Well, good afternoon and welcome. I want to thank everybody for coming by this afternoon. Uh we want to talk a little bit about uh tomorrow. We are tracking several uh events and as always, we'll be working with the community to facilitate a safe afternoon and a safe morning. Of course, in addition to that, we want to talk about our ongoing uh efforts when it comes to public order and crowd management. If I can steal a few words from chief, we are a learning organization and we are always looking for ways uh to adapt and improve our own practices. And in that uh spirit for some time now we have been working with an internationally recognized expert in the dynamics and psychology of crowd behavior and public order policing. Uh that is p uh professor Clifford Scott who happens to be in town this week. So, he wants to share a few words about his work with the bureau, work that's been uh going on for several years now. Uh, Assistant Chief Craig Dobson will also share a few words. And of course, Chief Day. And with that, we'll start with Chief Day. Thank you, Mike. Appreciate it. Spring is my favorite season. A lot of people don't believe that because I'm such a football fan, but I love spring and today is a great example of that. I think tomorrow is going to be another great example of that. That's one of the reasons why I love living in the city of Roses. as we just begin to see the renewal increased amount of people outside and I would anticipate tomorrow for these events a lot of folks. So just be aware that we expect there to be a high number of people participating which I find to be really exciting. I'm also greatly encouraged because we have had now under my tenure of almost 19 months several events, several demonstrations which have really been able to put Portland on display, balancing those values that we talk about, the ability to express ourselves, to be able to uh really use the opportunity to make our points known, but also to do it in a way that's appropriate and safe for all of us. So, I'm really grateful for that. The police bureau is actively engaged in the event planning for tomorrow. We are continuing to use our dialogue officers to reach out to planners and we anticipate having resources available if there is a situation that arises. But I'm cautiously optimistic based upon where we've been and where we're going that we're going to continue to uh benefit from this opportunities that we have to be able to exercise our first amendment right safely and effectively. I want to say thank you once again to the members of the police bureau. I want to say thank you to the members of the community and our elected leaders that I've spoken to about the events this week that uh tomorrow and really around the region can be a great opportunity. So with that, you really want to hear from the experts which Chief Dobson and Professor Stop, but of course I'll be available for questions afterwards. Greg, I wanted to echo the the chief's words as well. We're excited about tomorrow uh and the number of folks that we expect downtown. We're hoping that after the event or during the event, folks can stop by and shop and and grab a bite to eat while they're in the downtown and really enjoy the downtown and see where we're at. Um today, what we're here for is to be able to talk about kind of where we're going. Uh last year we had the opportunity to apply for a grant um in deescalation and in that grant was the opportunity to bring in uh a renowned expert as has been mentioned uh to be able to have him come and look and work with us over what does it look like to bring dialogue policing into Portland and so that we can do uh a better job of how we manage different events here in the public order realm. And so over the last year we've had uh numerous conversations and this week we uh he uh professor Scott was able to come in in January and do a quick assessment for us and then with that we have started to build out training for our command folks as well as our dialogue officers and others to ensure that we're doing it in the best way for best practices if you will or the gold standard. Uh, and so with that, I'll turn it over and and introduce Professor Scott so he can talk about some of his work. Uh, good afternoon everybody. I'm I'm I'm Cliff Sto. I'm a professor of social psychology based at Keel University in the UK. uh as already been mentioned I'm a international expert on understanding crowd psychology and its implications for policing particularly in relationship to helping the police to reorganize and organize in ways that give them the capability to deescalate uh tensions and to manage crowd events in ways that maximize their capacity to facilitate human rights and constitutional uh rights and obligations. So with that, I've been here uh working with the organization to help drive forward their thinking about crowd policing and I'm delighted to have the opportunity to be working tomorrow observing how they're delivering that obligation, that responsibility uh in real time and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to feed that back into the project uh that Chief Dobson has already talked to you about that's been funded by the DOJ. I'm working with several uh law enforcement agencies across the United States and I've been in the country pretty much since 2020 uh on and off working with these different agencies to help learn the lessons from 2020 feed that into our understanding about science-based and evidence-based practice that is oriented towards the facilitation of uh these first amendment uh rights and opportunities. So, as I say, I'm delighted to be here. I think the fact that I am speaks volumes about the extent to which the Portland uh Bureau of Police is forwardlooking uh and leading edge in terms of driving this new agenda forward uh across the United States of America. I'm happy to entertain any questions that you have um about the work that we're doing here. Um yeah, I wanted to get your opinion on I mean I imagine you've also been looking at the Portland scene and what has changed here over the years. Can you talk a little bit about why things seem to have gotten more peaceful or less escalation during these protests? Is it simply because of this grant and what you guys are doing or is there something going on within the communities that's changed? No, obviously there's something going on within the community. I I think you know everybody looks back on 2020 with trepidation. I think everybody understands that as a community uh nobody wants to be in that place. Um I think we are in a different environment now where the challenges ahead are going to be really quite profound in terms of people's concerns and potential opposition to some of the new policies that may be um coming online. I think we are going to see lots of protests and we need to make sure that some of the mistakes that were made in 2020 um are not made again and that we can see our way through uh any potential difficulties in ways that are as constructive as possible. Why we're in a situation at the moment where we haven't had confrontation, I don't really know. And that's in many ways why I'm really looking forward to getting out on the ground tomorrow to see what's going on, to meet some of the people from the protest community, if that's possible, and hear their views uh and perspectives on on where things are at the moment with the way that they're policed. What do you see as the key to balance to first amendment protected activity and law? What do you see the balance occur? Proportionality is the is the one word I would use for that. I think the the key issue here is about maximizing police capability to to deescalate tensions and to deal with low-level problems. And the best way that we know internationally of shaping policing in that way is to empower what we call dialogueled policing. And that policing is supported by a framework where strategically the police are oriented towards the facilitation of first amendment uh rights. And I think the combination of that strategic perspective and that tactical capability gives the police the opportunity to understand realistically where the problems are and respond to them proportionately. And I think what we find across the world where we do this work is that where those factors are in place, we see a lot less escalation. We see a lot less confrontation. So I think all of this revolves around proportionality. What are some areas of improvement that you've identified at this department specifically since you started working with them? Well, certainly this department um looking back historically was one of one of the early adopters of of the work that I do uh and the dialogueled model. Uh when you adopt that, it is a rocky road. It's not a straightforward uh innovation. Um and I think that that leading edge development very early on has positioned the the uh the bureau very well to move to the next level. And I think that the funding from the DOJ and bringing me here has given us an opportunity to really take this forward and uh embrace that early adopter framework uh take it forward and and really push on to make sure that uh we can build on those early foundations and empower this dialogue and facilitation approach. Uh can you give us some examples of this evidence or one of these evidence-based strategies? But claim you have an event with a high risk of escalation. Yeah. Um what kind of tactics or strategies would you recommend police bureaus uh approach that type of situation? Well, as as I've already mentioned, I I think the main issue here is making sure that we don't let the fear of negative behavior overwhelm our obligations and responsibility to facilitate the positive. And that that that's a key issue. It might sound trit but it's actually a key issue in terms of understanding the strategic priorities for that organization. The sec second thing is to empower as much as you possibly can that dialogue capability and that dialogue capability is not just about engagement with the protest crowd. It's about engagement with the protest community over time, building trust and confidence and working beforehand uh with the protest community to try to uh manage out any potential underlying tensions and ensure that the fear of disorder doesn't uh create the disorder in its own right by creating a potential for overreaction. So again, I think the heart of this uh is a a model of dialogueled policing. Now, this isn't just a theory. We work with police forces all over the world to deliver effective solutions. And much of the work that I do is actually in a European context where we deal with uh high levels of uh threat and risk in the context of soccer soccer crowds and soccer competitions. And we have multiple examples of where we've applied this approach in a way that has managed to um allow us to get through these very high-risk events without any confrontation whatsoever. And we must bear in mind that high risk does not mean that violence is actually going to occur. And we have to understand the ways in which the dynamics through which that violence occurs often involves police overreaction. And what we need to make sure is that we are driving forward with a properly evidence-led approach that draws information out through engagement with the community to ensure that we build legitimacy with that community and create an environment for self-regulation. Some of these groups do have some anti- police sentiment potentially. How do you handle situations like that? What is the advice when there's things being yelled that are anti police sentiment? What has happened in the past that you'd like to correct? Well, I think the wonderful thing about the First Amendment is that it's content neutral. It doesn't matter what people say. Everybody has a right to hold whatever view it is that they they want to to hold. And in many ways, they have the right to express that view as well. I mean in many ways uh police hostility or hostility towards the police is often embedded in in a historical antagonism that that um carries itself forward and we need to understand that some people do have anti- police attitudes um perfectly their right to hold those attitudes but we need to uh work with the community to help the community to understand that there's no validity in that point of view and and that's the key issue here. It's about the extent to which those those views don't represent what the police are here to do. They're here to facilitate first amendment rights. We just need to make sure that we have a police force that's committed to delivering their service with that as a priority. And I'm sure that through a dialogue and facilitation approach, we will be in an environment where people have the right to express those points of view and it doesn't lead to a circumstance where it unnecessarily flows into violence, criminality and confrontation. So I guess my question then is when that is happening, when there's anti- police rants or things like that going on, what are you advising the people who are standing on the opposite side to do to say to act? Well, I I think your question is is it it needs a little bit more clarity because as I say, everybody's got the right to express a point of view. If what you're talking about is does that point of view then turn into criminality? Well, clearly the police need to respond to criminality. And provided that that response to criminality is is targeted at criminality and doesn't get into a situation where the police response is indiscriminate and starts to draw people into um confrontation with the police unnecessarily. Uh we should be able to deal with any circumstance where somebody starts to try to disrupt uh other protesters first amendment rights unnecessarily and the police can respond with proportionality. The the difficulty is is how do we create a policing response that has proportionality within it? And again, all of the research and evidence shows us that if we have a dialogueled, information-led, engagement focused uh policing approach, we can deal with circumstances where criminality emerges in a much more targeted way. We can avoid uh the indiscriminate use of force. That is a dynamic that unfortunately uh tends to compromise people's rights and draw people uh unnecessarily into confrontation because they feel uh concerned that their rights are being confronted unnecessarily. Um how do you process the difference between a group and certain individuals in the crowd as many of us should have seen? It's not the crowd that's the problem, it's the individual. How do you train for the individual as opposed to the crowd? Well, it it's more it's more about having the capability to generate accurate real time what we call dynamic risk assessments. Uh and the ability to do that is improved through police capability to uh engage through dialogue because through that process they're in a position to work with the community to identify um circumstances where people who've come along to these protests to disrupt them are much more easily identified and uh uh and targeted. And indeed what we tend to find is that where the policing response is like that uh the police don't need to respond because the community do it themselves. They recognize that these forms of behavior are disruptive. They like the police don't want to have their demonstration and their first amendment rights uh of peaceful assembly disrupted and they tend to work with the police uh to undermine those who are seeking to disrupt that that that harmony. Um I'm curious when you look at the protesting landscape across the country right now. Yeah. Curious how that compares uh 2020 and 2016 we saw similar like widespread protest. How what's what's unique about this moment you're seeing right now? Well, I I I think we're in 2025 and that's what's unique about it. I mean, we're in a very very different environment now to 2020. We've got a a new new administration, a new political agenda. I think what we're going to see is is is a new kind of form of protest start to emerge, different sets of issues. People are not protesting now about what they were protesting about in 2020. Of course, the 2020 uh protests were uh were were triggered by a very very unfortunate incident that related to the murder of George Floyd. And we uh ended up in a circumstance where um a series of of of really violent uh confrontations emerged um in this city and other places. But we should never lose sight of the fact that actually when we look at the 2020 protests in detail um they were overwhelmingly peaceful. That of the 2,400 protests that occurred in the US um only around about 7% of those became violent. So we should never lose sight of the fact that those 2020 20 protests were not not in the majority violent. They're actually the 2020 movement was overwhelmingly peaceful. Come back over here. There's been a couple protests this year already and in the Portland area already. Um, and those have been majority majority peaceful and smaller. Um, do we have any expectations about the size of what's going to happen tomorrow or anything like that? And then also do you think that the subject matter uh of their this protest is maybe creating more of a peaceful atmosphere in general? No, I I'm unfortunately um I'm I'm a British national. I don't have too much background information on the nature of uh contemporary protest in Portland at the moment. So that's not something can talk about that. I'm not in a position to really really talk through that issue in in any detail. Um but you know I think where we are at the moment is in the early stages of a series of protests that are going to be evolving over several coming years uh that are bringing together a whole series of separate concerns into a potentially unified movement that could become quite significant in American society. So I think that handling the protests now in the right way is going to be really really important in terms of building a foundational collaborative relationship in terms of uh how these protests move forward. Craig, can you address the just for our expectations for tomorrow? We expect at least a couple several hundred uh maybe a thousand 2,000. Uh again there's you know as we have assessed it we're not concerned about it. We think it's going to be very peaceful and a a great day for people to be outside, get their steps in, and be able to uh enjoy the weather. Is there any specifics that give you those expectations where you think you're that's making you optimistic? Is there any specifics that you come to that decision? So, for each event, we go through a an assessment uh as the professor was saying, a risk assessment uh that we're evaluating what what is it that that what's the cause? Where are the people coming from? Are we getting any indicators from outside or inside the groups that are going to be there for other purposes other than to simply share their first amendment rights? Uh and we use also we we reach out to all the groups that we can to to um communicate with them to to develop a relationship with them when we can. Again, with this dialogue, that's that's where we're trying to go. We've had several of the groups that we will have tomorrow, we've reached out to and and they have responded very well with us and and conversed with us and explained where they're going and what what their plan is for the day, which then lessens that concern of the unknown when when there's a a gap or a a um vacuum of information that that always adds concern. But for the most part, most of the groups have all reached out to us and indicated what their intents and plans are, and so we're not concerned. Joel, uh, my question is also for you, assistant chief, Dawson. Um, so you talked a lot about the training and, um, the communication with organizers. Are you guys doing anything to staff up or to, you know, are there going to be barricades? Like what are some of the operational things that we can expect? So, I think largely you'll see the same uh, in most cases in each event that we look at, we uh, make that assessment and then determine what our resources are. Um, again, we're not anticipating any trouble. We will have resources on hand to be able to again engage the crowd with our dialogue officers to help facilitate that. My biggest concern is someone either tripping and falling over and hurting themselves and being able to get medical attention to them. Uh, that that's my biggest concern with with the groups that we have coming tomorrow. Describe the perfect outcome for you tomorrow. Yeah. Um, tomorrow that they have an event. they uh are supposed to go for a walk and that they are able to get their steps in and that they then come down and and go shopping and there's no need for the police to be there other than ask qu or answer questions for them. Last question, Christine. Yeah. What are some of the risk factors that you have individually and is the weather one of them? Give that to me one more time. Warm weather. So, so yeah, I don't think we're at Weather is always a concern. Um, tomorrow is supposed to be mild and and warm. I don't see that being a concern for us. Um, but we always take the weather into consideration of that. U, we will within our incident command post, we have fire with us so that if we do have a medical emergency or some kind of heat related event, we have medical um, there on site and we can directly get them in into where they need to go. What are the risk factors that you have looked at? uh we look at at the factors of risk to the police, risk to the public, risk to the the actual event itself. Are we going to see any is there any indicators that we're going to see disruption of any kind? Uh is there any kind of disorder that's planned? And none of those are are out there right now. All right. Since it's a sunny Friday, two more and that is it and we're going. Thank you. Um, so my question is for either day or or Dawson, but we've seen a lot of what you guys have done to kind of deescalate and to work on um these public order events, but I know when things get out of hand, it's usually a mutual aid response. Are you guys translating that to your partners with OSP and your other partners? How does that work? Sure. So just an example um uh over the last three days we've had a workshop where we invited all of our regional partners in uh to to talk and we've had great dialogue and discussions with uh professor Scott so that we're all on the same page so that we all understand kind of where we're trying to go with this and it was a very engaging conversation where I don't think anybody left doubting that this is not the direction we want to go. Um, and so that's that's where that that importance of having conversations and making sure we're we're reaching out on a regular basis and having these conversations with our our other teams and other folks I think is super important so that we are all on the same page. Last question. Yeah. So yesterday I checked in with Portland Transportation and they said that permit hadn't been filed uh for marching in the street and I I also checked with you and you said you're encouraging them to do so. Um, and from everything I can gather, they're planning like a two-mile march tomorrow. Um, how is PB planning to handle that? If they do move into the street, uh, and there is some sort of traffic disruption, is it going to be pretty much hands off? Is there any kind of plan in place for that? Uh, and have they actually I reach out to people that they haven't confirmed whether they have reached out for a street? So, we work closely with our partners and Peabot's one of those that we work with. We always encourage anybody that is going to have a demonstration to to get a permit because that allows us to be able to um identify what their routes are, the numbers that they're expecting, and also for us to better plan for what those routes are. It gives us the opportunity to reach out and talk. If their their route is on a route that maybe is more busy traffic-wise, uh we might be able to reroute that so that we can have less impact on on the the rest of the public. Um, in cases like tomorrow, we will do our best to ensure that everyone is safe uh and be monitoring that to see if if there is a need for us to do traffic control or because of it being Saturday and not a lot of folks downtown that that it's a it can do it on its own. Thank you. I must say in my 18 or 19 months here on the job, I don't think I've been at a news conference where Chief Day wasn't called up and asked question after question. But that that really is a testament to who uh professor Scott is and and really ultimately um you know our commitment to be a learning organization and uh you know he really is a fascinating individual and next trip down we intend to do a podcast with him where we can go even uh deeper into his work and his studies. So uh be on the lookout for that. Uh you heard Assistant Chief Dobson mention the workshops that happened earlier this week. Uh we actually had one of our photographers shoot some B-roll of that. uh and I'll be providing that uh to the news desks as soon as I get back upstairs. You can sprinkle that into your coverage and uh we'd appreciate you kind of showing some of that. And then lastly, yes, as far as tomorrow goes, uh the comm's team will be uh monitoring the situation along with command staff and so obviously uh encourage our newsrooms to keep an eye on flash and on social media and we'll keep you up to date uh if necessary. Uh with that, thank you for coming and have a great weekend. [Music]