I don't know do you and I love it exactly the longer I can push that sun on the sky keep that little white fluffy stuff from coming down on the ground I'm perfectly Ok with them hell thanks Dumon for all the help tonight preceded it always I just hope he makes it home before he falls asleep so next so don't forget next week will be awful for Labor Day But we back after the week of that thank you so much for a listen to the Blair effect on Newstalk 710 cane us but hey until the next time raise your glass. Think. Feel Ok though. Emulating. K. Any less. Than you. Should you have news on top of it already flooded in many neighborhoods Euston continues to be in on dated by record rains from the remnants of Hurricane Harvey have struck what is occurring the Houston area has seen 30 inches and we could see the warm totals of as much as 50 inches but by the middle of the week not threats of Pascha the National Hurricane Center and our reports from used to start with correspondent Steve fundament we have been told remarkable stories by some of those who have been rescued one family described how they had to go onto a rooftop the waters had just gotten too high inside their home they went to a neighbor's home the water got too high there then they went on top of a roof they were waving they said for several hours before finally a helicopter came down to rescue them they say when they were rescued they began to cry see firemen c.b.s. News Houston also their correspondent Omar via Franco you may hear a lot of giving and barking behind me of course people love their pets so a lot of people here who are rescued brought their pets Well there was a very long line in front of me here because they were not allowing people with their pets to go inside the convention center will the city in the Red Cross are working on that what they're going to do now is allow the people to come in and they're going to put the pets in an area well they'll be safe and they also will be causing any damage to facilities around here and then there is the non pet alligator which showed up in the backyard of this woman in suburban Missouri City Texas here is the gainer my own along not too far from just climbing on into the back yard and. Right here to the pay now tropical storm Harvey is more or less stalled over the Euston area the Navy says it has recovered the remains of all $10.00 sailors killed after the warship u.s. . Says John McCain collided with a merchant vessel in waters near Singapore there were some a political demonstrations in several cities around the country including Chicago also Berkeley California after the deadly rally in Charlottesville Berkeley police were out in full force that was cracking down on anyone looking to incite violence . A woman in Charlottesville and the president could even say there was room Berkeley Police say about $4000.00 protesters showed up causing chaos at times they arrested 14 people within the 1st few hours and that's not without. The crowd was a mixture of protesters from different sides ranging from the alternative right to anti-fascist c.b.s. News correspondent Danielle Nottingham on Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson about un criticism of attitudes here after Charlottesville I don't believe anyone doubts the American people's values or the commitment of the American government or the government's agencies to advancing those values and defending those back and the president's values the president speaks for himself Chris Asian financial markets are mixed this is c.b.s. News. His dogs come into what are your Sunday night forecast partly cloudy some scattered showers activity ending by midnight with low temperatures in the upper fifty's and as we head into Monday lots of sunshine highs in the upper eighty's sunny and hot on Tuesday with high sneer 90 weather brought to you by Colorado flat fee realty pay less keep more Colorado flat the Realty dot com I'm meteorologist Patrice Sutter on 710 k. And us our new fall lineup is ready to launch it what is going to get good Peter Morris weekday mornings from 5 to choose us and a new time morning quarterback any day mornings 9 to 11 Dennis Prager from Orlando one day this is great Chuck and Julie in the afternoon so it'll be the same show essentially now on from one to 4 but back and every weekend Dan gapless moves to afternoon liberals conservatives everything in between weekdays from 4 to 7 but the battle of ideas commands start Tuesday September 5th on News Talk 710 k. And us can us Denver say the media group station the opinions of the guests are the following program may not represent those of Salem media of Colorado or response. To this edition of Colorado issues a public affairs presentation of Salem media of Colorado to another edition of Colorado issues and the other Williams And today we're speaking with a right chief of police this is Nick Metz Nick nice to have you here today thank you for having us here and we also have public information officer Bell Hummel welcome and thanks for having us Oh it's my pleasure to have you 1st of all I want to say thank you to every police officer in your department in the city in the county and state in the country really and their families for putting their lives on the line every single day and I'm sure that all the time hopefully you get that all the time right we get it quite a bit it's really nice to hear especially these days when. You know things have been as. Stressful as they've been for law enforcement and the scrutiny and the tensions between the community and law enforcement around the country so it's always heartening to get those kinds of responses and that's great well our culture has changed dramatically and in the last decade especially when it comes to respecting at the party you know you look at the 1960 s. Versus today you know 1960 s. There was kind of a revolt in you know question authority all that thing but it's night and day if you look at the circumstances of today and so I'd like to start by asking you to give me some insight of what makes up a police officer inside the heart and soul of those who serve Well I think I think to start off with what you're seeing today in law enforcement is I think you're seeing in my a more diverse group of people becoming police officers and I say diverse I'm not just talking about the demographics I'm talking about the diversity of experiences that people have had we have people who come in from college military experience people who are in the Peace Corps people who have had other professions before becoming a police officer whether it's as an attorney you know construction worker social worker you name it and so now I think when you're what you're seeing as you're seeing a more eclectic group of folks coming in who I think bring a lot of different ideas and of how law enforcement should look and how we engage with the community what do you find is the motivation of your coworkers Well I think one of the greatest motivations that sounds a little bit cliche but it's really wanting to do the right thing and really wanting to help people and I think if you ask most most cops that's sort of the standard answer you'll get and that's because it's true. Really the impact that we can make on people's lives and that privilege to be a part of of helping someone maybe down a better path or make a better decision or or just. Somebody I think that's really why we're all here I had a friend who said and this was around 911 you know the 1st responders you guys are the folks running up the stairs and everybody else is running them and so it's humbling if you really examined how this works and that you were just a normal person a normal guy and you have a family too and you're putting your lives out there to make things better for everyone south again and these wonderful Well I think when you look at you know that that example that you just gave them officers running in when everybody is running out your theater shooting is a perfect example perfect in our officers did that. And in not just those real high profile type of situations that occur but every single day our officers whether it's in a row or a Denver or any other or than any other department around the country there are situations every day that occur officers put themselves out there and put themselves in harm's way for people they don't even know for sure but because and that's because they care about the community and they swore an oath to protect the community and also I think you know I've been in this job now for 34 years and I've seen huge evolution of where law enforcement was when I 1st became a police officer you know the philosophy at that time pretty much was when I 1st became an officer was for the most part you enforce the law you there to write tickets you're there to arrest people we can't enforce our way out of the problems that we're dealing with today society's issues and challenges today are much different the when you look at all the social services that we had back 2030 years ago when all we had to do was take somebody to a certain facility to get help those a lot of those facilities and and services are no longer available so now that falls on to our police officers to have to really diversify their thinking and to really look at different ways of handling a lot of issues and not just putting the handcuffs on people and make as you were saying policing has changed over the years and especially with the advancement of technology you know they have dash cams and body cams and witnesses at every scene with their cell phones out and all that stuff. That's probably led to an increased scrutiny of officers as they respond to calls and in many cases it's useful in showing the good things that are going on but unfortunately more often than not it's the technology that shows how sometimes policies need to change has Aurora p.d. Responded to the negative perceptions and even the mistrust of police in the community I think a lot of it really has to do with. The core of a war Police Department you know I've only been here close to 3 years I came from Seattle but one of the things that I noticed really early on is the heart and soul of the officers of our department we have over 700 officers and and almost 300 civilian employees and the best way I can describe it is they get it they understand what the role in the mission is you know you mentioned earlier at the beginning that you think it's rare that we get the thinks when I moved here from Seattle I can tell you in all honesty and it just happened when we were at lunch come before coming here is you can't go a day without somebody coming up and thanking us for our service and I think our officer see that connection some of that may have had to do with the theater shooting and that connection that grew between the community and the police. Technology you know just as in any form whether it's in law enforcement communications doesn't matter it's had its positives and its negatives I can tell you with things like the body worn camera when we 1st introduced the body one camera to our department there were a lot of eye rolls officers are like oh Big Brothers going to be watching it only took 2 or 3 incidents to where officers were falsely accused of situations to where we were able to within minutes clear those officers and then all of a sudden the rest of the officers who hadn't received the body cameras yet were seen whereas mines good idea yeah so you know and unfortunately there have been situations whether it's in our department or in the other department where the body cameras have not shown us in the best light but we try to use those opportunities as a learning opportunities to make sure that we don't repeat those same mistakes and you have to understand these are intense situations that only you guys experience are really right and I know you're trained to react and to either keep it together or to make things happen one way or another so having someone just off the street saying oh they should have done that well there's always a reason for. What you guys are doing I went on Facebook before having guys come in and I let people know that I was interviewing the chief police and I wanted to kind of get the public perception you know ask them questions and Jeffrey brought in and I thought this one was a pretty good question he says it's pretty clear that people of color feel that they're being targeted by police and more and now than ever What can local police departments do to make these citizens feel included and protected and not profiled and more specifically what completes nationwide Do I think that's a great question and it's an issue that you know not only our department every department in the country is grappling with I think we're doing a lot of different things here in Aurora to be inclusive of everybody in the community to give people a voice so whether it's our key community response team which we meet with monthly which is a very diverse group of folks from our community who we give updates to things to issues that are going on a new group that we've just formed is called our community policing advisory team see Pat this is a group of about 25 to 30 folks that we specifically selected to actually kind of be our our conscience if you will for us to work with them to help us determine the direction and strategies of our department to help us in looking at our policies give us their honest feedback we get so we spend a lot of time with them and in fact just this last week we went through a process where we were selecting a brand new commander who will ultimately be a District Commander we actually had him interview with this community group is of again a very diverse group of people representing the end of the Muslim community and cetera it's important that people feel included that people feel like they have a voice we're also putting a lot more priority to getting our officers in particular patrol officers out of their cars. Walking the streets going into businesses going into the schools spending time with folks when there's not a crisis and getting to know one another. And it works both ways because it helps with building that trust but it also helps for officers to get to know the people who live within the beats of the patrol Have you ever been part of that program yeah I was actually a par officer which is a police area representative and that is sort of the sole function of that par assignment here in Aurora and it's a it's a team of officers in each district that goes out and literally in trenches themself in the community so that they're aware of the stakeholders in the community the unique problems and they can take time to address those problems rather than maybe a patrol officer who's who's busy on a busy night tree arching calls so it's really a luxury that we have here in Aurora and it works out so well we get so much positive feedback from from the community members because it gives us that that time to to really not just put a Band-Aid on it but solve problems and connect exactly absolutely So you have been here for 3 years you're relatively new here and you've reorganize the department and what areas did you see that needed the most work. Probably the one area in particular was our internal affairs I thought that our internal affairs unit at the time was woolly understaffed it was a lieutenant that commanded it rather than a higher ranking person and I felt that to have that greater degree of gravitas if you will and oversight so we we made some big steps there we also enhanced a number of our other units to make sure that we're utilizing best practices to to best serve our community and to make sure that we are doing things to ensure that we have good deployment and good staffing on the street that our officers whether they work in patrol or par or wherever are able to have time and the ability to engage with the public we know we have a saying around our department is there's no meeting we won't go to there's no event that we won't go to and our officers many times will participate in events that you know they put themselves out there to whether it's participating in an ethnic event door whatever the case may be to again show the community that you know we're not just here as an occupying force that we are here as part of the community and to relate to well with any project or business it's always good to know that there's a level of accountability and I'm sure everyone listening would applaud the creation of the compliance and professional standards division that you created right explain the details of that program and show what you've seen internally and externally in the community as more accountability has been required of a lot so that the compliance bureau or division really is kind of that quality control if you will they're the ones who dot the i's and cross the t's are the ones that really make sure that the rest of the department is doing what it needs to do they also are in charge of our training which is a huge accountability piece because as we just talked about every you know law enforcement is changing every day which means our training needs change every day. There's a there was a report that came out under the Obama administration called 21st century policing and that report we looked at it when it once it was published and what was really gratifying to see was that that I would say 90 plus percent of the recommendations that were made in that report were things that our department had already been doing before I even got here or or things strategies that we implemented once I got here in we were talking about building that bridge between the community and police one of your initiatives and you shared the review board and it's made up of citizens that are pointed by the Aurora city council right that's called the independent review board independent review might and one of the roles of that board and if one of our listeners wanted to get involved how would they go about doing that Ok so the role of the independent review board really is to look at. Complaints that come from our internal affairs that are typically already sustained by me or that as a chief they will review the case they will give me recommendations on what they believe is the appropriate discipline. And so we have citizen participation in that we do not as a department have oversight of that because we want we think it's important that we say completely separate and there they are as what the name suggests independent so if anyone does have an interest we would always encourage them to contact their city council member for their ward and let them know they would have an interest in being part of that and then as as positions because come open they could be put into consideration is there like a certain amount of time that these members have to serve I don't I think maybe they're typically 2 year terms but I'm not exactly sure can I talk about the community outreach and personal commitment and he said I know one story that hit close to home for me was You guys went to a call I guess a Girl Scout troop was robbed of their money when that happened to me when I was 10 years old or someone took all my cookie money and you know I was going door to door back when it was safe relatively to go door to door and so what did the department do in that instance well that's just one of so many examples where our officers take the initiative they don't ask for permission they just know it's the right thing to do you know in this case the officers responded the officer could have simply just said Harold take a report here's a case number so sorry but that officer did he put a message out over his data terminal and told Officer citywide come down here and buy girls you know because we got this great picture of ca