Sure. We have Deputy Chief Kyle Ana, deputy Chief Ken Davenport, deputy Chief Ed McGinn, deputy Chief Sean Fleming and Lieutenant Sean. Martha.

Through the chair. Again, this is a lengthy report. It's on the agenda. I'm sure everyone has it. This is basically a summary of ongoing practices that we are actually doing now and what we've done prior to the DOJ report coming out and since the release of A DOJ report, Mr Police Department has been conducting an initial assessment of the analysis findings and recommendations. DOJ raised many concerning allegations in its report and the department takes these allegations seriously even where it might not agree with DOJs methodologies or conclusions, which I will get into later just to know that the department cooperated fully with the DOJ investigation and is committed to providing fair, transparent, unbiased and effective policing to the Worcester community. Also, the DOJs investigation specifically looked at the time span between 2018 and 2022.

You shut the door. We're going to hear a vacuum.

Okay. The DOJ investigation specifically looked at the timeframe during 2018 to 2022. The DOJ report does not reflect wpds current practices including reforms and improvements made since 2022. Part one of this report provides a high level summary of many of those measures and part two will detail many remedial measures proactively undertaken to fulfill that commitment and address the findings outlined in this report. Wpds current practices improvements. In October of 2023, we created a policy review committee to review and improve its policies and develop new policies as necessary. We work in conjunction with the Chief equity Officer who consults with the Human Rights Commission for policy input as appropriate.

As far as use of force is concerned, the WPD has existing policies and procedures in place that already address many use of force concerns raised by the DOJ. For example, use of force policy 400 makes clear that all officers receive training on deescalation techniques and are required when feasible to attempt deescalation tactics prior to using force. It also makes clear that the use of tasers in drive stunt mode constitutes a level three use of force while the use of tasers in the probe deployment constitutes a level four use of force. We've also instituted a body-worn camera program that started as a pilot in 2019. The full body-worn camera program began in February of 2023 and is all our reports in I believe were 23,000 videos that we gave to the DOJ or they were able to look at during their investigation.

The police K nine guidelines, policy number 4 0 1. These canine guidelines are comprehensive and outline when and how a canine can be deployed. The policy also requires that all dog bites are photographed. Again, this is prior to the DOJ investigation. WPD trains its canines in the use of the bite and hold method instead of the B and hold method and conducts the vast majority of its deployments on lead. The bite and hold method has been found to be safer and has significantly lower bite to apprehension ratio than the B and hold method. Matter of fact, in assessing the effectiveness of the bite and hold method, the WPD voluntarily partnered with a veterinary researcher from Tufts University who reviewed canine deployments in the city. The data analyzed by the researcher revealed that there were 15 bytes from 2017 to 2022 out of 109 displays a display could be the canine X in the cruiser barking anytime that it was used within a police context.

This study determined that the department's bite ratio of 13.7% is well below the justified bite ratio, which is discussed in case law of Ker versus City of West Palm Beach. An expert there testified that less than 30% of apprehensions on average should result in a bite and again, Mr. PDs at 13.7%. As far as training for canines, WPD already requires extensive training of canines and canine handlers well above the industry standard of 16 hours of training per month. WPD trains its canines in handlers 24 hours per month in addition to a three day 24 hour in-house workshop once per year. While the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has no standing training in place, the canines WPD requires the canines conduct a 14 week, 560 hour basic patrol school before any canine is deployed. Every canine is also certified on an annual basis by a third party certifying body.

As far as responses to behavioral health, WPD has a crisis intervention team consists of four full-time officers. In addition to this, dedicated team officers in the department can voluntarily receive 40 hours focused on mental illness and deescalation training and certification from Open Sky Community Services. Approximately 100 officers have elected to participate in this voluntary training. In addition, all officers in the academy receive 12 hours of CIT training and once we get into new things we are doing, I'll add to this. As far as prostitution stings, the vice unit consists of 15 officers and four supervisors. The vice squad rarely conducts prostitution related stings and when it does, they generally focus on they targeting demand or Johns. During the 2018 and 2022, the vice unit had 2,465 arrests and only of those only 360 65 involved prostitution and 99 were women and that was in a five year.

As far as background checks for people trying to come onto the Worcester Police Department and that are currently on the department, WPD conducts rigorous background investigations before hiring officers including criminal background checks, neighborhood canvassing, reference checks and interviews of family members, friends and former employers in audio recorded interviews with the candidate. This well established process generally takes six months to complete and has been documented in policy for over three decades. Further state and national background checks are required in order to obtain post certification. You cannot be a police officer in Massachusetts unless you're certified by post. Post also has the ability to decertify officers and that's something we could talk about later As far as eliminating barriers to reporting WPD officers many avenues to file complaints. We have an anonymous reporting and complaint mechanism for the public through its online tip and text to TIP tools.

You can also submit citizen comments and complaints online or in hard copy. The public can also submit anonymous reports of police misconduct to the post commission. These documents are also found at WPD headquarters, city Hall, city manager's office, the council office and the A CLU all have copies of these forms. As far as the DOJ examined the practice of our sexual assault unit and whether the unit's approach is appropriately victim centered or trauma informed. Currently S aus is what we call 'em currently. Their practices include which the DOJ said did not. Trauma-informed policing that is consistent with the Commonwealth's adult sexual law enforcement guidelines in MPTC training. They also have partnerships and referrals to support services which connects victims to a wide variety of advocacy and support groups. Documentation and coordination with the DA's office is imperative. The WPD and the SAU in particular have a very close relationship with the DA's office, frequently collaborating on cases and working together to connect victims with support services and other resources. Ultimately, the DA's office is equipped with the SAU reports and evidence and the DA decides whether or not to prosecute a case, not the WPD. All these facts that are compiled are essential in evaluating whether it's sufficient evidence and probable cause to satisfy the elements of a crime under Massachusetts law.

As we move into disparities, the WPD sought to identify and address disparities as follows. We have a crime analysis unit that regularly analyzes available data including demographic data such as race, gender, and age. WPD has been successful in its outreach, outreach and recruitment that reflects its commitment to the diversification of its workforce and the department is rapidly diversifying its ranks. The two most recent academy classes are more diverse demographically than any in WPS history with demographics of the most recent classes consisting of 35% Latino, 35% white, 16% black and 13% Asian. When we talk about accountability and supervision as far as eliminating barriers to the complaint process, the WPD is continuously striving to improve accountability and transparency. These existing measures include but are not limited to the following. As I said previously, a complaint can be made against any WPD sworn or civilian personnel through several pathways. In addition to the anonymous options described above. Complaint can be made in person by mail, by email or by fax.

And as I described before, the wpds citizen complaint forms are available in several languages and included at the department's service division, city manager's office, the mayor, city council office, human Rights Commission, and the A CLU and neighborhood centers. As far as officers requiring to report misconduct department policy number 2 0 6 department's anti retaliation policy imposes an affirmative duty on officers to report wrongdoing and misconduct and prohibits retaliatory conduct against or interference with an employee or civilian who makes or assists in the investigation of such a report. Body-worn cameras policy 4 0 3 and again these were all in place prior to this investigation. Officers were required to activate body-worn cameras with limited exceptions during all encounters with civilians including during a 9 1 1 emergency non-emergent calls for service and police initiated investigations and stops.

So those are items that had already been in place prior to the DOJ report. Things that we are currently doing, we hired retired FBI, civil Rights Unit Chief Ron Reed to supplement current color of a training. He started yesterday. I went through the class today and it was excellent. Very good feedback from everybody. He's training 400 officers and it's valuable training that we often don't get as far as outside trainings coming in and his experience, he worked for the DOJ, he did civil rights investigations for them. He was involved in many civil rights investigations involving police officer shootings and deaths. So he's very experienced as far as the use of force, again, the K nine guideline policy 4 0 1 has been revisited and revised to prohibit the of canines and mass gatherings or riot scenes. This policy's currently going through the review process.

We are also using a separate use of not currently. We are going to use of force use a separate use of force form for all canine bytes. Several directors were put out in January including on January 16th. Supervisors reviewing use of force reports are required to prepare a separate report that documents how they conducted their analysis of the use of force such as reviewing BWC footage or videos respond to the scene of the incident and or witness statements. Also in that directive a supervisor's required to go to the scene of an incident to look for potential evidence whenever an arrestee has an injury. Another directive, all uses of force at level three and higher requires a written report from a supervisor. Also a new use of force committee consisting of training division experts in each discipline has recently been established. It includes WPD Municipal Police Training Council certified use of force instructor, taser instructor and firearms instructor. This committee will review level four and higher uses of force incidents through examining all available evidence including body-worn cameras. And what this does is it gives us an avenue to identify any type of training deficiencies which may lead to a higher level of force so that we can capture that and offer the appropriate training to the officer to change the course of direction.

We have also extended the police academy that's currently training. They are extended 40 additional hours and that will be all CIT training and it started with the January 25 academy, so they just went up another week. It's a lot of training but I believe the 40 hours to dedicate to CIT is huge and it'll have definite positive outcomes. WPD is also expanding its co response model to allow coverage of the first half shift, which will result in an additional 24 hours of coverage for a total of 64 hours of coverage per week. So the clinician is out on the street with a police officer, they handle follow-up calls or if a call comes in that's needed, they can actually go to the scene. But the follow up is huge because so much of our calls for service involve a particular response where their expertise can come in. I've been to scenes where we've had barricaded persons, we've had a clinician within the command post with us and you never used to see that before, so that's definitely a big adjustment.

As far as undercover operations, WPD has developed new policy that offices will only use the Common Night Walker statute, which allows enforcement without having the subject enter the vehicle. And again, this is done. There will never be an opportunity in the Worcester Police as far as I'm here for an officer to have been alleged to have done anything because they're not gun in the car. So that's done with as far as the sexual assault investigations, that's that SAU unit I was talking about. That will also call for officers to memorialize the DA's and designees assessment of the case and including whether the case should be closed. So that will be contained within the police report when we speak about assessing and addressing disparities.

Our current RMS system is 30 years old. It's been around longer than I've been here and the city contracted with the company Hexagon and again, that's going to take 12 to 18 months to be instituted and it's also a, it's being done with four other communities. So that is on the way and once that happens then we will be able to number one, create more data as far as demographics with arrests with bureau professional standards and currently we have to all do that manually. As far as the academy class, again, we've also worked with the departments, the city's diversity equity inclusion office and developed a new community policing focus program for new student officer. So those officers are taking that right now within the academy and right now all the feedback is excellent as far as accountability and supervision, the Bureau of Professional Standards policies policy 500 that also will be updated to ensure that all use of force complaints are handled by Bobs.

As far as you come into the station, you want to file a use of force complaint that used to be done by the officer's immediate supervisor and will now be referred to Bureau of Professional Standards Academy in service training on the duty to intervene law will also be expanded as part of the plan supplemental training and again, I went through the class today and Rod Reed spoke about that as well. As far as random body-worn camera audits, we were required to do 40 videos per month that has been upgraded and now 30 videos per command staff as far as operations, and then 30 for bops. So a total of 60 randomized videos per month will be looked at by the supervisors. These videos are randomly selected by the Axon Performance System and again, what this does is it can not only identify training inadequacies as far as how officers are approaching the scene but can also identify a violation of policy. But again, we're here not only about policy violation, but we want to make sure that we can use it as a development tool and an intervention strategy if we see something during one of those observations.

So as far as things that we've done and things going forward, that concludes that I now want to address some other items when we talk about different mistakes and mischaracterizations that we actually spoke about. And when we talk about first, the DOJ has never specifically identified any of the incidents that it reviewed in its investigation. The reports you guys have are the reports we have and when we talk about use of force, and I brought this up the other day, W PD in that five year span went to 816,000 incidents. There were 21,000 body cam videos, thousands of reports according to the 1300 records of use of force, 770 of those pertain to only a display of a tool. So in the Commonwealth definition of use of force does not include displays, but the WPD has adopted a tighter reporting mechanism and we document every display of any tool or weapon including tasers, batons, OC, canine and firearms. So when I was speaking about canines prior, the dog getting out of the and barking, that's a display. We count that as a use of force.

What those reports that you've read online in the newspaper, the DOJ failed to provide important contextual details such as the officer's knowledge and experience with certain locations or individuals. The DOJ failed to appropriately describe the subject behavior including their defiance of officer directives, their resistance to arrest, their violent behavior, their agitation and or threats to officers immediately proceeding the use of force. DOJ also failed to acknowledge the officer's attempts to deescalate prior to resorting to force and the DOJ failed to acknowledge the nature of the offenses committed and the danger posed by subjects to officers and to the public. What is very important in those four bullets is what we are judged upon when we look at use of force. We go by Supreme Court 1989 decision Graham versus Connor. So a fourth Amendment violation or a fourth amendment is a seizure of a person use of force falls under that seizure.

The United States Supreme Court said in part in 1989 that the reasonableness of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene rather than 2020. Vision of hindsight, the calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split second decisions in circumstances that are tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving. The test of reasonableness is not capable of a precise definition or mechanical application. Force must be reasonable under the totality of the circumstances known or reasonably believed by the officer at the time the force was used. The totality of the circumstances means all facts known to the police officer at the time of the incident not in hindsight. That is important because when you read through these, the DOJ left out, any of those precursors as to what constituted our reasonableness, they just put in there that we use force and pepper sprayed somebody, but there has to be a reason leading up to that.

And another factor is the people who I got a call from a Harvard student who said she edited the DOJ report and wanted to do an interview. The people looking at the videos were actually interns. So interns were doing it. I don't know how extensive because I never could get an answer, but the interns were looking at the video and they also, this one from Harvard called me or emailed Lieutenant Murtha and said she wanted an interview. She edited the report. So again, this comes down to the reason this of another police officer in the same situation.

When we give out, I'm sorry, through to the chair. When we give out information on body cams, there's our software called evidence.com. We have to give people permission to use it and the permission of the person that was using it was an intern. After this report was released, Lieutenant Murtha come up to me and said, Hey, we got a request for an interview. It was a student from Harvard who said she interned for the DOJ and wanted to do a follow-up because she edited the report. So

To the chair? That's correct. That's the information we have. I don't know the extent of what they did. I believe we tried to get answers to that and we couldn't.

To the chair? Just prior to US Attorney Levy retiring.

Yes.

And to the chair, what I'm going to do is just give you a couple incidents

And then you can tell why the police came out the way they did because none of this, in my opinion, if you're going to make an allegation, put the whole allegation out there. Don't give two lines to the newspaper or in the report that people cannot read through. They cannot grasp what happened in these situations without looking at the whole incident report. So if we go to, here's an example. DOJ describes an incidents report that involved the use of a taser and apprehending a male subject at Worcester's Union Station DOJ claims The use of a taser was unreasonable. Remember what I said, Graham versus Connor DOJ claims the use of a taser was unreasonable because the man posed no immediate threat and the only crime the man had committed was loitering. A review of the incident report makes clear that this is an oversimplified and inaccurate mischaracterization of the incident.

The city and the WPD have designated a portion of Union Station as a precinct substation to combat crime and ensure public safety consistent with WP D'S experience and other instances at this location. The subject involved in this particular incident was disorderly, defiant and aggressive and appeared to be under the influence of alcohol. DOJ report fails to mention the many attempts made by the officers to deescalate the situation by attempting to explain the loitering laws and providing over a dozen warnings and commands to leaving prior to arresting the subject, telling someone please leave, walk away as part of deescalation. The incident report indicates that the subject shouted at officers and refused to leave. When the officer attempted to arrest the subject, he resisted ripping the officer's hand off his arm, pushing the officer in the chest and taking a fighting stance. The officer ordered the subject to the ground before retrieving his taser.

Pursuant to the use of force policy, tasers are authorized to defend against an assault of individual and perceived imminent attack and that's exactly what that was. The officer yelled taser as the subject was facing him and pulled the trigger at the same time the subject turned and began to run causing the probes to impact the back of the subject's thick jacket. The probe deployment was ineffective and the subject fled the building. The officer chased the subject into a narrow alleyway blocked by a Bob Dwy fence. The subject repeatedly kicked an elbow the officer before the officer was able to pull him from the alleyway and effectuate the arrest. After the arrest, the officer complied with WPD policy 400 and reported all use of force to a sergeant. So the DOJ claimed that this was a case of an officer quickly and unreasonably resorting to using tasers.

When actuality, the officer had probable cause to believe that the subject committed the crimes of disorderly behavior, disturbing the peace, loitering, resisting arrest and assault and battery on a police officer and the force used was reasonable and proportional to apprehend if agitated and assault of subject. I'll now get into one quickly that we talked about last week. An officer working in an off-duty detail at Walmart. The DOJ claims that the incident where an officer punched an OC sprayed a shoplifter, the use of force was unreasonable. The DOJ claims that these uses of force are unreasonable in light of the minor nature of the offenses and the officer's failure to note in his report any other attempts to control or handcuff the man resorting to punches again deescalation when feasible.

The description fails to mention the key contextual information that establishes the immediate danger posed to the officer and justifies the officer's actions and use of force. In this particular incident, the officer observed the subject taking a flat screen television a soundbar in a toolkit worth a total of $745 from the store without paying. The officers then observed the subject get into a waiting car with the license plates removed a getaway car. When the officer stepped in front of the car, the unidentified driver unexpectedly accelerated the vehicle in the officer's direction. The initial encounter occurred so quickly that the officer was unable to attempt to deescalate. There's no way you can deescalate anything when somebody's driving a 20,000 pound vehicle at you that could possibly kill you. So the officer narrowly avoided the car and was able to grab onto the subject who's possibly outside the vehicle.

The driver of the getaway car fled with the stolen merchandise and the officer was left with the suspect who then began to elbow and kick the officer. Other officers arrived on scene, described that the subject attempted a headbutt and kicked the officer and flailed his body to resist arrest. The arresting officer verbally told the subject to stop resisting before resorting to strikes and again, that's something you're trained to do. You're always yelling commands. As the officer was able to hold the subject to the ground, he continued to resist arrest and the officer warned that OC spray if he did not comply, would be used. Ultimately, the subject did not comply and it also took another two officers to help the primary officer effectuate the rest. The use of force employed by this officer were appropriate and proportionate given the subject's volatile and assaultive behavior. Now put yourself in the position of that officer seeing this split. Second decisions. No. 2020 hindsight you have to make a decision right then you do not have time to deescalate. You need to effectuate that arrest. This officer has a purple hat and he did a hell of a job.

The next incident, I'm just going to do four. DOJs report also references an incident involving an agitated patient at a skilled nursing facility who needed to be transferred to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. According to the DOJ, the man was handcuffed. This is an important point. According to the DOJ, the man was handcuffed, resisted being escorted to the stretcher by pulling his arms to his chest, thrashing, kicking in officers and spitting on an officer, leading an officer punch a subject in the face three times yet again do J'S description of this incident is incomplete. Now again, when we talk about totality of the circumstances, officers knowing different suspects, knowing different locations where they go. In this incident, the officer's incident report reveals that he was both familiar with the skilled nursing facility and with this particular subject who had been previously needed to be involuntary admitted for psychiatric evaluation at the same facility.

The subject has a long history with the WPD data available suggests he's been arrested approximately 60 times including resisting arrest and assault and battery on a police officer. Again, you're going to this call the guy's name because you've dealt with him before, so right away that kicks into your mind of what you're going to be dealing with as it relates to this particular incident. The supervising nurse had described the subject as combative and threatening to assault staff and other patients, which the EMS even requested that police respond and secure the scene before they could safely transport the subject for evaluation.

Responding officers made numerous attempts to deescalate the subject by communicating why they were there and what was going on, but the subject was unwilling to deescalate and continued to threaten to attack anyone who touched him. When the officers moved to either side of the subject to escort him to the stretcher, the subject pulled his arms to his chest area, spit on the officers and thrashed around the break free. Despite the DOJs description of the incident, the subject was not handcuffed. Now if you tell me that one of my officers punched, somebody handcuffed, we're going to have a big problem. That's what was putting this report for the public to see, but that's not what happened. One of the officers attempted to turn the subject onto his stomach to secure him with handcuffs, but the subject tucked his hands underneath him further resisting officer's attempts. So this gentleman was already assaultive to the police.

The reasonableness of what the officers needed to do to take this person in custody and bring him for a psych evaluation has grown heightened. One of the officers delivered three closed fist strikes to the side of the subject's face in response to the subject's behavior. The officer's report describes in detail his intent and intensity of his strikes as report. The officer used his non-dominant hand while his dominant hand was trying to maintain control of the subject. The officer describes this in his report. This distraction effort was successful and the officers were finally able to handcuff the subject. The officers then evaluated the subject for injuries. No injuries were visible and the officers immediately notified their sergeant of the use of force as required. One more incident for use of force in connection with W PDs. Use of canine DOJ describes an incident in which a canine was deployed to search a condemned building and bid a woman hiding under a blanket.

According to the DOJ, none of the offenses committed by the woman, these are the offenses she committed. Breaking and entering destruction of property, trespassing and resisting arrest involved assaulting or threatening officers or others. D J'S description fails to capture the danger of the situation encountered by officers at this particular scene and officer's experience with early reports of crimes at this specific location, this incident involved a condemned and unoccupied residence. Officers had responded to 69 separate incidents at this particular property in the previous six months, including 15 calls, four for trespassing and two for breaking and entering. In the month of this incident alone, the management company of the property boarded up all access points and posted no trespassing signs. Code enforcement had condemned the building and have fixed their own placards around the building. In this incident, officers were called to the scene for breaking and entering in progress.

They were notified by the property owner that at least one individual remained within the building. The owner asked officers to search and clear the property so that he could safely enter the building. This is your property. The owner wants to go in it. He's asking for assistance. The responding officer decided to search the building with the aid of a canine for officer safety. This decision was made for three main reasons. First, the officers understood from the property owner that a crime had been and was still being committed. Second, the officers that conducted searches of this particular building prior to this incident since they were called, there were over 60 times prior to this incident and were aware that the building posed an extreme tactical disadvantaged officers. Third, the officers were aware that the building had an attic space and in that just a few weeks prior to this incident, another officer in Massachusetts was shot and killed and his canine was shot while searching an attic in similar circumstances. The anniversary of that officer's murder was last week.

The canine officers shouted an announcement, Worcester police canine make yourself known, the dog will find and may bite you. This officer made 11 announcements at five strategic locations throughout the property. The officer waited after each announcement to allow time for any individuals to surrender. Prior to using force, the subject did not comply with the announcements and the dog physically apprehended her. The subject was transported to a hospital for treatment and as required, a canine supervisor was notified of the use of force respond to the scene and photographs were taken. That is a couple incidents from use of force. Now I'd like to get into a couple of advice incidents. Any questions on that? Prior to not yet. Not yet. Not yet.

In 2022, the department was made aware of general allegations of misconduct and local press coverage. WPD received a copy of a term paper prepared by Clark University students that anonymously surveyed women currently or previously engaged in prostitution regarding their experience with WPD officers or individuals they believed with WPD officers. The paper raised concerning allegations but relied on anecdotal in anonymized accounts, instructing respondents not to include any identifying information including name, address, phone number, or other personal information. And let me just be clear, the department does not condone any type of sexual misconduct of any kind and takes all of these allegations of any misconduct very seriously. When we looked at this and the students who worked on the report have since attempted to withhold their paper from public disclosure, given its limitations and flaws and methodology, Brad Peton did an article Summer 18th 22 and a quote from that article says, we do not believe our research methods would hold up as credible due to the timeframe and sampling of the study.

Despite its best efforts, WPD has been unable to follow up with any of the respondents about their allegation and has no information about the identity of the women's survey. The officers alleged to have engaged in misconduct, the date, time, or location of the alleged misconduct or any specific information, information that would allow it to fully investigate the allegations without the involvement of the anonymous respondents. And let me just say, within the last year officers, there's again, you need specific complaint information for any type of comprehensive investigation and unfortunately is not uncommon for members of the public to impersonate police officers during interactions with women engaged in commercial sex trade in order to avoid paying for their services. For example, within the last year, officers arrested an individual driving a decommissioned unmarked police vehicle or a vehicle modified to resemble an unmarked police vehicle that had a state police sticker as well as a police style antenna on the back.

The individual was also found to be carrying a wallet that had mass state police insignia as well as a police badge. This particular individual had a prior arrest for sex for a fee in a past reported sexual assault allegation. The press coverage in late 2022 attributed many of the misconduct allegations to women working with a specific organization. Bob's investigators made several attempts to meet with the leadership to gather additional information so that they could further investigate the allegations. Leadership declined to cooperate or to participate in any investigation. And as I said it in the media, and I'll say it again, if officers were doing this, I'd be the first person put handcuffs on 'em and taken to jail and so would in any other police officer here. Anonymous complaints taken seriously by WPD indeed department officers, several pathways and I explained those earlier. Despite interviewing vice squad officers about their work, this is the DOJ when they came in, they interviewed all of us despite interviewing vice squad officers about their work and receiving detailed information related to the anonymous complaints and subsequent investigations the same. The DOJ suggests that the department should have done more to investigate these allegations. I don't know where you would start when you have no information. Give me something. Give me a description of a vehicle. Give me what time of day. Was it dock out? Was it light out? Was it a Saturday? All those sins could contribute to actually starting and conducting an investigation.

The department expressed during its meetings with the DOJ that to the extent OJ was aware of any other complaints, it hoped the DOJ would share any such relevant information with us despite writing in its report that it heard multiple credible accounts of misconduct, DOJ has never provided any information to the WPD beyond what is summarized in this report. WPD supports the investigation and prosecution of any officer found to have engaged in sexual misconduct of any kind. And quickly, I'm going to go through the SAU unit, which I referenced earlier, and this unit comes out of the detective bureau. They're highly trained investigators conducting probably one of the most serious things you can and that's investigating sexual crimes. The SAU investigates our reported sexual assaults in Worcester and during the time period of that investigation, now again we're talking five years. There are 1,674 incidents coded as potential sexual assaults because many of the files exist only in hard copy and cannot be easily reviewed electronically.

OJ requested a sampling of 58 files. 58 out of 1,674 files were randomly selected based on a case PD provided scan copies of those files to the DOJ. Thus, J'S review was limited to only 3.46% of the total essay cases reported during the time subject to investigation such as small samples insufficient to use as basis for conclusions about the general practices of the department's sexual assault unit. The DOJ also inaccurately describes the practices of the sexual assault unit and alleged that the unit's approach is not victim centered or trauma informed. Despite detailed information directly to the DOJ, all these investigators sat with the DOJ for interviews. The DOJ ignored detailed information provided by officers during the investigation regarding their victim-centered and trauma-informed approach to sexual assault investigations. The victims guide the detectives throughout this process. It's not the other way around. DOJ failed to acknowledge WP D'S support of victims of sexual assault through direct referrals and partnerships.

The DOJ failed to acknowledge the close and collaborative relationship between the SAU offices and the District attorney's office and failed to recognize that the SAU reports are relied upon the DA's office in deciding whether case can be prosecuted, the DOJ also failed to acknowledge and mischaracterized the S a's efforts to corroborate and investigate sexual assault allegations by conducting interviews and follow up with witnesses in collecting and reviewing additional evidence. In addition, when you talk about victim-centered and trauma-informed policing, contrary to the information provided by U, again, they all sat down with the DJ, the officers interviewed during the investigation. The DOJ repeatedly and incorrectly suggests that WPD does not investigate sexual assault with a victim-centered and trauma-informed approach. Roads officers told DOJ that consistent with their training and best practices that the victims from the outset at the investigation hold the ball and are in charge of that investigation.

And again, the a u respects the wishes of victims by not pressuring them to proceed, but by not furthering investigating their cases without the victim's permission. J false A U is being ill-equipped to connect victims with community victim advocate services. This is false as addressed during DOJs interview a U investigators, the unit partners in connects victims the unit partners and connects victims. The wide variety advocacy and support groups and cases involving children. WPD partners with the accredited Child Advocacy Center through the DA's office. WPD works extensively with the Worcester Intervention Network through the YWCA to support victims of intimate partner abuse and sexual assault. And they also sit on the board of the domestic violence high risk teams and the Domestic Violence Fatality Review teams. WPD routinely refers adult victims of non-intimate partner sexual assaults to pathways for change. A community advocacy center located in Worcester.

Despite all of these resources that were mentioned to the DOJ, some of the reports that they highlighted had these same resources within the report, but they said we don't have enough resources or we don't refer our people to resources. WPD and SAU in particular have a close relationship. Wister County da. Ultimately the DA's office equipped with SAU reports and evidence decides whether or not to prosecute each case. As such and is recognized by the Commonwealth guidelines officers have an obligation to make note of important details including but limited to any physical or verbal resistance on the part of the victim, any victim injury, the victim's thoughts before and during the assault, the relationship between the victim and the offender, any alcohol or drug abuse or other incapacitation, the existence of any physical evidence and any seemingly inconsistent statements made by the victim or memory blackouts.

This is important because the DOJ describes reports as seriously flawed for including these kind of details, including these details are facts that are essential in evaluating whether it's sufficient evidence and probable cause. To satisfy the elements of a crime in a Massachusetts law, we have to investigate in particular sexual assaults as far as we can go. We have to have all the information. All that information is transferred to the DA's office who makes a decision whether or not to charge that person or not. These reports are not opinion pieces nor our victims' skepticism or disbelief. These reports are used to determine what charges, if any, are available for prosecution.

I'm almost done as far as enforcement activities, data collection, data analysis, the DOJs report like the CNA racial equity audit before criticizes WPD for its data collection and analysis practices. The department is fully supportive of additional data collection and sharing of data with the public, but has to date been limited by the capabilities of its record management system, which I described earlier. WPD informed the D-O-D-O-J of replacing projects several times, including during their first meeting D J's conclusion that wpds enforcement activities disproportionately affect Hispanic and black people is based primarily on review of traffic, stop citation and arrest data. While this trend was also observed in the CNA audit, the DOJ data analysis is seriously flawed in that it relies on the overall demographics of driver stop by WPD. This conclusion entirely is unsupported because WP does not collect race data on drivers stopped by the department.

Sometimes it has been criticized by both the CNA and DOJ. However, the WPD does collect race data for citations. So when we look at citations from 2018 to 2023 and we look at percentage of citations, we see that 52.1% of all citations went to whites. 15.6% of citations were issued to blacks. 2.8% were issued to Asian and 27.5% were issued to Hispanics. This is important because when you look at the population as a whole, the white population is 50.5%. The difference is plus 1.6%. The black population is 12.1%. The difference is 3.5%. The Asian population is 6.9% of Worcester. The difference is negative 4.1% and the Hispanic population in Worcester is 24.9%. That's a difference of plus 2.6%. And it's also worth noting that as CNA found, the data shows that racial disparities actually decrease where officers have a greater discretion in issuing citations. And again, when we're looking at arrest data, the police can't make decisions. When you have a situation, it's a mandatory arrest, you must arrest. So if you have a warrant, it doesn't matter what race you are, I have to arrest you, right? If you're in violation of a restraining order, I have to arrest you. So there's different circumstances where arrest is mandatory.

To the chair? We completed most of 'em that we could minus the information coming from the new RMS system because that hasn't come through yet. There's several policies. They're in the pipeline and again, when we look at policies, we send everything to the chief diversity officer who then coordinates with the Human Rights Commission. They look at the policies, comes back to us, we go through another review, goes through the policy review committee. So that takes time, but there's several policies in the pipeline that are ready to be kicked out.

I can go through the list.

Through the chair. As far as DOJ recommendation, number one, improve use of force policies and trader. We have updated policies and they are not complete yet. The mass criminal justice is actually updating their own use of force policy that will be used statewide. Use of force reporting systems? Yes. Use of force review mechanisms. Yes. Improved data collection. Assessment of force. Again, partially completed. We are still waiting for our hexagon system. Number five, improve response to behavioral health calls for service. Yes. We added 40 hours to the officer's training. We have also included more time for a coordinated response with the clinician, develop policies and training related to enforcing laws related to buying sex. Yes. Improve supervision practices? Yes. Develop and implement policies and procedures to report and investigate reports of officer sexual misconduct? Yes, we have training. We actually brought in outside trainer who deals with duty to inform and that encapsulates that.

It's number eight required background checks. If you were here earlier, I spoke about our six month background check in order to even get on the job recommendation 10, eliminate barriers to reporting. All of our reporting tools are now you're able to actually do an anonymous report. So I would say that's complete trauma-informed sexual assault investigations. We already do it. Improve documentation of police activity. Yes, we have supervisors writing additional reports on any use of force. Analyze data from enforcement activity. Again, we have to wait for the new system to come in meaningfully address disparities. We are doing that. We look at our, again, if we look at our diversification of the workforce, you can see right there the best way to eliminate any type of disparity is to have a more diverse department.

That's 14, 15. Eliminate barriers to complaint process. Again, you can make a complaint through email, mail, fax in person and you can also do it anonymously. So 15. Yes. So 16. Improve civilian complaint investigations. Yes. We are upgrading the BPS policy policy 500 to include when a use of force is initiated at the, if you go into the service division to make a report require officers to report misconduct. Again, that's part of our training duty to inform 18 required review of body-worn camera footage that was being done and it's been enhanced in 19 closely managed specialized units. That has been done. It's being done even more. And again, when we select somebody to go to a specialized unit, I make the last decision on if that person's going. I hope that answered your question.

Say the, I'd like to answer your question.

That's not the question I'm answering.

Through the chair, when you talk about our data, we do collect that data. We gave the company who did the racial audit, thousands upon thousands of pages of information. DOJ also had access to that information. But when you're talking about disparities in race and stops and all that, again, it's a manual process. It's not that we don't collect data, it's the way you're going to extract that data to have a usable format.

Through the chair when we're talking about these investigations, I'm not asking for people's names, I'm asking for any type of details that would lead me down the right path to try to identify any officer that was involved in this. Any way that I can get information will get information. But don't forget, they did go to the DOJ who is an arm of law enforcement. These cases could have very well been referred as criminal cases versus civil. So I'm not sure how that whole thing worked out, but I would take any information you

Madam Chair, if I can intervene for one second. Yes. We'll turn the microphone off and you can continue. Just allow the