The agenda for today’s meeting can be found on the city’s website, or by clicking here 👇🏼

bit.ly/30fSmKD

The meeting will be held remotely, via Zoom. Participants can also join by phone.

This information is provided at the top of the agenda.

If you’re following along with me today, watch for a 🚨 to signify the start of public comments!

The Topic/Presentations scheduled for this week are Human Resources & the Detroit Police Department’s 7th Precinct @DPD7Pct 🤔

Sounds like there might be some technical issues. There are currently 5 Commissioners present - Holley, Bernard, Bell, Jones and Hernandez. https://t.co/DoYurGbwZp

Commissioner Willie Bell has joined the meeting.

Chaplain Juanita Martin is starting the meeting off with prayer. https://t.co/3rtyG7aDgv

CORRECTION: Willie Davis* joined late, not Bell.

Secretary White said that the Board received a notice of absence from Commissioners Burch and Holt.

Commissioner Willie Burton did not respond during roll call. Sec. White said he is currently in the meeting as a guest, they attempted to promote him and didn’t receive a response

Agenda was approved. Commissioner Davis objected to the “at-large” language, says it should be “appointed”.

Note: he’s said this consistently for some time now

🗣Chairman Holley has moved public comment to after presentations today.

Another side note: If I’m not mistaken, they skipped over approving the minutes from the October 7, 2021 meeting.

Assistant Chief, Todd Bettison, is filling in for Chief James White today. He said that Chief White is at Police Week.

Chief Holley is talking about a whole lot at the moment. Doing my best to get it all down 😬

Holley is excited about the new education/training partnership between DPD and other stakeholders, specifically noting Wayne County Community College.

He looks forward to see the impact it has on retaining and recruitment efforts at the police department. He hopes to receive a monthly report from Chief White

He referenced an article by the @freepress about the Board of Police Commissioners. (See below) And noted the purposes and responsibilities of the Board.

freep.com/story/opinion/…

Chair Holley said that “we”(they) feel that they’ve been misunderstood from time to time, in reference to the @freep article.

Ericka Whitley, Law Dept, provided a verbal report in response to Holley’s request last week.

She said the by laws say that the Chair has the power to set the rules and enforce the rules.

Regarding cutting off microphones/removing member from the meeting by a motion, Whitley said she believes the rule was proper when made last week

With regard to a comment made about someone running for a Board, Whitley said that if the Board isn’t supported by public funds or a campaign - she doesn’t see a violation.

Holley asked Whitley what the Board’s authority is over facial recognition technology, she said she would defer that question to Corporation Counsel.

It did not sound like Whitley was prepared to report on Holley’s questions. One week turnaround may be a lil’ too quick!

👉🏼 AC Bettison’s crime state report and community updates

5 injured officers who are either disabled and/or recovering at home.

25 staff are quarantined, 19 tested posted for COVID-19

Crime data:

Homicides are up 3%
Sexual assaults are up 19%
Aggravated assaults up 9%
Non-fatal shootings - breaking even and have trended down this year

Robberies are on a downward trend
Carjackings are up about 1%

Violent crime as a whole is up 5% compared to last year

Property crime has gone down 2%
Larcenies decreased by 6%
Motor vehicle theft is up 13%

Total crime, including both violent and property crime, is up 1%

They’re not seeing as much activity with drag racing/drifting, Bettison says the weather is helping (😶) stats from last weekend 👇🏼

12 traffic stops
33(?) Citations
2 impounded vehicles
2 weapons recovered
0 arrests, 0 misdemeanor violations

Significant events from the past week:

• 10/6 - two people shot, one killed. Ages 22 and 25. Suspect identified and owns property where it happened. They are still locating the suspect so they can be apprehended

• next is the abduction of a 9-year old girl in Farmington Hills. They have a person of interest in custody.

More info on the situation: fox2detroit.com/news/detroit-f…

• 10/3 - homeless male was shot and killed at a gas station, with the publics assistance they have a person of interest that they arrested today

fox2detroit.com/news/community…

Bettison said they’ve wrapped a police department vehicle to support breast cancer awareness month. Chief White has presented $5K checks to numerous organizations in the community to contribute to breast cancer research and care

Bettison touched on the WCCC partnership with the police department to provide a career pathway and the police academy.

Bettison reported stats on data for first time and repeat offender arrests, and arrests for more than 1 crime committed.

87% of arrests was for one crime. 11% were for two crimes. 3+ crimes - 2%

Onto Board Member Questions 👉🏼

In response to Davis’ questions about arrest warrants conducted at the wrong house, Bettison said he doesn’t have those numbers right now but that they do due diligence. If that happens, property owners can contact the law department

Bettison said they always leave a note on the door as far as a return of property that states what was taken.

Linda Bernard asked about response times for priority one crimes(murder, violent crime). She said it’s 13 minutes (+) for 12th precinct. Response time is just over 11 minutes in the 10th precinct

Bettison said they measure response time similar to the way customer service metrics are recorded. He said the clock starts ticking when someone dials 911.

Revisiting arrest warrants, Bettison said they do a risk assessment prior to executing the warrant. They evaluate the property for things like toys in the yard, what time do the kids leave for school, etc

Bettison says it’s extremely rare for DPD to do a no-knock warrant.

Willie Burton: said he was present for roll call but there were Tech issues.

He complimented the effort to incorporate a college education into policing and cited reasons that it yields positive results

Burton asked for a report on the # of police and fire department employees that have a 2+ years of college under their belt. He says those who have 2+ years are less likely to be involved in misconduct complaints

Burton says this is a great position for the city to be in.

Holley asked if we have Dept of Homeland Security at the DPD. Bettison said they do not, they have a DHS Chair. But they don’t need actual staff because they work closely with them and other federal agencies

Commissioner Hernandez said that he had a convo with Holley about a commitment the department made back in 2017-2018 and wanted to know if that was still in place.

I did not catch the answer but it sounds like homeland security and immigration isn’t DPD’s responsibility.

Bettison confirmed that Detroit PD doesn’t ask for immigration status and can’t provide an answer as to what departments around Detroit do.

Next up 👉🏼 Presentation on the Human Resources October 2021 Report

Note: this reflects the month of September 2021, not October.

The report covers a lot of bases including the Bureau’s staffing, recruiting, new hires, MCOLES testing, residency, leave of absence, suspensions, etc.

Read the full report here: bit.ly/30lNFPr

In September 2021, there were 2,526 sworn positions that were filled at the Detroit Police Department. 143 positions were vacant.

Total capacity = 2,669 sworn positions

There were 751 total civilian positions. 256 positions were filled and 125 were vacant.

Of the 3,420 positions that exist at Detroit PD, there were only 268 vacancies.

Now onto recruitment stats for sworn positions between 7/1/21-9/30/21 👇🏼

There were 1,251 applicants
12 have been hired
29 are in process
40 withdrew https://t.co/GClJm7FPrz

559 applicants have been archived. The report says candidates can be archived for reasons such as waiting on documents, police checks and/or they’re not ready to move forward with the hiring process

420 applicants are awaiting MCOLES testing - 257 are active in the process, 163 of those are archived

Katrina Patillo reported the rest of the data that is in report as it’s read. Link was provided above! ☺️

Holley asked Patillo how many officers 700,000 residents require. Patillo said there’s a lot of factors as Chief White said before. Many things are considered such as demographics, age, etc

With regard to recruiting, Holley said he’d love to see scholarships for college/academy partnerships that are encouraged in high schools.

With regard to recruiting women specifically, Holley said he thinks mothers have “a lot of control” over their daughters.

(As a daughter, I dunno what he’s thinking😅🤣)

Holley said he thinks a great idea would be to target mothers to talk to their daughters about joining the PD… 🤨

Patillo confirmed the starting salary for officers coming out of the Police Academy is around $42,795.

Someone asked for a breakdown of the residency and demographics of officers. Patillo said she has to get those numbers. (Note: i believe it’s in the HR report? I’ll double check)

Benard said she hopes “arrearages” doesn’t mean child support and that’s why people are being disqualified from being a candidate at the PD

👉🏼 Next, 7th Precinct report presented by Nick Giaquinto.

7th precinct saw a lot of shutdowns, particularly in entertainment and hotels.

They’ve seen a decrease in homicides, sexual assaults and robberies.

He notes that this data is a year to year comparison during a time when everyone was at home.

They are facing challenges with an increase in violent crime with aggravated assaults. Giaquinto said victims in their precinct are survivors and they provide them with a level of service that’s “second to none”.

Giaquinto says larceny and motor vehicle theft has always been an issue in @DPD7Pct which he attributes to many residents living in high-rise multi-family complexes

Giaquinto attributed recidivism rates in property crimes to the lack of personal bonds required before they’re released.

With an increase in homicides in the city, the 7th precinct is down over 30%. He said they’re significantly lower than other precincts, with most having # in 20’s. 7th has 8 homicides

He said their strategy in 7th precinct is 3-fold - crime doesn’t happen unless a victim and offender come together at a particular location. So there strategy is based on both sides of the equation.

Note: My 7th precinct tweets are loading slow, or failing to load. But there’s a lot! I’m going to skip ahead and save these as drafts until they are in closed session and I can post them in smaller batches

🚨 Public Comment!

1. Scotty Bowman - said he was told by an unknown person that he was making slanderous comments a few weeks ago. He reached out to the Board with questions and hasn’t received a response.

1. (Cont’d) He said he doesn’t feel asking questions about a conflict of interest is slander.

2. Ms. Smith - she attended a candlelight vigil for a fallen police officer. She complimented the service and shared details about who was there, what was said. She was compassionate toward the hurt of others.

3. Mr. Crowley - he commented about a young woman’s murder, her birthday was yesterday. Accused the Board and DPD of doing nothing to help solve the murder or address the problem.

4. Brenda - commented about facial recognition technology. She said it’s not about whether the policy for using facial recognition is correct, it’s the flawed system that makes it a problem.

5. Lory- said that when a Commissioner representing the citizens of Detroit is muted, they are muting the citizens of Detroit. She doesn’t support the Mayor appointing someone to an elected position.

6. #973 - says they’re still drag racing in District 6 and the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office isn’t doing anything to help.

👉🏼 Facial Recognition Report by Board Sec. White

No violations of department policy for the week of October 1-10th, 2021.

Ms. White said the report and other information that was presented today is available on the Board’s website.

Holley said they’re moving onto New Business.

Willie Burton said he has New Business, and Holley said “of course you do”.

Burton continued to speak and said that before they move on, he’d like the Chair to give everyone who had their hands raised an opportunity to speak during public comment

Here comes the shouting.

Holley and Burton started to argue about whether the remaining public comment participants had an opportunity to speak. Secretary White said there were 9 at the start of public comment.

Burton says it’s unfair to the participants that have waited 2.5-3 hours to give public comment and then not get called on. He said the situation is disenfranchisement.

They just shut down the meeting as they went into closed session……

And I’ll be here until their other meeting is over! 🥳😭 https://t.co/oCc9YcJZ03

And now I’m back in the Zoom room with Board Secretary, Melanie White! Sorta. https://t.co/IvGNXCA6kl

While I wait for the Board of Police Commissioner’s to come back into this meeting, I will follow up on the 7th precinct report details.

Giaquinto talked about their support for victims in the 7th precinct. He said they take every crime seriously. They work with an intelligence analyst and special ops teams (who he says wears green/black uniforms) and hold meetings together.

They discuss “high offenders” which are offenders they are seeing routinely and they have a 75% apprehension rate for those offenders.

Giaquinto said they target likely places for people to come together to commit a crime. He said they just had a case like this last week. They locked the door and seized a Prop A business that was hosting “illegal marijuana sex parties”

(a what? 😳🧐)

They are working on building their green light partnerships to protect those spaces.

Most of the 7th precinct crime is in the area of Mac and Mt. Elliott where there are several neighborhood community organizations that serve vulnerable populations. They try to maintain a consistent presence in this area

Captain Conway Petty presented the 2nd half of the 7th precinct report and explained strategies on various topics.

Regarding gun crime, he said they send detectives to arraignments to ensure they have appropriate bonds on gun offenders. He said they’ve had problems with personal bonds being set extremely low so they’re trying to become involved where that’s a concern

Capt. Petty shared details about the Watch Your Car Program, which is a state/nationwide effort to curb auto vehicle theft. They will put stickers on cars to identify those who aren’t normally driving between the hours of 1am and 5am.

They’re doing it at places like apartment buildings. If they see someone driving the vehicle with a sticker, Petty says they have leverage to stop the car.

Captain Petty also explained community programs they have at 7th precinct right now.

They have a social worker who he says is “deeply embedded” in the precinct

They also have a domestic violence advocate assisting with personal protection orders and working on a domestic violence reduction program.

Other programs
• monthly “Walk with a Cop” events. They’re doing them now at the Detroit Edison Public School Academy.
• anti bullying classes, talking to student directly
• conflict resolution with young Detroiters to curb gun violence they’re seeing in youth populations

Okay they’re rolling back into the open meeting. And they’re back with a vibe, if ya can’t tell. https://t.co/R7fSZhre9f

Commissioners are to send their top 3 selections for Board Secretary to HR by October 22nd.

The following week (10/28) they’ll contact top 3 selections for interviews.
The week after, they’ll conduct interviews.
The week after that, they’ll announce the new Board Secretary

I did not hear Commissioner Burton during roll call. Not clear if he’s on mute, or if he’s gone. The only Commissioners visible on Zoom are those with their video on.

There is a motion to sped the process of hiring a new Board Secretary by a week.

Linda Bernard told Holley to remember that some Commissioners are up for election and the week before it takes place is busy.

A motion to speed the process up by a week passed. The interviews for Board Secretary will now be the 28th.

Melanie White pointed out that there isn’t a meeting in between the selection submission deadline and the interview, which doesn’t leave time to reconcile any conflicts - such as a tie in the # of votes for top 3.

Nobody seemed concerned about the possibility of a conflict. Holley basically said, “we’ll cross that bridge when it’s a problem”.

With nothing further on the agenda, the Board adjourned at 6:05pm.

This concludes the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners meeting for Thursday, October 14th, 2021.

For more meeting coverage, check out Documenters.org 😁