Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright. Welcome back to the House Judiciary Committee this Wednesday morning, February 25, continuing testimony on page 13. And we will now hear from Kristen Chandler. If you could join us, thank you for being available today.

[Kristen Chandler]: Good morning and thank you for having me. For the record, I am Kristen Chandler. I am the coordinator of Team Two, which is a statewide training for first responders that is a joint effort between the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Public Safety, and it's been in place for twelve years. And I know two of your members are very familiar with it because they've attended, which has been great. Team two is a one day training. It's about seven and a half hours. It's offered in five different regions around the state. It's called Team two because it started off as being training for law enforcement and mental health crisis clinicians to learn how to collaborate together to respond to crisis calls. And after that first year in 2014, we added EMTs. We've added dispatchers. We've added, we've always invite state's attorneys because they could be part of the equation. We invite emergency department personnel and others. And it's been highly successful. It's a scenario based training. So we run through three scenarios during the day. There are I have a group of 35 instructors around the state who are attendees, peers, basically their colleagues who help facilitate the three scenarios that we run through during the day that we do in small group sessions. And the scenarios change every year. They are based on what is currently going on for mostly for law enforcement and for crisis clinicians, what they're running into in the field. So we try to hit lots of different potential crises, calls dealing with people with in elderly folks, kids, people with an intellectual disability as opposed to a mental health challenge, suicidal subjects, barricaded subjects, etc. The curriculum itself, people get a legal update every year that I do. I'm an attorney here in Vermont. And I do that with a law enforcement officer. And that changes every year depending on what the current laws are and things like that. People get to do the scenarios. They hear about resources in their specific region and they hear from a person with lived experience who has the last couple of years, it's been consistently the same person has come and spoken. She's a phenomenal speaker. Her name is Christie Hummel, and she has experienced two attempts to take her own life where law enforcement intervened and she talks about what worked for her and gives tips to law enforcement. The evaluations always reflect that that actually is kind of one of the best things of the training is hearing, getting to hear that from Christie. We are the only state in the country to do this. And I know this because I've been three times to the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, the IACP, which is sort of the premier law enforcement conference in The United States that has about 17,000 people attend. And I've presented the curriculum three different times there as the model. I've gone with different chiefs of police from my steering committee. And I've also been to a rural mental health conference, and I've been asked to come to some other jurisdictions to let them know how we got this program up off the ground. And it just it gets high acclaim. That being said, this year I learned in committee that the Department of Mental Health plans to cut this program from their budget. And so I've been in other committees previous talking about budgets trying to help save this training because law enforcement wants it, frankly. It's a voluntary training. And I've been asked in the past at different legislative committees, like, don't we make it mandatory? And I'll tell you that we've never, we've thought about it a lot. We meaning the steering committee, is comprised of state police, sheriffs, municipal police, mental health crisis counselors, designated agencies, Department of Health, NAMI Vermont, etcetera. And for people to come to a voluntary training, they have a whole different attitude, I think, than when they come and they're sort of mandated to go. That being said, the Vermont State Police made Team two training mandatory for all their troopers about six or seven years ago. And so there are always troopers at trainings. And sometimes they come with an attitude of, I have to be here. That's the only reason I'm here. But I'll tell you what, every time when they leave, they are happy. They've been there. They've learned something. They've taken something away. And it's actually a really great training. And I can't say enough about the dedication of the instructors who are they've been some of them have been instructors since day one. Others are replacing people who've retired or moved to different agencies, and their agency has allowed them to come for a full day, take away a full day from their regular work to help train their peers. And they are all very talented. Hand selected by me. Usually, they're people who've come to a training, have had some really great things to say, and then they get kind of roped into becoming instructors. I also I teach along with Fox, who I know is on your list to testify. At the Police Academy, we teach the mandatory eight hour training, interacting with persons in crisis. I've been doing that for about fifteen years, always with a police officer and a clinician. And we do that about six times a year, both for new recruits as well as lateral transfers and people who need to get certified. The other thing I've done is we created a CIT training, our Crisis Intervention Team Training in Washington County. Washington County or Montpelier Police received a grant from the Department of Public Safety for a three year grant to put on this forty hour training for mental health training for law enforcement, which is kind of the national standard. Mostly large jurisdictions have CIT training required for their officers. Vermont has never been able to do that because of our rural nature. Hartford Police did it years ago when a chief was there who came from a large city, but we did it in Washington County. We put about 45 people through the training and and that grant has run out. There are now I was the co chair of that committee to get that up off the ground. I worked with Chief Brian Pete on that. And there are now two certified CIT coordinators in the Montpelier Police Department, and we're just kind of waiting to see if we can put it on again in the future. And I also serve on the Mental Health Crisis Response Commission along with Fox. He and I have been there since it was created in 2018. And this is the commission that reviews all officer involved shootings where somebody has a perceived mental illness and there's been either a death or an injury. And we there's 10 of us on the commission and I'm one of the two governor appointees to that. I want to just address the training component that's in this bill In section five on page 11, there is this, at the very top, this idea about having ongoing retraining every two years. And I fully support that. In fact, about five years ago, this was coming up as an idea. I was discovering that a lot of other states do this. And so I did. I had a student. I teach at Norwich as an adjunct, and I had one of my criminal justice students do some. He was an intern. He did some research and came up with generally the average hours of retraining specific to mental health response is four. Four hours every two years for states that are comparable to Vermont. And that's what I would advocate for is in making it very, very specific that it would be four hours of retraining every two years. Laws change. Resources change. I think it's important. And officers have told me when I did a little poll of them, again, about five years ago, that they would welcome this. And even though it would be mandated, it would and it would be added to their mandatory training, they would accept it wholeheartedly because I think mental health calls are the ones that really worry them the most. That's a feedback that we've gotten in training as people are worried they're gonna say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing and end up with a bad outcome and retraining makes sense. So to me, when I first saw this bill and I saw that the idea was to increase training hours to 15 mandated, So like, well, you know, that would solidify team two. Then we got eight hours at the academy that's already mandated and then seven hours of team two. Makes sense. But now team two is not a for sure thing. That's going to continue. We are definitely there's a lot of people advocating to keep it going because it's it's what what Department of Mental Health has said they're going to do is they want to take training in house. They want to get away from actually training law enforcement. They want to decouple from law enforcement. And crisis clinicians are, you know, a little concerned about, well, we can't respond to scenes if they're not safe. We can't do that without our law enforcement partners. And the whole point of team two training is building those relationships that are necessary for a safe and healthy response, a collaborative response. And the feedback from people at training on their evaluations, they consistently talk about how they now will have better relationships with their first responder counterparts. They understand better the language and the limitations of their counterparts. And so we are we, meaning the Vermont Care Partners, administers the grant that is from Department of Mental Health and the Department of Public Safety. They are we are all advocating to keep it within DMH's budget as a contracted training.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Before you go on, there's a question that Tom Oliver has. Go ahead, Tom. Good morning.

[Kristen Chandler]: Hey, Tom.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver]: First of all, yeah, want to say it is a good training. I've been through it a couple of times and very well attended and usually a good time. My question would be on the bill. I'm on page 13. I don't think you have to look at it, but there's four bullet points on types of training specifically to employ in one of these situations. I was wondering if that's really the right way to word it. It might be a question as well for Mr. Patel, but I may not be in the room at the time. Know, natural supports to deescalate the encounter, including family, friends, or other trusted persons, permitting mental health professionals to lead crisis engagement if these professionals are present. And I know I'm kind of given a less impractical at the very beginning, but those can be very complex methods in some circumstances. I think to put them very specifically like that instead of more deploying best practices and what they are at the time because that also evolved as well. Any thoughts on that?

[Kristen Chandler]: Yes, I do have thoughts on that. I agree with you. And in fact, I try to think of how many years ago now. It's probably about four years ago we had the tactical support unit, our crisis negotiation unit of state police came to team two training. We geared a training specifically for them because of the idea that they are often called to a mental health crisis. And we all learned a lot in that training and mostly that they are, just as you said, Representative Oliver, they're very dynamic. And one size doesn't fit all, whether or not the you got to have the right people present to deescalate a crisis like that and to build that rapport with the person in crisis. And so I would rather have language that is more broad, as you suggested, that would consider best practices because of that idea that you can't really do cookie cutter training or cookie cutter response, I should say, because those situations are just so dynamic.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you. Right. And so I do want to get back to the training component. A couple of questions there. But while we're on that page 13, is those steps are encompassed in use of force policy if I'm not mistaken. And is that policy, are you saying that perhaps the policy is a little more flexible and that that's where those training requirements or not training, but the requirements for how to approach these situations should occur?

[Kristen Chandler]: Well, I mean, I think some agencies see that Appendix D as flexible and some don't. I think that totally depends on the agency, but I think it should be it needs to be flexible, I think is what my point was. Whatever is written in statute, can it all be interpreted to be give people options so that there's not mandate of how you have to respond or who you have to involve. And I think there are more other people more educated than I am in training who will educate you about that as well.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So back so that you were mentioning the fifteen hours would be good if team two continues. Is there would there be and there's a question of whether there's gonna be grant funding continuing for that or funding through DMH or where where is that?

[Kristen Chandler]: Well, the the way the way it's worked for twelve years is it start when I was an assistant attorney general in the Department of Mental Health, I started creating this training. I was asked to by a previous commissioner. And then a different commissioner came in and cut the training, cut that program. And what DMH discovered is that people really wanted it. The police really wanted it. And so now they've had to contract it out. So we are at the end of the fourth three year cycle. August 1 is when the contract And so, will put it, we thought they were going put it out again for an RFP, a request for proposals, and Vermont Care Partners has consistently won that request. And then I subcontract with them. What the department has made clear is that they're not going to continue with the Team two model in house. Have a team of three people who they it sounded like from their testimony and from a meeting I've been in with one of them that they're trying to go to individual police agencies to educate them about things like nine eighty eight. In fact, I was in a meeting this week where the lead trainer, I think, said that he's offered that to every police agency in the state, nine eighty eight training, and not one has taken him up on it, which didn't really surprise me because you're to have the relationships with law enforcement in order to actually have them attend training. So, I'm not sure what that training would look like, but it definitely sounds like it's not going to involve the same model of having all first responders in a room together, learning about how each other does their job. That's not their plan. So I am saying, I think, you know, the eight hours that Fox and I teach at the academy along with a police officer, I mean, we always want more. But I know also that that academy is, you know, limited and that people get additional, not only use of force training and de escalation skills from other components of the academy in that sixteen weeks that people are there other than what they get from us in our one day that we spend there.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, might be a good transition over to Chris Patel. I'll go ahead, Barbara. Thank you

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: so much. I have two questions for you. One is, I'm wondering if any part of the shorter training or the longer training addresses ways to deescalate without use of lethal. Yes,

[Kristen Chandler]: that is included in our eight hour training. And we often touch on that during the scenarios at team two training.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: Also, I'm wondering if there's any mechanism for sort of doing a debrief with people involved when the outcome is not a good outcome, when it's not the optimal one. Especially, I'm in the Burlington area, and I know there have been some really, really unfortunate situations.

[Kristen Chandler]: There have. You are in that jurisdiction where there's, you know, and to be expected, it's the largest municipal police agency in the state. And yes, I will say there is definitely every agency has a method to debrief, whether it's a bad outcome or even if it's a good what worked well. They have the opportunity to debrief. How different agencies do that totally depends on the agency. Some bring in their local mental health agency to help them with that. Some bring in a psychologist like Sunny Preveto or one of the other psychologists who are on contract to lead them through that. There's also a critical incident stress management group that I think is still active that offers up debriefing for first responders who've been involved in what I would call a negative outcome or a difficult outcome. Thank you. Yeah, you bet.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: All right. So thank you very much. Appreciate the testimony and your availability. And we'll turn to Christopher Riquel next. Thank you, Christopher, for being here.

[Chris Brickell]: Thank you for having me, Chair. And I'm sorry I can't be there in person, but better to be at least on part of the conversations than hearing the testimony from here. Great. So for the record, Christopher Burdittenden, executive director of the Vermont Criminal Justice Council, also, overseeing the Vermont Police Academy. And, I'll be happy to answer questions, but if, if alright with the committee, I'll start with the sections that I feel appropriate for me to address. One is starting right on page three of line 14 with the definition of officer involved shooting. I just think that this is a definition that is likely going to need some further clarification, and clarity to it simply because while I understand the premise behind the definition as it's written into this bill, there are other times when a law enforcement officer, will discharge a firearm in the performance of their duties such as being at the range or dispatching an animal. So there are there are other avenues where that term, officer involved shooting, as it is defined now, will come into play that won't really have a bearing on, I think, what this bill is trying to address. That's just one piece, on the clarity for the definition. My next comments are really related to, page 10, line 16 under the new section of 2,365 for mental health crisis training.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Before we

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: go to page 10, did you have any suggestions as far as language goes for the officer involved shooting definition? If you do, you do. If you don't, that's fine also.

[Chris Brickell]: I I did not have suggested language. I'm sorry.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Chris Brickell]: Yes. Onto the mental health crisis training. This is a large topic and probably one that you'll wanna take a lot of testimony on. But when I look at right off the bat in a, in order to remain certified that law enforcement officers shall receive by 01/01/2028 at least fifteen hours of mental health crisis training in approved program by the BCJC and Department of Mental Health. So my first question is, who decided the fifteen hours is the appropriate amount of time, and where did that number come from? And I think this committee and several others have heard me say now for at least the last couple of years, especially with the project that we are host so heavily deeply involved in with iADALIST that ours don't relate to competency, period. What we're trying to do is make sure that in the curriculum rewrite that we're currently involved in with iADALIST is that what we're training to is officers competency and learning objectives and not basing that on an hourly amount that says, this is so many hours that you need to do x. I also have a concern with not knowing exactly. I learned a little bit new in testimony just hearing from Kristen Chandler about the Department of Mental Health not supporting perhaps her program moving forward. So I'd like to know what the what the appetite is for from the Department of Mental Health about what they have, for resources to work towards working with us on the Vermont Criminal Justice Council on creating that content and whether that, content is available to happen within the time frame that we're looking to do, right now. We're really looking to make sure that what we do is trained for competency, and we want to make sure that when an officer receives that training that they're walking away with a skill set. So we were going to need to know what resources the Department of Mental Health have to devote to creating and delivering that content. In addition to that, none of the cost of creating training has been factored into this bill. So, there's the cost of us creating that content. There's the cost to deliver that if it's done regionally as opposed to online. There is also a cost to agencies that are gonna be mandated, based on this bill's writing to to take this training. So what does that what does that mean to them, their cost of overtime, their cost of of budgets with the staffing that they have? You'll wanna hear from law enforcement on all of those as well. What I would really like to see as a preference would be to take this out of statutory language, insofar as mandating it in training and pushing it to the council's rules, which the council has rule 20, which outlines mandatory in service training. The council can define what that training consists of every year. Law enforcement agencies will know what that training is that they're required to take then, and it's a mandatory in service training that they're required to take every year. So you could actually take it from statutory language, now outlines how we do domestic violence training and fair and impartial policing training, and take it out of a biennial requirement and put it into a mandatory in service training. And as I think you've heard earlier today, there's a lot of talk about how things change. Right? And best practices change, techniques change, the people that we want to have training on these training components change. The people with lived experience changes and should change and should be updated to reflect what the best practices are for law enforcement in act interacting with people that are facing a mental health crisis. So to put it in statutory language now locks us into a time frame when that could possibly be changed if there is a need to to change it, as well as, I'll agree with some of the testimony that I that I have heard as well that I too have sometimes an aversion when I hear mandatory training. When something is told that it's mandated, it doesn't necessarily make it a training that somebody wants to go to or something that somebody wants to attend, as opposed to a training that is an in service training that the council creates that they would know would be different each year based upon the people that are involved in that training and how it's created. So I'd like to get a little bit away from statutory language that mandates training. You could accomplish the same goal by putting that into council rule. The other thing that when I speak to this fifteen hours is one of the earlier testimony I heard as well was that there was no consultation with us on this bill whatsoever. So what I'm what I walk away with is understanding some of the the pieces of why the rationale is for this bill and what it's meant to accomplish. However, there's been no conversation with us on what is it that we that we already do. So, as you know, we're and you've already heard testimony from Kristen that we do team two training here. We do also the, interacting with people experiencing mental health crisis. Both of those are eight hour trainings. I think Kristen did a great job of explaining what her training is. However, she left out some of the things that they actually go over in in midst of those trainings, which include, you know, mental health warrants, emergency exams, temporary custody, and orders of nonhospitalization, all very legal and technical areas of expertise that law enforcement needs to be aware of when they're dealing with those situations, when is it okay to walk away from a situation? Does it require that they should apply for a mental health warrant because somebody needs an immediate exam? All of these things that, we already do basic in house for, basic training for recruits as they come through here. And then another piece that I think is important for this committee to know is that, for instance, in our work with iAdalyst and the review of our current content, they've taken our current training that we are working with now, and they are creating, better formatted design training around what we currently do and enhancing that by including best practices and legal citations and then forming the learning objectives and the competencies. And how do we do that? So just for an idea for this committee, in the latest one that they have developed for us that we will be piloting in 2027 is around mental health and developmental disabilities. But it defines mental illness and finding the four common types of mental illness and symptoms associated with that. Define the intellectual or the developmental disability and identify six general signs that you might find in a person. Other things that are important in there, but I think one of the most critical pieces is identify practices for law enforcement preliminary response when interacting with people who have a mental health, intellectual, or developmental disability and are in crisis. These are things that they're going to be identifying all of the learning objectives for. They're gonna have practical exercises where officers will demonstrate effective learning skills, empathy, active listening, body language. And then they have classroom exercises as well that demonstrate best practices for communication, communicating with different cultures or religions, non English speaking people, children versus teenagers, older adults. And then they actually have practical exercise that you will demonstrate. The law enforcement officer will have to demonstrate their best practices for using de escalation techniques when communicating with a person who's in an emotional crisis. So these are things that we haven't even had conversations with folks about yet who are proposing an automatic fifteen hours. So I'll stop there for a minute in case there was a question.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: One quick question is you used an acronym for whoever was providing that update of that training, I think. Does the acronym stand for?

[Chris Brickell]: I'm sorry. I Atlas is the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training. They are an international group, one very specific to law enforcement training that are nation and worldwide, and that's who is currently working with us to rewrite our curriculum.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay, great. Thank you. Do you have a comment about, on on page 11, the ongoing retraining and Christian Chandler suggested four hours every two years. Is that something that is workable?

[Chris Brickell]: I would agree with the ongoing training. And again, if the suggestion was to move it to our council rule 20, which is in service training, that's mandatory in service training that law enforcement has to take, and the topics of those trainings can be decided upon by the council. What I would want to get away from and I know this is a hard ingrained thing in a lot of folks in law enforcement because that's what they need to know. Well, how long is the training? The training, it should be based around competencies. So I would stay away from calling it a four hour training and finding out what are the learning objectives that we wanna teach. And if it wasn't to if it was in in service training, it would be something that would be revamped every year so that we we would have new people into that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So I'm understanding the desire to have this go to council rules, but is there somebody I can or we can talk to who can help kind of draft what that would look like? Because we definitely wanna make sure that the training's occurring, it is occurring, we understand that. And definitely wanna weigh in at least on the retraining on these kind of issues and understand that you'd rather not be a statutory mandate of a certain number of hours. But I'm just not sure how to work actual language. So I'm not asking for you to do that right now, but if you have Is there a contact that we could have our legislative council, work with on something like that?

[Chris Brickell]: Absolutely. Sarah Roy, who is our director of training, would be our direct contact. And we can certainly I can send that to the alleged counsel for you. Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: If you could copy copy me as well just so I can connect them if we're if we're gonna proceed with some of this as well. Other questions on training? I assume, but I shouldn't assume, but I will go ahead and assume and let you tell me that on page 11, the employing a mental health crisis trainer is kind of outside of what you had in your budget, request and and would rather us not, push for that?

[Chris Brickell]: That would be correct. It's outside of ours. And I also say that there is no appropriation, put into this bill either for that. So, again, your your your committee is well aware as are others that our training essentially relies on the volunteer cadre of law enforcement, Those was subject matter expertise in the field, in addition to some of the training components that in in house training staff too. So without a dedicated person to that training, that puts us at a large deficit.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright. I appreciate that. So so what I'm hearing though, just to summarize is is a lot of this training is going on. You're having updated training on this as well that we we can certainly weigh in to ensure that ongoing retraining is happening, but maybe a different way of accomplishing that than what we have as far as language in here. So it's been very helpful to hear what is going on at the Police Academy. Any other questions about training before we jump to the other informativeness? The other is just on page 13, and that's the addition of essentially moving from what I understand is actually in policy in use of force policy, specifically appendix D. And for folks, I have asked Nate to put that policy up on our website. And it's taking some of these elements from the policy and putting them into statute. If you could just comment on that provision.

[Chris Brickell]: Yes, I'd be happy to. So first of all, on the use force policy, I think the use of force policy that the council has was, very well thought out and vetted. It was the result of an executive order. The policy was, adopted in 2023, with a lot of input from stakeholder groups, law enforcement, Department of Public Safety, legal legal teams. This was a policy that not only covered, legal standards, but also in, as you say, in appendix d, gives guidelines for interacting with persons knowing to be experienced or perceived, experience a mental impairment. And what that policy does is not only does it provide guidelines for law enforcement officers to follow, but reemphasizes everything that is actually drafted in this bill about, you know, slowing things down, you know, permitting mental health professionals to engage with law enforcement when they're actively engaged in responding to these. And so I'm a little. There are a couple of things about the the draft bill that have me a little concerned, and I'll speak to specifically on page 13 line 13 where the very first section of it where it says, unless impracticable. That right off the bat just raises some concern with me because of the fact it does not I I'm not sure that that creates a new legal standard or not. And what does, unless impracticable, actually mean, versus what an officer's decision making process is at the time? Does that alter the analysis of complaints for excessive use of force? How does an officer show that their attempt to deescalate was appropriate given the circumstances of the event? And so, you know, sections b and c under the new section are actually things that I think law enforcement already employs. However, section d requires them to potentially utilize a family, friend, or other trusted person. And I can tell you from my practical experience as a law enforcement officer, but also as a person who has responded and been responsible for those types of events. Sometimes that's the worst thing that you can do. And sometimes family members or people that want to be involved thinking that they're helping sometimes can exacerbate a situation or make it worse or have worse outcomes than you would have had they not been, helped there. Now that doesn't mean that there aren't times that that's not, applicable, but that has to come with a lot of forethought and understanding how the situation is evolving, how it has evolved, and when it gets to that point, someone has to make that decision. Are we gonna be putting people in more jeopardy, or are we gonna be putting them in a position that they're likely to get injured? That's having that in the statute is is very concerning to me. So I do agree that the policy guidelines touch on a lot of this and and really enforce people to, you know, pay attention to the policy, slow things down, consider what your options are, use all of those options available, and keep in mind that the use of force policy is a statewide policy. So if somebody willfully in you know, does not follow that policy, that's an unprofessional conduct complaint that is sanctionable by the council as well. So I do agree that leaving that in policy is better than the added new section. I think there's a lot of ambiguity to that that newer section.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: A couple other questions. So the policy itself, how often is it, reviewed or updated?

[Chris Brickell]: The policy itself is reviewed annually, updated as as needed when we see that there are issues that where there's complaints about use of force policy or somebody not following it, or in the event that there is some tragic event that makes us reevaluate, hey. There's a better way that we could adapt this policy to an emerging situation that we didn't encounter. But, again, that, incorporates a lot of input from a lot of stakeholders. So, depending upon the the appetite and the ability for all those stakeholders to reevaluate, that policy, it doesn't have the standard like we do with the FIP policy where, you know, the council re has to review that every year and then take a look at whether revisions are possible. We do look at that already. It's just not a mandate like that.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Right. So do are you do you look at it after every investigation report comes out from a use of force, a officer involved shooting?

[Chris Brickell]: We don't get use of force reports on a regular basis involving officer involved, shootings unless it is involved around an act 56 violation or it's a matter that's brought to our attention. So there is no mandate for anyone to send us a use of force investigation, how it uses of force are mandated to be reported to us, but the investigation is not. So

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: is there missing information that could be gleaned to help with any kind of policy development from those investigations? Is that something that should be forwarded to the criminal justice council?

[Chris Brickell]: There would be a a further conversation I would wanna have with law enforcement partners as to what that looks like, what that protected information might be, and then, what information that we receive, also around a legal standard of of, you know, request for information and making sure that information that we might have or receive is protected from public records request?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. And and what what I'm getting at is I I don't really I'm disinclined to put because we really delve deeply into this a few years ago and really thought the right way to go was with the policy for flexibility and really it would be micromanaging to put it into statute was the committee's view. But I want to make sure that the policy isn't stale and that the policy is being sufficiently trained to. And it's the former as far as the policy making sure that that is being looked at, that investigations or whatever information that can be derived from these incidents can be used to make sure that the policy is working. And I don't know if there's some language in here to have that happen or if we just are going to be satisfied that it is happening. But there's not, you know, go ahead and if you can comment on that.

[Chris Brickell]: Yeah. I I think that, as with any policy, any state mandated policy, it's something that always should should be reviewed, and in fact, sometimes when you review something, you find some things that either aren't being accomplished that you hoped would be accomplished or situations where, hey, this policy says this, but in practice, that's not really how it plays out. And so then you take it to the appropriate body or entity that created that policy, and you go back and you reevaluate that policy, and then you make those changes. And then it would come back to the council to be approved again and adopted as the statewide policy. We've done that, we've done that in times with the CEW policy, the conducted electrical weapons policy, just making sure that practice actually plays out as to what the policy directs and gives guidelines on. That said, I think that we could, likely do that same thing with the use of force policy. We're in the process right now of updating council rules, so that's something that we could certainly incorporate that language. The rules committee, that's revamping our rules right now is meeting weekly. So this is something I can certainly, bring up and and challenge there to that this is something that we could bring up in rules where this is evaluated on an annual basis, and whatever that criteria looks like for the best way to evaluate whether it does need an update or not.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So that rule making process, is that a public process as well? Or is this Yes, it is. There

[Chris Brickell]: are weekly public meetings right now. They're posted on our website. There are meetings that the public can attend. They're every Tuesday, I believe, right now.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright. I appreciate that. So in in some manner, think we're gonna wanna keep track of that. And and and I I personally think that that would be a a good way forward rather than putting in statute that we want that to happen if the if the other rule making ongoing. But just flagging from the legislature, or at least from me as one member of this committee, that we very much would like you to pursue that, to make sure that this is updated. And also to determine if you should be receiving the investigations or whatever other information that you need to help inform that and whether you need legislation to have that occur or not. And maybe we can hear from the AG's office on that component. If you were going to.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Chris, just going back to subsection D on the top of page 14, talking about involving family, friends, or other trusted persons in what I would probably characterize as a really serious situation to the safety and well-being of both the individual who's having the mental health crisis, but also to the officers involved on the scene. I'm just curious if we carry out that situation to its natural conclusion. If you involve people with someone who is having some kind of mental episode, and they are either fearing for that individual's life or for the life of the officers, if you involve other people and those family members, friends, or trusted persons are harmed during that introduction to the situation, would the police have the culpability and the responsibility for for those injuries as well?

[Chris Brickell]: Great question, and I would say to some extent, yes. And aside from that, there is what was spoken of earlier as well about, officer wellness and understanding that now that officer is gonna be responsible for the factors that they incorporated an additional person into a situation that turned tragic. That which is why these situations are always so and should be flexible and dynamic, allowing what the best information is at the time to be acted upon, and maybe not necessarily something that is in statute that requires another step that might be something more problematic for everybody involved.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you. I think also just going back to the training requirements, I also just want to express my personal frustration that you and the center weren't consulted in two impact organizations that are directly named in the piece of legislation for really what your thoughts and the best outcome for the bill are. I share your frustrations there as well.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you. One last request for me is, we did talk about training some, but if you could provide an explanation, perhaps syllabus of the training just under, so we can really have that on our record as far as the training that currently is occurring with respect to use of force generally, but more so with dealing with mental health crisis.

[Chris Brickell]: So as of right now, there a total of sixteen hours related to mental health crisis response, and as mentioned earlier, those are both the trainings that Kristen has been involved in. There is the, mental health crisis training, the interacting with people experiencing mental health crisis, and the training that also is ongoing now. That what that doesn't include is some of the scenarios that go on during use of force training when recruits are going through use of force training, and then the evening scenarios where, all sorts of scenarios, including mental health responses, are, posed to the recruits when they're going through not just use of force, but just responding to regular complaints, going to situations where there might be a weapon involved or there might not be. Everything everything evolves around deescalation and slowing things down to think things through. So while I can't give you a specific, title of of that training, aside from the two that we do actually do for eight hours each, there is all that other incorporated scenario based training that goes on during the seventeen weeks that a recruit is here.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay, so so it won't be complete, but if you can just give us for those two eight hour trainings, just if you could send that to Nate, it's just a syllabus just for us to have that information, but recognizing that that training occurs throughout the recruits training as well.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: No, I just got my question answered. I was gonna ask it sixteen hours and the two eight hour trainings were specific to the academy, and it sounds like

[Chris Brickell]: Yes. So those trainings, as I said, they are always ongoing, And that doesn't also include, you know, training that agencies do once their recruit leaves here and, you know, they have a specific need in their community or they have their own individualized trainings that they have worked out with mental health partners that they partner with. Each agency has a different level of service that they provide, and you know accountability based on what their communities need. But yes, I can certainly provide the committee with the training that's ongoing here now, and I'll send that to me.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I appreciate it. Thank you very much for your time. Really appreciate you being available. So I'm gonna skip Todd, and I'm gonna go to Kim.

[Kim McMahon]: My remarks will be brief, so this will help. For the record, Kim McMahon of the Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs. I also just put a broader perspective on this hill. The Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs, we sit on the Criminal Justice Council. Tim Liddittenden Sumant is our representative. I am his proxy to the council. And I serve on three of the committees of the council, the Domestic Violence Committee, the Fair and Impartial Policing Committee, and the Rules Committee. So I can answer.

[Morning Fox]: That's it.

[Kim McMahon]: Thank you, So I can give a little bit more information around the rulemaking process and or how training comes out of the DB subcommittee and the fair and partial committee, because I think that those would be quite analogous to this. Just as an overarching comment, from seeing how the council works and how the training comes out, we would also highly suggest moving away from the hours based training. That has been something the council has been working very, very hard towards competency based training. And by allowing the council to set the training, the council will more than likely create a subcommittee that works on this. They often work about nine to twelve months on one of the trainings. They put it together. They present it to the council. The council can approve that. So it's very the subcommittee hearings are all public and posted. The council hearings are all public. So folks who would want to comment or hear how this is going can be quite involved in that process. In addition, the rulemaking process, the rules committee meetings are public. And then when the council goes to submit their rules, that is all public with the various committees that the rules have to go through. And there are also times for public comment and hearings. So it's wide open and many opportunities to engage.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Can I ask a question? Yes. So in my discussion with Christopher, was urging that you look at in the rules an annual review of the use of force and what else is needed. I'm wondering, would a letter from this committee or something like that making that request, is that a better way? I probably should have asked Christopher, or is that not necessary?

[Kim McMahon]: It could be a letter. It could be requesting to attend a council meeting. And you can attend a council meeting and urge that. I mean, could, like the domestic violence and fair and impartial, that is written in statute that there's a review every other year. But that doesn't prevent them from reviewing it more often. As Chris mentioned, the use of force policy, I know it was reviewed and amended in 2023 because there had been a statutory change. And that statutory change had put a conflict in the policy, and it was just changing a sentence. But changing that sentence took a few months to do because it was reviewed and reviewed in a good way. It took a few months in that it's very thorough and the council is 24 members who are non law enforcement and law enforcement.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So it

[Kim McMahon]: takes a while to explain and educate and discuss these topics and then move it through. But that was done recently.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So are there other places in the rules that require review of other trainings or other policies? I'm just wondering if it's the DV and the fair and impartial policing that's statutory, does it make more sense for us to ask for a review of this particular policy in statute? But if it's already happening in rule,

[Kim McMahon]: you're I governor of can send you the rules. We can review them. Don't Okay,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: that's fine.

[Kim McMahon]: I think the big piece is that, one, the hourly piece, and that to allow the council to do the training that the field needs. And by allowing the council to dictate that training, they're able to reach out to the field, see what the field needs and wants, reflect that back to what we're also hearing and seeing, and to be able to create appropriate training versus trying to legislate that training specifically.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: But as

[Kim McMahon]: far as the review, we would need to double check the rules and then I think making in either direction, making it parallel or analogous to DVO FIP as far as the review of

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: the policy would make sense.

[Kim McMahon]: This has already been discussed, but I would just reiterate or also support that the use of force policy, it goes into the how these situations should be handled, that is the best place rather than page 13 trying to put in specific mandates for how these situations are handled. Policy is very thorough and, again, can flex and change more responsibly than statute can as best practices change. The last point I just wanted to raise and I do not believe this will be an issue and I wasn't able to hear Jen Coleman's testimony. But I'll just flag it in case we had to come back in a future time. If this victim guardian position is created, there's a line in there that says that they coordinate with the victim advocates. And that would assume that there is a criminal case that a victim advocate is involved in. We would work closely with crime victim services to what coordinate means. But as you have heard in other testimony, we want to be very careful with our communications with victims and make sure that things are not getting missed or that they're being bombarded from either side. So we would want to work with them on what that coordination meant and who, if there's a criminal case, who has the primary responsibility for communicating and or what we're communicating. And if we see that there's any issues, we may need to come back to you all to pick something. I think we'll be able to work that through on our own. But I just flag that as an issue just because we've been talking about it in other spheres.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: That is it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Any questions for people? Alright. Thank you. So we'll go to morning thoughts.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: So potentially put into statutes that they have they have somebody has to come in with a report and sounds like some of the accounts of the work they do that they form their own reports, some every year, every two years, so I would have to ask, Chief Rutland, have other people that come in on a regular basis, by a regular basis I mean every year, every two years, they give reports,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: so I mean how much problem would it

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: be to have them come in and just whether it's Chief or Cal or whoever come in and

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: just go over what the council has done around these issues. Yeah, so just to be clear, wasn't asking for a report, my concept was that we just want to make sure that just like the domestic violence training and policies and the fair and partial policing policy are reviewed by the council on a periodic basis. They don't have to come in. You can ask them any time. I'm not asking for a report. I'm asking just to mandate that make sure they are and it sounds like they are already doing. I misunderstood that. Yeah yeah yeah no I'm glad to ask that because because I want to clarify that so.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: No. I think it does sound like you're

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: you're doing the right thing. Could do it up there. Thank

[Morning Fox]: you for having me. For the record, my name is Morning Fox. I'm the director of mental health programs for the Department of Public Safety.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Welcome back, Keith. It's been a little while, but It's been

[Morning Fox]: a good year. Last session was the first session in about ten years that I haven't been testifying.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So it was a good year for you.

[Morning Fox]: It was very pleasant year. And as those who have seen me testify before too, I tend to just kind of speak. I don't have written testimony generally. You'll note that I do have a tablet in front of me with some notes and such for myself. And I apologize if I am a bit scattered. I am just coming back to work this week after being out for about six weeks after losing both of my parents in the last six weeks. But I would like to begin by stating that any interaction with law enforcement that results in a person's injury or death is a terrible tragedy for all involved. It's a tragedy for the individual, for the family that are forever impacted, and it can never be reversed. The officers involved, although understandably not necessarily as severe as the individual and the families, they also struggle with making peace with their actions that led to an individual's injury or death. And it's been my goal since joining the Department of Public Safety almost five years ago now to reduce the incidence of interactions with law enforcement that do result in an injury or death, period, but especially those who are in the midst of a crisis. And I did say crisis, not mental health crisis, because I think as this committee has heard through some of the earlier testimony today as well, that that can be a nebulous term. People are in crisis for all types of situations. Someone has a domestic situation, is now very upset. Is that a mental health crisis or a crisis? But when we're talking about someone in crisis, we can be talking about things due to mental illness. We can be talking about things due to substance use disorders, situational you know, situations, and things of that sort. For the last and a half years, I've led the efforts at the Department of Public Safety and the state police of growing our civilian co responder model with the state police. We now have at least one co responder in all of our barracks, and most barracks actually have two co responders that can respond to people who are in a crisis. And those co responders can take the lead in those interactions. And and those co responders learn from the troopers that they work with, and the troopers learn from them as well. That that goes back and forth. In addition to this work, I've had the pleasure of being able to teach the interacting with a person experiencing a priceless eight hour class at the academy that mister Burdittenden mentioned that I co teach with Christian Chandler, and I've been doing that for the last little over five years now. I also teach a one hour prebasic class and a four hour postbasic class for the Vermont State Police new troopers going through the academy. So they have benefit of some added training from myself and some of the other embedded workers throughout the state that other officers may not wouldn't have be available to. And so I'd like to speak to you folks about my support in several of the pieces of this legislation. On page 10, the section titled mental health crisis training. This is one area that I have long supported. Having worked at the intersection of criminal justice systems and mental health systems, I know all too well that every chief every chief, every station commander hopes that their officers, their troopers never have to use any of the tools that are around their on their belt. Right? And yet those folks have to be trained in numerous hours at the academy and then recertified on a regular basis on all of those tools, those instruments. The one tool that every chief wants their officers to use, the one between their ears, They get the training at the academy and then maybe spin service here or not or or elsewhere. And so for me, being able to say that we are moving forward and being more in line with other states as far as having a more how shall I say this? A more routine or regular expectation of retraining due to, like I said, best practices trained. I do de escalation training. It's a large Nope.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: No. No. Just pigeering.

[Morning Fox]: Okay. No problem. I thought that was a timeout. I was like, okay.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: I'll kick one in the horse.

[Morning Fox]: Okay. Fair enough. I'm a de escalation trainer. I have been trained in numerous practices of that. I teach that at the academy. In fact, my services for de escalation training, I have requests throughout New England to provide these trainings, not only to law enforcement, but to civilian populations as well. And so the state police, I talk with troopers who have gone through team two. Right? And as Kristen said, every trooper says, this is a great training. We need we we'd love to have more training. Just this morning when I was coming in, I saw the sergeant at arms who's been through team two. And I just kind of been passing, how are you? Good. Hey. What are you here for, Fox? Well, I'm just talking about some of this stuff and training. Oh boy, we need more training. But whatever you need Fox, let me know. I'll come up and testify. And so I think that's an important piece that I can't stress enough. I do want to be cognizant of, I do kind of sit with where Chris Burdittenden was coming from. I have concerns when we start to mandate x number of hours. Right? Because having worked both in law enforcement and mental health, former deputy commissioner for DMH, I know that when we start to mandate things, it becomes a checkbox. And becomes there. We did it. It's done. You can't say we didn't do it. I am a fan of teaching to a competency, teaching to making sure people have a skill set. And so I think that for me is really kind of the important piece here is that we need to be looking at not having x number of hours, but what are the skill sets that we are hoping officers have and retain. Right? And so I support that the Criminal Justice Council, with the work they do there and with the police academy, having it be kind of put out through them what happens. I also get concerned when we start to talk about x number of hours. Like, let's say, as Kristen said, we go with four hours every two years. And if the criminal justice counsel said, actually, you know what? We want we think it should be done annually. Right? And they put out something that says, we want all law enforcement to do it annually. I'd be concerned that there will be some departments that will look at statute and say, statute says we only have to do two years. And so, you know, and so I'm a fan of being able to be more responsive and more in tune to what our communities need in the moment. And to me, that's not x number of hours. That is what are we looking to teach and make sure that they retain.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So how do you measure whether everybody has gained the competency level? Is it passfail? If it takes eight hours instead of four hours, one particular officer competent in a certain way? How's that trying?

[Morning Fox]: I think competencies, it's a fairly commonly used training modality to train to a competency. And so what you're looking at is setting up specific standards or ideas or concepts that an officer should understand, be able to show through practice, through scenarios at the academy or scenarios at team two to show that they still understand the concept behind x, y, or z skill set.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: What happens if they don't show that?

[Morning Fox]: What happens if if someone doesn't do their their mandated four hour training?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Right. So so they don't get it sort of I shouldn't use the term certified because that's a different but essentially, they don't get the yes. You pass this particular training.

[Morning Fox]: I don't I I don't have an answer to exactly what that would look like, to be honest. You know? Yes. If a trainer feels that a person didn't meet their competency, my guess is that it would mean remediation, further training, you know, things of that sort. And personally, both as someone who works with law enforcement, someone who has worked in the mental health field for two decades, and as a citizen, I would much rather know that that is happening than to know that they got their four hours, good, bad, or indifferent. It makes sense.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Makes sense. That kind of for a nose track. Tom and then Barbara.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: Is is the competency standard I don't

[Kim McMahon]: know if

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: that's the right term or not, used throughout training at the academy?

[Morning Fox]: I can't speak to all the other trainings. Okay. I know that from the training that I provide, you know, I I start when I start First of all, the training that I provide there, it was a training that I inherited, and I have over the last five years been massaging it, if you will, to fit kind of more, what I think, goals and objectives. And so as a trainer, as a consummate trainer, one who's done hundreds, hundreds of trainings throughout the country, when you provide a training, you set up what are the goals, what are the objectives that you expect each participant to to understand and to be able to demonstrate. And for me, that's what those competencies come from, are those goals and objectives. So I can't speak to everything else, but I can speak to mine. I know I have goals, objectives to meet.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: It would be my guess at some place through the training, there's probably some competency standard. Right.

[Morning Fox]: And so we go into the different skill sets and such like that during a training and whatnot. And so it's a matter of if I'm presenting six skills, that they're able to demonstrate the use of four of those skills in two scenarios as an example, that type of thing.

[Rep. Thomas Burditt (Vice Chair)]: No, I don't expect you to have an opinion on something you're not doing. I can have that opinion.

[Morning Fox]: Feel free, feel free.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: I'll Barbara hit it. So I'm kind of weighing, like I get there's nothing worse than taking a class or a training that you don't want to do yet. But on the other hand, this one seems really important and the stakes are really high. I know in the bill we just worked on related to animal abuse, rather than say complete a twenty hour training, we changed it to successful completion of a program. And I'm sitting here also in the mental health world thinking about licensure requirements that we put on mental health clinicians, social workers, lawyers, and we don't say, All right, you know what? Let's just leave it to them, or whatever. Same thing with employment, where you have to go through sexual harassment training or mandated reporter trainings. So in some ways, I'm struggling with that. And again, I'd love to know some of the cases where somebody was paranoid and the police put a camera in the person's bathroom, despite the fact that that probably is the worst thing to do to somebody who's paranoid, the man ended up being killed. Did that officer have the What if people are like, You know what? I don't like people who struggle with mental illness. I don't want to deal with this. I'm just having

[Morning Fox]: a hard time. But I'd love to hear how to The license I carry had certain requirements in order for me to meet from the Allied Board of Health Practitioners. Their rules. Just like the council's rules. And so I take a class that has a certain title to it. Successfully completed. They don't necessarily know if I got an A or a D plus and those kind of things.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: But hopefully there's some mechanism too for coaching or giving feedback to If there's

[Morning Fox]: a complaint about my practice as a practitioner, then the board has a series of options that they can take when they investigate that complaint. And they could reprimand me. They could not. They could tell me to reeducate or take more classes. They could suspend my license. They could permanently remove my license. When I was looking up,

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: forty hours is sort of the gold standard. One of the data points that I saw was that one in four incidents where there is use of worse new situations involve someone who is, and again, I sort of hate to use the mental health crisis, but involve maybe not fully understanding the mental or physical challenges that the person's having. So just given how, if it really is anywhere near a quarter of the cases, I guess I really hope we would make a bigger emphasis on that.

[Morning Fox]: I don't know the statistic that you're speaking of.

[Chris Brickell]: I

[Morning Fox]: think it's interesting when we start to talk about a statistic like that, that one in four cases involve a person with a mental health crisis. We don't have a definition of mental health crisis. And so if my wife left me today, heaven forbid, So I go, oh my gosh, and throw you know, start tearing apart my my apartment in the throes of, oh my gosh. Is that a mental health crisis? Some would say yes, some would say, well, no. Is a mental health crisis only based on if someone has a diagnosable mental illness and that their perceptions to perceive reality or conform their behavior to societal norms, like in a competency kind of concept. Is that how we're defining? And so I'm not a fan of, hey, let's throw it. You make a statistic say what you And want to so I don't want to minimize at all either on the

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: other

[Morning Fox]: end. I want to say first and foremost, especially when we're talking about people who have a significant mental health challenge or issue, people with mental illnesses, population of individuals in our country are much, much more likely to be the victim of a crime than the perpetrator of of of violent offense. But that also does not mean that a person with a mental illness cannot also be violent. Right? I worked for six years as a director of a maximum security unit at Bridgewater State Hospital in Massachusetts. It's a correctional facility for people who have been found either not competent to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity, or have been adjudicated of a crime and are struggling with their mental health issues while incarcerated. And I ran their maximum security unit, and I know very well that you can have individuals who have a mental health challenge and can also be violent. That violence isn't always connected to the mental illness.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: No, but probably de escalation techniques would help

[Morning Fox]: even taught if you were having a de escalation at professional story as well. And so that's why it's such an important piece for me. Don't get me wrong when I say that you know, I I I don't wanna get into hours and mandating hours.

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: Right.

[Morning Fox]: I I stand on the highest hilltop here saying, training, training, training. Right? But to just check a box, put a number on it is a concern for me. And I also have to look at, here's the reality. Every officer, every trooper has a limited amount of hours. There's how many hours in a year? If we start to increase mandated hours just for the sake of we feel good because we're saying it's more mandated hours now, something else is gonna have to give some. And what are we losing?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And

[Morning Fox]: what's the impact there?

[Rep. Barbara Rachelson]: And in some cases, we heard about a standoff between some where law enforcement looks outside for twenty hours. Very fluid situations.

[Morning Fox]: And impractical, getting to that language of the impractical and then shall do these other things. Is impractical to find.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So unfortunately, we're losing all the committee members, and I have a new meeting that I can't miss. We're gonna have to end the testimony for now. I envisioned one of two things that are gonna happen with this bill. Either it's gonna be too much work to get done in the next ten days, week, week and a half, and we may have to continue to work on these issues next biennium or it will be a substantially reworked bill given the testimony that we have today. Definitely legitimate issues that we're trying to grapple with and do want to make some progress on the training, on the policy, and on certain issues that come up with victims. But for now, we're going to have to adjourn until 01:00. Thank you very much, though, for being here. We wish Thank we had more time, but.

[Morning Fox]: Hey. If we keep it short and I don't have to come back, then it's close to last year.