PCR Report
(00:05:01)
The PCR report is presented, including a video and slides, and discusses the citizens academy and recruitment efforts.
At this time, we'll have the P C R report. Set up for you. When you're ready for the video, you do it. good evening. Chair, vice chair, members of the board. Director Henderson, Patricia. Good to see everyone. Inspector, Mason's got a short, just a couple slides he's gonna share with you. I'd like to start off by. Showing your very quick. Video that it is tossed a little bit, our toss, a little bit about our citizens academy. I know, copy. We have signed up for us. So we're hoping that anyone that's watching out there. Can participate on may. I don't. Can you see it? You guys have it. All right. Perfect. If we can get it. There it is perfect. So we, we still got plenty of spots, slept open. We're going to go really a hard on our social media. So hopefully we can have. More participants. And again, there's a one day academy. All day Saturday, we'll have breakfast. We'll have. Lunch prepared. And it's a regional academy. Just a reminder that regional means that it's not only Kalamazoo department, public safety, but it's the other departments such as Portage. Township Western Michigan university state police. And also the federal government drug enforcement agencies. So we're really excited about it. The other thing that we're going to do next month. Or send final review for two things for the officer. The annual report for the KSU department of public safety chair, vice chair, we'll have that. In a minutes we're prepared. We'll give it to you right before the next meeting that we have. So, if not, and one final thing, if you have any questions from the chief's level, be happy to answer it. We have made nine conditional offers. Offers to we had final interviews. We had nine conditional offers. Made there in the final stages. So hopefully all nine will make it and we can welcome them. As they go through the fire academy. This in may and then they will go into the police academy. And the fall. So any questions on for me at all? Yeah. Chief about the academy, first of all, wanna preference my comments that I've been to the academy, the Citizen academy several times and is definitely swayed my opinion about the work that you guys do in the field. It's it's, it's outstanding in the training and. Sometimes is when you not in a person's shoes, you have one perspective. But spend even a day in you guys' shoes. Definitely. Highlighted difficulty that you had to split decision split, second decisions that you must make. Not only based on your policy, but with your job is, is, is unique because you also face the. Perspective of the citizens. Yeah. So to be able to walk that, that fine line. I definitely have to commend you on that. Is there any type of. Criteria. Yeah. Thank you. Or disqualifying that would prevent the Citizen from. Attending? No, we, we will run a, just a quick check to make sure. That there's no warrants or anything, of course, but you won't be handling by firearms. Like we used to, that was one of the restrictions that we had where now we do the virtual reality special. And you can live anywhere in the region. Thank you. Yep. I too would also like to. Comment about how illuminating that entire process is I had the opportunity to do the two day. And quite frankly, I thought it was just absolutely marvelous. Plus you, you learn about other things that are happening in the neighborhoods, right? Because people are there and they're sharing their stories and sharing their concerns. Concerns. So it's, it's a great opportunity to not only learn about law enforcement. The fire and you know, all of the things that you all encounter. But I think from an interaction standpoint, it's a great way for people to see. What's happening out in the community. Yeah. Thank you very much. So. Okay. All righty. If no other questions, I would turn it over to inspector Mason. Yeah, you gotta take care. Thank you, chief. Good evening, everyone. So if you had the PCR report in front of you. PCR. And again, those are police Citizen. Nine of these PCR investigations are closed. One is completed and being reviewed by the chiefs. That that is where it says chiefs review. And the other is still under investigation. So are there any questions. Questions, this year's PCR so far. How you doing inspector? Just, just fine, Michelle. Good. Question. In, in the, when it says unfounded, it is basically saying it doesn't happen. What is the basis that you come to unfounded? Is it the. The officer's report. Do you use video surveillance? Surveillances. How do you come to, how does the chief work come to the conclusion of, yeah. So the term unfounded means that the com the alleged action. Did not occur. So the my investigation I'll use any available evidence that I have. So police reports. Body-worn camera, obviously, since that is, you know, we're all wearing them now. And a uniform capacity that has become. You know, it's become a very large component of my investigation as reviewing body camera. Dash camera I'll conduct interviews with officers if necessary, obviously talk to the Citizen. If I need more information, that's not included in their complaint. So the investigation is pretty multifaceted. I just don't simply rely on the report itself. If there's other evidence there, I'm gonna look at it. And just looking at the data. Is there any particular reason why they seems to be a trend in zone one in zone two. With the, with the complaints. Complaints zone one seems to always you'll see the same thing with calls for service. They tend to take, I, I don't know if the majority, but compared to. You know, we've got seven zones in the city. Cuz zone one is the downtown area. It's where most of your traffic is during the day. It's where most the unhoused population. Is that it tends to kind of a lot of calls to service, tend to, I guess, congregate here for back, lack of a better term. So you have more police activity. More calls for service generation of, of just more complaints zone two. I, I, it kind of goes back and forth. I mean, zone two's a pretty large zone encompasses the Edison neighborhood and the Millwood neighborhood goes from. Vine street all the way down to Kilgore. So there's a very large population that. You know, comprised of that. But if I'm not mistaken, complaints are down. Look, they are, yes, they are down Verly. So, so, so that's a good thing. And we hope that that trend continues. Yes, we do. Any other questions, PCR related. Okay. So is the screen salon. Everybody still see it, or, yeah. Okay. Perfect. So last month I had a short presentation on gun violence, St. Gun violence, statistics, or violent crime in general, but we talked about gun violence. And I think Ms. Thrash had asked the question about why. Gun violence is down. Or why are we seizing fewer guns off the street in the past year what's what's what's causing, what are you doing? That's causing things to trend downward. So I wanted to have a very brief presentation, which is like two slides about kind of the efforts that we're. Making that hopefully have had an impact in things treading that direction. So. In the presentation last month, I included this chart, which shows the number of fatal and non-fatal shooting victims over the past. Violence. Absolutely skyrocket. Skyrocket we saw shooters and their victims becoming younger and younger. So since then Ks has worked alongside the community to reduce the, reduce the incidents of gun violence. And consequently, the number of victims of gun violence. So these strategies have proven effective because the number of F Knock on wood. These numbers continue to trend downward this year. So I wanted to briefly touch again on just some of the gun violence strategies that. That are used or supported by public safety to impact. Gun violence. So first is the utilization of. Crime data to guide deterrent strategies. So our data that we collect. Is gathered through raw crime stats. Information shared by or during our weekly multi-agency crime reduction meetings. Meetings through information gathered via. The national integrated ballistic information network or N. NIBIN or through information that's provided to, or learned by our crime analysts, officers, detectives, or any of our non-sworn personnel. So while this data informs. Informs our targeted intervention efforts by our enforcement personnel. It's also used to identify individuals who can benefit from non-enforcement interventions. And so one example of that is we have a program that was designed in-house by one of our analysts to. Kind of analyze contacts with juvenile. So if we have a juvenile in the community that has more than two contacts with law enforcement in a certain time period. A report is generated for. Review. And so then officers will review that report, determine whether the juvenile was an offender, a witness. Victim. What have you and then they and members or members of our community policing unit and our social services coordinator will meet with that juvenile and their parents to evaluate the need for any resources to help divert that person away from an involvement in violent, violent acts or any further police con. So additional strategies also include, if you go to the, I guess the second main bullet point, there are in-home visits by K PS staff and members of our other government and Nongo non-government agencies. So these at-home visits and include Joe K P S and M D O C or department of corrections. Prisoner reentry visits, where personnel meet with citizens who have been recently. Released from prison to speak with them and their families to offer support and services, to provide a foundation for them. Return to the community to hopefully reduce any recidivism that might occur. For those on parole and probation, separate routine checks are conducted by public safety and M D O C personnel. To ensure those individuals are complying with release requirements. And additionally we have at home visits that are done by public safety and Kalamazoo public school staff. With identified at-risk youth who are transitioning kind of in that phase for their life, where they're going from middle school into high school, with a brand new environment, hopefully divert any issues or prevent any issues that may might have that it would put them toward the road to being an involved in violent acts. Acts, I guess lastly, but most importantly, you know, the department recognizes that we can't arrest our way out of gun violence. It's clear to everyone, everybody. Everybody. And that the effort to combat gun violence has to be driven by the community. So consequently, we had developed and maintained partnerships with a number of groups. And organizations who can affect change by leveraging already existing relationships within communities. These groups assist citizens with resources need to provide for more stable housing. Income governmental assistance and a variety of other resources. So the goal of all these programs, whether it be from. Enforcement is one thing, like I said, but the goal of the, kind of the additional programs or help steer individuals. Individuals away from decision making that leads to participation in violence. Or for those who are already involved in those acts to get them out of it. And again, there were a law enforcement agency. We recognize that enforcement is only a part of the solution. So, you know, and these strategies have proven effective. We've seen this, the numbers have dropped. Dropped over the past couple years, and we're dedicated to ensuring that they continue that way. So. Are there any questions on that. So, is there any involvement, cuz I know you have the pastors on patrol, right. Are there any involvement of the, the pastors in, in reaching out to some of these individuals? Individuals in particular because faith community can be very strong and supporting individuals. Yes. Our community policing unit. Works closely with pastors on patrol. I would say probably those reentry visits. Visits any of, kind of the intervention solutions that we come up with. If there's a need. For, if we identify that this is a place for our pastors on patrol group can help or they can have kind of a purchase point to make an impact, we'll bring them in. Every time. Great. Thank you. One question basically. Well, two questions. Questions. What are the leading indicators based off the data that you. Have that help the department strategize for the upcoming summer months? Cuz normally they're in summer is when we see an uptick in violence. Mm-hmm and also what. Organizations are you partnering with. Outside of like passengers on patrol. I know Alpac has been trying to. Be one of the leading. I guess partners to reduce gun violence and this kid. K D PS partnering with Alpac. To also reach the community to produce gun violence. Yeah. I see some of the leading indicators. We, we. I'll just keep kind of one example. We keep close track or an eye on where our, you know, group involved violence is, you know, we. Not necessarily gangs and we've moved away from that language years ago, but groups of individuals who are kind of. Driving gun violence, especially when these groups kind of clash. So. That is one example of us keeping track of. The existence of these groups, who their members are, what they're participating in, you know, during the school year and all of a sudden, cuz you're exactly right. As soon as we have, as soon as the kids go outta school or there's more people out. On the streets with a lot of free time. That's when we see our, our gun violence explode. So I think some of the. One way we do it is keeping track of. Group activity even prior to the, the summer letting out, I didn't want to mention. Specific community group. Cause I knew that I was not going to remember them all and I was didn't want to upset anybody by forgetting them. But I, you know, I'll just give one example, you know, we've been involved. With the blueprint per piece. Which is a Michigan transformation. Collective I believe is I'm getting that wrong. Is, is. Running that we, I don't know, chief, if you wanna speak a little bit of Alpac or if you can get, provide any more information. But anyway, go ahead. I think one of the things that's been extremely helpful. And intentionally we've been doing this. At the department for the last five years is accessibility to different votes within the department. Many of you been to the quarterly meetings that Kalam as a public safety have. And I mean, the chief, I think everyone in city Kalamazoo has a cell phone. I mean, he puts his cell phone there. We also have our community collaborator, Lata, Turner. And it is amazing how much. Information that the community provides to her that. Helps us to prevent crimes and also gives us additional information. So it allows us to have. Access to different organizations. So I think the biggest thing that we've had. In the last few years is. How the community has direct access to the department to be able to relay informations. Hope that was helpful. Or did you. It, it was, and I guess a follow up question is, do you. Does your department reach out to other departments within the state and nationally to see what programs or lessons learned from their programs? Programs to help reduce the gun violence. Yeah, not only that, not nationally or, or locally. Also, or when I say locally within the state, we constantly send our officers and even from the chiefs on down to different programs. And we come back when they have trainings to find whatever best practices and how we implement prime example, the gun amnesty program that we have. The chief went to a conference in Washington, DC. Gund program is where anyone can turn in a gun at a local church has participating in. So you walk into your room. One of your, your child has a gun. Hit and away you don't know what to do. You can take the gun to one of the participating churches. Drop it off. It's a gun case there to pastor would take care, whatever the church it is. No questions asked and is taken down and we will take it to and put it in safekeeping. We've had eight guns this year turned in. So those partnerships that we have. Now is great example of the best practice that we got from another department. I believe out of Tennessee. That we took their model and implemented here. So we have quite a few GBIs and other example. I think was implemented. Outta New York. So we do take quite a few different practices to make sure, and we mow it to our department. Thank you. Yep. I just wanted to kind of add to that as well. There every week, there's a. Community partnership meeting with the department holds with nonprofit. Organizations at the department so that we're sharing. Information that can help them. Accomplish their mission better, you know? And. There are other agencies or other, other gun violence reduction programs around the country that we've seen where there's no communication between or no. Collaboration between the nonprofit groups that are working on a community level. And, and local law enforcement. And I, we kinda looked at that and said, I, we don't understand how that can be successful because you need the information sharing that can that to do it correctly. I mean, like I said, enforcement is one side of it and I, I do believe it has to be done. There's those who certainly cannot reach and that's where enforcement comes into play, or if it needed for intervention. But that basic community level where you can leverage those relationships that are already existing are, are even more important. So. Certainly we are. Our VI our production strategy. Can't exist without the community. Other questions. Questions. Sure. Just one more I'm done when you. Discuss community involvement, which is something that's very important with the current political environment. Have you seen a, a decrease in the community involvement? Yeah, I would say in the opposite direction. There's there is more involvement. Cause I, I believe believe people are, people are worried. They're concerned about whether it be their own family or their neighbors or their friends. And it's. Yeah, it's certainly hasn't, hasn't decreased. Thank you. Of course. All right. Thank you. Thank you all.
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