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[Music]
you're
live thank you good afternoon everyone
today's Monday February 24th Welcome to
our work session agenda uh before we
begin our meeting today we will start
with the Pledge of Allegiance if you can
please join
me States
as you can tell I am not mayor Enriquez
I am filling in as mayor is in Santa Fe
um for the next couple of days um also
just want to remind my colleagues that
because there are only four of us to
please remain on the Das uh the whole
time in order to maintain
Quorum
um and we will get started with the JS
of the week
Sarah thank you good
afternoon awesome for jobs of the week
for today February 24th we have for the
city we have an engagement coordinator
at the
mvda um starting at 2121 an hour and the
posting ends on the 9th of March we also
have an accountant one for the city that
position starts at 53,000 and the
posting closes on the 4th of April we
have a field service installation
technician for Benco Dental that one
starts at 36,000 and the posting closes
on March uh sorry
17th we have an inspector an electrical
inspector 1 for Community Development
for doniana County that one starts at
1976 an hour and the posting closes this
week this Friday so that one's coming to
a close quickly we have a data entry
assistant at bayet Incorporated for $15
an hour um closing on the 20th an
assistant manager at Panda Restaurant
Group um and that one post closes on the
18th that is all that we have today
thank you so much thank you Sarah for
coming every week thank you next up
we'll do pets of the week and we'll have
Carol neelen come up
hi I'm Carol Nelson digital content
specialist for the Animal Services
Center of the msia valley uh quick
reminder dog and cat of the week when
they are promoted they are free all week
so no adoption fee it's great week to
come meet them and adopt um if you're
looking at a foster animal uh who is in
a foster home please contact the center
beforehand to arrange a meet and greet
this week our cat of the week is Tilly 8
9393 if you want to look her up on our
website when I first arrived at ascmv I
was a bit shy but with some time and
patience I've really come out of my
shell now I'm a total love bug I
absolutely adore gentle pets and when
I'm happy I'll purr up a storm and even
chirp for attention I love making
biscuits to show just how content I am I
thrive on affection and will soak up all
the love you want to give me I prefer to
the be the queen of my castle and a
single cat home would be ideal for me
and our dog of the week is Bruno number
79072 I am full of puppy energy and
excitement I love to play Chase balls
and have a blast with friends if you're
looking for a Playful Pup to keep you
active go on Hikes or just run around in
the backyard with I'm your guy I'm super
friendly and looking for someone to
shower with kisses if you're looking for
a fun active puppy I'd love for you to
be my forever
Valentine um and our long-term residence
as a reminder um any resident who has
been with our Center for 3 months or
more is just $25 so Dora is still at our
Center she has been here 412 days Alice
has been at our Center 265 days and
unfortunately Luna did come back to the
center sometimes that does happen
because it's not a good fit uh so 256
days and but Mabel did go to a rescue so
we're happy for Mabel um that she was
able to get that live outcome and so now
we have Tony who's been with with our
Center 248
days uh and this weekend this coming
weekend will be at Petco I forgot to put
that down my apologies but Petco 3050
East lman from 11: to 2 will be there
for our positively perfect adoption
event as always you can check out our
website for more information or look at
our social media thank you thank you
Carol next I will read a closed meeting
statement the city council met in Clos
session at 11:06 a.m. today on February
24th 2025 the following were in
attendance outside Council Taylor Ron
councelor McClure counselor Graham mayor
proen bomo councelor Corin Brad Douglas
Eon tomow councelor Flores Chief story
and city clerk Christine Riva the
meeting adjourned at 11:30 a.m.
statement for the record the close
meeting discussion was limited to the
items as stated in the postponed notice
the purpose of the meeting was to
discuss pending litigation regarding
Estrada Francisco versus the city of Las
Cruses which is closed pursuant to nmsa
1978 section
10151 okay on to our agenda items item
4.1 the alliance for regional Military
Support update uh Elizabeth teters I'll
hand it over to
you good afternoon mayor protm and city
council um as you know we periodically
like to give our partners an opportunity
to present in front of all of you and
update you on what they've been working
on so today we have the alliance for
regional Military Support or arms um so
with that I will turn it over to Gus and
Richard good afternoon for the record
Richard deu with the alliance and Gus
Rodriguez Gus Rodriguez for the alliance
for regional military support thank you
thank you mayor protm city manager
members of council it's been a while
since we' presented in person we usually
do this sorry we usually do this uh in
written format which we've already done
but we wanted to come before you today
because we've doing doing so many things
with Elizabeth of recent we thought it'd
be a good idea to update you so without
further Ado guess I'll hand it off to
you okay next slide please I think we do
it here okay I'm we are the next L I'm
sorry here we go okay so just uh for
everyone's understanding the the
alliance for regional military sir I'll
just need you close and then state your
name for the record yes Gus Rodriguez
Alliance for regional military support
thank you mayor Pro um The Alliance for
regional Military Support its mission is
to ensure the uh Fort Bliss Whit SS and
hman Air Force Base the Triad remain an
integral part of the AR of the uh
nation's National defense strategy and
our goal is to select solidify and
enhance the capabilities of our regional
military installations missions and the
importance to the Department of Defense
and our strategy is to develop
actionable items to enhance the military
value of the region to the Department of
Defense okay Richard oh okay we don't
have to switch um so I just catch to the
chase with some of these key things of
course White Sands means uh an enormous
economic impact value to the city of Los
cruus in the surrounding area so the
work that we do the and we have two
other gentlemen who are couldn't make it
up today Lance leer who's a former
command sergeant major retired from Fort
Bliss actually their first armor
Division and a gentleman named John
Bailey and the four of us work very
closely with Elizabeth and our Focus
primarily as as you can scan through
that that third Bullet To Me is the most
important one of all and that is
economic development
and that's what we've been sounding our
horn to all of our neighboring
communities regarding their military
installations because that's what
exactly what they are of course they
have a mission to perform and that's to
defend our nation uh when we first began
doing this a number of years ago long
before we got involved with each of the
uh the Ci's Economic Development
departments in the various communities
our Focus initially was in trying to
recruit more units therefore more
soldiers and their families to our
communities and we've been successful
with that for the most part but as the
military is transitioning and Gus won't
spend a lot of time bragging on himself
so I'll brag on him for you uh his title
separate from the arms group is a
civilian agent the secretary of the army
he represents West Texas so he doesn't
really represent Las kusus but because
of that title he works very closely with
the Commanding General out at White
Sands Missile Range and their team and
also because of that and we'll get
through that as he touches on some of
these slides speaking about what he and
Elizabeth and work been working on
together have been really essentially
helpful in our understanding of what the
military and particularly the Army's
mission is today how it's modified and
then how we as communities need to sort
of
uh shift our efforts to ensure that
we're meeting those needs so with that
in mind I'll we'll go on to the next
effort right
there if I could just if I could just
backtrack and again here uh not in my
capacity as representing the Army but in
the in my own civilian capacity so I
just want to state that for the record
so as Richard mentioned one of the
things that we've been working very
closely with with Elizabeth is making
sure that we make that connection in a
in a much stronger way between Whit
Sand's Missile Range and the city of Las
Cruses so had various opportunities to
have discussions with the installation
commander and some of his deputies to
understand what the needs are of the
installation and how the city of Las
cruus can respond to those needs uh one
of those needs uh was one of the big
discussions that we had regarded
Workforce many individuals don't realize
that 50% of the workforce at White Sands
is at retirement age so at any time they
can go ahead and retire so that was a
conversation
that we were having with Elizabeth
regarding the possibility of how do we
engage more citizens from the city to be
able to take a look at those job
opportunities at White Sands Missile
Range and as Richard mentioned we work
very closely with her in regards to
understanding the mission and activity
of Whit Sand's Missile Range um some of
the other things that we're taking a
look at is how do we connect the city of
Las cruus to those entities zo defense
industry uh partners that white sand has
in many cases they have a presence at
White Sands but uh and they in some
cases they live in the city they uh you
know their kids come go to school here
uh but they have not made that you know
there's not that visibility and
understanding of how we can better
connect those entities with the city of
Las Cruses and take a look at the
possibility of expanding that presence
or as a city responding to the various
needs that they have in terms of
Workforce in terms of uh defense
industry possibilities and how do we
work with the city to uh you know to get
them connected and one of those as I
mentioned is one of those is taking a
look at the workforce needs with have
various conversations with defense
industry Partners on what are some of
their needs and how can we connect how
can the city connect all of those
opportunities for example with New
Mexico state or donana Community College
to be able to find um you know work for
uh individuals that are graduating from
from those respective uh educational
institutions
and uh also taking a look at how we can
uh connect um some of the defense
industry Partners to the lasus airport
as an alternative site for defense
contractors uh in this case a counter uh
unmanned aerial uh system testing and
development and then there's also the
possibility of maybe some refueling
opportunities that we've been taking a
look at uh in in terms of that
relationship
building from the sense from the
perspective of research and development
center um we encouraged Elizabeth and
representatives of the economic
development department to attend the
county uas conference in Fort Sil
Oklahoma um mainly because that testing
is being done at White Sands so again a
great opportunity to be able to
understand what that mission set is and
how the city can connect to what's uh
what's what's going on so various
meetings with folks in lton as to what
they are doing um their aspect of it is
not the actual testing component of it
but they're the development side and
then they send the the the equipment to
White Sands to be tested and for them to
do research and development on on those
here locally and um we also uh talked
had an opportunity to connect um folks
from The Economic Development Department
to to their counterparts and to key
stakeholders in laon as to how they went
about you know connecting those uh those
dots between the city of La of lton and
Fort uh Fort Sil
Oklahoma
yes um again we mentioned that we had a
question and answer meeting opportunity
with members of their board to be able
to talk about how they went about this
effort and then we scheduled a meeting
with key leaders from uh White Sands to
discuss the possibility of maybe
developing a center in Los crues that
could mirror the work that's being done
in lton uh and um find a niche for that
Center here in Las Cruses to be able to
work with uh the Department of
Defense and again provided leads to uh
the city Economic Development Department
uh connecting with locked uh Ron and
accompanied by the name of
ignite so uh yes go ahead Richard please
so in terms of our next steps is we want
to continue those discussions between
the city of Las cuses and Whit Sand's
Missile Range about the possibility of
developing an innovation Center uh that
we can use the many existing components
that the city already has that we can go
ahead and and connect them together and
become a response to address the various
needs that wh Sands and defense industry
Partners have and when I talk about wh
Sands I'm talking a little bit more
Broad broadly not just Department of the
army because White Sands also has Navy
Air Force Space Force coming into play
and then there's also a large NASA
presence that uh that obviously can
respond uh through the use of this um
potential Innovation Center and we've
had some discussions with those with
those defense industry Partners about uh
an interest on their part and uh as to
would would they be able to utilize you
know a center of this type and obviously
the response has been very very positive
and uh we're ALS you know and then also
including uh addressing some of the
workforce needs of Whit sand you know in
this Innovation Center so any
questions thank you both any questions
from the
council seeing none any from the
public looks like that's it thanks thank
you in closing just first of all on
behalf of arms we want to thank you all
for for uh taking the time to listen to
us today and she did not pay us any
money but I want to tell you that
working with Elizabeth and moving this
forward in terms of an economic
development Centric effort has really uh
uh been good for all of us we really
enjoy working with her and I will offer
this U we had a meeting last Friday with
a member of congresswoman Escobar's team
who deals with military out of DC she
was in town and one of the things she
said to us
unsolicited was that when Los Cruses
comes to DC in addition obviously to
meeting with their own delegation that
when they come to meet with Escobar's
office that you're extremely well
prepared and you know exactly what you
want to do and that you're then asking
for their assistance in order for you to
accomplish your goals and that's a
compliment you don't hear about many
communities so just to pass that on
thank you thank you very much appreciate
that I know thank you okay on to our
next item 4.2 the 7th semiannual police
audit report presented by the oir group
Viola pass it over to you
okay good afternoon uh mayor protm
counselors my name is Viola Pera and
today we have the oir group here with us
to present their seventh semiannual
police audit report to council so with
that I'd like to introduce our
presenters uh Teresa Mula and Steven
Connelly
hello mayor protem and city council we
are so excited to be here again today
this is the seventh time that we are
presenting to your Council on our
semiannual reports um related to the
evaluation of the Los crusa Police
Department I am Teresa Mula and this is
my colleague Steve Conley um we have our
findings to present to you as we
traditionally do um so we'll do our
PowerPoint and then we will welcome any
questions that you all may
have so good afternoon uh Steve connley
here and and happy to be back in in your
city um I think at this point the the
council members are and the city
government is pretty familiar with us
and our background but just to brief ly
um provide some context oir group is a
team of police practices experts we
operate out of Southern California uh we
have been doing this kind of work in a
number of jurisdictions for more than 20
years now and we have a number of
ongoing relationships with jurisdictions
um throughout California and in in
several other states as well including
New Mexico obviously uh and one of the
the I think the advantages of the wide
range of places where we have had the
opportunity to work and to collaborate
with law enforcement and provide
oversight uh and auditing Services is
that we really get to have a bigger
picture of of law enforcement issues and
best practices and some of the
challenges that have come in different
places and try to bring that uh the
especially the the good ideas and the
and the um the positive developments we
try to bring that to the jurisdictions
that we're working with and hopefully
make a positive contribution to these
processes
so we have uh our time in Los cruus
dates back to
2021 and as Teresa said this is our
seventh time reporting to Council on a
on an individual audit
report so our case
whoops uh the scope I want to talk a
little bit about the scope of work what
exactly the city has has uh requested of
us what is our contract what is the
nature of the work that we do here in
Los cruus and what we do is is uh
basically an audit a review of cases
that were investigated and closed by the
department within particular periods of
time and we work in in six-month
increments and report to the city twice
a year and issue a public report twice a
year that provides detailed information
about every single one of the cases that
we have the opportunity to review so our
primary focus is is on internal affairs
investigations and the way the
department responds to complaint public
complaints about officer Behavior
officer performance and then internally
generated com um investigations that the
department opens when when it becomes
aware of potential concerns about
officer Behavior officer misconduct our
job as the slide says is to is to make
sure that the cases were complete
objective and thorough in terms of the
investigation process the legitimacy of
the investigation process is a very
important part of our uh our mandate
here
because obviously when the police are in
control of these investigations they're
they're investigating themselves it's
there's kind of some natural skepticism
about how seriously that gets taken and
whether the department or any department
is really legitimately interested or
even legitimately able because of maybe
unintentional uh biases or favoritism
towards colleagues our job is to make
sure that the department looks at
everything does an investigation that is
thorough and complete and that the
outcomes of each case are are legitimate
and supported by the evidence and then
at the request of the council and as
part of our contract we also provide
updates on demographics as far as
officer involvement and uh complainant
um the profiles of
complainants so in this particular
six-month window which which ran from
July 1st of 2024 to December 31st of
2024 we looked at a total of 20 cases uh
the last time we were here we we only
had eight cases that were in our
pipeline from the previous 6 months and
that so this is a obviously a
significantly longer
report a number of additional issues
that we've been looking at and the the
spike in in cases from this year or or
from this uh audit report compared to
the last one really is more procedural
than a a a indication of changes within
the department as far as the the um
volume of activity the volume of public
concerns the number of misconduct
allegations that they're dealing with we
had a backlog uh just in terms of a a
contractual little break that that we
experienced as we were kind of updating
our terms and navigating through that
with the city and so there were uh
several cases that had been completed in
an earlier period that we kind of just
got in this in this marking period and
were able to catch up with and at the
same time the department has also made a
concerted effort to uh complete cases in
a more timely manner and a number of
cases made it through the pipeline
during during this particular window
that we've been talking about so of the
20 cases that we looked at significantly
20 of them were generated from within
the department itself there were only
three external complaints from members
of the public that were part of our
scope of work and we met with the chief
this morning there are other issues and
concerns there there's a higher volume
of stuff that the public brings to the
Department's attention and that is
technically classified as a as a type of
complaint but the department process
those processes those at a different
level and only ones of a certain level
of seriousness or when there's a level
of supporting evidence are going to make
it to our scope of work so again we
looked at 17 cases out of the 20 that
were generated by the department and
just in terms of some of the themes that
that ran through them several of them
related to uses of the taser uh Teresa
will talk a little bit more about the
taser later in our presentation but
there were several uses of force
involving the taser that the department
took a closer look at and and um found
that there were some concerns about
whether officer deployment of that tool
was consistent with policy and and
justification under the circumstances so
we'll talk about that a little bit more
uh a case involving a response to a
mental health crisis call which is
certainly an common theme throughout law
enforcement navigating that particular
challenge
of dealing with mental health um people
who are experiencing a crisis of some
kind and figuring out the best ways to
to handle that situation because there's
a lot of overlap between obviously law
enforcement concerns potential for
violence safety Public Safety but also a
behavioral health component as well and
then a number of cases involving issues
of of integrity and and officer
misconduct uh one of the cases that we
looked at involved
a a cheating issue at the Academy with
some officers recruit officers who were
who were um in the in the Department's
Academy and the department found out
about concerns about um recruits
cheating on some of the the um academic
work that the officers are or that the
recruits are responsible for as part of
that program the department initiated a
very thorough and rigorous investigation
right away and and um separated several
of those folks from the agency as a
result of
that as far as the external cases were
concerned oftentimes it it relates to
some dissatisfaction with some aspect of
a of a call for service and these can
obviously vary uh in a lot of there are
a lot of different ways that that a
member of the public can become
frustrated or discontented with the
effectiveness of of the Department's
approach interestingly enough um in in
several of the cases that that we have
looked at including some of the
internally generated ones the department
starts with one concern and then in the
course of the investigation they'll
identify what what they call ancillary
issues things that weren't part of the
original complaint but that have come to
the Department's attention whether it's
a report writing problem or a body warn
camera activation problem that the
complainant might not even be aware of
but the department is going to go ahead
and add that on to its investigation and
make sure that that all of the issues
are identified and that's something we
very much pushed for from the beginning
and I think it's a sign of a of a good
process because a lot of times
particularly with public
complaints the the inclination is just
to zero in on the very specific things a
complainant um raised concerns about and
even though other aspects of the officer
performance may be relevant or may be
worthy of intervention or remediation
some in some form or other a lot of
times police agents will just kind of
skim right past that and cut to the
chase of the specific thing that the
complainant was asking about and we
think it's a a positive sign of the
Department's process that it's willing
to expand the scope of of its
investigations and hold its people
accountable when it has the opportunity
to review
performance I'm going to turn it back
over to Teresa to talk about some of the
the cumulative statistical um uh
outcomes from from this year's group of
or this half Year's group of cases
and so as part of our scope of work we
report several different batches of
numbers to you so that you can kind of
get a context of the total Universe of
what we are looking at in the 20 cases
that Steve was talking about both
internal and externally generated the
department framed 88 total allegations
so what does that mean in the course of
looking at the nature of the complaint
the department Internal Affairs unit is
finding specific policies or procedures
that are potentially being violated
doesn't mean that they are but it's
something that they're framing so that
they can understand if that uh officer
or officers engaged in misconduct so
when we say allegations we're saying
specific policy sections um or
subsections where the misconduct may
have occurred um that might be something
as broad as the code of conduct
generally for a complaint where a member
of the public says I was dissatisfied
with how that officer spoke to me that
wasn't professional um so those would be
the nature of those total
allegations once the allegation is
framed and Internal Affairs does an
investigation into it they have findings
and so the findings come into one of
four different categories the notable
thing here is that 63 of the 88 were
sustained that means that the
Department's investigation found that
misconduct did occur um and was a
violation of policy or
procedure this number to us is telling
in part because one of the things we
want to see is a system of
accountability that is effective and
what we're seeing with this is that the
investigations that are being opened in
particular internally generated are
where supervisors within the chain of
command are seeing that officers perform
is lacking in some way they are raising
that to Internal Affairs and Internal
Affairs is appropriately finding those
to be sustained from that point forward
that corrective action can take place
and so that's really the space where the
department has room to be able to do
remediation training um sometimes it's
more uh more uh higher level of
discipline so days off or suspension and
in some cases it goes all the way to
determining that the officer should no
longer be part of the department um
results in some sort of separation or
termination in the cases that we
reviewed um we saw 33 named LCPD
employees 20 of those were officers and
you see that asterisk is noted that two
of the cases involved the same officer
um that officer is no longer with the
Las cruus Police Department um we saw
one Lieutenant who has since retired
four detectives four Sergeants those
three Cadets um that Steve mentioned and
one officer
trainee and again as I said where we
have those sustained allegations you can
have a whole range of actions that come
out of those um the lower level of
discipline might include something like
a verbal reprimand that's where they
officers essentially get a counseling
session and it's noted in their file um
and it can go all the way to suspension
days so days off um and those range in
uh the length of time that the chief of
police believes is appropriate and in
some cases all the way to
termination in the cases where it was
anything below termination so where the
officer remains within the agency we
found that the department is doing a
progressively better job of including
some form of training counseling debrief
of some form to ensure that that officer
or supervisor is receiving the right
kind of course correction it's not just
a hammer down it's really an intent to
build that um member of the department
up to be able to serve to the level that
um we you the community expects them to
serve and so I think that's a really
important component and what we've seen
that is sometimes missing in other
agencies that we review is that the
department does an excellent job of
closing the feedback loop so if the
chief and Internal Affairs determine
that there is the need for some kind of
training or debrief there is a email
track that says supervisor X you're
responsible for completing this when the
supervisor completes it closes the
feedback loop goes into the internal
affairs file we see that that was
completed that's not always the case
sometimes these recommendations and
other agencies that we review go out and
then we don't know if it actually
happened here LCPD is doing a very
concerted job of documenting that it is
completed in the way that the chief
intended it to be
one of the aspects that we looked at um
and this is from our very initial scope
of work was is there any suggestion that
there is a disproportionate impact um
within the communities that the lusus
police department serves one of the ways
that we might see that is if a higher
number of complaints are coming from a
certain type subsection whether that be
uh their their ethnicity or race or a
particular zip code are there places
where there is more behavior that is
being complained about than others um
we've had the benefit now of being able
to do a much larger um sample size so
when we first started we were looking at
10 20 30 cases that wouldn't give us
anything that was remotely significant
from a statistical standpoint we've
gotten to 60 that's a larger large
enough sample that we could potentially
draw some
conclusions and we did a really basic
statistical analysis called the relative
risk ratio um essentially what I was
looking for was compared to the
population of Los crusis the demographic
population um from census numbers is
there a disproportionate number of
complaints coming from certain members
certain types of individuals we found
that that was not pro proven in in our
statistical model now I want to caution
that of course this is not um something
to prove that this is not occurring it's
simply a statistical analysis a way that
we could measure but certainly one thing
that we continue to encourage is that
individuals who feel that they have uh
been wronged or that um have not been
satisfied with the outcome of police
contact Reach Out out and file those
complaints it's really the only way that
we can remediate in a formal way and
track those numbers and so the fact that
we're not seeing
disproportionality uh may not indicate
that it's not actually happening it
might mean that there are members of
community who are not feeling
sufficiently safe to voice their
concerns and complaints so it could be
either side of that equation um and we
just don't have any evidence at this
point to suggest that there's any kind
of disproportion at treatment occurring
um from the law enforcement to its
[Music]
Community back to you oh no me sorry I
had to see who was doing this
slide we also take a look at litigation
that was closed um in this particular
period we saw two cases of closed
litigation one of the things that we
encourage and you might recall from
several Cycles ago is that the Civil
claims that were being closed were not
always tied to an internal affairs
investigation and it is in our view
important that those two things go hand
inand so if someone has a civil claim
that they filed that should trigger an
internal investigation that the that the
department looks at because something
has gone sideways right for someone to
file a claim and that should be reviewed
from the administrative side not simply
the civil litigation side so the thing
that we were pleased to see in this
cycle and that we've been seeing um for
the past year or so is that each of
these cases is triggering an internal
affairs investigation or in the cases
here the internal affairs investigation
was already going at the same time as
the claim so LCPD acknowledged that this
may be a problem and launched an
internal investigation into each of
these one is the response to the mental
Health call excuse me Mental Health
crisis call that Steve spoke about
earlier that involved the excessive use
of force and the other involved
allegations of workplace harassment both
of those cases have since been settled
by the
city back to
Steve
so in terms of our function here
obviously the auditing the close review
of each individual case is is uh
hopefully useful and provides additional
transparency additional insight into the
kinds of things that that um have
emerged as concerns and the the ways
that the department is responding
another part of our role is to is to uh
make recommendations to the department
Andor the city based on the individual
cases that we look at so one of the
things again to go back to that idea of
best practices in terms of how to
conduct an investigation or or uh just
different approaches to some of the
things that that we end up seeing
because of the individual cases that
that get onto our uh our assembly line
we have made a number of recommendations
over the years to to the department and
we are pleased to say that that the
department has been very very responsive
in terms of considering them uh talking
to us about them making sure that we all
understand what we mean and and I would
say in the vast majority of cases making
a commitment to implement the
recommendations in in whole or part and
we feel like that is leading to some
systemic improvements and I think in in
an encouraging way uh and in a way that
just sort of makes sense the the lower
hanging fruit is is gone the stuff that
we were identifying when we first got
here is like wow we're not used to
seeing it this way and have you
considered other approaches the
department has made a number of
adjustments since we first got here in
21 and now uh as the slide says it's
really more in the area of refinements
as opposed to Major uh attempts to
address what we consider as as perhaps
deficiencies in the process or or real
weak Parts in the process so we are
continuing to make recommendations we're
still having that dialogue with the
department and but hopefully again the
the um
the relationship over time has led to a
better product within internal affairs
and strengthen the quality of the cases
before they even get to us uh as we're
also pleased to say that that Internal
Affairs which had a major backlog a year
and a half or so ago there was a real
commitment under Chief story to
addressing that backlog addressing those
cases cleaning up the the things that
were outstanding and from a timing
perspective I would say the department
is very much caught up since January 1st
of this year we've had very few we
talked to Lieutenant Alva this morning
and there are a few cases that are about
to come our way but the department has
has basically caught up and and is now
we're probably going to be on a much
more
um level kind of predictable pattern in
terms of the volume of cases in each
term and that whole idea of timeliness
is important for a number of reasons one
because there they're just in terms of
the the potential need to remediate
conduct but just from an efficiency
perspective and the effectiveness of the
invest vation if you're talking to
people Witnesses you know 3 weeks after
the event instead of 9 months after the
event you're going to probably get
better information and more reliable
uh evidence that you can use to to draw
your
conclusions and I would say I I hope
that the the um overall impression that
we're giving is that our sense is that
these investigations are thorough and
fair and that the department is taking
this process seriously and doing a good
job so from our perspective obviously
the the fact that there were 17 or 20 a
total of 20 cases and so many sustained
allegations of misconduct you'd like to
say boy wouldn't it be great if the
department were perfect and nobody was
violating policy I think that in any
agency that's kind of an unrealistic
expectation and our experience has been
the public doesn't necessarily expect
police officers to all be perfect and to
and to get it right and sometimes
they're going to make mistakes not
necessarily out of malice but because of
a lack of training or what have you uh I
think the important thing is when
something does go wrong or when an
allegation is brought to the
Department's attention what is the the
quality and commitment that the
department has to accountability and uh
fixing things that that need to be fixed
and I think we can say with some
confidence that the department has shown
us uh certainly an inclination to do
that and we're always going to offer a
different perspective and kind of chime
in and we don't always 100% agree with
with every Nuance of of the things that
we're we're looking at but we very much
appreciate the the responsiveness of the
department every time we have a question
or concern we want more information
they're great about getting us the
access that that is a key part of our
process and we have a very positive
relationship with the with the chief
where we can talk candidly about uh
different things that are on our mind
and and just kind of stay apprised of
what's going on with the department and
what some of his concerns
are and again in terms of our our
recommendations a lot of them are are
pretty much inside baseball refinements
of things that that are not necessarily
wouldn't necessarily be significantly
noticeable to the to the public but I
think would operationally contribute to
efficiency and investigative
Effectiveness um we talked about
importance of framing allegations the
right way making sure that everything
that a complainant raises is
appropriately dressed and and
specifically responded to in the
investigation
and ironically we kind of get the
Department coming and going because one
of our recommendations had to do with
with overly complex uh framing too many
policy sections that were really talking
about the same allegation same issue of
conduct and so we just encourag them to
kind of streamline things and and take a
more common sense approach uh to make
sure everything is covered but not
necessarily in an overly complicated or
duplicative way and again we mentioned
the importance of timeliness and and W
with regard to the interviews of
witnesses or involved officers we felt
like there there was a little bit of
room for improvement
there I'm going to turn it back over to
Teresa to bring it across the Finish
Line we're almost done I promise hang in
there to me the the the procedural
function is very important that the
department get it right and is committed
to that accountability and I think to
piggy back on what Steve was saying we
are seeing a system that the public and
that your Council can have confidence in
right
so the the other component that we take
a look at is beyond just these
allegations beyond the specific nature
of potential misconduct what are some
more holistic types of of functions
changes um and policy recommendations
that are being raised as an as a
function of these kind of oneoff
incidents where misconduct may be
occurring um and so we always try to
highlight those as well as the nuances
the inside baseball as Steve said of the
procedure
itself um in this period we saw
that again supervisors especially line
supervisors your Sergeants Patrol
functions mainly are a critical
component of an
organization and we saw that in two
cases and it went um in two different
directions in one we saw a supervisor
take very proactive intervention in the
investigation of a domestic violence
case that supervisor continued to kick
back a case to an officer with explicit
instructions on how to do the
investigation properly and when that
officer was not responding in the way
that the supervisor felt was appropriate
escalated that up the chain of command
to Internal Affairs that's the type of
supervisor intervention that the
department is committed
to unfortunately sometimes the
supervisors might not get it right um
and so we saw a particular case in which
a supervisor came onto the scene um with
what appeared to be some intention to
manage and direct um and then supervisor
um himself became involved in the nature
of the incident rather than taking that
step back and supervising and directing
officers became involved um in that
particular case we noted in our memo
that the department missed an
opportunity to evaluate that
supervisor's performance so really the
framing of the allegations that we were
talking about focused on the officer
conduct um and missed that opportunity
to hold a supervisor accountable
what we've discussed frequently with the
department and we actually had a
conversation just this morning with
Chief story and his command is the idea
that there is a lot of training at the
front end for officers who are new
there's the academy there's the fto
program there's a lot of handholding and
helping out and
mentorship that is not always true when
someone promotes to become a sergeant
and so the department is looking to um
develop that supervisor position with
more training and more um mentorship um
and that's a trend that we're seeing
across departments that we work in is
that this was a it's sort of a missed
promotion space where you're just
expected to go in and transition from
how you have been performing as an
officer for years sometimes and suddenly
now you're in charge of people who maybe
just yesterday were your
peers and it's a tricky space for
supervisors to navigate um and so we're
looking at the the department I think is
looking at the opportunity to have a fto
field training officer type program for
their supervisors to have that
one-on-one training and mentorship with
a supervisor that's going to help you
raise your skill level and the way that
you're responding to scenes and that's
something that again we're seeing across
law enforcement a missed window of
promotion where the EXP expectation is
not quite meeting the
the resources available to those
supervisors the other area that we've
been harping on since the start of our
engagement is domestic disturbance and
civil standby calls really were
concerned at the start of our work that
we were seeing officers who were not
quite clear on how to respond to this
category of cases it's a high volume of
calls for service within the city of Las
crus
and we wanted to um make sure that
officers had the tools and the resources
that they needed to respond
appropriately to these calls we have
seen the department develop officers um
by providing a lot of training and
resources and guidance um including
directed training and
department-wide U annual training
training bulletins and reminders and so
on um as tends to happen we're a little
bit behind the curve so some of the
cases that we saw in this period um did
not reflect that new way of um
responding to these types of calls for
service one of them dates back to 2022
before the department took any kind of
Market intervention um and so what we're
hopeful is that the trend towards better
responses will continue and that this
was just a factor of the cases being
behind the curve um rather than of
officers not getting it
finally and and the one that's really um
interesting to me are updates to the
taser policy as Steve mentioned we saw
four cases in this particular period
where the department found some
challenge with the use of that taser
device essentially it was understanding
if the subject was meeting the level of
resistance the threshold for use of that
device so in order to use certain tools
the subject with which you're having
that encounter needs to meet certain
thresholds and certain levels to make
that Force reasonable and Justified and
there was some concern in these four
taser deployments that the individual
was not quite meeting that threshold to
its credit the department found those at
the supervisor level so the moment the
supervisor reviewed those cases as they
do as part of a regular use of force
review practice they said maybe not
quite right let's escalate this we've
talked to you all before about their use
of force review Cadre it's a team of
special experts that take a really deep
dive into incidents to understand if the
use of force was reasonable and
necessary and in three of the four cases
no excuse me in all four cases the Cadre
found that the use of the taser device
was not reasonable given the level of
threat presented to them in seeing that
the department decided we need to do
something about this yeah um
and so they had a very concerted effort
to revamp the taser policy both to make
it more clear for officers what those
threat levels were Define them very
explicitly within policy which then
translates to training and also an
important component was to provide some
steps as to how taser deployment should
occur um and most most important um in
our view was providing a warning a
verbal warning that the taser device may
be used um in specific incidents a
warning of force is already in the
Department's use of force policy so it's
not that they didn't do that um but
there is case law that specifically
requires that the taser device be
verbally warned um and the department um
updated its taser policy to reflect that
the a sign of its interest in
collaboration is that we worked we were
given the opportunity to work with the
Department to review their draft policy
we provided some thoughts
recommendations language modifications
and for the most part the department was
very welcoming of those and Incorporated
them um it's a space that I have great
pride in working with departments in um
because when you're inh house you might
not see all of the different components
and having that third party outside
perspective can be helpful um and so
very grateful that we had the
opportunity to collaborate on the taser
policy and finally we had our first
community outreach session um after our
last council meeting that was back in
August of 24 it was in our view very
well attended um Steve and I often hold
these Community listening sessions or
town hall type sessions and we get you
know maybe one or two or three
interested people trickle in um but this
had you know hearing council chambers um
you know all almost all of the seats
filled and and we were very gratified by
your community's willingness to engage
with us um I see some of the some
familiar faces here that attended the
session um there was you know both sides
um articulated some folks who were very
pleased with Department performance
others who were concerned about certain
incidents that had occurred others who
were concerned concerned about our scope
of work are we really seeing all the
investigations that we should why can't
we give you more information about
specifics and disciplinary consequences
and so on others who wanted to voice
concern over um the way that um certain
incidents were um outwardly uh
publicized so for example was there was
the body warn camera footage
appropriately released was there a press
conference about it
were you hiding information um and I
think the overall message is that that
has improved since time has gone by um
and certainly under Chief story's tenure
a a willingness to engage to present
information as far as the department is
able to um and to really collaborate
with community on sharing as much as
they're able to um we look very forward
to tonight and so
request that members of the community
who would want to engage with us who
have more to share who have questions
about our work join us this evening uh
we are hosting our second session at the
mson senior center it is from 6:00 to 8:
p.m. so that is today it's Monday 6:00
to 8:00 p.m. at the Munson Senior Center
Steve and I will be there it's really an
open Forum um there's no uh you know you
know need to to hold back or to be
concerned um and we're there to listen
and hopefully have some collaborative
engagement that will inform our work
going
forward and as always if there is anyone
who has questions comments concerns
needs to reach us wants to file a
complaint but doesn't know how is
concerned about filing a complaint with
the department and needs a third party
to take that please reach out to us we
are info@ group.com
and if anyone wants to see our past work
or work in other jurisdictions all our
reports are available on our website and
with that we'll take questions thank you
for your time thank you both for joining
us once more um is there any uh
questions from the
council oh no well they're going to
leave them all to me because I do have
some
questions um again thank you and thank
you for ending on the note about the
community meeting and how that went I
think there's members of our community
who very deeply about the question of
police oversight and accountability so
I'm glad that you were able to see that
and that they showed up uh for these
opportunities I just have some qu
honestly some big overarching questions
I'm curious about I always do appreciate
when you write in your memos when
there's been disagreements with your
findings and the findings of AI or the
police department in general but I'm
wondering what happens after that you
disagree and then what m
yeah thank you mayor proam for that
question so essentially the the process
of discipline lives in the hands of the
chief of police right and so when we
have a disagreement um as to a finding
on a case that's closed more often than
not and that is not just here in Los
Cruses it's across all of our work um
there is no going back to change that
finding
right however what we're looking for is
to raise the concern as a possibility
for future
action sometimes our disagreement might
result in a holistic measure so it can't
influence the individual case and the
individual officer's outcome but it may
result in a holistic change policy
change training bulletin um you know
some other remedial action on the larger
scope and that's really the intention
other times it's simply to raise to both
you and to members of the public that
maybe it didn't quite go the way that we
thought it should go and we want to make
folks aware that there is space for that
disagreement if the evidence did not
support um the findings and the way that
we saw
it I I think Teresa answered that
question very well the only thing I
would add is that that in it's often
times ends up being in the agreed to
disagree category it's not hey we think
this is a fundamental breach of Ethics
or or Integrity or anything else it's
often times a more nuanced uh Insight
that we might have or an approach and as
as Teresa said it's not our role to
substitute our judgment for that of the
department but just to flag the issues
hopefully in a constructive way on a
going forward basis and the dialogue
with the Department is always
constructive thank you I appreciate that
very much um
and chief this question is for you I'm
curious about their the note they made
about um officer to supervisor the
potential for training if you could
speak more to that opportunity and how
you're um thinking about
it mayor protim Jeremy story police
chief that program has existed since
I've been here for our first line
supervisors our sergeants however it's
definitely improved and and will
continue to improve and there's there's
room for that Improvement just to give
some context when I promoted a sergeant
in January of 201 14 I started my first
day on patrol as a sergeant by myself as
a sergeant and so there was already a
field training program for supervisors
that at that time but obviously I had
received any of it and I was already by
myself as a sergeant making decisions
not optimal that's changed a lot over
time that doesn't happen anymore and so
the training program started the the
formal training program started probably
2 years ago or so so that we make sure
that our sergeants have all the kind of
different pieces their blocks that they
should have internal affairs training um
critical incident Management training
leadership training and they have that
hopefully before they ever become a
sergeant or shortly after because it
comes in different blocks they also go
to a first line supervision class that's
been a 40-hour class that people go to
forever but that's certainly not
sufficient and then the field training
program we just tweaked that and
modified it to make it better and I'm
very happy with the the work that went
into it and what it looks like now and
so that it hopefully is the next level
of what we been doing and that actually
started we we had two uh sergeants
promote on Sunday and they just started
that new program so we'll have a good
kind of measure or review of how it went
soon thank you Chief I appreciate that
and of course appreciate you raising
that and on actually my last question
really is around the CI uh civil
disturbance I think that that has been
an issue for a while including myself
and actually there was uh few months ago
at this point a local doctor
psychiatrist met with myself both our
chief of police and fire to discuss this
matter further and their sort of
question was why why can't our team
light out of the fire department be used
in those instances and of course I
learned a lot from that conversation in
terms of these calls actually being some
of the most dangerous calls and why the
fire department didn't believe that that
was necessarily a space for light but I
am wondering if you have sort of you
said that this is happening across the
country like what are the best practices
that you have can you just give us a
summary of the best practices that
you've provided the department on how to
better
address this specific issue thank you
mayor proam um the the first answer that
I'll give is that there's not an easy
answer to this one um we have reviewed
programs Nationwide and there are just
an endless number of models um the one
it really is City dependent right and so
some models that work very effectively
are to pair um officers and clinicians
um and sometimes the resources just
aren't there to have that happen um
others that we have found that might be
effective are similar to what's
happening in the city to have a non
sworn response um of clinicians that can
respond to some of these calls now you
run into the issue of potentially those
calls having some Public Safety or
danger components um making it not quite
safe for those teams to respond we found
that the hybrid model is effective um
and many cities are implementing that
effectively where there is an initial um
law enforcement response and once that
scene is secured then there's the
component that can come in um from the
social service or clinical side um but
certainly there is not an easy one-size
fits-all for this type of crisis
response um when we reviewed a case I
want to say it was maybe two cycles ago
and I can come back with more
information um on that for you um we
found that um the department was really
doing its due diligence in terms of
using its own internal resources to the
best capacity so like a crisis
negotiator type role um really focusing
on their deescalation training and how
they're going to interact with
individuals from that standpoint rather
than coming in hard-hitting with force
or escalating an incident that is
already fairly heated most of the time
um and so we did review a case where we
had some suggestions using the city's
resources um to come into those calls um
in addition to the law enforcement
response thank you for that Chief is
there anything you want to add on
this mayor protim just I would make the
distinction between um a crisis response
so somebody in a mental health crisis
and then domestic violence obviously
there's overlap at times the Mental
Health crisis might spur the domestic
disturbance or domestic violence issue
but there is a separation so and again
just to give the opportunity to give
kudos to fire project light has been a
massive success I thought it was going
to work I think it's worked even better
than I thought our Officers Trust it um
and I don't know how much room really
there is for expansion just logistically
but that's worked very well for the
crisis response side of things for
domestic violence I think it's a little
bit trickier um and we'll look for ways
I'm open to ideas but that is
harder thanks Chief and if there are
internal conversations I think think I
would just like to encourage that the
department continue to work with the
light team and the clinical licensed
clinical social workers we have there I
think they're tremendously um
knowledgeable thank you those are all my
questions any okay I'll go to the public
and we'll do thank you three minutes and
just remember that this is a work
session so the comments must uh pertain
to the um things on the agenda and we
cannot discuss pending litigation coming
up sure
mayor protemp City cers my name is Liz
Rodriguez Johnson based on my own
personal experience I believe that Las
Cruses Police Department is doing a good
job for the most part and most of what
is written in the oi report indicates
the LCPD is doing a very good job it is
a good thing to have LCPD internal
processes examined and it's even better
when the examination reveals that LCPD
is doing a very good job the report
indicates that the LCPD is receptive to
constructive criticism and making
changes ba based on recommendations from
the oir experts police experts and from
looking at their website the oir experts
seem to have impeccable credentials my
main concern is the scope of the
contract that oir was awarded last year
and the year before I believe several of
of us were very specific in our request
that the oir contract include
examinations of excessive use of force
especially when it led to the loss of
life there needs to be much much more
transparency when it comes to
investigating cases where excessive use
of force is executed because that's what
the public is most concerned about if I
remember correctly last year or the year
before we were told that two committees
within the city structure examines
excessive use of force but we were not
briefed on what they learned or what was
done to make sure it didn't happen and
looking at the issue historically I am
not convinced that enough is being done
in 2020 there was the Valenzuela case I
assume these committees did their thing
to ensure it wouldn't happen again
unfortunately in 23 there was the
Presley East case so I assume the
Committees did their thing again to
ensure that it wouldn't happen again
unfortunately again in 23 we had Thea
case I'm really really worried because
people are dying and no one is telling
us what is being done to prevent it as a
very very concerned citizen I'm asking
again what are elected officials doing
to prevent this I do have a bone to
picked with the oi report on page two it
says that the town hall was well
attended in my opinion it was not I
believe I'm being generous when I say
there was maybe 15 people here and there
was more than sufficient number of City
staff but none that could answer the
question why the oir contract did not
include cases that dealt with excessive
use of force that led to the loss of
life for that reason I found the town
hall to be inadequate my conclusion from
the characterization that was just made
was if the town hall was sugarcoated
then what else was
sugarcoated but to reiterate my main
concern is if you don't address the
issue of excessive use of force that
leads to the loss of life you are not
addressing the issue of the biggest
concern to your community thank
you thank you other folks come on
up and you're a pro but just reminder
state your name
please um I'm Dr R Nissen and I live in
Las
cus uh I have some questions I'd like to
direct to
Teresa since we've gotten to know each
other over past few years
um then during the
seven uh
audits uh you never dealt with a police
shooting incident have
you Dr Nissan just ask all your
questions and then we'll have her come
up what no we because there's only one
microphone Dr niss can you just make
your make your comments ask your
questions and then we'll have her come
up um because I would think
that as the recent trial we had of an
officer there was very uh specific
things about the policing that took
place by the paid people who came for
each side during the
trial and I was thinking that much of
what uh was said at the trial should
be of interest to Chief story
because uh those
extensive uh
analyses were just the thing we would
need uh possibly from
oir oir
uh does these types of
analyses and I have read many of them uh
when we were doing a research on um
doing a police review board last year
and I I would not want to impede
anything that Chief
story uh is doing because I agree that
that what a change in the police
department but when we come to the the
serious police shooting
cases I would think that any analysis
that he could get
from uh someone like
oir would help
tremendously in U making any changes in
procedures or um uh hiring practices or
whatever so I was wondering
if the city
council would be
interested
in uh
extending our contract with
O and that would have to be done uh to
put in the
contract uh clause about doing analysis
of uh police
shootings and it would cost a little bit
more um for for that service thank you
Dr niss did you want to restate your
question yeah yes my question Teresa
would be
that we have never had I first of all I
want to know if we've ever had
an
oir analysis of any of the police
shootings thank you Dr
niss okay come on up
Teresa hi
J we can share the
microphone I'm Teresa magula and yes to
answer um the question we have done one
review of an officer involved shooting
in the city of Las cruus that was a
shooting that involved a SWAT call out
um and was associated with some um
different components in that report we
discussed um the need for potentially
for the Department to potentially review
some of those crisis negotiation style
um responses um and so we so our report
did include that type of
analysis
um the good news is that in order for us
to review cases um they have to be
administrative Internal Affairs
investigations of a certain threshold
and um thanks to the changes that Chief
story has made since his um tenure as
chief he is directing each of the
officer involved shootings to have an
administrative investigation that is the
type that we can review so the good news
is that it does not require a contract
Amendment at this point for us to take a
look at those the very unsatisfactory
response is that we cannot look at these
cases until they have been closed and so
a number of the cases that are providing
um you know more concern and challenge
to community as well as to the
department um are currently pending
litigation as because of that they have
not entered into our scope um as far as
the the timing of them but they will be
cases that we will review in the same
holistic way that you have seen us
review cases in other
jurisdictions what I can report to you
is that in our next audit cycle we will
have two of these cases um to present to
your Council and so two cases will be
coming in the next audit cycle so stay
tuned for a review of two of the more
recent officer involved shootings and
again we will be continuing to review
those as litigation and all matters
related to that case are closed
thank you Teresa Chief did you want to
speak on this thank you mayor proam
Teresa already covered most of it but
just to make it clear even before I was
here every officer involved shooting
generated an internal investigation or
what we call an II um there's two
there's two issues with that one there
was a backlog in Internal Affairs which
now has been completely cleared out for
all cases so we're caught up which is
best case for everybody including the
officer so it's it's assigned it's
investigated in a timely fashion the
second thing that delays it though is
that if there is litigation that doesn't
go to oir until it's completely resolved
which takes time but the reality is in
the current scope of the contract every
officer involved shooting eventually
will go to oir and now we're starting to
see it catch up basically from the time
their contract
started thank you thank you Dr niss and
remember if you want a little bit more
back and forth to go to the evening
community
meeting okay any other folks would like
to come up
thank
you mayor protim Bobby green um City
Council Members city manager thank you
for um providing this report for the
community I am grateful for the
transparency I do have a couple of
questions my first question is with
regard to the off officer task force
that investigates um
shootings there seems to be a disconnect
between what happened the results of the
officer task force
investigation and in a very high-profile
case that just um completed um the
results of the outcome of the jury
verdict there were completely opposite
so my question is um is there something
that can be done to make sure that the
officer task force which he mentioned uh
the police are investigating themselves
can we um bring in some external um
basically maybe non-officers somebody
that might have a little less um of a um
implicit bias towards the police so that
we can avoid some of this uh costly
long-term protracted litigation that's
my first question second question is it
seems to me that there should be some
there more than likely I can't say
positively but more than likely there's
some red flags there are some warnings
uh about some of these cases that end up
in fat fatalities and so can we are we
looking at early warnings are we looking
at red flags and if not could we start
doing that because that could save
somebody's life thank you Dr Green just
in terms of the first question I'll
answer it by saying that the case you're
referring to is not fully closed so we
will not be further discussing that
however however I think the answer that
they both just gave was that once some
of those cases are fully closed that
they will be going through the irr
process I think that's what I just heard
and it is relevant to your first
question the second question though
Teresa or chief would you like
to um answer that mayor proam the as far
as early intervention or warning signs
we have an early intervention system
which which is just one of many systems
to identify potential trends that could
be caused for concern and so that that
goes through a process there's a policy
for that that's on our uh transparency
page and available through mun code as
well if you want to look at the whole
early intervention system policy that by
itself will never catch everything
that's just one of the the layers the
reality is police officers are human
beings and they're going to make
mistakes sometimes those mistakes are
small sometimes they're more
consequential and there's consequences
and accountability for those mistakes I
would argue that there's more
accountability in police than any other
profession if you I know you can't see
this so I I understand that you have to
take my word for it and that's that's
hard to do when you're on the outside
but if you see the things that officers
get disciplined for and the amount of
discipline and the amount of reprimands
they receive for all kinds of stuff you
know it's it's at that point where if I
if I discipline them anymore I'm not
sure I'm going to have any police
officers because we're constantly trying
to address things and we try to address
them at the lowest level possible so
they don't become bigger issues but they
can't write a report
write a a subpar report without being
disciplined they can't if they submit it
late they're going to be disciplined if
their recording wasn't all the way
through the call the way it should be
they could be disciplined if they didn't
dock their camera the same day they
could be disciplined so there's there's
hundreds of policies and every one of
those policies results in discipline for
some people um if that makes sense
there's sustainment for all these
policies so it is a difficult balance
between accountability and making sure
that we we don't discipline to the point
we don't have anybody left
um I would argue and it's hard to really
demonstrate this but any way I can I
would that there is a lot of discipline
and accountability already occurring no
matter how much I do bad things will
still happen unfortunately that's the
world we live in we try to minimize and
mitigate and we should continue to look
for ways to minimize and mitigate
because there's always more we can do
but it is like I said a difficult
balance I appreciate your response Chief
and I do understand that this is a
difficult situation and we are dealing
with human beings but we're also dealing
with human lives and some of those lives
are have been lost which I think could
if we make a few adjustments maybe could
be avoided and that's what I'm looking
to do is see what we can do to work
together so that we can avoid further
incidents of of loss of life which um
could you know eliminate a lot of
excessive um resources that we're
spending time that we're taking
resources that we have to deal with when
um when something like this happens so
my other my other uh question is I
understand that it's an after theact
situation where you deal with um with
the um outcome but the problem is that
it's that's more reactive than proactive
so my question is how can we be more
proactive so we can we don't have to get
to where we have to react because we've
done it UPF front that's my question
thank you so much thank you Dr Green and
thank you for always um coming to these
conversations
come on
up my name is Lucy Silva and I'm a
relatively new uh resident of Las Cruses
so this is new to me and I'm wondering
about the contract between the city and
the oir group is
it they said that this is their seventh
audit and I'm just kind of wondering how
much longer it
might uh include in the in the current
contractor if this is something that has
to be renewed every so often thank you
Eon do you want to talk about
that thanks mayor I'll have um Viola
come up to answer that thank
you uh mayor protm counselors Viola P
City auditor the oir group was initially
awarded a one-year contract uh with four
renewable one-year contracts subsequent
to that they are currently starting
their fifth year we will we've already
reached out to finance and we will be
renewing the contract for the police
auditor we will go out for an RFP and re
revisit the entire process again but the
oir group is by contract required to
report twice a year to council they have
one more year remaining and then we'll
again go through that process again
where they would be able able to um
submit as well as anyone else interested
in fulfilling that RFP for the city
thank you viol and thank you for your
question any other members of the
public okay that looks like it's it
remember that there is a community
meeting with our oir group tonight at 6
pm at the mson center and thanks again
for coming today um if there's nothing
else I I'll entertain a motion to
adjourn move to adjourn second
this is on the motion to adjourn the
work session councelor McClure yes
councelor matis is absent councelor
Graham yes councelor cran yes councelor
FLOTUS is absent mayor proem yes and
mayor is
absent
e e
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