Meetings
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[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: You're live. Good morning. It is still April 3. We're back in Sanitary Aide and 171. I have get a quick walk or it's a short hill. Have Michelle here from HealthCom.
[Michelle Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good morning. For the record, Michelle Chittenden is Office of Legislative Counsel and we are looking at it as passed by the House. And as the chair mentioned, it's pretty short. It's really just one section with the addition of the effective date section. And the purpose of it is for stakeholders to get together and develop and establish protocol for investigations for officer Paul Shoemakes. I think through some of the questions that came up in the house, what is the process? It kind of became evident that there wasn't one standard protocol for interagency cooperation, who takes what, who does what. And so this is aimed at trying to get one until everybody understands the process because obviously when you have those types of events, there are often professional confidence, right? So in terms of the units of law for someone outside of that, law enforcement community is to do this investigation. So subsection A is just kind of a finding that it's in the best interest of victims and law enforcement officers to efficiently and thoroughly conduct independent investigations of any type of officer involved shooting. And the intent of this is just to facilitate cooperation amongst stakeholders. Subsection B starting on line 13 are the folks who are going get together and come up with something. So it's the AGO, it's DSAS, Department of Public Safety, and the Vermont Association of Chiefs of Police are to work collaboratively to identify a protocol and best practices for independent investigations. Subsection C are some of the things that should be in this protocol. First one is a definition of an officer involved shooting. Two is a definition of conflict of interest, so identifying appropriate steps manage any type of conflict of interest in each prosecutor or law enforcement agencies. Page two is delineating the process for informing all the other parties who might be involved. Four is identifying the general steps for law enforcement investigations. Five is describing the process for a prosecutorial assessment of the investigative materials, including if there are dual investigations going on. Sixth is evaluating the process of investigation and prosecutorial review to ensure timely criminal charging and determinations. So, charges gonna be brought or it's somewhat cleared, they can make it back off to their regular duties and office desk duty. Identifying and addressing existing barriers to timely criminal charge determinations that you can hear from state's attorneys or the AGO as well around, sometimes this can take a long time because they need expert witnesses and that can really measure the amount of time that they take. And then the last one is outlining the final outcome of investigation and assessment, such as clearing someone for finding criminal targets. Subsection D is that they're to examine other jurisdiction protocols just to inform how they develop their own. And subsection B is there to file one report with you by December 1 and identifying what protocol is and if there's any type of legislation with regards to those.
[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: And anything
[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: just one second. I'm looking to Michelle. And I'm assuming that with all the agencies involved looking at this code, I'll order reference. Someone's familiar with this. Hopefully they'll address the concern from the media requests and so on and so forth during this process. There was dates involved in them, like this, and the media was, relayed by some, obtaining footage, so on and so forth, prior to taking the investigation actually coming to a company. Because I took so long, I'm
[Michelle Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: hoping that
[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: they, I'm sure they will, but when they get together, make this comment because chem's here, I think we see an immediate portion of this as far as the volcanic and how we're really seeing on this process. There was the incident involved someone from another county going into another county, was involved in the incident and the media from Minnesota was contacted. Local media is completely released. Police says, It's yours. You go to your office. State's attorney was saying, No, we can't. The attorney general said, Oh, it's under investigation. The media work out. I'm a relentless Hawaii hearing on the release of this material here. So I'm just hoping that when they do this, the state turns out to working out to the board for a deal and they also sources that are requesting information.
[Michelle Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They were just thinking about in terms of in the protocol, maybe them referencing the PRA that one thing to read is something they're not doing.
[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: Right, because we have the state's attorney's office looking at it from one aspect, and then, obviously, the AGO's office becomes involved in this also. Neither one of them wanted to release any footage or whatever until the investigation were complete, which made somewhat of a problem with them. As far as some of the I heard that they were keep referring to the AGs on on this and said, no. You can't release this or whatever else. It's it's a concern. It's something that really it's a concern of mine that that that's that's dealing with the the local request. Hope they look at that one. It's not easy.
[Michelle Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alright. I'll be taking care of you from September 10, and we'll be. Thanks.
[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: They
[Kim McTenden (Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: Hello again. I'm Kim McTenden, is Mark Hosse, attorneys, and sheriffs. I'm just if I can start with that last point. As the records officer, in addition to the legislative policy attorney, I really appreciate you bringing that up, the records request. Then multiple agencies have access to the records, and then all getting individual requests. And then agencies, as practice are consulting with each other before releasing it so that it doesn't interfere with somebody else's investigation. But I think that I just made a note. I don't think it needs to be added to the bill, but I think that was something that should be added into the protocol. I appreciate that. For the department, we support the bill as amended and passed by the House. As a frame of reference, when this bill was introduced, it was really focused on the timeliness issue of why investigations were very, very lengthy time for for completing the investigations. So while there's no strict protocol, there's simply a process for these investigations. It's not that when the wheels were invented anytime it happens. The attorney's office reviews the investigative material. The NGO reviews the investigative materials. The offices confer if they have different opinions, and they would release those if they're on a similar opinion. Then they just infer on who's announcing that opinion and the decision. But it was really the issue of timeliness. There was some very powerful testimony by an individual officer, but also from officers who represent various associations for officers just talking about the weight of waiting to have a decision on whether or not an officer involved in a shooting is going to be cleared of that shooting or going to be charged. So, here that conversation came out, let's really dig into what is taking that time. And in that, let's clarify the next one on the call. Because again, that would probably clarification is going to hopefully make things more efficient and more timely for the officer, for the community, for Vincent's family. We completely support that this bill has shifted to creating this work group, creating this protocol.
[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Any changes that you think it could be here?
[Kim McTenden (Vermont Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs)]: No. Mean, when I think when it's shifted to a protocol, I think we met or three times on the outside. We feel that the once we've been listed for what's needed in the protocol, it's, you know, a category, there'll be subcategories that they're not, and we didn't feel like we needed to
[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Were there I guess this might be a question from Shell. Were there any other entities that wanted to be a part of this work over.
[Michelle Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We didn't hear from anyone else. Yeah. Don't recall anyone.
[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Any any questions? That's great thank you
[Michelle Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: thank you
[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: generally any comments or discussion on this we're not going vote on it today but
[Sen. Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: it's pretty straightforward
[Michelle Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay.
[Sen. Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So while we're on it next week, the last week, hear from some other folks, a lot of antibiotic.