City Council - Public Safety & Criminal Justice Committee Hearing on Dockets #0336, #1400, #1409, and #1548-1549

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For the record, my name is Henry Santana, at-large city councilor, and I am the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Public Safety and Criminal Justice. Today is December 4, 2025. and the exact time is 11.07 a.m. This hearing is being recorded. It's also being livestreamed at boston.gov slash city-council-tv and broadcasted on Xfinity Channel 8 RCN Channel 82, and Files Channel 964. Meridian comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.ps at boston.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all counselors. Public testimony will be taken in at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you are interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign-up sheet near the entrance of the chamber

If you are looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison shane.pack at shane.pack at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket number 0336 order for a series of hearings regarding all City of Boston grants administered by the Boston Police Department. This matter was sponsored by myself, Councilor Ed Flynn, and Councilor Brian Worrell and was referred to the committee on January 29, 2025. I'm going to read the different documents that we're going to be discussing today. Document number 1400 is a message and order authorizing The City of Boston to accept and expend the amount of $3,966,900 in the form of a grant for the FY26 Safe and Successful Youth Initiative Grant.

Awarded by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services to be administered by the police department. The grant will fund a comprehensive interagency strategy that connects law enforcement, employment, education, Public Health and Youth Development Agencies to Reduce Youth Violence in the Commonwealth. Docket Number 1409, Message and Order Authorizing the City of Boston to Accept and Expand the Amount of Thank you. will fund data collection by the Bureau of Investigative Services and the Drug Control Unit. Those two matters are sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu and was referred to the committee on August 6, 2025. Docket number 1548.

Message in order authorizing the City of Boston to accept and expend the amount of $4,125,000 in the form of a grant for the FY26 Public Safety Answering Point Support and Incentive Grant awarded by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security and to be administered by the Police Department. The grant will fund costs associated with providing enhanced 911 services. Docket Number 1549, Message and Order Authorized in the City of Boston to Accept and Expend the Amount of $528,000 $528,156.32 in the form of a grant for the FY26 State 11 Training Grant awarded by the MA Executive Office of Public Safety. and Security to be administered by the police department.

The grant will fund the training and certification of the HANDS 911 telecommunications staff. These matters were sponsored by Mayor Michelle Wu and were referred to the committee on August 27, 2025. Today I am joined by my colleagues in order of arrival, Councilor Ed Flynn and Councilor Aaron Murphy. I'll give both my colleagues an opportunity to just I'm open to remarks and I will continue with that. Councillor Friend, you have the floor.

Councillor Friend Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for sharing this important hearing as we discuss various grants for the Boston Police Department. I want to acknowledge the public safety professionals and health professionals that are here as well and acknowledge the important work that you are doing in our neighborhoods across the city. Dealing with public safety challenges but also providing opportunities as well for young people and for residents. Also want to acknowledge that the The City of Boston Health Department has also a critical role to play in a lot of these outreach efforts, including violence prevention and supporting survivors of crime as well. I respect the work you're doing. Looking forward to hearing from your presentation. And thank you, Mr. Chair.

Awesome. Thank you, Councillor Flynn.

Councillor Murphy, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for being here. Just looking forward to hearing more about these important grants from both Public Safety and the Public Health Commission, knowing that This money is going to support, you know, the residents across the city, some youth development money. So thank you for always showing up and making sure we're doing what we can to support the work you do. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilor Murphy. Again, thank you to the administration panel for coming to speak on these important grants. I look forward to today's discussion on the grants awarded by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security. These grants would connect agencies to reduce youth violence, fund data collection by the Bureau of Investigative Services and the Drug Control Unit. Fund address verification for the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board and enhance 911 services and staffing. The safety of our communities depends on these services, whether they involve interagency strategies Fully functioning reporting systems or dynamic 911 services. These services are essential for community safety. These grants will provide the necessary resources for this continued work and I look forward to having a productive discussion on these grants. I also want to acknowledge that we've been joined by City Council President Ruth C. Louijeune.

Before I introduce today's panel, Council President, if you have any opening remarks.

Nope, just happy to be here. Thank you. All of you for your work. I'm interested to hear more about these grants and how they're supporting the important work of the Tbilisi Department, of our young people. We've had some hearings about 911 operations. about how the technology needs to be drastically improved. So just looking forward to hearing from everyone. Thank you.

Awesome. Thank you, Council President. We've also been joined by City Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata. You have the floor for any opening remarks, Councilor.

Thank you. No opening remarks. Just hello again to Ryan and The Brick. It was good to see you last night. Any spots for Comstat? Thank you for your work and look forward to understanding where these grants are going and how it benefits the residents of Boston. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Coletta Zapata. I would like now to introduce today's panelists. With us, we have Frank DeLuca, who is the SSY S-S-Y-I, Program Coordinator for the Boston Police Department. We have Lieutenant Detective Daniel Duff, who's the Commander with the Homicide Unit with the Boston Police Department. Christopher Mnuchas, the MPA Director of Operations Division with the Boston Police Department, Brian Walsh, the Director of the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, Brick with the Bureau of Intelligence and Analysis with the Boston Police Department. and I'd like to say the famous Maria Cheevers, Director of the Office of Research and Development with the Boston Police Department. I will turn the floor over to you all, if you can all just state your name and your role for the record and I'll turn the floor over to you all for any presentations that you may have. Thank you.

I was actually here to talk about the Sex Offender Registry Board grant, but then I was notified right before the hearing that it's already been passed, so I will not take up people's time. I'll hand it over to Ryan next. Thank you.

All right, good morning, Councilors. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today in support of a funding award from the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security for fiscal year 2025. and the amount of $850,000 and to discuss our plans to utilize these funds to support the Boston Regional Intelligence Center. My name is Ryan Walsh. I serve as the Director of the Boston Regional Intelligence Center within the Bureau of Intelligence and Analysis with the Boston Police Department. The BRICS mission is to serve as the region's central point for the collection, synthesis, analysis, and dissemination of strategic and tactical intelligence to law enforcement, first responder, and private sector partners. is a resource that supports the city's public safety responsibilities by analyzing, maintaining, and sharing information in a manner that protects our communities and the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties of our citizens. With that goal in mind, We hope to use this funding to sustain five intelligence analyst positions that have been hired previously using approved funding from this line item. Two of these positions are currently supporting our community CompStat program,

enabling the department to host 23 community CompStat meetings in all neighborhoods of the city over the last two years, including just last night in East Boston. As we've discussed in the past, Community CompStat is a new tool that will support the ongoing efforts to build trust within all neighborhoods of Boston through community engagement, data, and other information transparency. increased partnership collaborations and problem solving efforts. We anticipate hosting at least two meetings per month moving forward as this program matures. We anticipate dedicating the remainder of this funding to the sustainment of three and a half analyst positions on our criminal intelligence analysis team. These analysts support our firearm violence analysis, sexual assault analysis, and organized retail crime analysis efforts. This funding will sustain an intelligence analyst position supporting the department's sexual assault unit, providing direct investigative support to detectives investigating these major offenses, and also providing additional analysis on drink spiking incidents in the city.

Additionally, the funding supports an intelligence analyst position focused on firearm violence and providing additional analytic insights on firearm trafficking in the city including enhancing the annual public report required under the ordinance the council passed in 2023 requiring the study and report on the trafficking of illegal firearms. This funding also supports another half of an analyst salary who's focused on supporting the Safe and Successful Youth Initiative, enhancing our firearm violence intelligence efforts. Finally, the funding has also allowed us to hire a dedicated analyst who is focused on organized retail crime, supporting the department's safe shopping initiative. Just last month, we hosted a community comp stat for retail partners in the Back Bay, Fenway, and South End neighborhoods with significant positive feedback. The position has allowed us to share valuable insights and inform officers and the community about trends and patterns in retail crime, as well as providing additional information to the District Attorney's Office to support prosecution of significant repeat offenders and organized theft groups.

Each of these analysts' work provides the opportunity for greater collaboration with key partners within the city. This will allow the department to better analyze, understand, and positively impact crime and quality of life issues in areas under the direction of our public safety partners including the Mass State Police, Transit Police and Massport Police. The analysis provided by the BRCA analysts is critical to the department's data-driven community policing model and ensures that resources are focused most strategically and effectively in the interest of public safety while at the same time protecting privacy, civil rights and civil liberties of all. Ultimately, sustaining these critical personnel will enhance our analytic capability and provide countless benefits to the city through our ability to support a diverse range of data-driven strategies and related needs. The funding presents an incredible opportunity for the Boston Police Department, and I look forward to discussing this request with you and answering any questions you may have.

Good morning, Councilors. Chris Markounis, I'm the Director of the Operations 901 Division for the Boston Police Department. Thank you for having us here. I appreciate your time. I'm here to speak on behalf of two grants that the Boston Police Department receives and administers in regards to the enhanced 911 program for the city of Boston. The first grant is critical funding. It is a 911 support grant in the amount of $4,125,000. That grant's awarded by the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, the State 9-1-1 Department. It enables us to fund our CAD system maintenance, which is the technical backbone of the 9-1-1 response system for the City of Boston. amongst all three public safety agencies, Boston Fire Alarm, Boston EMS, and Boston Police Operations. It also helps the city defray the cost of staffing the 911 Operations Center at all three public safety locations. It's critical funding.

It's an annual grant that the city receives based on call volume and population. The second grant that I'm here speaking on is the training grant for 911. That grant is the amount of $528,156.32. I don't know where they got the 32 cents, but apparently it's the formula. That grant is also critical in nature. is also defrayed or divided between the three public safety agencies in the city of Boston, EMS, Boston Fire Alarm, and Police Operations. That grant assists us in making sure that all of our 911 telecommunicators and dispatchers amongst all three agencies are certified and up to date on their requirements. and any other training that we deem necessary for our employees, that grant goes to fund. It's critical, it really helps the city in making sure that we have the best trained staff in the country.

to answer those 911 calls. I welcome any questions you have. We're always willing to. I know some of the counselors, I think everybody's been up at one point or another toward operations in 911, at police operations anyways, in EMS. and we always welcome the council to come up and take a look and see what we're doing up there. Thank you.

Good morning. I'm Lieutenant Dan Duff of the Boston Police Homicide Unit. I'm here to talk about a grant we received from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health every year, the Massachusetts Violent Death Reporting System Grant. It's something that we've been working on with them since 2003. Our staff meets with the Injury Surveillance Program staff from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Kate Chamberlain and Sheila Harris every year. We review data elements about the types of homicides that occur in the city. This information includes circumstances, suspects, relationships between suspects and victims, and also firearms and ballistics information.

The staff from the Boston Police Department reviews the approximate volume of violent deaths anticipated each year and develop a plan and process within the BPD of the data and data updates for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. We review suspicious deaths that may be pending and a pending cause and manner. We also identify entire year cases, generally two years previously, so this past year. We worked on the 2023 cases with them. And we give them all the data that we have available. They also use other data from the OCME, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, as well as information that they receive from the media to compile their information. We sit with them and we provide technical expertise to their program staff needed for the interpretation of the data and attend advisory committee meetings.

In addition to receiving data from the homicide unit analyst, their injury surveillance program staff meet with members of the homicide squads and the homicide squad supervisors to add context to the individual cases. In the past, the money from the grant has been used to buy equipment that isn't otherwise provided by the department. But in the past few years, we've been using the money solely for training, as our training budget is very limited. That's it. Thank you.

Good morning, Councillors. My name's Frank DeLuca. A program coordinator in the Office of Research and Development at the Police Department. I have a brief description of SSYI for you. The city of Boston has been awarded over $3.9 million in grant funding. from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services to support its Safe and Successful Youth Initiative, or SSYI. And that's for fiscal years 2026 to 28. Representing the city of Boston and acting as the SSYI grantee, the police department provides administrative oversight to the SSYI program as it works with community coalitions to implement A combined public health and public safety effort toward eliminating youth violence in the city.

SSYI focuses on young adults between the ages of 17 to 24, both male and female, who are identified as proven risks. They're most likely to be perpetrators or victims of shooting violence. SSYI receives referrals for the program from other law enforcement partners such as the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, the Department of Correction, Suffolk County House of Correction and its National Street Jail, in addition to the Police Department's Youth Violence Strike Force. From these referrals, BPD identifies those individuals who satisfy the SSYI eligibility criteria which is prescribed by the funder. the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. The department contracts with the Boston Public Health Commission to be the program's lead agency.

The commission's SSYI case management team coordinates delivery of intervention services to those already identified as SSYI eligible individuals, while also providing intensive case management and outreach The case managers refer their participants to partnering community organizations that offer behavior health counseling, employment, or education services. The Commission contracts currently with organizations More Than Words and Inner City Weightlifting to provide employment services, with the Catholic Charities Boston to provide education services, and the The police department contracts with the Boston Medical Center to provide behavioral health services. Through these service provisions, the Boston's SSYI program engages our proven-risk young adults

directs them away from a life of continually contributing to street violence and introduces them to the possibility of a more positive, prosocial, alternative lifestyle. and I'm joined by Roy Martin, who's the SSYI Director at the Boston Public Health Commission.

Thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate you all going through those grants. Just before we go into councilor questions, I do want to just clarify something. Unfortunately, Director Walsh, The grant that you are here to testify on behalf, there was a lack of communication and it wasn't properly I will touch base with you on how we get it through the rest of the year but just because it wasn't properly noticed we will not be talking about that grant and counselors will not be asking questions so I don't know I don't know if you're testifying on any other grants but if you are not I will I'm happy to dismiss you from this conversation. Thank you. I'm sorry about that. No problem. Thanks.

So with that, I will now... So I also want to acknowledge that we've been joined by City Councilor at large, Julia Mejia. And now we will go to my council colleagues in order of arrival for councilor questions. I'm going to give five minutes for each councilor for the first round, and if we need another round, we can do that. So we'll start with Councillor Flynn. You have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the men and women that are present here and the testimony you provided. Thank you for the work you're doing for the residents of the city and interested in a lot of what you said. And maybe I'll stop with you, Frank. Can you tell me a little bit more about the partnership you have with the City of Boston Public Health Commission and what is the overall goal and how are we How are we accomplishing that goal? Before you answer, I also want to acknowledge I worked with you on re-entry issues when I was a probation officer. You did an exceptional job working with people coming out of jail and prison, providing them hope and opportunity and always an encouraging word to people.

So I want to acknowledge your professionalism for so many years.

Thank you very much, Councilor Flynn. The Boston Public Health Commission case management team there is integral to the success of SSYI. And the idea is simply to Reduce any street violence, mostly shooting violence that will occur, especially In this age group, 17 to 24, and by providing these services that I mentioned, education, behavioral health services, and employment, The case managers are able to redirect these people, these young adults. And the work is important and certainly the recent success of

Manifested by the reduced numbers of homicides and other violent crime definitely has been contributed by our case management team. They do Unsung work, working with some extremely violent individuals. Thank God we have them. I do have, as I said, Director Roy Martin here who could even address in more detail if you'd like.

That would be excellent. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Thank you, sir. So, I mean, to be very brief, our goal is probably the narrowest of Any program in the city of Boston because we're focused strictly on firearm violence and you know the first goal is to Outreach and engage and enroll individuals that are identified by a law enforcement source. And the ultimate goal is firearm violence reduction, both perpetration and victimization. That's as brief as I as I could state it but it's very narrow scope firearm violence and you know so we've been doing this for what 14 years collectively and We've not pivoted from the strategy. We stuck with it, and I think we yielded in the results.

Well, thank you to both of you. I don't remember if it was, obviously Ryan is gone, but I wasn't sure. Lieutenant Duff, were you talking about spiked drinks or was that... That was Ryan, yeah. Okay, that was an issue I'm concerned with about the spiking of drinks. The other issue I think I wanted to focus on is sexual assaults. Could I ask you something, Maria? This is an issue I've worked on for almost eight years and want to see what we're doing or what steps we could potentially do to support mostly women, I think,

of sexual violence but also survivors but how we can prevent it in a public any type of public education outreach that could be helpful to prevent any type of Domestic violence, sexual violence. Just want to hear what your thoughts might be.

So I wholeheartedly support that sentence and the work you've sort of brought to this topic over and over again. I'm definitely seeing that and appreciate that. With regard to the sexual assault, we did reapply for our SOCI money. We put that application in in September. and we extended our FY21 SAKI money. SAKI is the Sexual Assault Kid Initiative. And with that said, what we will be doing with our last year of funding and the FY21 money is, We received a budget revision approval to take the money that wasn't spent down yet and move it towards the transition within the forensic lab at the Boston Police Department for serology testing to Y screening. Now, I don't know if you have questions about that.

I'm sure you don't because you tend to know more about that than most people. The results of being able to internally test with Y screening versus serology screening in the City of Boston Forensic Lab could be up to a 25% increase in us being able to identify profile. Ready DNA that then gets uploaded into the CODIS database and oftentimes when it gets uploaded to that database there is a certain percentage of and many more. And oftentimes when it's committed two or three sexual assaults in Massachusetts, one in New Hampshire, one in California. But it's a national database that allows us to also get that person whose DNA was retested through this SAKI grant. on other cases.

And then we begin to build a case out from those CODIS hits. So again, We start with being able to do a better job up to 25% of the time internally within the forensic lab by switching over to wide screening. And so we're taking some funding from the 2021 grant and we did a budget revision to be able to launch the transition from serology to Y screening. And then we applied for the 2025 grant. You should know about that in probably February, March. and there's also money in the FY25 grant which you'll hear about if it gets approved and when we're here more detail but there's also some money in that we set aside to continue the transition to Y screening.

and then there was also a different lab grant that we also did a budget revision on to allow us to get some of the equipment needed for the transition. So the Saki grant doesn't pay for equipment, the other grant does. So the combination of both of those grants, And don't get me wrong, I'm not sure that that's going to cover all of the transition, but it does a good job in enabling us to launch a transition from serology to Y screening. So that's a huge victory and I'd like to thank you in part for that because of your interest in this matter. I also like to say that in terms of the 2021 SAKI initiative, I think it did bring a lot of light and attention to that recommendation. and that also helped bring forth the need to transition from serology to Y screening.

Well, thank you, Maria. I'm out of questions, but I do want to say thank you, Maria, to you and your team at Research and Development at the Police for your professionalism and outstanding work on behalf of the Boston Police and the residents of the city. So thank you, Maria.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Councilor Flynn.

Councilor Murphy, you have the floor.

Thank you. Thank you for going through these grants. Just a few specific questions. On the SSYI grant, almost $4 million, we know you could use more. It's a lot of money. You mentioned More Than Words and maybe a gym. Are there other agencies you partner with with this money or would that be other?

We partner with more than well currently under contract with more than words in a city weightlifting Catholic Charities Boston and the BMC, the Boston Medical Center. There are also a host of organizations that aren't under contract that Roy can get into.

Well, one is Obviously, Wow U, who's the big city partner in sort of this age demographic. But since they've moved to They're pretty much like a city program now. So they're a partner, just not funded. And so we clearly use all the other.

What does that stand for?

Youth Options Unlimited.

And what do they focus on?

Career exploration, job development. So they're an employment program, short answer.

Awesome. No, no, that's good. Thank you. Besides arrests or crime stats, what other ways are we measuring the success of the work you do?

Besides arrests and crime stats?

Yeah, are there other ways?

Well, the first metric is engagement because there's a roster of individuals who are referred to us from some law enforcement source. And that could be reentry. It could be, you know, officers with boots on the ground, gang unit, probation, parole, courts, but folks who would know. The level of activity of the individual who's referred and the toughest thing is to connect with them. So that's the first metric. Did you get them? How long we retain that relationship and then their metrics in terms of what they are engaged with. Like, you know, our programmatic key performance indicator areas are education, employment, behavioral health, and case management. So we measure activity in those categories as well.

And then, basically, did we meet our projected enrollment target numbers? Target probably is not a good word to use in this context, but we also measure that as well.

No, thank you, and thank you. Thank you. And I know it wasn't mentioned, but you probably work closely with the schools and our community centers.

We do. Yeah, absolutely. Again, we mentioned Notre Dame Educational Complex as a contracted partner. The City of Boston's Re-Engagement Center is probably our greatest in-kind education city partner. So that relationship we've been in since the inception of the program. We just don't have a financial contractual relationship, but that's one of our strongest relationships. And then Did you ask more to that? No, it was about education. Okay. And then, typically, we're also involved in the citywide violence prevention meetings where the BPS... Can't think of the exact name right now.

But you're included. They call you in for all that work, right?

And referrals back and forth as well. So yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. The death reporting, I mean, it's a small grant, it's only $10,000, but is it mainly to improve the accuracy or the time? or how we share out to family members or just the public?

It has more to do with reporting information up to the state. They take the data that they have and they report it up to the CDC. and that way they're able to compare state by state and show the differences in violent death Okay, but that helps get our numbers up there to be part of the...

Yes. Awesome. Thank you. And I know I've visited a couple times and we've had hearings on our 911 call system. Thank you for all you do. And on both sides, I know I see... the EMTs are here also EMS side of our 911 call service um so just we have to just continue going into the budget season also with upgrades needed on both sides and making sure that the training and the Hay, and everything, but thank you for always advocating for the staff that's there.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Council.

Okay. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilor Murphy. Council President Nguyen, you have the floor.

Thank you, and thank you to everyone for being here. and for the work that you do. I had a question about SSYI. Do you work, I mean I hear the number of different organizations, BPHC's Violence Intervention Program. Is that one that you work with?

No, their scope is a lot different than ours. Theirs is more of a geographical footprint, neighborhood based. Program, where ours is more direct service, you know, person to person case management. And so, yeah, it's just the I guess the outputs of both programs you know very different but you know they also have the ability to refer into our program as well if they come across individuals in their neighborhood that have the same Entry criteria is the individuals in our program. So in the process, the same, you know, send it through to the brick to get vetted to make sure that there are indicators on their criminal history that will suggest that they are indeed proven risk.

Thank you. Do you work at all with or have you worked at all with Isaac Yablo, who used to be here?

He's now the director of the Office of Violence Prevention, which is what we're under, yes.

You are under the Office of Violence Prevention now? Yes. At BPD? At BPHC?

Yes.

Okay, okay, so you both are with BPHC.

I'm with BPHC. Frank's with BPD.

So the money comes through the BPD and goes to the BPHC for this work. Exactly. Okay, great, because I was going to get very worried if your work was very separate from Isaac's work, because I feel like this is very much, because I've called and tried to get people referred for services.

And actually, our work was connected prior to him moving over to the Office of Violence Prevention as well. So that's going pretty well. We're encouraged about all of the developments. But I'm sure he can speak more.

I have another question that I think is going to be a little bit out of the wheelhouse, but it's something that I've been talking to a lot of. Community folks about, and the conversations I've had with Dr. Yablo and others about, and this goes a little further, the 17 to 24, but we know that sometimes, like oftentimes, shootings and I want to be accurate. I always want to be accurate. When we look at the shootings that do happen, they tend to not be a young person behind the trigger. It's like someone who is older. We're talking about like 25 to 35 to 40, right? Is that status correct? And so they seem to be sort of like in this lost world of services.

There's been some movement on that as well.

So can you talk to that? Sure.

So SSY exists within What is now, it's relatively new as well, the Life Course Health Unit at the Boston Public Health Commission under the Office of Violence Prevention. So I know that was a mouthful, but that program is at the extreme end of our continuum of services. And so that's 25-year-old and beyond up to Infinity.

And what's the name of that again? The life?

Men's Health. Well, that program is called the Men's Health Initiative.

Is it specifically for people who are court involved? It's... Or is it for everyone?

No, it's the same criteria as SSY. It's specific to firearm involvement or some form of explosive community violent incident. So, You know, in terms of the complete continuum, we also have a program called P2 Boston, which is more of a pilot right now. But that was us, and that actually came as a result of a hearing we had with like Councilor Flynn, Councilor Murphy, and then Flaherty, where there was a push for us to identify the earliest possible interventions possible. Like, where was that moment where we could have learned really early on that we had a and emergent problem on the horizon. And so that is for individuals that are 16 and under. So the continuum is so that we up our ability as a city

to engage and enroll and start working with anybody that exhibits this type of explosive behavior and activity. So SSY is our flagship product. All of our programming is built off of that template. It's just more age-specific. Like, for instance, with P2, we kind of got our butts kicked really early on because what we learned is that's really A parent program. At a certain age, up to a certain age, young people can't consent themselves to certain services. They can't agreed to allow someone to examine their records like school records. And for the most part, you need a parent partnership in order to achieve certain outcomes with a young person. and then as you mentioned, and you're correct, the majority of certain crimes are actually occurring with individuals over the age of 24

and so we started you know in our partnership to start to create programming that could fit that as well and so the overall number of persons that you would anticipate would be in need of services. It's not as high as that 17 to 24 year old chunk. That's the biggest chunk. But outside of that, that 25 and over is like the next biggest and that's where we are now. We're doing pretty well with that program, but everything is based off the SSY paradigm, which prior to that was based off the City of Boston's packed Paradigm Partnership events and community together. So this group has been together for a very long time.

Once the state started to take over and fund SSY, which Glenn Daly and his team have been very good to us, we went, again, very age and experiential. You know demographics 17 to 24 specific. So that kind of eliminated the ability to go outside those those age ranges. But once we kind of you know we got our feet on under us pretty good then we expanded outwards to the other age ranges so so you're correct and hopefully we're in front of that and you know Continue to build out what we think is necessary to, particularly as the ask was the last time we were all here together, what is the soonest point that you could see that we got a real problem on the horizon? Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Council President. Councilor Coletta Zapata, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you all so much for your work. My line of questioning was along the lines of my council colleague and our council president, just given that there was a recent tragic event in East Boston where Youth Adjacent Individual. I don't know the exact age, but in that same age range that we were talking about was unfortunately murdered. And so my heart and thoughts and prayers go out to the victim and their families. With that, I wanted to understand the $4 million or the 3.966 that we're discussing with youth violence in the Commonwealth and specifically how You work with agencies or organizations in District 1, so I represent East Boston, Charlestown, the North End, and the Wharf District. What does your relationship look like with community-based organizations or youth organizations in Eastie? Because there has been a lot of work done through Somebody I deeply respected and admire so much, which is Dr. Isaac Diablo and what he's doing.

And he's been able to get in on the ground floor at Maverick Landing and working with Rita Lara and South Shore Plaza. and Brandywine Village and other places where there's been a hot spot or hotbed of activity. So just curious to know if you've gotten a chance to work with any of those organizations If not, I guess what would be helpful for us as city councilors to ensure that you're there in our district and making those relationships?

What I would suggest we could do better is we need to do a better job at Kind of expressing how to refer into the program. Like, again, we're a very different program than most Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. to just referring to anything that serves a particular age range. So as a program, we're kind of forced to follow the referral. So the referral source tends to determine where we go. and who we outreach to. So, and then I guess this is good and bad at the same time, East Boston has done very well Like in the last five years.

And unfortunately, we just had another incident with someone who was just above the age 20. So again, that is the ebb and flow of our programmatic challenges and to a certain degree is good because we're not as rigidly Stuck to a geographical footprint, so wherever the incidents are happening, we can move to and reach out to and engage and enroll. At times that also, again, with the ebb and flow, if folks do well, they don't make a referral in like about four or five years. and then you lose the muscle memory and you don't quite remember how to do it. So we need to do a better job. Boston has never been at the same level of activity. Rocks Bay, Dorchester, Mattapan, South End. And in the last five years, I guess, it's done very well.

you know hence not many referrals coming from East Boston at all so we just need to stay in touch with like the courts in East Boston whatever gang unit activities going on in East Boston and then returning citizens that are going back to East Boston. So programmatically, I don't believe we have more than a handful of individuals in our entire scope of programming, which is good. Ultimately, but it does present sort of a lapse in just a rigor in making sure folks understand who is the client that you should be referring and how to do it. How to send something to Frank, basically. So that's it.

Thank you. And thank you for that, Claire. Oh, Maria, you want to ask something?

So we have a prevention initiative that we just relaunched over in East Boston with Maverick Landing in the development. It isn't... Sort of the late stage intervention that this project model is. It's more about the prevention and the earlier teenage years. So within the past month we had, it's called the Youth Police and Partnership Initiative. We used to have it in Franklin Field years ago and it dropped. Violent Crime at Franklin Field by 19% over those years. We partnered with the development over in Franklin Field and we partnered with a bunch of service providers over there and police. and we did a lot of good work with young people over there to build trust, to do activities with the youth, to get youth and police to work together on community improvement projects. So we just launched that this past month in East Boston at the Maverick Development. We're also doing it in...

Franklin Field again because again it was it was sort of on ice for about five years and we're just relaunching now and then we have a third site but all of the sites are sort of grounded within the developments in those neighborhoods with police and with the top nonprofits in those areas. So it's a three-fold partnership. And young people get paid, they get stipends, and we do a lot of good activities with them. and in the past it's shown a lot of good data in terms of crime prevention and crime reduction. If you want to see any of that research, let me know. I have it at my fingertips.

please that would be great and thank you for clarifying and thank you for adding on to that I would love to get more information and again how however best I can be helpful please let me know there's been a beautiful work happening at Maverick Landing and it speaks to the to how powerful community policing in its truest form can impact Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. to the point in which we are now and it sounds like this program can only help with that.

Rita Lara was very instrumental in allowing us to sort of work with her in the development over there and we've worked on and off with Rita for So long. She's amazing.

Yeah, she's great. Shout out to her as well. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Mejia, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. And thank you all for being here. I do have a few questions and I just want to acknowledge that my cousin Brenda Ortiz used to work at the dispatch and so I used to hear all the The chaos and the rapid emergency response and how difficult it is to be an operator In a moment of crisis and just the level of just emotional intelligence that you need to be able to help support people who are in crisis, I just want to acknowledge that. I know it's not an easy task, but it is deeply appreciated. So, just wanted to let you know I got some friends on the inside. But, and Roy, it's great to see you and I'm happy to ask you some questions. I'm gonna start with just Maria a little bit. I'm happy to see that my colleagues have been doing a lot of work around Spiking, and Sexual Assault.

And I also have been leaning into that conversation and learning more over the last few years. And so I've learned that there are some testing kits that When you go to the hospital, they don't approve it. They don't allow you to test it unless it's like a drug. And because spiking is not considered

So one of the issues around hospitals throughout the state of Massachusetts around testing is every hospital that you go into has different testing sort of apparatuses. So if you end up in a hospital in Milton, I'm just using that as an example, and you were you were drugged with sort of Rufinol and they only test for a different type of drug. They're not going to be able to pick up on anything that was in your system. And regardless of what exactly you were drugged with, it typically leaves the body within four hours to six hours. So if you were passed out somewhere, For eight hours and then you went and got tested into a hospital and they try to test you with something that Because they have a certain testing protocol and you were drugged with something completely different. That's another issue and

that Massachusetts in general has to start working on because one of the pushes in Massachusetts right now is to get the hospitals to sort of become across the board, do the same types of testing. and more than one type of testing because there's more than one type of drug that is often used in drug spiking. So good point.

Yeah, thank you for that. And I have an additional follow up. because literally I have like two more minutes left and I have two more questions. So I'm going to do one more. I'm curious because I also know there's a lot of stigma associated with situations like that. And I'm wondering what if any opportunities you can share with us exist to do this work in some of our local community health centers where people already have established relationships. And what would that look like in order of being able to implement something like that?

So I'm going to answer you as a person who's been working in this space for many, many years versus official BPD answer.

I prefer that.

I feel like there needs to be a real push in the city around social norms on gender violence. If we can... So it's almost like what we did with smoking cessation and how we really made it around... Thank you for joining us. and I could talk about this for five days, but it's gotten worse over the years because of the internet, because of the online blogosphere that is almost promoting gender violence. One of the thoughts that we talk about in this work over and over again is sort of changing the culture around what gender violence is and how harmful it is to boys as much as it is to girls. I'm not going to go on because I can't go on.

And I'm not going to let you, Maria, not with my time. So what I need you to do right now, Maria, what I need will be helpful because I got a question for Roy. And I hope that the chair would allow me one extra minute. What I'd like to know. specifically is about the opportunity that we have here on the council alongside in partnership with you and others who are interested in listening to figure out how we can implement some of this in our community-based health centers because I feel like there is a disconnect and that someone's not going to go to a hospital, but they might go to their community center. Is there a bridge?

So I work with Kim Mendoza from the Boston Public Health Commission's brand new Office of Gender Violence Prevention. She's doing some great work. I think that what we should do offline, to give you your time back, is probably have a conversation with Kim because I really, this is a social norms issue, so it's a public health issue. So let's do that. Let's get together with Kim.

I can't believe you took five of my minutes.

I'm sorry.

We're going to take, we're going to... Chair, do you mind if I just, one moment, I'm sorry. And Kim, no. Maria. Maria. Yeah. Well, put me in touch with Kim.

Yes, she's amazing. Thank you. You love her.

All right, so I'm going to move on over to Roy because... As someone who worked in the violence prevention space in the 90s, like, I'm an OG, okay? I'm not new to this, okay? I've been out in these streets in many different capacities working with young people. During the era of, you know, during the Boston miracle, I did youth development and violence prevention in that time. And so as someone who was on the other side just trying to prevent violence, a lot of our focus was on young people. And having worked in the nonprofit sector for the last three or four decades, What I've realized is that we pour so much into young people, but then we send them to homes that are not ready to prepare or to nurture them with the skills that they need to learn how to deal with conflict. And so as part of your violence prevention strategy, I know you mentioned earlier parents.

I would really love to hear more about what we can do to strengthen maybe peer parenting programs, not just youth peer leadership programs, as part of the strategy to help reduce violence. Because parents are usually turning a blind eye with what's going on. They're not asking questions, the right questions. and I figured that you would be the appropriate person to help us understand what we can do and how we can support that work through some of this grant making process.

I appreciate it. Well, and as I mentioned, first of all, that reflection is probably going to sound like a bunch of ooh, ah, ooh, ah, ooh, because as I mentioned, we're getting our butts kicked right now. Learning what we need to in order to better serve young people via parents. And so we're doing a lot of writing. We're doing a lot of data crunching. We're sort of revamping a lot of our processes and policies and procedures to retrofit it For parents, so we should have something coming out of this that hopefully will be sort of more of a guiding document or something that we can build on at least a bare bone framework. to start working with parents because for us, I think the most important thing is that we know at some point we have to leave. and what's left behind.

So hopefully we've better stabilized the household and improved the ability of a parent to serve. And lastly, achieved some degree of partnership or re-enfranchisement of a disenfranchised household to make sure that like, you know, Maybe there are siblings and others that are going to come out of that household as well that could benefit from a better prepared parent. You're kind of jumping the line a little bit because that is a lot of conversation that's happening. So you're spot on. We're right there with you. We agree with everything you just said. We're just currently getting, you know, we're getting roughed up right now trying to figure it out. It's, you know, it's kind of a new frontier really for us, particularly parents. that are associated with a particular experience. And that's what we're really trying to work on. So totally agree with you.

Yeah. And I'm so sorry that my time is up because I can I can, this is the area of major interest to me, so I got some ideas and I got in some organizations that we've been working with in the parent engagement space that I think It's outside of the violence area, but I think all of these things are interconnected because it does start in the home.

I do want to add this, and then I'm going to shut up, that I think that's one of the things that we're trying to do is... Thank you. Thank you. and so on. So, there's a lot of beef between the kid and the mom and, you know, so that may not register on the radar screen like an extreme act of violence, but there are some No, we should be paying attention to or could be hints that there's something else going on because those sort of internal acts of violence, although classified as domestic violence, Sometimes we'll grow up into an incident of community violence. So yeah, I agree, and we wanna get to it before it's full blown.

So I totally agree. And I appreciate the Chair for allowing me to go over. Thank you. So I'll be following up with you all individually so that we can, Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Mejia. We've also been joined by District 5 City Councillor Enrique Pepen. We're now going to go into a second round of questions. Starting with Councilor Flynn and then you can get another one. Right? All right, great. Councilor Flynn, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, thank you to the administration that is present here for the work you are doing. Maybe I have one question for Maria and listen closely to your comments. I was wondering, Maria, are you doing, or is your team doing any work with the Boston Public Schools as it relates to domestic violence When a student sees their, a little kid, or a student I should say, sees their parent or parents involved in a domestic violence issue, but are we providing that student, even especially boys, and many more. I would like to see support in the public schools so that they can understand about

If they experience a family member engaged in domestic violence, but the support services, police or public health could provide a student that might be in the middle of seeing a domestic violence situation at their own family.

The Boston Police Department, Boston School Police is working very closely with the Boston Public Schools and several of the schools. And we have a recent partnership with the JFK Action Corps that's also We launched within the past 12 months and the way in which we work with them is around It's actually a diversion model, a juvenile diversion model to sort of keep kids far away from the juvenile justice system. So what we do with the JFK Action Corps, and I should say Youth Connect. So it's Youth Connect, JFK Action Corps, Boston School Police are working in the schools to get referrals to sort of... from the schools when there is a violent incident in the school and then there's intervention that takes place on a clinical front instead of a law enforcement front.

and oftentimes when those clinical interventions take place that's when you uncover that the young person is acting out because they're seeing violence in the home and it's traumatizing them and they're experiencing levels of and many more. An ongoing relationship with Boston School Police and the school department where there was just sort of more informal referrals to services. This almost tightens up that referral. So you've got clinicians on. The JFK Action Corps side, clinicians on the UConnect side, interacting with the school clinicians and the school police. So it's sort of forming a tighter sort of ability to act sooner and the benefit of all of that is to keep kids out of the juvenile justice system because the program itself is a

is to prevent kids entering the juvenile justice system.

Well, thank you, Maria. And Chris, I have a question kind of similar to the question I asked Maria, but... If a survivor of domestic violence or sexual assault calls 911 seeking assistance, a response from the police department, What is the training level of the 911 operator as it relates to how they communicate effectively with the person making the call?

Thank you for the question, Councilor. So it really depends on the situation. If it's an emergent situation where there is a domestic violence incident or something that's happening at that particular time when they dial 911, We're going to dispatch resources really quickly to that address and get them the help they need. Police will respond, EMS if necessary. The Boston Police Department also has a domestic violence unit, which follows up on a lot of those calls after the fact. Once the initial response and the emergent nature has been resolved, the domestic violence detectives will follow up with the victim. As far as the 911 call takers go, they are trained in basic sort of triage and questioning what to ask in situations involving domestic violence issues. Cases of sexual assault, we actually We try to just get the basic information so that they're not legally bound by the court. The more questions they ask, sometimes can be a detriment to the criminal case.

So they are trained in those areas and how to properly handle those calls. And a lot of the training we do is more about emotional intelligence and sensitivity issues when you get those calls of how to speak to a victim, particularly if they're really upset or emotional on the phone.

Well, excellent information. Just want to acknowledge the 911 operators as well in their professionalism in supporting survivors as well. So, thank you.

Thank you, Councilor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Councillor Coletta Zapata, if you have a second round, you have the floor.

I don't have a second round. I do just want to call attention to a state bill right now as it relates to drink spiking and trying to standardize the response sponsored by Senator Feeney. I got a chance to testify in front of the joint committee I forget exactly what it's called, but Senator Feeney has introduced a bill to better serve survivors when this does happen. And so we'd love the support of my colleagues to continue pushing that forward, and then just co-sign the call for Neighborhood Health Centers to get on board. That bill does encompass them, and just look forward to future conversations. But that's it, and thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Coletta Zapata. Pepén. You have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning, everyone. I apologize for being late. I was actually at the District Attorney's Office, 15th Breakfast Forum, Survivors of Homicide Victims. And I was able to be in a room filled with a lot of hardworking people in the public safety Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Youth Being Victims and Youth Being Impacted. So I'm very glad that one of the grants that we're talking about here today is the grant that's going to go to So safe and successful youth initiative grant. And I think that's a really important deal here in the city of Boston to make sure that we are being proactive with our outreach. Our youth definitely need a lot of support out there. I hate it when I get a call in my district that there's been Any type of youth violence. It doesn't matter the severity of it. But I think that I'm very glad that we're here talking about this.

And I'm not going to waste anyone's time. I'll probably just watch the recording to hear about the specifics of the grants. but here to show my support for this and just thank you all for the work that you do. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Pepén. And again, I really want to thank our panelists for being here with us today. I learned a lot. These dockets will, we have our last city council meeting next Wednesday. So I will put a committee report and make a recommendation to the council, but this is very important work, especially in the youth violence space. that I really, really value and appreciate. Do any of my colleagues have any closing statement? I'll let Councilor Flynn make a closing statement. I know that we do not have I want to confirm we do not have any one for public testimony, so I'll allow Councilor Flynn to make a closing statement, and then if you all have any closing remarks, we'll go with that.

Councilor Flynn? Thank you Mr. Chair. I will be brief. I want to say thank you to the public safety and public health professionals that are here. I want to acknowledge the important work you are doing throughout the neighborhoods of Boston. especially want to acknowledge the men and women that are working on domestic violence and sexual assaults related issues and it's critical that we continue to work together to support survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, but also work together to prevent and coordinate strategies to prevent these from happening at the beginning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Awesome. Thank you. Any of our panelists have any final words? No. Awesome. Well, I really do want to thank you for coming down. I also know I see some people in the crowd that do amazing work, so I really appreciate you being here and the work that you all do. every single day for our public safety here in the city of Boston and for our residents. This hearing on dockets number 0336 Doctrine No. 1400, Doctrine No. 1409, and 1548 and 1549 is adjourned. Thank you.