Police Commission Minutes 10/04/06

Present at this meeting was Chairman Flanagan, Comm. Stenhouse, Comm. Dumont, Chief Dubois, Deputy Chief Allen, Capt. Callaghan, Capt. Dumas Attorney Grossman, Chaplain Lachapelle and Secretary Warburton. Also present was the media.

A. Accreditation Update. Capt. Callaghan reported that we are still on target for completion in February 2007. There are 82 criteria we must meet, and are currently focusing on the more difficult ones. We have completed 35 of those. We anticipate a date of mid January for the accreditation team to come in and review our policies.

B. Automated External Defibrillators. Chief Dubois noted for the viewing audience that the acronym AED means “Automated External Defibrillator,” which essentially is a device which helps us to render medical aid to persons in cardiac arrest. The machines we have are outdated due to protocol changes by the American Heart Association.

Both the Police and Fire Departments had been discussing this issue with the City Manager. In the interim period, the Fire Department was able to secure donations to upgrade the two they have. The Police Department has seven units to upgrade. We continue to work with the City Manager, Finance Director and staff on this, as the cost to upgrade is estimated to be slightly more than eight thousand ($8,000.) dollars. The large majority, if not all of that funding we anticipate to come from a federal grant. We should have that finalized by our next meeting. The units will all be upgraded and we will be in compliance with the American Heart Association protocols this year.

Comm. Dumont inquired if these will all be new machines? Chief Dubois advised they would be. Due to their age, our current units cannot be updated. The manufacturer will allow for a trade in value on the new units.

C. Quarterly Goals Report. Chief Dubois stated that we have given ourselves some hefty goals and objectives this year. This is our first quarterly report. The Captains have submitted reports as to the results obtained to date. We will highlight a few of the goals.

Accreditation - Accreditation is a major goal to complete this year. We’ve been working toward it for some time. You have already heard from Capt. Callaghan that we are on target for completion this fiscal year.

Ward Based Policing - We are trying to integrate individuals in the community with Police Officers, Police Commissioners, City Council members, School Board members into these groups to take more of a community approach to crime problems in the City. We’ve termed this our ward-based policing approach. We laid a good foundation, and now that Capt. Dumas is back from training we can move forward more quickly and aggressively into the rest of the year.

Youth Initiatives - The school shootings over the past week is a perfect example of the need for the various groups to get together, from the Council, Commission, School Board, Public and Youth. Issues can be better addressed in those forums. Captain Callaghan and Diversion Coordinator, Deb Houle have done a lot of groundwork to get programs in progress. This will be a major focus this year.

Lobby Area - We are completing some background checks to increase our volunteer base. We have done some preliminary work to make our lobby user-friendlier. We have established a station officer for the more busy hours as a way to test the program. We are diverting the lower priority calls that have had a history of long response times, and in some cases, no response from us, to this person. We think we can do a better job assigning this station officer. This does take some resources away from other areas. There will be more on our progress in this area at the next quarter report.

Budget - Line officers and division commanders are having non-traditional input into the police department operational budget, and obtaining a better understanding of how the Department operates from a financial standpoint. We are receiving contributions from each commander, the deputy chief and myself and we feel this will make for a better-informed and better-prepared department for succession planning.

A lot of work has been done on the goal to increase our presence outside of the police department. We have been closely involved with the Domestic Violence Steering Committee in Strafford County. We have also done some work with the Strafford County Mental Health Court. This is a benefit for the entire county and we wanted to ensure we were part of this. Our interaction with CORE has seen benefits in the downtown in relationships with our business community. Diversion Coordinator Deb Houle has done some impressive work with our Teen Drug Court, Diversion and outreach programs to youth. We plan to step that up a bit in the coming year in interactions with the sworn officers and school resource officers.

Cyber Crime - Our cyber crime initiative is a topic of debate in areas of the city. We have some real issues in that area in Rochester. We are recognized in the state as a player in the crime prevention forefront in law enforcement in this area. The work that the support bureau has done has positioned us well to assist persons in Rochester with these problems.

For the next quarter we will be working more on our surveys in and out of the department, targeted at various age groups and locations for better interaction. Our juvenile work will be getting a lot of attention, and further we want to involve the line officers in the decision making process. Capt. Dumas will be working on that goal.

Comm. Stenhouse inquired how we are doing on our liaison efforts with the landlord association. How active have we been, as there were a number of properties that were having some issues. Capt. Callaghan advised that our work on that has fallen back a bit. Det. Bossi had been assigned to that program, but has since been promoted to Sergeant. We are working with Lt. Taylor and the Sergeants to get our involvement back in line. Sgt. Bossi did miss a couple of meetings and that was brought to our attention. He did attend a recent meeting however.

Comm. Dumont commented that with the cyber issues occurring in the Washington D.C., this past week, it certainly cements our position of having a person assigned to cyber crime. People really have no idea how serious this stuff is. Chief Dubois concurred stating that we have some major investigations ongoing. This issue is only going to get worse for law enforcement.

Chairman Flanagan asked that to put the issue to rest “if a cyber position is a good or bad thing,”that we invite the public, the Council and anyone else who would like to attend to a presentation on these types of crimes and what we have been doing, and get it out of the way.

Chairman Flanagan responded he was aware of that, however, it was not well attended. “We could do an update with what has been happening over the previous six months. If people want to know what we are doing, let them attend a meeting.”

Chief Dubois said this was discussed today with the City Manager. There is interest in talking about these issues in the City. We need to capitalize on that interest at the City Manager level, Council level, community level.

Comm. Stenhouse stated that “talking about it wouldn’t hurt. Some individuals in the community think this is taking away from traditional law enforcement work. However, criminal activity will switch more and more to this kind of stuff. It is harder on victims because your perpetrator can be on the next continent. I know because it happened to a family member of mine.”

Chief Dubois stated in separate meetings attended by Department members today with the City Manager and the Governor, this topic came up. “This is happening all over, not just in Rochester. I am proud of the work that the support bureau has done to date and am looking forward to the challenges. This will be a topic of discussion at the Commission and Council workshops, as well as in the ward-based policing.”

Deputy Chief Allen stated that one of them has arrived and is on the road. A second one is being outfitted. The other two should be arriving soon. As previously stated this was a backlog from the Ford factory and beyond the control of our vendor.

A. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). Chief Dubois advised that he asked the Department’s prosecutor to research this issue, as it relates to how we address medical issues with the daily log and public release of information once we take on the ambulance dispatching. We have not had any interaction with the legal bureau at Frisbie Hospital on this to date. There really isn’t any drastic change to how we handle information now, but we want to make sure we, as well as Frisbie is on solid ground due to the severe penalties for violation of this act. We don’t want to expose us, or Frisbie Hospital to any liability.

Comm. Stenhouse stated his understanding of the law is the protection of disclosure of private patient information. He said, “For example if I was transported by ambulance, and it was dispatched out of the center, is there a log entry?” “Under HIPPA medical information is closely held and restricted to those that can have access to it, such as insurance providers, the medical community, etc. The act itself is a couple thousand pages. The Department needs to be cautious regarding the disclosure of personal information about an individual. The penalties for violating the act, if the government chooses to impose them can be quite severe.”

Comm. Stenhouse noted that some of the changes are beyond minor. The addition of general harassment into SOP 49, broadening the definition is very good. He stated 90% of the issues he dealt with in other places he has worked were for hostile working environment claims, where someone was doing something to make another miserable.

Capt. Scott Dumas was welcomed back, after being away for several weeks while attending the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. The Commission asked that Capt. Dumas provide a brief update on his experience.

Capt. Dumas reported that the training at the National Academy is unparalleled to any that he has had to date in his career and he would hedge a guess nothing in the future will equal it. There were 26 countries represented in this session. “It was amazing to experience the diversity and to learn about law enforcement in other countries and how they approach it. The networking and connections I was able to make will go a long way. Now I can send an email to 260 people across the world and get feedback on how they may handle an issue. This will be beneficial as we move into the ward-based policing philosophy. In fact, during one of my conflict resolution courses, I used the Wallace Street issue. The feedback was tremendous and I’m looking forward to applying what I learned.” He said, “ I have to thank the Chief and Deputy Chief for keeping the Department in good standing with the National Academy. I also have to thank Capt. Callaghan for picking up the slack while I was gone. I also appreciate the Police Commission’s support in sending me.”

1. Patrol Division: Capt. Dumas stated that the Rochester Fair came and went while he was away at training. It was a relatively calm event, even including the taunting issues that were reported on Lafayette Street. We had 25 hours of extra patrol on that street, some in response to calls about taunting, before it was brought up at the City Council level. We did make some arrests, and did as much as we could in that area during that time, given the needs of the remainder of the City. It is a street that gets regular patrols anyway. In any event I feel good about the work we did do.

Criminal mischief is up for the year, although down from last month. We have been working with some plain-clothes details and making an effective presence in certain areas. We made 17 arrests for DWI in August, only one resulting from an accident. Burglaries were up in the month of August, although none seem to be a pattern, or point to a “ring” we do have some strong suspects.

2. Support Division: Capt. Callaghan stated that we had some burglaries last month. With the work of Patrol and the Investigations Division arrests were made, and other similar offenses in Northern Strafford County and York County were also solved. We have made arrests of one adult and two juveniles in recent car break-ins that can also be tied to a retail burglary.

With regard to the issues on Lafayette Street, as reported by Captain Dumas, we did prepare for that for a couple of weeks leading up to the Fair. There were plain-clothes juvenile probation and parole units working with our street crime unit seven of the nine days of the Fair.

3. Executive Report: Dep. Chief Allen advised that in addition to the other work as reported by Patrol and Support Services that the Department, along with Code Enforcement has also been proactive in the City, including the Lafayette Street area enforcing the trash ordinance. We have been working on this throughout the City for the past six weeks. This has led to work on other quality of life issues. Our K9 unit regularly patrols that area also. We didn’t eliminate all the issues when the Fair was in town, but we do feel we made an impact.

Although not on the agenda, the new round of funding from Highway Safety is available and we would ask the Police Commission’s support in permitting an application for grant funding for DWI enforcement patrols. This is a saturation grant in areas identified as high accident or high DWI apprehension areas. Officers spend four hours in a cruiser focused just on DWI. We would like to submit the application this month. This is a no matching funds grant.

Deputy Chief Allen also reported some movement in the data-sharing project he has been exploring over the past year. “I attended a meeting in Portsmouth, where several agencies using IMC are interested in data base sharing. We are looking to apply for homeland security monies as a group to establish a network, provide infrastructure and equipment both hardware and software to link the department databases to share information. We want to put our names into the ring as supporting the application. The Chief of Police in Antrim NH is actually submitting the grant on behalf of all interested agencies.

Deputy Chief Allen stated essentially this is a HUB housed at an agency that will provide the equipment and manpower to do it. We’d connect via a switch in the HUB, which has security measures. There won’t be a central repository; you would connect to each other only when initiating a query. Portsmouth Police have agreed to house this at their agency. All the agencies would get a portion of the grant to purchase items they need to be part of this. We want to standardize everything so we all have the same equipment. We have quite a bit of what we need already, but some of the smaller agencies have nothing.

Chief Dubois stated the State of Massachusetts has such a program up and running. An officer in a cruiser can query any department that is part of the network. Information sharing is becoming more and more important. The state has been wrestling with getting this program off the ground for years. The Chief’s of Police Association are also talking about it. We are at a point where some of these Chief’s have decided to push forward rather than waiting for someone else to develop it. This grant will allow anyone that wants to join to do so. The information sharing will make us more effective as a whole.

Comm. Stenhouse noted that this is a good idea, but if you only have two thirds participating and not some of the larger agencies, it limits the effectiveness. It would be a prime example of something the State should be heavily involved in, or something that should be nationally directed.

Chief Dubois commented that may be true, by law enforcement is generally locally controlled. The State is working on such a program, which would include law enforcement, but also probation, the courts and other partners to the profession. But they have been working on it for a long time. We think we can meet our needs through this grant application.

1. Letter to Editor. Chairman Flanagan wished to comment on a recent letter to the editor from an East Rochester resident regarding the Mayor being part of the oral board process. It appears the Mayor was unfairly criticized for being too involved in the “police commission’s” business. “Would the Chief please explain how Mayor Larochelle was part of this board?”

Chief Dubois stated “we have always tried to involve people from outside the profession to be part of the process and help us whittle down the list of candidates we bring before the Police Commission. I personally did not choose the Mayor, someone from the staff did. But, I would invite any Councilor, the general public, department members, school board members or planning board to be part of this because they bring things to the table from a different perspective. It is also a wonderful opportunity for these different groups to see the caliber of officers we are bringing into the profession. We are seeing a more educated, motivated group of people entering into the field of law enforcement. I can’t think of anything negative about bringing in outside persons to be part of the process. I’m surprised anyone could think that.”

Chief Dubois stated that he does not know if the was a resource officer. There are different “schools” of thought on how well prepared one can be for something like that. We are reviewing our own protocols in the City with the Resource Officers and School Administrators. The dynamics over the past twenty years are changing. This random level of violence is different and how the police respond to it is different. You didn’t have the response then that you have today and it is constantly evolving. This problem can’t be solved by law enforcement alone. We have to have a diversified look, which we can accomplish in conjunction with our school districts, through our ward-based policing concepts.

Chief Dubois stated that we have increased the amount of work from our School Resource Officers, working in conjunction with our juvenile and family unit. The expectation of our SRO’s in our schools and community this year is interesting stuff that really isn’t being done anywhere. Chief Dubois said “I called the Police Standards and Training for some guidance on some of the things we are talking about, but there is nothing there yet. The research indicates that the only state that has mandates in this area is Connecticut, so we are really in a ground breaking stage.”

The Commission indicated that a letter should be written to the school department asking for financial assistance next year for the school resource officers. They could pay for one, and we could pay for the other.

3. Education Incentive. Capt. Callaghan asked the Police Commission’s support to award Officer Tapscott the Education Incentive recognizing his Bachelor Degree from the University of Phoenix, where he obtained a 3.18 GPA.

A. Appreciation and Recognition: Off. Macaione is recognized in his role as the Housing Officer. Det. Gary Boudreau is recognized by the County Attorney’s office for trial preparation and presentation. Ms. Wooley thanks Off. Emerson for his assistance with a difficult case. Comm. Flanagan reiterated the appreciation of the Police commission for the positive reports received about the police department.

Comm. Stenhouse MOVED to enter a non-public session at 8:02 P.M. for the purpose of personnel and legal matters. SECOND by Comm. Dumont. The motion PASSED by roll call vote, Comm. Dumont-yes, Comm. Stenhouse-yes, Chairman Flanagan-yes. The non-public session closed at 8:52 P.M. on a MOTION by Comm. Dumont, SECOND by Chairman Flanagan and PASSED unanimously.

Comm. Dumont MOVED to award merit increases, based on passing evaluations to the next step in the contract for the following: Sgt. Anthony Triano and Det. Hana Stickles. The Motion was SECONDED by Comm. Stenhouse and PASSED unanimously.