Public Safety Committee

PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE August 9, 2018 A meeting of the Public Safety Committee was held this date beginning at 5:30 p.m., at 80 Broad Street, City Hall, Council Chamber Notice of this meeting was sent to all local news media. PRESENT Councilmember Shahid, Chair, Councilmember Seekings, Councilmember Wagner, Councilmember Lewis and Mayor Tecklenburg (arrived at 5:45 p.m.; left at 6:37 p.m.) Staff: Chief Reynolds, Mark Wilbert, Chief Curia, Chief Roberts, Janie Borden The meeting was opened with a moment of silence provided by Councilmember Seekings. Approval of Minutes On the motion of Councilmember Seekings, seconded by Councilmember Lewis, the Committee voted unanimously to approve the minutes of the June 18, 2018 meeting. Updates: Emergency Management Mark Wilbert stated that he wanted to introduce their new Emergency Management Director, Shannon Scaff. He had just joined them the previous week. He had retired from the Coast Guard and was a Charleston native. Police Department (Crime Statistics Presentation) Chief Reynolds stated that he wanted to give an overview of data that would give them a picture of crime in the City, how they compared to other cities, some point about impaired driving, and handguns. He had Captain Reese with him, Captain of the Central Investigations Units, who was helping him with discussions about guns in the City. He also had Lieutenant Peter Farrell who helped them with their data analytics. Even with a significant amount of growth in population, the violent crime had gone down. It was already relatively low. In 2009, it was around 500 and it was down to around 300 now which was a significant decrease. They would talk some more about that trend and some things that he was concerned about. They had talked a lot about firearms and they had to do a deep dive if they wanted to really have a meaningful conversation around it. They needed context, so there was a lot that went into the discussion. They were seeing an increased number of charges and events when it came to unlawful gun arrests. For firearms stolen, they had 644 stolen in a two and a half year period. 1 Of those, 278 were stolen from motor vehicles. There was a lot more to the topic, but in most of the cases, they called these crimes preventable, meaning that if the gun had not been left in the car, it wouldn’t have been taken in the first place. When they looked at the suspects and the anatomy of those crimes, most of the individuals were trying door handles and going for the unlocked, easy-target vehicles. So, with education, they thought they could have a big impact on securing those vehicles and reducing that crime. In some cases, some of the handguns stolen have been used in homicides. Most recently, the homicide where two individuals were killed in West Ashley, the handgun was stolen from a vehicle. Education was a big part of their job and as a community; they had the responsibility to educate individuals on how to be more responsible gun-owners. They weren’t against guns. Some of the numbers, when they looked at the number of encounters, were with under-age youth. The youth that they encountered had no hesitancy to carry the guns or use the guns. There needed to be a disincentive for people who were unlawfully carrying guns. Overall, when they looked at Charleston data, per 100,000 people, they were less than the national average in crime. They were significantly lower in every category, except for homicide. This year, they had had 8 homicides and everyone involved a gun, and he believed that they were all preventable. This same time last year, they had one homicide. Violent crime closures and property crime closures were slightly higher than the national average. Part of that was because of the investigators, and part of it was attributed to public trust and increased exchange in flow of information, as well as technology. One of the things that he had noted since he had been there was the diligence in Central Investigations. Every day, they saw look- outs going out. They had a robbery that day, and already had a suspect. There was a lot of good police work being done. They worked on task forces. If they looked at the arrests, they had gone down. He attributed that to a few things. One reason was because of de-policing and there had been an intentional effort to have diversion through mental health. They had a crisis stabilization center in Charleston. They needed to continue to monitor the arrests. Field contacts were if they ever stopped to investigate anything such as loitering, suspicious persons, narcotics, and traffic stops. There were a lot of different ways that they had contacts throughout the community. The Police Department had been very pro-active. In 2008, the Police Department was actually doing handwritten paper reports and over the last 10 years, the data dive and analytics had increased. The Police Department was in a very healthy position in regards to data collection, technology, records management, how they interacted with dispatch, and everything that was a part of a modern police agency. There were times, as an agency, that they were actually over-recording their numbers. They were hoping to select a firm for the audit in November and they would have a lot of data for them to digest and help the City do better in regards to transparency, and make sure that they doing fair policing. Data meant a lot, but that data was evolving in the right direction. 2 Mayor Tecklenburg arrived at 5:45 p.m. Lieutenant Farrell stated that they were headed in the right direction. Chief Reynolds stated that they would find that they had a rich set of data and were doing a lot in terms of monitoring. They would have a lot to work with. Crime was in a fairly healthy place. With increased traffic, they had increases in traffic fatalities, impaired driving events, and they weren’t pointing in the direction that they wanted to be. So, that was something that they were putting more resources towards. They were shifting resources to include a Lieutenant and officers that would focus on traffic full-time to try to get the numbers down. They were collaborating with many partners in the City such as Traffic and Transportation, Emergency Management, and the Fire Department, to make sure that they paid close attention to the numbers. If they looked at the data for fatalities, they would see that the impairment, over a nine-year period, although in SC it was about 1/3 of the fatalities, nationally, it was less than 30%. Over that 9 year period, in Charleston, 70% of fatalities were related to impairment. They had just had a collision involving an 11-year old girl, who had died. The one thing that they knew about impairment and these collisions, were that they were all preventable. Their goal was to save lives and they could do a lot of that through education. The pedestrian, at-fault fatalities were at 94%. That was a combination of engineering, signage, and education that needed to be looked at. Chief Reynolds continued and said that even though they continued to build hotels, the vacancy rate was significantly low, but the tourism numbers were increasing. The number of visitors was increasing significantly, with 7 million visitors the last year. The Charleston Police Department should be very proud of the data sets that they had created and the things that they had put online for the citizens of Charleston. Under the 21st Century Task Force on Policing, under President Obama, were born certain initiatives. The Police Data Initiative was one of them and that was to create data sets, best practices, and make sure that those were transparent and conveyed to the community. Those included things like use of force, data from crime, and traffic, etc. There was a lot of discussion around that and one of the early adopters was Charleston. He said that because there was a lot of concern about policing and hiding reports, trying to skew data. He thought Charleston had gone out of its way to be transparent, adhere to the best practices and point in a positive direction. There was always more they could do, but there was a good foundation of data. The Illumination Project and Kylon Middleton had been very present in their community meetings. He was in West Ashley that week with a listening session to engage the youth and leadership. They were moving forward with the audit. He hoped the selection for the firm would be done soon and then they would be interviewed. They had a lot of good meetings and listening sessions. They had sent out a strategy update for the first half of the year. Dr. Middleton stated that they were doing as much as they could to help Chief Reynolds in his transition and heal the community. 3 Chief Reynolds stated that, even though they were struggling with staffing, they were still shifting resources to help with the traffic incidents. They wanted to highlight how important this was. There had been a lot of positive interaction with the community, the Mayor, and the Council. They needed to talk about the main causations which were speeding, distracted driving, and impairment. They had had too many homicides and they were continuing to pay close attention to if there were things they could do in the Legislature. They had met with Councilmembers and the Solicitor. Captain Reese was an expert on how the Department could do better in how it prosecuted those cases. He knew there was some discussion on the Solicitor’s side with the judiciary and if there were things they could do this year. They were creating some proposals and so there would be more discussion on that. There were repeat offenders, people who were sometimes convicted felons, who were carrying guns. When they were arrested, the outcome was that they were let right out and so they were looking at how they could affect that and have a better outcome so that the community could be safer. The number of guns they were finding and the people that were carrying them, and the number of times they were finding them carrying was a concern. One of the young men that were involved in the West Ashley homicide had just been arrested in May for carrying a handgun. There were a lot of things that affected the safety of the community, but they were seeing a drug nexus. So, they needed to continue to be strategic and collaborative. One of the community outreaches they did was Camp Hope, and that was amazing. How much they achieved on such little resources and the impact they had was substantial. There were more jobs than there were people. Policing was a hard job. They had lost 9 sworn officers in the previous two weeks and he thought they would lose at least one more. That was a lot, when they looked at how much it took to hire and train. They were being relentless and innovative to focus on that issue. As they met with community groups, everyone wanted more officers. They received the most support from the Mayor and Council, but it wasn’t a money issue. They needed to hire the best people and they weren’t going to lower their standards. They were adjusting their strategies and they would get the positions filled, but it was a challenge. Something that was a real game-changer was making sure they had in-car video cameras. They were getting ready to enter into a new school year and had just met with the Superintendent the previous week. They had a great relationship with the schools. They had 47 schools they covered. They had 11 SRO’s and a School Safety Response Team with 18 officers and two supervisors, in addition to the SRO’s. They covered all of the other schools. They were good at what they did and had a lot of specialized training to include active shooter training. They had a lot of equipment that the rest of the department didn’t and were focused on building relationships. When a threat came in, there was information shared amongst the teams. That was when they had the greatest impact on preventing something from happening. They needed to continue to build their real-time crime efforts. They had just gone to Charlotte the previous week, and there was a lot in the industry that they could do. They would never 4 replace sworn officers, but they could complement them with technology and have a high yield when they did that well. Chairman Shahid stated that he had called this meeting because he was concerned about the increase in homicides and wanted them to have an update on the statistics and where they were with all of this information and how it was comparing with prior years. He, and several other Councilmembers had gone to Charlotte with some officers. They had gotten a tour of their facilities. Councilmember Lewis stated that he wasn’t sure how much attention they were paying to golf-carts, but some of them had no regards to traffic. Some were regulated, but some were not. Chief Reynolds stated that they had gotten complaints and concern about that issue. Part of it would be education, but part of it was also enforcement. They were committing to having more education and enforcement. There would be some people wondering what was going on. It was a matter of time before someone was seriously injured. It wasn’t an easy solution and wouldn’t happen overnight. They couldn’t do everything, all the time, but there were some flagrant violations of the law that were dangerous and putting the community at risk. The Police Department owned some of the responsibility in that. Councilmember Seekings stated that education was a huge part of everything, especially with traffic. Councilmember Wagner said that they would be missing the boat with the golf-cart issue if they didn’t go to the Homeowner’s Associations. Chairman Shahid stated that there had been 8 homicides and every one of them involved a handgun. The traffic fatalities involved 70% of some level of impairment. Chief Reynolds stated that in 2016, impairment for South Carolina was 28% and for Charleston it was 83%. Chairman Shahid said they had some work to do. He was proud of the Police Department and the high level of professionalism that they exhibited. He asked how many of the nine officers that had left had gone to Federal Agencies. Chief Reynolds stated that they weren’t just going to other agencies in the region which was good. It wasn’t a pay issue, per say. Two were going to be airline pilots, two were going to the military, and one was a mother. There was a variety of reasons, but they had lost people recently to the FBI, which was a compliment to the City. It was competitive and there was a constraint with the Academy and not doing the training here. An ordinance to amend the Code of the City of Charleston, South Carolina, Chapter 21, Article X, Section 21-219, to prohibit firearm enhancements Janie Borden stated that this was an ordinance that would prohibit any device for the purpose of increasing the firing rate of a weapon and any device capable of being attached that would activate the weapon with a crank. There were four specific exemptions and those would be U.S. Military, Sworn Officers, Legal or Law Enforcement Agencies seizing a weapon that had that attached, and any person who was not prohibited, under State or Federal Law, from using, owning, or possessing a firearm, from 5 having one. It just prohibited them from having one that was attached to a weapon. Columbia and Greenville had adopted this ordinance and Rock Hill was considering it. Councilmember Wagner said he thought he was missing something. It was stated that that section had the devices declared illegal and the exceptions. Councilmember Wagner stated that where it was talking about Mother Emanuel stated that if there had been bump stocks or trigger cranks used, there would have many times the amount of casualties. That wording may be a problem, because there weren’t many people there. It wasn’t a good statement. Ms. Borden said that she would look at that. Councilmember Seekings asked if there was anything from the State or the Attorney General about their ability to pass an ordinance like this. Ms. Borden said that she had not looked into the Attorney General’s opinion on it. She had received a call from someone and asked them to send her any information they had on that. She hadn’t received anything yet. State law stated that ‘no governing body or municipality, county, etc., can regulate the transfer, ownership, possession, carrying, or transportation, of firearms, ammunition components of firearms, or any combination of these things’. The City analyzed that as, the items that they were regulating, would not fall into that. This was an enhancement that was not necessary for the gun to operate so it would not be a component of the firearm. Councilmember Seekings asked if any of those were defined terms and Ms. Borden said no. Councilmember Seekings said that, of the municipalities that had adopted similar ordinances, there had been at least one legal act against Columbia. Ms. Borden said that was correct. It wasn’t brought against Columbia for the enactment of the ordinance. Councilmember Seekings said that it seemed like what was in front of them was a combination of a proclamation and an ordinance. He asked the Mayor and those that worked in Law Enforcement which was better for the City, in terms of making an announcement and taking a position going forward. It seemed like what they were trying to do was convince the next level up to follow suit. Would it be more effective to do this by way of proclamation or ordinance? If it was by ordinance, it should be written like an ordinance and if it was a proclamation, it should be written like a proclamation. Mayor Tecklenburg said that they had used the ordinance passed in Columbia as a model. There was a safety component. This wasn’t intending to do anything contrary to the Second Amendment. They had a desire to expand the conversation about illegal guns. It would be a way to show some leadership, step forward, and show the State Legislature that they wanted sensible measures that would keep people safer. The penalty for repeat offenders carrying guns stayed the same and what had happened was that they had created a culture of nonchalantness for carrying weapons. It was a way for the City to step forward in one of the few ways they could. Councilmember Seekings said he agreed and it was proper to do something. It may also be proper to do two things, to pass an ordinance and have a proclamation. They wanted to do it the right way. Chairman Shahid stated that he hadn’t seen an ordinance with so many ‘whereas’ clauses. However, he didn’t want the City to be on the tail-end of this. They were being pro-active. There were other issues to be addressing such as people who were arrested multiple times for carrying illegal guns. Councilmember Seekings said that he believed it would have a bigger impact if they brought two things to Council. They could have a Mayor’s Proclamation about their position and they could adopt an ordinance that looked like an ordinance and wasn’t challenging. They were putting themselves out to legal challenges because of the way it was written, but if they separated it, it would have an impact. 6 Councilmember Wagner said that they could clean it up a little bit. Councilmember Lewis said he didn’t have a problem with that. They needed to let people know they didn’t tolerate bump stocks and that type of things. They needed to work harder with the legislature. Councilmember Seekings said that bringing Mother Emanuel up in this brought things up that were tough for them. He understood thinking about what might have been, but they needed to tread lightly. On the motion of Councilmember Lewis, seconded by Mayor Tecklenburg, the Committee voted unanimously to bifurcate the proposed ordinance into a resolution and an ordinance. Fire Department Update Mayor Tecklenburg left at 6:37 p.m. Chairman Shahid welcomed Chief Curia and said that they appreciated his comments at his swearing in ceremony. One of the nice things that they had in Charlotte was a shared facility for both Police and Fire for training. They used the auditorium for promotions and graduation ceremonies. He was thinking that would have been a nice kind of facility to have. They were getting to a close point on Daniel Island and they needed to address those stations and get that moving. The current station was unsuitable to be used. They would continue that conversation. Councilmember Seekings said that one of the things that had come up in previous conversations was a joint facility and he asked if there was any opposition to share space between the Fire Department and Police Department. Chief Curia said that they were aligned with the same mission which was to create a safer City and if that would accomplish the goal, he didn’t think any person in the Fire Department would have opposition. Chairman Shahid said he knew Councilmember White’s opinion was to create the third station because of the number of schools and businesses. The Police Department didn’t really have a place to call home on Daniel Island. It was a serious issue. He was surprised at what he saw on his tour and what they did not have. Having no further business, the Committee adjourned at 6:43 p.m. Bethany Whitaker Council Secretary 7