Public Safety Committee Meeting 5/13/2025

The committee will come to order.

It's 934 AM May 13th, 2025. I'm Robert Kettle, chair of the public safety committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll.

Council member Hollingsworth.

Got it.

Council member Moore.

Present.

Council President Nelson.

Present.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

Chair Kettle.

Here.

Chair, there are five members present.

Okay.

I got tricked this morning.

Three are remote.

The two are here.

Thank you.

If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.

Hearing from above, seeing no objection, the agenda is adopted.

This morning for a chair's comment, I wanted to start on a regular basis.

The Metro Chamber of Commerce here in Seattle does surveys of Seattle.

And it's interesting to see, particularly the trends.

The trends are very important.

And it's called the index.

The one I'm looking at now, Index 8, is from the spring of 25, so it's just come out.

And it's done by EMC Research along with Fulcrum Strategic and, as I mentioned, Seattle Metro Chamber.

I just wanted to go through a few slides.

I think they're important.

We're approaching the year and a half point for this term of the council and for this committee and for my chairmanship of this committee.

And looking at the slides, starting with number nine, it's called the optimism trend.

And in the fall of 23, there was a 30% gap between right direction and wrong track.

And the wrong track was up 30 points, considered the right direction.

Now, today, the right direction has closed that gap and has gone up by one point, similar to the number of officers net gained that we had last year.

So that's interesting, and it's positive.

In slide 11, they talk about top concerns about Seattle.

Formerly number one was crime, drugs, and public safety.

That's now number two.

It's dropped nine points.

So now it's number two after homelessness, which as you know from previous public safety, public health, and homelessness are so very important.

But it's important to see that the public safety, crime, drugs piece has come down nine points and is now number two.

On slide, I believe the next slide, I don't see a number.

Top three concerns trend.

When it comes to public safety, in the fall of 23, it was at 48%.

We've had a 17 point drop in that concern piece.

And the other concerns, by the way, are homelessness and affordability.

But public safety has dropped 17 points from 48 to 31%.

very important still to note.

And then priorities for city leadership.

52% say it's extremely important with respect to public safety.

This is the high in terms of extremely important.

And there's also the very important piece too.

So it comes in third, but weighted in terms of extremely important and very important, you can argue top.

And number one, was taking care of business.

It was for the city government to take care of business.

And I think that is its own takeaway, because that's, I believe, a mantra of this council.

It's definitely one for me.

And it's about, again, taking care of business in respect to this committee.

It's about taking care of business with respect to public safety.

The last slide I just wanted to highlight was related to visiting downtown.

Again, compared to the fall of 23, to now, daytime in terms of visiting, feeling safe visiting daytime, downtown, daytime is up 16 points.

And even nighttime is up 13 points.

I will note, though, it's important to note that nighttime is 40 points below daytime.

And what that shows is that there's still a lot of work to be done.

And the key thing here is, and I really appreciate this study.

I think it's really helpful.

But to that last point, there's still a lot of work to be done.

And part of this is expectation management.

I think sometimes we want to declare victory, and I think that's not the right thing to do.

That 40 point split between daytime and nighttime shows that there's more work to be done.

And I believe, and it's important to note that the entire term of this council is going to be needed to overcome the public safety challenges we face.

I want to note too, because this comes up data, particularly property crime can be difficult in absolute numbers, but informative in relative terms.

And again, with this study, I look at the relative terms I think are very important.

I will note on data, violent crime data is more reliable and needs to be leveraged, particularly looking at that data to address the issues such as gun violence.

I still believe it's incredibly important to work the strategic framework plan and its pillars.

I believe it's crucial.

And we need to adjust the various aspects of the permissive environment.

There's a lot of pieces to this.

You know, we've been working in it.

We just did the after-hours establishments bills.

We've done, you know, vacant buildings in Bateman.

We've done these different pieces where we're working it, the soda bill, the soap bill.

And these are having an impact.

People don't talk about it, but they're having impact like soda on the ground.

It's having an impact in Belltown, for example.

It's not really reported, but it's true.

But really important at the end of the day, the pillar one of the plan is SBD staffing.

So we need to continue our work on that.

I know previously we've had some very good reporting.

But we can't take it for granted.

We need to continue to work.

We need to continue to press.

And this goes back to the point regarding the survey.

There's still more work to be done.

And that's the bottom line is there's still more work to be done because we need to ensure that the reality on the ground is better, but also the perception of reality.

And I think that's another important piece that we have to understand.

And we need to work on that, because ultimately, that's going to drive a lot of pieces of creating a true, safer environment, because that will help activate downtown.

It'll help activate our parks and the like.

And that's when we'll solidify the gains that we've been doing over the past year and a half.

So that's my chair comment.

I hope Ms. Smith doesn't mind me using her briefing in about four or five of her slides.

But now we'll move to our hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda or within the purview of the committee.

Clerk, how many speakers are signed up for today?

Currently we have one in-person speaker and there are four remote speakers signed up.

Okay, great.

Each speaker will have two minutes and we'll start with our end speaker, Mr. Gale.

and then shift to remote.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they registered.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time for allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open, and we begin with the first speaker on the list.

The first in speaker is Howard Gale.

Should we wait for the timer?

Yeah, go ahead.

Good morning, Howard Gale.

Last Thursday, the sixth anniversary of Ryan Smith's murder by the SPD.

In six days, it will be the fifth anniversary of Terry Caver's murder by the SPD, murdered just six days before George Floyd.

June 18th will mark the eighth anniversary of Charlena Lyle's murder by the SPD.

Just like Urban CE, murdered by the SPD in March, all these people were experiencing a severe mental health crisis while holding a knife, and all, except for CA, were African American.

All these people would be alive if they lived in the United Kingdom or Japan.

None of these people or their families received any form of accountability or justice.

All were, or in the case of CA will be, deemed, quote, lawful and proper, unquote, killings by all parts of our police accountability system, including the two offices here today.

On June 27th, 2017, nine days after Charlene O'Liles was murdered, the then city council members said, quote, we are already shamed.

What I am pledging for you is to work on finding a new way of doing things so that we actually get different results.

We will demand accountability, transparency, community oversight, and not allow this to happen again.

We can't wait any longer for these systems to be changed.

How did de-escalation training fail Charlena?

Making sure we get our Inspector General here today in place to help figure how we're going to shake the trees and make these issues stop happening.

And yet it did keep happening again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

So I'm trying to figure out, do you not believe me?

If so, Read my articles in the South Seattle Emerald that document and detail all these murders, I have listed here.

Or read about the five of six King County jurors, inquest jurors, just in January, that found five out of six, five out of six jurors found the SBD guilty in policy or procedures for the killing of Isaiah Folatego.

So my question is, do you not care?

Is your moral compass guided by a belief that others don't care?

Or do you simply believe that these people deserved or had to die?

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Gale.

The first remote speaker is BJ Last.

Please press star six when you hear the prompt, you have been unmuted.

Good morning.

My name is BJ Last.

I'm calling about Star Chase, AKA Pursuit Mitigation Trackers.

This is a brand new technology.

This is not a material update.

It should be going through the full surveillance impact report process.

It should not be getting rushed through as a material update.

Looking at the actual what's listed as a material update really bears this out.

The material update has this, the new GPS mitigate or pursuit mitigation trackers listed separately from what this originally covered of the covert trackers in every single question.

There is absolutely no overlap between the two.

This demonstrates that this is, in fact, an absolute new technology that should be going through the full surveillance impact review process, not the much faster material impact process.

An example of this is if you look back at the material impact for automated license plate readers, ALPRs, last year, that showed what an actual material update does.

That was changing what storage looked like for ALPRs.

It was not changing the underlying technology.

It was not adding a new technology.

This is why all of the updates on that were not discussing two separate technologies, one of which was brand new.

So the pursuit mitigation trackers really need to be split out into an actual separate SIR so they can go through the full process and give the public a chance to actually go and comment.

Because going and having done this as a material update has really done a lot to lock the public out of this process.

IT was only taking comments on this.

The public comment period was less than two weeks.

The public had less than two weeks to find out that SPD was looking to acquire this new technology, which they've never had before, learn about what this technology actually is, how it would be used, and then actually be able to get down and comment.

That is really not enough time.

That is putting a massive burden on the public to go and try to find that out.

That is absolutely not good governance, and that is not transparency.

If the council cares about those items, good governance and transparency, it needs to move Star Chase to a separate surveillance impact report instead of this material process one.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker we have is David Haynes.

Spare us the propaganda counsel.

It's offensive that the police chief and you all would use the media to falsely assure community that crime is down enough that it's safe.

When in fact the data cited has been manipulated by the police department claiming that 911 calls for service are down in certain crime hotspot place based areas after the cops went to park their vehicles in the specific area.

Is it possible for somebody who's being chased by the cops to just stop their car when the cops back up and just grab the star chaser and stick it on another person's car?

Also, I'm wondering what technological advancement are the police using when there's tens of evil predatory drug pushers downtown supplying open drug markets on their bicycle and scooter, and then they just roll off.

Like, are the cops using the drones to find out where they go back to their stash house?

Or are the cops just using the drones at law-abiding events?

Because there seems to be a lack of deployable cops during crime hotspot week.

Yet if there's a law-abiding event, all of a sudden there's a multitude of fully staffed deployable cops making overtime, getting rich.

And yet we get propaganda outreach from the new police chief, always falsely assuring the law-abiding community that we're safe.

while he disperses the criminals and seems to think that it's his obligation in his life to run interference for black drug pushers and criminals who are somewhat lost in their ways and don't know any better.

And he feels like he's the history teacher who failed his students, who became a police chief, so that he could run interference for evil criminals of a certain skin color.

And now he's bringing his racist friends from the South to spew more of that politics.

that exacerbates public safety, that lies to us about the mobility of fighting crime.

And this council is pulling punches and not making the loss, but falsely assuring the community justifying revolt.

Thank you, David.

And our last remote speaker is Cynthia Speise.

Hi, I'm Cynthia Spies.

My comments are regarding agenda item two.

I'd like to highlight two things regarding information item 2678, the SPD tracking devices.

Firstly, only the technologies that were recently approved by council were processed through the public safety committee, and that was only because the proviso, which required that for the geographic pilot.

While the names of the council committees have changed over the years, all the other prior surveillance technologies have always been processed through whichever committee was covering technology.

This presentation to the Public Safety Committee implies that the Surveillance Impact Report, or SIR, might be heard here.

So I wanted to highlight that doing so would be removing oversight such that the committee that oversees the surveillance ordinance is not the committee reviewing each SIR.

Secondly, the changes described in Information Item 2678 do not be happening via material update.

Instead, this warrants a new standalone SIR.

The new pursuit trackers are from a completely different vendor and are not interoperable with the existing undercover covert location trackers.

The pursuit trackers will require both a new contract and a new annual expense.

The pursuit trackers are also managed by a different internal team.

They don't have a formal check-in, check-out paperwork process, have a different and lower legal threshold for when they are used, and will be expected to have vastly different duration of deployment and success criteria.

The city's own track changes document shows that they replaced all of their answers to every question in the SIR, which that alone means that this is not just an update.

And SPD replaced their answers in the racial equity toolkit and the financial information section, such that they are only regarding the pursuit trackers and the covert trackers are no longer even included in the SIR.

In multiple places, SPD does not clearly distinguish between covert or pursuit trackers.

Given the final SIR is legally binding, there should not be any ambiguities.

This is more than sufficient evidence that the pursuit trackers should be split off, not poorly glued onto the covert trackers SIR.

Please maintain historical consistency and review all surveillance technologies through the technology committee and separate the pursuit trackers into a standalone new SIR.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's it.

about to say that last public comment is probably the most in-depth and on point i was trying to remember captain brit i hope you listen to all those uh points that was made thank you excellent um i just wanted to well first i'll say the public comment has expired we will now proceed to our items of business members of the public are encouraged to either submit written public comment on the sign-up cards available on the podium or email the council at council at Seattle.gov.

I just wanted to note Vice Chair Saka, Council Member Hollingsworth have joined us from being remote.

And as always, I always welcome non-committee members.

So today we have Council Member Rivera joining us.

Clerk, we will now move on to our first item of business.

Will you please read item one into the record?

Council Bill 120977, an ordinance relating to the oversight of police revising the process for investigating complaints, naming the chief of police, adding new sections 3.29.515 and 3.29.590 to the Seattle Municipal Code and amending sections 3.29510, 3.29510.

two zero five point two nine five three zero five point two nine five six zero i should have three point two nine five seven zero of the seattle municipal code thank you clerk inspector general judge director glenn ms bull from central staff uh welcome and uh the gentleman who i've not met before um can we first have everybody introduce themselves for the record and then we'll start with ms bull as like a intro from central staff and then i'll turn it over to the three of you as you wish to proceed.

Thank you.

Good morning, committee members.

Karina Bull with Council Central Staff.

Good morning, Lisa Judge, Inspector General for Public Safety.

And good morning, Matias Gaudet.

I'm the Investigation Supervisor for OIG.

And good morning.

My name is Bonnie Glenn, Interim Director for the Office of Police Accountability.

All right.

Thank you.

Welcome again, Ms. Bull.

Good morning.

Excuse me, I've got a frog this morning.

Today's presentation is going to provide information on Council Bill 120977. This is council-generated legislation that is sponsored by committee chair Councilmember Kettle.

And it will involve some background on the accountability ordinance and chief of police investigations at a very high level, also include the policy goals and summary of the council bill, and also include next steps.

To begin on the background, in 2017, the accountability ordinance established the city's three-pronged police oversight system, and there was a very comprehensive update from the accountability partners at the last committee meeting at the end of April.

As it relates to complaints involving misconduct of SPD employees, the Office of Police Accountability is an independent civilian-led office within SPD that investigates such complaints.

The Office of Inspector General for Public Safety is an independent office separate from the executive that reviews and audits SPD and OPA, including reviewing the intake investigation and findings of those complaints.

And then the Community Police Commission reviews closed OPA investigations.

While the accountability ordinance included a process for investigating misconduct complaints, Naming SPD employees, it did not contemplate or include a process for such complaints naming the chief of police and ensuring that such complaints would be handled in a fair and transparent manner, free of conflicts of interest.

I guess the pinpoint of this situation is that the chief of police is the final arbiter of discipline for employees named in such complaints and makes the final finding determinations on the investigations for those complaints.

Therefore, in 2022, the city established through ordinance a specific process for OPA's handling of complaints naming the chief of police that included a consulting and oversight role for OIG.

Since that ordinance went into effect in mid-July of 2022, the OPA has received over 70 complaints.

And in the years of implementation, the OPA and OIG have signaled that several aspects of the investigation process are limiting their ability to process those complaints in a timely efficient manner.

For example, The process requires a comprehensive intake for all complaints.

And an intake is a very time intensive, thorough process.

It involves a full examination of those complaints.

And for context, in 2024, the OPA received 29 complaints naming the chief of police.

and 27 of those, all but two, were closed without an investigation through a classification that's termed a contact log.

And the contact log is a term that is defined in the ordinance specifying the investigations process.

It's in the OPA manual as well.

and it is used for situations when the complaint doesn't merit further investigation.

For example, that would be a complaint does not involve a potential policy violation, there is insufficient information to proceed, it's already been reviewed and adjudicated, or it presents fact patterns that are clearly impossible or incredible, and there are no other indications of misconduct.

The current process also has several instances of inconsistent technical requirements.

For example, the investigative standard in the process is timely, thorough, and neutral as compared to the accountability ordinance where it's timely, thorough, and objective.

And there are several instances where the OIG is supposed to provide information in a prompt or immediate manner to city entities and the complainant.

There also is not a process for what happens when OIG is managing an investigation.

that could be performed by Seattle Department of Human Resources when there's an allegation of a discrimination complaint or a different sort of outside third-party entity or a non-Seattle law enforcement agency if there's a complaint that could result in a criminal charge.

For those situations, the process doesn't lay out what's supposed to happen.

Should those complaints go to OPA or should OIG handle them?

And then last, separate from the issues that the accountability partners have raised, there are also limited reporting requirements.

The OIG is supposed to include information on the number of complaints closed by a contact log in their annual report, but that is the extent of annual reporting.

So the policy goals of this legislation are to streamline and clarify the intake and investigation process, provide staffing flexibility, support procedural efficiency, and also increase transparency on the number and status of complaints.

The draft legislation, or it's not draft anymore, now it's actually been introduced, seeks to achieve these goals in six notable ways.

The first is to allow the OPA, only with OIG's agreement, to close qualifying complaints as a contact log after an initial screening, which would not require the full intake, full examination process.

Next, it would allow OPA to assign non-supervisory civilian staff to intakes.

I think I skipped that earlier, but currently the process only allows supervising investigators to perform those intakes.

And so that is two staff that are allowed to do that when there are actually four civilian investigators who could also perform that work and potentially other qualified staff as well.

The legislation would also allow OIG to handle new investigations, I'm sorry, new complaints that arise in an investigation that they are managing rather than sending them back to OPA.

And it would clarify that the investigations must be timely, thorough, and objective and establish a consistent requirement that some notifications need to be provided promptly to city entities and the complainant that would clear up some of the technical requirements that were inconsistent.

And then last, it would require that OIG include information on complaints and quarterly reports to the mayor, the council president, and the chair of the public safety committee, and also in the annual report.

That specific information which is related to the number and status of complaints is listed in the legislation as a preview here would include the number of complaints received or initiated, the number of complaints closed as a contact log, with completed intakes that remain open that have been completed as investigations.

And then last, the number and percentage of intakes and investigations that met the investigative standard or that OIG was not able to determine met the investigative standard.

That is a summary of the bill.

And then for the next steps, it is scheduled for committee discussion at the next committee meeting.

And if it is passed out of committee at that time, I believe June 3rd would be the date for the earliest council action.

Thank you, Ms. Bull, thank you very much.

I also want to take the opportunity to note that we have the Community Police Commission also here in attendance in chambers.

Ms. Darling, who's the policy director of the CPC, welcome to you as well.

I've had a discussion with Ms. Amay, our brand new executive director of the commission.

So I just want to say welcome.

Okay, Ms. Judge.

Good morning, Madam President, Mr. Chair, council members.

Appreciate the opportunity to come before you.

Essentially when this ordinance was passed in 2022, we were giving it our best shot at trying to anticipate how these cases might flow through the system in the most efficient, transparent way possible.

But now with two and a half years under our belt of of handling chief of police cases, it became apparent that there were a couple of gaps that, and it really was about efficiency for us.

And I think Ms. Bull described the two circumstances really that OIG and OPA were concerned about.

That is having a process recognized in the ordinance for resolving contact log issues.

That's been something that we recognized I think fairly early on and then just sort of worked out between our offices how we would handle that, but we would prefer that it be recognized in the legislation, that process.

The other is, and I want to be I wanna be clear that OIG's role in all of these investigations is management of investigations.

So OIG, to the extent we're involved in this, does not conduct the actual investigation.

If it is handled by a third party investigator, OIG manages that investigation and is the arbiter of decision making and has a reporting requirement under this ordinance.

So when we're managing a case, If other issues may arise out of that where we recognize there are potential new violations, there is no mechanism currently in the existing ordinance that allows a streamlined process for just initiating those new investigations and instead requires that it go back through an OPA intake process and have OPA involvement.

So if we're talking about efficiency, timeliness, those kinds of issues, it just adds an extra step in the process that is unnecessary.

I think the important part there is that we are communicating and notifying OPA of those things.

And so those are kind of the two big issues.

And I'll turn it over to Director Glenn if you want to add anything about that.

Oh, and staffing, that's, yeah.

Again, good morning, obviously, Chair of the Council as well as Public Safety Chair and Council.

I'm really glad that we're here today with respect to this ordinance.

And just like, I guess I would chime in with regards to Lisa Judge with regards to after going and working with the ordinance itself or OPA for the last two and a half years, there have been some gaps that we have seen And also one thing that we saw early on, especially I have to say myself, that unfortunately when this original ordinance came about, it was position driven as to who would conduct the investigations.

And so the position was the civilian investigator supervisors, which were only two.

Two at the time, toward the end of the year, when the ordinance came out in 2022, shortly thereafter, probably within a couple months, we only had one person for the next year, again, trying to fill the position accordingly.

So given the fact that it was for a position only, it did not allow anybody with the requisite skills, including even myself, when I came in as a deputy, as a former judge, a former attorney, somebody who's been familiar with police work as a former prosecutor, not to be able to do those, even to help with the backlog and catch up.

What our office did is the best that we could, given that, just to give you an idea, our two civilian investigator supervisors at different times, we would take them off a very busy schedule, which is for classifying all the complaints for investigations on Mondays and Fridays and off.

And we just did different types of things.

We even brought in our assistant director to carry some work for them and people as well to try to do this, given the numbers that were coming in.

And, you know, what was nice is working with OIG, understanding that we were trying to do that and coming alongside and supporting this ordinance, very, very important.

So one of it was position, which is the staffing, very key.

This would allow, as you can see, somebody with the requisite skills and abilities to be able to do that, and a civilian, so a civilian investigator with the requisite skills and ability, but a civilian in general, so that it would allow people to help with that, if should there be an increase or an uptick.

Also, with regards to contact logs, again, the analyst said very aptly about the intake process, can be very involved at times and so forth, even when you have something that could be a contact log.

The contact log, it talks about, just as an example, it could be contact logs for something that's clearly impossible or incredible, right?

Some of those things wouldn't take as long, but again, you have to be able to go through the whole intake process.

This would allow us to contact log something like that.

or oftentimes there's other reasons to contact log.

As it's points out already, it's maybe already reviewed and adjudicated.

The fact patterns are accordingly, I talked about clear, impossible or incredible.

Also, it doesn't involve the policy violation.

Once you actually get into what the actual complaint is, oftentimes again, contacting people too, right?

That takes time too for people to respond and so forth after multiple attempts.

As indicated in the presentation by staff and also by Lisa Judge, the main items helped do a number of things.

And, of course, it was to streamline the process with regards to the contact log.

clarify the intake process, staffing flexibility, which I talked about, also to support procedural efficiency in the sense when something arises out of an investigation with OIG and there's a nexus, and then also the transparency with the quarterly reports, I think all very, very important.

So very, very supportive and happy to answer any questions.

Okay, well, thank you.

Is there any additional comments?

Nothing, no.

Matias is here as my phone a friend in case I need data.

For $1 million.

Well, Council President, I always give my vice chair the first opportunity.

All right, we'll go start with Council President.

I had to ask.

I understand.

Can you please explain what is contact log?

You started using it as a verb there, but it was first used as a noun.

What does it imply?

Yeah, a contact log is a category, an intake category.

So if someone makes a complaint against a member of SPD, in this case the chief of police, it's evaluated in an intake investigation to decide if it's something that has, that merits investigation, or if it's something that is either not a policy violation, is impossible for various reasons and so it can be summarily dealt with if it's not something that would rise to the level of an issue that would necessitate investigation.

So a contact log is just the category of an allegation that doesn't merit investigation.

Does that help?

Okay.

Any additional?

Council Member Rivera.

Thank you, just as a follow up.

I'm leaving my vice chair for last today.

Usually he's first, today he's gonna be last.

Well, just as a follow up to the contact log, is it just the initial review of the complaint for merits and should it move on?

And if not, then it gets.

Yes, it gets contact logged.

Yes, so it gets recorded.

There is a record of the complaint.

There's a record of any investigation that was done to vet that complaint.

So it's a vetting.

And if there's anything there that requires further investigation, be that an expedited investigation or a full investigation, then it moves on in the process.

But it's simply things that are not, even if they were completely true, a violation of policy or things that are impossible, generally.

But it's for everything.

I mean, everything first gets the contact log.

No, contact log is, it's a bucket, if you can think about it as a bucket.

So a complaint comes in, if there is nothing that is possible to investigate or possible to investigate, it goes into the contact log bucket.

It's a way to track everything that's coming in, even the things that are not going to move forward as an investigation.

Correct, yeah.

Got it, perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Rivera.

I know we have two JDs at the table, but we also have two here on the dais, and I'll go to the second one, also Judge.

Council Member Moore.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Yeah, I have some questions, not surprisingly.

So one of the questions I have is you talk about if the chief of police is named in the complaint, OPH will notify OIG as soon as practical.

I'm just wondering why that language is there rather than sort of, I recognize it's a 30-day window, but Seems like that would be something that would require prompt or sort of immediate notification that at least there's a complaint has been received.

Yeah, I think that what we're trying to do is just acknowledge that there are practical and realities around when complaints come in, how they're vetted, that kind of necessitate a little bit of flexibility in determining when it is the right time to move forward with the notification.

potentially issues that that could impact the intake investigation so I think the two offices try to give each other a bit of flexibility in making that decision and I will say in two and a half years there has not been an issue with either office not communicating in a way that was appropriate or a prompt that created an issue with the other.

We have very close communication about these issues and so I don't have concerns that OPA is holding issues and not bringing OIG in and I would hope that my counterpart also has the same sensibility that we are we have a very good communication loop with regard to these complaints.

And I think the flexibility there is just because of the realities of investigations.

And if I could add, I would add to the fact also, we meet like twice a month with regards to chief of police cases, which is really good.

And so it has not been an issue whatsoever, but very good question, but we definitely do timeliness with respect to that and the flexibility that may be needed, but we meet also twice monthly on these cases.

And so I'm assuming then that that explains the change from immediately to promptly for notification.

Yeah, immediately is, It's oddly very specific, yet very nebulous.

And so I don't really know what immediately means.

Does that mean I have to pick up the phone the instant I may have some inkling?

Or is it the same day?

Is it the same week?

So it's not a very defined And also there are things that potentially can need to happen before you really know that there's a there there and there's something to report.

And so when the clock starts on immediately is also not entirely knowable or practical all the time.

So we just felt like having some flexibility to acknowledge the realities of that was helpful.

If I may ask just a few more questions.

I don't see anywhere in here, and perhaps it already exists, that there would be notification to say Council President or Chair of Public Safety Committee when a complaint has come in but has been resolved through a contact log.

Closure?

Yes, that reporting is done, I believe it's required in the annual report for OIG, and I believe that this, Karina, you may be better at, this is a change where there may be some quarterly reporting.

Correct.

So right now the current standard is that there is not notice of when any particular complaint has been closed as a contact log, but there is the number of complaints closed in that manner in the annual report.

And now there will be quarterly reports to the mayor, council president, and public safety chair of the number of complaints closed as a contact log, but not any specific complaints.

So there's no provision then to even notify those parties that there was a contact that there was a complaint and contact law resolution against the chief.

I would be happy to meet with you at some point, and perhaps this is maybe better handled by Director Glenn, to just give you a sense of what a contact log looks like.

I don't think there is a lot of value in making notifications about those particular cases.

There are situations where we've determined that there is no merit to the complaint.

Yeah, and Council Member Moore, I'd be happy to talk with you in further detail if you like.

In addition, just as far as how that works, if we recommend a contact log, we do talk to OIG.

So it's not like we can just do that on our own.

That is with an agreement with OIG after both reviewing.

Okay, yeah, I'm happy.

Thank you for that offer.

I don't know.

We are dealing with the Chief of Police.

I recognize there are many you know, meritless claims are made, but I think just dumping it into a bucket is not necessarily helpful since we're pursuing a separate process for the chief of police.

And I just think it helps us be informed about how many complaints are coming in, kind of the nature, because that also helps us assess to some extent what's happening in the community, what is the view of the police, chief of police, right?

There's other value to that.

And then my last point, and then I'll be done.

Thank you so much for your indulgence, Chair, which is that one challenge in reviewing this legislation as it refers to the Municipal Code Section 329, which I note is not codified on the Seattle Municipal Code website.

So you can't find it anywhere.

The only place to find it is in the 2017 accountability ordinance or the 2022 bill that originally established the process for investigating complaints, naming the chief of police.

So we have heard from constituents about this issue and I think there was a decision made not to incorporate the accountability ordinance into the code as numerous elements needed to be bargained.

But since then, a number of those have been.

So I think it would be appropriate for the online code to be updated to include those elements that now exist, particularly if we're going to be moving away from the consent decree.

We need to have information that's easily available.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Council Member Moore.

And by the way, when I was mentioning how many JDs are up on the dais, I was actually looking at my screen and I saw two, when in fact we have three because, well, A, we have our guests, but our vice chair is also part of the JD club here in the council.

Vice chair, over to you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and appreciate the comments from my colleagues.

This conversation just wanna potentially pull all this together in hopefully a succinct manner.

Appreciate your help with that and explain to the general public.

So a lot of important detail-oriented details matter.

A lot of important detail-oriented conversations so far on things like contact logs, duties to promptly notify versus immediately notify and as a former technology lawyer where I negotiated many countless multi-million dollar licensing arrangements.

There's actually a fair amount of case law that governs what constitutes prompt notification versus immediate, et cetera.

But query whether those distinctions matter in this context, it sounds like there's not a lot to go on.

But in any event, and then circling back to the policy.

So first off, I'll also say I've read the proposed legislation.

the helpful central staff memo from Ms. Paul, the paid attention.

Listen attentively to this presentation today and a lot going on, but I'll just say at a very high level, this strikes me as a very common sense needed reform or tweak.

to help us better, more effectively carry out our accountability mission.

It's also one that's, no offense, but fairly boring and dry and dull and unsexy.

But I love the boring and unsexy, which is good news.

On the policy goal slide, Slide four, it notes that one of the goals is to streamline and clarify the intakes flexibility, support procedural efficiency, and increase transparency.

I'm hoping the folks here at the table today can...

There's a lot going on.

A lot of very hyper-specific technical details underlying this really important strategic effort to, again, at a higher level, help us more effectively carry out our accountability mission as a city.

Amidst all those policy goals, there's also an unstated goal that should prevail and govern regardless of, in my view, of how we operate, and that is we need to preserve and, if anything, expand our ability to more efficiently pursue, investigate those meritorious complaints.

irrespective of who it's against.

Obviously the subject here of this proposed ordinance is the Chief of Police.

But can you help just explain succinctly, better than I just did, for the general public, how this proposed bill would allow us still to, as a city, to effectively investigate and pursue those meritorious claims.

of impropriety and misconduct.

Thank you.

Are you asking about the changes themselves and how that will increase the efficiency of these investigations?

How all the changes taken together at a high level, you're talking to the general public here, how the changes at a high level will help ensure Remember that unstated, implicit goal that I think we need to carry forward as well is to make sure that those meritorious claims are investigated and pursued to the full extent of our collective ability.

How does this still allow us to do that?

Yeah, this recognizes the realities of staffing for OPA, so it allows them to vet complaints using existing staff and using civilian staff, but not having a higher level of supervisory responsibility there because they only have two allocated positions.

So it does clog up the system.

It adds time if we have to kind of waste a lot of time with each other on trying to resolve contact log issues versus having a streamlined process if they have to put other work on hold or create time lag so that the person that's specified in the current ordinance can do the intake rather than having a qualified civilian who's overseen by another civilian supervisor.

So it's an efficiency of resources and a recognition of the current civilian staffing that is authorized at OPA.

It also helps us to manage efficiently additional allegations and cases that may come up in case work that's being managed by OIG.

So it streamlines the time process and takes into better account staffing and resources.

Thank you.

And I'll just add on to that, that it allows us even more time to take, obviously with that streamlining about the cases and investigations that need to be looked into and the time devoted to those and so forth.

So it helps with that from the streamlining for those investigations to make sure that they are thorough, that they've done thorough objective and timely as we work through those as much as possible to make sure that they're investigated at their fullest.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Council President.

So, I am a little confused because one question is that when we were talking about contact log, I had the impression that those were complaints that did not merit an investigation or could not be investigated.

And then, but on the central staff memo, it indicates that OPA must conduct a comprehensive intake for every complaint regardless of the content or allegations.

That's one thing I'm confused about.

And then the other thing is I'm hearing a lot of words like efficiency and streamline.

And that's making me a little bit nervous because we really do want to do deep dive, especially when it has to do with the chief, right?

And so I guess a better way of asking this question is what is the most broken problem Bottlenecks, is that it?

Correct.

Because why do those words keep coming up?

Yes, I think bottlenecks is a good characterization for the main problem, I would say with, and I don't know that it's a problem, but it's, you know, like I said, when this ordinance was passed, we were trying to guess how this would run most efficiently.

Now, having done it for a couple of years and experiencing the realities of it, it's time to tweak it a bit.

One of those is the bottleneck with requiring civilian supervisors to conduct that thorough intake.

And you're right, every complaint that comes in gets a thorough intake evaluation or intake investigation.

And when that happens, that's when the decision is made, okay, is there a there there?

goes to investigation.

If not, then it goes into the contact log bucket.

So there is an intake evaluation where that first decision is made about investigate or no merit.

So hopefully does that- And that's performed by whom?

I'm sorry.

Well, currently right now the ordinance requires a civilian supervisor at OPA to conduct that.

They only have two and they have a pretty heavy workload.

So what this would do is allow other civilians who are otherwise qualified to do that intake investigation.

So it would then increase their ability to have four people doing these intakes rather than two.

So it would clear up that bottleneck a bit just in the initial evaluation.

of the complaint.

So hopefully that's helpful.

Okay.

So there are four civilians and two are supervisors.

So the other two could do that.

Yeah.

So, you know, theoretically you could have four civilians doing intakes.

If you had some sort of large influx of complaints against the chief, you could almost double the staffing that would be capable and authorized to do those intake investigations.

So basically the problem is that there aren't enough people doing the initial intake and then this would solve all of our problems.

There's no issue with...

the questions that the intaker is using to vet the complaint or any kind of...

No, I think we have got an evaluation process and criteria pretty well worked out, but it would remove the impediment of having only a certain stratus of OPA civilian able or authorized to do those intake investigations.

Yeah.

That's correct.

The position, it was oriented position, oriented when the ordinance first came out to that one position.

And so this would expand that, but also with the requisite skill and ability.

So absolutely, at least we have four who could actually do that at this time.

Okay.

If I may, just to clarify, because you referenced the memo in the presentation, the current process requires the comprehensive intake for all complaints.

And then the amendment in this legislation would allow the OPA, only with OIG's agreement and consultation, to close certain complaints as a contact log after an initial screening.

So there would be an initial screening, what is the substance of this complaint, evaluating it, But it could be closed as a contact log without a full intake.

And so the intention of that, to my understanding, is to free up more staff capacity.

Just one last thing.

I'm assuming that this process was vetted by the Public Safety Civil Service Commission.

Do they have to put eyes on this?

No?

I don't think so.

There isn't a civil service component to this.

Because they're supervisors.

Okay.

They came to mind because there was a concern that the legislation to improve the hiring processes and the exam process and everything could have led to a lowering of standards in the officers.

And so that's why they were brought to mind.

I completely understand the need for removing bottlenecks and barriers when we're talking about investigating the chief and, well, anybody actually in SPD, but especially in supervisory positions.

I wanna make sure that in the interest of expediency and allowing for four people instead of two people to do that initial vetting that we're not, that everybody that's doing that vetting is very well qualified and that we're not lowering We're not compromising our judgment.

I completely share that sentiment, and there is no compromising of the experience and quality of analysis there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President and Councilmember Rivera.

Thank you, Chair, for allowing me to ask another question.

Just follow up because what I hear central staff saying is creating confusion.

So I just want to be really clear because it almost sounds like there is a quality piece here that it's getting compromised.

That's what I'm hearing you say, Ms. Bull.

And I just want to make sure that all these things are true that I'm going to say is that currently Well, when this law was passed in 22, you didn't know how many complaints would come in, right?

Okay, so now that you know how many have come in, you've identified a need to have more people review.

And in the interim between 22 and now, when you're making this recommendation, all complaints that have come in against the police chief have been thoroughly reviewed.

There is, you have been able to, OPA, OIG, review all those cases, make determinations whether they go contact log or an investigation gets pursued.

All of that is happened diligently.

And you have realized with the number of cases that it would be very helpful.

to have additional support as you're reviewing these.

So at no point has anything been compromised, nor will it be compromised by adding two civilians that are non-supervisors.

Correct.

We're not making, and we will not change anything about the vetting process.

It simply expands the personnel who can do that.

And all of the investigators, the civilian investigators at OPA are, perfectly well qualified to do this.

We all meet about these things.

We talk through complaints that come in, intakes.

We approve all of the designations as contact logs.

There's a lot of conversation, vetting, and evaluation that goes in and we're not in any way contemplating a change to the underlying process just in removing the, you know, the staffing drag on having us wait for one of two people to be able to do an intake, because that does add time.

Understood.

And right now, does the part that invest up to the complaints involving the police chief get priority over some other investigate or other complaints, not investigation, sorry.

Since you have a

We had people who are designated specifically for them, right?

And so those would be the ones who would be taking the priority with respect to those.

But then we have investigators who do other types of work.

So it would actually have those investigators to be prioritized for chief of police cases.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

Any other questions?

I don't see any.

Thank you.

As chair, I just wanted to note, well, first, in terms of a bigger context, obviously, you know, we came in this term last year working the mission division, our plan, working the various pieces on the public safety front, all the challenges we face, which kind of goes to my opening comments.

For me as chair in year two, I've kind of had three priorities.

One is basically fixing or revising, updating ordinances.

The second is functional criminal justice system, and this comes out in a number of different ways.

And I was also very interested in community safety and how it fits into the broader public safety effort, particularly the alternative responses like the next layer, care, the elements of SFD and SPD that do that kind of piece.

And this one really, you know, kind of goes to two pieces.

One is, you know, the ordinance piece, fixing, updating, revising.

You know, with less lethal weapons, that was a major, with vice chair and I, that was a major, working with the executive and others, that was a major redo for a lot of different reasons.

This one, is more like, as mentioned earlier by my colleagues, is about tweaking, making more efficient.

And I think that's very important too.

And I will say for the previous term of this council, yeah, I don't think anybody would have expected as many chief of police investigations as there were.

You have the initials, and then you have nexus investigations.

You have all these different pieces.

the volume is such that nobody liked it.

And then with personnel challenges, particularly now we're in a hiring freeze, if you only have two, then one's gone and you only have one, it cascades.

And as I like to say, second and third order effects.

And that just impacts OPA overall.

which then impacts our accountability system, impacts people's faith in it because the timelines have been pushed out.

So it was important for me as chair of this committee to work with our accountability partners and to look to improve.

So as it comes to bottlenecks, you know, bring a little Six Sigma to accountability systems.

So that's good.

And I do appreciate the talk of timelines.

briefly say, okay, the investigation's complete, you know, we have these quarterly reports, the notification, the timeline of that process, basically that last mile, like how, when does the public find out?

Just so, I think that's important for people to understand that because, hey, it's going through this process, we've been talking about it, it takes time, as you noted with OIG, you have a, it's contracted out, you have the oversight responsibilities and the like, okay, it's done, now what?

Just so people understand that part of the process.

Sure.

Once an investigation is completed, if it's completed by OPA, it is vetted by OIG.

So we do our standard evaluation of the investigation to make sure that it's thorough, it's objective, and fair.

Once we've done that, OPA is then charged with transmitting that to the mayor's office, the mayor being the appointing authority for the chief of police and the ultimate arbiter of any complaints against the chief and decision that may flow from that.

If the investigation has been handled by SDHR, that investigation comes to OIG, we do that same evaluation.

and then OIG transmits the investigation to the mayor's office.

If it's a third party investigation managed by OIG, we transmit after we make sure all of those things are in place.

Mayor's office has 30 days to evaluate those complaints and issue a response and findings.

So once that happens, and I can't speak to all of the various other legal processes that may play out with Chiefs of police are employees, they have rights, they have due process and property rights, so there may be other things that happen in that employment relationship with the city and the mayor's office that extend that timeline, but essentially under the ordinance there's a 30-day time frame for the mayor's office to issue findings.

Okay, thank you.

I think that's helpful for people to be reminded and

Mr. Chair, may I just add a fiscal note to this?

I just want to say that I think having these investigations handled by third-party investigators adds a level of objectivity and...

removes some of the concerns about maybe bias or things with city employees doing this, but it comes with a price tag.

And so I just want to put that out there that just for council's consideration, I know that we're in very tight budget times, but just a note that for consideration in the future for budget for these investigations.

Thank you.

I understand that.

Of course, the easy fix is not having behavior that genders basically investigations that need the full process.

All right, well, thank you very much.

I have to say, going back to the whole JD comments, Now we're down to two with the committee, since Council Member Rivera's left.

I am trying to get one through osmosis.

So I picked up on my vice chair says query weather, because that's how sometimes I get it at home.

Query weather, you know, this, that, or whatever.

So for the legal minds out there, query weather is, you know, a tell.

So thank you, Vice Chair, for highlighting that.

All right.

Well, thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Again, as noted by Ms. Bull, we'll be back in the next meeting.

And can I just say one last thing for my colleagues here in the committee and throughout the council is that you're invited to take the opportunity to get our accountability, all three accountability partners on your schedule, have them in your office or go to their office and, you know, kind of, get a sense of these things that we're talking about and have that opportunity.

So I welcome that.

I do that.

I have regular meetings with the three accountability partners, four if you count SBD, because that's the new fourth.

And so I just encourage everyone on the council, particularly the committee, to do that.

Okay, so thank you very much.

And now we move on to our second item of business.

Will the clerk please read item two into the record?

The Star Chase Technology Briefing.

OK, today we have Captain Britt.

For those who don't know, Captain Britt is, as I call him, Mr. Technology for SPD, Seattle Police Department.

So welcome, Captain Britt.

And please work with the clerk to get your presentation up and running, which it is.

And please introduce yourself for the record, and then you may begin.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Captain James Britt, or go by Jim, with the Seattle Police Department.

My current role is to oversee technology and innovation for the police department.

It gives me the opportunity to kind of see what's available, what's out there, what other agencies are doing, what works, what doesn't, and what we can try out.

And that's what brings us to the council committee meeting today.

If we can go to the next slide.

First slide is kind of how we got here.

The original surveillance impact report for tracking devices was passed back in 2023. That legislation, which we'll get into a little more depth, authorized the use of covert tracking devices with the authorization by warrant or consent of the involved party.

We've currently received a $250,000 grant from the State Department of Commerce that's meant to be used for pursuit mitigation capabilities.

And so our goal is to pursue technology that makes it so we don't have to pursue.

We're trying to get authorization to purchase the Star Chase technology, and because it is a technology that could fall under surveillance technology, it requires approval.

We worked with the Seattle IT Office of Privacy to determine how best to proceed, and it was determined that this qualifies as a material update to the existing GPS tracking SIR, and therefore didn't need a full process, and that's what's laid out in this slide.

If we can go to the next.

Real quick overview on the originating SIR.

The original SIR allowed for cellular tracking, geolocation tracking devices that we use as a tool to locate and track the movements of those involved in investigations.

They report lat and long as well as other device information such as temperature alerts, whether it's removed, whether it's powered on and powered off.

We use this technology as a means of gathering evidence as to support investigative efforts.

And it's only done with a warrant.

And if we go to the next slide, that's where it talks about the data collection.

It's only used with express consent of the warrant.

They report Latin long coordinates, and it's sent to the requesting detective or involved investigator as part of their investigative files.

It's documented by the technological and electronic support unit in our Intel unit and is audited by the Inspector General and any federal monitor at any time.

So this is just kind of an overview of the existing technology.

One thing that's worth noting, and we'll talk about this again in just a few moments, is none of this is changing.

We're not looking to change anything with what has already been approved.

If we can go to the next slide, it gets into the details of the material update.

We're seeking this because of the updates to the state law, RCW 10.116.060.2D, which requires agencies to develop a plan to end the pursuit through the use of available pursuit intervention options.

So this technology fulfills our obligations to meet that state requirement.

This tracker allows us to determine the precise location of the vehicle for which probable cause or reasonable suspicion of involvement in a crime has been established and accomplish it, manage to follow the vehicle without having to chase it in a dangerous pursuit and continue our investigative efforts without having to endanger the public in the process.

The $250,000 grant that we've been given will allow us to equip 25 SPD patrol vehicles with the launchers and a two-year subscription to the tracking software that will allow us to do so.

While 25 vehicles will be equipped, our goal will be to train all patrol officers so regardless of who is sitting in the car, they'll be able to operate the equipment so we don't have to worry about who takes what car.

It'll be monitored primarily by the Real-Time Crime Center, which comes online here very soon, primarily.

But then in hours when the RTCC is not available, officers would be able to track that.

Essentially, what this would allow an officer to do, pull in behind a vehicle for which they've established a reason to stop that car.

They can launch the tag onto the vehicle, turn on their lights.

If the vehicle pulls over, they simply remove the tag, and the company will replace it at no cost.

If the vehicle flees from them, they can track the vehicle, either using the RTCC or pulling over and monitoring it through their computer on the car, and then travel to its location when it's stopped, conduct whatever investigative efforts can be done from there, which could include determining if people fled from the vehicle, gathering evidence from the car, which could include fingerprints, and photographs and continuing investigative efforts that would have otherwise been denied to us by the inability to pursue this car, or if we were to pursue the vehicle, we'd be engaging in a dangerous activity.

Next slide, please.

To reiterate, nothing is changing about the originating technology.

Covert tracking devices will still be used in accordance with the originating SIR and the requirements of warrant or consent.

Next slide.

The fiscal impact, which I know is a hot topic these days.

We've received $250,000.

If we determine that this is useful technology to us, to continue past the two-year period would cost us $37,500 a year to continue at that deployment level.

There's lots of cost savings that could be realized with this, which could include reducing the number of dangerous pursuits and the liability that often comes with that.

Additionally, damage to patrol vehicles and other civilian vehicles that are involved, oftentimes pursuits can end up bending bumpers and fenders and doing far worse than that, in fact.

And so there are unrealized cost savings there that we may never know.

And then additional grants may be available to expand the use cases or the usability and the deployment in the future.

The last slide here is other agencies in the area that are using it.

Our neighbors at the King County Sheriff's Office have received the same grant and are intending to deploy it in the same fashion.

Linwood, Tacoma, Redmond, Everett, and Thurston County Sheriff's Office have all been playing around with this technology as well.

And the reason I say playing around is, as pointed out in the public comment, this is relatively new.

And the idea behind this pilot is to try something and see if it's something that we've received benefit from that can help us do our job better and safer and lead to better investigative results without endangering the public.

And as always, I'm open for any questions the chair or the committee may have.

Thank you, Captain Britt.

I appreciate the presentation, which spoke to a number of different issues to include some of those that came through public comment.

Vice Chair, any questions?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Captain Britt, for this presentation here.

You note that the proposed deployment of this new technology would still maintain the principles enshrined in prior SIR approvals, including the warrant requirement.

And this technology, as currently proposed, it sounds like it would qualify under an exception to the warrant requirement.

So can you talk a little bit about, I think I understand how this is intended to work, but can you just very succinctly lay it out?

So officer has probable cause, or I don't know if reasonable suspicion is appropriate to pull someone over, but anyways, an officer has valid reason to pull someone over and initiate a traffic stop of some sort.

Then they deploy this technology, launch it.

If the pulled over individual stays, they just retrieve it, go carry out their stop or whatever.

If they leave, and flee, would then the pursuit be over?

Pursuits are very dangerous, as we know, and I think this strikes me as a common sense thing to minimize the harm associated with pursuits and still allow us to carry out our valid law enforcement functions and public safety functions.

But just help walk me through this deployment.

Sure.

Well, you hit the nail on the head with your description as described in the testimony.

If the vehicle flees, we're able to track to where it goes.

I think one of the things you're asking is how is this different from the covert technology and why we can deploy this without a warrant versus the others.

The purpose of the covert tracking devices is to establish investigative leads, which could lead which could include locations of personnel over a period of time or even patterns of movement.

It's worthy of note, and I apologize for not including it in the slide, but I believe it's in the documentation that's provided, that the battery life on these trackers that we'd like to use with Star Chase, excuse me, is eight hours.

So this is not meant to provide persistent surveillance capabilities.

It's not meant to replace investigative covert surveillance that's used with the GPS tags that are authorized currently.

This is meant to help us locate a vehicle that flees from us and replace the need to pursue it.

It's also not meant to change our pursuit policy.

If we're in behind a violent person for which the current pursuit policy authorizes a pursuit, a pursuit may still be authorized.

But if we can deploy this tag and back off that pursuit, we can still try and engage in the investigative work that's done without having to engage in a further dangerous pursuit as required by the state law.

I'm not sure I answered your question.

I hope I did.

Yeah, no, that was helpful.

Can you help me understand the reputation of the vendor?

I don't care who the vendor is, but is this a startup, or is this someone who governments and agencies across the state and country rely on for other kind of technologies?

Or is it a new company, new service that's being offered?

They are relatively new.

They're also pretty much the only game in town right now that's doing this.

I wouldn't call them a startup.

A startup would imply that they only have a couple of customers and are still trying it out.

This is a widespread technology across the country at this time, to the point where locally we're actually late to the game getting on board with it.

How long has it been deployed?

When did it first hit the market?

I couldn't tell you that, sir, but I can certainly look it up.

Thank you.

Would be curious to better understand that.

And also offline.

Intentionally so.

I'm just curious to better understand the efficacy rate of this.

How often does it actually hit and stick to the intended target?

And that's one of the questions that we have as well.

There's concerns about wet weather, which it turns out we have around here.

There's concerns about cold weather.

One of the callers mentioned the ability for the person to simply get out and remove it from the vehicle.

And they're not wrong.

But if we can reduce our pursuits by 50%, or 40%.

And I don't know what those numbers are.

It really kind of depends city to city.

My guess is it works better in Phoenix than it does in Minneapolis just based on weather.

But if we can reduce even one pursuit that would have taken a life potentially, this is well worth the time to give it a try.

And that's why this is meant to be a two-year pilot.

And the beauty of funding it with grant funding is that we can do a two-year pilot without costing the city money.

Wet weather, inclement weather, any number of factors, dirty car.

I don't know.

There's any number of things that might impact it.

But yeah, if you could please follow off with my office about those two things, that would be great.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Council President.

Did Senate Bill 2113 have a due date by when you were supposed to test alternative technologies?

I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that, ma'am.

That was, you referenced legislation in Olympia that was passed in 2024. Your slide says March 4th, passed the Senate 2024. So I was just wondering if there is, if part of the, if there is a, if we're late, I mean, if we have, If we've gone past the limit of time that was established in the original legislation, I was just wondering if that is driving a little bit the schedule that's before us right now.

This wasn't the only...

pursuit mitigation technology that was evaluated.

We've also been working to redeploy stop sticks, and I'm not sure where we are in that process.

It doesn't fall under the technology umbrella, so that's not mine.

But that was another pursuit mitigation technology.

But as an agency just to our south so painfully demonstrated, stop sticks have an inherent danger to the deploying officer as well with tragic outcomes.

And so one of the tasks I was given was to determine what other options were available.

So this is not the only path we've gone down to comply with the Senate requirements.

Right.

And the requirement is to come up with a plan, not just pick one of a number of different technologies.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President.

Any other questions?

Council Member Moore, Hollingsworth?

Please, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Captain Britt.

I had a quick question.

The subscription for the $37,500, is that an annual or monthly?

That would be annual following the conclusion of this two-year pilot.

Understood.

Okay.

So just to clarify, no added cost to the city.

This is a grant, and that would cover the $250,000 would cover the two years.

If it were to continue, it would cost the city $37,500 a year.

Correct.

If we were to continue with the deployment of 25 launchers.

Got it.

If there was more, it would be more for subscription.

Understood.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Hollingsworth.

Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Final question.

What does success, so a two-year trial program, what does success look like to your department and which specific objective criteria do you anticipate you'll use to measure success in this context?

I hope to work with our performance analytics and research unit to determine what metrics would be appropriate for this.

Number of deployments, number of apprehensions, how many of those deployments lead to captures, or identification cases where we would have let a car go because we couldn't pursue it, but were able to pursue leads based upon the tracking of the vehicle and gathering of evidence.

I'd like to work with our performance analytics and research unit to come up with appropriate metrics to determine success.

In the end, what it's going to really come down to is, is the juice worth the squeeze?

Is the money spent, the $37,500 we would need to spend ongoing worth what we have to spend, which is in, you know, material potentially, or is that worth the gain that comes from the investigative leads that are either followed by that or the reduction in liability for not having to pursue?

And I will follow up with your office on that as well, sir.

Thank you.

No further questions.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Any other questions?

Okay.

Thank you, Captain Britt, for coming.

I really find it interesting.

Obviously, technology is part of the efforts that we're doing here on council in support of achieving our goals with our plan because it's an ability to get more with less.

It's ability to do things safer in this example.

So I find it very interesting.

Obviously, over the course of the year and a half keeping that theme up we've done the real-time crime center the CCTV the ALPR the automatic license plate reader but you know in a sense this kind of joins you know our other technology pieces like call you and the throw phones and so this will be a new piece do you do you have an example like is there one like a demo that you have

I have a video that I can share that I've attended a demo.

I do not have a specific device or anything I can bring.

I can certainly reach out to the vendor and see if they could share one with us if you'd like to have a physical tracker here for the next committee.

It would be interesting.

Actually, that would be nice if we can do.

But otherwise, maybe set up as part of a separate, like a meeting.

And actually, I would be interested in having a meeting in terms of tracking to include the covert pieces.

And so to see how this fits in with the broader umbrella, we can schedule that separately.

For the next meeting, I think it would be really helpful to understand to Vice Chair's questions in terms of, okay, this is not a startup, but this is widely deployed, the data in terms of where it's deployed, how long it's been deployed on one hand, and then separately, more specifically, the Washington State examples, understanding where King County is.

It sounds like they're not deployed yet based on your point made, but the other jurisdictions.

And how is it playing out here in Washington State?

Because, you know, clearly it's in keeping with state law in terms of by the letter, but also the intent, you know.

And this was, I remember when I was on the Queen Anne Community Council doing public safety, I met with representatives from the state, you know, covering, you know, the various reforms from a number of years ago, a number of sessions ago.

And pursuit was a big piece of that.

And so there's clearly a need to do better.

And this may be an ability to do that.

And for all the points you raised in terms of loss of lives or damage and all the rest.

And so it's definitely worth So it would be very helpful next time to have that context.

The great thing, as noted by Councilmember Hollingsworth, it's a pilot, or as you did too, pilot two years paid for by the state through the grant.

So this is an opportunity at no cost to really demo and see.

And it's in keeping with what we're trying to do here in our city, never mind the RCW and the state law, but what we're trying to accomplish here in Seattle as well.

I was going to close, but the council president seems to be indicating she wanted to have a quick follow up.

I just have a quick question because I'm looking at your presentation on slide seven.

How does it attach to the car that it is aimed at?

Is that sticky?

So it's both sticky and has magnets.

Okay.

And the company is constantly working to try and improve both.

Got it.

And when I decrease the amount of money that we might have to spend on any kind of damage to other vehicles too.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you very much for explaining that technological piece.

Thanks.

Yes, I find it very interesting.

I'm remembering back to my assignments at the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Defense Intelligence Agency, but that's another story for another day.

Any last questions?

I don't see any.

Okay.

Well, thank you again, Captain Britt.

We'll follow up on those points and take the questions in terms of the next meeting on this topic.

So we have reached the end of today's meeting agenda.

Hour and a half, colleagues for the Public Safety Committee.

Trying to improve.

Is there any business to come before the committee before we adjourn?

Hearing seeing none, No further business come before the committee.

We are adjourned.

It's 1102.