Police Commission

LACONIA POLICE COMMISSION MEETING SEPTEMBER 14, 2022 Meeting took place at 3:00 p.m. in the Armand A. Bolduc City Council Chamber, Laconia City Hall, 45 Beacon Street East, Laconia, New Hampshire 9/14/2022 - Minutes 1. CALL TO ORDER Chairman Whittum called the meeting to Order at the above date and time. 2. SALUTE TO THE FLAG Chairman Whittum lead the Pledge of Allegiance. 3. RECORDING SECRETARY Executive Assistant Lori Marsh. 4. ROLL CALL 4.A. Chairman Whittum recognized Commissioners present - Chairman Douglas Whittum, Commissioner Frank Mello and Commissioner Scott Davis. 4.B. Chairman Whittum recognized Staff present - Chief Matthew Canfield. 4.C. Chairman Whittum recognized a quorum has been established and there are three Commission members present. 5. PERSONNEL MATTERS 5.A. Commendations & Awards Chief Canfield advised we are working on organizing the Annual Awards Ceremony, which will take place at the Opera House in November. 5.B. Resignations/Retirement Chief Canfield advised Officer Steven Wells has submitted his resignation effective September 25, 2022, to take a Patrol Officer position with the New Durham Police Department. He advised Officer Wells did state he had no issues with the department and that they had offered to pay him a little more than what he is receiving here and that he lives there and it's less busy. Chairman Whittum inquired how long he has been in Laconia and Chief Canfield replied maybe three years. 5.C. Promotions/Classification Change  he lives there and it's less busy. Chairman Whittum inquired how long he has been in Laconia and Chief Canfield replied maybe three years. 5.C. Promotions/Classification Change No discussion. 6. COMMAND STAFF REPORTS 6.A. Chief - Support Division Chief Canfield advised the following: Captain Graton and Lieutenant Hubbard have been working hard to get the command vehicle outfitted and it is now up and running with just some smaller things yet to be done. Additionally, the emergency response trailer has been fully equipped, having done a lot of work themselves as far as building the racks and working with the CRO's to get the interior painted. We applied for a traffic radar equipment grant through the office of New Hampshire Highway Safety. We had been approved for $16,000.00 in CIP for this year, which was originally allocated to purchase an additional sign board reader with a built in radar. We took that $16,000.00 and applied for this grant through Highway Safety, which requires a 25% match. We were essentially able to take that $16,000.00 in CIP money, apply for this grant, and quadruple it. We received approximately $64,000.00 by applying for this grant. This grant will provide for two sign boards with radar and a stealth pack so we can monitor speeds and get speed counts and surveys done. Additionally, we received another grant for approximately $76,000.000 that will provide us with crash data recorders. This will enable the accident reconstruction team to do downloads of the computers in cars from crash vehicles to give us the date from those. This grant was 100% funded by the office of New Hampshire Highway Safety as well. Both of these grants were utilized by just using the $16,000.00 in CIP money and these grants will be going to the City Council for approval at their next meeting, but we don't foresee any issues. We have also been approved for an Office of Highway Safety COB Grant (Community Outreach Benefit Grant) in the amount of $20,000.00 to provide education for driver awareness and pedestrian safety. That will go into education in some of our driver education schools and some of our elderly homes. We will also be doing some events at the police department on car seat safety. We had three new vehicles for our fleet that were ordered with CIP money from last year. They were ordered last spring through Ford. We received notice a few weeks ago from Ford that they canceled our order and advised us that we can order the 2023 vehicles with a $10,000 increase per vehicle. With the time frame to wait, as well as an additional $30,000.00 increase, that wasn't an option. We reached out to a company called MHQ in Massachusetts, which is a large supplier of police vehicles. They had over two hundred police vehicles in stock, so we were able to get those for the same price from them and they advised there would be 30 days to take delivery of them. In addition, under CIP we were approved for funding for a new police motorcycle, which will be purchased from Seacoast Harley Davidson, who has the State bid for those. Chairman Whittum inquired why the cruisers were canceled. Chief Canfield advised he isn't aware of the reason, other than their production year usually stops in the fall for production for next year's model. He is also not sure why they didn't honor the same price  In addition, under CIP we were approved for funding for a new police motorcycle, which will be purchased from Seacoast Harley Davidson, who has the State bid for those. Chairman Whittum inquired why the cruisers were canceled. Chief Canfield advised he isn't aware of the reason, other than their production year usually stops in the fall for production for next year's model. He is also not sure why they didn't honor the same price into the next model year. Ford has the market on police vehicles now, as the Dodge Chargers a lot of agencies ran is no longer being produced, causing a lot of agencies to jump to Ford, which probably overwhelmed the Ford plants. There is really only Ford and the Chevy full size SUV's for choice of police vehicles right now. 6.A.i. Orders and Bulletins 6.B. Chief - Operations Division Chief Canfield advised the following: They are working on an Active Shooter Tabletop Exercise and a Full Scale Exercise, which are fully funded by the Department of Homeland Security in active shooter response. We will be including our partner agencies throughout the county. The Tabletop Exercise will be held on March 15, 2023 and the Full Scale Exercise will be held on April 15, 2023. We will be looking to do this one at the Pleasant Street Elementary School. The active shooter response from all levels, whether it be a command response or an initial patrol response, or mutual aid with our partner agencies, remains top on our list. They have been busy planning for the Ironman event, which takes place this weekend, in combination with Reach the Beach, which is Friday night. All hands will be on deck and a majority of the officers will be working the event. They have also been working on some smaller events, such as OctoberFest in the Weirs the weekend of October 6, 2022, along with PumpkinFest at the end of October. The fall schedule is out and officers are working that and the fall in-service training has begun. Today they are working on de-escalation training and less lethal recertification. Commissioner Davis inquired when Reach the Beach will be coming through Laconia. Chief Canfield advised he is unsure of the exact time, but it is usually at night between approximately 10:00 pm and 1:00 am. Commissioner Mello inquired if Ironman is going Friday through Sunday and Chief Canfield advised the registration will begin Friday, but the actual race will take place on Sunday. He advised the swim portion will take place first at Opechee and then they will bike up Parade Road into Meredith and around the traffic circle, ride down to Loudon, turn around and return to Opechee, where they will begin the run, which essentially is on the WOW trail mostly around Lake Opechee and then the second leg darts out into the Shore Drive area to get some extra mileage and then come back. Chairman Whittum inquired if the new command vehicle will be used for the Active Shooter Exercise at the Pleasant Street School. Chief Canfield advised we will be using it and that it was actually a recommendation by one of the evaluators in one of the previous Full Scale Excercises, as we had no way of centralizing communications and that was a breakdown. That was part of the justification for getting the command vehicle and it will be interesting to test it's capabilities. 6.B.i. Hirings Chief Canfield advised we are currently doing a background on one of our Community Resource Officers, which is nearly done. She graduated from college last spring and is looking to come on board as a police officer. We expect to present her to the Police Commission for hire  6.B.i. Hirings Chief Canfield advised we are currently doing a background on one of our Community Resource Officers, which is nearly done. She graduated from college last spring and is looking to come on board as a police officer. We expect to present her to the Police Commission for hire sometime next month. With Officer Wells resigning, this will keep us at full staff, not including the additional four positions we were allocated. We have three applicants who passed their PT tests and will be doing oral boards September 19, 2022. We are hoping that out of the three that we obtain one that can be moved on to a background investigation. We are also conducting a background on a dispatcher to fill our vacant dispatch position. She comes from another agency in the southern part of the State with five years of experience and is looking to re-locate up here. If that is successful, it will certainly be a positive thing for us with her coming with five years of experience. 7. COMMISSION ACTION 7.A. Acceptance of minutes from previous meeting On a Motion by Commissioner Mello, seconded by Commissioner Davis, and passed unanimously, the meeting minutes of August 17, 2022 were accepted as distributed. 7.B. Out-of-State School(s) CALEA Fall Conference - Robin Moyer On a Motion by Commissioner Mello, seconded by Commissioner Davis, and passed unanimously, the above conference was approved. Chairman Whittum inquired if this is the first conference she has attended and Chief Canfield responded that she has attended previous ones. CALEA requires that she attend one in between the four year cycle and then again on our re-accreditation, because the actual accreditation review is done at the conference. Being the Accreditation Manager, their expectation is that she attend once during that four year cycle to attend training updates. 8. REVIEW OF MONTHLY ACTIVITY REPORTS 8.A. Department Monthly Highlights Chief Canfield reviewed the Department Monthly Activity report. He noted the percentages for calls of service and that we are down 21% and that motor vehicle stops are down 37%. The reason calls for service are down is that motor vehicle stops are down. Every motor vehicle stop would get a call for service. He indicated some of the reasons for this would be: 1) Highway Safety Grant details not getting filled, which are all motor vehicle enforcement, including motor vehicle, pedestrian and distracted driving details, as well as DWI details. Year to date, we have been unable to fill eighteen 8-hour DWI details, six 4-hour speed details, five 4-hour pedestrian/bike patrol details, and four 4-hour distracted driving details. If you equate that, it would come to approximately 800-1000 motor vehicle stops from those grant details, which would go along with the decline in statistics. 2) They are down a bit due to increased training requirements, not only required by our CALEA Accreditation, but also some of the more modern policing requires a lot more extensive training, which takes people off the schedule. This would be to a lesser degree.  If you equate that, it would come to approximately 800-1000 motor vehicle stops from those grant details, which would go along with the decline in statistics. 2) They are down a bit due to increased training requirements, not only required by our CALEA Accreditation, but also some of the more modern policing requires a lot more extensive training, which takes people off the schedule. This would be to a lesser degree. 3) The increase in the need to address other issues, such as other quality of life issues. We have made a very big concerted effort this summer to have a lot of mountain bikes out on the WOW trail and in the downtown area. When you take an officer out of a car and put them on a mountain bike on the WOW trail or in the downtown area, he/she is not in their car stopping cars. There is the decline in productivity for that shift. If you multiply that times 2-3 officers, 5-6 days a week, it adds up. 4) In addition, the homelessness issue in the downtown and throughout the City has become an issue. For the past 6-8 weeks, we have made a big push on that. At one point, especially in Rotary Park, we had officers down there in a rotational basis every hour, as well as walking in the downtown area addressing the homelessness issues. Again, when you pull officers and put them down there, you're taking them out of a car and they are not producing the motor vehicle enforcement. It's like squeezing a balloon. When you're addressing the homeless issues, you'll see a decline in traffic enforcement. When you're doing traffic enforcement, you have less resources to deal with homelessness. Chairman Whittum asked that this be documented in a memorandum to the Police Commission. 8.B. Criminal Investigative Unit Statistics Chief Canfield reviewed the Criminal Investigative Unit Statistics. No further discussion. 8.C. Budget Reports Chief Canfield advised the budget is on track. No further discussion. 8.D. Monthly Traffic Statistics Chief Canfield reviewed the Monthly Traffic Statistics. He indicated he has inquired again as to the meaning of "No Contributing Action" and is awaiting an explanation. 8.E. Monthly Fleet Report No discussion. 9. CHIEF'S REPORT Chief Canfield reported the following: We had a Staff meeting today and accomplished a lot. He reviewed the Drug Overdose statistics. He indicated these statistics are down significantly and he believes it is due to the shift from the use of Heroin and Fentanyl to more Meth, which we don't see the deaths, or even the overdoses, as a result. Although the statistics are good, the drug problem certainly has not gone down. Our detectives who do all of the drug work recognize there is a lot to do and there is a lot of drug work to do in the City and they have adjusted their schedules to be out more at night to address certain problem locations. We are moving forward with the acquisition of three new pieces of technology: and he believes it is due to the shift from the use of Heroin and Fentanyl to more Meth, which we don't see the deaths, or even the overdoses, as a result. Although the statistics are good, the drug problem certainly has not gone down. Our detectives who do all of the drug work recognize there is a lot to do and there is a lot of drug work to do in the City and they have adjusted their schedules to be out more at night to address certain problem locations. We are moving forward with the acquisition of three new pieces of technology: 1) The first is a program called Improvata. Our computer systems are not considered CJIS (Criminal Justice Information System) compliant, which is the national requirement for law enforcement computer systems, which requires multi-factor authentication to increase security. We have selected Improvata, which is a company that will provide the multi-factor authentication, as well as single sign-on, to increase the security of our access. 2) The second technology we will be getting is called First Arriving. There a couple of monitors in the police department where the original thought was to put positive messaging out for staff, whether it be birthdays, good jobs on shifts, and that sort of messaging. . The one we had was not functioning the way he had envisioned. The First Arriving software is a lot more user friendly and can be pushed out from an iPhone or a desktop for the same information. It can also be tied to our CAD system, so it will show calls for -service on the screen that are pending, so we'll get a little more situational awareness around the police department. If officers don't necessarily have their radio on or are not working a patrol assignment, it will alert them high priority calls. 3) The last piece of technology is a computer program called SpiderTech. This was developed by some retired police officers in California and it is broken down into three different 3 parts: a) Patrol Module b) Insights Module c) Community Engagement Essentially this ties into our records management system and our dispatch software. For example, when an officer gets called to take a report of a stolen bike, it will send the caller a text message indicating the officer will be on his/her way. If the officer gets tied up on another call, for example re-routed to a priority call and there is going to be a delay in response to take the stolen bike report, it will automatically send a text to that caller and update them the officer has been re-routed to a priority call and his/her response will be delayed. It also incorporates the patrol module. For example, after the officer clears the call, it sends the reporting party a text message and will give them a survey they can fill out right there and then, but it also gives them a link for where they can provide information for the case if they have it and gives them the case number and how to follow up. In addition, when an arrest is made, it will notify the victim that an arrest has been made. The last part is the insights module. When it gives the reporting party the final text message after the officer clears the call, it sends them a link to a survey they can fill out and we can analyze the results. We don't receive great deal of results any longer from logging onto our website and doing the community survey or by the officers' business cards with the QR code. We may get 1-2 a month maybe. It has been the company's experience that they are in the 47% range for responses. Finally, as part of that final text message, it gives the caller/victim a chance to opt in to community blasts. It will build a database for us if they opt in that we send community messages out. If we're doing the Citizen Academy, we can use that as a means of communication to the community to advertise that. We are the first in the state for all three of these new pieces of technology and, in fact, SpiderTech is offering us a discount for being the first. This is used all over the country and is  community blasts. It will build a database for us if they opt in that we send community messages out. If we're doing the Citizen Academy, we can use that as a means of communication to the community to advertise that. We are the first in the state for all three of these new pieces of technology and, in fact, SpiderTech is offering us a discount for being the first. This is used all over the country and is much better way to engage our community and keep them abreast of what we are doing and time frames. The Patrol Sergeants are going back to the 4-2, 8-hour shift schedule at their request. This will work really well with integrating with the patrol 12-hour shifts a lot better. The Citizens Academy that was scheduled this fall has been canceled due to only receiving a couple of applications. We are looking to modify it and possibly do it at the Taylor Home on a shortened basis and maybe during the day time if we are able to do so given COVID requirements. Year to date, there has been 172 line of duty deaths throughout the country. We will be doing a few things for Max Gagnon, a child in the community who has relapsed with leukemia and is back in Boston Children's Hospital. We have partnered with Keller-Williams, where his father works as a realtor, and will be doing some short videos to raise his spirits. Keller-Williams will be putting it together and forwarding it to the family. In addition, we will be looking to make him an honorary police officer for the day and send him some things. 10. OLD BUSINESS No discussion. 11. NEW BUSINESS No discussion. 12. OTHER BUSINESS No discussion. 13. CITIZEN COMMENTS No citizens in attendance. 14. CONFIRMATION OF NEXT MEETING DATE The next Regular Meeting date of October 26, 2022 was confirmed. 15. ADJOURNMENT On a Motion by Commissioner Mello, seconded by Commissioner Davis, and passed unanimously, the meeting was adjourned at 3:33 pm.