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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTRC Transcript - Fact-Finding Community Briefing - March 14, 2023[00:00:00] [00:00:06] Okay. Well, I'm going to go ahead and get the meeting started. It is 5:48. [00:00:10] Um, Stefanie, could we please get roll call? [00:00:13] Uh, Commissioner Dillard. [00:00:14] I'm here. [00:00:16] Commissioner Gathua. [00:00:18] Here. [00:00:19] Commissioner Kiche. [00:00:20] Here. [00:00:21] Johnson. [00:00:22] Here. [00:00:23] Commissioner Merritt. [00:00:24] Here. [00:00:26] Commissioner Simmons. [00:00:27] Here. [00:00:28] And Commissioner Tassinary. [00:00:29] Here. [00:00:30] You're okay. [00:00:31] Awesome. Thank you so much. The next we'll have the reading of the Native American Land Acknowledgement. Commissioner Merritt, please. [00:00:39] We meet today in the community of Iowa City, which now occupies the homelands of Native American nations to whom we owe our commitment and dedication. The area of Iowa City was within the homelands of the Iowa, Meskwaki and SOC. And because history is complex and time goes far back beyond memory, we also acknowledge the ancient connections [00:01:00] of many other indigenous peoples here. The history of broken treaties and forced removal that dispossess indigenous peoples of their homelands was and is an act of colonization and genocide that we cannot erase. We implore the Iowa City community to commit to understanding and addressing these injustices as we work toward equity, restoration and reparations. [00:01:25] Thank you- thank you, Commissioner Merritt. Um, I'm going to move on to approval of meeting minutes from March 7th, 2024. Is there a first? Oh, what am I trying to say? [00:01:37] I moved. [00:01:38] Yes. That's what I'm trying to say. [LAUGHTER] Is there a second? [00:01:42] Second. [00:01:43] Thank you. [00:01:44] Okay. It's been properly moved and seconded to approve the meeting minutes from March 7th, 2024. All those in favor say, aye? [00:01:51] Aye. [00:01:54] Thank you all. [OVERLAPPING]. [00:01:56] Okay. Motion passes 7, 0. [00:01:59] Thank you [00:02:00] again. Um, next, we'll go to um, the beginning of agenda item Number 4, fact finding committee briefing. Um, and I'll turn it over to our partners at Kearns & West. Welcome. [00:02:14] Thank you, Chair Dillard. And commissioners, can you all hear me okay? [00:02:17] Um, we might need to. Yeah, I think so. [00:02:23] Still- still hear me okay? [00:02:24] Yes- yes, better. [00:02:28] Well, it's good to be with you all in this very small square on your very large screen. Um, I'm humbled to be associated with such important work, and I'm mindful of the fact that we at Kearns & West have been given the privilege of working with you on this important set of tasks and that this is an important culminating moment in the work that we've all been doing together. My hope tonight is to share with [00:03:00] you some information that we have gathered in concert with city staff and the police department, and some external sources in a way that will help advance your work going into next week and leading up to both facilitated discussion on Monday and truth telling events later next week. I do want to make sure to acknowledge here Laurel Cohen, who's joining me on this line tonight. Her work on this was, uh, truly invaluable and I, um, would make sure you realize that even though I'm doing the lion share of the speaking, this was a team effort. I do also want to acknowledge both Stefanie Bowers and Assistant City Manager Redmond Jones, as well as Chief Liston for all of their help in compiling data requested by the TRC. So, we are looking at a proposed agenda that follows. I'm going to spend a little bit of time reviewing some information that was presented to you about [00:04:00] six weeks ago when I was in town last. Uh, then we'll spend most of the time in this presentation with updated information based on the requests you all made over the course of that meeting. We'll do our best to answer your questions about the data we present. It could be that we'll need to circle back to you and have some answers for Monday, but we'll do our very best to clarify information as we go. And I would say, I don't have any problem with your interjecting questions as I go. Please don't stand on ceremony as far as I'm concerned. So Chair Dillard, I'll defer to you and just ask that if commissioners have questions, you just alert me to that on microphone so that I can pause. But I'm happy to be interrupted and make sure we get clarity. And then I didn't know whether this item was formally meant for public comment but certainly, uh, we as facilitators, would welcome any comments that, um, the public might have about this data as you all prepare [00:05:00] to deliberate on it on Monday evening. The community agreements are the ones that you have seen and heard us talk about a number of different times. I'll just very briefly mention that we listen fully, listen from our heart and allow space for silence. We bear witness but do not provide advice or argue with others. We respect one person speaking at a time without verbal or non-verbal interruption. We are a community of learners, and we are growing. We take risks and are courageous, honest, and open with our own stories with faith that we may make mistakes. We learn when we need to move up and move back, and we know when we need to pass. We use inclusive and non gendered language and use each person's chosen pronouns, and we interrogate our own positionality in regards to the words and concepts we use and their impact on others. We aim to build trusting relationships and know we move at the speed of trust. We care for ourselves and each other's physical, spiritual, [00:06:00] and emotional energy needs. And we honor what others say with discretion and integrity, sharing only with context and in relevance to our own life and learning not as gossip. I have shared this slide with you a number of different times, but I do want to bring it back to your attention today because my intention- my hope is that on Monday evening, we will essentially ask you to answer these questions as a body. Because of course, fact finding means something a little bit different to each person who is engaging in it. And I should hasten to add that, you know, despite my and Laural's best efforts to remain neutral as we present this information, the fact is we are human and we have biases, and we have to acknowledge those as well as some of the privilege that we enter this space in in terms of access to information and a background in research. So it's going to be important for this group [00:07:00] as you make your way through these data to establish a standard for fact finding, and what makes something factual. Not just in a philosophical sense perhaps, but for the purposes of your report and this TRC. And- so the hope is that you'll be able to give this some additional thought between now and Monday, and then be prepared to discuss this in some detail on Monday night and get some consensus so that as you continue on your fact finding work across other topics, you can return to this standard. We also shared this slide a couple of different times both in September and in February, so I won't belabor it, but I will point to the sources part of this slide because we certainly wanted to make sure that the sources of information were coming from multiple perspectives not just from, say, government data or academically generated [00:08:00] data. And so you'll see here on the next slide, the places from which we drew our information. Some of the information has come directly from the City of Iowa City Police Department, along with the Iowa City City Manager's Office. We did collect data from the FBI and the US Department of Justice, as well as the US Census Bureau. Thanks to Stefanie and her team. We have information gathered directly from the Coralville Iowa, Police Department and the Sioux City Iowa Police Department. And then I want to remind you of a couple of external sources that we have referenced here. So DefundPolice.org as the name, kind of, suggests is associated with the movement for Black Lives and a number of other organizations that are probably familiar to you. They are certainly organizations who, as the name implies, have particular ideas about reform to the policing field, the policing profession. The police [00:09:00] scorecard is a, uh, independent 501-c-3 organization that does include some organizers. That is to say, political organizers but is also made up of uh, data scientists and scholars and used primarily data from federal and state government, but also sourced information from local agency publications and media reports, including something called the Mapping Police Violence database, which combines information on people killed by police from 2013-2021 through public records requests, local media reports, and other crowd sourced databases. So it's important to say that the work of police scorecard is filtered through their lens of what they think should be done to reform policing, but it also is connected very closely to records kept by police departments and [00:10:00] by state and federal agencies. And then lastly, I mentioned Saint Ambrose University because they have historically conducted the disproportionate minority contact study that Iowa City Police Department has commissioned on a number of different occasions that we'll talk a little bit more about today. So that's a sense for uh, sources of information. It occurs to me that this slide is missing a reference to some local media that we reviewed including the Iowa City Press Citizen and the Coralville Gazette, excuse me, the Cedar Rapids Gazette and other media outlets as well as court records which are associated with both the federal courts and the state courts, but that's sort of embedded within the other sources that are described here. I'll just pause see if there's any questions so far. So this was presented to you in February, but I'll [00:11:00] flesh it out a bit further per your requests. We looked at the size of the Iowa City Police Department. And what we found, this came from the Defund Police site, but it's drawn from data supplied by the department. The Iowa City Police Department has roughly 63% of the officers per capita as the state average, 47% the officers per capita as the national average, and 60% of the officers per capita as similarly sized cities around the country. This came from the Iowa City's- City Manager's Offices budget public hearing presentation. And as you can see, the comparison was made to the so called Big 10 communities. Meaning, the other cities who have colleges in the big 10 conference like Bloomington, Indiana, Edmonston, Illinois, and so on. And so you can see fairly clearly that almost regardless of the way that you [00:12:00] compare Iowa City, they do have fewer sworn positions per capita than either the other big 10 communities, larger cities in Iowa, Midwestern cities in similar population range and the US average. And for Iowa City to equal that Midwest region figure of 1.5 sworn positions per 1,000, the city would need to add 29 new positions to get from about 84, 85 to 113. And then this indicates the demographics of the police department per their 2022 annual report. So you can see the number of people identifying as male and female. I don't think that there was a listing. I'll ask Laural to check me on this, but I don't remember seeing a listing of people who identify as undisclosed or transgender, or anything other than male or female. And then you can see the race or cultural, or ethnic [00:13:00] backgrounds that they chose as identifiers. The police department then gave us a good bit of information on the people who have sought employment at ICPD. They were asked to provide this information to the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies or CALEA. And I know that this information was collected by the Human Resources Office of ICPD. And so this data covers roughly almost a two-year period up to here just last month. And so these total numbers are reflective of aggregating those statistics, that data across several kind of so- so to speak, hiring cycles. And so what you'll see is that Whites do make up the [00:14:00] majority of those who are seeking employment at ICPD over the last couple of years. But there are decent numbers of people who identify as Black or African American. And I believe that the Hispanic figure cited here is for people who consider themselves non White Hispanic. I'll ask Laural to check me on that. But it's meant to be a- a total that- that's not- that doesn't overlap. So in other words, the people who identify Hispanic should be distinct from the people who identify as White. Then you'll see that there are a couple of different categories of applicants, those who go through and take a written test and pass it, and you'll see here that Whites make up right about 50% of those who take that written test, but there is a substantial number- substantial percentage of, uh, Black African American and Hispanic. This two plus number in case you weren't tracking is people [00:15:00] who identified as being part of two or more races. So that's what that means. They also go through a physical fitness test in order to be considered for the department, and you can see the breakdown there in terms of the applicants that go through that stage, and then the interview process where Whites make up more of a majority. And then finally, this is the certified hiring list which is to say, the applicants who have gone through the entirety of the process in order to be eligible to be hired at ICPD. And you can see that White applicants do make up the majority there as well. The populations of color do have about, I'd say 30% or so just eye bowling it. Some additional information that goes back a couple of years. We'll show you the breakdown [00:16:00] of applications received as well as applicants hired and a breakdown of uh, the percentage of hires and how it compares to the percent of the workforce population. So what you'll see is that there is a slightly more diverse workforce within the police department than there is in the overall workforce population in Iowa City, which is that lower right hand corner. There are still more White non Hispanic males and White non Hispanic females applying than any other group. But there is especially, high number of folks who are being hired from minority populations. [00:16:52] Just a couple of other, um, anecdotal pieces that we drew from some news coverage. I- I believe that the department [00:17:00] still offers a $5,000 bonus to certified officers who've already gone through the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy. Which is something they're able to do because it results in cost savings to, uh, ICPD by not having to send them through, uh, that process. Uh, but in addition to that, Chief Liston says, uh, there's flexibility granted to folks in terms of deadlines or taking required written and physical tests. So there is, um, efforts taken to enable a larger applicant pool to be able to, uh, join the- the force. Pausing, again, just to see if there are any questions so far. I'll move to spending, and I'll just share that the next couple of slides that deal with spending don't necessarily have, uh, anything to do directly with racial disparities or racial, uh, [00:18:00] categorization, but we thought it was important in the light of some other data collected on policing to provide you with some of this information. What you'll see here is that Iowa City spends roughly 39% of its general fund on public safety, compares to other categories that are indicated here in the color coding, and that that's a little bit below what, uh, cities in Iowa do, and it's significantly below what similar sized cities in Iowa do as a percentage of their general fund. You'll also see on this graph that their budget, while it has increased, uh, has not necessarily increased a- a great deal, uh, you know, in the single digit percentages over the last six or seven, uh, cycles. So the green line at the top is the budget amounts and the red line indicates how much of a percentage increase year on year [00:19:00] the budget has changed. So one of the reasons that we looked at this was that the police scorecard, which is where the graphic comes from on the left, uh, which I mentioned is the independent 501C3 that includes data scientists as well as, uh, some organizers or advocates. They made comparisons in all of the cities they studied, uh, between spending on police and other priorities like health and housing. And you'll see on this slide a listing of what they considered health expenditures. It's basically anything related to public health that doesn't include hospital care, and then the housing categories for anything related to urban renewable housing projects and similar activities. And so this, uh, graph shows you that, uh, the amount spent on policing in the most recent year data was collected is- is actually relatively close to the amount that they found [00:20:00] was spent on housing, and that the overall per capita expenditure, meaning, um, how much Iowa City is spending per resident, uh, is lower than most of the departments that were scored by, uh, the database. So, you know, there have certainly been calls from various corners to review and analyze the amount of funding and where the funding goes in policing. And so in that regard, Iowa City does seem to be spending, uh, less on its police than, uh, most of the cities, uh, examined on a per capita level and similar amounts for other, uh, things like, uh, housing. So now we'll get into things like arrests and stops, and this certainly is something that we think will relate very closely to the mandate you all have as a TRC to examine, uh, you know, disparities and determine whether there [00:21:00] are, um, real biases, real problems with the way people are being treated or if they are coincidental. Uh, I know it may seem odd, excuse me, to cut this arrest data off at this year, 2016, because that's obviously several years ago, um, confirming this with Laurel here, but to my knowledge, uh, that was the most recent year that the FBI had this information. You will see later in the presentation some more updated information on stops and on, I believe, arrests as well from Iowa City. But in terms of this breakdown, uh, this is the most current that we were able to provide you with, and it's for this entire period. So what you'll see is that, uh, Whites make up 78% of the arrests in this time period and about 76% of the population. Blacks or African-Americans make up [00:22:00] 19% of the arrests or 8.5- as opposed to being 8.5% of the population. Uh, American Indians or Alaska Natives make up 2% or, um, a little bit higher than their percent of the population. Asians are at 1%, which is much lower than their population. Native Hawaiians were not evaluated. And I know that we are missing Hispanic information here. And I know I'm fairly confident, but I'm checking again with Laurel that we asked this of the FBI because that was, uh, you know, glaringly omitted. And as of now, I don't believe we got a response as to how many arrests, uh, involved Hispanic suspects. Uh, so I'm sorry we can't, uh, share that with you tonight, but we'll continue to- to see what we can find there. So this is for arrests, uh, separately for offenses, meaning, uh, crimes found to have been committed. [00:23:00] What you'll see here is that it's a little more stark as it relates to the number of- the percentage of offenses that were found to have been committed by Blacks or African-Americans in comparison to,uh, their percent of the population. So the number of offenses committed by Blacks make up 52% in this time period as compared to their percentage of the population, in the most recent Census and Whites, were found to have committed, uh, fewer than 50% of the offenses, but make up the lion's share of the population. Again, these are federal data taken from the FBI and the Census Bureau. So one of the most significant, uh, sets of data that I think, uh, bears your, uh, examination is this disproportionate minority contact study, which, as I indicated, has been conducted by ICPD for [00:24:00] a number of years, I think going all the way back to the early 2000s, and it's always been conducted by an external research team usually at a university. And so what we've attempted to do here is in a pie chart show you, um, how the stops and the outcomes or arrests broke down by race. And so again, what you'll see is based on these stops and outcomes that, uh, on the stops side, the numbers, the percentages align fairly closely with the census, although Blacks do, uh, tend to be stopped at a rate slightly higher than their percentage of the Iowa City population. And then when you get to arrests, you find that the percentage skews a bit more towards communities of color like Black and Hispanic, uh, Iowa City residents. Um, it is important to go back to the, um, [00:25:00] whole idea of discretionary versus non discretionary offenses. I know that Commissioner Tassinary had asked us about this. And I'm- I'm not sure that I'm going to have a whole lot more information to share, but it is important to mention that, um, in the eyes of the researcher and the ICPD, uh, the non discretionary offensive- offenses or the stops, I should say, that were non discretionary, um, make up the vast- vast majority of the stops that the study dealt with, and I'm just going to briefly, uh, refer to the, um, study here on- in the background so that I'm quoting this accurately. Um, according to the 2019 information, it was, uh, roughly 93% of all arrests were considered non discretionary, and I'll define that here in just a minute or remind you of the definition, and then about 96% in [00:26:00] 2020. Non discretionary offenses are those- non discretionary offenses are those that due to state law or departmental policy, leave officers with very little or no choice in deciding whether or not to make an arrest. Officers are in essence required to arrest and would in fact be subject to departmental discipline if they chose not to arrest. These types of charges include offenses like bench warrants, driving while barred, and operating while intoxicated. Analyses show that in the overwhelming majority of instances when an arrest was made, officers had little choice in the matter. That is, again, quoting directly from the study, not from, uh, ICPD, but from the- the researcher. So roughly 91.6% of the contacts with, uh, Black Iowa City residents were considered to be, uh, non discretionary, just as a matter of comparison. The range was anywhere 90-100% based on the population. [00:27:00] The study also looked at some of the, uh, areas where most of the stops occurred, and I've tried to render you a map here. We unfortunately don't have a heat map yet, and there's an issue right now with a map that, uh, the city, uh, operates or is connected to some data collected by Lexus. Uh, there's a web link we'll provide you later that will hopefully be, uh, active again soon. Otherwise, we would have shared it with you so that you could see this. But in the researchers report, they found that the downtown area bounded roughly by Market on the North, Kirkwood on the South, summit on the East and Iowa River on the West was where about 40% or more of stops took place, followed by what they're calling area or Zone 29, which was Kirkwood to Weatherby, and, uh, Taylor Drive to the Iowa River. So of course, there are, [00:28:00] you know, many- many stops to- to consider here. But I know there was some conversation at our February meeting about the fact that this is a college community and that a lot of stops could be related to college students having too good of a time, too fun of a time, for example. And so certainly the data indicates that, uh, a very significant percentage of stops happen in and around downtown where college students may be going out for the evening. I did want to mention also a policy that we stumbled upon adopted by the Iowa City Police Department in 2020, which will limit when police officers stop residents based only on minor pedestrian or traffic violations that don't pose an immediate threat to public safety. Uh, this was introduced by interim police chief Denise Brotherton, who said that violations no longer warranting a dedicated stop include cracked windshields, loud [00:29:00] exhaust, cracked tail lights, window treatments, and jaywalking. She specifically said that historical data points show minority drivers often have a higher chance of being stopped by law enforcement than non minority drivers, and that this new policy would hopefully contribute to a reduction of that disparity. The desired outcome is for the public to view traffic enforcement solely as an effort to help ensure the safety of the public and not as a punitive action for non safety related issues. The - the intent of this is also consistent with ICPD's overall goal of eliminating any occurrence of biased based policing practices. Let me go back for just a moment if I can to this and mention that the conclusions of the researchers who conducted this study were that, um, uh, there have been either steady or decreasing amounts of racial disproportionality in traffic stops. What that means is that, [00:30:00] uh, there doesn't seem to be a worsening level of disproportionality in terms of how many people of a particular race are being stopped by police, uh, as compared to their percent of the population. Um, they do note that, uh, of course, 2020 would have had significantly lower numbers because of how many people were, uh, sequestering because of- of COVID. But even in spite of that, uh, there doesn't appear to be much of any, uh, uptick in the disproportionality of stops and arrests. The Chief actually- Chief Liston actually also put out a, uh, memo in relation to this. I want to just, uh, see if I can quote from his, uh, comments on this before I continue. He says, the most recent study suggests study or decreasing amounts of racial disproportionality in traffic stops. When compared [00:31:00] to the projected 2020 US Census, the study reports that disproportionality is likely decreasing. The study lists several recommendations for future work. ICPD, uh, has always taken an education first approach to traffic enforcement. We will explore capturing data on passengers of traffic stops when they're asked for identification as suggested. Uh, all officers receive, uh, training on race based traffic stops, implicit bias and diversity, fair and impartial policing and biased based policing as well. Uh, there's also- he talks about a, uh, recruitment committee that is trying to attract a more diverse workforce that more closely mirrors the community served. Um, he says, disproportion- disproportionality continues to decline in the ICPD, but the effort needs to continue. So I just wanted to share that additional context. [00:32:00] [00:32:04] So here's some additional data related to warnings and citations. The warnings. [00:32:11] We lost your uh- slides. [00:32:13] Yes, sorry about that. Yeah. Can you all see it now? [00:32:16] Yes. [00:32:18] Yeah, okay sorry about that. So these graphs are pulled from years 2020, and then the following one should be 2021. Um- again, you will see that in- to some degree, the warnings are consistent with population. The citations tend to skew a little bit higher for minority communities than they do for the proportion of the population. So this previous slide showed you again the breakdown of population in Iowa City according to the most recent census. So the people identifying in these communities of color is in the single digits, and you'll note that [00:33:00] some of the citation figures are- are higher than that. So that could be something that is worth further examination. That was 2020, and here is 2021. So again, the warnings numbers are relatively consistent, although the numbers for Black men are a bit disproportionately high, and that's true also for the citation numbers, uh- both for Black and Hispanic uh- men and women. Just for a moment gonna mention the differentiation between different kinds of offenses, uh- there's what's known as Group A offenses, which are considered the more serious. Uh- I didn't list homicide, those are relatively rare in Iowa City, but these are some of the others that are con- considered part of Group A. And that is to say that if you look at the total number of offenses in the last year we had data on this, [00:34:00] there are more Group A offenses than Group B offenses, but not by much. And as we discussed at the meeting in February, a significant percentage of these Group B arrests have to do with something related to intoxication, publicly driving under the influence, etc. and related violations. Liquor laws included. So these are the- this is organized with some of the higher numbers of arrests here on this slide, and then it follows some additional ones on the next slide. But this comes from the city's own data, the 2020 preliminary plan to accelerate community policing. We don't have it broken out by race. We'll still see if we can um- collect any further information on that. But again, it just reinforces, I think what you all had discussed when you were last together in February on this topic that the numbers are partly aligned with [00:35:00] what you might expect in- in a city with a large university. So I want to talk now about use of force, but I'll pause once again to see if there are any- any questions. [00:35:14] Yes. I have a question, and I wanna take you to slide Number 20. [00:35:20] Yes, sir. [00:35:21] Yes. I think. [00:35:22] By the way, when I say I'm pausing for questions, I really mean pausing for a cup of water and questions. [LAUGHTER] So thank you all for indulging me. But let's see. Is it this one, Commissioner? [00:35:32] Yes. And you seem to suggest this is from a researcher from the University of Iowa Public Policy Center. [00:35:42] Let me- let me confirm, I believe he might be a St. Ambrose University professor, well let's see. This is Chris Barnum, is the author from CR Research Group LC. Um- I believe that he's affiliated with one of [00:36:00] the universities. I'm sorry, I'll- I'll keep looking for that as you continue your question, sir. [00:36:05] Okay. Irrespective of the source, you also suggested a favorable conclusion from these two pie charts, that they seem to say that there hasn't been a disproportionate increase in contacts or arrests. That might be true. But that favorable conclusion can also hide the fact that after the contacts are made, you go to the pie chart of arrest, you see the percentage of Blacks who get arrested seem to increase very fast. And- [00:36:40] Absolutely. [00:36:41] Yeah. That is a problem. So I don not- I do not want to. [00:36:44] And I just wanted to- yeah, I just wanted to clarify. I- I hear what you're saying. I wanted to clarify the statement I made. What I meant to say was that over the course of the years that this data has been collected by Professor Barnum [00:37:00] and St. Ambrose, he- he didn't find that disproportionality was increasing year on year, but it is still at a level that is of concern to the police department and is noteworthy by the researchers. So I hope that clarifies. It's not that it's at a satisfactory level for the department or the researchers, but that it hasn't in their minds gotten worse as the years have continued in collecting this data. [00:37:30] Thank- thank you, Larry for that because I think the interest is on the magnitude. The trends can stay the same and being the same does not mean it is good. Thank you. [00:37:40] Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely understand your point. [00:37:44] All right. [00:37:45] Hey, Dr. Schooler. I'm also curious whether you're able to find who funded the study. Dr. Christopher's uh- study. [00:37:56] I believe that study was commissioned directly by the City of Iowa City. [00:38:00] City manager may know more than I. But as far as I know, the City of Iowa City commissioned this uh- study. [00:38:08] Okay, thank you. Because sometimes- thank you for the answer, because sometimes following the money is also important. Thank you. [00:38:19] Related- sorry. Related to that question on the funding, I would also want to know how many years the same persons have been used to do the study and how those agreements are used. [00:38:30] That's a good question. [00:38:31] Yeah. [00:38:33] Um- I according to the memo that the Chief of Police, Chief Liston wrote in October of 2021, he wrote, "In 2006, the Iowa City Police Department hired Dr. Christopher Barnum, Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice, and the Director of Graduate Studies, Masters and Criminal Justice at St. Ambrose to conduct an in depth analysis to better understand the operational trends in the department. Since then, [00:39:00] Dr. Barnum and his team have been conducting the analysis and periodically reporting to the City Council." Okay. Let me turn now to information related to use of force. This chart here is a combination of data provided to us by the city, either in what was called the 2020 preliminary plan to accelerate community policing or in ICPDs own annual report. So what they've done here is they've broken out calls for service in lime green with incidents involving the use of force in blue. So as you can see, the percentage of calls for service that involves the use of force is relatively small. Um- but they note that many examples of the use of force in their way of calculating this do not always [00:40:00] involve a physical altercation with an individual. For example, the display but not the deployment of a taser or firearm is counted as a use of force incident. Similarly, an officer that uses a firearm to euthanize a wounded animal also records that action as a use of force. The Department continues to invest in crisis intervention training and other de-escalation trainings to keep use of force numbers as low as possible. Supervisory review of every use of force incident is mandated by policy. Uh- so this shows that the overall percentage of calls for service uh- and use of force on the calls for service has ranged from a high of about 0.53% to a low of about 0.34%, and at the end of 2022, that value was a 0.38%. But more importantly, perhaps, is the breakdown in the circumstances under which force was used. So let me [00:41:00] share with you these charts and tell you that these refer to a total number of uses of force in year 2020 that equates to 212. So in calendar year 2020, the department reported 212 uses of force, and they have broken it out by the race of the person on whom the force was used, and that data is displayed to you here. So certainly from a bird's eye view, it would appear that there's some disproportionality in terms of the racial makeup of those on whom force was used as compared to their percentage of the population. And the same is true for the 130 use of force arrests, that is to say, a time when force was used by the officer and an arrest was made, as you can see, Black males and Black females combined make up a much larger percentage of these arrests than they do of the population of Iowa City. [00:42:00] They also collect data on the total number of arrests, which in this case is 1,070, that's the top left graph. And you can see there that there is some evidence of disproportionality by race compared to the population. Uh- you can also see when they tracked injuries in a- an arrest circumstance or in a use of force circumstance. They found that the numbers were a little bit closer to proportionality, but still a little bit disproportionately high. And then on use of force complaints, there were only two that were formally made as it relates to police conduct, one by a white non-Hispanic female and one by a Black male. I'm just now showing you updated data for 2021 on these same metrics. There are a bit higher numbers of uses of force, about 245, but the overall [00:43:00] percentages are relatively the same with a higher number of Black non-Hispanic males and females in the proportion than they are of the population of Iowa City. Same is true for the total use of force arrests. The complaints uh- there are only three, so that pie chart is- is only as useful as uh- you know, as it can be for such a small sample. And then again, the number of arrests and the number of injuries during the use of force based arrests. There were 2,400 just over- just under 2,400 total arrests that account for this sample here. And there were 42 incidents of injuries, none of which were fatal, and you can see the breakdowns. So again, it's- it's not for me to tell you what is indicated here in terms of the reasons behind [00:44:00] the percentages that you see. I'll just note that the percentages by race are different than the percentages by race of the population. But it is also important to remember, at least as Chief Liston shared with us when we spoke with him that obviously, some of the arrests or stops or warnings or citations that ICPD issues are to people who do not live in Iowa City and wouldn't be counted in the census figures so that's something just to be mindful of. We don't have information on the residential zip codes of each person who was stopped and so on, but obviously, people can be passing through a community and be stopped by police, even if they don't call Iowa City home. I'll pause here again just for questions. [00:44:56] Just, I'm curious that the people passing through [00:45:00] doesn't affect other populations. Doesn't seem to spike other populations. But really, I'm just putting that out there. I'm not putting you on this spot, Dr. Schooler. It's just a curiosity. [00:45:16] Yeah, thanks, Commissioner. Yeah. And- and like I said, I mean, we don't have data around the percentage of people stopped or cited who don't live in Iowa City, but, you know, it certainly seems plausible that- that a number of these incidents involve people from outside of the community. [00:45:34] Another curiosity. [00:45:35] So I'm gonna stand- I'm sorry, yes go ahead. [00:45:37] Fine. Sorry. Another curiosity, uh- did you come across since the trend is there for a bit of time of these pikes, or did you come across any- any- any ways that the city and the department change [00:46:00] to bring the disproportionate numbers down? [00:46:05] Yes. And I'll get to that, I think in just a couple of slides. One of the slides that I'm going to show you here in just a minute or a couple of minutes relates to trainings that have been introduced, including the years in which those trainings were introduced, and there also has been at least one additional policy change that I wanted to reference to you that may or may not have played a role in uh- these numbers. [00:46:29] Thank you. [00:46:32] You're welcome. So one note that I want to make as I make this last reference to the police scorecard. When we were with you in February, there was a reference made to how the police scorecard had listed one fatal officer involved shooting of Iowa City PD. We dug more deeply into the data that they had referenced and found that they had incorrectly coded a shooting as being the responsibility [00:47:00] of ICPD as opposed to North Liberty PD. So just to be clear, that was an error made by the researchers on the police scorecard, and we apologize for passing that error along, but there have not been fatal officer involved shootings done by the ICPD in quite some time. Uh- so that's uh- not something we want to um- perpetuate. So as it relates to police accountability, what we were striving for here is to examine the extent to which complaints have been made, and then the extent to which those complaints are sustained, which is another way of saying, kind of validated, if you will. And so uh- when the score card looked at this, they evaluated complaints made over a nine year period between 2013-2020. [00:47:54] Point 1, and when they give that low score of 4%, ah, [00:48:00] they are um, are indicating that only 4% of the 28 complaints in that period were ruled in favor of the civilians. So they're making a value judgment there. I just want to be clear. Um, the- the complaints may or may not have had merit or they may or may not have applied to Iowa City Police. They might have applied to a different agency. But regardless, they ah, come to their score me-merely on the basis of a percentage of those ah, cases, excuse me, those complaints filed that were later upheld. They're not ah, referencing a comparison between ICPD and any other police department or any other community. Um, there are no um, the- there are very few, ah, complaints that were made as it relates to discrimination in the period that they, ah, examined only 10, and none of them were, ah, upheld based on [00:49:00] their research. Now, it is important though to look at this a little bit more holistically, and this is from the city's own collection of data for the 2020 preliminary plan to accelerate community policing. So they looked out over a 22 or so year period, and they found, ah, I believe it's a total of 119 complaints over that period. Um, which includes- which does not include, ah, 25 complaints which were withdrawn or summarily dismissed. Perhaps they weren't filed within the 90-day window, or they don't involve a sworn Iowa City police officer, or the complainant didn't have personal knowledge of the alleged, ah, misconduct. It is important to note that, ah, there could be several allegations in one complaint. So in other words, if, um, if a particular complaint, ah, involves four or five different things that the person thinks the officer should have done and didn't do or shouldn't have done and did do, [00:50:00] um, that can all be one complaint with multiple allegations. The Board will then, ah, issue a decision for each allegation. Um, and so the complaints that are listed as sustained, which is the light Gray in this, ah, pie chart here on the right, involve those in which at least one allegation was sustained, even if several others weren't, and the ones that are not sustained means the cases where none of the allegations were sustained, so it's possible that in some of these, you had, um, a number of them, ah, that were, uh, dismissed, but still at least one of the complaints was sustained. You can also see that in the vast majority of instances, the board and the police chiefs own a review of the matter, ah, aligned, but there were eight cases in which the board disagreed on whi- at least one allegations disposition. I'm going to show you now a breakdown [00:51:00] of the allegations by the type, um, and this shows you the various sort of categories under which people made a complaint from 1997 to the present, So that's the reason that some of these numbers are a little bit higher than what I shared with you on their scorecard. You'll note that there in the middle of this bar graph, it says biased policing, and there are 19 complaints. Ah, I don't know for certain if that always refers to bias on the basis of race. It could be bias on the basis, I would assume of gender or sexual orientation. I don't think that the, ah, preliminary plan, ah, distinguished between the two. I'll say also that, um, it was a little bit difficult for us to do sweeping searches of the, ah, the CPRB's work as it might otherwise be for certain other forms of data. That's something that would probably take us more time. We don't have any information on the race [00:52:00] of the person who made the complaint, for example, that was requested of us, and we could not pull that. But this again, deals with a number of different, ah, types of allegations that were leveled, ah, in complaints to their CPRB, and this is the, um, number of sustained allegations over the course of the period that was under review, and obviously, you can see that there are a relatively small number as compared to the percentage of, ah, total complaints, and so, um, again, it's not broken down by race, and-and that's just because we don't have that information, but this does give you a sense for, um, how the CPRB has evaluated the allegations brought before it. I did also want to mention that the city had collected information over a recent two- year period on complaints generated by the public [00:53:00] and complaints generated by, ah, internal sources, meaning other parts of the department, and so you can see that there are significantly higher numbers of these internal complaints than there were citizen complaints. Ah, although the number of citizen complaints does increase, ah, somewhat significantly on a percentage basis Year 1 to year 2 here. But the internal complaints are, you know, triple or higher, and a number of those were sustained, so those are complaints initiated by someone else, ah, who's a me-member of the Iowa City Police Department against someone in the Iowa City Police Department. Uh, we learned of two community member concerns regarding bias-based policing in various forms of contact in the year 2021. The first was a telephone complaint of a bias-based traffic stop. A review of that stop exonerated the officer finding their actions were justified, lawful, [00:54:00] and proper, which I assume is a review done both by the Chief of Police and the CPRB. I'll see if we can confirm that, and then the second concern was that an officer had followed the complainant while driving, a review of that incident determined that it had been a different agency besides the ICPD. I want to just mention a couple of instances, ah, because I believe it came up in February where someone had filed a lawsuit against ICPD over perceived misconduct, and these are drawn from both state and federal courts as well as city records, so over a very long period, at least 15 years, I could only find, as you can see, about eight or so cases in which someone was suing the department and or officers within the department for any particular reason, both in state and federal court. Um, the, ah, italicized [00:55:00] cases at the top related to perceptions of or allegations of illegal behavior by officers out in the field, and the two that are in bold indicate that the plaintiff, the party, appears to be Black or African American, in only one of the cases Tolson versus ICPD was race directly discussed if I'm not mistaken. But I do want to draw your attention to this one case, and again, let me be very clear that I'm talking about one case that was settled and not dismissed among eight that were filed in a 15 or more year period and of our, ah, searching. I beg your pardon. But in ah, this particular case, Anthony Watson sued police officers in two different cities for, ah, an arrest that took place in 2017, where he was, ah, stopped and questioned for reckless driving. He tested negative for both alcohol [00:56:00] and drugs, but an officer conducted a drug use evaluation, which is not a chemical test. It's more of a from what I understand, more of like a perception test to eyeball test. Ah, and so he was held for three months based on being ah, on parole, and some other considerations. He contended in his lawsuit that he lost his job, an apartment as a result and was deprived of critical medical care, and this is noteworthy, again, only because the City of Iowa City and the City of Coralville agreed to settle the case for $390,000 and each city paid half of that amount, neither city or at very least Iowa City did not, ah, admit any culpability, any wrongdoing by the officers or the department or- or what have you, so again, please, um, let me just underscore that we're talking about a single piece of litigation that went beyond being dismissed by a court, [00:57:00] ah, in a case against Iowa City PD on matters of policing, and Mr. Watson, while I believe is African American, did not directly reference being treated differently because of his race, um, in his lawsuit, but it was, in fact, settled in 2022 on a vote of the city council. But one of the reasons that his case is also noteworthy is that one of the officers involved in Mr. Watson's case- Mr. Watson's case was involved in a situation in 2015 that was reported fairly widely in the media at the time, ah, where he forced a- a 15-year-old black male to the ground at a recreation center, and, ah, members of the public, uh, began a charging discrimination based on the video that they saw and a petition circulated with about 950 signatures calling for the end of discrimination against black youth. There was, at that time, [00:58:00] a modification to arrest procedures and policies by ICPD to deploy more de-escalation techniques prior to the use of force.I Do want to add that the police department did not believe that the officer in this case had necessarily violated any policy or any law, but that, ah, officer should receive additional training and the policies should be clarified to ensure that these kinds of incidents don't occur again. That same officer at- when he was at a different agency was involved in a different altercation in which a video was taken and appeared to show that he dis-treated a black and a white woman differently, and in fact, was physically aggressive with the black woman and not with the, ah, white woman, even though both were, ah, booked into jail. The officers were placed on administrative leave but cleared of any wrongdoing. That officer was not with ICPD when that, ah, incident occurred. [00:59:00] I mentioned this though because I think it's important for you to und-understand the context around, um, some of the ah, encounters that people have with police, and- and while I think the truth-telling process next week is- is much more well-suited to hearing people's anecdotal experiences. Um, these are part of the public record, of course, not just in terms of media coverage, but in terms of, ah, lawsuits that are filed and- and counsel action in the case of the settlement, and in the case of a police department policy modification, so we felt that it was, ah, important for us to share that with you. Almost finished. Wanted to share, ah, a little bit of information from two other police departments that the TRC had requested that we seek, and I want to again, acknowledge Stefanie Bowers and her team for helping us collect this information. This [01:00:00] came from a call with the police chief in Coralville. He said that they have engaged in a variety of, ah, recruitment efforts, including seeking out advisors, actively pursuing identified candidates, ah, the wide advertising of opportunities and a outreach to students through what he calls a high school mini academy, and they've gained an excellent Hispanic officer who participated in that. The Chief teachers at, ah, Kirkwood Community College and actively recruits students, including personally inviting individual female and Bipoc students to apply, but says, all of these students have had higher aspirations than being an officer. Chief said he regularly has lunch with the president of the NAACP and always pleads for referrals. However, he says, most young fraternity brothers of the NWACP president also have higher aspirations. They want to be lawyers and doctors, not officers. Again, his words, not mine. It is frustrating that when he does manage to recruit someone, he usually use- loses [01:01:00] that person. Female officers are in such high demand that they can- couldn't write their own ticket and go anywhere often for higher pay and benefits than he can offer. Two black officers did not, ah, complete the academy, one quit, and one was expelled. His one success has been discovering that he can offer tutoring to, ah, help recruits pass the entrance exam, which helps not only minority and women recruits but everyone. The exam relies on math skills that are not currently emphasized in high school, so he now teaches recruits skills needed for the- those parts of the test. He tends to have better luck if a person grew up here. People tend to leave Iowa, even if they did grow up here, but getting someone from elsewhere to stay is almost impossible. He has one officer from the country of Georgia and one from Illinois. Otherwise, all his current officers were raised in Iowa. He wishes he had better answers and is constantly trying different strategies. But a larger problem is that people, in general, are not excited about [01:02:00] becoming a police officer today. His words. It's an inherently stressful job, and officers take a lot of grief, so recruiting is hard regardless. He's also unwilling to drop the entrance exam or the polygraph. He says officers need to have a level of skill and integrity that he can't compromise. And then we were able to speak with the Chief of police in Sioux City. The Sioux City PD has developed relationships with several native nations located near the community. This began with intentional outreach to identify leaders with community trust who were willing to partner. They chose the nations themselves, chose their representatives, and they are the Native Advisory Council, but at this point, the relationship is more organic than formal, and personnel involved have changed over time. They hold regular meetings to identify questions, concerns, anything of interest to the indigenous communities and their interaction with the PD. They often reach out informally outside of meetings as well. They have a [01:03:00] yearly memorial March. They engage in what's listed here as MMIW efforts. The police did a sweat with indigenous leaders, and they maintain relationships, ah, actively. Whenever anything comes up, they reach out. If a native person is involved with the crime. For example, police will reach out to leaders and share information. At this point, they've developed enough mutual trust that the leaders themselves will also reach out to the police. There's a strong general culture of inclusion at the PD, not focused on any one group, but attempting to serve everyone in the community. There are- there are designated community cultural liaisons, but the PD as a whole is dedicated to a community policing philosophy. They say that they don't trumpet this on their website because they want to maintain their relationships and not grandstand. So they may occasionally do a social media post, but website visitors will not find information describing individual community relationship efforts. They also mentioned that they receive, ah, what they call decolonization [01:04:00] training or cultural competency training from local native leaders to the police department. He would not call it decolonization training, but he did refer to it as cultural competency training provided again by local native leaders to the police department, and that takes me to this extensive list provided to us by Chief Liston of the trainings that the ICPD undergoes. Ah, and as you can see, there is a long list here that I'm not going to read. I believe that MATS refers to Multi-Agency Training Sessions that involve law enforcement agencies throughout Johnson County, just to clarify what that means and IACP, I believe is International Association for Chiefs of Police, which is referenced here. Otherwise, I think all of the abbreviations should be relatively clear. Ah, but yea this is, ah, as it-as it appears. This is exactly what we were sent in the way of what training occurs. Ah, we can [01:05:00] also provide a little bit of additional information on which trainings are provided to command staff as compared to, ah, all of the, ah, personnel within the department. Ah, but for the most part, if I look down this list, ah, these are trainings that are- are required for most, if not all of the department with some that are, ah, more meant for managers and supervisors, and there are, ah, a small number of them-small number of trainings that are elective, but I don't believe that, ah, those are enumerated on this list. [01:05:39] So I do want to make sure that we're transparent about what we weren't able to collect or what is still pending. Again, we were hoping for some additional demographic information on that FBI Department of Justice database of arrests, and that request for information is still pending. [01:06:00] There was a request that we do an analysis for both the University of Iowa's Department of Public Safety and the Johnson County Sheriff. And while we certainly think that that could be useful, we just didn't have enough time and resources and felt that it also would be hard for us to kind of separate out what of the data from those different agencies would be then analogous for the same amount of geographic jurisdiction as ICPD has. So that's something that we would recommend be completed at a later time. I did mention that we could not discern the race of complainants to the Civilian Community Police Review Board. Or the breakdown by race of those calling the police and of those who are the subject of calls to police. We know that the city has a tool that allows someone to examine what we would call a heat map for calls of service. But again, there is some technical issues that are keeping the data from being [01:07:00] actively updated. The hyperlink though on this slide takes you to the page where that is situated and so we believe that at some point in the near future, that tool will be able to provide data. We did also just get a breakdown of the types of arrests where in force was used, and by Monday, we're hoping to be able to share some very briefly some additional data on Monday that breaks that down, but it doesn't go beyond what we already have as it relates to the race of people involved. The only other thing that I wanted to mention before we pause is we were asked to think about where else we should go from here and what was maybe difficult for us to find or what else we would recommend for your consideration. One thing that I think is important is that in all of the data didn't find anything that separated out the experience of people who would identify as more recent arrivals or immigrants [01:08:00] or refugees and while some of that can be collected anecdotally, it would be nice if there were more of a significant data set to work with there. There's also, um I think some deficit in terms of data on complaints that were not sustained or never filed. And part of that isn't that the data doesn't exist. It's just a bit cumbersome for us to collect it. It's not all easily tracked in a database where we can quickly get a readout. So that's something that we on the not sustained side would need more time to look for. But of course, on something that was never filed, it's hard to know what goes into someone's mindset on that. So it'd be interesting to know what leads someone to decide to withdraw their complaint if they do file it. There also, I think is something to be said for looking at what happens once someone is arrested and brought to a court of law, meaning that [01:09:00] obviously, part of this story around public safety relates to the actions of the police or the sheriff, but a good bit of the story takes place in the court proceedings involving the prosecutors and the defense attorneys and as a matter of fact, there's a new show premiering, I think today on one of the streaming services that looks at the experiences of people being represented by indigent defense in some big city, I think in Tennessee so I think that, you know, the question there would be to find a way to track charging decisions or plea agreements or something that indicates what, if any, disparity might exist between defendants of different races once they are criminally charged. I mentioned the training courses, and, of course, the number of training courses is a significant data point or could be, but [01:10:00] it would also be interesting to understand what outcomes have been produced and what changes have been observed between officers behavior and conduct before they took the training and what they got, how they changed their practices after. What about examining the various strategies used by the ICPD to recruit for new officers? The chief referenced in his memo, a continued desire and emphasis on recruiting a police department or putting together police department that reflects the community it serves, and that's a work in progress. So it might be interesting to understand what is being done currently to get that police force to reflect the community it serves and measures of success there. It may or may not be true that race or other aspects of a person of an applicant's identity are considered as an officer is hired. Obviously, there are very easily measured kinds of [01:11:00] evaluation tools, the physical test, the interview, the written exam. But it would be interesting to know more about how race or other aspects of identity get considered. Obviously, we're all familiar with debates swirling in higher education about this, but it would be interesting to know how that has affected police hiring, particularly in circumstances where a department might be really having to work to fill open slots. And then, of course, there's the idea of preventative measures. A lot of the discourse in the entire nation has been around looking for ways to prevent crime before it occurs rather than being as focused on, punishing people who commit crimes. How do we track what preventative measures are in place that are keeping crimes from occurring? It's hard to know that, but I think that there could be some before and after comparisons [01:12:00] made between before a particular preventative measure program was put in place and after. Thank you all very much for your attention, and I'm here for you for questions. [01:12:19] Uh, this Commissioner Johnson, just wondering about Yes, sir. Did I miss whistle-blower? Anything about whistle blowers, or anything along those lines? [01:12:30] Yeah, I don't have any court cases or other documentation of whistle blower complaints, Commissioner, about ICPD. The legal action was all taken by civilians. And again, only the one case made it past motion to dismiss. But that doesn't mean that there haven't been other whistle blower complaints. It's just nothing was provided to us in that form of documentation in a way that was substantiated and [01:13:00] carried forth. [01:13:01] Good to go. [01:13:02] I will say though that it's possible. I mean, I guess it depends on your definition of whistle blower, but there certainly were, you know, several dozen complaints filed internally. I don't know if- I don't know which slide I had that on, but there are a lot more complaints- let me see if I can go back to the slide, a lot more complaints filed by officers or by police department personnel on each other or on the department, than there are civilian complaints in Iowa City. So that can be seen on- I'll get to that slide here, just a second. I'll just read to you. It's as much as 88 of those internal directed complaints in 2021, compared to 27 done by citizens. So that's not exactly a whistle blower situation, but it certainly is one where someone's trying to call out misbehavior by one of their own. [01:13:59] Good to [01:14:00] go. [01:14:02] Hey, Larry. This is Commissioner Tassinary. [01:14:04] Yes, sir. [01:14:05] I wanted to follow up with a second on the whole notion of discretionary versus non discretionary. [01:14:10] Yes, sir. [01:14:11] I want to see if I can say this clearly, the disproportionate arrest rates and stoppage rates. It seems like by saying that 97% of those stops are non discretionary. It sort of suggests that there's- there's not an issue of discrimination. But what I want to get at is that it's missing the other side that even though it's the claim is they're non discretionary, there's no way to really count how many times the officers go along with that. So, for example, there's 12 white [01:15:00] cars that go by swerving. It's non discretionary. They don't stop them. So if you put that into the mix, then all of a sudden, the whole picture looks very different. So, what are your thoughts on how you capture that sort of file drawer problem to put use another metaphor? Of all those cases where it's supposedly non discretionary, but it's actually discretionary because there's no consequences. [01:15:32] Well, I mean, it's an excellent question, and I don't um, know that there's going to be much more I can say on that that wouldn't be better answered by, you know, Professor Barnum who conducted the research. I know that he within this study, did what he calls an officer level analysis, where he looked at each officer who made 100 [01:16:00] stops or more during the two years that were being examined. And so he can, you know, dig a little bit into greater detail to compare, for example, two officers who might have patrolled the same, you know, zone on successive Thursdays or on successive weekend nights and perhaps be able to determine what the difference is there. I mean, I certainly understand what you're asking in terms of, you know, how do we know when non discretionary stops are missed. And I guess my response to that would be that it would require a level of qualitative analysis that we're not in a position at this point in the process to do. It would probably require a much more [01:17:00] sweeping and broad range of interviews and even some field observation so that we could come to some conclusion for you on that and I'm just relying on the data collected by others in this instance. So I know that's probably not the most satisfying of answers. But there is, if you dig into the study from Professor Barnum, some additional data that looks at individual officer behavior, which may or may not give you some indication of how discretion is or isn't being applied in that respect. [01:17:31] I guess, I want to ask you, is there no databases that have sort of more automated measures that would give us a sense of base rate, for example, traffic cameras like, what is the expected rate of people running through a stop light? And that could help us assess, to what extent some of this discrepancy between non discretionary and discretionary. [01:17:55] I would say that I didn't run across that, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, [01:18:00] Commissioner, so I'm certainly amenable to seeing what, if any, such data might exist, at least at a macro level, you know, for certain types of intersections, what would be considered standard behavior. I guess my only caution there is, you know, it's hard to generalize, obviously. You know, there are a variety of different context, geographic contexts in which these stops are made. And I think more of them are not necessarily happening at a particular intersection like that, but perhaps from someone, you know, zipping down an expressway or a wider road. And so, you know, of course, we could say, Well, here's another 45 mile/hour road somewhere. What does that typically see? But I think it's tricky when you're looking at a specific city. [01:18:53] Okay. Thanks. [01:18:55] Yeah, sure. [01:18:55] This is Commissioner Merritt. One thing would also be kind of interesting to know is, like, [01:19:00] how long the officers had served on the force? Like how many of these, like arrests that were done by younger or the ones that haven't been in the force as long as opposed to ones who have been veterans? You know, what's the- what are the statistics, you know, amongst the department in that sense, might be kind of interesting to know too? [01:19:26] I agree. And I don't know, I'm looking at the study now, and I can't say anything that obviously differentiates that Commissioner, Vice Chair, but I will- we can certainly ask if such data exists in terms of what they collected. [01:19:44] This is Commissioner Dillard on the same note, just looking at the difference between we just got a new police chief in the last couple of years versus having another police chief for, I can't remember how long, [01:20:00] how quickly, if there are any changes and what that looks like comparatively with the different eras. [01:20:09] You mean- Chair, do you mean, like, in relation to policy- new policy development, things of that nature? [01:20:15] Yes, whether it's progressive or the opposite progressive? [01:20:22] We can certainly ask. I mean, we're in constant communication with the Department. We could certainly ask if there's a breakdown of, you know, when certain policies have been implemented and to what extent. I mean, I would say that the 2020 preliminary plan effort was certainly a very wide and sweeping undertaking that preceded Chief Liston, but he sort of inherited it not long after he arrived in terms of the the timing and the impact. So it could be that there are a lot more things in process because of that planning effort, whether or not he initiated [01:21:00] it. But we can see what we can find on that particular front. [01:21:04] Thank you, Larry. I also just wanted to say, I appreciate how you were able to break down the data this time and include anecdotal data that just really, for me, helped me understand and digest it a lot better, especially the news articles, I think are important pieces to include. [01:21:21] You're welcome, Chair. I mean, I had you and the commission in mind in that regard. And my hope, my sincere hope is that the events devoted to truth telling and healing circles next week will enable you to get some- a lot more of the humanity associated with all of this. I was just trying to kind of thread a needle between, you know, some storytelling around the data and, you know, sticking to the data and allowing the truth telling to surface those stories. So I appreciate the comment. [01:21:59] Commissioner Amos [01:22:00] here. I have two questions on issues of strategies, and I do not intend that you reveal or say anything to do with the police strategy because that's not what I'm interested in. But for issues of data or something that someone can look at in a different position, for issues of policy, maybe a manager or somebody. This is a question regarding locations or stops. We know from studies that and I've heard of these people saying, Commissioner Chad has talked about this. If you go looking for a rat in a hole, you'll get one. If you're looking for something, probably you will always have strategies to get it. Sometimes if it is there. So one of the data you gave us on locations points to Taylor Drive. [01:22:49] And that's a community that's probably inhabited by more minority. I think so if the data is correct. So I don't know how random that is that [01:23:00] the stops rates are very high there. Than in other streets in Iowa City. And I don't know what the reason would be. So I don't want an answer from you, but [LAUGHTER] could there be somebody looking at the data and say, okay, are we putting so many of them somewhere here? Somewhere there? So if you put so many exactly, if you go fishing, if you put a big net, you'll catch more fish. And why are you putting a big because you are interested in fish. So that's the question I can have. Another question on strategy. Oh- no, this is on training. Or you talked about the mart rates, things to do with training, how they hire people and whatever. And er I know usually there are regulations, either from the federal government or from the state on things that police departments must follow or a bad by. And this talks to compliance. [01:24:00] I did not see some good statistics because I know they have them. They have all those spreadsheets regarding those on this, this and this, we have this 20%, we've done this. This is not that I'm looking for the bad things. Sometimes actually, the statistics can just tell us good things. Like already here in the report, there are some good things. So that is missing, we want to see the co-compliance rates if they can tell us about some of these things. And er so I think that can do for the time being. Thank you. [01:24:34] You're welcome. And um, commissioner I think on the training front, it's an interesting question you pose as it relates to which of the trainings are not just mandated for ICPD ah by the chief, but mandated by a-a higher authority like the state or the federal government. I can ask for that to be um clarified, um perhaps by Monday just so we understand, [01:25:00] you know, which of these trainings are ones that the chief himself has decided to-to bring to the department as compared to um ones that are-are required for all departments. And then I was trying to just locate the um additional information on the locations of uh, of stops, and there were three other zones besides the two that I highlighted on the slide. So here was that slide again, um where the research- the report indicated that as many as 40% of the stops could occur in the zone on the left, the kind of downtown, uh, slide. Um, I should also say, and this may be a clarifying point, and I may have misspoken before. In the report, what the researcher wrote is, in general, the largest concentrations of disproportionality, [01:26:00] which is to say, disproportionate number of communities of color being stopped, the largest concentration of disproportionality were centered in the downtown area, which is 21 and areas ah outside our observation areas. Um but 21 is, again, that zone that's on the left. The information indicates that for both years, most stops occurred in the downtown, which is zone 21 on the left, followed by Broadway Weatherby, zone 29, which I tried to-to map on the right, and then surrounding areas, er some additional zones er that adjoin that er I didn't have the exact streets for, so I didn't put it on this um slide. But I can attempt. I don't know that I'll be successful. I can attempt to pull some uh more specific census data, you know, for a tract, for example, [01:27:00] for these different zones ah in time for the conversation on Monday. [01:27:05] Larry, this is Commissioner Tasineri. I want to follow up with that. So when you talk about it being disproportionate, is disproportionate based on the population level for the entire city? [01:27:21] Yes, sir, I believe it is. Um, I'll do a quick ah review of where the study er defines it, um. [01:27:32] Because the reason I'm bringing that up is that the census information is available at the block level, that you could have socioeconomic and racial information at that level. And then you'd have the stops at the block level, and then you could do a simple plot of racial makeup in the area and number of stocks to more directly address some of these questions. [01:27:56] Yes, I understand. He says, the process of comparing police data to [01:28:00] benchmarks is straightforward. It centers on identifying differences between the demographic percentages from ICPD traffic stop data and benchmark information. Any positive difference between benchmark values and police data signifies disproportionality or an overrepresentation of non white drivers in the data ah the benchmark used for this report accounts for the potential of mass disproportionality. Although disproportionality can indicate bias or discrimination, it does not necessarily signify bias. So I can endeavor, as I say, to-to try to get a little bit more fine grained on some of the streets and er neighborhoods that had more of th-the stop percentages, when I'm with you on Monday. [01:28:45] Yeah, I think that would really help to try to-to make the link between anecdotal reports and the statistical reports, if we could get it a little more fine grained. [01:28:53] Yes, sir. [01:28:58] Commissioner Amos, again, [01:29:00] and has question on strategy without revealing the details of the information and other things, but maybe for internal decision-making. A couple of years ago, we have a satellite police station at the Southern District. I don't know how long it existed there because I don't have the data when it was started and when it ended. What I can tell is I'm sorry, I'm reminding myself that I'm not supposed to talk about general things from other people or maybe either my experience, but I don't know, but sometimes as commissioners, we hear things from other people they tell us to. Without saying whether this was my experience or not. I wanted to see if there was any data that was collected on the impact of that on crime on safety, [01:30:00] mental implications on the children who play around there. It is near Broadway, one of the areas where arrests and stops are very many or tailor drive. So that's something that somebody can look at, without giving a lot of details on that, but it can help. Not as the commissioners or anybody, but these are things that improve our community- make our community better because sometimes they're done probably without looking into the implications. So it ended. Somebody decided, I don't know the resolutions how that came up, but I was not interested in those issues at that time. But I believe the impacts that were there, I can still track them. Thank you. [01:30:53] Absolutely. And I'll-I'll see if I can find anything between now and when I'm with you. [01:30:58] Redman, [01:31:00] can you fill us in, what was the force for having that um, sort of the police department down there on the south side? What was the reason for putting it? [01:31:13] Thank you. [01:31:14] Robert. [01:31:15] That kind of predates me. Um, but I can- I can look into what was the decisions behind opening it and then also closing it. [01:31:27] Thank you. [01:31:29] Awesome. So you and Larry can, like, talk about that then. Awesome. Thank you very much. [01:31:37] Absolutely. [01:31:43] Commissioner Wangui, thank you, doctor Schooler, ah for bringing this information. Personally, I feel sad in 2024 [01:32:00] that the dis-disproportionate numbers are still, uh, coming up in 2024. But thank you for bringing that up and also uh confirming for people like me who look like me, uh who are represented there, who belong to those disproportionate numbers, and some of those traffic stops and and citations. Uh, if I could follow that, maybe some of them even lead to me. Ah what the data has done, and there has been other data in earlier years, but I'm saying sad because we're in 2024. But, uh, things remain the same. [01:33:00] But at the same time, I also congratulate my city that, uh, we are brave enough to look into this and find this, that yes, it is bad, but we are looking at it. And then, uh, going forward, work with it to improve things for these members of our communities that are impacted. And what the information you have shared has also, again, made me, and I know also those experiences that I know that are part of this. I'm really talking about the black population, and especially African, uh, because that's where- that's where my experiences are, and [01:34:00] that's where most of the anecdotal information that I do have, one of the things this helps with is, uh, calming and knowing that it's not paranoia. The data you've brought in supports this, that when I say I'm driving er on the roads, which are on my city roads where I've been given privilege to do that, that ah my skin color does impact, how even today in 2024, how I interact with the police, especially in those areas that came bringing up a lot of data. So yeah, I'm not paranoic, but it is still happening in 2024. I do know that. But when you bring it back scientifically, that [01:35:00] uh it's calming and at the same time, also giving ah helping in paving the way forward on what to do. The other point you mentioned about is where to from here, uh, in relation to you mentioned information on immigrants and refugees. And, uh, one of the reasons is that, ah once the immigrants are for population purposes, they get classified into, for example, I'm an African immigrant, I get classified as Black or African. So therein, you have the information, but desegregating is usually an issue and which as [01:36:00] we continue more- as we continue studying, finding ways of desegregating that, I remember even I struggled with this as I- as someone who coordinates ah a cultural specific African organization in Eastern Iowa and in Iowa City, trying to get the numbers. I remember some time back, I was even asking Stefanie our city staff here for just to get a grasp on the population of African immigrants and refugees in Iowa City because sometimes that's really necessary to deal with some issues. So yeah, when you mentioned that, I remembered, and I, that's how I see it because when, uh, immigrants and refugees get classified. They don't get classified as immigrants [01:37:00] and refugees, so but as either Hispanics, how the city, how they are desegregated. Yeah, I wanted to bring that out. And thank you very much, again, for bringing out this information. Even if for me, it's sad, it's painful because some of the data you brought in, like I said, have experienced it, others I know. My family, especially when you mentioned wetherby, I shared with some here this last week, or was it this week or last week that I actually had to move my family from there just because that's not something I wanted my children to grow up with having such a heavy presence of the uniform of the police, and also even the years when that police post was there. So thank you for bringing it back, [01:38:00] even if it is painful from my own personal experience and others that I know. Thank you. [01:38:07] Commissioner um, Hathaway, can you help explain the difference between being- between being Black and being African? [01:38:17] One, when the US uses the word Black, which I had of, I got ah that is externally imposed on me. I didn't even know. I was Black until I landed in Iowa City. I don't know whether I'm getting to you to answer your question. [01:38:37] Are you- are you- I understand that culturally the race is used more here in the US. And I understand that concept, but you distinguish between being here in the US, being Black versus being African? And are you just distinguishing the difference culturally of being um someone who was enslaved versus someone who was [01:39:00] an immigrant, or are you saying that are you truly distinguishing the difference of someone who is-, um, who is- that there is a difference between being Black and being African? [01:39:19] Uh, since we are within the scope of fact finding, uh, and doctor Schooler had said, uh, getting information on experiences of immigrants and refugees wit-with public safety. For purposes of that, I was saying it becomes challenging, uh, because once an immigrant or a refugee, uh, is in the US or in Iowa City for census purposes and classification on ah government papers, ah people. An African is [01:40:00] ah which be until I came to the US. I wasn't even an African. I wasn't even any of those things. But I've never even been classified anywhere that way. [01:40:15] Right. [OVERLAPPING]` [01:40:15] So I get classified, I will get classified as an African or as Black or African American. So if and I was telling Schooler, that then becomes a challenge if you're looking for immigrant and refugee information. [01:40:33] No, I understand that. I just wanted to understand the difference when you bring it up. The difference between being Black and being immigrant or being Black and being African. [01:40:47] Because I don't- I- I don't- I- I want it, I have questions, but I want it separately just to make sure that I was clear in the distinction that you're bringing [01:41:00] up. I understand the difference between being enslaved or having your history being from an enslavement perspective and your history from being a immigrant. I understand that. I- I, I'm trying to make sure I understand the difference in- for when you think of it as being Black versus being African. I don't understand that. That's why I'm asking for guidance and help. [01:41:28] Yeah. And I wasn't bringing that. I was just talking about the classification for Census purposes. That in Iowa City, you're not going to find somebody classified immigrant or refugee. They're going to be classified. [01:41:43] I am so sorry to interrupt. [01:41:44] Yeah. [01:41:45] I know that you guys- I want you guys to finish this conversation. I just got a message that Dr. Schooler needs to leave, and I just want to make sure there's no other questions. [01:41:54] Yeah. We can revisit that at some other point. [01:41:56] I want to continue the conversation. I just want to make sure- [01:41:59] Yeah. [01:41:59] There's no other question. [01:41:59] Dr. Schooler [01:42:00] I do have questions in. And I just have a couple of questions. [01:42:02] Yes sir. [01:42:03] All right. [01:42:03] Okay. [01:42:03] The question. [01:42:04] Yeah. Of course. I just want to make sure that everyone gets their questions answered. [01:42:11] Dr. Schooler, if you- If you go back to your slide Number 17? [01:42:14] Yes of course. [01:42:15] I believe in Number 17 in the slide that you showed that it- it talks about police funding. [01:42:23] Yes. [01:42:23] And it shows within the police funding. And have you- you- thank you for bringing up. It- it seems to show within the police funding. I just want to make sure I have this part of it right, that, uh, there seems to be an increase as relates to funding from a police perspective, uh, there seems to be some increase as relates to housing, but there is no increase as relates to health, uh, Is that correct? [01:42:54] That is what this dataset shows. I would just give you the disclaimer [01:43:00] that, you know, we can only do so much to validate the data collected by another organization, but that is you've- you've precisely indicated what they- what they found from the data they reviewed. [01:43:13] And we're really more- we- [01:43:13] Everything is that it's- it's- yeah- [01:43:16] I'm really more interested in from a trending perspective, right? So- so I understand from the perspective of, you know, we can't really identify the hard numbers, but really the goal is is that as it relates to the way that we engage from a police perspective. The majority of it is- is through engaging the police through its officers, but not, um, but not really from- from the things that you have listed around health. That would be accurate, correct? [01:43:47] I believe so. Yes, sir. [01:43:49] Uh, you have a slide that talks about, uh, training, and it talks about [01:44:00] the diversity training. I can't remember which slide that is. I met to write- [01:44:07] I got it- it here and not get it, just a second. [01:44:10] Maybe he has mentioned it and not the article. [01:44:12] Maybe Slide 44? [01:44:15] Yes, sir. I've- I've got it. [01:44:17] So you talk about training. Now, the- there's a couple of things, and I know I can ask the city this more than I have to ask you, but I really want to talk more when it comes to the- the focus of- of the training. I think the hypothesis is- is that some of the challenges when it comes to policing is that many of the officers do not necessarily have the cultural experience, um, within the communities that they're attempting to police. And so that in essence, training is put in place to allow them to be more sensitive, thus [01:45:00] allowing them to be better at, um, policing, would- would that seem, um, the traditional hypothesis that one would use as relates to training for police officers? [01:45:17] I just don't know that I could answer that Commissioner, because all the information that I have is which of these training courses was considered mandatory and for whom. And so in instances where, uh, for example, there's a class here that was offered in 2020 as simple as respect, diversity, respect and inclusion in the workplace. That was mandatory for all. So I don't know whether the training- the- there's no indication of training that is differentiated on the basis of anything other than whether someone is a supervisor or non supervisory staff or for the entire department. And then [01:46:00] there are a smattering of courses listed as elective as compared to mandatory, but there is no- I just don't have any data one way or the other, I think to answer your question. [01:46:09] And then the last, um, set of questions is really more related to the- the interviewing process. And I believe what I heard you say is that, um, the chief has worked hard to try to increase the diversity. I'm going to first assume that that's another hypothesis that by increasing the diversity within the police, um, department that, that should better help when it comes to the cultural sensitivity and awareness as it relates to the officers? [01:46:51] I mean, it's a reasonable hypothesis. The only thing that I'm seeing here in his memo is [01:47:00] in 2021, the ICPD formed a recruitment committee with an emphasis on attracting a diverse workforce that more closely mirrors the community served. And then he goes on to mention some statistics about the number of applicants that identified as members of different races. So it- I think it's reasonable to conclude what you just said that a more diverse police force would allow people with lived experience to then, you know, bring that to bear. But it's- it's not, I don't recall it being called out by him in my conversation. I can go back and look at the notes, but I think that it certainly is a possible hypothesis. [01:47:40] So both of them were hypothesis that- that may or may not be true. But if even that was a concept of that they were true, the data still shows that over a period of time, though this work has been done, it still has not changed the, um, [01:48:00] disparate impact that has happened on - on people of color, specifically, Black folks. [01:48:07] I- I think that's reasonable to conclude, sir. I mean, the data has may be changed to a degree year on year, but not to a significant degree as it relates to disproportionality. So I think it's- it's hard to know what impact recruitment efforts for officers of color has had one way or the other. [01:48:29] Thank you. [01:48:31] Yes, sir. [01:48:38] Were there any other questions for Laura or Dr. Schooler? [01:48:46] Yes. [01:48:46] Go ahead. [01:48:47] Chair, if I may. Well, I'm sorry. There's a question. [01:48:50] Commissioner Amos. And this is- [01:48:52] Yes I'm. [01:48:53] On the slide of the budget. I can track the- the slide. [01:48:59] That's okay. I've got it. [01:49:00] Generally. [01:49:00] I've got it no problem. [01:49:01] Generally, I think you'll find it, and usually, I think they are able to give us a spreadsheet on how those has changed over time. And we can also look at how crime has changed over time. Yes, that is it. That's good. Yeah. As you see, the trade is almost a straight line and is going up. We always worry about things when we want things, the calves to bend. Whenever calves go straight all the time, you know, you are- whether it's US expenditure or something, on defense or anything, you know you're in trouble. We're going to be in trouble at some stage. It's like I'm saying, Okay. So is this caused by need trying to conform to what's happening in other cities? Or just inflation and the services that the officers need. Because there isn't anything that says that [01:50:00] if you start a business or anything, instead of the 10 people, you have to always keep increasing. With efficiency and changes in behavior in the community you can go back to eight or nine. Why do we always have to think that things have to increase unless they're called for. So of course, if crimes is not- [01:50:19] I- I'm sorry. [01:50:22] If crime is not increasing, that warrants that, the population I know is going to increase, obviously. Then we could be- there could be a situation where the community is behaving really good, very well, and we may not need to spend that. And that's a data I need to look at, or not me. I need somebody to help me with that, to tell me, are we efficiently using our money on that? Or we- you just going to go on the trend of that? Could that money be allocated to something else mental health services? [01:50:55] Well, Sir certainly, I know of city council, uh, debate [01:51:00] here in the last a couple of years that related to the diversion of monies from the police department budget for other purposes. I can't give you the specific timing of when that occurred, but I know that that has taken place in Iowa City. But I think that for a question related to, uh, why budgets may have increased, uh, either the chief of police or the city manager would need - would need to speak to those. [01:51:29] There would be two things that I would still bring up. One thing is is that you're just going to have the normal increases of salary. So the more that you're retaining any talent, then they're going to be more expensive year after year. Just retention that we talk about, will, in essence, make it more expensive. The second thing is that there was a slide in here that showed us in comparison to other locations. And when you take a look at the other locations, if I'm not mistaken, our numbers were- were- [01:52:00] I don't want to say the word is better. What I want to say yes is that we had less people um, In policing than some of the other cities that we- that were using as comparison. So it goes to the point that there could be an issue, not an issue. That could be that we are being very efficient as it relates to the policing, but it also could be that we're not being very effective as it relates to how we could have used those extra dollars that would have normally been in a police department that could have been used for some other purpose within the police department. So if- if we're not investing in health, and there are a lot of calls to the re that the more health related, then could that within policing have been something that [01:53:00] they invested in to make it more reasonable. So even if it did go up, we're not investing in and people with guns trying to, you know, arrest people, but we're- we're investing in people trying to protect and serve. [01:53:23] I appreciate very much this line of inquiry, and I will try to, um, bring some additional information Monday, if I can that could help with this. I do apologize for needing to- to step away. It's spring break here, so everybody's home and there's a lot to take care of. But I do want to again, thank Laurel Cohen for her tremendous work and the city staff. And I want to thank all of you for the tremendous engagement and questions that you've posed. I also just wanted to bring your attention back to the agenda that we've [01:54:00] proposed for Monday evening because, um, this is in our opinion, a very important moment for the Commission, both in terms of next week's events on truth telling, but also this kind of culminating event on this part of your fact finding. So as you can see, the purpose is to reflect on what the data presented tonight reveal as it relates to the presence of discrimination and racial injustice in this realm. And so our objectives are to engage in dialogue, both as a commission and with community about what conclusions to draw from the data, and then consensus, at least on a preliminary basis, about what findings to include in a future final report. And I think the questions to ask those coming to the upcoming truth telling events is already very well put on your website. So that part, I think is- is less important. But the main thing is be prepared to deliberate and- and seek some consensus, [01:55:00] at least in a preliminary form on what the data revealed to you as it relates to your mandate. That's what I'm going to challenge you to do when I'm with you on Monday evening. And I'm very much looking forward to that meeting at the White House on Monday at 5:30. But thank you all very much for your attention. Appreciate it. [01:55:18] I want to thank you so much, and I also want to thank Laura equally for all her work on- on this project, and thank you all for presenting tonight. If there are no further questions, I think we're going to talk about next week. Okay. So next week is our big events. First, I wanted to see if anyone had any questions. And then we can just go over what we have so far. Anything anyone wanted to bring up. Okay, as we know, we have our fact finding session with doctor Larry Schooler on Monday from 5:30- 9:30. If you are not able to be [01:56:00] there at 5:30, please let me know, because we are required to have quorum all at all events next week. And we have to have quorum to make the events happen. On Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday, we will be at ICR Boxing Gym. Thank you again, Cliff, for letting us host there. From 5:30-9:30, and then Thursday, we will be at the James Theater from 5:30- 9:30. Same thing for the quorum. I've been working with a few other of us on getting our true tellers. I've had a couple of meetings this week with Think Peace to help prepare some of those people. We have about four confirmed right now. Could still use four more. We have some people that are on the fence and thinking about it. And some people that are- again, still thinking about it. We [01:57:00] wanted to have at least four people on each night, and it looks like we have about two people confirmed, including two of our own commissioners. So with that, I'd like to- if anyone from our group, would like to speak, let me know or let Eduardo and or Melinda or someone know, and we can all sit down and- and talk about how to prepare you for that. And also, I am meeting with a few more people tomorrow, and this weekend, and I encourage anyone that wants to just sit in on how, um, to learn how Eduardo and Dave Ragland and Melinda are- are helping prepare truth tellers. I would encourage everyone to join if you wanted to see how that process is working. So those are my updates. Any questions? [01:57:54] Mondays. Where's Mondays? [01:57:56] It's at the Right House of Fashion. Mondays [01:58:00] at the Right House of fashion. [01:58:06] So, I do have a person that I would like to- to- to bring forth, but I- I unfortunately, uh, because of the way our- our system is set up, um, I can't, um, I don't feel comfortable in bringing, um, someone forth that's currently within the community. Um, but what I would like to do is I would like to bring someone, uh, forth that's really- that's, uh, an officer who is a, uh- uh, black officer or who has experience about being black and blue and, um, be able to, uh, have him talk, uh, about his, uh, his overall experience in general and what- and how one has to navigate that and that's sense to be able to serve the community. Um, this is a person who is a University of Iowa graduate, um, he is a person who has now is retired and served high ranking positions, [01:59:00] um, in the Chicago area. So that's what I would like to do if that's possible. I wanted to have conversations with officers here. I just don't believe it's safe to do it for them- to- to put them in that situation, considering we don't have any mechanisms to protect them. [01:59:17] I mean, I- I- I think that's a great idea. You said he's a university graduate, so he has connections to Iowa City. So I don't- I don't see why that would- would be a problem, especially for this first event. I think that would be great because we do not have, at this time, any police force, uh, voice from the law enforcement side. So if anyone else- is there any issues from anyone else? [01:59:41] No. [01:59:41] No, I think it's a great idea. [01:59:42] I would like to hear it. [01:59:44] Um, so, Chad, can we work together just to make sure- to get him that mini orientation with think piece? Awesome. I'll- I'll be in touch after this about that. Um, did you have other things you wanted to say? [02:00:00] [02:00:01] Uh, the other thing, I just- I just uh, heard and I was talking to Annie, and she had brought up that, um, that Eduardo, I think he sent a letter to the, uh, to the city manager. And then he copied you. [02:00:20] Yes. [02:00:21] Um, I just want to publicly say, I think that's inappropriate. I think the message should have gone to you, and if he needed to copy anyone, he could have copied the city manager. But this is another situation where I think there's a overstep. His- if his goal is to help us, then he should have copy- he should have sent it to you not send it to Jeff. And I will- I will tell Jeff that, and I will tell Edu- Eduardo that that's my personal feeling, is it that- that was inappropriate for him to do that. And I understand it's my personal feeling and not the feeling here. Uh, but I appreciate that you got the information, [02:01:00] but the information should have gone directly to our chair and not to Jeff. [02:01:06] I appreciate you letting me know how you feel. Um, I- thank you. Any other questions or concerns about next week? If you do know of anyone that is interested or would consider telling their truth, um, again, looking for a few more people, um, I would say if we're looking for voices as was requested from City Council, we- we are missing, um, some key voices, including youth, indigenous people, um, Asian Latino, um, from this first instance, um, just putting it out there. But we will have representation from immigrant and refugee family members- family members. So [LAUGHTER] [02:02:00] people in this community- community members, um, and African American community members, um, as of right now, and potentially someone, um, a member from the queer community as well. [02:02:16] And do we want to continue the conversation I was- I was having, or is that do you want to do that at a different time? [02:02:21] About video or? [02:02:24] The conversation about African and- and black. [02:02:26] Oh, yeah. I'm sorry for interrupting you earlier. I would love for you to continue that conversation. It seemed that it was- [02:02:34] I just don't know the difference. And that's why I'm just trying to get a clear understanding of what the difference is. [02:02:40] Cause technically, African, somebody could be identified as African and identify as Black. But somebody who identifies as Black is not necessarily identified as African. [02:02:54] Could I offer an opinion from- as an African American, just from my experience working, um, [02:03:00] with different populations if- is that okay? I- I mean, I see it, uh, from a cultural perspective. Um, I mean, we all in America are black according to what society has labeled us, but we all have our different experiences in this- in this country. Is there something different or deep- deeper you're looking for or as an explanation or? [02:03:26] I- I think that it- I- I think that it is not intended. That is intended to- to be used in a way of trying to distinguish one group from another, but I believe that it is an issue than when it comes to again, how it should be used. Most of us are black. This is not the- the terminology that we, in essence, created for ourselves. It was the terminology that was given because it was based on race. And based on race, then we are black. Even immigrants that come [02:04:00] here are black. If you are from Africa, then you are Black. It is what it is. Now culturally, there's a difference from being from Nigeria or from a different country or the- or having different, um- um- um, cultural ways, that- that I totally get and I understand. But the way that the system was set up here is there- there is no separation. And traditionally, what it is used is, is that it's used to separate, and when it is used to separate, it's used to, in essence, say that those of us who were enslaved are at the bottom, and then those who was- who were not enslaved, but who are from Africa are above us. I don't mind that- that people want to focus on their culture, and there's nothing I can do to stop that. I think that we just have to be careful about, again, how we use it, or we have to be very open to be able to have this conversation. [02:05:00] Because I don't mind people if they want to separate from me, but it means something very different to me than it means to others. And I just hear that from a lot of immigrants that there is the thing of, I am not Black. I am immigrant. I am- I am not a Black American. I am, um, Nigerian American. And I understand the culture of trying to maintain and keep your culture. God knows, uh, hold onto that hit as tight as you can. But when it comes to the way the systems are set up, did not set up based on culture. They're based- they set up based on race. And eventually, if you all don't experience that now, just wait because your grandchildren will, and then they will be one of us. So that's something that I just wanted to- I think, again, these are one of those things that we have to feel comfortable in either talking about and allowing it to be whatever [02:06:00] it is. But, um, that traditionally, for us, is- is, you know, again, constantly trying to put those of us who were enslaved or our history is that we were enslaved, putting us at the bottom, and then everyone proving that they're better than us because they can show the difference between us and them. [02:06:32] I feel a little odd jumping into this conversation, but I feel like I'd like to. Um, because I think there's a bit of a parallel between White America and European American. And to sort of build off of what you're saying, I've worked with students who have come over as- as my role as a professor, come from Switzerland, come from, [02:07:00] uh, Italy, come over from the Ukraine, come from the Middle East. They don't see themselves as "White". They see themselves as I'm Swiss, I'm Ukrainian, I'm Russian, right? And there's that same sort of separation. Um, but I completely agree with you that- that the bottom line is the way things have been constructed in this country over hundreds of years. There's a more fundamental distinction that's caused a whole lot of problems. And- so I think there were two- it's two different ways of thinking of things, and I think that it's important to have the conversation. [02:07:55] I would just simply say that when you take a look at our history, there was a time that Italians [02:08:00] were not White. [02:08:01] Right. [02:08:03] It existed, right? And Jewish folks were not White. There were times that they were other. But then they graduated into being White. And it was a system that they have access to that, you know, the, uh, White folks just primarily have our individuals that they're still linked to the- their heritage. I don't- I don't believe they consider, you know, themselves more as a group but the system that they have allows them all to be treated, like. [02:08:33] Right. [02:08:34] You know, a certain way. When it comes to those of us who, in essence, were- were put in place where we had to white fight for our ability to be even deemed as a human. What I'm saying is is that if for- for me, I'm saying that I want us to just be [02:09:00] aware that being Black in America is different than just the cultural differences that exist based on our history. So for someone who knows where they're from and knows their people, I can- can be- be only- only honored and jealous of their experience. But there's sometimes this tendency when people will not accept the community until the community benefits them. I appreciate us trying to be supportive of having diversity and bring all people in who [02:10:00] deal with discrimination. But George Floyd with a Black man where they- they've- they did not care about his life. And the march was, in my opinion that people said, no more. We have true value. And people who understood that stood up and said, we do have true value. So I'm just trying to be careful and say, I'm very open to having conversations about us being different. But I'm not here to try to save everybody. What I am trying to say to everyone is- is that, if you don't save those of us who are strilly- who are really in the struggle, then you yourself, whoever you are, will never be saved. And our tendency is [02:11:00] that we're not really thinking about that. We're thinking about how to separate ourselves from that. [02:11:12] Yeah. I- I- there's a fundamental way in which I agree. I mean, I really do agree. I mean, I think that there's- there's that's- [02:11:27] It's tough being in the core America. [02:11:29] There's the core- there's the core- there's the core issue, and there are ancillary issues, and you cannot forget the core. And so I- I. [02:11:36] Think if we want to get better as Americans, if we want to truly achieve our full potential, that to me, this is really about how do we address those core issues? Policing is a big issue because police used to be used against us. And what is happening is police is still being used against us. So how do [02:12:00] you support a system that was never designed to support you? That's really the question in my opinion that we're having around policing. Is it that, you know, how do we help change it? And the things structures were put in place to help change it. Are this hypothesis that have not proven themselves to be true? So when we do our truth telling, as we do our fact finding, I think we have to get to the place of really understanding what is it we're doing this for? And my core is, we're using this as a police as an example because this was a system that has always been used against us. They put the police and their dogs on us. It's always been used against us. So how do we get it so that we can- we can have a system [02:13:00] that in essence, it is not used to hurt us. I have no answers for that question. But I- I- I look forward to next week of being able to at least people to share what their experiences are and for us to get closer to us having recommendations for the council when it- when it comes to things around how the city can change. [02:13:30] And I think it's also really important, like you just pointed out to focus on outcomes rather than just process. Because you can put all the trainings in place that you want, end of the day, it has to move the needle. If it's not moving the needle, you have to do something else with the training. [02:13:53] I'm done. [02:13:53] Uh, is- [02:14:00] is a very difficult conversation but I'm glad that you bring it up. I think the commission is about truth and we learn from one another. We do mistakes. I do make mistakes once in a while, and I can learn from a sister or brother or somebody from a community that I consider my community. It is very difficult. I know, especially being an immigrant who's lived here, 35- 34 to 35 years. Because I have grandchildren who are born here. When I- when I tell them things, uh, about my country where I came from, they don't care. They don't care. My son, also, the last born was here. It's not a big deal to them. And sometimes the other community, the ones who are traditionally from here as you say, I even find it very difficult [02:15:00] sometimes to use the word slave cause I feel something in my heart yet I did not experience it. And I'm not bold enough to- to talk about it like that because I believe sometimes it affects somebody somewhere. Yeah. I do not want to use the fact that okay, the terminology or the identity that this were descendants of, yeah- yeah. I'm not very comfortable using it like that because I have that bad feeling bad mouth coming from me. But, uh, I don't know how we're going to help ourselves because, uh, in relation to the police issues, when they meet my son on the street there sometimes they don't know. [02:15:42] Is the treatment the same or different? When you talk or you read things about immigrants, black for Africans, whatever, sometimes they tend to be those classifications. The sensors do it for other reasons, sometimes for health reasons, for [02:16:00] issues of diversity, and other things, they want to know. But in this topic of police relations, I believe let's look at it to help ourselves because we are all- in this all together. Have children who also mixed race. It's not just that they're black, but they don't know anything. They also mixed race. So they know who they call themselves, too. Now it's another category. So sometimes it's very difficult for us, where we're talking to our children cause those are their friends, they're there with them in schools. But I also understand, I don't want to say that I feel. You want me up against that because I cannot feel it. But I get it from you. But we [02:17:00] have to be careful, what we say, how we do certain things. So we're going to be reaching a point of reconciliation. So what I don't know the question that I will be asking myself with the commission, Where do we put these people who their grandparents are Africans? Their culture is American. When probably they're here because this is public, when they hear, somebody saying something. How does it reflect on them? Are we reflecting or portraying or signaling unity, or are we signaling- we know we have to reach the point of reconciliation and reparations? And the immigrants don't probably deserve that because they- they have not experienced that, their grandparents didn't experience those problems. And it's going to be difficult. But I- I think when [02:18:00] it comes to that, we have to be very sensitive to the other side. We are maybe a commissioner who was with immigrant background. I have to be sensitive to that. I might not probably be fair enough. If I see something maybe a form of reparation or reconciliation, that does not probably touch my community. I can't complain too much. This is just how I'm feeling because we are different. They are immigrants who just came here the other day. They have experiences are very different from me who came here 30 years ago. What I experienced in the community to be the other people, it's very different from those who have just come here like four years, three years ago, have experiences very different. The community has really changed a lot. But I would say for the better. That's why we have a lot of people of minorities coming [02:19:00] here because it's safe for us, a little bit safer for us. But I don't know. It's a very difficult conversation, and it's good you bring it, Commissioner Chad. We can have it. We learn from one another. There's something I can learn from you, there's something you can learn from me because it's like, okay, I'm going to have all the generation here in the coming 10 years, 20 years. This might think of immigration, is- is going to disappear. Right now, it is relevant, when we're looking at books like Commission like Larry suggested we better get information from immigrants and refugees. Maybe it is important, maybe it is not. But I do not know. When we are having interactions with whatever, do they behave differently when they can learn that I am an immigrant? That's I think a valid question. [02:20:00] When they know that I'm an immigrant, will they treat me different? When I go to get a loan maybe for a house or something, and they can tell I'm an immigrant, maybe the way I talk, are they going to treat me different from the way they treat somebody of the same color like me? What if there were no names put there it was just a blank application, no name. Will the persons be treated the same? And then the other question, Does the community believe in care about that? And probability is true, they do. And I think that's where you're talking to where some people make an attempt to classify us, putting some people either the top, the borders of the- those ones, you find that, and you always see them, Chad, Commissioner Chad in data when they're trying to look into health records, health status, health disparities, education disparity. Those [02:21:00] things are going to come up. Yeah and I- I don't know how to deal with that because we don't make policy. We are small minority immigrants. We don't make policy. We just- [02:21:17] I- I would simply say that if you- if you were coming from France, or if you were coming from Hungary, or if you were coming from Brussels, and you were an immigrant, would they be treated the same as you were being treated? If you have to one day worry and have a conversation or you have- you have your grandchildren that have to have a conversation with their sons about how they need to perform in front of a police, [02:22:00] then the change- then- there is no conc reconciliation. What I would say to you is, I acknowledge the difference of being an immigrant, and I also acknowledge how people would have a tendency to want to make it more difficult for immigrants. But I think a big part of the difference is based on the skin color that exists and a lot of that is based on the way America was designed because I don't think that again, if you were from Switzerland, or if you were from Germany, even with an accent, that you'd have some of the same challenges that you're having now and that's where I get concerned [02:23:00] is -is that if your grandson doesn't teach his son, certain things, will he put his son in harm's way? Will some officer destroy you- your legacy, because he doesn't quite understand? So I think- I just ask us to think about that as the structure of understanding how America was built. Other places weren't built that way. Some places where- Haiti is suffering because- because of its revolution, you know, there are places, right? You know, Brazil is, you know, is- is a for me, a different feeling in Brazil than it is in America. So- but I'm old. [02:24:00] And a part of me, you know, I thought that my generation would help resolve this issue. The folks I went to school with. The people I dealt with that said, No, this is not going to happen. I thought the freedoms that I had and my generation had, and we're creating greater havoc than any other generation I've seen over, you know, my past 50 years. [02:24:31] We're repeating history. [02:24:33] We're banning books. You know we- you know Johnson County makes a decision that it wants to raise the minimum wage so that people have a- and I'm a business person, right? They want to raise it to what, $15? They want to raise it, you know, I'm a business person, right? Okay. I'm going to pay $15. How am I going to do it? I don't know. [02:25:00] But the state says, No. You can't do that. So those are just some of the things that I just think about in our work that we're doing that I need to know that your grandson's child has a greater opportunity to be known by his character. Not by a skin color. [02:25:39] Thank you very much and for that and we will acknowledge, maybe the data will tell us when we get into other things. I don't know how seeing and other things, areas of education, other things, what's happening. If there are issues of discrimination about different people, whether the- that there's disproportionality again [02:26:00] among the black people, immigrants, and the- the Africans were traditional from here. I don't know. What if we find those things happening? And we are required as a commission to talk about that? How are we going to talk about those difficult questions? Is there going to be differential treatment, differential reconciliation, or are we going to use an umbrella reconciliation for everyone? I think those are things that we have to talk about when the reconciliation comes, and because we have not so far even talked about the process as which we are going to come to the recommendations after the 18th. Yeah. Are we going to do that? And- but it's going to be challenging. But I really- I really [02:27:00] don't want us- a little bit more to talk about that. It's something that bothers me a lot. Because I'm a data person. I always look at this data all the time. Are you immigrant refugee? When I look at health data, education data all the time. I see some disparities and sometimes not very easy to explain them. But what we know that, like you said, with time we converge and look the same. My grandgrandchildren are just going to be like any other grandchildren here. Whether it is health status or education, levels of education obtained, and other things. So those- those are- they happen naturally. Sometimes maybe it's a question of the starting point and those starting points maybe can bring some differences, but we- we do not want always to be the ones on- on issues of disparities all the time. So that's why I believe [02:28:00] the Commission was set to help us with all these other things. Just- if- if the society is doing something that's not good to us, maybe to our children, grandchildren, then we talk about it, where that is more to the immigrants than the other persons, but I think it's just fair to talk about them and without seeing the other side as- and I'm not accusing anybody for having said that one side is disparaging the other side. I think the classifications that you talked about, maybe they come from somewhere, they are in the data somewhere. Somebody's talking about them and I don't know, but they could be also prevalent in our community here. Even we immigrant Africans ourselves, we are not the same. We are not as people might think. They are also those among Africans who come from the continent of Africa, who believe they are not blacks. They call Africans [02:29:00] also below them. But if you look at them and look at me, things might be the same. So I don't want to talk about me because much about this, but those things exist, but we are in a Truth commission. So even if the- these are things that we can just talk about. Yeah. Those things are there. Yeah. So I don't know how we'll get rid of them, but on treatment, we have to talk about that, yeah? Yeah. On treatment, allocation of resources, we have to talk about equity to everyone about that. Yeah. Yeah. Whether you came from the other day, you've been here for a long time or whatever, or from here. When issues of equity arise, I think, as a charge of the Commission, we have to talk about that. [02:29:55] I think this is a great discussion that we will always continue to talk about. I've heard about this [02:30:00] working with the youth in my time in Iowa City, so I do like hearing all sides of this. Is there anyone else that wants to add to this conversation? [02:30:13] This Commissioner Johnson, I listened to both- both parties, both conversation- both parts in a conversation, and I as- I as African American, I've seen we've all been kind of treated the same way. I don't know. That- that's what I've seen so above and below that- that's interesting to me, uh, only because let's say we're not- we're non-verbal. We can't speak at all. Uh, we're getting pulled over. We're getting into situations and that's why I just [02:31:00] I find an interest in that, uh, some of us may think that we're on a higher plane or anything along those lines. That's all because we- we are- if we are not in this together, like you were saying, it is to me, it's ice skating uphill and I'm- I'm just kind of soaking that in. I'm just thinking about that. I haven't really- honestly, I haven't thought about it very much on that- on that perspective, so I appreciate this conversation. It is definitely eye- opening, uh, that that would even be considered because, yeah, we- I don't -I would love to hear the data. That definitely would be appreciated. To hear the data on if there's a difference between African Americans and immigrant Americans and how they're treated, uh, from police or [02:32:00] the job markets all above. I would like to hear that information, too, so that's all I have really right now. I'm just kind of soaking that in. [02:32:15] Anyone else? [02:32:18] I've got something. I'm trying to formulate in my head, what I want to talk about, but maybe not tonight, but I definitely will pipe in about it on my own. [02:32:29] Again, I think this is a great conversation, um, that we will find views on all sides, um, but if there's no other conversation on this topic, is there any other questions as far as our events next week or any other, um, talking points? If not, I'm going to move to adjourn. Is there- [02:32:55] I will second. [02:32:58] Okay. We are adjourned. [LAUGHTER] [02:33:00] Thank you.