From Sky news this is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in 2013, when a Rochester group called for police to start wearing cameras on their bodies.

United Christian Leadership Ministry was joining the voices at the time of people in a number of cities across the country who wanted to see body worn cameras become routine for police.

City Council and Rochester police studied the issue, and by 2017 it was standard practice.

Rochester police have been wearing body worn cameras for almost a decade now.

Now, activists had pitched this as a way to occasionally catch police in the act if they used too much force or go outside their authority.

But United Christian Leadership Ministry saw it a different way.

Even at the beginning, yes.

They said if police misbehave, they wanted to see it.

They also said that body worn cameras would be a benefit to the officers, who would have video evidence that their actions were justified.

And UCLA points out that the vast majority of time, that's exactly what happens.

Now, UCLA and the Rochester Police Department have come together for a new collaboration.

It's a project that, as far as we can tell, might be the first of its kind in the country.

Earlier this month, they launched a new community dashboard aimed at providing transparency and more data to the public.

UCLA believes it can strengthen police community relations.

So how does it work?

We're here to talk about what they're doing.

We'll talk about the dashboard, and we're going to talk about what the last decade has looked like and let me welcome our guests.

To my left, the Reverend Dwight Fowler, who is president of United Christian Leadership Ministry.

Reverend, welcome back.

Thanks for being with us.

Thanks for having me.

And next to the Reverend is Captain Greg Belo, public information officer.

Easy for me to say of the Rochester Police Department.

Captain, welcome back to you.

Thanks so much for having me on.

Across the table, Alex White, a community activist and leader of the Body Worn Cameras Dashboard project.

Thank you for being back here.

You're welcome.

And Carlos Garcia, who is a volunteer with UCLA.

And of course, Carlos years of experience with our PD.

You look no different to me than when I was back as a young cub reporter in this town.

Nice to see you.

You're very kind.

Thank you.

I'm glad you're doing something right.

So this is, this is a good chance to kind of set exactly what this is all about.

And as the leader of the body worn cameras dashboard project, Alex, I'm going to give you the mic first because I want to understand what the mission here is.

And then we're going to talk about how it works.

Well, back in, 2017, the city, the police department and UCLA signed an MoU, memorandum of understanding creating, creating a, relationship that allowed us at UCLA, to monitor the body worn camera program.

And unfortunately, from the very beginning, the police department was unable to answer many of the questions, and they, they did not keep for various reasons.

And I don't want this to sound like I'm being critical, but they didn't keep and didn't have the capacity in some ways to keep information on whether the camera was activated or not.

Questions that we had, like, which officer, what is the average number of body camera footage per officer per shift?

They couldn't answer.

They couldn't answer questions about which officers are the best and which officers are the worst.

That activated their camera appropriately in mandatory recording situations.

They left all management of the program up to the sergeants and the sergeants weren't keeping records, nor were they having any guidance on a on a uniform way that they were supposed to proceed with this.

And one of the things that I in particular and UCLA agrees with is that if you don't have data, if you're not tracking something, you don't actually know what's happening and you can't you can't manage what you don't know.

And so we had been pushing for a way to do this for, you know, a number of years.

And then in 2023 they got new cameras and a new, new, footage management system.

And all of a sudden, the possibility of doing some of the things we've been asking for became possible.

And, so I think it started in 2024.

We started having meetings.

We started trying to figure out how we could go about creating a database of information.

And I want to say the original idea, and it's still basically my idea is that the purpose of this is to help more successfully manage the officers so that the captains, the sergeants and the chiefs can have a better understanding of what's going on and who's performing well and who is not performing well with turning on the cameras.

Okay.

Captain Ballard, do you think that that's a fair description of what was going on?

So we're always limited by software and what the management systems could do.

So we did upgrade management systems the last few years.

And so as part of that, it's a body worn cameras are eight years now.

Give or take.

Yeah.

And so it's always going to be an evolving process.

We've switched cameras a couple times now.

We've got a newer camera that we've been using.

And so like any other new technology, it's always going to grow.

And the way you're able to implement and utilize technology, it's going to continue to grow.

And that's what we're always looking to do.

And that's what this project has helped us do as well.

Okay.

And so, we're in a moment.

We're going to talk about how the public can benefit and what everyone I think hopes will come out of this.

But, Alex, you were making the point at the start here.

You didn't raise the points that you're making as a way of kind of painting a nefarious picture.

It was more just observing what you thought could get better.

Is that right?

Well, you know, if it's funny, it it was there.

Was it at the beginning, there was virtually no question I could think of that seemed relevant about the program that there current, current data management systems allowed them to answer.

And, you know, that struck me as a huge problem.

And the idea of, of spending all this money and all this manpower on a program that you can't successfully manage.

Always struck me as a huge problem.

And, you know, the, the the fact that the new systems that they have put in place have successfully allowed them to do things I've been asking for for years, I actually think is a very important step in this whole process.

Did you ever get the sense that RPD didn't want to be able to collect better data?

No.

Yeah, I think that's important.

In fact, all along, all along, the department was willing to do what they could.

I mean, I had meetings with, the professional standards section, over, use of force because there was one situation where someone sat down and looked at every use of force and looked at every body camera on it.

And so that was the one place in the department that I could actually get some of the questions I had answered.

And I want to say they were very upfront.

They sat me down with them.

We created things that I wanted.

We came up with information out of it, and they started tracking it.

I never was under the impression that the department didn't want this.

Okay.

That's fair.

Captain.

Yeah.

So we're always looking to fit, to be as transparent as we can and share as much information as we can.

The issue that pops up is not every or not every variable that you deal with in life, or, and and police work is trackable and so or is currently being tracked.

And so we always follow it.

We try to go along with a national standards of, of what we're tracking, what crimes are tracking, what different, you know, metrics that we're tracking.

And we come out with annual reports, whether it be through professional standards section, our internal affairs, whether it be through, the department as an overall, we're always coming up with those reports, but certainly not every single thing is trackable.

And certainly we work towards tracking as much as we can, to have that accountability to its community in the community driven, categories that we're looking for.

Carlos, you've been on kind of both sides of this.

How do you see this?

Well, it's interesting to me because, when we first started, we were looking for information basically, you know, is this happening?

Is what we intended to happen happening?

And it quickly became an issue, an organizational management issue.

The captain is absolutely right.

You know, the technology wasn't as sophisticated as it is now, at the time.

Secondly, we were pushing it down to the sergeants, first line supervisors who have a ton of stuff to do, to start with.

And then this was yet something else on their plate.

So from an organizational manager issue, we were looking at it from a very, you know, different point of view in terms of, giving that those first line supervisors entirely too much to do with little, technology to be able to do it with.

And then on top of that, the questions that we were asking that, that people like Alex and, and others in the community were asking couldn't be answered.

As a result of that, as a result, you know, we got together and we started talking about it.

And I have to give I joke about this constantly, but Alex has been like a dog with a bone.

And this issue, right from the beginning, and we have been working on this for eight years now.

Through several, at least two, mayors and, several chiefs.

And we have been able now to get to a point where not only are we collecting the right data, but also in terms of being able to this discern what is actually happening and be able to be as transparent as is.

The captain is saying, and it's not just the captain that the mayor has said to us, listen, we want to be as transparent as possible.

If there's something wrong, let's fix it, before it gets to to wild for us to to be able to, to to to deal with it.

And I, I, I give them all, kudos because at least they are being as transparent as they possibly can.

Well, and I just kind of want to press this point for I hear from the reverend on this, you having been, kind of different sides of this, you're aware of how occasionally relationships can break down if there's not trust.

Absolutely.

And so if it appears that there's somebody in the community like an Alex White, well known person and he's saying, look, I don't think you're trying to hide anything, but I think this system can be better.

That's one thing.

If if the department feels like there's someone out there trying to get a gotcha, it's it's going to be harder to work with.

How did you see the constructive or not constructive?

It sounds like you thought it was a very constructive relationship, even though it has potential to get a little fraught.

Absolutely.

When I was in the police department, in, in, in the captain's role, I used to get calls from Reverend Louis Steward, who was our mentor, so to speak.

Literally on a weekly basis.

Sometimes they were very cordial calls, and other times it was to yell at me for things that we didn't do, you know?

Yeah.

God rest his soul, a wonderful man.

I, I, I give him a lot of credit for not only organizing us, but also, encouraging us to do this type of work.

And he, you know, one of the things that he said, I said to him, at the time and I continue to say it to this day, the police department as well as the pastors, need each other now more than ever.

Okay.

And I think the captain will agree with me.

We are but one bad 911 call from being that goes wrong from being on the news and the national news tomorrow morning.

So it behooves us to create those type of relationships, to be able to talk to each other frankly, concisely and with clarity in terms of what we expect as a community and what can they do in terms to give us the service that we expect?

And quite honestly, I think that this particular administration, Chief Smith, has been very accommodating, very open.

He anytime that anything goes wrong and I think that to follow will we'll talk about this.

He gives us a call ahead of time to let us know.

Hey, this happened, and I want you to come and take a look at the, at the video.

Etc.. So there's nothing, nefarious going on.

Having said that, you know, like anything, any organization, we have to take a look at what they're doing and how they're doing it, to make sure that we're all on the up and up, and then we go on from there.

Let's ask Reverend Fowler.

How do you feel like RPD has been to work with on this issue?

I think that our PD has been very, very cordial.

Very, very, cooperative.

And, the interactions between our PD and, UCL, has been very, very sociable.

We, come together at diverse times and we address different issues.

Sometimes it's, the need to see a footage of a body worn camera, because of an incident that, has taken place, and we review it, and we come to a conclusion as to whether or not the, manner and, actions of police officers were appropriate, or they were not, most of the time they were appropriate.

And, we come to the meeting of the minds and ultimately, come to a conclusion that would, be, acceptable by both parties.

You know, Doctor Fowler, it was probably in 2018, 2019, 20, 20 that occasionally in the cultural zeitgeist, we heard we were people talking about defund the police.

And one of the biggest critics of that movement was Reverend Lewis Stewart.

He would call me and say, this is driving me crazy.

He said, I don't want to defund the police.

I want the police to do their job well, and I want to support that.

And I always thought that was interesting.

Do you think we're past that, that conversation, that argument?

I can't speak for the general public, but I think that, UCL, LLM is has never been, in concert with that, philosophy.

Our philosophy has philosophy.

Beg your pardon?

Has been to, redistribute the funds, reallocate the funds in such a way that the officers and RPD will be able to have other accommodations to help enhance the overall, job duties and responsibilities.

I'm happy to say that, as a result of that, the chief was at City council, when, I, myself and a couple of other people went before the council, putting in, requests for, the benchmark analytic, system.

It was financed, approved, and, that is, an early intervention system that they now have, that they're in the process of, developing so that, information can be readily available.

Needless to say that we initially started, with, cjb, you know, the community, Justice Advisory Board and, we've come from there to where we are now.

So, in a moment, we're going to talk about how the dashboard is going to work and what Alex and everyone here want you to know about it.

Before I do that, you look back at ten years, Captain Bello, roughly ten years of body worn cameras here.

What have you learned and what are some of the trends?

I mean, it's a conversation about how many complaints get filed.

It's about what you do with that.

What are some of the things that stand out to you?

Yeah.

So ultimately I would say providing that transparency and accountability both ways.

So our cameras so I've worked on professional standards sections of all our internal affairs.

I worked there for a few years.

And the the advent of body worn camera footage, you know, there's pros and cons, but in my personal opinion, the pros far outweigh the cons.

And that the pros are is it shows what we're out there doing that shows what our officers are doing.

It shows what we're doing.

And so when some of these complaints come in, like, for example, I just dealt with one, last week that came through the chief's office and there was cell phone video that that showed up in and out kind of angle and someone's yelling, stop hitting me.

Oh my gosh, you punched me in the face, etc.

and then you watch the body worn camera footage and that's not what's happening at all.

And the body worn camera footage, because you have multiple officers on scene, you can get a pretty much a 360 degree view of the scene that's happening.

And that would have been a complaint that would have gone quite a bit through our system.

And right there we're able to look at it take an hour or two, go through all of the camera footage, look at the reports.

And it doesn't even raise the level of professional standards investigation because we're able to close that out and review it very quickly.

And so in terms of even critical incidents, you know, unfortunately, we are involved in significant uses of force.

You know, we have shot some people last year, I believe, three different officer involved shootings.

And having video of those available from the officer's perspective is able to get that out to the public.

I think we're one of the fastest, agencies in the nation.

And typically within 2 to 3 days, we typically have body worn camera footage of our officer involved shootings and surveillance video.

Out to the public.

So I can see instantly all three of those officer involved shootings turned out.

Were they aboveboard?

They were.

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

And so being able to get that out to the public immediately, again within 2 or 3 days, is exactly what the program is there for.

So it doesn't, prevents the speculation.

It prevents the assuming with the advent of social media, where the rumor mills go wild on incidents of of nowhere near based in fact, it allows us to get the facts out there is, very quickly in our community to then make the judgment for themselves.

Have complaints fallen in the last decade?

They have, they have, because one of the first things we do is look at body worn camera footage, and we're able to dispel a lot of these false complaints.

I can look back through my own history with Internal Affairs and some complaints I received as an officer before body worn camera footage.

There were not even close to being based in reality.

And by having that footage and having that tracking, associated with it is phenomenal.

And so the cameras are great.

They provide that level of transparency, you know, but again, what people do have to realize with the cameras is that it's attached to our chest.

It does not see what your eyes see.

It does not smell what you smell.

It does not hear what you hear.

Right.

It's a camera attached to your chest.

You know, I can sit here and look all across the room without my chest moving and see everything around me.

But at the same time, I'm looking at your chest right now.

I'm looking at.

Right.

I mean, so it's not.

They're not the end all be all.

It's not a drone hovering over had.

It's not, you know, attached to my eyes to, to have all of my sensors to go along.

But it's valuable.

It is super valuable.

But it's not necessarily 100% okay.

And I think I know Alex wants to jump into just a couple other points with Captain Bello on this.

I you know, I think the listeners may be wondering what is the circumstance in which it should be turned on.

And I remember when there was conversation back in 2014 about, is this going to happen, how much it's going to cost.

And one of the the question so one of the things the public said, a number of times back then is people say, well, they should just be on all the time, but that's a lot of video footage from a lot of officers.

And how do you review it?

Can you keep it?

You know, and so can you take us through that determination of when does it come on?

Yeah, absolutely.

So we have different categories that we fall under through optional recording through all the way up to mandatory recording okay.

Situation dependent.

And so we have our mandatory recording fields.

And those are where like any policy, we go through a complete review of that policy.

When we create it, we we work with our community partners, such as UCL.

And when developing policies, we go through national standards, whether it be through Perf, whether it be through the Chiefs Association.

And then we also talk to agencies around us, and we all come together and we discuss what's best for our community.

So if you look even within the roster area, our policies at times differ from outside agencies.

We have different policies at times in the sheriff's office or the state police or Greece or around Kuwait, because what we feel is best for our community in the city.

But we look at all of those different standards, we talk to our community partners and we come up with those policies.

One of the issues with we talked about tracking, if you just leave your camera on for your eight hour shift, you'd never be able to find anything that's in that camera footage.

If you just have an eight hour, long window.

So our officers, they turn them on, when they get to a call and then they turn them off when they leave the call.

Every call, every call, that's a mandatory recording.

So there's often times that you would not want to record it.

So at times, you know, if you're dealing with a sexual assault victim, for example, or if you're dealing in a hospital or if you're working with, there's a handful of different, situations that we would turn those that we would not necessarily record, or we would ask the the victim's permission to record at first.

Okay, dealing with confidential informants, dealing with with some potential, people that don't want to be identified, that are giving information along those lines.

But anytime we're around a suspect or a defendant or somebody that's in it has to be absolutely has to be on.

And so in this case, we took traffic stops is an example that started the dashboard.

Traffic stops should have right around 100% compliance because that's a mandatory field okay.

And how's your compliance in your department.

So we're sitting around the dashboards found us around 93% when I was looking at the dashboard, 9,293%, which, it depends what you look at.

The third quarter was 91.95.

So in the low 90s.

Okay.

And you want it to be 100, we would love to get around 95%.

There's always going to be reasons.

There's always, the cameras.

The technology is not perfect.

So okay.

There's always so it's supposed to be 100.

It is reasonable to think that sometimes there's tech malfunction in there is there's tech malfunctions.

Batteries die, especially in the cold.

Our officers are working extra shifts, at times because they dock them in the car.

And so they can we can tag every video because the cameras are it can be monotonous in terms of some of the, the legwork behind them.

So if I take a call, if I take 20 calls in a shift, I have to plug my camera and I have to tag every one of those videos, which would be the address I went to the see our number, write the report number associated with all those different search functions that go along with it.

Give it a category, give it all of those things so it can be time consuming with the camera.

What are you used to doing that now?

You are.

But if it's docked in your car and you jump out of your car on something, there's a variety of reasons, okay, you wouldn't have that 100% compliance, but obviously there's an aim point.

Last question before I get let Alex jump because I know always jump out of the bit here.

In the last decade.

But really recently as you review how your officers are doing with the body worn cameras.

Is there any evidence that officers are intentionally keeping cameras off during sensitive or important stops where they're supposed to be on?

I have not seen that any time recently.

You know, obviously when the cameras first began, you're going to have growing pains.

Some people that that didn't want to use them or didn't turn them out.

Sure.

And we dealt with that within our professional standards section.

We had a couple incidents, I recall, with some discipline that was associated, if somebody turned their camera off your eye, if they want to start, you know, having some issues, face them some courtesy type.

Yeah, sure, sure.

But that's not happening.

I have not seen that any time recently.

Okay.

All right.

Alex, the the first thing I wanted to get on here is that the camera has also been incident mental in situations in which the police have acted questionably, or one of the officers actually got charged with a misdemeanor as a result of the body camera footage.

So, you know, officers are people.

They make mistakes, they do things they shouldn't do.

And when that happens, the camera has also been instrumental in capturing that.

It protects the officers and protects the public.

And I think that's the important thing to get out of this is that it's not a one way street here.

Oh, I think that that's been clear.

I think everyone's indicated.

Right.

That's one of the great values of it.

Yeah.

Right.

And now, with, with the, body cameras, there have been some situations in which footage wasn't available for incident with complaints.

You can find them on the PAB web page.

You can.

We have seen one in which it looks like the officer deliberately is not turning his camera on.

But people are people, and there are times that they're going to do things that are not particularly by the books.

And I believe, right or wrong, that, that one of the purposes of you, Clem, here is to remind the department to be fair with these.

And I think for the most part, they are okay.

And I'll jump in.

Yeah, I got this from ten years that was, the were the officers charged with misdemeanors about ten years ago and.

Absolutely that they what they the camera found is absolutely unacceptable of what those officers did.

And neither one of those officers works for us anymore.

And, and that's a great aspect to the cameras is because we hold ourselves accountable as well.

And the cameras allow that transparency.

And without the cameras, we would not have known that's happened.

And I think as time has gone by, those sort of incidents have really decreased because our, the level of professionalism that our, that our department now shows, because they're used to walking around with a camera and, and they know that, that you know, what's a step.

What's the standard here.

What standard do we hold.

And obviously that incident that standard was not upheld.

And those officers don't work here anymore.

And certainly, you know, discipline has come out of issues with our cameras.

And whether it be the activation of cameras or what the cameras have seen, it's just that it's going down significantly, which is which is great.

Right.

And that's down way more than it used to be, which is phenomenal.

I can and needless to say that the, this is a tool basically for supervisors to have to be able to monitor what's going on, etc., and the community to be able to see, hey, are they doing what we're asking them to do?

The bottom line here is that we need to take a look at it as a tool.

This is not the end all be all.

You know, this is not going to solve every problem that an organization has.

You know, having that worked in several organizations and in different fields, I constantly am amazed as to how some of these organizational management issues, cut across each organization because generally speaking, the problem tends to be at the first line supervisory issue.

If you look at education in the schools that are high performance, they have a very strong principal and good, solid supervisors.

When you look at, you know, a section of the city or, or the county, you know, who's in charge, who's who's doing what, etc.. So it always comes back to that person in charge.

It's a human issue, not not a camera issue.

It's a human issue that needs to be addressed.

Having said all of that, the camera system and now the dashboard is yet another tool.

The dashboard will, add to that tool in terms of being able to not only counsel, but train those officers to do the right thing and to make sure that they're doing what the the, the department expects of them.

Okay.

And let me also say, in conjunction with what has already been said, I fully, and wholeheartedly concur.

With, Carlos, Garcia, that the the camera is not a panacea, by no stretch of the imagination, but it's better to have it and not need it than the need it and not have it.

One of the, goals is to be able to capture, pertinent information and to have those cameras in store, when something needs to be reviewed that's, questionable.

And also has been pointed out in Rialto, California with about, 115 sworn, police officers, that, the chief indicated, with the population of approximately 100,000 people, that when the cameras are on, the officers tend to conduct themselves in a more appropriate manner, because they know that the cameras are viewing them.

But it's also true and pointed out by the same chief that the people, the citizens, the community conduct themselves in a more, manageable and appropriate manner as well, because they're also being so able of, both, parties to remember that, you un quote unquote candid cam there there it is.

There, Alex.

Go ahead.

One of the things I wanted to point out, mainly for the public, is that a large number of calls to police department get are for, burglary alarms or alarms.

And I looked at this years ago and at the time, probably nine, 2012, about 93% of those were false alarms.

Is that correct, captain?

I don't have the stats, but I the vast majority are false alarms.

The general point is making is good.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Now, we don't necessarily need the officer who shows up in a burglar alarm to who goes and walks around the building and spends 20 minutes looking at something to see that there was no reason for this, that he can see and nothing to do.

He doesn't need body camera footage.

Okay?

And there are plenty of calls like that in which did you really need the officer walking around a building?

Did you need the officer showing up at where there was a gunshot and nobody is there?

I mean, there are there are definitely times in which the body cameras should be on, but there are also times we don't need that extra 20 minutes of footage of nothing.

Okay.

So when we come back from our only break, we're going to talk about how the dashboard is going to work going forward, what they want the public to know.

We'll talk a little bit more about, the relationship between police in the community and the work that's, happening between RPD and you, Clem, to improve that.

You're hearing.

You just heard Alex White, a community activist and leader of the Body Worn Cameras dashboard project.

Carlos Garcia is with us.

You were the Pio at RPD, weren't you?

That's right.

So, he's a former Pio in a past life.

He's a volunteer with you, Clem.

And I, I've got a long memory.

That's exactly right.

And the current Pio captain, Greg Bello, is with us from our PD.

And Reverend Dwight Fowler is the president of United Christian Leadership Ministry.

We're right back on connections.

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This is connections in a way.

This hour we've been reviewing what the most of the last decades been like, with body worn cameras becoming routine in Rochester and in many places, and some of the growing pains and some of the just the comfort and the efficiency.

And now I want to return to really what was the news headline was this new initiative that I mean, Alex, the headline, the first headline.

I thought I was like the first of its kind in the country.

Now, I've looked at a lot of police departments.

I don't want to put any false news out there.

Well, I've looked at a lot of police departments, web pages and information they put out, and many of them will have a percentage.

Okay.

What?

Some of them will have a percentage, but there's no data that back that up.

And we had a percentage at one point of 96% I believe that was is I believe was based on a very small number of, of traffic stop information that was put together manually.

Okay.

As a sampling, this is not that.

And I could not find a department which actually has data to back up whatever their number was.

So you think maybe this is the first of it's the most comprehensive of its kind of I believe it it.

So how does the dashboard work and what do you want the public to know?

Well the dashboard the dashboard has the dashboard has on the main page.

It has the percentage of stations that the officer turns on the camera in a traffic stop situation crossed the department, and it has a number of officers who are doing this to levels that we considered acceptable at UCLA.

And, you know, I also would like to see 100% and I think 95% personally is a little low, but it's an acceptable level that I'd like to see them get to.

And that's what we have set an edge visible on the front page.

But then more importantly, if you want to dig into this, you can look at, you know, by by area which the area you live in in the city is covered by a police, section.

And that section, you know, how good are they in enforcing this?

And then it has also by shift and you can take a look and see, you know, how because quite simply, some shifts are better at this than others.

And I believe this all has to do with the people in charge.

The captain in charge is writing people about this.

It's going to get better.

And I know this because we first started to get information out to the department earlier this year, and there had been some places that were particularly bad.

And boy, they cleaned up in a hurry.

I mean, there was one section which was you can look it up on the thing.

It was like 56% of the time they were activating their cameras appropriately in a traffic stop situation.

And that has improved dramatically since that information became known.

And, finally, you can get down to see actual officers, not their names, because we didn't want this to turn into a gotcha with people showing up at their houses and things again.

But with so that the department.

Because remember, this was, in my mind created for the department to use as a managerial tool, turning it over to a public thing was their idea.

And the to their credit.

I, I don't want, I want that to be clear is that the department wanted this out there as well.

And I remember being told, you know if it's good, great.

If it's not they still need to know this because, you know, when we started, did that surprise you?

Yes.

It did.

Well, I'm probably the most, police questionable, in all of UCLA.

Okay.

And yes, I was absolutely shocked that they were like, yeah, you know, it'll give us goals to shoot for you.

I don't think it surprised Carlos, but, you know, I don't think it did.

You know.

And the deal is, is I look at the police department as an organization, a live organization that, like any other organization, needs improvement.

And as a result, we just need to take a look at what is not working right and fix it, rather than creating other silos, you know, and throwing money at, at that, that may or may not work.

Let's fix what we got first and then move on from there.

Yeah.

Okay.

That that just makes sense to me.

So, you know, when Alex tells you that he is one of the biggest critique or snack critics, but critical staff of the not only define it of the department, I can attest to that because we've had long discussions and what we can expect and what can we can't, what is logically something that the community can expect and they're not going to be perfect.

That's the bottom line.

They're not.

No organization is perfect.

Sure.

But yeah.

Go ahead.

I think one of the things that that's coming out of all this of body worn cameras that were mess on, is we're talking a lot about the negativity associated with with some of our officers.

And absolutely, accountability is huge.

But the other side of it is what our cameras are showing us.

The incredible professionalism that our officers are out there on a day basis.

If you pull up the vast majority of those cameras, I mean, you take gun arrest, for example, right?

Over 500, around 500 arrests so far this year.

Every one of those is our officers taking a risk to go get an illegal gun off somebody and being able for our community to see what our police officers are actually out doing.

It's one thing to read, on the nightly news, press release.

So we put a tourniquet on somebody that was dying and saved.

Saved somebody that that was dying, which our officers do on a routine basis.

Tourniquets to actually be able to see it.

In fact, we we'll see what our officers are out there doing and see when it's not just us saying somebody pulled a gun on us.

We can show you a video in HD of somebody pulling a gun on us.

And that's what's happening, with our officers.

So it's getting that other side out there that our officers, you know, with me, we do a positive.

It's not just a blip on the radar.

The vast, vast, vast majority of what we're doing are positives, and it allows our community to go out there and see that and also see all sides of a story.

When some of those complaints come in and some of the the.

The the reality versus perception.

Right.

And those cameras get a lot of, of the reality of situations versus the perception.

Well, because, because like you were mentioning a speeding ticket, oftentimes people that's when they're working with the police department.

They're typically in the worst moments of their life.

They're in a very bad spot emotionally, oftentimes physically.

And the perception of issues is not always the reality because of the mindset that they're in.

And so having that camera to help protect our officers and show the the compassion that our officers show, the dedication our officers show to making our community a safer place.

I mean, it's it's there's a huge positive on that aspect of things as well.

It's a normal thing for people to perform better at their job when they know they're being watched, when they know.

I would guess that's probably true in all jobs.

True.

And when they know that something is being recorded, that they know that something's being monitored.

Because I believe in many cases, you know, the officers may see body cameras is, you know, yeah, it's nice to turn it on, but no one there is no big issue if I don't.

And what my hope was with this is that if the officers knew that, the management could tell what they were, whether they were turning the cameras on appropriately, they would try harder to do that.

And if so, in my mind, this was an effort without punishment.

This was an effort to convince, to increase this, the successful ness of the program, the body worn camera program.

And, you know, my hope has always been that when this was finished and it is now that the that the, the, the Chiefs would say, hey, last quarter, in the Goodman section, you had, two point decline in body camera application.

You know, I want you to now say this to the captains.

I want you to make sure that doesn't happen again.

And then they go to this.

I heard the captains go to the sergeants and the sergeants go to the the regular officers, and we end up with improvement.

Okay.

Is that realistic?

Absolutely.

So we have we've this is one of several public facing dashboards up our open data portal.

Whether it be this whether it be measures for justice, our partnership with a lot of community driven categories in that dashboard as well.

I have the open data portal up almost daily, looking at what we're doing.

And that's a crime stats aspect.

But I'm in the open data portal daily.

And so looking at these different portals and we have some other internal dashboard type stuff as well, whatever we can do to become more efficient, more accountable for ourselves, increase everything about what we're doing in a positive way.

We're more the more we can do the merrier on that.

Because again, we need to.

We're 100 plus officers short, so we need to fine tune what we're doing and make sure that we're on target with what we're doing.

And this is one more way to do that.

One more follow up for captain.

I want to bring the Reverend back in, because I want to talk about how he sees the state of police community relations.

But when you hear Alex described himself as, you know.

Well, Carlos said this the chief critique of the police department, perhaps.

And Alex said that might even be a euphemism.

Do you think that he still comes in in good faith?

Do you think that this is a relationship, a good faith, despite the fact that his disposition is maybe a little bit more jaundiced or critical?

So part of what I don't know, Alex, specifically, but part of what, you know, we want to listen everybody, all voices within our community to make ourselves a better, a better police department.

Right to police by with that serves our community.

So whether that be the detractors or those that that have their critiques, however you want to refer to it and those that want to be our cheerleaders and talk about how we're the best agency out there, which we are, but at the same time, right, you have to look at every viewpoint and every feedback that we get from our community to find that there's got to be people in this community.

And look, I'll just talk about this program.

There are a lot of people who critique, critique, the work that we do on connections, and there's a lot of people who've made us better by doing that 100%.

And I am grateful for that, because even the people who are really, really tough on me, sometimes I got to hear it.

And then there's a small, small category I would say of like, you're never going to be pleased.

And you think that I just couldn't be worse.

And I don't know that there's a productive conversation.

I'll listen, but I don't know that it's in good faith.

It's not the majority majority of critique that a lot of people get in a lot of jobs, especially true for me, is great.

It's helpful, but it doesn't sound like you think Alex is in that small category of like, well, I can't work with this guy.

So you see, I'm about a partner for us for, oh, gosh, before I've worked here, that's almost 20 years.

Yes.

Right.

That is true.

Yes.

It is a very, very welcomed community partner.

And that's, you know, as a as a representative for a significant proportion of our city.

Yeah.

We we would be remiss not to listen, engage and work with, with with groups like UCLA, and others.

And there's a variety of groups out there.

We serve the people of our community.

We don't serve ourselves.

We serve the people of our community.

And we all work together to make our community a safer place.

And we recognize it, that we don't have the only viewpoint on doing that.

And we would be failing if we weren't listening to all the viewpoints to improve ourselves.

Well, I got to ask, Reverend, I want to bring the president of UCLA back in here, because a lot of this is about police community relations and trust.

How would you say the overall state of police community relations is?

Right?

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would say somewhere between, 6.5 and seven.

Okay.

And I think that, that is something that has, escalated, due to the body worn, cameras improved.

Yes, it is.

It is escalated from where it was to where it is.

The enhancement is is is real.

UCLA has literally been specific.

And, as a result, we have gotten this kind of, turned out turn out.

But, needless to say, one of our, ultimate goals is, to have guardians as opposed to, warriors, on the streets so that people will feel that they are protected.

That is not to say that they don't feel that they are protected now, but rather, so that they will have an enhancement of that feeling and so that, ultimately speaking, from a literal perspective, there will be an enhanced amount of, trust between the community and law enforcement.

That's really interesting.

So guardian versus warrior mentality, is that something that's talked about at RPD?

Yeah, absolutely.

And it takes a fine mix of both.

Because unfortunately there are bad actors out there that are driven on hurting us, hurting the community, and causing harm.

And we have to be prepared to respond to those, while at the same time also recognizing that that's not the majority of the calls and situations we're dealing with.

And so you have to strike a balance between the two.

And that's what we're always continuing to strive.

Reverend, what else do you want the community to understand before we wrap this hour here on, body worn cameras?

I certainly want the community to understand that, UCLA is, on the job, and and that, we, from a vision perspective, and pursuit of the beloved community as drum majors for justice.

We we are convinced that the body worn cameras, the analytics system, the benchmarks analytic, which is the early intervention system in conjunction, with our dashboard now enables us to be specific.

It enables us to be measurable.

It in it enables things to be a attainable, realistic, and tangible.

And all of those things are, of an immense important because the prime objective is to be able to once again build as much trust as possible between the community and law enforcement.

So, Alex White, where do people find it?

The easiest way to find this dashboard is to go to the RPD Open Data portal.

Right on the front page.

There is a link to this dashboard, and I encourage everyone to take a look to see what's out there and to see how it is going.

And to, you know, it's updated every quarter.

You can get new numbers four times a year.

Feel free to take a look.

Let's see how come back in here.

Let's see what the numbers how they're changing.

I'd be very curious to see that.

I want to thank our guests for coming in and telling this story.

Reverend Fowler, president of UCLA.

Nice to see you, sir.

Thank you for being here.

It's nice to see you.

And the pleasure's mine.

Captain Greg Bello from Rochester Police department.

Thank you, captain, of course.

Thanks so much of our thanks to Alex White, community activist and leader of the Body Worn Cameras dashboard project.

We'll throw a link on our show notes.

Listeners, if you want to find that.

Alex, thanks for being here.

And thanks to Carlos Garcia, a member, of, not only this team here, but, you volunteer for UCLA these days.

Great.

Thank you.

So much, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Typically connections follows here, but we've got a national program from NPR and Hanukkah lights.

It's a great annual tradition.

Now, maybe more than ever, I'll love for our friends celebrating Hanukkah.

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