Cotati City Council
Agenda Staff Report
Item type: REGULAR AGENDA (ACTION)
To: City Council
Subject: Annual Police Chief Report to the Community
Date: April 25, 2023
Written by: Michael Parish, Chief of Police
Recommendation
It is recommended that the City Council receive and discuss the annual police chief report to the community for 2022.
Background
In 2021, the Chief of Police presented the first annual report to the City Council and the Community, which covered activities and statistics from 2020.
From conversations with the City Council and the community in 2020 and 2021, the City Council committed to the following measures for greater transparency:
1. Early implementation of RIPA data collection.
2. Creation of this annual report to the community.
3. Review of annual RIPA reports for best practices.
4. Re-affirm our commitment to train our officers above and beyond POST standards, including implicit bias training and de-escalation training.
5. Updating the citizen complaint form and making it available on the website.
6. Conducting a community survey on racism.
7. Working with a third party to conduct a policy compliance review to ensure policies/training/and practices are aligned.
All of these measures have been implemented, with some, such as training, community surveys and compliance review on-going efforts. Additionally, in November 2021, the City also started the SAFE mental health crisis team with Rohnert Park, initially with limited hours as we ramped up services and added shifts through 2022. Today, the SAFE team operates 24/7 and now includes Sonoma State University.
Based on feedback from the City Council, the police department also self-identified a need to update internal tracking of use of force events to better document the multi-layer supervisory review and improved reportability in the annual report. The updated tracking also included a broader definition of use of force to include any type of action that could be perceived as force beyond simple handcuffing.
Analysis/Discussion
In 2022, the Police Department struggled with staffing levels and was looking for creative ways to bring new officers into Cotati. However, as a result, the department had limited bandwidth to implement new projects. Given the aversion to policing as a career, the generally low levels of unemployment in California, and competition from higher paying agencies, the police department will need to continue to be creative to fill vacancies and try to get back to full staffing. Even with the staffing shortfalls in 2022, the Police Department implemented these commitments, including:
- Put in service Sonoma County’s first fully upfit electric patrol vehicle, with three more going into service in 2023.
- Continued focus on training for de-escalation and implicit bias. - Hi-Low Evacuation Testing
- Annual Drug Take Back Event
- Various community events, such as Coffee with a Cop and National Night Out.
Targeted Traffic Enforcement Program
In addition to general traffic enforcement, the City is implementing a targeted traffic enforcement program as staffing allows, including:
- Downtown Truck Enforcement
- Pedestrian Crossing Vehicle Enforcement
- Distracted Driving Vehicle Enforcement
- Zone/Beat Enforcement
- Speed Enforcement in high collision areas
The program is intended to focus on each enforcement area every 6 months.
Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) Technology
In 2022, the police department had twelve (12) successful recoveries of stolen vehicles from the ALPR. Our officers also use the ALPR system for investigations and for public safety by uploading wanted and dangerous vehicles into the system. Instead of immediately chasing suspect vehicles, and inherently creating risk of life and/or property as well as the potential for use of force, the collection of data is later used to safely serve a warrant to impound the vehicle used in the illegal activity.
Specialized Assistance for Everyone (SAFE) Mental Health Crisis Response Team Beginning in November 2021, the City and Rohnert Park partnered to stand up a mental health crisis response team to better respond to people in crisis and get them services for better outcomes rather than relying on police to be social workers. Through 2022, the SAFE team was working on ramping up hours and developing performance statistics, which are still a work in progress. The City also led the MOU negotiations to add Sonoma State University to the SAFE team, which went live in February 2023, close to the same time that the SAFE team began 24/7 coverage of the three communities.
Since the SAFE program inception in 2021 through the end of 2022, the SAFE team had responded to 1,691 calls (205 in Cotati [12%], 1,486 in Rohnert Park [88%]). The following statistics are for Cotati only:
• 97% of the calls were dispatched from our Police Dispatch, with 78% of the calls “Public Assists”
• 17% “Welfare Checks”
• 4% “Suicidal Subjects”
• 2% “Counseling Requests”.
Of the call outcomes, 61% were either assisted or advised, 21% were transported, with the remaining 18% some version of unable to locate or refusing services. Males are slightly overrepresented, comprising 56% of the calls, with females representing 40% of the calls, with 2% transgender and 2% unknown (data not collected). Black and white individuals represented 7% and 72% of the calls, respectively, with Latinx 13% of the calls and Asian (1%), Native American (2%), and data not collected (5%). Ethnicity was not collected when the team was unable to locate (UTL) or gone on arrival (GOA). It’s assumed that the race/ethnicity was generally perceived by the SAFE team member, rather than self-identified by the caller. Of the callers, 29% were youth (currently defined as 0-24 years old).
Roughly 5% are listed as emergency room diversions and 2% as jail diversions. Of the 44 identified transports, most were to Coffey House and Sutter Emergency Room/Crisis Stabilization Unit (16% each), followed by Petaluma Valley Emergency Room (14%), Kaiser Emergency Room (9%), Library/Catholic Charities/COTS (7% each), hotel/Redwood Gospel/AA-NA/friend or family residence (5% each), with the remaining transports to Memorial Emergency Room, Muir Woods, or Petaluma Health Center (2% each).
During this time period, there is no good data on SAFE diversions or co-response for Police, Fire or EMS. Specifically, it’s unknown how many, if any, calls are “new” calls that our dispatch center received for SAFE or how many were total calls diverted from police, fire or EMS. We are in conversation with SAFE to provide co-response numbers, but the cities may be in the best position to determine diversion. This is a critical area that needs better data collection, as it will be key to developing sustainable long term funding strategies. Another area that needs improved data granularity is the “public assists” which constitute over three-quarters of all calls but are too broad of a category to be well understood. Generally, it’s a catch all category for various mental health responses, but City staff are on a working group with SSU and SAFE to further improve reporting in these and other key areas.
The full table of SAFE responses is attached to this report. Note that the cost per call does not include any vehicle or equipment costs, which are billed separately.
Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) Report
The Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory (RIPA) Board was created “for the purpose of eliminating racial and identity profiling, and improving diversity and racial and identity sensitivity in law enforcement.” (Pen. Code, § 13519.4, subd. (j)(1).) To that end, the Board engages in a variety of work in partnership with state and local law enforcement agencies, community stakeholders, and academic researchers, including:
• Reviewing and analyzing policies and practices to make policy recommendations that will eliminate racial and identity profiling by law enforcement in California; • Conducting and consulting evidence-based research on intentional and implicit bias and law enforcement stop, search, and seizure tactics;
• Reviewing and analyzing stop data and civilian complaint data required by the Racial and Identity Profiling Act; and
• Reviewing training by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards Training (POST) regarding racial and identity profiling required by RIPA.
As required by AB 953, on July 1, 2016, the Attorney General established the RIPA Board for the purpose of eliminating racial and identity profiling and improving diversity and racial and identity sensitivity in law enforcement. Each year, the RIPA Board compiles and reviews data from police agencies in California and issues an annual report with recommendations.
A “stop”, as defined by RIPA regulations (AB 953), means any detention by a peace officer of a person, or any peace officer interaction with a person in which the officer conducts a search. The data elements required to be collected during the stop are attached to this staff report. These data elements have been further amended, which will go into effect on January 1, 2024.
Statewide RIPA Data Summary
In the 2023 RIPA report, using the aggregate 2021 data from 58 reporting police agencies in California, it was concluded that Black and Hispanic individuals were more likely to have force used against them while Asian and Other individuals were less likely to have force used against them (compared to White individuals). Individuals perceived to have a disability were searched, detained on-site, or handcuffed at a higher rate than individuals not perceived to have a disability.
Within all racial groups, youth (aged 10-17) were handcuffed, searched or detained on-site at a higher rate than other age groups. Within the youth group, Black and Hispanic individuals were searched at a higher rate than White youth. Of all racial groups, Black individuals had the highest rate of being searched, detained on-site, handcuffed, or removed from the vehicle by order. Except for Asian and Middle Eastern/South Asian individuals, other racial groups had higher search rates compared to White individuals.
Cotati and other Municipal Police Agencies in Sonoma County The City, and other Sonoma County Public Safety Consortium (SCPSC) cities (all cities except Sebastopol, Healdsburg and Cloverdale), began collecting RIPA stop data in July 2021. This was 6 earlier than required under state law and the state report on this initial 6 months is available on the RIPA website. To staffs knowledge, Cotati is alone among all Sonoma County police agencies in analyzing and reporting its RIPA data for this initial time period.
The initial stop data only represents 6 months of data, but even with this limited data, there are some interesting points to highlight. Over at least the past decade, the primary concern of Cotati residents is speeding, which has resulted in traffic stops being the highest police priority. This long-standing community priority is reflected in the data, with 86% of the stops being traffic violation stops. While the type of traffic violation is not provided, it is likely that the majority of these are speeding related.
Over the second half of 2021, the Cotati Police made 1,736 stops, which is more than the larger communities of Windsor and Sonoma combined and close to the total for Rohnert Park (2,368).
When pro-rated by number of sworn officers, the Cotati Police made 116 stops per officer, which is more than double any other municipal police agency in the SCPSC.
Of the stops, Cotati Police are the most likely to stop someone for a traffic violation and least likely among SCPSC members to stop someone for “reasonable suspicion”.
Of the stops in Cotati, most stops occurred at night between 9 pm and 1 am (27%), followed by mid to later afternoon from 2 pm to 5 pm (26.3%) and then mid-morning from 9 am and noon (16.3%). The slowest part of the day is 3 am to 8 am (7.8%).
Consistent with other SCPSC municipal police agencies, almost two thirds of all stops by the Cotati Police are men (65.8%), as opposed to only about a third (33.8%) women. Cumulatively, transgender men, women and gender non-confirming make up less than one percent (0.4%) of all stops. There is no apparent significance of the differences between SCPSC agencies.
The majority of all stops in Cotati are of people ages 25-44 (49.6%), with lesser numbers of stops of people 18-24 (16.9%) and people 45-54 (15.7%).
The RIPA statute was enacted to understand if there is disparate treatment of people based on a variety of factors, but primarily focused on race and ethnicity. The RIPA analyses assume white people are the benchmark for treatment by peace officers and compare other races and ethnicities to try and understand the relative differences. Broadly, the RIPA analysis is broken down into three groups: Disparity of Stops, Disparity in Discovery Rates, and Disparity in Use of Force. Of these three areas, Cotati was excluded from the disparity analysis of Discovery Rates and Use of Force due to insufficient sample size.
To try to understand Disparity of Stops, the RIPA report compares race/ethnicity data to the US Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) data from 2020. Essentially, the data analysis looks at the population of a given racial/ethnic group (ACS) in Cotati and compares that to the corresponding racial/ethnic group identified in the RIPA stops. This is then used to develop a disparity index, which is intended to measure the difference between the races/ethnicities of the population and the races/ethnicities of the people stopped. In this analysis, a value of 1 is parity with the resident Cotati population, less than 1 means that the percentage stopped is less than their resident population and more than 1 means that the percentage stopped is more than their resident population. This is then taken one step further and normalized against white people in the Ratio of Disparity to determine the relative differences by race/ethnicity using white people as the baseline.
In Cotati, the stop data indicates that white people made up 60.9% of all stops, Hispanic made up
27.2% of all stops, black people made up 5.5% of all stops, with various other races/ethnicities making up the remainder. South County areas of Petaluma and Rohnert Park reported similar numbers, with some variances in Santa Rosa, Sonoma and Windsor.
The following table has the actual number of stops by perceived race/ethnicity for Cotati, as charted on a percentage basis above.
PERCIEVED RACE/ETHNICITY
STOPS
(July 1-Dec. 31, 2021)
ASIAN 51
BLACK 96
HISPANIC 473
MIDDLE EASTERN/SOUTH ASIAN 25
MULTIRACIAL 14
NATIVE AMERICAN 5
PACIFIC ISLANDER 15
WHITE 1,057
TOTAL 1,736
The following is the summary table provided in the RIPA report comparing RIPA stops to ACS data to try to quantify any disparity in stops. Due to inconsistences in race/ethnicity categories from the RIPA data and the ACS data sets, Middle Eastern/South Asian was not compared.
A B A-B C/B*100 A/B E/E(w)*
RIPA ACS Absolute % Relative % Disparity Ratio of
Race/Ethnicity 2021 2020 Difference Difference Index Disparity Asian 2.94% 2.06% 0.88% 42.72% 1.43 1.64
Black 5.53% 0.99% 4.54% 458.59% 5.59 6.44
Hispanic 27.25% 19.93% 7.32% 36.73% 1.37 1.58
Middle
Eastern/South
Asian 1.44% 1.44%
Multiracial 0.81% 6.33% -5.52% -87.20% 0.13 0.15
Native
American 0.29% 0.00% 0.29%
Other
Pacific
Islander 0.86% 0.27% 0.59% 218.52% 3.19 3.67
White 60.89% 70.16% -9.27% -13.21% 0.87
100.01% 99.74%
In the Ratio of Disparity column, all races/ethnicities have higher ratios than white people, except for “multiracial”, which has a much lower ratio. However, it is not possible to draw any conclusions with this data. There are various factors that could affect the comparison between the RIPA stop data and the corresponding resident population of Cotati, including several described in the RIPA report:
• Potential response bias in the ACS data and challenges with data collection during COVID19. As indicated in the ACS table attached to the staff report, the margin of error exceeds the number of individuals counted in some demographic groups, including Black and Pacific Islander.
• The comparison uses different data years for ACS (2020) and RIPA (2021), as the 2021 ACS data was not yet available at the time of the data analysis. • It is unknown which stops are residents, but it is believed that the majority of traffic stops as well as non-traffic interactions in our downtown are non-residents. The proximity of Rohnert Park, Sonoma State University, and US 101 as well as Highway 116 brings people through Cotati each day that far exceeds the population of Cotati. For example, local roadways such as Old Redwood Highway, have more than 24,000 vehicles per day and East Cotati Avenue has more than 17,000 vehicles per day. This may result in racial/ethnic compositions that vary from the resident demographic.
• The analysis attempts to match racial/ethnic categories using different datasets collected using different methodologies. Certain assumptions were required to group ACS data into certain RIPA categories. Additionally, the US Census Bureau ACS data is self- reported data, whereas the RIPA data is peace officer perceptions of races/ethnicities. It is likely that categories such as multiracial and single races can significantly bleed into each other as perceived by the peace officer, making comparisons difficult. For example, multiracial shows a significantly lower disparity than the white baseline (0.15), which is likely error caused by the differences in self-reported ACS data and peace officer perceived RIPA stop data. The Hispanic category is also an aggregation of many groups in the ACS data, which in many cases would likely be perceived differently by a peace officer. • This analysis assumes that the peace officer knows the race/ethnicity of the person prior to making the stop to conclude there is bias in the stop. In practice, the peace officer does not know the race/ethnicity on the majority of traffic stops until they approach the vehicle.
Race/ethnicity may be observable or perhaps discernable prior to the stop on some daytime stops, provided obvious clues on the vehicle, such as a large decal, or the sight lines allow it and the windows are not tinted. At nighttime, race/ethnicity is generally not apparent until after the stop. Race/ethnicity is typically apparent for bicycle and pedestrian stops, but these are relatively small in number in Cotati compared to vehicle stops. • Lastly, while obvious, the RIPA data only represents the first 6 months of data and all officers were still learning the system.
The Cotati Police spent many hours analyzing the publicly available data and are committed to a data-driven approach to improve and serve the community better. Based on this initial review of data, it’s difficult to draw conclusions, but we are nevertheless committed to pursuing best practices at the scale that fits the resources and priorities of our City. This includes finding a solution to better access and analyze the source RIPA data that allows the potentially more meaningful review of what happens after the stop. At that point, the race/ethnicity is known and it’s a more straightforward comparative analysis of outcomes provided that the sample size is large enough.
Actions Following A Stop
Of the 1,736 stops, Cotati police most commonly issued warnings only (44.8%), followed by traffic tickets (27.9%) and citations (11.1%). Of the 777 stops in Cotati that resulted in written or verbal warnings, most were for infractions (734), followed by misdemeanors (47). The data includes 8 felony warnings, but this is believed to be a data entry error with officers using the new system. Other SCPSC agencies also recorded felony warnings, but these are also assumed to be erroneous. Compared to other SCPSC municipal police agencies, Cotati Police issued relatively more traffic tickets and was less likely to take “no action”.
In Cotati, in-field citations and releases (aka traffic tickets) are most commonly infractions (83%), followed by misdemeanors (15%) and felonies (1%). Compared to other SCPSC municipal police agencies, Cotati writes relatively more infractions and less misdemeanor or felony tickets. Each stop could include issuance of more than one violation, so the data is normalized on total number of violations issued for each agency to compare relative percentages.
Of the 1,736 stops by Cotati, 72 resulted in arrests (4%). Similar to other police agencies, the arrests included mostly misdemeanor citations (68%) and to a lesser degree felonies (15%). Very few arrests included infractions (1%). Each arrest could include issuance of more than one violation, so the data is normalized on total number of violations issued for each agency to compare relative percentages.
Not all stops resulted in searches. Of the 1,736 stops by Cotati, 185 resulted in searches (11%).
The largest categories of the searches in Cotati were parole related (43.5%), followed by searches resulting from an incident (28%). Cotati had a low number of consent searches, relative to other SCPSC municipal police agencies.
Of the 60 stops that resulted in finding contraband, 78 types of contraband items were found.
The most common contraband in Cotati were drug paraphernalia (30%), drugs (28%) and to a lesser degree, undefined contraband (9%), alcohol (8%) and weapons (5%).
RIPA Recommendations
While the state of law continues to rapidly change around policing, the RIPA Board put forth policy recommendations based on the overall review of statewide data from 2021. Relative to a local police agency, the following recommendations were put forward based on the statewide data:
Pretextual Stops. The RIPA Board recommendation for the Legislature, law enforcement agencies, and local district attorneys is to create data-driven policies to improve public safety and develop innovative ways to address racial and identity profiling that can occur with pretextual stops.
Accountability Models. Consider the role supervisors play in creating a healthy culture of accountability. Upon noticing changes in behavior or attitude of officers, supervisors can check in with officers to determine the underlying reason for the change in behavior and to take appropriate action to prevent it from affecting the work further. The City Council has also directed staff to review models of oversight.
Calls for Service and Bias by Proxy. The Board encourages city governments, law enforcement agencies, and community advocates to partner to develop crisis intervention models that work for their communities. This has already been completed with the joint Cotati-Rohnert Park-SSU SAFE team. The City has also already incorporated bias training for dispatchers in advance of any POST requirements and will continue to provide regular training.
Civilian Complaints Policies. The Board made numerous recommendations regarding civilian complaints and the related processes. The City currently meets most of these recommendations, but will further review the recommendations in detail and incorporate changes as feasible for Cotati.
POST Law Enforcement Training and Recruitment. The Board made numerous recommendations for POST to update their training standards and requirements. The City already meets some of these training recommendations, but will further review the recommendations in detail and incorporate changes as feasible for Cotati.
Financial Considerations
No direct financial impacts related to the Annual Police Chief’s Report to the community, but data extraction and reporting currently requires extensive staff time. City staff have proposed adding a new records position in the Police Department to streamline data extraction from the record management system.
Implementation of the SAFE team requires an investment of approximately $200,000 per year (operations plus vehicles and equipment). We are continuing to work regionally to obtain grants to partially offset costs. Currently, the City is able to partially offset costs with the multi-year CCMU grant, and has a commitment from the County to provide another year of Measure O funding at a similar level as 2021. However, this continues to only be a year to year commitment, so staff are continuing to work with our partners to identify on-going funding to ensure program stability in the future.
Environmental Issues
This action is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) because it is not a project which has a potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment, pursuant to CEQA Guideline section 15378.
Attachments:
CPD ANNUAL REPORT 2022 (PDF)
Children's Letters (PDF)
Compiled SAFE Statistics (PDF)
ACS 2020 Cotati Population Data (PDF)
Data collection template (PDF)
New Legislation (PDF)