The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-10-07
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (12,340 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Community and Public Safety Committee met on Tuesday, October 7, 2025, at 2:30 p.m., with roll call, a statement of conduct, and discussion across three agenda items. The first item covered federal troop deployment response, including a legal update on a temporary restraining order blocking National Guard deployment to Portland, a scheduled Ninth Circuit hearing, and an October 29 preliminary injunction hearing; representatives from Chicago, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles council offices described experiences with federal immigration enforcement, National Guard deployments, checkpoints, tear gas use, propaganda tactics, economic impacts, data privacy concerns, and proposed legislative and oversight responses, followed by councilor questions. The second item addressed the mental health crisis continuum, with presentations from the Portland Police Bureau's Behavioral Health Unit, Portland Street Response, and Project Respond describing their respective roles, acuity levels, dispatch protocols involving BOEC and the county crisis line, an embedded crisis responder position, call volume figures, and questions about coordination between agencies. The third item introduced the Great American Shakeout earthquake preparedness drill scheduled for October 16, including a discussion and practice of "drop, cover, hold" techniques. Votes, if any occurred, are recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting adjourned with the next session scheduled for October 21.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
0 There we go. Thanks. Good afternoon. I was waiting on councilor Smith, but I'm sure she'll catch up with us. I call this meeting of the community and public safety committee to order. It is Tuesday, October 7th at 2:30 p.m. Rebecca, can you please call the roll?
1 Zimmerman Smith canal here. Morillo here.
2 Novick here. Christopher, can you please read the statement of conduct?
3 Welcome to the meeting of the community and public safety committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at wwe. Agenda. Community and public safety committee, or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. The chair preserves order to disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will results and ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Thank you.
4 Thank you christopher, we're going to begin with a brief discussion of issues relating to federal overreach. We're going to have a brief update on the legal situation from robert taylor, who obviously will not share any strategy or tactics that cannot be public, but just give us some information that can be public. We were going to hear from shad ahmed of pbem, but he's been called away to do various stuff related to the visit of secretary noem. And then we're going to move into hearing from folks from council offices and three other cities dealing with the same issues, some of them ahead of us from chicago, dc and la. Mr. Taylor, can you join us?
5 Excuse me. Chair Novick.
6 Oh, sorry.
7 I'll call the item. Item one discussion on federal troop deployment response. Thank you.
8 You may begin.
9 Thank you for the record, robert taylor, city attorney I want to begin today by by thanking everybody who has been involved in this issue over the last couple of weeks. I want to especially thank the governor and the attorney general. I want to thank the mayor and our the members of our city council for all they have been doing on this issue. I want to thank the excellent legal professionals we have in the city attorney's office, both those who have been working on this matter and all the other legal business in front of the city. I want to thank the the outstanding public safety professionals we have at PPB who have been handling a very difficult situation very well. I want to thank our u.s. District court in Oregon for giving careful consideration to the facts on the ground. And from that decision, I think it's clear that the facts matter. And I also want to thank all portlanders for doing everything they can to show the best side of our city and what it means to be a portlander. We show up, we express ourselves, we we keep Portland calm, peaceful, and weird. And that's our Portland. So I want to thank everybody for that. Please do what you can to continue to keep our city peaceful and keep our city calm and keep Portland weird. With that, I just want to give a quick legal update. We did get our temporary restraining order was granted by the court. There was an effort, but that was granted Saturday evening. There was then an effort on Sunday by the federal government to send national guard from california and then later texas to Portland. The judge on Sunday night granted a temporary restraining order enjoining any national guard deployment from any state to the city of Portland. We have that that temporary restraining order lasts for two weeks. We can ask to have it extended if we would like. And we have a preliminary injunction hearing scheduled for October 29th. In the district court case, the federal government has appealed the the first tro to the ninth circuit. They are asking for that decision to be stayed by the ninth circuit. We have a hearing on that motion to stay on Thursday. This Thursday morning at 9 a.m. And it will be a relatively short hearing. I believe the court has assigned ten minutes for each side to express their arguments, so we'll know more Thursday morning. But I want to just again thank everybody who has been involved in this situation for for the calm heads that have prevailed here.
10 Thank you so much. And we obviously appreciate all the work you have done from the bottom of our hearts.
11 Thank you.
12 We now have several folks, as I said, from other cities, including allison murphy from chicago, representing alderperson, andre vasquez, jen kaufman, policy advisor for dc council member janice lewis, george and kate pynoos, staff council member hugo soto martinez and los angeles. I'd kind of like I think I'd like you to go and sort of order of how extensive the federal intervention has been in your cities, and obviously it was extremely extensive and long lasting in d.c. So, jen, if you wouldn't mind just sort of sharing us with your experience, what your experience has been, what the temperature has been in the city, what the behavior has been of the federal forces, and anything else that you think would be worthwhile for us to hear without disclosing any, you know, secret d.c. Government strategy and tactics.
13 For sure. I appreciate it, chair, and I appreciate the opportunity to connect with you all from here in d.c. You know, the national guard presence was really the start of an escalatory period of federal overreach that sadly continues today, even though this kind of month long period of a so-called federal emergency is over. And, you know, what happened was that, you know, beginning in August, we saw initially, you know, one set the d.c. National guard were federalized, and then we saw more and more states having their troops deployed to d.c. And you know, what that looked like in practice was often national guardsmen were at tourist locations, in locations downtown, in highly visible locations, often kind of near where our tv cameras tend to be. But we also did see them, you know, at times present at federal raids and checkpoints. And their their presence was deeply disorienting, disturbing, you know, kind of concerning to us as residents because, you know, soon after their deployment, there was a memo sent saying that all national guard members were to be armed. And so, you know, to have national guards patrolling around and also presence while not engaging in direct law enforcement, but also present at kind of federal raids or checkpoints, you know, armed, I think, was a significant escalation and a troubling sign for us as as residents. And so, like, really, their presence in the city has marked just this important moment of escalation that I think has really emboldened policing, both like on the federal level and also even on the local level. You know, kind of since then, we've seen hundreds of incidents where there have been a clear violation of civil liberties, you know, by by federal agents, but also kind of happening locally as well. And, you know, in d.c. Because of our unique status as a federal district, our police essentially had to coordinate with the federal government for that one month period. So there are some aspects that are unique to how that that coordination happened, that that is different from how it will be in Portland. But I think that, you know, the while we did not see direct law enforcement operations, I think that for many of us, the bigger concern is that there's always that possibility that things could go wrong. Right. And this is the reason why military forces shouldn't be deployed to cities. This is the reason why, you know, military forces shouldn't be viewing, you know, kind of communities as, as, as something to, to, you know, invade or to deploy to. And so, you know, I think by and large, we have been very fortunate that thus far we haven't had concerns with the national guard presence. But overall, that was just really a symptom of this greater federal overreach that continues today and has had widespread repercussions for our community. We've had, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of families impacted, particularly by ice. Folks of color in the community that I live in are just being stopped and arrested. And then later on, being asked to produce citizenship information, etc. And so it really is a symptom of a larger, troubling, kind of more menacing change that is happening.
14 Can you talk a bit about the economic impact? I think all of us have read about the huge decline in people going out to restaurants, and as that continuing.
15 It definitely is continuing. It was at its worst during that one month deployment. I can't express to you all how there were checkpoints all over the city. I mean, people stopped going downtown and to kind of places that you would typically, you know, my spouse and I went out for dinner one night and we we got into jose andres restaurant with like, no reservations. We could park right there because nobody wanted to be out and about having to go through checkpoints, having to deal with all this stuff. And so, yeah, our restaurants in particular, but so much of our industry had been really hard hit by what's happening. And then, you know, to it it continues to to particularly affect the restaurant community, which has seen rates of staff and also the construction industry projects are now way off track. And, you know, it's been in particular affected by the supreme court giving Green light to being able to discriminate on the basis of what you look like and what language you speak and what industry you work on work in. And so, so many folks, you know, have stopped agreeing to to do work in d.c. They'll only do work in maryland or virginia. And so those two industries in particular have been hit incredibly hard by what's happening.
16 Thank you. I'm sure that the other committee members might have questions for you later on, but I'd like to move on to miss, could you give us, you know, a sketch of what's been going on in los angeles for the past few months?
17 Thank you so much for having me. Hi. My name is kate pynoos. I am the deputy chief of staff for council member, city council member, hugo soto martinez, who represents the 13th district in the city of los angeles. I want to begin with a few of our top takeaways from our experience, specifically with the ice raids, because that is how this all began in la and the deployment of federal troops. This all began in the beginning of June this year. We were the administration's testing grounds. Ice came to la, where they primarily targeted work sites with really quick raids that were completed in less than 15 minutes. We saw many of these raids, specifically at work sites that were easy to access, specifically home depots and car washes. And at these raids, we saw widespread warrantless detentions, which our colleague from d.c. Just alluded to based on race, language and type of work. And unfortunately, as we all know, these unconstitutional tactics the supreme court has ruled can continue while they hear the merits of our case. And so these discriminatory practices continue and will likely increase. But these tactics have not been just for rounding up people and scaring our communities. We have consistently seen the use of raids for propaganda by the administration. Fox news was embedded as embedded with immigration agents or as immigration agents raided a park where children were playing. Media was also with them when they jumped out of a rented penske truck at a home depot. And greg, greg bovino, who some of you may have heard of, showed up with agents right outside of a press conference that governor gavin newsom was holding about his redistricting ballot measure. The actions actions of ice and cbp have had an overwhelming impact on on our communities, our immigrant communities in la, lower attendance at schools fewer 911 calls people not going to work and not able to pay rent. And entire communities scared to just go out. And finally, when it comes to the national guard, we primarily saw their deployment just around federal buildings in la, the la times has reported that their morale was low for a lot of reasons, in part because of a lack of beds, and many disagreed with their mission. And of course, many were sad to be separated from their families. From these experiences, I want to share some learn lessons learned that we want to share with you and cities across the country. First, know your rights campaigns, work the city and cbos have spent years informing people that the constitution gives them the right to stay silent and not to open their door. If an agent doesn't have a judicial judiciary, a signed warrant by a judge, and that knowledge has actually, we've seen it make it a lot harder for the administration to bust into homes and other private property. Second, rapid response networks are also effective. The people who show up are able to gather information about who was taken from eyewitnesses. However, it can be difficult to respond while raids are still ongoing because they are so quick. So some groups have set up patrols around sites that have repeatedly been hit, like home depots, third, protests are going to happen, as they should. Our city's response to the inevitable protests, unfortunately, was pretty heavy handed, and that contributed to the chaos narrative that the administration is trying to promote. Fourth, and finally, I want to highlight that the cities, the cities in general are in a unique position to convene people. We've we've connected nonprofit legal services providers to work together in lawsuits, and we've connected community organizations with each other to gather evidence of the administration breaking the law. We've connected community members to cbos that are providing food distributions. I really think that that convening power can't be understated. We also have some recommendations that we ourself are still working to implement moving forward. We know that the federal government is clearly trying to provoke a response. Protests are going to happen as I as they should, and we recommend proactively working with law enforcement to ensure that they respond appropriately and in a measured manner to the protests. Some of that is legislative. Some of it is long term work on the culture of our police departments. We also recommend establishing really clear protocols, if you haven't already, for your police department, for if and when ice calls for what they call mutual aid to help with egress. When crowds have gathered, this should include public information about when those calls are answered and who makes the decision to send assistance. And we also need guidelines that can be established for verifying that these masked men who are taking people off our streets are actually federal agents. So, you know, no one has the exact roadmap for any of this. That's why we're working together. But I think we can look at history and other cities and countries to share strategies, learn together and protect our communities. Our most effective defense, of course, comes from local organizing. And I really want to thank you for having us today, because I think these conversations, we think these conversations are how we strengthen our ongoing organizing across all of our cities. Thank you.
18 Thank you so much, allison murphy, you're up. What's going on in chicago? I hear it's a toddlin town.
19 You're muted okay.
20 There's a there's a lot happening in chicago. So first I want to thank my colleagues from dc and la. They've been enormously helpful to us as we've prepared for our own escalation of federal troops. And it's really heartening to see cities working together to resist this federal overreach. Like my colleagues, the tactics of the federal government have escalated routinely and dramatically, especially in the past few weeks. In chicago, several weeks ago, agents shot and killed an immigrant in one of our neighborhoods after he dropped his two kids off at school. In a random detainment last week, about 300 agents raided an 130 unit apartment building in the south shore and detained nearly every resident, many of which were citizens, many of which included children and babies that they were zip tying and putting in vans separated by race for several hours. We have also seen the same propaganda videos as our colleague in la. They made a video out of that incident in the south shore, and they've also used really brutal tactics against peaceful protesters. They've repeatedly, and without warning, gassed protesters, elected officials, local police officers and journalists. Last week, they released tear gas in the middle of a crowded neighborhood when neighbors spontaneously began to protest the abduction of one of their neighbors. And on the same day, they shot with live rounds. A rapid response volunteer. So I want to be clear, these these escalations and violence that we're seeing, many of which members of our staff have been present for, are a result of department of homeland security actions. Protesters have, by and large, kept protests pretty peaceful, which is remarkable under the circumstances. And I think it's also important to note that that the department of homeland security's own reporting has often been shown to be incorrect after the fact. They said several things about both the rapid responder that they shot and silverio villegas gonzalez, who they shot and killed that were later proven to be untrue. After video footage was released. So really important to take any reporting you get from them with a grain of salt and perform your own investigations. And then as of this week, the national guard has been deployed. Our attorney general filed suit seeking a temporary restraining order. The judge declined to make an immediate decision on that until Thursday, but urged the federal government to hold off sending troops. And they did not heed that advice. And troops from texas arrived this morning. So in terms of lessons learned, I want to echo a lot of the things that my colleagues have said and add some additional detail about just the huge importance of making sure there's strong oversight of local law enforcement. So I know kate mentioned the mutual aid requests that come in, and I think that's really important to look at and clarify your protocols around. We had an incident on June 4th of a mass detention outside of an ice contractor building, where people were sent texts to show up for what they were told were were routine immigration appointments and then were detained immediately as soon as they got there and separated from their attorneys. I was present for that. Several of my colleagues were present for that and witnessed chicago police on the scene. So we called a hearing pretty much immediately after that to investigate that incident. And one of the things that became clear during that hearing is that there was not a lot of clarity in terms of whose responsibility it was to investigate violations of our welcoming city ordinance, which is our sanctuary city policy. So we've introduced legislation to clarify that. But I think that's one really important piece is making sure that those protocols are are very clear and making sure it's clear to your local law enforcement officers what it means to assist ice like as we are analyzing body worn camera footage, we're seeing that there may be some discrepancy between what we would consider assistance to ice and what's police officers. Clearly in the video, consider not assisting ice. So really important to to clarify those things and make sure that departments are trained up on exactly what they can, can and cannot do in interactions with ice enforcement. We'd also recommend and this again, I want I want to shout out to our colleagues, especially from la, for drawing our attention to the mutual aid requests and the importance of keeping track of those. We have submitted legislation requiring reporting of all interactions with immigration enforcement agents or agencies, anyone deputized or that could be deputized to perform immigration enforcement by every city agency. So this is our effort just to make sure that we have oversight over all those interactions, what the responses are from our own departments. And we've also introduced legislation requiring audits of both our foia and data storage procedures. We had an incident earlier this year where cpd responded to a foia request with unredacted identifying information on undocumented immigrants. So that's something, again, that is really, really important to look at is what those procedures are, and making sure departments are all aware of how to protect our residents from this kind of overreach. And our mayor has also passed a few executive orders, one of which that reaffirmed chicago's commitment to protecting our residents in the face of this kind of overreach. And then earlier this week, an ice free zone executive order, which creates mechanisms to prohibit any federal immigration agents from using city owned property property to stage pros and cons to this. It's a it's a clear statement of values, which is great. It's a great opportunity to clarify protocols. The cons, as I think we hear from from many other cities, is enforcement. It's really difficult to know how local law enforcement can enforce local laws on federal agents. And then lastly, just in terms of resources, we can offer, we as a committee on immigrant and refugee rights, have created some toolkits for all of our individual city council members to understand how they can organize at a community level with community organizations to protect their constituents. We're more than happy to share that information if that would be useful to you all, and happy also to hop on a call anytime someone has has questions or need guidance.
21 Thank you so much and I'm sure we will take you up on that last offer. Councilor Smith.
22 Thank you. Thank you, co-chair, and I want to go back to this ice free zones that the mayor passed last week. Can you tell me, has that been implemented and has it been followed?
23 Great question. And the answer is we don't know yet because this this came out yesterday. This executive order was released and we as a committee are still working on getting clarity on some of the enforcement mechanisms. I imagine that we will get a lot of clarity on whether it's being followed in the coming days. As we're seeing the national guard deployment.
24 Do we know when does it become effective or when did it become effective?
25 Yesterday.
26 Yesterday. Okay.
27 Yes.
28 Thank you.
29 Councilor Kanal.
30 Thank you. Co-chair Novick. Thank you to all three of you for being here. I hope that our city is never interesting enough that it's helpful to support you in return, but I'll just offer an advance now. Happy to. At any time. I'll ask a couple questions. I'll start with with kate. Thanks for being here. Can you? I have three questions for you. Can you speak to the propaganda aspect a little more? We've seen a pattern of influencers and journalists that are politically aligned with the president, who are able to access the ice facility here. I can't access that facility. And taking pictures on the roof. That's a pretty common sort of social media badge of honor. And also embedded, as you noted, when ice is coming out, can you speak to how that has manifested specifically in, in terms of, of, you know, your experiences?
31 Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. I hadn't heard about about that particular use of of influencers. That's very concerning. So we have as I said, we've had a couple of really notable examples of use of of the city as per propaganda. The first was in macarthur park, which is a really big park in, in council district one. People often talk about it as like the west coast, ellis island. It's it's really a hub of immigrant communities in los angeles. And they came in like there were horses. They took a video that they've been that ice and cbp have been using that. Dhs, I guess more broadly, has been using and and they did have fox news was embedded with them when they did this raid in the park. It doesn't actually sound like from what I understand, I haven't heard that they actually took anyone in macarthur park. It really was just propaganda. We then saw this what's been referred to as this sort of trojan horse tactic of a bunch of agents in a rented penske truck that showed up at a home depot, also with media embedded. And then finally, I, I pointed to that example outside of this press conference where governor gavin newsom was holding his redistricting ballot measure, press conference. Once again, there was an unbelievable show of force outside of that press conference. Unfortunately, my understanding is that they took one fruit vendor who was, I believe, recently released. But the the notably in that situation, that exact spot is where many japanese Americans were put on busses for internment during world war two. And and so the echo was particularly scary and sad to see in this in this same location, this huge show of force. So yeah, I think those are, those are the the most notable examples of that use of propaganda.
32 Thanks. You already answered my second question as well, so I'll skip to the third. You know, you I want to make sure I understood this correctly, because we have been seeing some local media push to have more of the work of dealing with protesters done by local police, but I'm pretty sure you said, and correct me if I'm wrong, that that a heavy handed response from local police did not, in fact, defang the narrative, but in fact created a chaos narrative for the administration. Is that correct?
33 Yeah. Yes. I definitely as our as our office understands it, we think that that very heavy handed approach to generally very peaceful protesters, much like in other cities. Created, created a lot of the chaos and, and and that was really concerning to us. I do understand this position of, of wanting to show that we're in control as a city because we are we don't need these federal agents here in any of our cities. We're we're doing just fine without them. But that heavy handed approach is, does not necessarily support that. That narrative of not needing, not needing federal agents. I'll leave it there. Does that does that answer your question?
34 Yeah. No, that sounds like a in our context, a good argument to stay the course on how we've been dealing with it locally so far. So I'll leave it here and then I'll come back after my colleagues go to questions for allison and jennifer. Thank you.
35 Councilor Morillo.
36 Thank you, chair. Novick. Thank you all so much for being here today. It means a lot that you're sharing some of the things that you've learned during this really difficult time, and I appreciate that. My question is for allison, I believe you were the one that brought up that. It sounds like your city may have received a foia request to get information on immigrants or undocumented immigrants. Can you specify a little bit more about that? Was that foia request for city records, and how were those privacy concerns handled?
37 Yeah, absolutely. I would need to look back and pull up what the specific request was, but I believe it was two cpd. So I believe it was probably arrest records, but I just need to make sure of that. Our general policy should be to redact personally identifying information. Unless there is a situation, obviously, where we have to comply with a federal warrant. But that was not done in this case. So that that's that was the sort of precipitating event that made us realize we need to do an audit of these procedures and make sure that we have clarity, and that it's also written down in law how they need to be responded to.
38 Thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah. Any information you have on that would be great because my office is working on some data privacy policies and trying to protect the data that we do have on folks at the city level. So thank you.
39 Yeah, absolutely. I will say also, it's it's worth one of the other things that we have, we've introduced legislation to do is an audit of data storage in general, because there are also data storage companies that share information with federal agencies. So I think that's really important as well as looking at your own protocols.
40 If I can, I will add to that as well. One of the things that we have seen is that we have licensed automated license plate readers in lapd, has automated license plate readers, and I would recommend going back and looking at those agreements with those contractors of who owns that data and who they can share it with.
41 I'm so happy to hear this, because my office is working on a policy to address all of these things, and I hope my colleagues will support it. So thank you for affirming that. Appreciate you.
42 Councilor Kanal.
43 Thank you. I'll start with a question for for allison. But first, thank you for mentioning both the killing of silverio villegas gonzalez and the raid in the south shore, which were both things that made the rounds here on social media, and I think, horrified a lot of portlanders as well. My questions are about tear gas. Two specific questions. You said there was a uses of it in a crowded neighborhood in chicago. Have there been communications to local officials about either the uses or the protocols by which the federal government is going to utilize tear gas in chicago?
44 Not to my knowledge. And I it appears, at least from that specific tear, tear gas deployment, that there was no communication whatsoever because 29 police officers were among those who were tear gassed from cpd.
45 And that was the exact topic of my second question. You know, as we talk about wellness of our city employees, can you speak to the the impact that you have, if you've heard anything from local police, either leadership or rank and file, about the impact of the use of chemical weapons against them.
46 You know, this happened pretty recently. So I think we're we're just hearing about a lot of that now. But I will say there's there is remarkably, very little study on the impact, the long term health impact of tear gas on population. And it's remarkably ill regulated in, in the united states. So I think it's something that we will learn more about over the coming months. But in terms of the exact impact on chicago police department, I think because it's so recent, we haven't delved into that a whole lot yet.
47 Thank you. And that is also setting up a conversation around a policy I will be introducing down the line, switching over to jennifer. Thank you so much. Can you speak more to the checkpoints? Were these set up by the national guard? Were they set up by a different federal agency? How did that work out?
48 For sure, if I if I could just revisit the last question real quick. You know, one thing that I wanted to lift up is that in d.c. Because of our federal status, there was an agreement that leaders sought to put in place an understanding of, okay, well, how is the federal government going to be operating here in d.c. One thing was that they weren't going to wear masks, right? That was supposed to they were supposed to be identifiable agents on the ground. And almost immediately, that didn't happen. So I really wanted to emphasize that any communications about like, how policies and procedures are going to happen on the ground likely won't hold and don't have much water to carry in them. But regarding your question around the checkpoints, what we saw was checkpoints kind of everywhere, anywhere. They were multi-agency checkpoints. They would have a multitude of federal agents there, along with sometimes national guard. And, you know, everyone would have to be stopped. And ostensibly it was, you know, kind of a crime checkpoint, but mostly what it did seem in. I live in a ward that is heavily latino. That was the purpose of them seemed to be immigration enforcement in in my ward in wards seven and eight, which are predominantly black. It seemed to be around just kind of escalating. Low level arrests is what we saw a lot of, to the point that actually federal juries, because we have a system here where we don't have local courts, all of our courts, they're federal cases, if you will, because we're a federal district. The juries failed to return any charges on them because these were kind of such low level offenses or things that didn't really hold up upon scrutiny. So a lot of raids that we saw, it also kind of felt like at times these raids or sorry, not these raids, these checkpoints were part of that propaganda. You know, effort that we saw right where it was coupled with, you know, the press release that would come out about, you know, how much activity they'd been able to do. And so that felt like a significant portion of what the purpose was behind these checkpoints.
49 Thanks. And I have to ask a follow up on that. Did you find in terms of data collection? I mean, were these folks who are running the checkpoints tracking everybody that's coming through that? I mean, are we the level of data creation that can occur in here is something I'm concerned about as well.
50 Yeah. Deeply concerned. Right. You know, it's I can't speak to that. Right. I think it is a black box. There hasn't been information that's been shared with, you know, us as, as a city. And so I think it folks are right to be concerned, you know, for their civil liberties for and again, you know, based off of how you looked, what language you were speaking, where you are can subject you to all kinds of detention and additional questioning. And so there's significant civil liberty concerns posed by these, these checkpoints, including, you know, kind of gathering of information and all that kind of data.
51 Thanks. And then the last question I had was, if you could just you kind of mentioned a phrase that was pretty concerning, widespread warrantless detention. And I wanted to just let you expand on that and see what what we are looking at as a potential here.
52 Yeah. So I work for a council member who, in the midst of all of this, urged her constituents to stop ordering food delivery. And I say that because what was happening was that drivers were being targeted for detention. And just based off of the fact that drivers and food delivery workers, many of whom are immigrants, were being detained. And we found many instances in which folks with legal permanent residents, Green cards, u.s. Citizenship were being detained, and then questions were being asked later about their status. And so, you know, it has created such a culture of fear that has extended to school absences, right? I mean, we have seen families who have been separated because, you know, they walk their kids to school and then immediately, like a block away, were taken by ice. And so we are seeing the impacts of that is that there are there's more absences from schools, right? There's like entire communities who are really afraid to go out and walk their children to school. And so we have these kind of bc busses which are like kind of bicycle busses or people walking others to school in order to protect them in this moment. And so it, it it's just so widespread this, you know, that walking while brown can subject you to detention and that, you know, it is a widespread phenomenon, particularly the community that I live in, that people are carrying their documentation, they're carrying passports. And that's just a chilling thing to, to think about.
53 Yeah. Thank you so much for raising that. We we have a strong bike bus culture here, but we've also had two of our in my district two fathers taken while dropping their kids off or in process of it. So I think that's a really important point to raise and I appreciate all the answers from everyone. Thank you.
54 Thank you, thank you so much for being here. And thanks to lisa freeman and councilor Kanal staff for reaching out and pulling folks together. It's not only valuable to hear your experiences and lessons learned, but also simply for us to come together and be reminded that although our great cities are far apart, we're all in this together. So thank you so, so much. Councilor Kanal. Is that a legacy hand? No. Okay.
55 I also wanted to say thank you. You know, robert taylor came in and thanked everybody but himself. But I did want to to say thank you for the work you and your team have done, because it's been a it's been really great to have the clarity that we've seen, especially in the last week. But we know it's it's been a long time of prep to get there. Thank you.
56 Okay. Councilors, any further comments? Are we ready to move on to the next item? Okay. Rebecca, could you read the next item?
57 Item two crisis continuum and mental health crisis services and interventions.
58 All right. I'm really looking forward to this. We're going to hear from folks from the Portland police behavioral health unit and from psr and from cascadia project, respond about the mental health crisis services and interventions, and hear more about the various roles and these various agencies plays and the distinctions between them. So again, I'm really looking forward to this. We're going to hear from sergeant jennifer butcher of officer billy kemper of bsu, April roe of psr, doctor lisa stewart and brian jacoby of cascadia project respond. So take it away.
59 Good afternoon everybody. Thank you. Thank you for having us. And to follow that very somber item. We really appreciate you making time to still hold us on for today. So thank you very much. So good afternoon, councilors and co-chairs. I'll go ahead and introduce myself and then allow the rest of the the panel to go ahead and introduce themselves. My name is jennifer butcher. I am currently the acting lieutenant in the behavioral health unit. I've been in that position since about January when our other lieutenant was promoted, chris burley. I've been with the unit since February 2023, but I've also been a member of the Portland police bureau for the last 22 years. So. And good.
60 Afternoon, councilors co-chairs I am April roe. She her pronouns. I am the interim program manager with Portland street response. I've been with the program for three years now. Lisa.
61 Good afternoon. Thank you for having us. My name is lisa stewart and I use she her pronouns and I am a program manager at project respond. And I'm just coming up on my four year anniversary with cascadia.
62 Okay. So again, thank you for allowing us to present today. You know, our goal with this presentation is to give a current current standing of where we are with the crisis response model and how it's functioning in the city, as well as what each of our organizations does and the role we play within the crisis response model. So next slide. Oh, can you go back one. Sorry. This is a brief agenda of what we're going to cover today. Our hope is that we are able to each speak to who we are and what we do, and then touch base on how it is that we collaborate all three of our organizations. Next slide.
63 So there are four potential outcomes to crisis calls for anyone in crisis services, which includes all the programs that we are talking about here. We share the same goal, which is resolution. Let me tell you about what resolution looks like. One. We can resolve the situation at the location. That includes providing services, connecting folks with family, de-escalating or solving the problem for the time being, or disengagement with the plan to connect with follow up services. Number two is providing a voluntary transport, and this may mean taking a person to a provider voluntarily. It may mean having amr transport to a hospital voluntarily, or it may mean transporting to a resource such as family, friends and urgent. Walk-in clinic. Food bank, etc. Number three is the involuntary transport. This when we get into a police officer, hold a director's custody hold or a detox hold. And number four is the transport to jail. Obviously, this is not the preferred method for people in mental health crisis, but sometimes it's the appropriate solution. Next slide. The goal of the crisis continuum is to get the right responders to the right cause and facilitate the best resolution. Portland street response is a mobile crisis team responding to low acuity crisis calls received through 911 that previously were responded to by police and fire. We are staffed by crisis professionals and emts to ensure we are ready to treat the whole person. Our team provides the least intrusive interventions, such as being present with a person during their crisis, resolving crisis at the scene, and assisting people with seeking voluntary services. Our goal is to provide effective interventions that safely support individuals in crisis.
64 Project respond is dispatched by the Multnomah county behavioral health call center, or the crisis line, as we commonly refer, or from directly from officers in the field. Project respond is mandated by the state of Oregon to provide mobile crisis services anywhere in Multnomah county, 24 over seven 365 days a year. Project respond is staffed with with multidisciplinary team members, including master's level and bachelor's level clinicians, as well as peer providers to respond to all levels of crisis, including those of high acuity and those that may involve safety concerns that may require a law enforcement response.
65 And that's where we come into play. You know, as law enforcement, we respond to 911 and crisis calls, couple of examples of calls that we might respond to is perhaps a male standing in the middle of a street swinging some sort of metal pipe, obviously causing fear and alarm in the community. That's an example of a call that we would go to. Another call, for example, would be somebody standing on one of our bridges or other elevated structures. You know, the caller believes that the person might be, you know, attempting to take their own life. Therefore, police response is going to be necessary. We can go. And, you know, we do our best to try to control the environment, you know, traffic and whatnot. But the other kind of calls that we go to at times where there's elevated emotions would be family disturbances, where you have a lot of screaming, a lot of high emotions. Oftentimes these people are completely, you know, emotionally dysregulated. But there's an overall there's a safety factor. And and until, you know, we can control that situation and make the scene safe to allow the proper maybe the other responders to come in and help. Those are the types of calls that we're going to respond to.
66 And all three programs also have follow up services, because crisis rarely ends at the conclusion of a call. Most calls require ongoing support to address the root cause of the initial crisis. Next slide.
67 Okay, I'm up again. So if everybody wants to take a look at one of the screens, what this is, is this is a crisis response model. It's really a venn diagram that you can you see all three of our organizations are represented up there. We view this model as it's fluid and it's also linear. Right. Like it's it goes it can start with Portland street response go to project respond. And then you know perhaps we get involved. But what I like to kind of focus in on is the center of that diagram. And that's where I put our community members right there. They're the reason we're on scene, the reason we're responding. But it's also important to to identify that each one of our organizations at one time or another, is going to have contact with this individual. And that is really where the, you know, the the collaboration, if you will, comes into play. You know, we're trained to respond to calls determined to be unsafe for unarmed community members, such as project respond and Portland street response. We also have the ability to hopefully get there quickly and safely, make the scene safe so that other responders can can respond.
68 And to follow up with that, the spectrum is also like we're talking about patient acuity. So patient acuity is really the measurement of the level of care a patient needs based on the severity of risk to their self or others. So that's really how we are dividing these the work between these programs and how we have staffed our programs is to address that. Acuity, such as Portland street response, is staffed to address low acuity needs, meaning low acuity, referring to medical or mental condition that is not immediately life threatening and does not require urgent intervention. Of course, if Portland street response response to a call and it's determined that a higher level of care is needed, we will call for the appropriate response partner response.
69 And as I mentioned earlier, project respond is staffed to address all acuity levels. This is what we're directed by the state of Oregon in Multnomah county and all levels, including high acuity needs. So when we're talking about high acuity, as April mentioned, we're typically referring to really complicated or complex behavioral health issues that may include a risk to self or others. And that's what we're talking about there. Project respond. Unlike Portland street response is not staffed to respond to medical calls. Next slide. Next slide. All right. So locally for crisis events our community has two numbers that they can call for an in-person response. So today we're really talking about in-person response in the community to folks in crisis. And those two numbers are 911 and the crisis line or the Multnomah county behavioral health center. The goal really is if folks are having a behavioral health crisis, they would call the crisis line. But as we know, sometimes there's folks that are in having a behavioral health crisis, but there's also a public safety element involved, then 911 might be a more appropriate call. But I do have a question for everybody. Does anyone know the crisis line? Multnomah county crisis line off the top of your head, right. Probably not. And but we all know 911. Right. And why is that? As very little children were taught that if there's an emergency, somebody is in trouble. We call 911 and someone's going to come find us and help us. So because of this, we all are working on and adopted processes that really are to provide a continuity of care and ensure that when people are experiencing some of the worst moments of their life, they don't have to worry, stress out about who they're calling to get help for themselves or others. And this is done by the call takers from boec and the crisis line. They collaborate behind the scenes when needed. Call takers triage for the most appropriate response, and include safety concerns in that. And they follow clear policies and protocols to assign calls to the most appropriate team. What's our goal here today is that the community knows there is no wrong door for them to seek crisis services. The right responder will respond to the call. Next slide.
70 So we've included a brief description of the services each of our programs provide here on the screen for you. While we are responding to crisis calls. Each program has specific Lane in which we operate, and we're not going to recite all of them for you, but feel free to look at those later. Next slide all parties prefer to resolve calls on scene. I know I talked about four possible outcomes. That is, across the board the preference for everybody. But when that isn't possible, our programs need to work together in the field to achieve the appropriate resolution. We're going to provide a few examples of what may happen. These examples are simplified to provide clarity, but more complex situations involve involve a lot more conversation and collaboration between our teams. For Portland street response, if Portland street response were to respond on an adult female who appears to be in crisis is outside yelling erratic movements, there's no weapon scene. We'd go out and through conversation and assessment. If our team then determines that a client is at risk to themselves or others because no weapons are present and the client is not actively aggressive, Portland street response would then call project respond for that higher level of care.
71 And when we're talking about project respond, we might get a call through the crisis line from maybe a parent or a loved one about their adult daughter is in the backyard ripping up plants, throwing them around, hasn't been taking their medication, and is making vague threats to their neighbors. We would then be looking into previous call information sort of history, and we see there's a history of actual violence. Then we would actually contact the Portland police to respond to us so that for our safety and the safety of the client.
72 Yeah, exactly. We are there to to help when needed. And an example for us might be just working the opposite direction. You know, for example, if our officers respond call at a gas station. The caller states a woman outside the location is harassing customers, refusing to leave the property. Our officers can go there and contact not only her, but also the reporting party of it and kind of determine what what is it they want to see happen. You know, perhaps that we can go make contact, ideally with the woman, listen to her, build some rapport and see what it is she needs. Right. She's probably asking for something here in the lovely pacific northwest. You know, we get so much rain. And when you spend a lot of time of your life outdoors, there's a lot of, you know, you're wet. You need basic things like socks and shoes and and shelter. And I know that seems like pretty limited, you know, basic stuff. But this is a, you know, a majority of people that are out there are in need of that stuff. And so that might be a perfect call that we, you know, bridge the gap and reach out to Portland street response and say, hey, we have this individual does not need to go to jail, doesn't, you know, is in need of maybe some crisis referrals as well as, you know, necessities, basic necessities, but is, you know, there's no criminal criminality. Excuse me to the call whatsoever. So yes, we're there, but then our role turns into building the bridge to go back the other direction. And so. Next slide. Next slide.
73 See you again.
74 Oh look at that. Okay. So this I think leads a little into more of of the crisis response model. It just shows how fluid it is. You know how a call might start with a Portland street response then move to the project. Respond may start with project respond and move to Portland police bureau. But all three of our organizations have, especially over this last year, have done a phenomenal job with, you know, building, you know, communication lines of communication. I often receive calls from project respond just to discuss, you know, who is who is it that we're working with and what progress have we made? What have we done so far? You know, it really kind of cuts down on the work a little bit. And I think it also allows us to deliver a better, quicker service to people. Instead of thinking that each one of us need to individually start at square one. So, you know, crisis calls, though, they're dynamic and they're rapidly evolve into something not expected at times. So, you know, an example might be for a project or, I'm sorry, Portland street response to go to a call for service. There was no mention per se of any weapons in the call. But, you know, when they get on scene, perhaps the, you know, that information has changed. You know, at that time it would be a pretty easy call for them to disengage and then to go ahead and ask for us to step in, stabilize the situation. And, and then maybe that even call goes back to them at one point. You know, it is quite fluid. It doesn't it doesn't need to stick with us once it lands there.
75 So yeah. And I think more to that point is it really is that our teams are continually assessing and collaborating and communicating. And that's something I think all of us have been really dug in and working to open those lines of communication and really get it more normalized and faster, and just so that we can really respond in real time and address the appropriate need. Next slide please. So as you can see, the system our programs have built and continue to improve upon is the response to what the community has asked for, such as unarmed response to crisis, reducing interfaces with police for those in crisis, and peer providers involved in crisis care. The collaboration happening between these teams has never been better. We we are actively seeking system improvements and work to adjust to the community's requests. We know that there's more work to do, and we're all very dedicated to making it the best that it can be. And again, constantly reassessing those lines of communication. What we want for you to take from today is knowing that who to call and how these services work behind the scenes to get the best response to the call. When you or your loved one or someone you see seems to be having a behavioral health crisis and needing support, again, those numbers for the behavioral health call center or crisis line. 503988488 8 or 9 one one for in-person services. Thank you.
76 Thank you, colleagues. Councilor Kanal.
77 Thank you. And could you go back to the the slide that has the flowchart. And while you're doing that thank you to all of our presenters. Thank you. Also, I see dca, our assistant chief lavelle, I see director howard back there and bri of course yourself. So I want to just talk about this vertical line here between boec and mckell and just ask about how the decisions are made on that front to do it. And I'm happy to circle back to that question and just give a different hypothetical if that's a different responder, which makes sense. I want to give a hypothetical and ask whether or not this is something that project respond could respond to. And I want to just assume for this that the call came in to boec and it was passed along that vertical line to get to to boec or sorry to get to mckell. So and it's a if there was a hypothetical adult male who's in his building flooding his apartment with water and hanging knives out of his apartment window, and there's been two previous calls or maybe three previous calls that day about acting in a concerning manner from a mental health perspective, is that the sort of thing that project respond could respond to in this hypothetical?
78 Are you saying that call would come to us through the crisis line?
79 No. The call originally goes to boec. Boec. For whatever reason, they do pass it along. Is that something that project respond would be able to take on?
80 Hypothetically? Yes. Typically in that case, an officer in the field would page us to consult with us and discuss with us if that was appropriate for us to respond.
81 It, meaning it typically would not come through the boec to mckell process, but would instead boec would dispatch pb and pb would text for assistance.
82 That is correct.
83 Yes.
84 Okay. Do you feel that the information on when it is appropriate to send that text and ask for that assistance is something that is well known? Are you is your are you consulted as often as you think is is potentially able to help these sorts of calls? Let me rephrase that because I didn't are all the calls that could ask for project response assistance as far as you are aware, asking for project response assistance.
85 I'm not aware of that specific answer.
86 And I don't have that data either. I do know that when officers are on scene, you know, they detect that there are they notice that there might be a mental health component to the call. They will evaluate what resources they have. Potentially there might be an officer who could actually respond quickly enough to then add another layer of evaluation. And it might reach the point that, you know, the mental health component of the call does, you know, you know, we as PPB will reach out to project, respond to to respond and to also ourselves. Call the crisis line and we can, you know, seek out information like have, you know, do you have any past history with this individual? What has been the outcome in previous calls for service here, as well as our own internal records, you know, past police reports and whatnot? You know, we could possibly designate an officer to to dive into that a little deeper. And just to get a historical background on this, this individual and how the call is resolved in the past. And, you know, more importantly, how safely has that call resolved in the past and possibly, you know, use those same tactics for at least initial, you know, scene stabilization and trying to make contact. This was with this individual. But I would say that your scenario, though, would be a very appropriate response that I as an officer, if I was on scene, I would definitely resource them if I felt that they could offer, you know, offer anything good for the call. It's, you know, for us it's like, let's bring them on, you know, the more the merrier and see if we can have a good outcome.
87 Thank you, sergeant butcher. And I'll, I'll just add two, two things a comment, a question. The comment is it enhanced crisis intervention team. These are officers who've taken the 40 hours of crisis intervention team training that all PPB officers take, and have also opted into an additional 40 hours as well.
88 That's correct. So, and I apologize, I swore I would not use any acronyms before I came in here because it's like the big soup sandwich. I apologize for that, but yes. So a quick breakdown is when officers get hired, they go down to the basic academy between for Portland police, between the basic academy and advanced academy, each officer will receive about 50 hours of cit training. That includes about eight hours of, you know, scenario based training, if you will, and scenario village. Additionally, officers can then apply for our exit program. If they are selected, they will receive the 40 hours more of an advanced crisis training that entails more scenario based training. So does that answer your question?
89 Yeah, I think it's helpful because I think the distinction is not always known between cit and bu. That's correct. And also I think it's valid for the community to know that PPB actually has, I think, the highest number of training hours of any west coast police department and possibly more. I just I know that that's the data I've seen.
90 Yeah. And I couldn't say that for sure. But speaking of officers, I would like to say like currently today or I should say yesterday, the numbers of like operational cit folks that we have on the street right now is about 83 officers that split up between three precincts, as well as some of the specialty units. However, we do have 163 officers, sergeants and whatnot. Whatever rank 163 that are non-operational, but they're certified. So oftentimes an officer will. That's our first preference. If an officer wants to come and attend the cit training, we give them that opportunity. I myself was an officer, but when I promoted, I still wanted to maintain that certification. I felt it was a vital skill set to to keep up on and the continuing education and whatnot we received. But, you know, as you promote to lieutenant, captain, whatnot, you still have the option to keep your certification. Right? But you just wouldn't be considered deployable. Like answer up a call for service and respond.
91 So thank you. Thank you for that clarity. The other question I had was related to when you said earlier you were referring to we would respond to this and I just to get clarity, are you referring to PPB as a whole or are you referring to bhr? Are you referring to exit in this scenario to a specific call for service?
92 No, I'm referring to more of a patrol. That would be because bau, the behavioral health unit, we aren't technically a hot response. You know, we do a much more of a follow up component to these calls because we have the time and, you know, we have five behavioral health response teams that are partnered up with clinicians who are stellar as lisa is. So no, we're not it wouldn't be behavioral health behavioral health unit responding to these. Although I won't say we never do. We do often, you know, occasionally I'll stop saying it. We can go to some calls, but we just don't. That's not our primary focus. So when I say we it is like more of a patrol. You know, if I put myself in a patrol officer's role. Great.
93 And then from a, from a asset perspective, I guess just to clarify on that, the generally speaking, a call that falls into this crisis continuum, someone is deciding that it's ideally an asset officer or several that are responding to it. Is that normally a decision made at PPB or at boec?
94 Well, boec will I don't want to I don't want to speak for melanie. So go ahead.
95 Good afternoon, melanie payne boec. We do initial triage based on the information the caller provides, what is observed. We have a lot of training dedicated specifically to identifying someone who may be in mental health crisis. That's passed on from the call taker. The dispatcher may also recognize, based on previous calls for the same situation, that this may merit an exit officer being dispatched. Officers, when they arrive on scene, are also trained to request exit, and our dispatchers will send them upon request.
96 Great. And then my last overall question a couple years ago, there was a space open at boec, which is the bureau of emergency communications 911 for a Multnomah county crisis line call taker, so that calls could be have a specialty person to divert from 911 to the mcclymont needed. Was that spot ever filled? Is there a person that does that now? Is there a designated desk and all that? And is there a conversation occurring on embedding mcclymont within boec?
97 That position was filled. We're very excited to work with behavioral health call center to answer more questions. I'm actually going to yield to please excuse me.
98 I lower my hand and turn off my mind so I don't follow up anything else but.
99 Good afternoon.
100 My name is cheryl lemley, and I'm the program manager for crisis services for Multnomah county. And so I worked with melanie and bob and several other folks here to work on embedding a crisis responder for the crisis call center into boec. And she has been there a little over a year. Yeah, a year in June. And so what happens is when a call comes into boec and the call taker at the bureau of emergency operations determines that that person, by the tenor of the call, may be experiencing a mental health issue. They will transfer that call over to the behavioral health call center, and the calls are titrated so that our embedded person answers those 911 transfers first. So those calls go to her first, then she will work on that call to make a determination whether that call can go to project respond, whether it should be a Portland street response or whether it should go back to 911 for an emergency dispatch. So she will do a safe, a safety and risk assessment and make those determinations.
101 I was going to ask exactly the same question. And so but also I was I mean, this question might already have, in effect been answered, but would it make any sense to just I mean, as doctor stewart said, nobody knows the crisis line number. Would it make sense to just eliminate that and have everybody call 911?
102 You know, I can only say this councilor is that we get about 80,000 calls a year. I think people do know our number. I think that it is not as widely known as we would like it to be. We've really been doing a lot of advertising and campaigning to make our number more well known, especially with suicide prevention month in September, we did several public service announcements and have been having a social media campaign for that particular number to get out there to the community. Our average call volume in Multnomah county alone is about between 800 and 900 calls a week. And that's not just our 911 transfers. That's just our crisis line number in Multnomah county. But we also answer crisis line for Washington county and after hours for Clackamas county. So we're answering all three of those lines, plus our 911 specific transfer lines, police officer lines. It's it's a busy place. But as as far as getting the number out there, yes, we would definitely like the number to be more widely used because I do think that it's important to note that about 85% of the calls that we received are resolved over the phone without needing mobile crisis intervention, and that's really where we want people to be to get their services right. We don't want the the most restrictive level of care when there's a least restrictive out there. So we try to resolve those issues over the phone. And if we can't, then we do definitely rely on our mobile service partners and our police officer partners.
103 Thank you. And that 85% figure is thanks for bringing that up. Of course. Does anybody know how many calls that come to boec are then forwarded to the crisis line through this embedded person?
104 You know, I don't have numbers prepared, but I can get you that figure as far as like the exact figure. But I think our 911 transfer just from memory is anywhere between 60 and 70 calls a week is what we're transferring right now.
105 Okay, so a significant number, but a small fraction of the 80,000 that you get directly correct. Gotcha. Thank you, counselor Smith.
106 Thank you. Thank you, vice chair. So if if we look at your slide featuring the crisis spectrum, why is project response respond needed when Portland street responds and the police can manage the entire spectrum of crisis?
107 Are you asking me?
108 Yes.
109 Well, there's a couple different things. The way the different teams are, are staffed. So we're staffed with master's level folks. And because we are contracted with Multnomah county, we're able to write director's custody holds. So the folks that are really at a risk to themselves or others, we're able to write a hold to get them to the hospital for further evaluation.
110 Okay.
111 And we also respond to calls that other Portland street response would not respond to that. There's a level of danger or there's a need for this higher level of care.
112 And we respond countywide and not just within the city limits. Yes.
113 Okay.
114 And and as well, you know, that's where we Portland street response cannot do director's custody holds. We are not staffed to that level to be able to do that. And that's more of that high acuity. And then if we get go straight from Portland street response to police, then we end up with a police officer hold, which is like where we're saying if enforcement action is not needed, then we need to have that alternative.
115 So thank you for that, because that was my next question. What are the conditions for a director's custody hold or other involuntary hospitalization. So that would make sense with what you're saying. So you you answered my second question. So thank you so much.
116 Any further questions? Thank you very, very much. This is this is information that I feel guilty I didn't learn about six months ago or a year ago and really appreciate hearing it now. Oh, counselor Smith, anything further I agree. Okay. Thanks so much.
117 Thank you, thank you, thank you.
118 Rebecca. My instructions say to ask you to read the next two items together. I didn't realize there were two items, but apparently we've invited them to two. Oh. Just one. Okay.
119 Just one item three. Great American shakeout.
120 October 16th is the date of the great American shakeout. We're supposed to practice what we do when there's an earthquake, and we've got rashid narwal here from pbem. Now, rashid, my understanding is that the basic thing is drop, cover and hold. And an obvious example is if you happen to be near a sturdy table, you get under the table and hold on to a leg. What are examples of other examples of things you might do particularly like in this room? Should you get to one of the pillars and hold on, or should you just get under the chair? You're on and hold. You're on and hold onto the chair.
121 Well, so the. The point.
122 Is that you don't walk around too much and invite invite debris to fall on you. If you can get protect your head with something. If you can't move, it's recommended you do that. You should get try to get another chair, but as I'm looking behind me, not everyone. The chair might be too low for you to like, squeeze in under it. So in that case, I would recommend just maybe hunching over, protecting your head with your laptops or whatnot. And then once the shaking stops, you try to get up and and walk to a safe spot.
123 Okay? And am I right? This is the basic thing we should know in an earthquake. Drop. Cover. Hold.
124 Yes.
125 Okay, hold. So I'm now going to ask my colleagues and anybody in this room who feels comfortable doing it. Okay. You hear? Shaking. What do you do?
126 Good job putting the chairs. Where? Oh, perfect. I got this. Speak it onto the record. Okay.
127 All right. I couldn't see any of you, of course, but I think we all did an excellent job. Thank you very much. And remember to do that again October 16th. Councilor Kanal told me that he's not coming back out. He's just going to hang there for a while. So thank you all. Our next meeting is Tuesday, October 21st. This meeting of the community and public safety committee is adjourned.
128 Well.