Dan Hoffman: 0:11

Hi, and welcome to another edition of the Rouse Review. I'm your city manager, Dan Hoffman, and with me is Sarah Fry, the public information officer. Hello, Sarah.

Sarah Frey: 0:19

Hello, Dan. Hello, everybody.

Dan Hoffman: 0:21

Welcome back. This is our first one of the new year, right?

Sarah Frey: 0:24

Woo hoo. I know,

Dan Hoffman: 0:25

we're back. Uh, it is freezing cold outside.

Sarah Frey: 0:30

So icy, so chilly. So icy.

Dan Hoffman: 0:32

Um, and yeah, that makes it a little hard to clear your sidewalks. That snow gets compressed, makes a nice kind of ice layer. Icy crust on the sidewalk, but you know what you got to do? You got to clear that. You got to clear away the sidewalk. It's your responsibility folks.

Sarah Frey: 0:48

Don't forget kids.

Dan Hoffman: 0:50

Kids. They got to walk to school. Oh my goodness. Dogs. Uh, and I mean, I've, I saw somebody the other day walking down the middle of the street with the, um, you know, seeing eye cane that folks with visual impairments have to use. Walking down the street. I was like, dude, that sucks. All right. You can't, can I say sucks on this podcast?

Sarah Frey: 1:10

I mean, I think we make up the rules.

Dan Hoffman: 1:11

Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to stick with it. Cause it does, it stinks. It stinks real bad. If you, if you've got to walk down a sidewalk that is, uh, crusted with ice and impassable, and we do have expanded walk zones in the city. Don't forget folks. Uh, and. You know, WPS opened a couple hours late this, uh, this past week to, you know, let things warm up a little bit. But guess what? It doesn't matter when the high is 15 degrees. So get out there, clear it up. You got no excuses. If you are elderly, if you are disabled, got some mobility issues, Snowbusters will help you out. Over 200

Sarah Frey: 1:53

people have signed up. You could be too.

Dan Hoffman: 1:54

You could be too. You can also help volunteer, by the way. Yes, please. That would also be fantastic. Um, but hey, it is actually a misdemeanor to not clear it up. We go out and we warn you. Um, and we've been doing a lot of that. We did a lot of that last week. I think some folks might have even gotten a citation after the warning, uh, and it's not just residents. We really actually focus on the commercial businesses in high pedestrian traffic areas Uh, so if you, you know, we go out to the shopping centers, all those businesses are also supposed to clear their sidewalk. So, um, we, we drive around, we check them out. And, you know, in some cases, these businesses might have a corner and, you know, 100 yards of, of sidewalk. Guess what? It is everyone's responsibility to clear the sidewalk, even businesses. So, um, so think about your neighbors. Think about the kids walking to school. Think about the folks who maybe have some mobility issues that need to want to use the sidewalk and get outside and clear sidewalk form. That would be fantastic. Um, so yeah, it's super cold outside, but what has been a warm in my heart so far is the warm reception that our new police chief Ronnie Lewis has gotten so far. You folks might have noticed that we, uh, we, we picked the new chief. I mean, technically I did, but I will say this really was a, a, a team effort. Um, we had great candidates. I think Winchester, uh, can be. it, it draws a deep pool of candidates. Uh, and we got feedback from the community, feedback from the city council, uh, feedback from a lot of community stakeholders, uh, that the police chief will have to work with on a regular basis. And ultimately, uh, you know, I went with a guy that, Really kind of rose, uh, to the top of the list, um, based on the feedback I heard from the community, the staff, my police officers. I mean, that was one, I would say that's actually my biggest single source of feedback and input on in this process was my police off the chief's police officers. Uh, so we're, we're super excited so far, you know, I've been watching some of the response, not that I read the comment section people. Um, I've been really, uh, really happy to see people's reactions. folks, how they've responded. And, you know, if, if he is successful, we are all successful. So, uh, let's, let's do what we can to welcome chief Lewis. You'll see him around. He will actually be stopping by the, I think the plan is he's going to stop by the council meeting tomorrow night. So, uh, welcome chief Lewis. Uh, the other thing just to, to point out before I talk about the council meeting tomorrow night. Uh, we are now, I don't want to say we're neck deep in budget season, but we're probably like knee deep, getting up close to hip deep in, in budget season. Uh, I now know what, you know, the revenue picture looks like for the most part. Uh, reassessments have come in, folks are getting their letters. Just a quick clarification about those letters. Uh, yeah, They're just telling you how much your home, the assessed value of your home is. The city council and I do not determine how much your home is worth. A real estate professional does that. And it's based on, you know, a lot of factors. It's also normally lower than market. Like if you look at your assessed value of your property, um, it's definitely almost always lower than what you would actually sell it for. So, if you do feel like the, uh, reassessment is off, maybe it's more than you think your house is worth, or you don't think your house is, or home is worth that much, then, um, you can appeal that. There's the Board of Equalization.

Sarah Frey: 5:58

And there's also an informal appraisal appeal,

Dan Hoffman: 6:01

informal appraisal period. If you just want to check, they'll tell you how they got to that equation. But I can tell you even in years when it's gone up a lot, I don't know, it was a two years ago that I think we were up like 30%. It was crazy. Um, you know, this, we're this year we're up, uh, or for the past two years, I should say we're up, I think 13 and a half percent roughly. And, And, like I said, this is over two years. Your house did not go up 13. 5 percent in value this past year. Over the past two years, that's how much it's gone up. Uh, but even in years when it really, you know, property values went up a lot, they, um, you know, we only get a handful of folks that appeal. Because the, the number, and very rarely, you know, I'm not trying to discourage anybody from doing it, but very rarely is it adjusted just because the assessed value is always, almost always lower than the market value. So, that's um, but that is an, an avenue that you have. And,

Sarah Frey: 7:03

if you choose to appeal, they, the letters went out a little late. There was some Delays with the postal service because of the weather. Yeah, so Those appeal deadlines have been extended The informal appeal has been extended to february 7th and the board of equalization appeal has been extended to march 7th

Dan Hoffman: 7:20

Yep, the board of equalization for those of you do not do who do not know because that sounds it's a weird That's a weird title for that board to have it is a citizen board These are residents, uh, that do it. It's not me. It is not, you know, the appraiser. It's not my finance department. It is just, you know, your, your neighbor will help determine whether or not the, the, the value is off. So we don't. Control that, you know, the market, the macro economic picture of the state of Virginia is really what, what guides, you know, your home values, interest rates have more impact on your home value than than the city council does. So, That is, that's just something to keep in mind. What the city council does have, really, total control over, is what your tax rate is. This year, because of the increase, council will have to wrestle with a, um, the difference between the revenue neutral rate, which means we receive no new taxes, Funds other than organic growth and the current rate, which is 83 cents council. When council dropped the rate, 10 cents, uh, two years ago when property values went up, uh, it still resulted in a, a net increase that folks paid, but they adjusted the rate to mitigate it. Uh, this year they're, they're going to have to wrestle with the same thing. Uh, it's the difference between 83 cents and 73 cents, which is what we estimate. The revenue neutral rate to be, uh, council's already started giving me some direction as to where to focus. Uh, I, I know I'm going to be asking for new positions this year. Uh, almost all of them. In fact, I think, yeah, pretty much all of them are public safety positions, uh, firefighters, police officers. Uh, we have some social workers, uh, coming in. We've also been able to find some, some new revenue to offset that. some federal funds. Oftentimes folks ask like, well, we just got to go get a grant for that. Folks. There's, there's not like a money, a hidden money tree out there. Uh, you know, when, when they talk about school construction, that there's no. There's not some type of federal or state school construction thing we tap into. We all, we have to pay for it. And the reason why they don't do that is because everyone would do it. Uh, every jurisdiction in the commonwealth would say, Well, we're not going to pay for it. pay for it. We're just going to ask the state to pay for it. Well, I'm here to tell you, the state don't like to pay for a lot of stuff at the local level sometimes. And that those, those sources of money just don't exist. But we do actively look. One of the great examples that folks will see in this budget is our social services budget, where our director Amber has, uh, she's, she's trimmed her budget. She's found new revenue, not city, local, not local property tax revenue. Uh, and she's, she's been able to craft a budget that is, uh, flat and still add capacity. We try to do that in every department, but of course it's not always possible. Uh, so those conversations have started. I would say we're, yeah, knee deep, knee deep in the budget right now. Um, committee meetings. So the city council has a handful of committees. During the course of this February, uh, you'll have a chance to go to the finance committee meeting, hear about a lot of the internal administrative budgets, go to the PED committee, uh, learn about, you know, the planning department budget, uh, parks budget, uh, some other things that are related to infrastructure and economic development, the EDA budget, um, and public health and safety. That's gonna be, that's always a big one. Those are expensive departments, critical of course, but they are expensive departments. So, um, if you're interested and you want to engage early in the budget process, attend the committee meetings. They're all online. You can go check them out. You can watch the video too. They're all broadcast if you just want to watch from the comfort of your own home, nice and warm. Uh, you can check those out. We'll start having full conversations with council, uh, really at the beginning, towards the beginning of March.

Sarah Frey: 11:39

And if you have questions about the budget, the budget process mm-hmm Anything like that on the budget page of the website, which it's, there's a button right on the homepage that says budget and finances. Mm-hmm Click that you can ask a question about the budget.

Dan Hoffman: 11:54

Yeah.

Sarah Frey: 11:55

And Dan and I might just be answering those questions on a according podcast. That's

Dan Hoffman: 12:00

right. We're gonna do a mailbag. I, I totally forgot about our mailbag issue. I'm

Sarah Frey: 12:03

just gonna

Dan Hoffman: 12:04

promote it while I can. Yeah, yeah. We're gonna do a mailbag edition about the budget, so, um, go to the website. You know, do the, do the thing, Sarah, we'll get the questions and we'll go through, we're not going to go through every single one. We're going to go through the most commonly asked, asked ones. Um, and you know, as you're submitting your questions, you know, it's best to not make them too specific. You can get as specific as you want. Like, why do you need a new trash truck? Well, I'm happy to answer that question, of course. Uh, but if it's, why does, you know, Frank, why is Frank get paid so much? I'm not going to get into. The salaries of individual employees or, or whatnot. But now if you've got some, or if you want to, it's a question about maybe how, you know, the personal property tax rate works. Uh, the commissioner of revenue is making some, you know, propose some changes there that she's going to be implementing this, uh, this season. So, you know, these are all great things that. You know, you can submit your questions for, we'll go through each and every one of them. Just this past Saturday, we had a budget workshop, um, here at city hall that our CFO Mary Blow and the finance director Celeste Broadstreet did to answer questions. So plenty of chances to engage. There will be a lot, we counted last year, there were 12 public meetings about the budget.

Sarah Frey: 13:27

That's all?

Dan Hoffman: 13:28

It felt

Sarah Frey: 13:28

like more.

Dan Hoffman: 13:29

So, come end of May. If anyone says, we haven't had a chance, you did. You did. You had a chance. Many chances. Many chances. A lot of chances. And it might not feel this way sometimes because we can't say yes to everyone, but we do listen. Every single one of them. And in fact, I'm even down to the people that show up, the woman at the last council meeting that showed up, um, who wanted us to use pet friendly salt on the walking mall. I'm looking to see how much that costs. That was actually a great idea. It came up in public comment. People use the walk in wall all the time for their dog. So, of course, the Pet Friendly Salt costs like Significantly more. Significantly more, but hey, maybe it's not so much that we couldn't make it work. Uh, it would be a great amenity for the walking mall. People use their, like I said, people use it for their dogs all the time. So we do listen, you know, I'm not saying that's gonna happen with the salt. Um, but we look at it and we try to do it. But just because we don't tell you yes, or don't tell you the answer you want to hear, it does not mean that we're not listening. Um, there's a lot of competing priorities, and, you know, the, the park program that you may not feel is important is very important to somebody else. You might not ride when ready. Trust me, a lot of people, thousands of people rely on it every day to get to work, uh, to get to school, To get to a doctor's office to get to the grocery store. So we can't accommodate everyone, of course, and I'm very confident council will cut the rate just like they did two years ago. Um, but, you know, we also have to look at the realities of, you know, fuel costs going up. You know, although inflation has slowed significantly, you know, we still had about 3 percent inflation last year and that hits us particularly hard because of the amount of fuel we use for things because of, uh, the building materials that we need, uh, the chemicals we use at the pool, all of those things, you know, parts for the equipment that we use over in city yards, all of that stuff is astronomically expensive these days. Uh, so we're, we're not immune. to those kinds of pressures. So, uh, some degree of increase, you know, it's, it's needed if we're not going to cut services or people. And my, my first priority is to avoid. Uh, eliminating positions if we do when we have to in the lab, people, people have already forgotten that in the last budget, uh, we did actually cut four positions to, to make room for other priorities. So. It's my, it's the last resort, um, because, you know, again, whether you think a person's position is important or not, uh, there's not one single person that works for the city of Winchester who doesn't provide a significant amount of value from the senior staff folks to the guy in the back of the trash truck. To the, the, the wind ready driver, all of those people serve the city, serve the residents of Winchester, and they add a lot of value. Uh, and in some, some cases we can't do without these folks, right? So, keep that in mind as, as we go through this process, uh, keep an open mind. You know, a lot of times it's easy to get sucked into, to rhetoric, but, and of course no one likes taxes. I, I, I mean. What? Exactly. I love writing my

Sarah Frey: 17:12

tax check every year. Yeah,

Dan Hoffman: 17:13

exactly. It's, it is, you know, there was a time when folks, uh, considered it patriotic to pay your taxes, but I think that's, uh, that was a different generation. So, um, Get engaged, be involved through the budget process. Um, and as a reminder, I do not set the rate. The city council's going to be wrestling with this. Um, they will go through the budget line by line. Um, they, they will have the ability to, you know, make, make cuts if they wish to make cuts. So, uh, I can't force them to approve anything. And, uh, I think after the retreat last week. I think we've got, you know, folks. Really looking in the, in a productive direction, uh, with the budget. So, uh, it was a great conversation last week. Uh, council did give me some guidance. That's the most important thing for me. That was the most important thing to come out of the retreat last week. For those of you who are curious what happened at the retreat last week or didn't even know we had a retreat last week. Um, the most important thing to come out of it was council's decision to give me at least a band. A tax rate band in which I could work with. It was a little more defined. It'll help with our budget process, of course but That was I mean to me that's that the headline so far is that councils engaged councils giving me direction earlier in the earlier in the year than in past years, which I love and Yeah, I think The, the economy of Winchester is actually thriving at the retreat also, the, um, you know, we had some great speakers, one of them was, uh, I don't want to, I don't want to speak for him, so I'm not going to name who it is, but, uh, on the chamber board, on the SU board of trustees, you know, a real, and somebody that's in the finance industry who knows his stuff, um, will openly, we're thriving. Like, the economy in Winchester is thriving. You know, we, we, the meals tax increase of last year did not decrease anything. We still shown, we still see growth, uh, in meals receipts after last year. Home values, like we talked about, are up. And unemployment is very, very low. So, and wages are also up. So our economy here in Winchester is, is quite solid. And you know, when you're successful things, you know, price goes up. We're a more attractive place to live. People want to be here. That drives up home values. So it's, if you want a place that is so desirable as desirable as Winchester, it means keeping up with, with your bills. Uh, we'll work that through that over the next several months. And I encourage you to hop on the website and submit a question.

Sarah Frey: 20:12

Please, we love answering questions. Absolutely.

Dan Hoffman: 20:15

Um, now, the, let's talk about tomorrow night council meeting. Uh, there, not a ton of things on the agenda. They're going to wrap up, I believe, council's going to wrap up the um, public comment discussion that they've been having. Uh, the city is moving forward on acquiring some property, more property. Info on that at a, at a later date, we've got some, some plans in the works that I think you're going to be, um, I think folks will really be excited about. And, um, yeah, other than that, it's really not too much on the, on the agenda. A couple of little odds and ends that we're taking care of. Um, a couple of second readings from the last meeting, but I think, I think it should be a fairly reasonable agenda tomorrow night. Um, so come on out, take advantage of public comment, uh, or watch at home. Either way. We hope you tune in. And that's it. We'll take a quick break. We are, uh, we're going to play something that we previously recorded.

Sarah Frey: 21:16

Yes.

Dan Hoffman: 21:17

Yeah. We're gonna do a previously recorded segment, uh, that we didn't air before. It's actually about the, the CID, the Criminal Criminal Investigations division over at pd. We're gonna talk to, um, Chaz Niang from the police department. Um, it was recorded previously before I had before we announced that we had a new chief. Uh, so it might sound a little weird. Um, but, uh, we're gonna air that for you in just a second. Uh, get around. All right. Welcome back, Sergeant Chaz Niang. That's correct. Yeah. All right. I, I've worked in that for four years. Plus you were in our emerging leaders Academy. So I got the chance to say it all the time. Um, by the way, what, what is the origin of that name? So that's West

Chaz Niang: 22:04

African,

Dan Hoffman: 22:05

West African. Yeah,

Chaz Niang: 22:06

that's my, uh, I took my stepfather's last name. Um, and, uh, doesn't usually fit my face, um, but it's very rememberable.

Dan Hoffman: 22:15

And it's not too hard to pronounce. I mean, it's, there's obviously a couple of ways to do it. If you don't know how to pronounce it, you could say neon or something like that, right? Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Hey, and we're not just talking to him about his name. Uh, we are talking to him because he is the sergeant of Winchester, uh, at Winchester police department in the criminal investigations division. Uh, and we're going to be talking about, uh, how that works, but Chaz, first off, introduce yourself. It's your first time, uh, doing this with us. So how long have you been with the department? How long was CID? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You know, why law enforcement that stuff?

Chaz Niang: 22:51

Yeah. So, uh, I joined the Winchester police department in 2015 And i've had a wide variety in terms of jobs. I've fulfilled for the city Um while working with the police department, um, I started off as an animal control officer and I did that for two and a half Years. Yep. So, uh, believe it or not. It was actually highly competitive I think there was like over 90 people applying for that one job really at the time. Yeah, so, um, very very competitive Um got in super happy to do that. Um, you know had a little bit of background. Um In college working with animals so it kind of naturally fit.

23:22

Okay,

Chaz Niang: 23:23

and then I love the the Law enforcement aspect of keeping them safe, you know being an advocate for a creature that can't advocate for itself Absolutely. Um, and then that just continued. Um, luckily our city loves our animal control officers. Um, and uh the SPCA, um, all of our local not for profits that work with us. Um, it was a very easy transition from going from the animal control space to the community response space. Okay. So I was on the community response team for about two years before becoming sergeant. Um, and those same people that I knew in the community continue to help me with, uh, my jobs and roles that I had in those aspects. Yeah. So super, um, super fun start to the career.

24:03

Yeah.

Chaz Niang: 24:04

From there I get promoted to sergeant, um, and I take over, um, second shift. Um, so I've been doing that for about five years now. Um, and then from shift to shift, you know, I've done second shift, day shift, um, and then naturally was, um, assigned to, uh, the criminal investigation division, which has been a completely different aspect of, of law enforcement. Um, you truly have to use your mind. right? Like, you know, before it's, you know, you're running hot calls, you're going pretty quick pace. Um, so now you have to stop and pause, take that breath and really consider, um, how this happened, right? You know, you're unfolding a story now. Um, and oftentimes you have to lay it out for the community to understand that you have to lay it out for the Commonwealth attorneys to understand what's what's taking place. Um, so I've, I've I've really gotten to use my, um, my college background and my education, um, in this role. So it's very fun.

Dan Hoffman: 24:57

Yeah. These days folks, uh, you know, one of my favorite shows is the first 48, of course, old episodes of forensic files and less relevant old episodes of unsolved mysteries. You know, it's one of those, Aspects that of local government that people get fascinated with now. We don't have, uh, enough murders or really any writers, uh, to do a first 48 style show, but the same kinds of techniques and principles apply, you know, Yes, homicide investigations are, you know, a bit of their own animal, but an investigation is an investigation. You've got suspects, you've got motives, you've got probably all the rules of the investigation are generally similar. And we have a pretty active, uh, group over at CID. How big is, how big is CID?

Chaz Niang: 25:46

What's it consistent? Absolutely. So we're in the rebuild phase. We have two new detectives that have been assigned to us. So, um, we are getting them, uh, Um, so there's going to be six of us total to include myself and a lieutenant that oversees all of the investigations that includes the drug task force and, um, the general investigations for me personally, um, with the general investigations, we're covering special victims. Um, so, so, uh, crimes against children, internet crimes against children, um, in addition to that, violent crimes. So like you said, we don't have, uh, It's not too big of a problem when it comes to violent crimes, but we do see our fair share. Um, and the great thing is they're all work the same, right? You know, it's, it's consistency, it's organization, um, from start to finish so that you can show that, like I said before, unfold how this happened. Um, the, the biggest, uh, thing that I think we see here in the city is fraud. Really? Yeah. Tons of fraud cases. Well,

Dan Hoffman: 26:44

define, define that though. Like, what is, um, cause when people hear fraud, they're like, Oh, it's, you know. Con

Sarah Frey (2): 26:50

artists. Exactly.

Dan Hoffman: 26:51

Some guy doing a,

Sarah Frey (2): 26:53

the monorail dance. The

Chaz Niang: 26:54

monorail. Yeah. I think the, the biggest thing, um, is the email scams. So, uh, you know, you're answering these random emails, you're answering random texts. Um, people think they're real because the email looks real. Maybe it does look like, um, you know, uh, something that they typically use, you know, an app that they typically use, but it will be off by one letter or it'll have a decimal where it shouldn't. Right. So the answer that unfortunately their personal information will get out and then they become victim of fraud. Um, and then with digital currency, those are some of the more intricate cases, um, because it's so easy now.

Dan Hoffman: 27:28

So how do we, in those settings, you know, a lot of folks might think, well, If somebody, you know, pulled a scam on me online, they think, well, I'm just going to call my credit card company and they're going to take care of it. Or if somebody did get access to their bank account, they might think that that's someone else's job. They, they might not think call the police department. And report it. They might think they've got some recourse through their bank or Oh, i'm gonna sue the person or like no, there's a crime that's been committed So absolutely what should folks know about the types of crimes? You know these these frauds that they should be calling the police department. How would they go because they you know You don't necessarily want a 9 1 1 call about it,

Chaz Niang: 28:11

right? Yeah. So we do have our non emergency number And uh, that would be the the main route that I would suggest Um, the banks are usually really good partners with us as well So we have you know, uh, good good relationship with all of our local banks um in terms of um Reporting with both parties not only reporting with your bank, but also reporting with law enforcement And what that does is it gives us information, you know, we we can understand the trends on how this is being committed Um bitcoin has been insane in terms of how easy it is to transfer money back and forth Um, so that has been a technique that we've had to learn on, uh, how, how vast and how quick the money can go from an account to an account, um, and trying to keep pace with that to, to one, recover and make our victim whole, um, and also hold these people accountable. Yeah. Um, yeah. So, that was one of the best cases I've ever had was I was able to get a person's entire retirement account back before it hit. Wow. Before it hit. Yeah, um, before it hit the uh, the scammers. The scammers. Yeah, so you know, you were talking about a person that had worked their whole life to accumulate this money. And, I mean, we're talking. Yeah, six figures. That's a lot of money to recover their life savings. Yeah. So those, uh, when you get those small wins, it feels great. You know, it feels

Dan Hoffman: 29:24

great. Now, a lot of the, excuse me, a lot of these scammers are, you know, they're not local, you know, they're not, uh, it's not somebody sitting over on a bus Cowan in the, you

Chaz Niang: 29:34

know, it's that is not the trend. So how

Dan Hoffman: 29:38

do we, how do we get, um, Like, who are our partners? I assume we reach out to the state and the fusion center, FBI. Yeah, absolutely. What are the next steps? Because oftentimes, you know, I'm not aware of any times you've flown over to, you know, Russia. You didn't know about that credit card account for my air ticket? You know, I've broken up any, you know, fraud rings over in Russia or anything, but how do, how do we then get the people themselves or can we really only just get the money back?

Chaz Niang: 30:08

Right. So, um, when it comes to overseas scams, that's very difficult for a local law enforcement agency to, to hold that person accountable. Um, what we try to do is we try to seize the accounts cause that's where we're going to hit these bad guys is in the pocket, right? So if we're able to seize these counts or, or eliminate their ability to access the, those funds. Um, big win for us. Um, we do have, uh, detectives that have liaison work with the FBI, um, with the Secret Service. Um, so we we look for those, uh, federal partners to really assist us when it comes to that information.

Dan Hoffman: 30:43

Interesting. So there's a couple of different groups within CID. There's general investigations and then there's special investigations. Talk about the difference between those two.

Chaz Niang: 30:52

Yes. So our general investigation, um, uh, consists of four detectives. Um, those four detectives will handle, um, anything between a violent crime against a person, um, financial crimes, and then, Every once in a while, they may get sprinkled in, um, crimes against children or, uh, sexual assault case, um, very rarely. And the reason being is, um, that is a very special school that we send our special investigators to. Um, one, interviewing children is very difficult, right? So that's not, um, That is not an easy thing for just a regular detective to handle. So we send our special victims detectives, um, to schools so that they can learn how to one, let's see the trends on how this is, this is taking place, especially our internet crimes against children. Um, we're doing great work there, um, this year. I mean, we have, uh, Increased our capabilities. Um, thanks to one of our detectives, uh, really diving into the, um, education he needed, um, to be able to solve these crimes. Um, so we are really hitting the ground running this year. Um, uh, going after that for our special, uh, our special victims, detectives, um, you know, they'll handle anything between, uh, a violent sexual assault, um, and, uh, threats. Um, you know, sometimes our victims, maybe there hasn't been an actual assault that's taken place, but you experienced stalking. Um, so they'll, they'll, they'll handle those. Um, and then anything involving children, they, they cover that, that realm.

Dan Hoffman: 32:23

Yeah. So you talked a little about how you got into CID. What, what is, A typical path. So is it it's competitive? Is there a certain number of years you got to have under your belt? What what what does the chief look for? Yeah when they're looking for People to go into cid,

Chaz Niang: 32:41

right? So naturally, you know, you have to be a certified police officer Um, obviously and three years experience is what we're looking for. Um, that road experience is is Critical, um because that gives you an opportunity to kind of see the variety of crime that you can experience here in the city um In addition to, we're looking for that self motivated person, right? We want that individual that goes above and beyond with their cases, that they're, uh, well organized, um, uh, that when you look at their case files, and you said, hey, officer, we'd like to look at these case files that you, that you have. We want to see, uh, are there writing skills there? Um, their, their organization and also what type of community, uh, impact have they had so far in their career? Right? That's really important to me. I want to know, I want to know that they, um, have put themselves out there, that, that they're, um, they're seen in the community, they, they, uh, work with community members to solve these cases, um, because that makes a great detective. You have to have those, uh, interpersonal skills.

Dan Hoffman: 33:41

Yeah,

Chaz Niang: 33:42

absolutely. Absolutely.

Dan Hoffman: 33:43

And when I watched the first 48 or other similar shows, uh, there's always, you know, when you see the interactions between the investigative guys and then the patrol guys, it's always interesting when, when they show the patrol guys in their kind of role. And you know, to be honest with you, There's a lot of people on those shows, a lot of officers, right? Detectives in those shows. Sometimes I really scratch my head when I see that, Oh my goodness, you cannot like communicate with the community. Like you are who, like you're, you're, they're sitting down in a, in an interview room. And you're wondering like, why on earth, like, why did you use that tactic? Why did you use that technique? And granted, I'm not a detective. So maybe they. Like, you know, I'm, they're the person who, I don't want to chair quarterback anybody, but sometimes it's really confusing when you see somebody that cannot have a conversation with someone that is vastly different than them. Right? Because a lot of these folks you're dealing with everybody from, you know, the elderly to children, people that have lived here their entire lives to people that got here last week. You, you have got to be able to interact with. Everybody in the community, not just folks that you typically hang out with in your personal life. So it is a, it is always fascinating to see those kinds of interactions. So having excellent communication, obviously that's, you know, a good soft skill to have. What are some of the other thing we see in the shows are, you know, Oh, we got a fingerprint that that's good. Or, well, we, we're going to try to get some DNA. And then sometimes they, they don't, uh, you know, the DNA doesn't match and why not? And oh, they're in this database or that database. What do we, what do we use the same, uh, tools that folks see on TV? Or is that, namely a lot of, uh, Yeah. Made for television, uh,

Chaz Niang: 35:42

dramatization. That's great. I would say anything you see on, um, the acted, uh, NCIC, you know, that kind of stuff. Those have to be fake. We don't have, you know, half that stuff's not real, right? Or if it is real, it's not as fast as, um,

Dan Hoffman: 35:58

Oh,

Sarah Frey (2): 35:59

you don't get CODIS hits in like 30 seconds, right?

Dan Hoffman: 36:01

Oh my goodness. When I see someone act like, Oh my goodness, I'm just gonna. hack, hack, hack, hack, hack my way through this database. I'm like, what are you doing? No, no. The, you know, the sergeant at the local police department didn't just access like the NSA database of, you know, interpol or something like, come on guys. You're not

Sarah Frey (2): 36:21

centrifuging your own DNA samples. No.

Dan Hoffman: 36:25

Or, yes, we don't, we don't have some type of like lab tech that works in like a poorly lit, uh, uh, laboratory of some sort, you know, cracking the case like, Oh, Dexter, that's another one. Come on now. Who has, who has somebody that solely, maybe a massive city, but who has somebody that solely does blood splatter analysis? Right. It's kind of ridiculous. Okay. So you said splatter, right? Yeah. It's

Chaz Niang: 36:49

spatter.

36:51

Oh, I did not know.

Chaz Niang: 36:52

I did not know that until I was a detective. I had been staying splattered the entire time. Right. I didn't know that until right now. And then I got corrected by one of my detectives and I was like, oh, okay.

Sarah Frey: 37:00

Spatter. Spatter What? Spatter what? What's the difference between those two words?

Chaz Niang: 37:03

You know, I would, I would say I'm ignorant on that. I don't know. I know splatter I one is

Dan Hoffman: 37:09

actively thrown and the other is spatter. Ejected. Ooh. I don't know. I will Google this later. I am

Sarah Frey (2): 37:16

researching this.

Dan Hoffman: 37:18

At the end of this episode, just add a little tagline of, by the way, we looked into that. Yeah. I think

Chaz Niang: 37:25

that's, that's, uh, another skill that you, we, we, Is imperative. You're not always going to know right as a detective. And if you assume, you know, or you're trying to prove what you think, you know, it's going to lead you down the wrong path. Yeah. Right. So you, you really have to, when you don't know something, admit it and, and look for those answers rather than just assuming.

Dan Hoffman: 37:48

Do not assume. And you see that on these shows too, where it's clearly someone gets locked in and they're like, Oh, this is the guy. We, this guy had something to do with it. And then. The moment they're in the interview room and they start talking, you can tell pretty quick, like, Oh, this guy's being, he seems to be being pretty forthright. He, he's got an alibi and you know, they, they, And then of course, like 10 minutes later in the episode, they're like, Oh, well, yeah, his alibi checked out. So he's, he's free to go.

Chaz Niang: 38:15

Yep. It's like a womp womp. It's important to, to think outside the box, right? Um, but usually what's most probable is what happened. Yes. You know, what's most probable is usually what, what's taken place when it comes to the, what we see here. Yes. Um, you know, we, sometimes we do spin up a couple of theories that, you know, that'll lead us into different directions, but, um, you know, it can be difficult sometimes. Absolutely.

Dan Hoffman: 38:43

Um, so what do you, what would you use most of, of the different tools in the toolbox? What's the, what's typically your first go to, Tool in the toolbox.

Chaz Niang: 38:55

Um, so would you consider that outside of interviewing skills or just uh, um, yeah outside of soft skills Yeah,

Dan Hoffman: 39:02

like are you going if someone I guess it depends on the crime, but if you are Let's say it's a stolen vehicle

Chaz Niang: 39:11

First, uh, yeah, so we are extremely fortunate that we have a license plate reader, um, system, uh, with the city. Um, so we do have access to, um, potentially finding out at least the travel pattern. Oftentimes that travel pattern for a stolen vehicle can, can lead us to, um, um, a conclusion. Um, and I'm gonna, and I'm gonna come back to that here just a moment. Um, but, um, oftentimes once it's recovered, we're looking at fingerprint, latent DNA, right? And that DNA can be not only just blood, it can be the sweat, it can be your, you know, the, uh, touching anything. You might wipe your face and touch, uh, touch that. So we're often looking at where do most people touch a vehicle, right? The radio, steering column, um, You know, uh, the, the usual suspects, um, we're also seeing like, um, going back into some of our crimes. Uh, this summer we had a couple vehicles taken, um, do you know what item we found in most of our vehicles that led us to understand who this person was? Did they leave their cell phone in it? No. Uh, it was a specific drink. It was always the same type of Mountain Dew.

Sarah Frey (2): 40:16

Was it always Diamond 2?

Chaz Niang: 40:17

It was not. It was Code Orange. Code

Sarah Frey (2): 40:19

Orange? Not even Code Red?

Chaz Niang: 40:21

Not even Code Red. That is a

Dan Hoffman: 40:22

really niche idea. That

Sarah Frey (2): 40:23

is very niche. You should

Dan Hoffman: 40:24

probably just find out who, cause they sell like two bottles of that in the city a month. I was gonna say.

Sarah Frey (2): 40:30

How much

Dan Hoffman: 40:30

code? Where do you even get it? There's, where, yeah. 7 Eleven.

Chaz Niang: 40:35

Nears. Yeah. Nears has everything there, buddy. Yeah. So, you know, I was looking at this and I'm going, okay, what time are these, what time are these crimes taking place? Yeah. Um, we are finding code orange that does not belong to any of our victims. So we're finding these vehicles. Um, but we're, you know, we're processing, we're not getting any DNA hits. We're not getting any fingerprint even off the bottle. Nothing. So, so that is

Dan Hoffman: 40:56

another thing. That's another clue, another clue. But it's also another thing about these TV shows where they're like, Yes, we got this one skin cell off of this thing and from that we got, uh, they seem to be able to get DNA off of anything these days, but I mean, you can't, that's a lot of work for every stolen

Chaz Niang: 41:14

vehicle. We trained all of our officers to do DNA.

Sarah Frey: 41:17

Really? Every

Chaz Niang: 41:18

single one knows how to do DNA. That is cool. So every

Sarah Frey: 41:21

like patrol officer? Every

Chaz Niang: 41:22

patrol officer can fingerprint and do DNA. Wow. Yep. That was, uh, that was really important to us. Um, a lot of agencies don't do that. They'll have like one or two people that are, are, uh, that do that. Um, we wanted to have that initiative to have our officers more proficient. Um, oftentimes they're, they're, depending on the texture of what they're trying to pull a fingerprint off of, it wouldn't be viable. Um, um, but they have the skill, right? So we wanted to, that was really important to us that, that they can at least preemptively start doing some, some things.

Dan Hoffman: 41:53

Only credit, I will say it is in, especially with the new tools we have, uh, recourse system and some other stuff, it is almost impossible to steal a car in the city and get away with it.

Chaz Niang: 42:03

Right.

Dan Hoffman: 42:04

We, we, we get probably, we probably solve more stolen vehicle places. Uh. stolen vehicle cases, uh, for surrounding jurisdictions than they do.

Chaz Niang: 42:13

Absolutely. The moment

Dan Hoffman: 42:15

you drive, if that vehicle is listed as stolen and you drive into the city, we're going to know. And our patrol officers are

Chaz Niang: 42:21

great, um, at, at apprehending them. Oh, yeah. I mean, they do a phenomenal job. You know, they'll get one or two a week. I mean, didn't they get

Sarah Frey (2): 42:29

one last week?

Dan Hoffman: 42:30

Oh, every, almost every other shift summary. It seems like we're good. There's some hit on ReCore and we catch a car thief. It is. I mean, it's been really, really effective. Yeah. Great investment. Really good investment. Yeah. And initially we were just going to get it. We were just going to use that for like traffic management before, but now it's become something else. It's such a potent tool. Um, and you know, every so often, I think a lot of times some, some of the criticisms I hear these days is like, Oh, you know, police can't arrest everybody for everything they used to. It's they're too soft now. Blah, blah, blah. They need to be tougher. No, no, no. We need to be smarter. And this is us being smarter. We don't want a bunch of tough guys running around, you know,

Sarah Frey (2): 43:13

causing more problems, causing more problems

Dan Hoffman: 43:15

than they solve. We need, we need cops out there that are, uh, working. smarter, tougher. That is not, that is, uh, like that, that's the kind of thing that gets you in trouble. Now we, we, we have, I'm going to go through some examples because there's some, uh, some recent cases that I think will speak to the points we've been making. Uh, so in August, we had some arrests for child pornography, three separate investigations. Talk about the tools we used in those cases.

Chaz Niang: 43:43

Yes, absolutely. So that, that is my, um, special investigation, uh, detective. That, um, works internet crimes against children, um, when he receives tips, um, that this is occurring, he goes through a plethora of search warrants, um, him down to the exact location of where these images were either taken or where they're being produced. Um, and you know, it kind of makes your stomach drop a little bit when you think about that, right? Cause you know, we have a victim, we have a victim here that can't advocate for themselves. Um, so that detective is able to pinpoint the exact location where these are taking place. Um, he, uh, works hand in hand with our, uh, SWAT team. Um, and we apprehend these people. Yeah. Right.

Dan Hoffman: 44:22

And now we must, in the course of this, we must also work with the state. Cause again, a lot of this crosses jurisdictional boundaries, uh, and national center for missing and exploited children offers tools and things. What, what kind of technology are we using? I mean, I assume we don't just, if you, if you receive evidence or a photo of something, you know, it doesn't have a name and address on there.

Chaz Niang: 44:46

Right.

Dan Hoffman: 44:47

Uh, what kind of, how do we. So the, uh,

Chaz Niang: 44:51

the easiest way, and sometimes I don't want to say this out loud, is that, you know, we want to prevent their, their knowledge base of how we find, how we find them. Um, but, uh, typically what we're looking at is cell phones, computers, hard drives, um, all of that to, uh, for that. Most websites are mandated reporters, so when they kick those over to the National Exploited Children. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarah Frey (2): 45:15

That's

Chaz Niang: 45:16

The mandated report goes to them, it'll go to It's like Facebook. Yeah, absolutely. Facebook, all the social media platforms are mandated reporters.

45:23

I

Sarah Frey: 45:24

did not know that. I did not

Chaz Niang: 45:24

realize that. That's That's really cool. If they have an image that they know is a juvenile, they have to send that. Holy

Dan Hoffman: 45:31

crap. They have to send that to them. I thought it was, you know, the, when we think of mandated reporters, I think, you know, teachers, uh, you know, standard coaches, the

Chaz Niang: 45:38

standard stuff. So they'll, people, they'll report the image, but not the user.

Dan Hoffman: 45:44

Oh, well that's crap.

Chaz Niang: 45:45

Right. Right. So, you know, we have, it is our job to, um, figure out who the user is. Well

Dan Hoffman: 45:49

now I'm, I'm, yeah, Facebook shame on

Chaz Niang: 45:52

you.

Sarah Frey (2): 45:52

Well, not the first time we've said that. Yeah,

Dan Hoffman: 45:54

really. I, that, well, but it's, I guess that's a, It's a step in the right. It's a step. That is a step. Um, because ultimately you want to find. where that child is and get that child in a safer environment. So, uh, so that, that was one case, uh, beginning of the school year. We also investigated a bunch of online threats. So everybody, yes, I'm sure everybody here locally remembers, uh, was it maybe three, four weeks ago, something like that. There was a scam going around online. It was right after the school shooting in Georgia, uh, that prompted. Some school closures and a whole lot of confusion and fear among parents. Talk about what steps we took during that.

Chaz Niang: 46:37

Yeah, absolutely. So we have a great partnership with our school, um, administrators. Um, they contacted us right away. As soon as they were aware that it was taking place, um, they contacted one of our, um, Lieutenant's and from there it was off to the races. So that, that night, um, me personally and some of the other detectives went out, um, speaking to each one of these children that had it and with social media being able to be a fast delivery of communication, it spread so fast. Um, uh, it, it originated, um, with some of our younger kids and then it, it, it trickled into the high school, unfortunately. Um, but we were able to determine that it was a, yeah. scam account that had started outside of the Winchester area. Um, and we had to work with a lot of our other, uh, surrounding agencies. Um, we were getting calls from Maryland, Pennsylvania, um, West Virginia asking how we figured this out because they were receiving the same, uh, messages. So this, this really went, you know, pretty far on

Dan Hoffman: 47:33

the East coast. They went nationwide. Yeah. I mean, and then of course, at the same time we had the County kid that was, you know, got ahold of a gun and was wandering around that created a bunch of fear and panic at the same time. So, uh, communication and coordination in those situations are incredibly important. And then finally, the one I want to chat about is a couple of weeks ago we had some suspicious remains, which immediately again, um,

Sarah Frey (2): 48:01

48 hours.

Dan Hoffman: 48:02

48 hours. Medical

Sarah Frey (2): 48:03

examiners. It is. Trucks.

Dan Hoffman: 48:05

Yeah. Or, or unsolved mysteries. A lot of remains. A lot of remains being talked about. But. We, when we got it, when we get out there, as you said it well earlier, what probably happened is, well, how did you put it? Uh, what is probable is most likely. What is probable is what is most likely. Uh, and what is most likely is that you're not going to find human remains just laying around. I hope you don't. Right. So what happened there?

Chaz Niang: 48:33

Yeah. So, uh, you know, Concerned Citizen calls us in. Um, our investigators go out with the medical examiner, um, and look through these items. And fortunately for us is, uh, you know, there was some concerns that the, there were some bones. Um, they were determined not to be human.

Dan Hoffman: 48:50

Okay, I can see

Chaz Niang: 48:51

how maybe bones they're like a whole large bone might throw you off

Sarah Frey (2): 48:54

what kind of animal bone looks like a human bone

Chaz Niang: 48:56

Not they don't okay That's what we have somebody from the medical examiner's office come out and say hey double check this for us Make sure we're not assuming incorrectly might get some chicken

Dan Hoffman: 49:06

bones that look like finger bone. I mean it may be but And this wasn't this found in a freezer it was it was in

Chaz Niang: 49:12

a deep freezer from out of the area So, you know, that's another concern that does make it seem super creepy so, you know when we we followed up with this we double checked work with the appropriate agencies from those other another jurisdiction and it was more of like a Deep freezer that wasn't somebody just wasn't cared for, right? A Dahmer situation, right? Yeah.

Dan Hoffman: 49:35

Which by the way, those are some, um, if you've got the time to invest some of those documentary, Netflix is loaded with them these days. I mean, there, there must be a hundred like true crime documentaries on Netflix. He says some of the ones about Dahmer are terrifying. They're fascinating, but they are terrifying because, and you know, police, the police in those situations, with all due respect to all the police present company included, uh, wow, they screwed things up so bad all the time. The Dahmer stuff is. Horrifying in the way that they did not work smarter. They did not work smarter, but that was also what, 25 years ago.

Chaz Niang: 50:26

I think that what was the most frustrating when the, they have the, the younger individual has was drilled through their skull and bleeding and the cops were like, Oh, it's

Dan Hoffman: 50:36

okay. It's a minor running around naked with a hole drilled in his head. And then they just give them back to Dahmer. It's like, what are you thinking? So we've come, point being, we've come a long way, uh, since those days. And, uh, you know, I, I, I, I would say, you know, even in your time and you're. I know you can't. I know everybody who's listening to Chaz can't see Chaz, but Chad is not an old, Chaz is not an old man. he is not a, you know, a a 35 year veteran of the force. He's not some grizzled old up. He, but he's been, Chaz, you've been around long enough to see the ev, a lot of the evolution tour of. That kind of old school, uh, you know, shoot from your hip, hopefully not literally, uh, you know, gut feeling, I'm going on my instinct now, you know, it is much more structured. It is much more, um, you know, evidence and science based the way we go about things. What have you, uh, what kind of, what have you seen in your time so far in your career?

Chaz Niang: 51:43

Yeah. So, uh, right now we actually just purchased a new, um, device that can lift fingerprints without us having to use the old school fingerprint dust. Oh, cool. So just that technology in terms of capability at, um, recovering evidence is so much more, um, uh, less invasive, um, so that you can get, so let's say that didn't work. Well, then we can go the old school route and still try to lift it. So it's given us other bites at the apple to continue these investigations where human error may, may, may have led to, uh, you know, not, not discovering what happened. Um, in addition to that, just the amount of, um, Advancements at the Department of Forensic Science where we'll get hits on DNA from cases that are 30 years old. And they're like, hey, look into this. Send us everything you have on this case. And, you know, we, now we're reactivating them and looking back into them. Wow. Um, you know, It's, it's, uh, it's pretty, pretty, uh, rewarding when it comes to the ability that we have now. Um, you know, I, I laugh, uh, when I first started here, I was in the animal control truck. We didn't have laptops to be able to run, you know, tags and, um, run people. Um, didn't have cell phones. Yeah. So, you know, we were having to either use our, our own cell phones or go back to the station to make phone calls. Um, so, you know, it's kind of funny, like. That was just 10 years ago. Yeah. Real time access to information. I mean,

Dan Hoffman: 53:04

we, we, we're taking a, a shot at the cops in the Dahmer case, but you know, back then they did not, there was not a cell, you know, they couldn't text, you couldn't run something. There was no laptop in the cruiser. Probably like they just kind of, you know, they did screw up big time, but these days you get such real time access to, It's, it's a lot harder to make those really bad calls because you have the extra tools in place. All right, uh, now I'm going to end with a couple of things. First off, uh, All this talk about how we solve crimes does not mean that we are, uh, somehow overwhelmed with a huge surge in crime. Uh, if you live in the city of Winchester, this is an incredibly safe city. Our crime is down in pretty much all major categories. Uh, we've had some high profile stuff this summer with people, you know, Everybody has a gun these days, so you get into a squabble, people squeezing off, uh, some rounds. Thankfully no one's been hurt, so we've had a few more of those. Those always gather a lot of attention. Uh, but thefts, um, a lot of our assaults, robberies, all of that has been down. Uh, this is all trending down in the city. Um, but if you do happen to, uh, have a tip, how should folks, um, Uh, contact you.

Chaz Niang: 54:30

Yes. So the we do have the P three reporting system. Um, we also have the crime solvers, which is 540665 tips again. That's 540665 tips. Um, and those go directly to my boss and we're able to get a jump on these crimes. We are always looking for the community's help. Um, that's one reason why I've stayed in the city as long as I have is we have a great, um, partnership, working relationship with our community. Um, oftentimes they're the ones that are solving these crimes. Yeah.

Dan Hoffman: 55:01

Yeah, you guys, how many, one stat I always give folks is that, um, you know, we're 9. 2 square miles, 30, 000 people. So of course we don't have, you know, seven, all 80, uh, officers are not working at the same time in the city and, uh, on a typical day, how many people do we have on patrol?

Chaz Niang: 55:23

Yes, so at any particular time, any particular time, it's usually six, um, six, six,

Dan Hoffman: 55:28

six patrol officers, right? Six patrol officers. Maybe somebody's down on the mall. Maybe Mark layman's down in the mall, but that's it. Like we don't. And that is. That provides okay coverage, good coverage. Uh, of course, the CID guys are also working. They're not out on patrol, but it's not as if we have eyes everywhere in the city, you know, unlike those TV shows, we can't just access security camera footage everywhere. Although I will say, if you're, if you're watching the first 48, uh, the security footage almost never is, is very good. It's always incredibly blurry, and I'm like, it's like I'm watching a Minecraft video. It's not In the

Sarah Frey (2): 56:06

age of 4k video, how is security camera footage still so bad?

Dan Hoffman: 56:10

Especially if you're watching an old episode, it's like I might as well just be watching static. It's no sense whatsoever. But people I think sometimes have this impression that week we have an officer or can have an officer on every corner. Well, I haven't, I haven't seen an officer come by. Well, first off, sometimes they come by in the middle of the night. They are working all night too, uh, while you're sleeping. Um, but we don't have, Eyes everywhere. So we rely on the community for this kind of stuff. It reported, if that's the biggest thing I tell folks and that I want people to walk away with from this, don't report a crime to us two days later. Well, this person did this thing, or I heard this act, uh, call us if you, and if you, if you're not sure if it's an emergency or not, and you call nine one, one. Okay. Maybe that they'll they'll identify very quickly if it's an emergency or not and either uh, you know Follow up in a non emergent fashion but if it is Or if you think it might be, call. Call. If you know it's, but don't wait. You know, don't, don't wait too long to report that because the longer you wait, the harder it is for us.

Sarah Frey: 57:21

Especially with those financial fraud cases.

Dan Hoffman: 57:23

Absolutely. And as television tells us, Especially after 48 hours. It's very, very difficult to solve a crime after 48 hours. So we

Sarah Frey (2): 57:31

know what Dan's Netflix queue looks like at this point.

Dan Hoffman: 57:32

Oh, it is, it is. Just crime. Just crime. It is so much stuff. Dan's now on

Sarah Frey (2): 57:37

a list somewhere. And that's why,

Dan Hoffman: 57:39

yes, uh, and that's why we could go on forever here, but we're going to wrap it up. Uh, Chaz, thanks for, thanks for coming in. We could go on forever, but, uh, we appreciate you having me.

Chaz Niang: 57:49

Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Dan Hoffman: 58:00

So that was our segment with Chaz, uh, and Officer Niang. My apologies. Sergeant Niang. Sergeant Niang. My bad, my bad. Sergeant Niang, um, who, if you've been kind of, even just remotely engaged in Winchester, you've probably run across Chaz in, you know, community outing. He's very visible and out in the community. One of our rising stars, I would say. Uh, he went through the Emerging Leaders Program, just like when Sarah Fry began.

Sarah Frey: 58:30

It's a very cool program that the city very graciously offers. She's emerging

Dan Hoffman: 58:34

y'all. So, uh, so yeah, Chaz, I hope you guys enjoyed that. Uh, Chaz is one of our best. So, uh, that's going to do it for us this time. Uh, hope you enjoyed the show until next time. A couple of weeks, we're going to talk about the VA 250. If you don't know what that is. It's the 250th anniversary celebration of Virginia. So, it's that. It's um, stick around. It's obviously a big milestone for the state. We're going to talk a little bit about the celebrations associated with VA 250 in a couple of weeks. And until then, we'll see you around city hall.