Police Commission

LACONIA POLICE COMMISSION MEETING MARCH 15, 2023 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 3/15/2023 - 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. NON-PUBLIC SESSION (According To RSA 91-A:3,II (I) RSA 91-A:3II(I) - Consideration of legal advice provided by legal counsel, either in writing or orally, to one or more members of the public body, even where legal counsel is not present. On a Motion by Commissioner Davis, seconded by Commissioner Mello, and passed unanimously, in accordance with RSA 91-A:3II(I), the Laconia Police Commission entered into Non-Public Session at 3:03 pm. Roll Call Vote to enter Non-Public Session: Chairman Douglas Whittum Yes Commissioner Frank Mello Yes Commissioner Scott Davis Yes At 3:18 pm, the Non-Public Session ended on a Motion by Commissioner Davis, seconded by Commissioner Mello, with a unanimous vote.  Commissioner Frank Mello Yes Commissioner Scott Davis Yes At 3:18 pm, the Non-Public Session ended on a Motion by Commissioner Davis, seconded by Commissioner Mello, with a unanimous vote. Public Session reconvened at 3:18 pm. 6. PERSONNEL MATTERS 6.A. Swearing in of Patrol Officer Jordan Hunold Lieutenant Chris Noyes introduced Officer Jordan Hunold. Officer Hunold was born and raised in Laconia and resides with his mother, father and sister. He has always wanted to be a police officer ever since being a child. He served in the United State Army and then applied to the Laconia Police Department so that he could "serve and protect the community" he grew up in. In his spare time, Officer Hunold like to work out at the gym and spend time outdoors. Deputy City Clerk Stacy Anders conducted the Swearing In of Officer Jordan Hunold. 6.B. Commendations & Awards No discussion. 6.C. Resignations/Retirement Chief Canfield noted that with the swearing in of Officer Hunold, this brings us to full staff. 6.D. Promotions/Classification Change No discussion. 7. COMMAND STAFF REPORTS 7.A. Chief - Support Division Chief Canfield reported the following: The Detective Division has been very busy with a number of very serious felony level investigations. They just completed an investigation of another child sex abuse images case. This originated with an ICAC tip at the beginning of January and involved several months of investigation and multiple search warrants. They were able to execute a search warrant on the residence and found a considerable amount of electronic evidence, which led to his arrest the other day. He was charged with five felony counts of child sex abuse images. Great work on the part of the Detective Division! They continue to do a lot of grant work with maintenance on existing grants and also searching out new grants. We submitted two more grants to Congressman Chris Pappas' office and Senator Jeanne Shaheen's office. The first grant was for $98,799 to provide for a Faro laser scanning device, as well as a drone forensic mapping project. This program would speed up certain aspects of our technical accident investigation where the finite details with the scanner are not necessarily needed, but they could be done for the drone and scan the area much quicker, working in combination with the drone. The second grant was for approximately the same amount of money and was to seek a  Jeanne Shaheen's office. The first grant was for $98,799 to provide for a Faro laser scanning device, as well as a drone forensic mapping project. This program would speed up certain aspects of our technical accident investigation where the finite details with the scanner are not necessarily needed, but they could be done for the drone and scan the area much quicker, working in combination with the drone. The second grant was for approximately the same amount of money and was to seek a police firearms range training facility. Right now we utilize the Gilford range and they were out there today doing firearms training and there was a considerable amount of water, so they were shooting from the back of the pickup truck. We are looking to develop something on City property that would be a presentation to the Police Commission at a later date. We continue to work on the fence project at the police department. It has been a very slow process with the company, but are hoping to wrap that up in the next couple of months. They are conducting in-service training this month, specifically on breaching and some of the take-aways from the Uvalde school shooting on southern Texas. This was indicated in their after-action report, so we saw that and felt it was time we should do some more breaching training for our regular patrol officers in the event of an active shooter situation. We had a table top training exercise scheduled for March 14th in preparation for our full scale exercise; however, it was canceled due to the weather and hopefully it will be re- scheduled in the next several weeks. Our full scale training exercise will take place on Saturday, April 15th, at the Pleasant Street Elementary School. A notice will be going through our social media channels and newspaper to notify residents, and we will also be knocking on doors for the immediate neighbors in that area. We realize there will be some inconvenience that morning, but we are very appreciative of the training opportunity in working with all of our law enforcement partners, as well as the folks at Homeland Security, who are organizing and ultimately paying for this training, He advised there will also be some electronic sign board put out notifying the public to make the message very clear, as we don't want to alarm people with such a large police presence in the area, but also the inconvenience that may be caused. 7.A.i. Orders and Bulletins 7.B. Chief - Operations Division Chief Canfield reported the following: They have been busy with the summer scheduling, as well as a number of meetings with the Special Events Committee and inter-agencies in preparation for the 100th Anniversary Motorcycle Week. 7.B.i. Hirings No discussion. 8. COMMISSION ACTION 8.A. Acceptance of minutes from previous meeting On a Motion by Commissioner Mello, seconded by Commissioner Davis, and passed unanimously, the meeting minutes of February 15, 2023 were accepted as distributed. 9. REVIEW OF MONTHLY ACTIVITY REPORTS  On a Motion by Commissioner Mello, seconded by Commissioner Davis, and passed unanimously, the meeting minutes of February 15, 2023 were accepted as distributed. 9. REVIEW OF MONTHLY ACTIVITY REPORTS 9.A. Department Monthly Activity Highlights Chief Canfield reviewed the Department Monthly Highlights. Chairman Whittum inquired about the decreases in motor vehicle stops, summonses and written warnings, anywhere from a 33% to 39% decrease Chief Canfield advised he is working on changing the way those percentages are reported. It is not accurate due to it taking a very small snapshot of time. He has the ten year and twenty year traffic statistics, of which last year ranked second or third highest in those categories. He is working on preparing a report for this and it will be available at the next commission meeting, as well as a revamped report on how these statistics are being reported so they are more accurate in comparison to a ten year average versus a month-to-month average. 9.B. Criminal Investigative Unit Monthly Activity Report Chief Canfield reviewed the Criminal Investigative Unit Monthly Activity Report. No further discussion. 9.C. Budget Reports Chief Canfield reported our budget is on track at 61.54% through the year and our current budget is at 66.26%, considerably under our budget. 9.D. Monthly Traffic Report Chief Canfield reviewed the Monthly Traffic Report. No further discussion. 9.E. Monthly Fleet Report We are in the process of getting the vehicles outfitted that were in this year's budget as of July 1st. Even though equipment was ordered many months ago, it has been slow in coming in, but we expect the next car to be on the road within the next couple of weeks. 10. CORRESPONDENCE TO/FROM THE DEPARTMENT 10.A. Email note of thanks ref. locating missing juvenile Chief Canfield advised we received a very nice thank you email from a mother who thanked an officer for assisting in tracking down her missing 12 year old daughter. She was very appreciative for the officer's assistance in getting her daughter back home. 11. CHIEF'S REPORT Chief Canfield advised the following: Approximately a dozen of our officers and employees participated in the Winni Dip last Saturday morning at the Margate Resort in order to raise money for Special Olympics. They were very good representatives of the department and had one of the largest, if not the largest, turnout for a police agency. It was very nice to see how personally these officers take this and really believe in the cause and take their own time to participate. In response to the incident that occurred in the Memphis, Tennessee Police Department where Approximately a dozen of our officers and employees participated in the Winni Dip last Saturday morning at the Margate Resort in order to raise money for Special Olympics. They were very good representatives of the department and had one of the largest, if not the largest, turnout for a police agency. It was very nice to see how personally these officers take this and really believe in the cause and take their own time to participate. In response to the incident that occurred in the Memphis, Tennessee Police Department where five officers were ultimately charged with Homicide as a result of use-of-force, we did a debriefing at our Staff Meeting last month. He is a member of the Police Executive Research Forum and knows the Executive Director fairly well. They spoke and the Executive Director indicated he would be conducting seven debriefs "Monday Morning Quarterbacks" for the incident around the country and he inquired if he would be willing to host one hear in Laconia for New Hampshire and New England. The Executive Director agreed to do so and flew up from Washington, D.C. last Wednesday and we held the event at the Beane Center. We invited other police leadership through New Hampshire and New England and had a good group attend. We had a great debrief and a really good discussion regarding methods to prevent some of the things we heard occurred during the incident. It certainly wasn't to be critical of Memphis, but there were things that went wrong and there is certainly some safeguards we have in place to prevent those things from happening here. He hosted the New Hampshire Veteran's Home at the police department about a week and a half ago for a luncheon. We had a discussion on policing and what is happening in the police world and they brought some lunch. It was a really nice conversation and group discussion. We assisted with a Make-A-Wish escort to the airport for a Laconia child who has a very serious illness and Make-A-Wish was sending her to Hawaii for her dream vacation. We have had a total of eight overdoses this year. There is not an exact number available for overdose deaths, as we are awaiting lab results. We are probably looking at 3-4 at this point. There is a new drug on the street called Xylazine, which is a large animal / veterinary medicine that is being used to cut Heroin. It is much more deadly than Fentanyl and there is no reversal for it like there is Narcan for Heroin. Xylazine has been responsible for a number of deaths throughout New Hampshire for drug overdoses and we are seeing it here in Laconia. We made an arrest last fall and received the lab results back just recently and that was confirmed to be Xylazine. The line of duty deaths across the Nation are at eighteen. The new SPIDR notification technology kicked off last week. This was launched on February 10th and works essentially as follows: When a person calls the police department, as soon as the dispatcher hangs up with them a text message will automatically be sent to them if they are calling from a mobile phone indicating their call has been received and notifies them that we are en route. Once the officer clears the call in the CAD program, it automatically sends the caller a text message indicating the officer's name, badge number and a link if they have any additional follow up information. More importantly, if the call is held more than thirty minutes, the system automatically sends the caller a text message. For instance, if an officer is dispatched to a Criminal Mischief complaint, but they get diverted to a priority call, such as a fight or an injury accident or something like that, and the officer doesn't arrive within thirty minutes, the system will send a follow up text to the caller indicating the officer has been delayed due to a priority call and will give a new estimated time of arrival. In addition to that, once the call is complete, the system sends the caller a link to a survey that they can do through a text message. It is mobile friendly and takes just a few minutes to complete the survey. In addition to that, if someone makes a criminal complaint, such as an assault investigation, and once the investigation is closed, no matter how long the investigation takes, it will send the caller a follow up text message notifying them of the disposition of the case. It will also update the victims, so any victim of a crime will get a follow up text. Chief Canfield reviewed the statistical reports that will be generated by this program and presented a video presentation of what the report will include. He advised currently we have the QR codes on our business cards that people can scan or go on the website and complete a  disposition of the case. It will also update the victims, so any victim of a crime will get a follow up text. Chief Canfield reviewed the statistical reports that will be generated by this program and presented a video presentation of what the report will include. He advised currently we have the QR codes on our business cards that people can scan or go on the website and complete a survey and we maybe get 1-2 per month, because people have to take the effort to do it. The new SPIDR Technology report will be included in the monthly Police Commission meetings. He advised we are the only agency in the State of New Hampshire utilizing this technology and he believes it will improve our "customer" service. Commissioner Davis inquired if they have to log in separately to utilize this program and Chief Canfield responded they do not, as it is all automatic. If the caller is calling from a mobile number, it will go out automatically. And callers can complete the survey by just clicking on the link and do not need to sign in to anything. Commissioner Davis inquired what the officer has to do and Chief Canfield advised it is tied into the computer aided dispatch console, so once the dispatcher makes the call for service as they are speaking with the person on the phone, it is all automatic from there so there is no additional work on the dispatcher's part or the officer's part. Chairman Whittum inquired about those calling from a land line. Chief Canfield advised the program will not work for those calls. He indicated if for some reason we obtain an email address for the caller, the system would generate an email to them, but we do not typically ask for email addresses. Most callers are utilizing mobile phones at this point. 11.A. CHIEF'S REPORT 12. OLD BUSINESS No discussion. 13. NEW BUSINESS No discussion. 14. OTHER BUSINESS No discussion. 15. CITIZEN COMMENTS Councilor Cheney addressed the Commission. He is hoping to get a copy of the presentation of the new SPIDR technology to take to the City Council. He advised he and Chief Canfield recently had a meeting with the library. A year ago in the course of doing appointment meetings for boards and commissions, the Chairman of the Library Commission, Mr. Moriarty, made the statement that they were considering adding a security officer to the budget for the library due to problems with the homeless. Councilor Cheney advised he met with Chief Canfield in several meetings and talked about trying to help with that problem. He doesn't believe the City Council thought adding a security officer was the best idea. The homeless problem pertains to them going into the bathrooms for other reasons than using the restroom facilities and the bathrooms being next to the children's library. The library has taken steps by locking the bathrooms and making people have to come and get a key and they are in the process of installing odor detectors so they can smell if someone is smoking. They are also having their employees talk to patrons of the library about the new rules that were published in December, which don't allow sleeping or putting your head down on the desk. If you do any of those things, they ask you to stop and, if you don't stop, they call the police. What is significant about that meeting is the Director of the library said the Laconia Police Department was near instantaneous in responding when the library calls. Councilor Cheney advised he is proud of that fact and proud of what our police officers are doing. But the  library has taken steps by locking the bathrooms and making people have to come and get a key and they are in the process of installing odor detectors so they can smell if someone is smoking. They are also having their employees talk to patrons of the library about the new rules that were published in December, which don't allow sleeping or putting your head down on the desk. If you do any of those things, they ask you to stop and, if you don't stop, they call the police. What is significant about that meeting is the Director of the library said the Laconia Police Department was near instantaneous in responding when the library calls. Councilor Cheney advised he is proud of that fact and proud of what our police officers are doing. But the strength was that we asked for some extra help from the police department and Chief Canfield saw to it that there was rapid response to complaints at the library. Councilor Cheney wanted the Commission to know that the City Council and the people at the library are very appreciative of the response of the Laconia Police Department for this issue. He wished to thank everyone, particularly Chief Canfield and the men and women who represent the police department on the street, for making that problem diminish dramatically. Last year there were approximately fifty people who were issued no trespass orders to keep them out of the library, which might have required the police department to go over and enforce, and this year they are down to 20-25. This is reflective of the police department's response. Those folks who go in and misbehave got the message. Another problem identified at that meeting was that the problems at the library occur from 2:00 in the afternoon until 8:00 at night. Isaiah's closes at 2:00 pm and re-opens at 8:00 pm. We need to look into the future and talk about finding some way to fill in that space. Mr. Moriarty said they need to be careful, as people running Isaiah's mentioned at a Rotary meeting that they wanted to buy up the houses in the area to house the homeless. He also advised he had a short meeting with Chief Canfield recently and mentioned that he hopes Chief Canfield can start working on projecting our needs going forward. He has asked the same from the Fire Department. He would like them to start thinking about the State School property and, as it grows, what the needs will be in the way of police and fire, as well as other agencies in the City. He indicated he is worried that it will happen and then we respond and in the meantime things go south. He would rather the police and fire chiefs come up with projections and, as things start to move, we have goals for the growth. To let the Commission know, he has asked him to work on some of those things and also where he would like to see him go. He feels they City needs to give the police department more help already, but that's a matter for the City Council, but he hopes to see to it that the two first responder departments get the manning they need for growth. He believes the growth will not be casual and will be significant. Once it starts, it will be significant and quick and we can't afford to be caught short in trying to police and provide other first responder response. 16. CONFIRMATION OF NEXT MEETING DATE The next Regular meeting date of April 19, 2023 was confirmed. 17. ADJOURNMENT On a Motion by Commissioner Mello, seconded by Commissioner Davis, and passed unanimously, the meeting was adjourned at 3:58 p.m.