[Music] go ahead and call the meeting to order. Councelor Silva will be right in and um thank you for joining us and we have our work session. I'll turn it over to our city manager. [Music] Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. In today's work session, we have our police chief, Rico Boyce, who se celebrated his 100th day yesterday as the police chief. So, happy anniversary, chief. He Oh, yeah. Um, he said yes. And so he he is going to provide a crime and operations update for Raleigh Police Department. Yeah. Good afternoon, mayor, council, city manager. Uh, Rico Boyce, RPD's chief. Uh, I'm excited to be here. Uh, still want to say thank you for this opportunity to lead the men and women of the Raleigh Police Department. Uh, today, like the manager said, I'll be providing a crime and operations update. Uh, more specifically for this fisc this year from January 1 up until just yesterday, uh, January 9th. Not much has changed overnight. So my information is very accurate. I say June 9th, I'm sorry. So my very first day is March March 1st, 2025. I thought it was important that I set the tone of my leadership as the chief of police. So on March 1st, I sent out the priorities that I am going to use to guide and lead this organization. I identified five strategic priorities that will help me make decisions in keeping this department moving forward as well as keeping this community safe. First strategic priority was employee development and wellness. It's important that the men and women of the Raleigh Police Department that they are well not only mentally but as well as physically. So mental health as well as emotional wellness as well as financial health uh family uh health all that will be a priority as I lead this organization. Second is community engagement. This is where this is my happy place. This is where I have uh an opportunity to really connect with our community. If you've seen our social media here lately uh I've been pretty much everywhere uh mostly time over at NC State University. uh they have been very great in having me over and speaking with some of the students there at NC State. Uh but I also been to several churches. I've been to community groups. I I spoken to just community members out on the street. I've walked Favable Street. I'm very involved and I'm very uh accessible uh to our community. So community engagement will be a priority for uh for the police department. Also, you might have heard about cops on the block. We'll talk a little bit about that later, but I'm being very intentional about making sure that we are engaging with our community when there's not an enforcement issue going on, when we're just having regular conversations. So, more to come on community engagement. Next is crime reduction strategies. I mean, that's what we do as law enforcement. We fight crime, we deter crime, and we hold those responsible for committing crime. we identify them and we uh work with our DA's office to prosecute them. I will be using technology to help us reduce crime and I'll talk more about that later in my presentation, but it's definitely a priority. Second is operate I mean next is operational efficiency. This is a large organization. I have just under a thousand employees. What I'll be doing as the chief is looking at our policies, looking at our practice of how we uh work with our community to keep our community safe. I will be identifying areas within the police department that we need to improve on. Most importantly, our community engagement and how uh we interact with certain communities within uh the city of Raleigh. Next is accountability and leadership. If I want to produce a high caliber, a very professional organization, I got to make sure that they're properly trained. I got to make sure they have the skills and the tools to do their job effectively. On the flip side of that, I got to make sure that they are held accountable when they fail to do their job. And that's going to be a priority for me as the chief of police. So, these five strategic priorities is how I'm going to lead this department. This is how I'm going to make decisions. that's going to keep this community safe. And this is uh the blueprint that all the men and women in the Raleigh Police Department will follow. Crime reduction strategy. The Raleigh Police Department, we have a lot of resources that we use to keep this community safe. It's important that I'm very uh strategic about where I place my resources to keep this community safe. When I assumed the role of chief of police, one of my first priorities was to closely examine how we collect, analyze, and share crime stats uh with our both internal and external stakeholders. In April, well, we began to share our first quarter crime stats with our internal stakeholders. This quarterly report will be something that will be uh ongoing. We just about to come up on the end of the second quarter here at the end of June and I will make sure that I publish and I uh show what our crime stats are for the second quarter. Those stats will be shared uh with our news media outlets as well as our community. It's important that they know exactly what is going on in this city. So I will make sure that we share that data. our second quarter reporting period, like say, will conclude later this month, and I'll be reporting out on year-to- date stats um at at that time. I am pleased to report that overall crime in Raleigh is currently trending downward compared to the same period in 2024. This is a promising sign that reflects the efforts of our department, our partners, and our community at large. From the beginning of my tenure, I emphasized a simple but critical goal to make Raleigh one of the safest cities to live and work. A key part of this achieving this goal is being open with the public, being very transparent about our crime stats and our challenges. While 2025 hasn't been without challenges, we have also experiences some successes, which stems from making some key personnel adjustments within the department. Let's begin with our homicides in 2025. The number of homicides remain unchanged from this time last year. We had 15 last year. Of the 15 homicides recorded so far this year, uh two are related to the officer involved shooting on Democracy Street. Other 15 cases this year, 14 of them are already solved cleared by arrest. And the one that's not uh cleared by arrest is the one that we had on January 1st uh just off Pool Road here in the city. We're making a lot of progress to hold those responsible or identify those responsible for that homicide. In our 15 homicides this year or the 14, excuse me, uh the victim and the suspects knew one another. This is important because it's not just random violence. These individuals knew one another. They had some interactions before this tragic incident occurred where a loss of life uh was taken. Next are our robberies. This is one of our challenging areas and you can see from the statistics here. Robberies has seen a 19% increase in 2025 with 185 incidents compared to 155 compared to the same period last year. In response, we are working closely with local businesses to enhance security and prevent these crimes from occurring. Additionally, our officers are demonstrating more proactive policing as we head into the summer months. We encourage residents to stay alert and report any suspicious behavior. We also encourage our community to submit anonymous tips through Crimestoppers. On the slide here you see that robberies have increased 19%, robberies from person 14% and robberies from business have increased 20%. More specifically to the robberies from business uh we are working with our business community to provide what we call septed training that is crime prevention through environmental design. In a nutshell what that is is let's take a convenience store for example. Our community officers will work with that store owner to look at areas where they may need to improve lighting or they may need to cut back some type of foliage that is preventing um people from seeing inside the store. Uh taking out some of the the signs and the posters that are in the windows. Doing things like that help enhance our safet help the uh business owner enhance their safety. So, we're working with our business owners uh to do things like that. Aggravated assaults. A particular positive development is the decrease in aggravated assaults involving firearms. As you can see here, overall decrease in assaults compared to 2024. They're down. Aggravated assaults are down 7%. Aggravated assaults with a firearm down 14%. And child abuse cases have decreased by 31%. When we measure our violent crime, there's four areas that we focus on. Homicides, aggravated assaults, robberies, and in these child abuse cases. They all tie into that violent crime number. And like I reported uh earlier, we are at the same percentage pretty much as we were last year. So, there's been no increase year to date with our overall violent crime. So, you probably ask like, how are we keeping our city safe? And I think I've had conversations with a few of you when I talk about using technology to increase safety here in the capital city. Well, one of the initiatives and one of the strategies we use is to connect Raleigh. And this is our camera system where our business community as well as our residents can register their cameras with the Raleigh Police Department with our intel unit to help with solving crime and preventing crime. Example I will give like in a commercial property area once again a convenience store having access to those exterior cameras at a convenience store. We can see that in live time in our intel center and we can deploy resources if we start to see that there's a problem at that particular location. By being proactive like that, we can prevent things from happening. On the flip side, from a resident standpoint, let's just say they register their Ring doorbell camera and that neighborhood or that street experienced a lot of breakin or residential breakins. We can then call that resident and ask him say, "Hey, can you check your cameras and see if you saw something during that particular time?" And that information then can be relayed to the detective. That way, we're being a little discreet. We're not physically coming knocking on the door asking for that information. We're making a phone call and asking the resident to check their own cameras. So, it's not Raleigh police or the the intelligent unit looking inside a personal private residence. It is asking that homeowner to provide the information to us. Crime Stompers have been very helpful as well in solving crimes. Uh we paid out uh uh some funds for information on some serious crimes that have occurred in the city. So, I continue to encourage our community to use Crimestoppers as a venue to provide that uh anonymous information to help us continue to solve crimes. Switching over to property crimes. Year-to date, property crimes are down 8% here in the capital city. A lot of that has to do with our motor vehicle thefts and the decrease that we've seen uh year to date, which is 16%. 793 vehicles have been stolen this year in the capital city compared to 946 that were stolen last year. Our officers have recovered 676 of those stolen vehicles. And I'll talk a little bit more about that when I get into our autotheft task force that contribute to those numbers. I would like to take this opportunity to remind our community to lock your vehicles. You'd be surprised how many vehicles that we have stolen where the vehicle doors are unlocked, the key fob is left in the car and is right in the driveway just inviting someone to come by and take that car. Uh that is happening. So, not only lock your cars, but we encourage our community to take the key fob away and take it inside the house. Pretty simple, but it's it's occurring. Uh never leave your vehicle unattended and running. I think we all want to get in a warm car in the winter time and we all want to get in a cool car in the summertime, but once again, that creates an opportunity for your vehicle to be stolen when you do things like that. So, we encourage our community not to leave your vehicle running. And of course, the last one is hide valuables. These things seem pretty simple, but we are still seeing uh members of our community leave valuables, laptops, uh cell phones, other electronics just in plain view. And sometime we sort of get the trifecta. We get them leaving vehicle valuables in the car, the vehicle is running and the key fob is in there. And we're just going to continue educating our community to please take steps to secure your property, not leave your vehicle running, and please take your key fob with you. So, I spoke about the autotheft task force. Uh, this came into existence in 2024 when we had a lieutenant in our southwest district started to see an increase in motor vehicle thefts. uh he came to the command staff and said, "I think I know how to fix this problem." Uh we gave him the autonomy to put a squad together and start to locate and identify car theft rings that were here in the city that we were not aware of. Uh this was very effective. Uh this autotheft task force uh they stumbled upon something that was occurring and we didn't know anything about. uh this autotheft task force like I say they really put a dent in our motor vehicle thefts uh reduction numbers as well as our recovery numbers. They are now since I became chief I've made this unit a permanent unit in our detective division. So it is led by one sergeant uh two officers and two detectives. They do a phenomenal job in identifying car thefts of car theft rings here in the capital city. They also educate other agencies on what to look for when it comes to motor vehicle thefts. I didn't even not I didn't know anything about this whole uh key reprogramming that is a big deal now where these criminals can reprogram key fobs and steal vehicles. All this came through uh from our autotheft task force that identified uh several individuals that were doing this um and stealing vehicles here in the capital city and going to other jurisdictions uh to dump the car. So, this autotheft task force has been very effective. I'm proud to say since I became chief, this is a permanent unit and it is worth the investment because I've seen the return on the investment of the work that they do and they are definitely helping with our motor vehicle thefts here in the city in reducing that number. So, with all the violent crime that I just shared, um I would like to highlight the public safety partnership and you might have heard it called PSP. Um, I will try to not use an acronym PSP, but the public safety partnership, a little history about this. So, back in 2023, Raleigh police leadership as well as city leadership uh was looking for initiatives to continue to reduce violent crime in our city. leadership uh saw that there was a grant through the Department of Justice called the Public Safety Partnership which helped agencies and municipalities come up with strategies to reduce violent crime in their jurisdiction. So in 2023, Raleigh applied to become a PSP or public safety partnership city and we are we were awarded that partnership in 2024. It is a three-year commitment where the Raleigh Police Department, we will partner with other law enforcement officials, uh private companies, uh hospitals, uh civic organizations, uh in the community overall to reduce crime in our city. Throughout this three-year uh grant, uh we will complete a crime analysis assessment, a non-fatal shooting assessment that I'll talk more about here uh shortly, as well as a technical and technology assessment. Basically, what type of resources, technology resources you have to keep your city safe. I must say that when the assessors came to Raleigh and we all met up at uh our emergency communication center, they were already impressed on day one of the things that we were doing here in the capital city to keep our city safe. Uh that that was like say a feather in our hat, you know, to what we already were doing to have these outside assessors come into our city and say, "You guys are already doing a lot of things right." that really made us all feel good as a as a city, as a department that we were doing things to reduce violent crime here in the capital city. So during this partnership, we identified four strategic goals that we wanted to accomplish during these three years that we had the resources of the public safety partnership. The first goal was to improve intelligence sharing and optimize investigations through collaborative partnership. Basically that just saying we wanted to share the intel that we had here in Raleigh to say to the Wake County Sheriff's Office because we were dealing with some of the same suspects, some of the same individuals that were committing crime. We could probably or we identified that we could probably uh help on just sharing that intel with our law enforcement partners, but not only with our law enforcement partners, also with, you know, partners like Wake Med. And I'll talk about Wake Med and why they're important here in just a second. Goal two, reduce juvenile related violent crime. Unfortunately, we are seeing this not only here in Raleigh, but probably throughout the country. We're seeing a huge increase in juveniles committing very serious offenses. So, we wanted to be able to identify strategies that can help us here in Raleigh reduce that juvenile uh crime uh criminal activity. Goal three, address human trafficking and child exploitation. This right here is very this is huge. And I'm I'm going to give a shout out here to one of my good friends as well as a partner of the Raleigh Police Department, and that's Pastor Chris Jones with the ship outreach. They do a phenomenal job with human trafficking uh outreach. uh they are out in the streets uh with our detectives identifying those locations and identifying unfortunately those that are being trafficed through our city. Uh it's a great partnership. It's definitely a need for it. Um and and it it it keeps us busy. So we have created a dedicated uh squad of detectives called our HEAT unit. That is HAT, human exploitation and trafficking unit. uh they do very good work, great work in making a difference in our human trafficking issues that we have here in the capital city. Our fourth goal is develop a community violence interrupter intervention program better known as a CVI. uh when we partnered or when we collaborated with our peer cities uh that are part of a public safety partnership, uh we realized that one thing that we did not have here in Raleigh is a community violence interrupter. And what that is basically is that you have community input or community members who are uh basically the go-to when it comes to what's going on when it relates to violent crime. basically who in the community can put a stop, put an end to individuals harming one another and who in the community can partner with law enforcement and work together to prevent violent crime from happening. I do believe there is a space for the Raleigh Police Department to have a community violence interrupter program. So, we are currently looking at that and how we can implement that within RPD. Uh we we did partner with uh Tucson, Arizona uh Tucson PD. So we are collaborating to see what they're doing. They have a very good uh CBI program. So we're seeing what what they're doing that that's working for them to see if we can bring that back to Raleigh within the public safety partnership. One of those assessment is called the non-fatal shooting assessment. The PSP recommended 19 recommendations that we should look at implementing here within the Raleigh Police Department. I will say for intelligence purposes, we can I can share those uh in another setting, but today I would just tell you out of the 1915, we have already completed. It goes back to what I said on the very first day when members of the public safety partnership came to Raleigh, they said, "Hey, you guys are already doing some things right." 15 of those recommendations are some of the information they were talking about. We are already ahead of the game. Second, this violent retaliatory dispute risk assessment is in progress as well as RPD developing a two-level retaliatory shooting risk assessment. In a nutshell, what that basically is, we're trying to reduce victims of gunshots being suspects in shooting aggravated assault incidents. From what we've seen from peer cities, uh this if you don't get a handle on your retaliatory shooting, your violent crime continues to increase because it's pretty much a back and forth and there's no intervention in between. So, this is a space that we're looking at doing here in Raleigh where we can partner with places like Wake Med when we have a victim of a gunshot, a gunshot wound, we can start having resources u for that victim and try to discourage any ongoing back and forth shootings. So, this is something new for us. So we're going to be looking at uh how we can implement this here in Raleigh as well and Wake Med in our discussions who is a partner in the public safety partnership. They will be very helpful in helping us become uh get a uh like say a violent retaliatory uh risk assessment done basically. So this is still in progress and like say this is new for us here in Raleigh. So, with all the momentum and the crime that I I I mentioned that violent crime is flat this year, no increase from year to date, and property crime is down 8%. You got to be able to sustain that to continue to keep your city safe. So, the summer action plan is something new for the city of Raleigh. Once I became chief, I started to collaborate and partner with other chiefs in other jurisdictions and say, "Hey, what exactly do you guys do during the summer to address violent crime?" And a lot of the chiefs said, "Hey, we create a summer action plan so everyone within our department knows what our what our goal is, what we're going to do, and how we're going to do it." And they called it a summer action plan. Reason why summer action plan is one, you have more people typically in your cities. You have your your schools, most of them are out of out of school, so you have more juvenile, more youth uh with not much to do, constructive things to do. So, you want to be able to provide enforcement as well as community engagement opportunities to get through the summer with very little crime, if any at all. So, you create a summer action plan. So, I'm proud to say as the new chief, this is our first summer action plan. It's going to run or has started since June 1 through August 31st to cover those summer months with all the events that we have in the city as well as school being out here in Wake County. Uh this is going to be our plan for the Raleigh Police Department during this time frame. Strategic enforcement. Uh that's the first thing. It goes back to my strategy of crime reduction. So, we're going to have uh our key objectives are obviously eliminating violent crime, removing dangerous illegal firearms, and holding repeat offenders accountable for any actions, any criminal actions that they commit here in our capital city. as a new chief and going back to one of my strategic priorities of operational efficiency as well as crime reduction strategies. I looked at where we were seeing a lot of uh gun recoveries here in the city. Unfortunately, that was in our hospitality district which encompasses Glennwood South, Fable Street, the Transit Mall, and more square. I thought it was important that I dedicate the resources to combat any type of crime happening not only citywide but more specifically in those hospitality areas. So what I did is I re I uh Captain Van Antorp who was the downtown district captain I reassigned him as being our new hospitality district captain. Having him in that seat he's very knowledgeable of what is going on downtown. he can quickly address the needs in that specific area within downtown like say once again Glenwood South Favl Street uh Transit Mall Square after I named him as the hospitality district commander I said I got to give him resources for him to do his job. So we created a second hospitality unit with a second hospitality sergeant. So now we have two hospitality squads that work in this downtown corridor. We also gave him two transit units that will patrol around the transit mall in more square area uh throughout the week. And we also added, which I'm excited to say, we added a bicycle unit uh to this unit to the hospitality district as well. These officers ride the electric recon bikes. They're able to get into our parking decks a lot quicker. They're able to cover a lot more ground, a lot more area here in our central business district, and they're able to have those engagement conversations with business owners. Uh they work very well with Bill King and his uh safety ambassadors uh downtown and they're able to just have those like say um those resources in areas where we've seen uh crime spike during the summer months around the transit mall. So, I'm very optimistic and I'm very uh confident that Captain Van Antanworp and these units are going to continue to be proactive and reduce crime here in the hospitality district. In addition, I forgot about this one. With all that criminal enforcement, I also understand we have challenges with our noise ordinance. Captain Van Antor with his experience as being a downtown district captain, he can be more responsible, more responsive to those complaints about noise as well. We understand that this is an area where we get a lot of noise complaints. Uh so I wanted to make sure that we have resources that can quickly address that and I think you guys have heard from not only Captain Vaner but the lieutenant which is Lieutenant Borneo. He's the hospitality lieutenant. So they are now one unit that can address these issues when it comes to noise and I'm sure there'd be more to come with that. Our specialized units over the summer uh I just spoke about our transit unit. Uh once again we will see ridership increase during the summer. So the transit units will be in the transit mall. The bike unit which is new I just spoke about that. Uh the mounting unit. Let me stop there. I'm very thankful for the Raleigh Police Department Foundation. They just purchased us a horse uh that will be added to our mounting unit. Uh when the horse finished training, trust me, we will make sure it's all over social media welcoming the new horse on our motor unit. I mean our our mounting unit, excuse me. Uh he's currently down in Texas where he is receiving training. So once he finish training and comes to uh Raleigh, uh we'll make sure that we introduce him to the uh to the city here. our greenway unit. Uh during the summer when school is out, I reassign our school resource officers and I put them with the greenway unit to cover a lot of the greenways. Obviously with Gibson Play Plaza coming on board, it is perfect timing to have those additional resources to cover not only Gibson Play Plaza, but the the several miles of greenway that we have here in our city. So the school resource officers will be assigned to our greenway unit and they will be monitoring uh the greenways throughout the uh city. The acorns unit addressing crisis through outreach, referrals, network and servicing unit. Uh they are fully staffed uh for our social workers. We have two vacancies on the officer side that we will be that we will be willing we will be looking at uh filling those positions here in July when we get some of our rookie officers off training. The acorn's unit is working very closely uh with the car's unit um and getting that unit up to speed and u get them started. So it's a great it'd be a great collaboration between city resources with the cares unit called diversion unit and acorn's unit I think would be very beneficial and effective in helping our community with uh with the resources that they can provide to some of our community members. our traffic enforcement unit throughout the summer. Uh they will be in those corridors that um that go through our city, Capitol Boulevard, Sa Street, Glennwood Avenue, and Newburn Avenue. Uh the traffic unit uh will be very visible. uh they will partner with other law enforcement agencies and we will have what they call saturation patrols throughout the summer uh looking for DWI enforcement as well as uh other motor vehicle violations on our corridors. So look for more enforcement, more blue lights um throughout our corridors here in the in capital city in this summer action plan. This is where I want to share with the public. This is not a gotcha moment that we're trying to surprise anybody. These are going to be our focus areas during the summer. Our nightclubs and event spaces, our transportation hubs, public parks and greenways, and our hospitality and nightlife corridors. This is where based on data, and I want that to be very clear, that we use intelligent policing to place our resources throughout the city. I don't want anybody to say that we're overpolicing anywhere. We are going where we're seeing the crime occurring and trying to deter crime from continuing to occur. So these areas here, they were selected because of what we've seen in the past throughout the summer. You got more people going out to nightclubs, you got more people going to event spaces. So we want to make sure that we are there to prevent any crime from happening. The transportation hub, I just spoke about that. That's why the resources of the bike unit and the transit unit will be in our transit mall. public parks and greenway. We understand we have a lot of greenways. That's why I was very strategic as the chief and taking the school resource officer since they were out for the summer of school and placing them on the greenway unit to continue to make our greenways or keep our greenways and parks very safe. and as well as the hospitality and nightlife corridors. I just spoke about why I made the decision to create a hospitality captain spot to be very proactive in making sure that we are in those areas uh that I uh stated earlier, the Glenwood South and the Fable Streets. Community engagement. Once again, going back to my second slide about my strategic priorities. I cannot or we cannot as a police department be effective if we don't have community buyin. If I don't have the trust of the community, it's important that we are intentional about getting that trust and earning that trust from the community. So, how do I do that? I started off with cops on the block. This was something that I did as a captain in the southeast district and I saw how effective it was it was and how much it resonated through the community about having officers have conversations with community members about what was going on in their neighborhood. The collaboration that came out of those conversations was amazing. The community buyin about helping keep this community safe was amazing. So cops on the block is now citywide. It is an opportunity to have those conversation when there's nothing going on and we're able to work with our community, earn the trust of our community and be very proactive and collaborative about keeping our city safe. I I think I left you guys should see the door hangers and the little cards there about cops on the block. our captain, one of our captains came up with that that door knocker there because just because somebody's not home, we don't want them to get the information. So that door hanger is an opportunity for us to leave the information with the resident about what Cops on the Block is all about. Has a QR code that can they can retrieve some information about what it's all about and any other resources that RPD is currently doing. we can send it through that QR code. Police youth camps. This is something that we've been doing for quite a while. We're going to continue doing that. Uh we do believe that putting uh resources into educating our youth and interacting with the police will be a positive thing. So the summer while they're out, we're going to have those youth camps uh up in our detective division, up in our youth and family services division. Um throughout the summer, National Night Out, if you want to put it on your calendar, August 5th is National Night Out. Uh we have very good participation from our community about um uh or during National Night Out and I hope that continues this year as well. uh public safety cadetses. Uh those are young folks uh teenagers who are interested in a career in law enforcement. We're able to provide training and resources uh to the age group about what it is and what it takes to be a law enforcement officer. Uh once again, school is out. It's a way to uh educate and uh give our youth an opportunity to do something constructive. So, I'm looking forward to all these community engagement opportunities. Once again, Cops on the Block strengthening our neighborhood bonds. Uh, I I cannot speak about how effective this has been since I have been the chief here uh for 101 days. Uh, the response from our community has been great. They're asking for more opportunities for us to have cops in the blocks throughout the city. So, these are just a little couple of photos uh from Cops in the Blocks in several of our districts here in the city. It's been wellreceived. Uh I've had other chiefs reach out to me asking, "Hey, what is behind this cops on the block?" Uh I will give credit uh to our community officers as well as our community engagement uh uh director, Mr. Calvin Mitchell. uh he's been literally beating the streets going and talking to neighborhoods about what Cops on the Block is all about. Uh I also appreciate our media partners for picking this up and being present at a lot of our Cops on the Block here in the city. So I say thank you to our media partners. Some of the camps uh every summer uh we offer camps to our youth. I will say this year we're added a camp uh the IBM STEM camp for uh for girls. Uh I'm looking very forward to that. Uh this is the first year that we had a STEM camp for girls uh and is already full with uh participants already signed up to participate in that camp. So once again, it is my team coming up with ideas of providing constructive activities, safe activities for our youth. And I commend our our our team for uh coming up with that camp and working with IBM to create uh an opportunity for uh young girls in the capital city to have that training. Our girls basketball camp uh that typically fills up every year. soccer camps, tennis camp is something we added about a year ago and we really didn't know how it was going to go. We was like, uh, tennis, u, but we got some great facilities, you know, shout out to, uh, parks and wreck uh, for the tennis facilities that we have here in the city. So, we thought as a police department, it'd be important to partner with parks and wreck and use those tennis courts during the summer and have a tennis camp. Once again, tennis camp is pretty much full. uh signups are pretty much full. So, we look forward to that. Our baseball camp, a baseball camp uh started off with our mentors. Our mentors are our retired officers that come back and they help in a a mentoring role. So, this summer we're going to continue to provide the baseball camp. Uh they did ask for a pitching machine, I guess, you know, after they retire and their arms not working just as, you know, as good as they used to. They need some help. So, uh, I was able to approve and purchase a pitching machine so they can continue to have a successful baseball camp. So, as you can see, we're being very intentional about creating spaces for our youth to just be a youth, just be a kid and do it in a safe manner. So, these camps, uh, we're excited, uh, to be hosting these camps, and like say they run parallel with what the parks and wreck offer as well. These camps are free and they just need to sign up to participate. I want to highlight this one because uh this was an ask from Mayor Pro Tim as well as Judge McCullers. Uh when I was a young officer in the southeast district, one thing I look forward to on a Friday night and council member Branch, I'm sorry. Uh he actually played a little bit back in the day. Uh, but one thing I look forward to on Friday nights when I was a young patrol officer was that uh we were able to go over to Builtmore Hills Park uh and engage a lot of folks on Friday nights in basketball. Back then it was like midnight basketball, so it ran later into the night. Uh very successful, lot of turnout. Um, it really gave the community an opportunity to be somewhere safe, to burn off some energy, and not have to worry about getting in any type of trouble. And by time we wrapped up about 1 or 2:00, everybody was tired, ready to go home. So now we didn't have the youth hanging out on the street. They went home. So, Mayor Pro Tim, Council Member Branch, Judge McCullers, uh, probably here the past six months have been asking me, "Hey, you going to bring this basketball, Friday Night Basketball?" Uh, I want to give credit once again to, uh, community engagement director, uh, Calvin Mitchell. He was able to make it happen. So, as you see here on the slide, uh, these are Friday nights here in the city. We moved this around of Robert's Park, Method, Builtmore, Chavis, and Green Road to offer safe spaces once again for our youth to have somewhere to go during the summer where they could just be a kid and not have to worry about getting in any type of trouble or getting um being part of any type of u uh criminal activity. Is it indoor or outdoor at all of these? Indoor. Indoor. Make sure we got the cameras off for that. Mayor Promp, I look forward to that. Um, this is this is once again I want to uh Steven Bentley and his staff or whatever for being great partners and opening up their community centers um on Friday nights and helping us make this happen. I'm really looking forward to this. Uh I think it is going to be successful. Um, I I'm going to be there as well as uh members of the command staff and our community officers are going to be there. And once again, this is an engagement opportunity. Nothing going on. No criminal enforcement. We're not investigating or interviewing anybody. We're coming just to be great partners in our community and just getting to know the youth as well as getting allowing them to to know who we are that we just we're just people too. officers are just people that just like I say trying to protect this community. So really looking forward to this initiative that uh will start on June 27th. I put this slide in here because just like I said the community, I need the community to help keep this community safe. I need to trust. I need to buy in um from my community members as well as the community law enforcement partners uh within the city. I mentioned parks and wreck, how they've been very great partners, but I also want to give a shout out to the fire department. Uh they've been great partners as well in helping us keep this city safe. Uh the other uh badges, other agencies up here, the sheriff's office, EMS, highway patrol, and all our federal partners are helping us keep this community safe. the Wake County District Attorney and prosecuting and fast-tracking some of our cases in in state court has helped keep this community safe, as well as our US Attorney's Office. Former US Attorney Mike Easley was very, very supportive of the Raleigh Police Department in helping prosecute some of the worst of the worst that was here in our community. Uh we started what we called a VCAP, a violent crime action plan that started under former US attorney Michael Easley. And I'm I'm glad to say that we continue with that that violent crime action plan. So, we're going to do all we can on the enforcement side um to make sure that we are keeping this city safe. Also want to give a shout out to the f uh give credit or give uh a thanks to the Raleigh Police Department Foundation for their generous support of the Raleigh Police Department. I got to ask for some uh some new recruits here with the uh generous starting salary that will kick in in September. So, I took this opportunity to put up here that we are doing interns, paid interns, uh, with the Raleigh Police Department this summer, as well as we are currently hiring for our September uh, academy here, uh, I think it's academy class 132. We are actively uh, recruiting. So, if anyone out there in the audience know anyone, please send them our way. Um, one thing I will say, um, we get a lot of folks coming here to the capital city wanting to be a part of RPD and what you guys just did with the budget, I think, will help amplify this is the place to be uh, here in the capital city and coming on board as a Raleigh police officer. So, thank you for that. And that is my plan. Uh once again, I I want to leave you with, you know, the Raleigh Police Department, we're going to be great partners. We're going to be very strategic on where we place our resources. Uh we're going to be uh great um uh engaging in community engagement activities um all the way from me all the way down to the lowest level within this police department to make sure that we are uh touching all areas of this city and making sure that we keep it like say safe. Uh the crime numbers that I presented highlighted how safe this city is, no increase in violent crime, and 8% decrease in property crime year to date. Those are facts, and I believe the men and women of the Raleigh Police Department, as well as our community, help us get to those numbers. So, thank you for your time, and I'm here for any questions that you uh that you have. Thank you, Chief, and congrats on your first 100 days, and for you and everybody. uh RPD and public safety on declining crime rates. That's great news. And I see Mayor Prom Fort has a question. Yeah. Um great work, great presentation, and you're doing a lot of really good things in the community. Um as relates to the summer internship program and the basketball um opportunities. I don't know if your communications folks or our communication folks can kind of put something together for social media so that we can kind of help push those opportunities out. I don't know. um just putting up the QR code may not because I I clicked on both of them, but just something that we can kind of grab folks attention and kind of help you spread the word. So, if um your staff or the communication staff could get something out for us that we could share pretty easily on social media, that'd be great. Yes, ma'am. They're here. They're they're on it. Okay. Thank you, Councelor Silver. Thank you for the positive report and for the uh summer action plan. Just had a question on the robberies. You said they were up about 19%. Is this across the city or are there specific areas? And I know the answer is yes, but is there a strategy if in fact there is a hot spot or a district where this is occurring more than others. So homeowners and businesses could be diligent, locking their doors, keeping lights on, whatever it is. So, can you just shed some light on any area in particular and what would you advise homeowners and businesses to do? Yeah, great question, Councilman. We we're seeing this unfortunately citywide. There's no one particular area that we're seeing this. It is it is citywide. A lot of our commercial establishment, our late night convenience stores that that are open late night uh are are areas where we're seeing this activity. uh folks that hang around those uh late night commercial establishments are are victims of uh some of those robberies. Um individuals that uh are at some of our sweep states location that um might have been a lucky winner of a large sum of cash. Uh we've seen uh a robberies at establishments like that. So, but they're they're citywide unfortunately. Yeah. Councelor Jones and then Harrison. Good afternoon. Thank you so much. This was a fantastic report. I just have a few questions. Um first I want to focus on the greenway unit and I think the first question which I know you can't answer right now but I'd love to see the statistics of what's happening on the greenway um as we're expanding and um and I appreciate you reallocating the uh the school resource officers over the summer. But I think my question as we move into the fall and those officers are removed, what what is that does that hold concern for you and and how do we maintain that same level of uh of attention if it's needed? So I think maybe in a manager report later if we can get those statistics of the greenway uh activity from from the police department. So you don't have to talk about that now. Um next thing that I wanted to touch on was we you talked about cops on the block. I think that's a fantastic uh program. I do have some questions as to how uh neighborhoods I I see this and it's amazing. I'm wondering, are you also working with our registered neighborhoods to outreach to those or um organizations that are already established? Um I know like I'm a president of my uh neighborhood organization and I'd love to be able to help amplify that and we have that already in the city. So, I'd love to see some connection with uh the registered neighbor neighborhoods and then organizations like CAC's. Uh you guys are already in there uh on the month on a monthly basis with a lot of them. And it's a great opportunity to outreach and get more impact for Cops on the Block. So, I'm sure you're already doing that, but I just wanted to highlight those two opportunities for further community engagement. And then the last one, cuz I love that you love community engagement is my favorite thing um about you. Uh when I when I first started back in I don't know 2017 being involved we had a police academy but for residents and I the year that I applied they shut it down so I didn't get to take it. Um but I'm really interested in hearing your thoughts on something like that to help educate the community just like Raleigh Neighborhood College and Citizens Leadership Academy and Planning Academy do. I think it's a great opportunity to not only just have relationships but really educate the community on what's what's happening. So, um, that's another, uh, opportunity that I think could enhance, not this moment because you're doing a lot. I totally appreciate everything you're doing, but maybe in the back of your brain, just just keeping that in mind because I would love that opportunity to give to residents. Yes. And I will follow up with that about the citizens academy, police academy. We are uh, beginning to uh, identify the curriculum of what we want to provide with cops on the block that has been uh, delegated to one of my command staff members to make sure we get that started in the fall. So, I'm glad you uh you are support in support of that. But yes, we will be bringing that back. And then one last question. Um in talking about the CVI program, um are how is the relationship with things like the police advisory board and how do those where do those connections overlap so that that can also enhance the amount of feedback that you're getting, but how do we connect those resources with those already established groups that we have? Yes, that is an opportunity for us to bring the police advisory board into the public safety partnership because they have a wealth of information. They're very useful. So, that is something that we're still a year and a half into this and we got a year and a half left. Uh definitely an opportunity to bring them on board to get their input or whatever. So, I appreciate you sharing that and I'll make sure that we we bring them on. Awesome. Thank you so much. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Just want to thank you for the presentation, Chief Boyce. And I really want to say thank you for um from our neighborhoods that are just south of downtown. Um there's been a lot of active um officers that have helped to put additional attention on neighborhoods that have requested support. So in the greenways, you know, Walnut Creek Greenway, we had some issues last year. I think there's been a lot of improvements. Um I just ran into a resident um who lives off of Wilmington Street south of downtown and she was saying how much better things are. you know, they were dealing with car thefts or, you know, people breaking into vehicles and taking things and she's just noticing it's it's a lot calmer. So, um, thank you. Um, I also wanted to just mention in the future, um, perhaps for council, you know, in a manager's report, it would be useful to have data on the trends in different crimes, um, maybe since 2019 or 2018 all the way till now, like year-over-year. Um, I think the annual trends are useful, but I'm always curious to see kind of are we leveling off a little bit or do we have anything that we're really need to get in on? Um, but that would help me just to, you know, look at what you all are are focused on. Um, and then finally, I did want to mention, you know, I know folks, um, uh, some people are a little bit on edge what's going on in LA right now. Um because we're the capital city, we do have a lot of protests and I wonder if you can just speak to RPD's role when there is a peaceful demonstration as we often have those. Yes. U first of all, thank you for your support, council member. Uh here in Capitol City, we have a lot of practice with protests. Uh and some things that we learned since 2020. Uh one is that we're going to make sure everybody exercised their first amendment right. uh that that is that is going to happen, but we want to make sure they do it safe. Uh we we are as a Raleigh Police Department, we're just here to make sure that uh folks can gather and peacefully protest. Uh we provide visibility. Uh we make sure that they can safely move throughout the city. If you seen here in the past year since obviously October 7th of 2024 that on Sundays and certain days of the week we get a large gathering at more square. Uh we make sure that they can do it safely and all we ask is for voluntary compliance. When we ask like hey can you get on the sidewalk or can you move along? Uh we we just ask for some voluntary compliance. So we're there just to make sure everybody remains safe. uh we are prepared on the other side on the other extreme of that we are prepared in any type of enforcement activity but that is not our goal you know our goal is want to make sure that like you said a peaceful protest exercising your first amendment right as the chief of police I will make sure that folks can gather safely peacefully and exercise their first amendment right but under the understanding that my my job is to make sure this city remains safe and we are definitely prepared to do that if need be. But we are here to be great partners. We are here to make sure that voices are heard and we are make sure we're here to make sure everybody remains safe. So on both extremes, but our first priority is just to make sure everybody is safe. And as long as everybody is safe exercising their rights uh as a US citizen and and free freedom of speech, you're going to be okay. Yeah, appreciate that. Yeah, thank you. Did you have anything to add? The only thing I was add is that we are bringing this item to you all next week for further followup. Yes, Council Branch. Yeah, definitely. Thank you for the presentation. Congrats on 101 days um as chief um but a lot of days as a Raleigh police officer. And I think that wealth of knowledge is what has brought you able to be a very concise and I think one of the best presentations that I know I've seen since I've been on council. Um so I just want to say thank you for that first of all. Um, speaking of incidents in the the year end, I think also a heat map um possibly would be beneficial as far as, you know, I know this across the entire city, but really trying to see where those different hot spots have grown over the years. Um, so that'll be something I really love the positive engagement that you're doing. I look forward to um coming out on the 27th. Um, I think I still got a jumper. I don't know if I'm running, but I think I still got a jump uh and everything. And um Councilman Harris brought up the Citizens Police Academy. Um I was fortunate I participated in the first Citizens Police Academy. Um I still have my certificate. Um so I really do see a benefit to that and educating the community on things that you all do and sometimes the why. Um but you know again I know you have to have the right curriculum for that. So I look forward and hopefully I can do it again um as we go forward. And lastly um in having sound officers and everything they do. I know you talked about mental and physical health. Is there something that we could do possibly to help incentivize keeping that physical health um for your for your officers? Yes sir. Uh great question there. Council Member Branch, one thing I'm looking at is a physical assessment uh incentive. Uh some agencies, even here in Wake County, offer uh what they call a uh POPAT, which stands for police officer physical assessment test uh incentive. Basically, if you meet certain metrics, physical metric, bio biometrics, you get a some type of financial stipen. Obviously, I understand that's a budget constraint. uh but it seemed to be working very well with other jurisdictions which encourages officers to be physically fit, ready to respond to the demands of what a police officer is required to do. So that is something that me and my team were looking at but also being conscious about that's a financial you know could be a financial burden. So, I just want to make sure I can implement that smartly with, you know, uh, input from the manager's office as well as presenting something to you u or council about if that's something that the city want to look at doing. Uh, it has been productive. I think officers would buy into it. You you you offer financial incentive, they'll take advantage of it. Definitely. And I think I know we're looking at overall compensation, so that may be something that they can look at um as far as overall compensation. But again, thank you for all that you do and I look forward to your hundreds of more days as chief. Thank you, Councilman. Councelor Patton. Yeah. Hi, Jeie. Thanks for this. It was good presentation. Um I a couple things. Um one, I did a ride along shortly after you your first day and uh you had recently adjusted the workout plan is a kind of a way. Workout on duty. Yes. Um and it was getting rave reviews. So just wanted to send I just wanted to let you know that was sort of in the ethos when I was there and and um was being wellreceived by your officers. Um also while we're adding to the list of data requests, it might be useful for us to see some peer city data. I think the media sometimes tells a story of what but it's very like data can tell many stories. The same data can tell many stories. So, it might be um helpful to get some breakdowns of peer cities and what they're seeing and if their trends are the same in all the same categories. Um and then my last question is um just like if you're thinking about considering innovations that share the load of duties that your officers would typically bear um that might could be borne by civilians. So like the traffic the civilian crash investigators unit I think has been really well received by um by residents and and I think has helped for you all up to do the things that officers really need to be be focusing on. So I'm curious like similar to the civilian crash investigators like sort of is there a are you looking for new rocks to overturn where we can shift shift the load a little bit? Yeah, great question council member. Uh I would tell you right now acorns is a priority for me. I want to expand that unit. I want to have an acorns unit in each of the six police districts. The need of this community when it comes to mental health, substance abuse, folks being unsheltered, uh, is very high right now. I believe if I place my resources in that area, it's going to take the load officers. This community is asking for police not to be involved in certain incidents. And trust me, as the chief, I'm all for that because now my officers can really go and really fight crime and not get in that space that we're not the subject matter experts when it comes to some of those issues. I recognize that I'm willing to stand up as a chief and say, "Hey, we're not the best when it comes to those situations." But if I can bring on those resources within the department or partner with the city, which we've already started that, we started down that road with the CARES team and crisis call diversion uh line. I I'm all for that. But I think right now that is the highest priority is trying to find um more resources to help with that part of uh uh or help with uh those community members that need those those resources. Uh beyond that, there are opportunities to probably bring like civilians on to take on some responsibility that sworn officers are doing. Uh but right now, I'm going to focus more on uh that alternative response model and creating more nonp police personnel that can handle those types of calls and incidents. That's what the community wants and as a chief, that's what I want to deliver. Okay, any other questions? Followup. Thank you again for everything and the whole department. And uh with that, no other business, we are adjourned. Thank you. [Music] [Music]