commission is bound by it. good behold a duty to the public -- we hold a duty to the public, so before we begin to debate whether we can have a pilot program, i think the virtue of good government is patience and consideration that is fully and form -- fully informed, and i do not feel fully informed. >> before we vote, we will hear from the cheese. >> i understand -- we will hear from the chief. >> i understand, but i am also concerned about the resolution itself. i had no idea this would be today. it is monday. every time we have talked about it, we have been informed. the community has an opportunity

to put their input in, and this last time we set a protocol in place. there are steps they would like to take to consider this but have not been done. i understand why it was put on very quickly. we put a process in place, and i think the process should be done and now and the public should contribute to? . >> -- should contribute to that. >> the chiefs wanted to move forward and put this on the agenda of. we talked about how we voted 6-1 last year to look out weapons other than legal force for who -- lethal force. it is my understanding with the

chief likes to do here is a very limited program. and only our officers with required mental health training the involved with this. what i will do is turn it over to the chief for his explanation before we have a vote over whether or not we should proceed with this this evening. >> thank you. immediately after the davis and washington shooting, which i cannot tell you how badly i feel about its, and i would like to say i am sorry we did not have a different solution at our disposal, but we did not. i told commissioner chan that as my time as chief we have not used lethal force.

>> you need to hold it down back there. >> [inaudible] >> i understand. [inaudible] >> to that end, we advise the department only when the person is a danger to themselves. we have not used legal force in those instances. where there have been aggravated assault, officers gave many blocks over 10 minutes, at which point an officer contacted him to keep him from moving to a more populated area while still in possession of a weapon and could be a danger to others.

>> please let him finish his statement. >> when turned on by the suspect had no other option at her disposal other than legal force. good -- lethal force. would a taser have made a difference? i honestly believe in that instance as with other instances, having a less lethal option would have made a difference. in canvassing all the other police departments, they all have tasers. memphis, tenn., as of 2011, has gone to tasers. i believe out of respect for the commission to make policy for the police department, that at

least the discussion should be made. i referenced the discussion of the police commission meeting, but out of respect for the public, and having suffered 10 homicides in june, and knowing this would be a heavily debated topic, i did not want to call it a taser, to add to that discussion. however it goes, i will respect of discussion, community input, however it goes, but i think it would be irresponsible for me to not ask for something that would allow the officers something short of using the taser. i volunteered to be tased and suffered no lasting effects. there was no desire to do anything less than promote a

public conversation with regard to the issue, because it has been said many times during my 15 months as she's at this podium -- as chief at this podium, why are we having this discussion? we have 74 officers trained. i am not asking for tasers for the entire police department. i am only asking for those who complete training, and i will submit it. >> i appreciate your comments. my concern is the training is to help mentally ill individuals, and many have not committed a crime. if i had known it was coming, i would have thought for a legal opinion whether we could say we

are going to use a taser against some of but no one else, just as group of specially trained people for mentally ill who -- specially trained for mentally ill people, like if we were going to say just for hispanics, it would be a violation of law, so i am going to ask for an opinion of that, and the other thing is i know we are asking for less lethal options, and i know we have a shotgun that has been dogs, but how old is that technology -- the has beanbags, but how old is that technology? i am not seeing anything about the alternatives other than lasers.

i am really concerned about the legality of singling out a particular group of our citizens, and the legality of saying we are going to ignore the protocol. as i am not singling out a demographic of people it might be used on. i am singling out officers. they would be using it as a trained and prescribed in policy. >> are believed that it nauseous the lights people in mentally ill situations -- i believe that it is for mentally ill people. 5 they have concern for everybody. >> the last thing i want to say, why is it taking so long to get up and running? if the leadership is fine the -- behind the cit, why are we

trying to drop a solution without weapons? >> we are not. this is on top of. >> i have a question, because i was not on the body when this resolution was approved, and i just have a copy of it now. it appears we already are in violation of ipsit, given that t says we were to get a report on the less legal options in 90 days -- less lethal options in 90 days. i do not know if you were the chief when that happens, so there may have been miscommunication, but that would be something. 18 months have gone by, so i

would be curious if there was any insight on that. i could ask commissioner sachanr president marshall. i just elevated you. perhaps he was in charge of the first one. gooaxe commissioners, -- >> commissioners, we have got a pecking order, so i will speak and when it is my turn. >> i can appreciate the chief coming to the commission with the proposition of going forward on taser is at this point given what has happened recently and overti time that nd

may not have been front and forward in your agenda, and perhaps that is one reason why the buyer from study did not happen because of transitions and so on, -- why the background study did not happen because of transitions and so on. we do have a couple of new commissioners who need to be brought up-to-date on this, and and i understand the concerns of the community and commissioner chan as well as turman, and i would like to propose if the other commissioners would agree that we at least here the presentation that has been put together with the understanding that it will give us some more insight on what they have in

mind and agreeing not to vote on any action items tonight but to reschedule so the community does have an opportunity to have input in the pilot, to have an opportunity after they have given the initial presentation, to get our initial impact and then to go forward at a later date that is perhaps more in compliance with some of the factors going forth with the resolution the commission passed about a year and a half ago, but but we do hear what the department has in mind and that we get that information tonight with the agreement not to vote on that but to reschedule about for a later time.

to the commissioners agree with that type of approach? >> i was on the list to propose that you take action part off. let's have a discussion. let's find out what the department has in mind. let's take public comments. let's talk about the steps in the resolution, and let's move forward from here. let's take the action item part of tonight. commissioner chan: thank you for during my concern. i would modify my motion to remove the item, and hopefully, i still have a second, and i want to recognize his family being here tonight.

i know it must have been extremely difficult to be here tonight and to speak out. it is not often we speak up about mental health issues, so i appreciate the hard work and the bravery it took to do that, and i want to give some background as to this resolution. i was put on this committee around midnight. i was waiting for the department to take a lead. i have been helping with a number of other issues, and the department never convened a meeting to my knowledge, and it seems like this only came up because of the recent officered-involved shooting. the first time i heard about a

taser in a long time and was about the meeting about this officer involved shooting, and we need to hear about this so buckthe death not be politicize. i also want to point out we only have three out of eighth trainings. it has been a year and a half. we have only had one meeting every six months, which is much slower. i appreciate what you have done so far, but a lot more needs to be done. it would be disastrous to arm them with lasers -- tasers with no protocol in place.

commissioner marshall: we have had robust discussions about tasers before. we had a long and robust discussion under chief gascon. we have had discussions in and out. here it is. the dilemma we have is that we did come up with a way to deal with robust discussion, which is resolution. gooi am hearing the commissiones try to come up with a way out of that. you are bringing it up.

that is the cheese prerogatives. i am not exactly sure how. one idea i have heard is to take the item off and have a discussion. we have to decide in spite of this resolution if we want to hear what the chief has to say. i do not know what you want to come up with again. this may be added to the process. the problem is we do have a resolution, and we have to decide what we want to allow tonight to hear this new idea, because this is a different idea that we have heard. it is a different approach.

let me be clear. we have had a lot of discussion time and time again about hazer' -- tasers at this commission. we have got to figure out how we want to deal with what the chief has asked in light of the resolution we have passed, because we are all bound by that. so far it is no action, just discussion to hear what he has got to save. -- say. we are going to figure out how we can move that along. of what was that the resolution? it is still on the books. that is the presentation we left with us to move forward. i do not know what you want to do. you can table it or hear what the chief has to say.

rice is helpful to hear from commissioner -- >> it is helpful to hear how 18 months when by without any action on behalf of a number of the parties involved, but i think there were two members of the police department involved in this work. i think it is a real concern to the community, and i am concerned is a year and a half later company, and this is a conversation that has gone on for quite awhile. it appears they have done a significant amount of work in opening up the idea of the possibility of tasers. i think he is right that we have got a new chief. i think it is a chief the commission has gone through a great deal in selecting. i think it is tragic, and it is

not ok. for us to take this off the agenda and not talk about it is not acceptable. we need to talk about this, and whether we take action will be a matter of a motion. >> the key question is do you want to hear what he has to say. not you. you are going to react to what he has to say. you want to hear it tonight. you want to hear it next week. i guess it is for us, do we want to hear what he has to say. in spite of the fact this resolution was adopted. it is not action tonight. this is listening. >> no one has said let's not hear what the chief has to say. i have not said that, and i do not think anyone has said that.

i would like to hear what the chief has to say about this program. we also have a resolution. i have not said what the voyage or throw out the resolution. i have said let's hear what the chief has to say and what through the steps -- and walk through the steps. no one on this panel has greater respect for the chiefs than i do, and i also agree -- every conversation you learn something more. as someone who probably knows the least about it, and i need to learn something, and i can learn from the chief, from what these people have to say, and certainly from what these people have to say, and i can learn from walking through the steps of this resolution.

i am not saying to avoid our responsibility of the resolution. let's do all of that. that is what i need to do before we vote. >> can be amend it? praxair was a motion on the floor made by commissioner -- >> there was a motion on the floor made by commissioner chan to remove item three. that was seconded to remove the possible action report. >> is there any more discussion on that? >> anything you would like to andd? >> here is my take.

i think the chiefs did this with good reason. not only does he want to get this moving, but i agree that we should hear this tonight. this should be a very calm discussion, looking at the facts, analyzing what is best for the community and what is best for the officers. they, too, are affected by this. i have heard a lot of criticism of the police tonight. unfortunately, the police are the ones that are called to clean up the messes that are not created by them, so i think we should hear what we need to hear tonight from the presenters on both sides, and nobody should be used as a political tool by bringing families of someone who was recently killed. we need to hear discussions about what is best for the public and what is best for the police. >> let me just say, the past

discussions have been exactly that, so i would assume these discussions would be the same way. >> i would ask everyone listened to the discussions. we have the presentation, and at that point we would decide if it is going to be an action item. it does not sound like it is going to be an action item, so i suggest we go forward and put it on as an action item down the road. >> i think we should vote on debit. >> take the roll call and remove it as an action item. [calling votes] vice president marshall: aye. commissioner dejesus: aye, with the understanding if it ever comes back on that we have plenty of notice. commissioner chan: agree that if

we put this back on it is not going to be next week. it cannot just be a immediately. goocommissioner kingsly: aye. >> the motion passes unanimously. >> let's start with the police departments presentation. >> the deputy told me risk- management comes under her command, and ali is the department coordinator. glive i am the coordinator for

the department costs crisis intervention team effort. i have been the coordinator since 2011. we have trained 74 officers in our department who are members of the team, and we have trained eight members of other agencies. we have also train members of our department of emergency management. we have progressed to such an extent that we are now engaged in conversations with the university of san francisco relative to getting their involvement in our efforts on par with what has taken place with the university of tennessee and the university of memphis being an integral part of the memphis police department's efforts to make a crisis intervention team more robust, but now as i stand

before you today, this is not an issue of mental illness. this is an issue of the department having options available to mitigate the need for legal force -- lethal force. as i have had discussions, i thought it would be most appropriate to have a pilot program where members of the press were the first people -- where members of our department were the first people to receive controlled devices. the reason is simple. we have invested a significant amount of training. prior to the training on crisis intervention, there is mental health awareness training that 900 members of our department received relative to identifying and being aware of issues

surrounding individuals in crisis and mental health. goothe purpose of mental health training took on multiple a bit of a different dynamic, and that was a greater emphasis on the escalation -- deescalation skills, greater understanding of mental illness and the appreciation of challenges in mitigating some of those issues, but as we move forward, the idea is that these officers would be best positioned to not only come on instances where individuals are in crisis, whether they are momentary crisis, whether it is an issue of history of mental illness, that these officers would be most out in dealing with those circumstances, attempting to they escalates -- deescalate as

much as possible and using a less lethal option. i am prepared to show the commission what we haven' been termed an -- but those in terms of size are not the most appropriate readily available for these. looking at a device, the electronically controlled devices would be appropriate. it has pretty much cornered the market, and it has devices in place in agencies across the country. of the top when the law enforct