Citizens Police Advisory Group

Hampton Police Division Office of the Chief of Police CITIZENS POLICE ADVISORY GROUP February 6, 2020 SUBJECT: Citizens Police Advisory Group Meeting – 6:00pm held at HPD’s Townsend Community Rm, 5th Fl. MEMBERS & HPD PERSONNEL PRESENT: Robert Boester, Chairman Bishop Lamont Moss Chief Terry Sult Capt. Jason Price James Bailey Jonathan Welters Steve Bond, ACM Jimmy Gray, Vice Mayor Brandi Law, DCA Lt. Col. L. Martin Rev. Andre McCloud MEMBERS ABSENT: William Beach Ann Cherry John Gately Charles Powell GUESTS PRESENT: SMSgt. Christopher Clark JBLE MSgt. Paul White JBLE Angelo Sugg, Jr. OPENING: • Chairman, Robert Boester, opened the meeting. • Minutes from the December 5, 2019 meeting – Chairman Boester asked for a motion to approve the minutes. o Motion made from the floor and seconded. o All approved. o Minutes from the December 5, 2019 meeting were approved. Page 1 of 5  Hampton Police Division Citizens Police Advisory Group Meeting – February 6, 2020 DISCUSSION: • Membership o Youth Representative, Angelo Sugg has aged out; will see if Council will re-appoint him to fill another vacant position on this Committee; however, he can continue to attend as guest.  Letter has been sent to Council for action on the March Council Agenda. o Chairman Boester reminded everyone of the attendance requirements for this Committee. o Working to have Youth Representatives and HU Representative appointed.  We have 2 youth vacancies and one HU rep vacancy; anyone with suggestions or recommendations for these positions, please let the Chairman know. o Unity Commission vacancy is in process. o All applicants must agree to a criminal background check due to the sensitive information presented at these meetings. o May look to see if Youth Commission has any good candidates they can recommend. • Shootings and Gun Violence o Discussed firearm related incidents and the demographics; trends show decrease by 18% last year in violent crimes; this year up 16%. o What’s driving this? Aggravated assaults.  Have seen a decrease in firearm aggravated assaults, until 2019, when we saw an increase. o Discussed NIBIN1 at a prior meeting  Using NIBIN, HPD collects and tracks bullets and casings to see if can correlate to various cases.  In 2019, HPD recovered casings related to 79 different incidents. o In 5-year comparison of Aggravated Assaults, gun violence has been the driving factor. o From a diversity perspective, not a diverse group involved in gunshot injuries. 1 National Integrated Ballistic Information Network Page 2 of 5  Hampton Police Division Citizens Police Advisory Group Meeting – February 6, 2020  Goal is to prevent crime and reduce risk.  Have seen an increase in the number of juveniles involved in weapons violations; this is always concerning. o HCS Acadamies have not had enough time to take full effect yet.  Academy of Law & Public Safety (ALPS) - HPD remains heavily involved with the students enrolled in ALPS; but haven’t seen the impact yet that our Academies has on students; still in infancy stages.  Should begin to see impacts when the first Academy students begin to graduate. o Are looking at past behaviors of juveniles and ages of perpetrators. o Comment: Neighborhoods and citizens are noticing judicial system not taking action; many suspects are arrested for selling drugs and firearms, but when they go to court, they are out the next day; and then end up arrested again; cycle repeats itself.  Very difficult to have all systems talking with each other (Police, Sheriff, Jails, Judges, Attorney’s, etc.) to come to common ground.  Need to have a local CJIS system to link all systems together.  About 3-years ago, HPD tracked gun cases for about 14-months; had approx. • 60% - dismissed / nolle prossed • 20% - withhold findings • 20% - negative or positive outcome  Was not good percentages; lots of factors that come into play.  HPD reviewed internal investigation processes to determine how to provide best cases for prosecution and made adjustments accordingly. o Working with the Commonwealth Attorney on a social autopsy project with John’s Hopkins University; and with ODU on artificial intelligence to find common denominators of potential offenders to develop intervention programs for them and family members. o Criminal Analysts look at the cumulative data, track trends throughout the year and look to see where we are as compared to last year. o Question: How does the citizen get the courts to look at this differently? Page 3 of 5  Hampton Police Division Citizens Police Advisory Group Meeting – February 6, 2020  Answer: Has to be a community dialogue. City Council is engaged in lots of these discussions; Commonwealth Attorneys do a good job to communicate this; judges cannot discuss due to potential conflict; it is a community issue.  Have had a few meetings to discuss Projects Safe Neighborhoods, with a focus on gun/weapons violations, looking at the top-tier of perpetrators to pursue at local, state and federal levels.  Judges are not necessarily the issue, some of it is the juries; that’s the community. o Comment: Many communities are facing crime, but it’s due to transient people moving in, creating crime, then moving on to another neighborhood doing the same thing; we cannot manage who stays in a community.  HPD does track gun related offenses to see how it is moving and if people are moving with them. o Homeowners care more about their properties than renters.  HPD does try to work with property managers and initiatives associated with rental properties.  Unless property deemed a “nuisance”, not much the police can do; activities must reach a certain threshold to be declared a “nuisance”.  But some neighborhoods are branded because of a few properties that are causing the trouble; figures do not give an accurate assessment of what the community is really like.  Still only a small fragment of the population that causes the most harm in our communities; most have good folks that live there. • Code Enforcement o One priority of the City is a coordinated code enforcement effort. o HPD selected a Corporal to work with Codes Inspectors and other city departments on code enforcement efforts in hopes of streamlining this process. • ShotSpotter o Chief will be recommending to the City Manager to test ShotSpotter 2 equipment to help with gun violence. 2 ShotSpotter – equipment that detects gun shots with real-time information. Page 4 of 5  Hampton Police Division Citizens Police Advisory Group Meeting – February 6, 2020 o ShotSpotter is currently being used by Newport News Police and Hampton University Police. o HPD will begin with a 3-square mile area of the City as a test project; equipment sensors can tell within a meter where the shots have occurred; offers real-time monitoring, validates the gun shot (equipment can sense the difference between gun shots v. fireworks or other sounds), and can detect the direction of the shots including how many weapons involved. o Council authorized smartphones for officers some time ago and with the ShotSpotter information, the RTIC 3 center can send officers the information even before 911 receives the call. o HPD’s #1 Priority = Guns, Gangs and Drugs  Gangs and drugs fuel gun violence; all is usually social media driven. • Discussion on legislative issues involving gun control will be discussed at a later meeting. o However need to be aware of these laws should they pass. o One bill that may be approved is the mandatory reporting of stolen firearms; this is good and will give law enforcement better information. o Another bill that may have consequences is a bill to do away with disorderly conduct in schools.  This will be an issue for law enforcement if passed because if they remove this as a criminal offense, the police cannot assist with helping an unruly child.  Disorderly charges many times turn into assaults on teachers, administrators and security personnel; for police not to get involved to diffuse or de-escalate the situation is very concerning. NEXT MEETING: (April meeting subsequently cancelled due to COVID-19) • Next meeting: Thursday, April 2, 2020, 6pm o Location: HPD’s Townsend Community Room, 40 Lincoln Street, 5th Floor. Meeting adjourned at 1937 hours. 3 Real-Time Information Center Page 5 of 5