From: Jenice A
To: City Clerk; John Knox White; Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft; Trish Spencer; Tony Daysog; Malia Vella; Eric Levitt Subject: [EXTERNAL] Item 7-A 12/21
Date: Tuesday, December 21, 2021 2:24:57 PM
Dear Council,
I appreciate that our City leadership are continuing to look at the recommendations from the Police Reform Steering Committee. I do however have concerns about our focus on outsourcing components of our oversight to not only outside agencies but out of state companies. Lexipol institutes best practices for police agencies all over the country and yet we continue to have an epidemic of police violence in our communities. Perhaps it's time to reconsider who decides best practices for our community and how those are implemented.
I would also like to express extreme reservations about the use of Truleo for reviewing body camera footage. Not just because AI can be discriminatory in how language is flagged in audio. Whether by not being able to detect disrespectful sarcasm or flagging people with accents or who use slang. This is a brand new company and we would essentially be one of their pilot programs for promoting this program to other cities. It isn't proven to work and I question whether their system would have even found any issue with the footage from APD's interactions with Mali Watkins or Mario Gonzalez. Both of which had tones of disrespect but language that would likely not be flagged by AI as a confrontation. With any surveillance technology you also have to ask where the data will be held, who will have access to it and how will it be used? If ownership of the data is held by APD that means they could hold and use audio clips of people who may not have even been accused of a crime but may have been engaged in language flagged by AI either on their part or the officers. I wrote with concerns about license plate readers previously and I have just as many reservations about entrusting APD with more data.
As a final note I just have to wonder how much money we're intending to spend on technology for police surveillance tools and data storage for those tools? If we're going to continue to throw money at surveillance and oversight by outside agencies I'd like to ask some of our councilmembers to stop perpetuating the idea that our police department has been defunded or is grossly understaffed. Because they very clearly aren't being defunded and if 6 officers can respond to a traffic stop where the driver didn't even appear to be cited, as I saw the other night, they don't seem to be that understaffed either.
Sincerely,
Jenice Anderson
From: Jennifer Rakowski
To: John Knox White; Manager Manager; Trish Spencer; City Clerk; Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft; Malia Vella; Nishant Joshi; Tony Daysog
Subject: [EXTERNAL] 7A - Policy Policy Updates
Date: Tuesday, December 21, 2021 1:07:23 PM
In 2021, California passed a slate of legislation seeking to improve police work.
Alameda's Police Departments policies must be updated to address release of records, use of military equipment, and positional asphyxia amoung other updates. Local policies should conform to the following State laws:
AB 26 by Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) – Peace officers: use of force.
AB 48 by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) – Law enforcement: use of force.
AB 89 by Assemblymember Reggie Jones Sawyer (D-Los Angeles) – Peace officers:
minimum qualifications.
AB 481 by Assemblymember David Chiu (D-San Francisco) – Law enforcement and state agencies: military equipment: funding, acquisition, and use.
AB 490 by Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D-Carson) – Law enforcement agency policies: arrests: positional asphyxia.
AB 958 by Assemblymember Mike Gipson (D-Carson) – Peace officers: law enforcement gangs.
SB 2 by Senator Steven Bradford (D-Gardena) – Peace officers: certification: civil rights.
SB 16 by Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) – Peace officers: release of records.
But our policies updates should not be limited to basic compliance with State Law. They should reflect the best in local knowledge and community ideals.
Alameda Police Department should have policies and training that are scientifically and medically sound. One example of a change that is overdue is in the area of Excited Delirium.
Excited Delirium claims to be a medical diagnosis but its local use is entirely with Alameda Police Department. A public records request into Alameda Fire Department found no such reference in the training of emergency medical staff.
The American Medical Association rejects the term as does World Health Organization, and the American Psychiatric Association. We should respect officer enough to not teaching them junk science. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it's the important need to ground our public policies in medically solid science.
The term “excited delirium” is attributed to Charles Wetli, a forensic pathologist. At its corrupt origin the false concept, misdirected police efforts with deadly consequences.
Wetli used the term to explain away the deaths of 32 BIPOC women occurring in Miami over the 1980s, proposing that a combination of small amounts of drugs in combination with sexual intercourse had led to their demise. This misdianostic allowed a serial killer to continue killing. Excited Delirium, and it's related narrative continues to contribute to the obfuscation of facts and the failure to get justice in certain homicides.
This is an example of a harmful policy Lexipol promulgates. Let's not let the efficiency of Lexipos service prevent us from also seeing its shortcomings.
Respectful,
Jennifer Rakowski
Subcommittee member on Police Accountability and Oversight From: Jennifer Rakowski
To: John Knox White; Manager Manager; Trish Spencer; City Clerk; Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft; Malia Vella; Nishant Joshi; Tony Daysog
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Item 7-A Re: Body Cam Footage Processing Date: Tuesday, December 21, 2021 9:37:23 AM
Dear Alameda City Council,
Mario Gonzalez death teaches us there is no such thing as a more polite death. A more courteous police force does not make a better or less violent police force . Police accountability is not about manners.
Regular review of body cam footage is better then not reviewing body cam footage. But how body cam footage is reviewed and tracked is equally important. A faster more efficient system that does not interrupt underlying systemic bias or provide great community oversight still leaves the community out in the cold.
Truleo, a Chicago start up is less than a year old and Alameda is the first police department in California to use the platform. They have not built up a track record to be independently reviewed and vetted. They were barely a company when the committee's were doing their work.
Natural language processes technology is less likely to understand words spoken by immigrants. Prejudice along race, ethnicity and gender lines can be unwittingly built into the program. Context both visual and verbal can be missed. Sarcasm can go undetected but so can the truth about what is visually occurring.
Based on the Kron 4 exclusive with Chief Joshi it sounds like this program will start on Jan 1st. This program can not be viewed as a substitute for community oversight, rather it should be viewed as an additional reason to move forward on Community Oversight with deliberate speed.
Jennifer Rakowski
Member- Subcommitee on Police Department Accountability and Oversight.
From: Jackie Zipkin
To: City Clerk; Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft; Malia Vella; Trish Spencer; Tony Daysog; John Knox White Subject: [EXTERNAL] Comments on Dec 21 Meeting, Item 7A Date: Sunday, December 19, 2021 8:34:03 PM
Dear Madame Mayor and City Council Members:
I am an Alameda resident and am writing to comment on Item 7A on the December 21 Council Meeting agenda regarding Efforts to Reimagine Police Services and Racial Equity. I want to start by thanking the Council and staff for the continuing focus on this item. Alameda Police Department has a long unfortunate history of harming the very residents it is charged with protecting, and change is overdue. With respect to the Work Plan, I offer the following comments:
Truleo is not a substitute for community oversight. APD is touting the artificial intelligence system Truleo as a way to distinguish positive and negative police- community interactions. However, it is impossible to tell a negative interaction by only listening. The tapes of Mario Gonzalez's murder painfully demonstrate that police can be quite polite while performing heinous acts. True community oversight involves meaningful review of bodycam footage as originally proposed, by the City Manager, City Council, and the public.
Training for dispatchers must be ongoing. The CARE Program is a huge step in the right direction. Its success hinges on the decisions of dispatchers to send the CARE Team instead of police. Training for dispatchers should therefore never be considered "complete." It should be ongoing and iterative.
UBI should be an ARPA priority. I strongly support development of a UBI pilot for Alameda, and the City's American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocation provides an ideal funding source with which to get this started. The Alameda Justice Alliance and Transform Alameda stand ready to support city staff in developing a program.
APD should not rely on Lexipol for policy updates. This community has been asking for compassion and thoughtfulness in police policy. Instead, APD continues to rely on generic policies written to protect police by a Texas-based company. Policies should be updated using critical thinking and community input, not shortcuts.
Thank you for your consideration,
Jackie Zipkin