A resolution approving a proposed Amendatory Agreement between the City and County of Denver and Axon Enterprise, Inc., f/k/a Taser International, Inc., to extend the term, increase the maximum contract amount and add additional terms and conditions for body worn cameras, supporting equipment, software, and data storage and Tasers for the Denver Police and Denver Sheriff Departments. Amends a contract with Axon Enterprise, Inc., formerly known as Taser International, Inc., by adding $15,996,615.10 for a new total of $22,097,650.10 and five years for a new end date of 12-15-25 to purchase body worn cameras, supporting equipment, software, and data storage and Tasers for the Denver Police and Denver Sheriff Departments (202054764). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 12-21-20. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 11-18-20. Pursuant to Council Rule 3.7, Councilmember CdeBaca called out this resolution at the 11-30-20 Council meeting for a one-week postponement to Monday, 12-7-20.
All right. Thank you, Councilwoman. And thank you for the staff answering the questions. The next item up we have is Council Resolution 1356. Councilwoman Ortega, we you please put Resolution 1356 on the floor for adoption. We've got you muted. But I just hit the button. Madam President, I move that council resolution 20 1356 be adopted. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded. Questions or comments by members of Council. Councilwoman CdeBaca. Thank you, Madam President. Just wanted to make sure that we do a vote count on this one. I received over 150 communications this weekend requesting that we either split this up and have separate contracts for the Tasers and separate for the body cams, or that we do not approve this tonight, that we should be waiting. People requested for us to wait until we have our report from the Independent Monitor investigating the use of the tools that we currently have. And so I want to go on record as a no for this this evening. All right. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. I just want to make note for folks that as a result, particularly of Senate Bill 217 this year, it's a requirement that we have body cameras. The current contract we have has already expired in June. And so to not approve this contract would put us out of compliance with the state statute that all of us supported the upgrade in the cameras. The cameras that they're currently using are five years old and they have poor quality, particularly at night. The new cameras, which are actually the minor cost of the contract, the new cameras have much better video quality at night under low light conditions and will be much better for our purposes. And again, I remind you that we're required to have them. And but the major part of the cost is the storage, which is managed by the vendor. So turning down this contract would leave us not only out of compliance with state law, but it would also leave us without a way to access the video that is taken even by the existing body cameras. So for that reason, I urge all of us to support this as we supported Senate Bill 217. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Flynn. Councilman Hines. Thank you, Mr. President. I actually have some questions. Since this has been called out. I wonder if I could. Get someone to answer. I'll just ask and then you can decide who to direct this to. So we had heard in public comment today a few people saying that the body cameras had never led to a charge or conviction. I wonder. I wonder if anyone can can comment on that, that that seems a little interesting to me, but just because it seems interesting to me doesn't mean that it is true or untrue. So someone else can provide some context. That would be wonderful. Great. It looks like we have cheese paisan cued up if if that's correct. To answer that question and I just want to remind folks as well, if we can stay on the topic of the actual resolution and the contract, it would be much appreciated. We've got three public hearings lined up tonight as well, so go ahead, Chief Payson. Thanks, Madam President and Councilman Hines. Again, the purpose of the body camera is to document the incident. The purpose is not for conviction in court. It's to document the incident. Use that as evidence that the evidence supports a conviction. And that's what the outcome would be. Of the video evidence itself. But to say that the fact that this that's not the purpose of the body. Okay. And I wonder if also this vendor is not from from Colorado. I don't think they're even based in the United States. Not that that's a huge deal. If we don't have a vendor that can perform the service in Denver. Do you know if if there is a locally based vendor, that that could perform the service? So we did look at it. We looked at different vendors five years ago, six years ago, seven years ago. And again, based on testing and evaluating the different body worn cameras, this is the one that that met our needs to unbundle. Something like this would be extremely difficult. Just it's a workflow issue with the data and the video storage. When we're talking about documenting the the incident, we share this information with the district attorney on criminal cases involving their office. It's shared with the city attorney on criminal cases involving their offices. There's 37 terabytes of information so that the data storage itself is quite extensive. And I think you and the. Is it possible to upgrade the existing body cameras or. And that's that's also something that I've I've heard from from people who are reaching out about this contract. So, no, there is not a way to upgrade the current BWC to the newer cameras, would provide better video footage, better coverage in those low light situations, as well as movement capturing the rapidly evolving situations. So I guess the best analogy that I could give you would be a cell phone. Obviously, there's cell phone upgrades, including cameras on cell phones that have taken place, upgrades in the technology. And it's not just purchasing a cell phone and you can have unlimited data. It is the service plan that goes with that. So that's an analogy that may help understand the costs associated with this. And then to try to put it into context, it's that 37 terabytes of data that needs to be handled, you know, to document when if an officer handles 20 calls for service in a day and a specific date, the specific time when a individual arrest or to document the evidence in a particular case, being able to retrieve that exact file for the district attorney or the city attorney. That's where a lot of the complexities in this type of data storage and management takes place. Thank you, Chief. One other thing that people were asking about was about training. I noticed in the contract that there there is a component of training and it appears that there are also some VR headsets for. I think I think the contract calls for empathy training. Can you talk a bit about the the training component associated with this contract? And can you talk about what what is this? What what is empathy training where the VR headset is meant to perform? So, Councilman, this is something that both the Denver Sheriff's Department and the Denver Police Department really believe in. Sheriff DEGGANS talks about leading with our humanity. We want to be more we want our officers and deputies to be more empathetic when engaging with our community again, to have a better understanding of where individuals are coming from. This is a technology upgrade that would help us in that endeavor from resolving a potentially challenging situation and de-escalating it. One from the officers perspective. But then you can utilize that exact same scenario from the individual who is in crisis perspective for that empathetic view. And that's something that is also part of this. Is it possible for the public to see that kind of training or to have access to the training manual or something along those lines? ABC News did a story on this national news. And you're welcome. I'll get you the link. Yeah. Thank you, Chief. And thank you. For. For being on the hot seat. I know the sheriff sheriff is also here. Thank you first for taking all the questions. And the the last question that I have is about. What happens if if there's a Taser? Taser has become axon. What happens if there if there continues to be a you know, what if they do that, I think was they change their legal name. But what if the the company is purchased? I guess two questions right now. Who owns the the 37 terabytes? Then second, if the company gets purchased, who owns the 37 terabytes? So City Attorney's office, do you want to weigh in? It's my understanding that the city of Denver owns the data. And that that's spelled out quite explicitly in the contract that if another country or excuse me, another company comes in and purchases a parent company, that that Denver would retain that. Right. So we have we have Steve promoted. Go ahead, Steve. Hi, this is Steve on at the city attorney's office. In answer to the question, who owns the data, it's very clear in the contract, the city and county of Denver owns the data, which is primarily, well, almost exclusively video footage. If the contract were assigned to someone else, those contractual provisions would carry over and the city and county of Denver would continue to own the 37 terabytes of data. So there's no there's no way for Nexon or Taser or some other company for while they happen to be storing the data. They're not they don't they can't use it for their own purposes or they can. Published snippets of any of that video footage or associated metadata. That's correct. If they did that as a last week, be in breach of the agreement. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Horne. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Torres. Thank you, Madam President. Hello to Steve Hunt's dog. My questions are probably more for Chief Payson. Chief, if you're still on. Mm hmm. We've got him. Okay. The funding request total. Maybe this isn't or I'm hoping you know this. The funding request total. This is not a supplemental funding request, is it? Or is this using existing 2020 funding from the department's? You are correct. This is not a supplemental request. Or Laura, would you like to answer that question? Yes, absolutely. Good evening. Members of Council Laura Walker, deputy. Director of safety. So this is subject to the annual appropriation. Within the general fund budget. And we currently do have our budget within the. Police and sheriff's general fund budget. And 2021. The 1.1 million of this contract. That's for a may invoice. Why was that overdue or not paid? And what was it for beyond the original contract? Yes, they are. Thank you for that question. So we had originally started all of the contract amendments. And the extension of the contract back in January. But due to complications with COVID. As well as understanding the Senate Bill 217 and incorporating Sheriff. Into the contract. Those conversations occurred. Throughout the summer. And so that 1.1 million we were invoiced and made for the additional body cameras. In the police department from 800 body cameras in the original contract to. 870. So that was all just part of the the police body camera contract. Okay. Thank you, Laura. So, Chief, I don't have an issue in sharp begins with the body worn camera request, but I do have a couple of questions about tasers, which are 3.6 million of the request our use of tasers. Part of the requirements of Senate Bill 217. No, they're not. The. How long has Deepdale been using tasers? We've been using Tasers for nearly a decade. Okay. Have. Have we? Well, in Denver, I know nationally we've we've seen deaths from Taser use. Have we seen any in Denver? I have not seen any incidents where a taser has been the cause of the death in our city. Okay. And then have we done a race or ethnicity assessment of Taser deployment? So our use of force and this was something that one of the use of force committee members brought forward. We publish on our website all of the use of force, including the demographics of the officer and the demographic of the individual that force would have been used upon, and that is published annually on or before February 1st of the following year. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Those are all my questions, Madam Chair. Madam President. I thank you, Councilwoman. Up next, we have Councilman Flynn. I think that the president just want to close the loop on a few things, chief. Paisan, is it the case that the new camera, this new upgrade includes a feature that would automatically start the video? Assuming the officer hadn't already started, it would start the camera or when either the taser or the firearm is on the holster by the officer. Correct, Councilman. And I want to make sure that we're really clear on this point. So thanks for bringing this up again. The city of Denver and the Denver Police Department were early adopters of the system. And in 2019, for example, we've had over 600,000 interactions with our community or calls for service and a fraction of a percent . A fraction of a fraction of a percent. The officer forgot to turn on the camera. I think 34 incidences out of the entire 622,000 potential calls for service here. What this additional technology does is it serves as a failsafe, doesn't change the policy. Officers are still required to turn them on per policy to include the arrest, documenting of evidence, all of the stated purposes of the body worn cameras. This additional feature that essentially works as a failsafe that correct those most critical situations. We don't want that to be the small fraction of a percent where an officer forgot. We need those to be turned on a body worn system for that accountability for what are demanding. What has been to 17 is requiring. We want to make sure that those are captured. Thank you, Chief. I wanted to be clear because some of the email that we were getting, it was a singular email that was being sent to us by by dozens of volunteers. And there was some information in there that wasn't quite what this what this contract actually is. The policy is always that the camera is on when there's public interaction. It's not the case that we only use the camera when when a taser or a firearm is on holster. Correct. You stated that. Correct counts, right? Okay. The reason I asked that, Madam President, was to address Councilman Himes question about whether you could split the contract up between the cameras and the Tasers. And because of this interaction, I would suggest that that would that would not be a very good thing to do, even if it were possible, because we want that functionality. The cost of the 60 million average is out over the five years to about $3.2 million per year. Laura And I assume that what you're saying is that this is subject to appropriation each year of that annual amount that we're not fronting the entire 16 million next year. Is that correct? That is correct, sir. Thank you. And just to correct one, one other misstatement that was in the email we got and was repeated here. There was at least one case that I know of personally where an officer was charged criminally with an assault using body camera as evidence. And that case ended in an acquittal. But there was at least that one case that I do know of. Sheriff Diggins, one other thing. One other reason for this expansion is that Senate Bill 217 requires us to equip certain deputies who work in the corrections area to wear body cams. And so we need to acquire more of them. And these are the ones that are now available. Can you tell us how many of your deputies expect you expect to be equipped with this? Ken, ultimately, at the conclusion of 2023, we expect that all deputies that have either public interaction or who work in a place where we have people in custody will be outfitted with a body camera. Senate Bill 2217 does call for both of those in subsection D of Section 24th, 31, 92 of that bill. It specifically states that any time there is an anticipated use of force, that a deputy has a body camera. And as you are all aware, that can happen at any time with our staff. So we're looking to be compliant with the provisions of the law by 2023. Thank you, Sheriff. Thank you, Madam President. Again, voting down this contract would put us out of compliance with state law. So I urge all my colleagues to vote yes. Thank you, Councilman Flynn. Councilwoman CdeBaca, we have you back up. Yeah. Thank you, Madam President. And just wanted to clarify that last comment. We already are in compliance with 217. This is upgrading cameras. And so I'm curious for Chief Payson, how many cameras are we do we currently have that we're retiring as we purchase this new technology? And what happens to those old cameras? So, Councilman, the cameras that we currently have are entering their service life and they would be returned to the vendor as we get the new cameras. And so how many is that? How many are we retiring and how many are we getting online? So the again, the requirement is that every officer and again, this is built out in compliance with 217 to get us all of our officers, the body cameras that they need. But let me just go backwards for a second. This is not just using this amount of money to go from the BWC twos to the BWC threes. It is similar to a purchasing a phone. So if you purchase a phone, it doesn't mean that you get to make phone calls or stream video or send text messages. You need that service plan, that data agreement. So much of the cost associated with this is associated to that data agreement. And the upgrade is just part of part and parcel of the contract itself. Do you have numbers of how many body cameras you're retiring and how many new ones are coming online? We'll get you that number. Councilman. Do you have an itemized breakdown of the costs for the cameras, the tasers and the evidence dot com service? Again, this is all part of the greater the greater amended contract itself, the data storage, the workflow process here. We do not have that breakdown for you. Do they just break down those costs or is that just something you don't have in front of you? They don't break down those costs, nor do I have that in front of me. Again, I can't emphasize enough about the data aspect of this that the agreement is about the data access, including the equipment itself. And a quick clarification. SB 217 requires broadly that the activation of body cameras in any service call or any interaction with the public happens by 2023. Did you say that we're already complying with that? Or do they only turn on when a weapon is holstered? We are currently in full compliance with activating on those and you can take a look at that in our policy manual that talks about when body worn cameras are to be turned on. Section 11910. It talks about the activation we currently do activate. Now, the issue would be if we do not renew this contract, we did not go with the amended contract, we wouldn't have the data. So we have a body worn camera, we'd have the camera itself. But you would not be able to have the video footage of that or access to that video footage. So I can't stress enough that this is more than just going from an old camera to a new camera. This is about that data, the video, the workflow, being able to access that. Know an officer would respond to, say, 20 calls for service. Today, they're being able to access the specific call that was involved in a criminal case or in a complaint. That's where you have to be able to manage that workflow, be able to access that and utilize the evidence that the body worn cameras had captured. And how about the tasers? How many are we retiring and replacing, or does this just add and how many does it add? Chief. I can answer that one. We are currently replacing 1000 Tasers in 2021. Got it. And do we anticipate upgrading any other weapons within the next year? There's nothing else in this contract. So just this contract, we're just upgrading tasers. Within this contract. Yes. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Flynn, your backup. Thank you, ma'am. I just wanted to make it really clear that, yes, we would be out of compliance with 217 without this contract for the points that the chief subsequently mentioned, which is that we would have cameras, but we would not have the ability to use the video, which is, frankly, the more crucial part, having a camera that you can do nothing with, it's pointless. And what we need is the backdrop that action gives us with this contract. And as of now, the contract expired June 30th. So technically we already lack that. But we're we're in a bridge period right now. So, again, I urge people to vote. Yes. Thank you. Very good. Thank you. Councilman Flynn. Councilman Hines, we'll be back up, but we're doubling back and we belabor this quite a bit last week. And so hope you've got a quick, quick question here and we can go ahead and vote on this. Never mind, Madam President. You sure you don't? We got them all here. All right. Very good. Madam Secretary, roll call, please. CdeBaca. Now. Clark. I. Flynn. I think. I. HINES No. Cashman. I. Can I? Ortega, I. Sandoval. I. Sawyer, I. Torres, I. Black. I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, closed the voting and announced. Results to raise the Lebanese. 11 eyes. Council Resolution 1356 has been adopted. The next item up is Council Resolution 1416. Councilwoman Ortega, would you please put Resolution 1416 on the floor for adoption and remove the Council Resolution 20 1416 be adopted. Thank you.