which ended up being safety in one's neighborhood hence the office of neighborhood safety right and safety on the train so working with our um K Padres and colleagues over at um Metro Transit which World youth connect does some um some additional work with them we figured out what did they say in the neighborhood what would make them feel safe yeah so these indicators are things that they actually want to see um and it's important I say that before I go down this list so when they see people playing outside and this is one of the things as a young person you think is normal I know I grew up at the park I actually used to live right above this Library so I went to the park over there I went to school up the street so seeing people play freely outside whether you're young old just swinging on the swing set without fear of getting shot was one of the things that they said they they're they're listening for a lot of these indicators so a lot of sounds a lot of sirens a lot of people they they listen for it but when they hear people playing at the park it was one of those things that brought joy to them um also moving freely without worry so me as a young person being able to literally just walked out that door and somebody say hi to me was a really big thing for a lot of of other young people and we got to dive deeper into that conversation with young people who said they simply want to be treated as human a lot of times you know they don't want to be seen as a problem they don't want to be seen as somebody who could potentially become a problem they want to be just seen as the person that they are um socializing with others like I said just simply saying hi asking somebody how they day are without feeling like you're being attacked you know being open to those conversations um attending social Gatherings they want more they want more social Gatherings as young people they want to see people coming together and smiling and having fun and eating food and they also want to put them together I learned as an organizer young people have some crazy ideas like um as a alternative to stealing cars they said we should put a go-kart course and teach young people how to drive or bumper cars so then they could crash into each other instead of crashing into the train line it's a it's it's a thing so and then going outside at night they want to see the city light up like they want to see more lights within the city at night time especially in the alleys um you talk about those back girls that are seen unsafe as young people and this was more towards that 16 to 24 demographic that was like hey I'm outside after 10:00 I get off work and a lot of times I don't want to go anywhere else um we even had a comment about taking their garbage out like they'll wait to take their garbage out until the morning um making them late for school or work or whatever they were headed to do because of the fear of literally going outside at night um I wasn't personally one of those young people with that fear no at all at all at all I care free but yeah just looking at that um going outside at night is one of the little things that we think is people we Overlook it a lot of times like I don't personally think about the time of day sometimes when I go out like I just like I need some air so I'll just step outside um and we take that for granted as community members a lot of times because there are people with real stigmas and traumas that don't allow them to leave their house once the sunsets and then we talked about um safety on the train we've already kind of alluded to that and so you ask what are we doing with this work right so we have these indicators and what are the next steps and so really what we're doing as part of The Next Step so continuing to work with World youth connect our community based um partners and really developing with our parks and rack as well as libraries um events issues um availability for Young Folks to engage in some of these things and continue to do more and additional research to make sure that we're doing different policymaking things and so one of the other things that um the youth also um were super interested in is bringing back night moves with um our law enforcement Community being there that was one of the the big requests that we had heard um from that so I think also just being a part of the process and being part of the policy so um as we sit here and we talk about commissions and and things like that um we do have the neighborhood safety Community um commission and we do have young folks that um sit on our commission as well and wanting to make sure that we are changing policies within the city and so we wanted to come and share our community based indicators um with community in this process I want to thank DJ for um being a lead in that and handing over the Reigns now as he's aged out of um being a young person he is still the um ex official um executive director but continues to do that work and um it's definitely a product of what we do and we continue to engage um with youth and when they stumble we pick them back up and we continue to do um this most important work and so um we thank you for giving you the time and us the time and energy to come and talk about our community based indicators work and I will turn it over to yes yes great thank you so much director Blakey and DJ um what a cool and unique study I think there's a lot of power in having research done and getting that data related to things that a lot of us in the community hear on a pretty frequent basis so thank you for sharing uh my name is CR Cumberland I'm the coordinator of the PCR and I'm real grateful for you all coming out and sharing space with us this evening I'm going to be reviewing some data from the 2023 PCR annual report um for those who are interested we do have some physical copies in the back that you can grab on your way out and um the annual report has been posted on our website as well so before we dig into the data I'm going to provide a brief overview of the PCR process something I'd like to note is that the PCR process is independent from criminal proceedings and civil litigation it is the um Internal Affairs review process with the PCR so folks who have had who have had an experience with St Paul police or a St Paul police officer that don't meet the expectations set for our department can file a complaint and they can file a complaint with us in the human rights office or with the St Paul Poli Department complaints can be filed using our online form uh they can be filed in person at either office or um VIA mail or email attachment it's I want to note for everybody that accommodations and language assistance are available upon request I view a key part of my role is to reduce barriers to this process and ensure that folks can come and file complaints in a way that is comfortable for them after complaint comes in um it is investigated by the internal affairs unit and under state law to be considered a formal complaint of polic Miss conduct and have the potential to undergo the PC Arch process there needs to be an incident statement and a signature to uh constitute a formal complaint all right so I'm not going to dig too deep into this I'm going to allow our panelists to dig into some of the details but um Internal Affairs conducts that investigation and they put together together a really tremendous packet of information and two weeks before each PC AR meeting um the Commissioners receive access to this investigation it'll include the original complaint statements from Witnesses statements from officers as well as recordings this can to include body warn camera footage incar camera dash cam um whatever evidence the internal affairs unit is able to compile the PCR holds a deliberation and then they make recommendations to Chief Henry on what the outcome of that complaint should be um as was mentioned earlier if discipline is imposed an officer May file an appeal and that would go through the grievance process and then once the complaint is closed fully then the complaintant receives a letter to notify them of the final outcome and if discipline was implemented all right so now let's dig into the data um in 2023 the pcch reviewed 30 34 cases um those 34 cases involved 66 officers as a single case could involve one individual officer or it could involve a dozen officers who responded to a call for service and the same is true with those 88 allegations where a case could have one or multiple allegations and we count those total allegations per officer um in those complaints that pie chart there shows that improper procedure was the most common allegation in those complaints reviewed by the pcch on our Complaint Form um which we updated in 2023 thanks to our uh Partners in SPD that was a collaborative effort um as part of the Complaint Form we do collect demographics and so these are the demographics of complaints that were submitted directly to the Department of Human Rights and equal Economic Opportunity um folks don't have to provide these demographics they're totally optional section of the Complaint Form um but they do help us to identify who's filing complaints who's not filing complaints and help us to identify which areas of the community we want to especially Target Outreach and engagement in in the coming year um last year for the first time we included in our annual report um this set of data total complaints received by the internal affairs unit now these numbers do include complaints that were filed with the human rights Department um as well as those that were filed directly with the police department uh so there was 91 complaints 44 were submitted to the PCR and you may be remembering that hey the PCR reviewed 34 cases and that discrepancy is because some of those complaints filed in 23 were reviewed by the pcrc in 2024 um that second table below outlines the reasons that some complaints were not submitted to the PC Arc this data is provided by the internal affairs unit each month and is presented at the pcrc meetings and um it is also available aggregated in our annual report so as I mentioned the PCR gets together they hold this discussion and then they recommend a disposition to Chief Henry on what the outcome that complaint should be so on the left are the definitions of all those different dispositions that are available to the PCR in 2023 the most common disposition most frequently recommended disposition was that of sustained and um if a complaint is sustained then the PCR also issues a disciplinary recommendation to T Henry along with that case along with that disposition and so um the disciplinary recommendations are listed in um in order there from lease severe at the top to most severe at the bottom and to note that retraining is also a recommendation that the PCR can issue but it's not a standalone recommendation uh retraining has to be accompanied by one of these other disciplinary recommendations and um in 2023 the pcch recommended retraining 10 times um here's a look at the breakdown of those uh disciplinary actions recommended by the PCR the most frequently recommended was the oral reprimand um and as chair Hayes alluded to earlier when the chief of police disagrees or Ops Implement a disposition or a discipline other than that which is recommended by the PC Arch um the chief will write a letter that goes to me and to the chair and we um that allows the chair and the chief to have a conversation about the case and uh we also aggregate that data so in 2023 the chief of police um departed eight times from a disposition that was recommended by the pcch and seven times from disciplinary actions and one of those departures was uh what we refer to as an upward departure where more discipline was um implemented than what the pcrc recommended all right folks so so this is my contact information up here um please feel free please check out our website and feel free to reach out anytime I would now like to welcome up uh chief of police Axel Henry who became Chief in uh November of 2022 ke hen well thank you so much actually feel more comfortable I walk around but the camera guys look get angry at me um as was stated my name is Axel Henry I'm the chief of police for the St Paul police department um I know that we're kind of running a little bit uh behind time and typically I want to make sure that we get a lot of questions but the panel is going to allow for that so I'm going to steal my time to just talk about a couple quick things um there were some discussions earlier on about some of the statutory changes that have occurred in our state and I'm going to plug this in the sense of what it's like to go to the moon or climb Mount Everest or doing those things many times in our world people will say you can't do that it's something that's impossible or it can't be done or it's too dangerous and then someone does it and guess what happens a bunch of more people do it um if you were to look at the new statutory language that came out that's for the state that means anywhere in the state of Minnesota under our laws and you were to drop that down next to what our Old Situation used to be here with our ordinances and our guidance for how we run the P AR gear they look look very similar they're clearly related to one another so one is an evolution of the other um and I say that because the state never makes a decision like that unless someone starts to do something what they've told the rest of the state is and there are there are other places in our state that are saying ah you can't run a a civilian commission like that it doesn't work it won't be successful and guess what they what the report for that is well they do it in St Paul and so I I would implore the folks particularly the ones that are watching at home one of the things as the chief of police I get ask a lot is what can I do to help what how can I volunteer how can I show up and do other things and be clear the chief police has nothing to do with the compensation fece so don't I heard that up front uh but I'd like to offer some optimism there there is a really important thing that you can do uh if you want to understand law enforcement better and I will tell you that my experience has been that no one learns more about what we do here in St Paul and likes us less so there's two really important things you can do to help learn more about the police department one is to do a ride along I would implore you to do ride alongs come out and do them secondly come to our uh civilian police academy super important now the good news is if you really want to show up in a formal way and volunteer and help the city is um join the PC Arch or apply to be a member of the PC Arc and by the way those first two things I mentioned are part of what you have to do to be on the PC AR so it actually works out very well for us um but if you really want to give back don't limit yourself because you think you live in the wrong neighborhood or you got the you're the wrong height or the wrong per you know whatever that doesn't matter we want people from all over our city being involved uh and we will gladly set I think they will I don't want to speak for them but have a line waiting if we need to get get folks on um it's a very important civic duty it's a very important city Duty we rely on our process to work the way it is uh to have that involvement so I that's why I wanted to spend my time talking about today is it's super important to what we do here in our city and it's a function that really I don't think enough people really understand and know about and it gives you the the opportunity to be on the Vanguard of change to be a real Trail Trailblazer and how things are done you literally are changing the way the state operates changing the way the rules are around these kinds of things by the behavior in the city of St Paul so please please please consider volunteering and showing up in that way that's all really I have it I I think I'm supposed to now invite the panel up and I think I put us right back on time so you have a preference where we sit wherever you're comfortable Chief H come on up Commissioners Barbie have to be in the middle sit on the edge on the edge no I remember all right welcome panel oh thank you thank you than Youk you right excellent uh so in a moment we will open it up to questions from the audience um but it's my hope we could start the panel with a discussion on what types of things do y'all uh take into consideration keep in mind when you are making recommendations or issuing decisions related to these PC art cases I'll ask my panelist to please speak closely into the microphone to ensure the folks at home can hear clearly okay thank you well to start with I I start with the videos first because that way you get a visual when you're reading and um I just look at that way when you read and you see what the actual complaint is then you have a visual and so I look at the the tone of things um did the police officer deescalate or was he a source of escalating the situation um was there something he had no there was nothing he could do and it was so out of control all he could do was maybe arrest or you know um there was no way to calm the person down and you know and just try to be fair you know it's not easy being a police officer I couldn't do the job and um you have to look at it from if I was in this situation how would I feel or the civilians person are they being heard is the police officer taking them serious their complaint or um things like that so um I'm Nancy roodenberg and I've been on here two years so I have another year in my three-year term and hopefully will renew but uh I've tried to look at the facts on paper first and then the facts on the video first and I keep trying which way is right first or second but in the in both cases I look at the different ways of describing a situation I look at the communication between the officer and the person who's having uh you know is is under consideration for being arrested or disruptive and I try to figure out that how is that communication gone what could that person the officer have done differently if anything uh was my understanding of the procedure followed uh in our meetings we all often ask the officers uh what is the procedure in this case what are the officers supposed to be doing so we question that and think about if that was followed and then I try to come up with a holistic holistically based decision on all those kind of facts and I'd like to open my apologies Vice chair flan something to add I was simply going to ask if uh Chief Henry wouldn't mind weighing in on um what kinds of things does he keep in mind when making decisions about these cases reviewed by the PCR absolutely so when I get it back from the pcch it's t typically accompanied with the decision so one of the things I always look at is I have to remember that as the chief of police for the police department uh which really represents 25% of all the city employees in St Paul I'm the the only person that gets the issue discipline so I need to make fir sure first and foremost that it's you know obviously at this point it's in a complete investigation that I pull a motion out of it I look at it very fair and objectively to make sure uh that it's something consistent with um whatever the discipline is going to be is going to be consistent with what we we would do with any other person any other officer I make sure that um that uh whatever we do is also going to be corrective and there's sometimes going to be situations where we say that just simply isn't going to be the case uh to correct this we're going to have to get rid of the employee um but I also have to look at the Redemptive quality I would never allow our officers to go out and hold it against someone if they they de dealt with someone on a call that maybe they'd arrested 20 times and they'd been to prison they don't get to treat that person poorly uh also our officers I'm looking for a Redemptive path for them how is a way we correct the behavior and make you a successful productive police officer going forward and so that's always in the back of my mind as to how do we get you on a path that you will stay on and be successful so it's a fair and you know balanced thing I I don't let you know there are things I've see sometimes that emotionally impact me I will see them and think you know they they tick me off or they upset me in certain kind of ways but I have to make sure that I'm not making decisions based on an emotional thing I'm making making them on the the set facts figuring out what is the best answer for the city and for that individual employee to make sure that um that we don't repeat the behavior and that we get successful behavior in the future and I can continue on so when there is a scenario when the commission makes a recommendation and there's a departure of that um the chief writes his you know reasoning in the departure letter for why he is um choosing to depart from the commission's recommendation the commission also writes our recommendations and coordinator Cumberland sends those along and I get the opportunity to talk with the chief and um really advocate for the commission's point of view so so the process in a departure is I'll listen to the entire deliberation again um I'll look back on my notes make sure that I'm you know recollecting the case as written and then I advocate for the position of the commission even if I in that particular instance did not vote for that disposition um because I think it's important as a commission that when there is a vote taken and when there's a recommendation put forth that there is someone advocating for that and we've had some really good conversations that I think sometimes have resulted in looking at policies in a different way or starting to plant seeds to recognize that maybe this policy that was crafted 10 years ago just doesn't apply to the community that's living in our city now and let's take a look at how we change it and how we can take these um you know Standalone incidents and turn those into something that is helpful to the entire community so I've appreciated those conversations with you that's so I going to be another plug if you're interested in joining the PC AR you get actually influence these things so it is a real service with purpose to what the question is what are the requirements to join do you want to answer coordinator C or do you want me to please go right ahead chair Hayes all right you must live in the city of St Paul any Ward um there's an application process there is a requirement to go through the um civilian police academy before you are able to be placed um um on as a voting member um there is also a background check the um information that we get access to is criminal justice information and so um there are certain disqualifiers from that and I'm I apologize I'm still not super clear on what a disqualifier would be in someone's record um you also get fingerprinted and um there's an interview and then you go through a mayoral appointment so ultimately um the mayor is the one to select and appoint um Commissioners with city council approval it's a three-year term um so it's quite a commitment but I will say it's the the hardest but most rewarding volunteer work I have ever done and I don't think I've ever regretted spending a minute on this work right yes and the question for the recording is do you have an upper age limit I believe there's an 18 you must be 18 but so as long as you're 18 and as you can see we need Nails on the board does anyone else have any questions we need delate by close are yours are you pry simar yeah and the question for the recording is um how similar or dissimilar are the votes how common is a unanimous recommendation from the PCR there are definitely situations where we are all in alignment we had the same impression we saw the same thing we read the policy and interpreted it the same way um but I would say that it's much more that there is some disagreement and Divergence with both disposition and discipline recommendations so we are not frequently unanimous I would say uh so we have a majority vote and that majority is what the decision then becomes that then chair Hayes speaks with the chief about um you know and I think one of the best things about the process is that we're not encouraged to have a unanimous vote we aren't in a position where we feel pressured to agree with each other or to be persuaded um we're all you know given the opportunity to say why we think what we think to make our case to ex you know show our kind of thought process I've we've all had our minds Changed by each other who have seen things that we missed or interpreted things differently but we have all also been the only vote in One Direction and everybody else is on the other side of that that really does happen and it's it's fine and it's really I think one of the best parts of the process is that it feels okay to be that kind of outlier thank you well so we've talked a bit about the case deliberation process um another important piece of the work done by the pcch is policy recommendations would youall mind talking a little bit about what that looks like both from the commissioner side in issuing those recommendations as as well as uh Chief Henry what it's like to perhaps Implement some of those suggestions I can start with I just a real life example um just a little bit history about myself I was involved with our what we we refer to as our blueprint for safety uh domestic violence training in 2008 I was one of the people that taught the entire department and one of the things that we had started to notice we were hearing both internally on police reports but also from our advocacy was that we were feeling like we were losing a little ground in that area and so very quickly after I became the Chief I had proposed to the major crimes division that I wanted to see us do a kind of a 2.0 refresher Department wide while literally simultaneous as that was happening the pcch reported to us that they were starting to see an uptick in complaints in um particularly female victims of domestic violence crimes and that some of these things weren't being taken so it married up you know good news bad news good news is everyone's seeing the same evidence bad news is we're seeing the evidence because it wasn't us being at our top game uh and those types of conversations help us because it's gives us the the ability to see where things are falling off the rails and a the service to to the victim we don't want that to suffer so we can prove that that's good we also we prefer to have less complaints against our officers and we don't want anybody feeling so frustrated that they have to go make a complaint in the first place so it's it's it's very refreshing when we realize that all of our points of contact in this case our supervisors and the investigators were seeing it um our domestic uh violence Advocates were seeing it and pcch were seeing it at the same time and I think it's a wonder for representation of how all of those different points of light because if you think about it at any given time maybe investigations doesn't notice it anymore and then it's one voice no you got two that are noticing or maybe some other group doesn't see it and it's always nice to have that Spotlight on there uh so we're checking to see is there patterns are there Trends are there things we can be doing better our position in St Paul is that police reform is a banner flag that should fly over our Police Department every day of the year we we look at everything we do and say could we have done it better and that the PCR helps us with that and I'll also add on that in that scenario what was um I think really great was that the Commissioners themselves recognize the trend and the pattern right we see anywhere from four to six individual cases per month and it can be hard if you're just looking at aggregated data to really pull those Trends out but because we've been partnering um as a commission for I mean I think the shortest term right now someone has been on for just over a year or a year and a half year and a half um and so we've been able to kind of develop that that knowledge of gosh we're seeing a rise in areas that we didn't see before and we're able to articulate in an aggregated way right we don't go back and say well remember this case of so and so it's we're seeing a trend of this type of case and so it was a way to use that knowledge that we've built up to Echo or or um amplify some concerns that we've been seeing in the community and we know domestic calls are some of the most dangerous for both Community member and the officer so as a you know as a community and as partners we need to get this right this response needs to be um better and I think the Department's taken some good steps towards that I think one of is that the police department will come in and share with us what training looks like for officers so they will come in and they will talk about here's our policy here is how we train this you know here's how frequently folks get trained on this um and they without exception have been really open to feedback open to questions I ask a ton of questions um and it really feels like an open process where you know if we're noticing things there's there's really a a a desire to hear those patterns and to correct them and to and for us to be as informed as possible when we're looking at these cases as to how training occurs and what really the goals are of each officer in those situations could I add to that meeting or almost everyone we have training so we have uh presenters who come in on various topics uh for example on the domestic abuse response from uh Community Support people every time uh oh we've had so many interesting topics so I feel like it's a continuing ed to be on here and I feel like it's really privileged to learn all these different areas and I'll also add we definitely appreciated when the department was getting ready to deploy drones um as a a tool to use they came before the PC Arc to share here's what our proposed policy looks like what do you think before we implement it we want to get multiple Community um points of Engagement and I think those that really helps shape policy that works for the community so thank you yeah and that's a perfect example of what our basically our approach has always been is that we're not the police department we're your Police Department so that's your drone program so we should be you know having different people look at it we had Community meetings all over the city uh and we and the pcc's a very formal part of our process that's there it's a connected relationship that we plug into all the time to make sure we're asking those questions and getting that feedback get another plug for the training uh portions occur in our public portion of our meetings so the first Wednesday of every month at 6:00 you can come join us either in person or it is live streamed we've got a really fancy new camera for live streaming so it should um project pretty well so we encourage you um to join us during those meetings or even revisit past videos that are posted on the PC Arc websites uh the first Wednesday of every month at 6 o'clock um we rotate around the city so we're we try to get to you know every Ward every year um the schedule is posted on the pcch websites the same ve looking at the the domestic abuse cause I mean in training do you also do um training on um mental illness and substance abuse cooccurring disorders and the question is do you also do training on mental health and substance abuse uh co-occurrences thank you we have a pretty robust list of trainings that we've requested Commander Peterson has um taken that list and run with it I believe that it is a topic but I think there's about 30 topics on that list so we try to get to one I think every month but um I don't know if we have anything specific planned for um mental health or um under the influence but I think it's a good thing to add to our training list if we don't have the topic already it's definitely mental health and particular is a topic that comes up at least once every month in terms of what is the best way to handle mental health situations out in the community um and find that that boundary between keeping the community safe and keeping that individual safe and also respecting their right to exist in the world and so yeah it's it's a constant conversation I think we would love to have I think a lot more learning and and provide additional resources to people for mental health issues that a police officer may or may not be equipped to handle when they um address a call so I question it's not a mental health just AAL I contact Police Department forestry and Recreation there's a horn nest on the Boulevard on the street and I understands yeah I after month calling these people stilling the tree so what who do I contact commission and the question is regarding a hornet's nest that is on a Boulevard none of us like a hornet nobody wants to see that nest in their yard do we have any recommendations St PA public works I I think uh he's getting a phone number right now but if you give me the address I'll text the person personally right now you can tell me what the address is yep 757 Fuller 757 Fuller 757 Fuller is where the hornet nest oh boy the millions of people watching are now going to avoid the hornets nest so this is some uh live time problem solving that is one thing we are absolutely here to do uh thank you deputy director Beth commer she is a uh she's one you want on your side when something needs to get done so thank you you bet you bet add add something to this which is the police department gets a lot of calls that aren't really their ba B baywick I guess and I've seen the officers try to solve them and I'm wondering this is not a real police job but they're doing it and trying to take care of so I've been pretty impressed with the huge array of problems that come to the police that aren't really police problems NC police has protect serve so that's [Laughter] true well it was okay to call a police about the Hornets it probably direct you somewhere yeah sounds like that Hornet problem problem is well on its way to being resolved I'm glad to hear it uh we do have another question from director Brooks I was just wondering uh what's one thing you guys would or something that community members could do more of to help you guys' Mission I know a lot of times you put a lot of weight on your shoulders I might go help with the Hornet but like what's one thing you guys would like to see from community members when it comes to work what's something from community that would uh help to support the mission of the PC Arc join the PC Arc I would I would say this um in 1973 my brother-in-law was killed by a Minneapolis police officer and it impacted the family pretty hard um my sister was eight months pregnant with his child so she never got to see her father and so I had a very low opinion of police officers for a long time and so I was very reluctant to join when I was asked because of the time commitment and um but then I thought well I can punish some police officers but but that's not but being on this um panel and the time that I've committed I've learned to respect them their job is super hard there's no way I could be an officer I know right now without laying hands on somebody but it's like they are patient the most of them are patient respectful I I have seen the change over the years that I've been on here where they're really trying to serve their community and every police officer is not a bad cop so to speak they're really trying from what I see and I don't know if it's because of the body warn camera but um there is a lot of suffering in our community real suffering there's mental illness homelessness um people can't get a decent wage and they have to work three jobs just to pay rent and so there's a lot of frustration right now out in our community and I see the impacts and my view of a police officer has totally changed from that um and what I would like to see on our board more people of color you know my perspective I've had instances where I saw it from a whole different perspective and you know I was maybe outvoted but you know um as a black woman with black sons black you know partner you know you you see life differently sometimes and I think George Floyd opened up a whole new way of um how police are viewed but I will say that they are trying the cameras footage they're really trying to deescalate and serve our community so if you're interested please join you know you're maale your um aot yeah and I will tell you I work I have a full-time job I'm on several boards I'm on uh committees at my church I have a disabled son I have to commit a Tuesday to and a Sunday and you know no I'm very very busy so and I'm old you're not so yeah I know you're 25 but it's G to happen whether you start or not yeah so if yeah I think the other thing that community members can do is talk about the fact that we have this oversight process um it is an Avenue to share you know real concerns with the Department um we don't look at increased complain as necessarily a bad thing it's that more people are trusting the process and more people know about the process and to be able to take advantage of things like the trend we saw regarding domestic abuse calls and be able to have that direct line if we didn't have those complaints come in that might not have been recognized and then it would have been just one voice saying we think some things up so we would encourage you to share the message that police oversight does exist in the city of St Paul has existed since 1993 I think um so we were pioneering in this oversight space um so help spread the word that it isn't an Avenue that's available it's not punitive it's not meant to be a gotcha or a punish it's the approach that this commission really takes is that we want to hear from community members because it keeps the community safer when the department is able to have a a third pair of eyes kind of taking a look at what what is happening in our community and I want to add also to don't feel like you can't submit a complaint because it's not egregious it's not huge if there was a minor situation that felt wrong to you I think you know one of the things that we see is that over time things that aren't checked escalate and so when we're seeing smaller things that's that's we can jump in and prevent bigger problems in the future future so you know I I'm not saying right to complain about everything but I think that sometimes people are like well what happened to me you know was really upsetting to me but what happened to my neighbor was so much worse so mine isn't that big of a deal and I want people to realize that all of the interactions that our law enforcement have with the community are important thank you uh we had a hand raised in the back could I just jump in real quick I feel like it's important uh if the gentleman in the back who asked the question just a foret update um I've uh already been in contact with both Public Works director and the parks and rec director their Forester teams looking at the one question they had was is it a Boulevard tree I assume that it is um and so they're looking into right now who's going to deal with that problem but we have movement so good news on the horn Round of Applause for Solutions and action all [Applause] right these are things you can accomplish by coming to PC Arch meetings all right um we had a question in the back yes please questions okay how does the commission assess itself that's question one from the 1990s fol looking at models across country and so I want to know what other of the and then now that we're 2024 what other parts of the country might be looking at model question and um the question is regard second question is regarding other models of Civilian oversight and if those are being taken into consideration and which areas of the country May um and other areas of Civilian oversight are being considered uh referring to the fact that the commission was referred to as pioneering previously right sure okay go ahead third question is who decides what topics I think you folks said somebody said we have topics looking anded top would would it be okay if we address the first two questions before moving to the other two because I want to make sure I give them the right amount of space would that be okay sure questiones topics go before you guys yeah you mean training training and the final question being regarding which training topics are presented to the PCR Commissioners all right regarding the comment on the 30 topics that are before the PC AR thank you so let me take the first part of your questions which was about the way that the PC Arc was formed so this was back in the 1990s um and it was really pioneering for its day it was the one of the first police oversight models established in 2000 mayor Carter correct me if I'm wrong 2016 or 17 there was a a recommend there was a study completed on how oversight was working in the city of St Paul that was done by the University of Minnesota and there were recommendations made which included moving the pcrc from the police department to the human rights department and then also removing police officers as voting members from the PC Arch and that was a very major overhaul when that work was done and I was not involved in that work in 2016 2017 it was done with a coalition of community members and recommendations from that study now there have been um some smaller changes that have occurred throughout the last several years but the city is not overhall the method or the model of oversight as Commissioners we're all members of N which is the National Association of Civilian oversight of law enforcement it's a very long name for an organization and that organization is a coalition of communities that have oversight in their cities and there's many different models I think there are actually three to four main types of oversight ours is an advisory so the way that the city of St Paul has established its oversight commission is that we advise the chief of police ultimately it is the chief of police's discretion on um what discipline and disposition now a lot of that is also governed at the state level so in terms of the other oversight models that are available some of them would require State statutes to be implemented so if we wanted to become an independent um organization that conducted our own investigation where the chief recommended to us and we had the final that would require major changes at the state legislature level so um in terms of what we have in the city of St Paul this is where we are we would love to continue to explore different ways to better meet the needs of the community this is an evolving um this is evolving and I think the pace of evolution has only increased since George Floyd was murdered do anybody I'll just also add um in in response to how do we kind of police ourselves I think um we have we have bylaws and we have a city ordinance and we make sure that we are adhering to those we review it um as uh coordinator Cumberland wow I almost called her a commissioner uh was saying we've actually made some suggestions for changes so that is we do look at that we look at again we have a lot of conversations about recruitment of pcer members and really wanting to gain perspectives um and I think we hold each other and ourselves to a pretty high standard we we really respect the role we come to the meetings prepared we we I don't feel like it would be tolerated for me not to have done all of my review to not have watched all of the camera footage to not have read all of the reports to not come in you know having an idea of what I think the disposition should be and having policy to back it um so I I think it's it's it's something that we take very seriously and that I think is a culture that we want to continue to build uh I'd like to add in terms of accountability all of our conversations are recorded so that if there is a reason to bring them up and a dispute everything that we say is uh recorded and then it'll be our final question for the evening uh regarding those 30 topics that were mentioned earlier please tell us a little more so those are the topics That We Gather are as a result of brainstorming during our meetings um sometimes we'll see a headline or we'll see something happen in another community and we'll want to say well what would St Paul do about this um it's a living breathing list and it's you know generated from Commissioners it's also generated by the department when they say you know there's a new policy coming up we'd like to share it with you so there's not a you know a checklist there's not um kind of I guess any real scientific method that we gather those topics but we do um really try to make those training topics meaningful um sometimes we'll look at past cases and say we're starting to see a trend and we want to be able to understand a little bit more yeah sometimes there will be a specific training topic that will require a particular police officer to come in and teach us and so we might have to wait for a month that they're available to do that so sometimes it's about scheduling um and sometimes it's about what issues are rising to the surface that are really critical in the moment um we just had a training on all of the new uh laws that passed in 2023 and what the implementation of those look like in St Paul which was a huge lift um and really interesting so things happen that are kind of sort of what's at top of Mind what's most critical in the community um if we're raising something that is that is really serious it's important also to remember like a doctor has a license to practice medicine an attorney has a license to practice law in Minnesota you have to have a license to be a peace officer so you you get a license through the postboard which is the police officer standards and training and so it isn't like there's one flashlight looking at things there these are all companion things that there are overlaps to so for example many complaints require us to report directly to post and that's a licensure issue so while the pcr's doing their work it doesn't diminish that but they're waiting for that answer to find out where did this land what happened on this piece because that is an item that we have to report to post and like all other things those lists have grown over time and so um really I think I think probably probably the biggest misnomer that I find myself correcting people on a lot when they ask about this is is the PC Arc and this at war with the police department that's absolutely not the case it's a it's a companion piece to what we do and it's a way that we check to make sure everything's working very well and all of those things work in concert with one another uh to make sure that we have the most successful Department the most successful individuals and that we we are serving the people in our community in the best possible way all right thank you so much let's give a round of applause to our panel and Commissioners and chief Henry are welcome to return to their seats and uh chair Hayes please come up to introduce our next guest well I'm I'm not actually sure this man needs any introduction um but would like to welcome St Paul Mayor Carter to address the um Summit um thank you for all of your support of the commission over these years and um looking forward to hearing what you are going to talk tell us thank you good afternoon good afterno good evening I two hours ago I told somebody good morning so I'm progressing through my day it is good to be here I just want to say like a big thank you uh to all the Commissioners who are here we really appreciate your work uh day in day out month in month I know this is an enormous amount of work and we appreciate that uh to our Fierce uh coordinator uh we thank you for your work uh it really means a lot to us uh I don't Where'd you go oh there you are uh I'm trying to look at you and tell you uh we really appreciate uh coordinator cin we appreciate all the work that you do and the the Integrity with which you do it um certainly the leaders from our Police Department uh director uh Blakey of our officer neighborhood safety and our chief our police chief Todd X oh my God I know your name take two our police chief Axel Henry I appreciate you being here it's good to see you and actually I what I was going to say is Chief Henry um uh exemplified to you one of the core kind of value propositions that we try to bring uh for our Administration uh Chief or Brooke can you just help us out quick what's the what's the word of the year Enterprise and it's it's a joke cuz it's it was the word last year and it's going to be the word word next year too and it's the word that we use for this notion that we can do more working together than we can if we all work separately and one of my favorite moments of this entire day uh was when uh our our chief of police who could very easily say look boulevards and harness Nets are not nests are not my job um decided that the focus on what one of our residents needed was more important than the strict lines of what whose jurisdiction is where and that to me brings me right to the doorstep of this conversation we talk a lot in our Administration about the difference between city with the capital c and the word city with the lowercase C uh see sometimes when people say City they mean like the legal entity uh that I work for that that that that our paychecks come through that legal entity of the city government but most times when people say the city they're really not talking about the legal entity they're talking about a community and we got to figure out how to wrap ourselves around community and let me tell you our Administration our cabinet our mayor's office team our our our our city staff all the way through our organizations uh do that beautifully every step along the way one of the most important pieces of that uh is ensuring that we get Public Safety right and our spent uh couple of decades now probably as a Critic of what I think of as an archaic model of Public Safety that only focuses on what happens after something terrible happens I have children I know some of you here have children and if you were to tell me our plan to keep my my child's safe is to make sure somebody goes to jail after they do something terrible to my child we'd have to talk a little bit more that would be really really really unsatisfactory to me and that's the whole point when I think about keeping someone safe who I love uh I I I I don't start thinking about how we get somebody in jail I start with thinking about how we get uh guard rails up over the stairs and uh a car seat properly installed in my vehicle and the little plastic plugs in the outlets uh how do how do how do we Safeguard our community uh so that terrible things won't happen in the first place our police department has to be a critical partner where that's concerned our office and neighborhood safety uh through our office and neighborhood safety we're building the capacity and infrastructure to intervene in some of those spaces where we know there's opportunities for better outcomes and to break uh some of the Cycles but one of the things that I've learned really clearly uh from the men and women of our Police Department uh many of you know that my father is a retired St Paul police officer you may or may not know that he spent uh I think three years in in in the internal affairs division so I've gotten a chance to see different angles of this conversation and one of the truisms that dates back to the beginning of a police department in the first place and I should say a civil Police Department in the first place because while a lot of times we talk about police and firef Fighters and paramedics and folks like that and sort of paramilitary organizations I actually see that as a misnomer the point of a police department isn't to be sort of military light it's essentially to be the opposite of a military right a military exists to protect us from them whoever we say we are and whoever we say they are for a civil Police Department for the St Paul police department there is no them every person we encounter Is Us every person we encounter is a part of the circle of people who we're responsible for protecting and serving even when we don't necessarily like maybe their act their actions right now and what I was going to say is one truism of the the the the the the the the purpose for that we equip our officers with a lot of things uh you can see them right there belts and radios and badges and uh handcuffs and everything else the most important tool and I imagine every off I'm I'm conf and every off officer here will agree with me the most important tool that our officers can leave here equipped with is Community Trust the absolute most important tool and I appreciated what you said Chief Henry about this being just like you helping with a tree this isn't about a adversarial relationship at all this is about partnership because trust can't be built in the dark trust can't be and this isn't a police statement this is any relationship statement trust can't be built in the dark trust can't be maintained in the dark trust requires the light trust requires the accountability trust requires the transparency to be able to say we own our actions we hold ourselves accountable if we think our actions have fallen below our standards and we Pat each other on the back when we believe that our actions uh have maintained or even exceeded the bar that we set and let me tell you nobody sets a higher bar than our St Paul police department and again that's not to say we won't have more where we say hey we could have done this better hey we could have held ourselves to a higher standard but one of the the blessings of my life and the opportunity to do this work I've been asked on national television and I assume you guys may have heard you know I'm I'm somebody who you know I I say when I think an officer should have done something a little bit different but I was asked on National Television Once in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd uh if if I could point to One Police Department uh who's on the right Road who's getting the stuff right uh who and who I think the rest of the country should look to as a model to follow on these things and I told them that's really simple to me it's a St Paul police department so we appreciate the work uh that all of you do and we appreciate the partner yeah please give Ron report [Applause] please so I appreciate the partnership I appreciate those of you who stand forward to help us uh every day make sure that we keep those lights on our Rank and not not only is this not an adversarial relationship but our Rank and file officers are the first ones who benefit when we build infrastructure uh to be stewards uh to to to maintain uh that that that level of trust uh that is absolutely required I'm really proud of what we're doing uh all of the broad public safety infrastructure that we're building in St Paul through our community first Public Safety framework uh which essentially combines two meaningful understandings one we all say our police officers can't do it by themselves we've all heard people say that all of our lives uh but then we've sort of left the conversation there and left our police officers to do it all by themselves that's not fair to us and it's not fair to them it puts them in a bad situation uh and and and creat some of the Cycles so to be able to build the infrastructure that director Blakey is at work building every day to show up at a hospital after someone has been a survivor of gun violence to show up and provide supports for families to Think Through how we we break some of the the cycles that we find ourselves responding to over and over again I think is absolutely critical it's an acknowledgement that over half of the time when people call 911 it's not because there's some issue of crime or violence occurring it's because somebody's concerned about something in community and that means we have to have that broad team like we're building and we're getting results in St Paul and the rest of the world can see those results and we get calls from all across the country and how did you do this how did you set up your offic and neighborhood safety how did you set up your peace yard uh how why is it that when the whole world turned to that eight can't weit campaign after the murder of George Floyd uh the that the eight rules around uh use of force that they wanted every same every Police Department in the country uh to establish we sat down with a group of activists and by the time we stood up we realized that the city of St Paul our St Paul police department has already been doing all eight of these things for years and so I'm really proud of that I'm really thankful for that we have worked to do and I know I speak on behalf of the chief you know we think about you know the the anybody who's ever achieved greatness in any field when they say we're good we can either look at that as an opportunity to sit back and rest or we can look at that as an opportunity to constantly strive every single day for improvement and for greatness and that's what we're I see us doing together that's what I see us holding each other accountable for uh and that's the work that I think absolutely requires an Enterprise so I think all of you for being a part of that Enterprise I sleep better at night because you are all on this team and I just uh have to just say on from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of every resident every business owner every worker every young person in this community uh thank you all for your commitment to this important work thank you very much all right so thank you all for coming out this evening uh it is still light out so it's hard to remember that it's evening uh a few of us will probably be around if you have questions that we weren't able to answer remember to join the PC Arc we are looking for new Commissioners and it is a very rewarding very very important job um that I feel privileged to do thank you [Applause]