Home » Richmond Police Directed to Track “Deploy, Display, and Discharge” of Military Weapons

Richmond Police Directed to Track “Deploy, Display, and Discharge” of Military Weapons

by CC News
Richmond Police

At its January 7 meeting, the Richmond City Council approved its 2023 annual military equipment use report, while also seeking enhancements for its Richmond Police 2025 report by tracking, “deploy, display and discharge” of military weapons.

By 2025, the police department will begin to track the number of “displaying” of a weapon from the holster in a tally form — exact details of how they will do this will be provided during its 2024 military equipment use report next month.

At the meeting, the council spent more than 2-hours debating “deploy” vs. “display” and how the police department could track the times a weapon (firearm) is drawn from a holster and pointed at an individual—however, the discussion veered away from military equipment and moved to everyday weapons.

At one point, Councilmember Melvin Willis stated he didn’t even know what a Richmond Police Report looked like while councilwoman Soheila Bana suggested the police chief invite the council to the police department to get more educated on police work and host possible ride-a-along to see report writing in action. Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin accused the country of becoming a more militarized culture.

Meanwhile, the Richmond Police Department pushed back on the council while attempting to educate them of real world police work while sharing the increased reporting would add more time officers would spend report writing versus responding to calls for service — reports take on average between 30-minutes to an hour to complete.

At the meeting, the council brought back its 2023 military equipment report to better define the following:

  • expand the definition of “use” to include “deploy, display, and discharge”
  • adding the definition of “barricaded subject”
  • add the definition for “high-risk warrant services”
  • add criteria used to make the determination for when diversion devices are used

In response, the police department said to implement council requested changes, it would need more staffing and possibly cost the city up to $500k. The Police Department proposed that to implement changes to the report to go above and beyond state requirements, the following additional resources are needed:

  • Data management reporting system/software
  • Additional Crime Analyst staff position(s)
  • Additional RPD training
  • Additional budget for mandatory overtime (the actual dollar amount is unknown now. RPD will request an additional $500,000 during the mid-year budget process for FY 2024-25).

Police said at this time, it could not fully implement the requested changes without resources stated above.

Ultimately, the council approved the 2023 report with changes set to begin with the 2025 with a 5-0-2 vote with Cepeda and Robinson abstaining.

Council Meeting Recap

Assistant Chief Simmons shared that implementing the expended definition of “display” would necessitate significant amount of resources for monitoring and reporting – including additional staffing.

“Given our current budget infrastructure this expansion currently is not feasible without major adjustments that would place undo administrative burden on the department,” explained Simmons. “The impact on officer duties, the proposed policy change would also impact operational efficiency. Officers would need to document every instance of displaying their patrol rifle whether during a SWAT operation, tactical response operation or just a routine patrol calling involving a potential or reported armed individual.”

Simmons said this would detract from their primary role of engaging the community and responding effectively to calls for service—noting the average police report takes 30-minutes to 1-hour to write currently, the new policy would add more time.

He added the city website already provides monthly reporting and data for each deployment that complies with AB 41 – date, location and reason for deployment, which focuses on deployment, not display of equipment.

He explained if the council moved forward with the changes, the Richmond Police Department would need the following:

  • Data management reporting system/software
  • Additional Crime Analyst staff position(s)
  • Additional RPD training
  • Additional budget for mandatory overtime (the actual dollar amount is unknown now. RPD will request an additional $500,000 during the mid-year budget process for FY 2024-25)

Captain Lopez ran through a long list of Q&A previously asked by councilmembers while also noting Richmond PD does not track “merely displaying” rifles.

After a series of public comments, the Chief Bisa French stated she appreciated the feedback and concern over the “display” or “use” of a weapon, and was figuring out the best way on how to report that, but they were trying to balance reporting versus serving the community.

“What it does mean, officers will have to take the time to write a report every time the rifle is displayed or taken out. That does have an impact to the community. Every report written takes 30-minutes to an hour, we have a set report form that has all the information, they have to describe the use. Every report, because of the information that has to be put in the system, will take at least 30-minutes to an hour,” explained French. “Most of the times when an officer is displaying a rifle its because it’s a major incident—if we are encountering someone we believe to be armed.”

She added if they believe someone is armed, there are multiple Richmond Police officers at an incident.

“For each one of them, once the incident is finished, for each one of them to take the time to write a report that takes 30-minutes to an hour at least depending on the incident, that is time away for that officer being in their beat, that is what my concern is,” stated French. “Taking this into consideration, we have talked about this extensively, we are trying to balance the concerns of the council and community while balancing our service to the community. This is going to take away a lot of significant time we already don’t have to provide to the community.”

She also added, on major incidents, officers are at the incident, the calls for service are backing up, they have multiple calls holding waiting for officers respond. If they add this new element to write a report, the council needs to understand what it means to response times.

Mayor Eduardo Martinez questioned French, “what I am understanding, what I am getting from your explanation is that you don’t report when rifles are used. Is that what you are saying?”

French responded, they write reports when officer uses a rifle—which means when they shoot the rifle off, not when they simply display it. She provided an example if they respond to a person with a rifle and 5-8 officers respond a display their rifle, but successful resolve that call without issue, only the officers who’s call it is, will write a report – not all 8 officers. (Note – under council request, every officer would write a report).

Vice Mayor Claudia Jimenez said the reporting was getting better but needed to be “much better” calling transparency important. She stated what is being asked of Richmond was not unique or what other departments are asked to be doing.

French also confirmed Richmond Police are in full compliance with AB 481 with what the law requires—and understands the council wants to expand on it, by including “display”, but confirmed they were already in compliance.

Jimenez also stated the definition of “deployment” was a contradiction.

French responded, when they are talking about “display”, it’s the display of the actual equipment and use of it. When we talk about “deployment” of a rifle, shooting of a rifle is “deployment”. She said their definition of deployment is shooting a rifle, council definition is the display of it.

Jimenez said they needed reporting of display and deployment because members of the community are scared and questioned the transparency or know what happened.

Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin agreed that more work needed to happen before it would be acceptable to the council and the community.

“We have a situation in this country where we are getting more and more of a militarized culture, this isn’t directed at our police, it’s the whole culture. I think our police department in this militarized culture is becoming apparent in police department. It’s being pushed back in the way of an Assembly Bill to be transparent so that the public and councilmembers know what is going on,” explained McLaughlin. “We are in a critical point in time, and we really have to be clear we don’t want our culture to become militarized. And that means we make sure our police department is doing good work.”

She called it an opportunity for Richmond to be accountable and transparent.

McLaughlin suggested including pointing of a firearm into its “use of force policy” and make it reportable—then simply suggesting they create a template, and officers could check a box to make it easy to create a report that a rifle was taken out and pointed at someone.

“It doesn’t seem very hard to do, create a template,” stated McLaughlin. “Would you consider incorporating pointing of a firearm as a reportable non-deadly use of force.”

French responded, she started off the presentation with the fact they would report the requests, but the issue was the time and effort.

“I know you talk about a template that would be used. But for AB 481, for every deployment already there is a process officers have to go through to make sure its reported, “explained French. “We actually put a narrative on our website so that is extra narratives on our websites. I am talking about the extra time and effort. I know you are saying a check box or a template might not be time consuming. But that is not going to tell the picture. Officers need to be able to recall later why that was. If it’s just a checkbox, that is not recalling, they need to write a narrative to refresh their memory when called upon to be able to talk about why they displayed the firearm. Its not that we can’t do it. We can. Its just going to take some time and effort and it will mean there is less officers on the streets to actually do work because they will be writing reports that take more time. The report will need to be written… I just want to be clear that if the community is complaining about response times, this is an issue. I just want to be clear about that.”

Councilmember Melvin Willis asked for clarification on who is writing reports.

French explained the officers who have an active roll write a report. She said while 6 officers might show up, a couple officers might display a rifle, but not discharged it. Not everyone on the Richmond Police Department will write a report unless they have an active role in the incident.

“What is being asked, is all 6 officers that show up who display a rifle write a report, that is not currently what we do. Its only the officers who made an arrest or had an active role in the incident who write the reports,” explained French.

Willis further admitted while they were talking about what goes into a police report, he had never seen one of them looked like. Still, he suggested he wanted a check mark checked and a sentence or two why a firearm was drawn.  He wanted the police department to provide a sample police report in the future to show the time it takes to put it together.

Councilmember Soheila Bana said the Richmond Police Department has been accountable ever since she had joined the council but noted she was “against military weapons”. She asked how often they came across militarized weapons in the community.

Richmond

Jan 7, Richmond Police Chief Bisa French attempting to educate the city council on “display” vs. “deploy” of a weapon

According to French, she said last year they took over 240 firearms off the streets in the City of Richmond.

Bana asked if they moved forward with the ask, how much more staffing or overtime is needed.

French said it was “hard to say” because they haven’t done the accounting and did not know how many “displays” there would actually be. She added it would take significant time in report writing but would need more officers so they could respond to calls.

Bana said if they have to do reports with “display” then the council needed to understand there had to be more police officers at the Richmond Police Department—she asked how many more police officers would be needed without resulting in a lower level of police services to the community.

“I know you are already understaffed, you are supposed to have 240 officers according to the Matrix Report, but you only have 120,” said Bana. “Is it possible to keep track in case this goes through”.

She asked the police department if they could keep track of the level of service reduction due to reporting so they could compensate for that by adding more police officers.

French and the department said they didn’t understand the question.

Bana said they will see with the number of reports versus level of service provided.

Councilmember Cesar Zepeda provided an example to show the difference which was he “deployed his pen” followed by “using the pen”.

Councilmember Doria Robinson said she felt “challenged” and been on both sides of the equation where she had been with her brother where young people were forced by police to the ground with guns drawn because they thought they were someone else—that incident wasn’t reported because it “wasn’t them” and it disappears as if it never happened. On the other hand, she has had a gun pointed at her head during a robbery and wanted people with guns to come in and “stop that” as they were all held at gunpoint and didn’t want the people who would stop it to not have the tools available.

“I don’t want it to be invisible when people are being abused when there is an overstep. And I don’t want to impede when we need help,” shared Robinson. “I am asking the council what is it that you really want, what are we really solving here. I am not clear quite honesty. I am not sure what I really want is more paperwork. What I want is more safety and I am not sure the way we get there is through more paperwork.”

She also stated this is a report on “military weapons” but they were now talking about “guns” which is not what the report/agenda item was about.  She said the council needed to think more about this topic.

“I am not convinced that what we need is more paperwork to achieve the goal of more safety,” said Robinson.

French said she appreciated Robinson’s comments and felt the same way adding that more paperwork is not going to change actions. She also said there was recourse if someone was using a gun in a manner that is not within policy—such a complaint, plus officer accountability, or training.

She called it a balancing act to implement council suggestions into the report while also providing service to the residents. She continued adding that having every officer write a report based on council wishes is not going to change what happened—it’s just going to be document.

Mayor Martinez was adamant that every time they use a weapon they track it (display) because right now there is no way for the public to know.

French ran with the mayors suggestion saying if we have a board with a tally of times a firearm/military equipment is used, the next question is then “why did you take it out”. The police department is not going to be able to go back and tell you why they took it out unless they write a report.

“This is not just something we can tally up a number because you are going to ask what those numbers mean and what happened in that instance so we can’t just tally it up and give you a number,” stated French.

Martinez argued, “So you are saying we can just ignore it?”

French responded, she was not saying that because if someone is taken into custody there is a report but if the direction is everybody write a report, they will do it, but she wanted the council to understand what that means to service.

“I am having a hard time understanding why you don’t know how many times you have taken the equipment out,” asked Martinez.

French stated they have not tracked it.

Martinez again asked, “there must be a report every time it is taken out?”

French replied, “no”.

Martinez asked, “only in the cases it was fired”?

French replied, “correct”.

Martinez responded, “I don’t want to sound like I am criticizing you because you have done a fantastic job and I appreciate all that you do, especially my conversations with Officer Simmons who is an excellent representative of the police force and you as well, I tout what you do anytime I go to other cities, I tell them about how wonderful our police service is. It’s so wonderful we don’t have instances like Ferguson, we don’t see that here because of the quality of work that you do. But, because we are good, doesn’t mean we cannot become better. That is why we are asking for more information.”

Martinez stated as a teacher, he had to write reports on 33 students and if he didn’t write the reports, he couldn’t explain to the parents what happened. He said there was value in paperwork. The purpose of paperwork is for accountability.

“It may not provide more safety, but it doesn’t provide more accountability,” said Martinez.”

French replied they write hundreds of reports every single month and this would be adding to the number.

Bana said the police department was already struggling to hire police officers and adding this item, they may not apply for a job in Richmond and the city would loose the opportunity to hire more police officers.

Jimenez suggested the Berkeley Police Department does it and Richmond should ask how they do it. She said this also had to do with perception of people feeling safe and for accountability for how they use military equipment.

“If we don’t use it that much, then there should not be that much work,” stated Jimenez. She said the report would provide a little more data and why guns were used but needed to be reported.

Based on Jimenez statement, French stated they always perform incident reports so they can go back and see what happened.

Jimenez asked for further clarification.

French explained, when they go out to search for someone and they do not find someone, there would not be a police report, however, there is an incident report from dispatch and officers who responded plus the clearance of the call (MCR23). She said there is always ways to pull up an incident. She said what the council is requesting is that there always be a report written.

Martinez suggested that they use the MCR23 and incident reports were already a tally.

French responded, they don’t document. If they used that system to recall later, its just a tally but didn’t have detailed information, number of officers, but rather just a firearm was used.

Captain Lopez later responded to Jimenez comment stated he was looking at the Berkeley Police Department report where they used “display” as it only shows a rifle used once during an actual shooting (officer involved). He said if other larger agencies are doing more, its because they have the budget and staffing.

Robinson was seeking a compromise and asked if they could simply add a code to tally the times military equipment was used. She also added what she heard tonight was not just military equipment, but firearms.

“I don’t agree. I don’t agree that its necessary that every time you point a gun at someone you need to write a detailed report,” said Robinson. “The fact you have a gun, you have to assume you have a gun to protect yourself when necessary. I don’t think we need to be splitting hairs on deployment, use, and pointing. It is a threat. When I see an officer and they have their gun in their holster it’s a threat. I don’t see the difference whether they are pointing at me or its in their holster. That is the point of a gun, it is a threat and I don’t see the point in investing time and energy in that. I think we need to focus on this particular issue of militarization of police. If we are using it properly, how many times are we using it, when is it being taken out and for what reasons. But let’s do it in a way where it’s appropriate.”

She called on the council to be smart about this and think about the outcome they want to have occur. She said too much of the discussion was about guns which were simply service revolvers versus military equipment. She didn’t want to create “exhaustive bureaucracy” but find a compromise.

Jimenez called on the city to tally the times they use military equipment and increase accountability. She said the next report could find a middle ground.

Martinez then stated they were all in likely agreement about providing accountability without creating excessive bureaucracy for the times they use military weapons.

Bana said it was obvious the council needed more awareness of what the police department does and suggested they be invited to see what the department does—tag along day and see the circumstances, see how long it takes to write reports.

French said she would love for each member of the council to go on a ride-a-long.

Zepeda made the motion to adopt the 2023 report and that they receive the recommendations—it was seconded by Bana.

McLaughlin offered a substitution motion by adopting the 2023 annual military report, however, then they come back with the 2024 report, to include a simplified method of tracking both display and deployment and reporting on the incidents (just a tally). That was seconded Jimenez.

After clarification, the motion made would apply tracking (tally) to the 2025 report, within the 2024 report, however, they would describe the process Richmond Police would be using to track the data.

McLaughin then changed her motion to adopt the 2023 annual military equipment report and accepted with recommended amendments. When they come back for the 2024 report, Richmond police provide how they would tally and what process used. The new reporting would begin with the 2025 report.

Item passed in a 5-0-2 vote with Cepeda and Robinson abstaining.

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