and we are live. All right, we are here in another QA session with Jake LaBelle, talking about ZOS and surrogate chains. Jake, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into mainframe hacking? Hi, I'm Jake, that's yeah. So I guess how I go into it, my company does some jobs in it. I was looking at some of the reports they wrote and I went, Alex, pretty cool. Looked at some pictures of mainframes and was like, yeah, that looks like my type of thing. And yeah, just jumped right into it. It's, yeah, it's, I don't know, I think it looks cool. And so just went for it. That's awesome. And I believe this is your first time presenting a DEF CON, correct? Yeah, first time, yeah. First time. So we have a tradition here at DEF CON. Whenever you do your first talk, we welcome you onto the big stage with a drink. This is for contributing content back to the community and answer taking the time to answer questions. So cheers to you, Jake. Welcome to DEF CON. Cheers. I'm going to tell us we're filling up my drink though, so. All right. Cheers. Yeah. So we've already got a few questions that have been going through the chat. You kind of already mentioned like what got you into hacking mainframes. So I'm going to go on to the next one. Most high security systems, security plans will have periodic audits of rights to make sure that former super user accounts cannot be taken advantage of. Your talk sort of goes into how these permissions get chained between users and how they're just sort of left alone. Is there, do you encounter any of these like issues and audits where like you have to remove these accounts or is it pretty much a no go on touching things? I guess you'll have like in an audit you'll have like, for example, okay, well, we don't want to make some users access this special user, which is basically root, but what about that user, which accesses that user? What about that user, which has access to that user? That's not really possible to audit. You don't really have the ability to, you don't really have the ability when you're, well, you probably could, but they probably should, but they don't. And this, can you use this technique that you had to like, at one point you show like this massive graph is graph of nodes. It looks like you were, you were able to fully enumerate all of those chains. Could you extend that into some kind of like security auditing? Yeah, 100%. So someone, someone else who worked at the company, he made like a tool, which, so this one is more of like a, not an expert exploitation tool, but like one that you would use if you didn't have full access, but if you had full access, what you could do is you're allowed to, you can do what's called unloading the RACF databases, which is all the security. So you can just take that and then offline, you can use that to create all the tools, but this one's more for, because if you didn't have access, so from what, from what, from your user, what can you access? But from offline, you know, there's that, someone else at the company who was making a tool, which takes the RACF database, puts it into any SQL database, and then you can query it however you like. That sounds handy. Someone else is asking, ZOS is tied to IBM. Do you think this could be applied to IBM I? I've never been on an IBM, I need to be on an IBM I system, just to see what it's like, but I've never actually been on it. So I have no clue what the security is on there. So I've got to say that my knowledge of mainframes is fairly weak. When you were at the beginning of your talk, you mentioned a couple, you mentioned partition data sets versus normal ones, as if they were like significantly different. Could you explain what the differences are in those? Yeah, so there's no such thing as folders in ZOS. So I don't know why, but they like to have a flat file system. So instead of having that, you have data sets, and then there's just, data sets can have multiple members in them. So it's kind of like, it acts like a folder, but they're all part of one single file. So it's, I don't know, it's how they do it. So we think of the partition data set as kind of like a file inside of a folder and the data sets the folder. Yeah. Yeah, close enough. Yeah. Close enough, okay, fair enough. When I was going through it, the first thing was like, okay, how do these correlate to like Unix things? And then it was like, wait a minute, nothing correlates, what am I doing? That's kind of where I was going to go with. But you did mention the OMVS subsystem, I believe it was. That is a Unix-like environment. How comfortable with someone that is like Linux centric feel inside this OMVS environment? It's basically exactly the same. The only thing is that once you're in that system, you can run anything on the mainframe as well.  So it's exactly the same as any sort of Linux system, like all the privileges are the same. Just, you can also, if you have it, you also have access to that, use this mainframe stuff. Okay, got it, I think. So, Jake, do you think your tool could work on ACF2 or TSS? Again, never been on that. I've only been on a couple of mainframe jobs, so. Okay, I don't know. But if it allows surrogate submission, then yeah, there are words, yeah. So from my kind of understanding of what surrogates are is they are delegating, it's like a tree of delegated permissions, right? So you get the surrogate permission for another user and then you are effectively gaining all the rights of them, right? So depending on what type of surrogate you give, so the main one is you'll have user.star in class surrogate, and that means that you can submit a job as user.star, but there's other type of ones you can have, but a lot of times, if you have surrogate and one person, you can do all the stuff from that, like for example, there's one that I had where you can say surrogate, which allows you to write to do sue, but if you can do sue, you can run any TSO command. So it basically means you have full privileges on there. Got it. Got it. So is it something that you have to like, generally you have to specifically invoke to get the other user's permissions or do they all just like get wrapped up into? So that's one of the things that why it required the tool was that you couldn't just, so if user one had submit on user two, you couldn't just run like, you couldn't just run user two stuff. You have to run a job as user two, and that will get returned sometime later. So that's why the tool was required is that you can't just run the, you don't have the privileges, you can submit a job as that user, but yeah. Okay. I actually think that I like literally have that in my head now. That's awesome. That was really well described. I, what are your thoughts on JCL? It's a great language. It's, what am I, yeah, it takes a while getting used to it because reading the IBM docs is, it's a skill in itself. Like I think I've actually started to, it's really, I don't know if it's something I should be worried about, but I've actually started to be able to understand IBM documentation. And that's worrying me. That does sound a little concerning. I'm like, wait, wait. I get it now, but yeah. So it's a, yeah. So JCL is just a way to submit batch jobs. And yeah. Is there any kind of like tooling that makes like interacting with that, that kind of like languages easier? Or I know that like one of the current hot things is like building languages on top of languages. So yeah, the writing, like whenever I wrote my programs or any type of thing that I use, cause it's just easier. It's the JCL, I don't really understand how, I don't really understand how you pass like parameters to it. So I just put it all in like one little rec script and then it will just run itself. And then, so rex is like, it's just a scripting language. It's just easy to use. So I just, yeah, that's, there was an example. Yeah, JCL. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's just, what is it? JCLs, they just, there's lots of like programs that it can run that I have no clue what it does. But I know, I know like it feels like I now know like what the, like the most important ones do. So that's, that's fine. I mean, it's probably enough. Like if you know, if you know like 75% of most systems, you are very comfortable in that system. Oh. So Jake, have you made any other tools that kind of helped to assist with mainframe hacking? Yeah, so I've got, I've got a couple which are varying in their usefulness. So I've got one which is, so the database for all the security is held is just, it's just a database. So if you have access, if you have right access to that, you have access to anything. So I created a quick tool which if you do have right access to it, it will just insert, it will look for your user, find the special flag and just turn it to one. So that's a tool, which it's very unlikely that you'll have access to that. Like that is something that is audited. So it's like, make sure that no one has access to this file because if they do, they have complete access to everything. What are the tools? Oh, I made another, so a, a Sox proxy in Rex. So that allows you to, if there's any, so for example, if there's any like internal ports you wanna hit or if there's any like, because everyone trusts the, everyone trusts the mainframe. So why wouldn't you accept all the firewall stuff from that? So, if there's anything you wanna like hit from the mainframe, then there's a Sox proxy, which you can just run in Rex and then just pass on to any, any port that you can see from there.  Like it is like a language, like it's like fully capable of doing like, hosting like network sockets and stuff like that. Yeah, it can do. So Rex, you can do any, anything you wanna do. And there's also a, I don't really understand what the functionality is, but I know how to use it. So that's like, so if you run, if you write something called address, so for example, so if you wanna write a TSO command, you write address TSO. And that means that any command you run in quotes runs as TSO. So the way I describe it is that you can run a program as another program, but I don't even know if that's actually what's happening. I just know that you can be like address DB2, which is an SQL database in IBM. And so, and that will then run a command as DB2.  Yeah, it will do it. Cool. Mainframe is asking, could you talk a little bit more about TK4 and the difference between ZOS? So, TK4 is, it's a beautiful thing. It's a, it's a open source mainframe from, well, for public domain, I don't know what the actual term like specific term is, but it's a, in 1980, they made a mainframe operating system, which is now in the public domain. And so it made some tool, they made from there, they've created TK4. And TK4 just allows you to just muck around with, I think I put in a link in my presentation, but if you want just download that like TK4, you can run it off anything. I've run it off a Raspberry Pi. So it's kind of fun. Yeah, if you want to run like, do you like JCLs? You can install rex on there. You can still kicks, but also not actually, this was actually one of the things in my presentation that like, I didn't know how to say, like, so there's something called kicks with a C, and then something called kicks with a K. And I was trying to say the difference between them. And I was just like, so yeah, my program, this has kicks, but this has kicks on here. And I was like, wait a minute, I've just said this twice. But yeah, so KICS is a open source. If you want to muck around with kicks on there, which is one of the most like, used thing on a mainframe. It's kind of like a web server-ish type of thing. It's, I don't know. There's no like equivalent to it kind of, but yeah, if you, yeah, TK4 is really good. If you want to just muck around with, mainframe bits. Yeah. And it's completely open source. So muck around with that. And do you have, do you know of any like, good resources for like, learning how to use and operate a mainframe? As it's like coming into it cold, which is like booting up a Raspberry Pi image, seems like. So, yeah, yeah. The best place, well, this is 1980s, my mainframe. So even the IBM docs doesn't tell you what to do, how to do on this. So the kind of two places where it's the most, so on, there's a Mattermost community called mainframe.community. Super helpful. If you have any like stuff, asking questions on there, we'll get, why don't you get questions answered instead of just being like, ask your, ask your SME how to do this. It's like, yeah. So mainframe.community, very good place for people to ask just like stuff. But yeah, some other places you might find that your questions don't get answered, but that's good. What other place? I think, so on my YouTube, there's this person called Moshics on YouTube. Very helpful, like TK4, like how to install these things, how to, yeah, how to do a lot of stuff on TK4. Excellent. Now, was there anything for your research or even in your presentation that you didn't get to or that you wanted to look further into, that you maybe will look more into in the future or you think it might be good if other people were to try to build upon what you've done? So on the surrogate chain, so I basically just done the, there's the star.submit privileges and the ppx.serve.store privileges, but like, there's other surrogate classes. I don't really know how they work, but if they could all get, if like, I don't know how, and also how, if those surrogate classes, other classes can get you access to everything, then those should also be added to the program. Like if there's like a, yeah, if there's another surrogate that I've missed, then yeah, that's definitely should be something that should be added. Have you like open source the tool? Is that publicly available at this point? Yeah, and GitHub, I've put my, I think I've, yeah, I've put my tool, it's just, have you actually live made it public? Oh well, I'll fling it on to the, into the track chat. Oh, there's lots of chats. I'm very confused about where it is. Yeah. I'm much of a Discord user. Good luck finding it. It is in the DefCon Talk Tracks group, as you can either put it in track one, I found it. There you go. That's one of the things that, when you're on a client call, and you can't work out how the tech works. It's like, sorry, I'm trying to work out to get Skype working with my, with my audio. Please give me 10 minutes to work this out, please. I am running out of questions. Is there anything in particular that you want to like, talk about or advocate for, or anything else? Anything you want to, any other areas of interest in the InfoSec world, anything like that, anything you want to share? I guess there's the thing about like, I think a lot of people are like, mainframes, why mainframes? What's the point of them? Yeah, it's, so, why mainframes? Incredibly, incredibly efficiently. Like, people are like, oh yeah, just go cloud. It's like, when you're trying to deal with, like millions of like, credit card transactions, it may not be the most cost effective to do it on a, on like a AWS instance. That might be pretty expensive. And you also have the other thing where, all the codes already in, on a mainframe. So like, it's going to be pretty difficult to convert your COBOL code to, I don't know, whatever, whatever that you're trying to convert it to. Yeah. So. The popular language is, Hawkeye is asking you about bricking the mainframe. I guess, with any of the things that you're ever like, play around with or do, do you, is that a concern? Is that something that you have to like, keep in your mind? The, there's the thing where like, on client side, but, so when a web app, when you're in a testing environment, you're like, I'll just keep throwing stuff at it. Let's see what happens. Let's, let's see there. Let's, let's just keep throwing random, like, like scripts at it.   Oh, let's just make sure this is okay first. Like a major backbone in your, your organization. Can I just, Yeah. Potentially screw it up right now. Yeah. So it's, there's also the, the fun, the fun thing is that, like maybe on like a, on a mainframe, you might, the testing environment, maybe completely different to the, to the actual like production environment, which is great fun where you're like, oh, look, I found something. Is this a thing in your actual like, no. Okay, cool. That was a good, like, six hours looking at that. Great. Thanks. Cool. So it seems as though that, what you're doing is coming probably even more into demand. I'm seeing where people are, are looking for people that can program and cobalt and maintain mainframes. Is this something that you think might be an area that would be good for people to get into? And if so, if somebody with experience wanted to make the jump over, what sorts of things could they look into? So how could they even get started in being able to support or test or work with mainframes? So, there is so, so I guess like if you're in, if you're in like a, like a, like a company, you could just shadow a job. That that's probably like, there's also the, there is a ZOS 1.10 on Pirate Bay, which over the course, I would not be supporting, you know, that and very illegal to never do that. But if you do have that, that might be useful. But yeah. So who does you still use mainframes today? Like what industries or major companies, if you can say any, still make use of mainframes? So basically every bank that's big, still uses mainframes there. Again, they're doing like massive batch jobs and they already have all the infrastructure already. So they're not gonna, when they're like, okay, who do we need to go? Do we need to like, do we want to move everything to cloud or do we want to continue on a mainframe? The answer to that question is, they're not going to change their entire system to get to try and maybe, I don't even know if it would save money, but maybe, I don't know. And then, I guess a lot of governments still use mainframes. Like for example, I think there was a freedom of information request to the UK government about what mainframes are still in use. And one of the things that really got me was, so this was to the people who do like the treasury, I think.  And they also say, here are three other mainframes that are managed by Fujitsu that we use. So through some research, I'm pretty certain that these are like 20 year old mainframes that have like probably never ever been looked at ever. They're just running like, and I looked at them and I was like, okay, what are the ones that are running? It's like, oh, these do all the customs in the UK.  They're literally just like, we're never changing this 20 year old mainframe that we have. No one's ever looked at it. It's not even like, it's not even an IBM mainframe. It's a special UK mainframe that got brought out by Fujitsu that is now running the customs in the UK. And I'm like, this has never been looked at. I've even looked at it. Like even if a mainframe specialist looked at it, they wouldn't be able to know anything. It's like, it's written in this weird language that I've never heard of. Maybe other people have heard of SCL. I don't know. Have you guys heard of that? I think that I've come across that in another DEF CON talk. Maybe. I get exposed to a lot of things. We did have another talk related to past talks. K-Hol says, I've enjoyed various ZOS talks at DEF CON over the last few years, but I never hear about mainframe security otherwise. Are they a common attack target or do they tend to go overlooked because of the foreignness of the platform? What does the defense side look like outside of the kind of audits you mentioned? I don't actually know the access that, so it feels like the only people who would actually be able to access this are people who are fairly sophisticated. You wouldn't have just a random attacker going after a mainframe because it's normally hidden in their internal network. So it'd probably be a nation state attacker or that type of level. So I feel like if it's an attack, that they wouldn't be going after financial stuff. So you wouldn't really ever see that it was happening, maybe? I don't know. Oh, sorry, yeah. Oh, sorry, sorry. I mean, so this might have been in us chatting before the actual stream start, but you did mention that you found some mainframes that were just exposed online just by dropping something into Shodan. So maybe not just a deep internal threat. Yeah, the majority of the ones I saw on Shodan were like, there's actually a fun site of that mainframe sent me about all the internet. It's just a bot that people have sent mainframe IPs to it and it just goes straight to the picture of the initial screen of it. As I think it's a fairly fun site, but yeah. There's a couple of government ones, but a lot of them are just emulated ones, but yeah, I think the thing I was gonna say was that if a nation state ever got a hold of something, it's unlikely they would ever reveal themselves in that way that they had got access to that. Like it's not like a criminal organization where they'd be trying to go off to those type of things. So that's also the other thing where, I don't know if there was, in the news recently, the owner of Pirate Bay hacked a mainframe. It was a while ago, but there's the- I must have missed that one. Yeah, it was- But how secure are they from the inside? It would it be as simple as just being able to access somebody's workstation from inside to be able to get to the mainframe? Mainframe saying it's the Logica Breach. Yeah, the Logica Breach. And the fun thing about that one as well is that they released, well, I don't know if they released on purpose, but all of the court documents were released. It's on GitHub, by the way. So you can see what fun tools they used to access all the, to do all the stuff. Yeah, mainframe says it's on WikiLeaks. So anyone out there that's looking for more information, apparently there's a lot more data out there. That sounds pretty fascinating. Yeah, actually, writing a tool, and I looked at Logica and I was like, wait a minute, they did this already. Oh, I got beat out by the hackers. By a jump of random hacker activity. I love it. So you just had to one-up them by presenting at DEF CON. Yeah. So we are approaching the end of the time of our QA session. Is there anything else you want to talk about while you still have the camera? Uh, no, I think I'm all tapped out. Fair enough. Well, thank you very much for doing this Q and A session. Thank you for presenting to DEF CON once again for your first time. Really hope you come back. This was great content. I need to get back to at least go to Vegas at least once. Yeah, you got to experience in-person DEF CON as well. All right, well, thank you very much and we'll talk to you later.


It seems as though more and more people just don't seem to want to listen to the warnings given by God, particularly if you look at a specific warning that was given by Jesus. Today, without question, there are a lot of people who have this desire to be something special, this desire to show signs and miracles and so forth. The word of God is not enough, or just preaching the gospel, letting people know about the goodness of Christ what He's done on the cross. That's not what they seem to be interested in. What they seem to be interested in is one, putting on some signs and some miracles, which in many cases they really aren't signs and miracles, but then two, being acknowledged for that rather than doing our first job, which is to share the gospel. If we go to Matthew chapter 7, verse 21, we'll find something interesting that I think that oftentimes gets overlooked and we should not overlook it. It's not put there just haphazardly. There's a reason why Jesus says what he says. He says in Matthew chapter 7, verse 21, it says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Now, the issue is, first of all, he says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord. So I mean that there will be people who say or claim that they are Christian or that Jesus is their Lord, and he's not. We'll see how we know so a little later on. But then he says, But those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven. So the next question must be, what really is the will of God? Before we continue with the rest of Matthew chapter 7, verse 22, let's go and see what Jesus says this is the will of God. He says in John 6, starting verse 38, he says, For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me, that I shall lose none or nothing but raised up on the last day.  So the will of the Father, as we look at what Jesus is saying, is that those that have been given him to be raised up. In other words, what he's pointing to, and he says so more so in verses 39 and 40, and that those who are believing in him will be raised up. So what's the will? That one of our standpoint is that we preach the gospel. Too many people don't have that as their first ministry. Rather, we've got a lot of people who their first ministry is doing two specific things that are called out by Jesus. So let's go back to the passages and look and see what Jesus specifically calls out. In verse 22 of Matthew chapter 7, he says, Many will say to me that they, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and in your name perform many miracles? So Jesus calls out two things specifically that we see a lot of today. People claiming to cast out demons and people who are also claiming to prophesy. Often cases, these prophecies are ultra vague. They rarely come true, and if they do come true with something so minuscule, something that we can all kind of see, such as maybe inflation is going to come about or something like that, that we can all even have secular people predicting different things that are going to happen or going to transpire in the world, which really aren't prophecies that are given by God. God has really no interest in, as far as we can see in scriptures, prophesying about such mundane things that don't affect the body. But these two things he calls out casting out demons and prophecy. Why is that? Why did he mention that? Why did he mention any of the other things, such as tongues, even the aberrant use, the misuse of tongues, such as healing, even people with these, the false, fake healers? He didn't call that out. He calls out two things, those who are claiming to be prophets and giving prophecies and those who are casting out demons. Why is that? Jesus is giving a warning and so we are just not paying attention. Well, I should say this, many are not paying attention. You see a lot of people who their ministry is still surrounded or centered around casting demons out, giving prophecies. But notice what Jesus says. Let's go back to it. He says in verse 23, and I would declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. So I don't know you indicating whether they are legitimate or illegitimate or not, they've said that they've cast out demons and prophesied. These people, that's their only focus. Their only focus is not doing the will of the father, which is to be a light to people to share the gospel. No, they'd rather do these other two things that Jesus, again, it's not as though Jesus couldn't call out any other thing, but he called out these two things specifically. The reason why is because we see a lot of people out there who want to tell you that they're out there doing the work of the Lord. They'll even put a nice little slogan on them that says that deliverance is the children's bread. That, by the way, is not in the scriptures. There's no such statement in the Bible that states that deliverance is the children's bread. Matter of fact though, what we can find out is that Jesus is deliverance. He has come to deliver and set the captives free. If anyone has a son, he is free indeed. Let's preach that. That is the will of the father. Not to go out and cast out demons because if a person has Christ, he has no demon. He's not demonized. He's not possessed. He's not oppressed. Nor is God really after someone given these vague, almost silly and laughable fake prophecies. No, if you want to be a true prophet, which is not necessarily the foretelling predictive prophecy, but saying what the word is, because prophecy all it is is just giving a revelation. Well, the greatest revelation that we have is what we see in scriptures, but that's not enough for a lot of people. We don't see them wanting to go to that and to preach that, which thereby will be part of God's will, which is leading people to Christ hearing the gospel. They don't want to do that, which is probably why Jesus follows up by saying, I never knew you depart from me. You workers of lawlessness. So if this is you or you or you are attracted to that, you might be aware. You might heed Jesus's warning and start moving away from those, those so-called ministries that only want to focus on that. Rather, you might want to find the ministries that want to teach the word and preach the word and have or seek to have the lost saved by the preaching of that word. Amen.


le of Scotland expect better from this Government if it really does care about transparency if it really does care about truth and integrity it will vote with the motion in name of my friend Douglas Ross


Hello! So welcome to The Greatest Hits Reel. We are going to do a song called My Aunt Came Back, and I'm Chris, and this is Axel Waddle. Hi, I'm Axel Waddle. Yes, and we are going to do an echo song. So I sing it to her, and she sings it back to me. And it's also a motion song, where you do the different motions that it tells you to. By the end of it, it's cumulative, and you'll end up doing all of the motions all at once. And it depends on how dexterous and how clever you are, and how many actions you can keep up. But normally I would make a mistake after the third or fourth one, but let's get started. Shall we? Yes. All right, let's do it. My Aunt Came Back. Go My Aunt Came Back. From Old Japan. From Old Japan. She brought with her. And she brought with her a paper fan. A paper fan. My Aunt Came Back. When My Aunt Came Back. From the county fair. From the county fair. She brought with her. And she brought with her. A rocking chair. A rocking chair. My Aunt Came Back. Go My Aunt Came Back. From Old Algiers. From Old Algiers. And she brought with her. And she brought with her. A pair of shoes. A pair of shoes. My Aunt Came Back. Go My Aunt Came Back. From Guadeloupe. From Guadeloupe. She brought with her. And she brought with her. A hula hoop. A hula hoop. My Aunt Came Back. Go My Aunt Came Back. From Timbuktu. From Timbuktu. She brought with her. And she brought with her. A wooden shoe. A wooden. Very nicely done. What? One more time? Yeah. All right, let's do it. My Aunt Came Back. Go My Aunt Came Back. From Old Japan. She brought with her. And she brought with her. A paper fan. A paper fan. My Aunt Came Back. Oh my Aunt Came Back. From the county fair. The county fair. And she brought with her. And she brought with her. A rocking chair. My Aunt Came Back. From Old Algiers. And she brought with her. And she brought with her. A pair of shoes. A pair of shoes. My Aunt Came Back. From Guadeloupe. is she brought with her and she brought with her a hula hoop my aunt came back from timbuktu from timbuktu is she brought with her and she brought with her they wouldn't shoe i wouldn't shoe my suit


Here are my winners and losers of the 2019 NBA off-season. This includes the draft and free agency and Notice how I said my opinion. I can say a team won and I can say a team lost But at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter. These are just my opinions But you can let me know yours down below in the comment section below and we can disagree and have an argument It's just a great basketball topic to talk about because teams will win teams will lose That is how it works every single season. I really want to begin by saying this There are some teams that I have losing and some teams that I just have average But it wasn't their year to do something special So some years you will have a good off-season and some years you won't but that is okay because every year There are moves and trades and things that happen which can dictate what your team does So if I say that your team wins or loses or just does average don't get offended because sometimes it isn't your year For example the Dallas Mavericks, they already made their move at the trade deadline They got Chris Stapps Paul Zingus, which meant that they didn't need to do anything this off-season now Did I have them winning or losing? Well, I had them losing But that is just the off-season which includes the draft and free agency But they had already won at the halfway point of this season They go into next year with a much better team So you have to understand that some teams have already made their moves, but it just doesn't count in the off-season Now if you enjoy these videos I would very much appreciate it if you guys could drop a like to support the channel and subscribe if you're new for daily NBA content Here are my winners and losers of the 2019 NBA off-season and the way that we're doing this is going from F to E to D to C to B and then A minus A A plus so at grade F the Phoenix Suns I think we can all agree that they didn't have a good off-season It all started during the draft where they ended up trading the sixth overall pick Which could have been used to draft a guy like Colby White instead They traded that off ended up getting Cam Johnson way later in the draft And the only thing they got for the sixth overall pick was Cam Johnson and then Dario Sarrich who was entering free agency next summer Then they only really got Ricky Rubio They lost out on TJ Warren, Josh Jackson, Holmes, Troy Daniels And they basically only gained Rubio and then Cameron Johnson and Dario Sarrich during the draft And then they also got Aaron Banes and Frank Kaminski But we could all agree that they lost in this year's off-season The next team I have at F is the Charlotte Hornets Obviously we can agree paying Terry Rozier the contract that they paid him and obviously not willing to trade Kemba Walker away from the team which they could have got something in return is a major loss for the Charlotte Hornets The thing is I actually really liked Terry Rozier But you could have got something way better than Terry Rozier in a trade for Kemba Walker and they didn't do that And then they also lost their second best scorer in Jeremy Lam and Frank Kaminski Yeah, they didn't have a very good off-season Now the next tier is a little bit harsh But these are teams that were just competing for championships and they really couldn't do anything this off-season Now the first team on the letter E is the Toronto Raptors I think we can all agree that losing out on Kawhi Leonard was obviously a big loss The Raptors obviously not only lost Kawhi Leonard, but Danny Green as well Which is just a huge loss for them. But at the end of the day, it's not their fault They lost out on Kawhi Leonard, but it's just not a good thing for them And that's why they didn't do very well in this off-season.  The next team is the San Antonio Spurs Originally this team would have been like a C team just an average team They're a team like I said that is competing in the Western Conference But because they didn't actually land the guy that they wanted to land in Marcus Morris Really, they only ended up getting Damari Carroll, Kelton Johnson and a few other pieces and they lost out on Davis Bertans Now if you actually watch the Spurs, Davis Bertans was actually a very good player for them He's a guy that stretched the floor and was actually a key piece to what they did They obviously re-signed Rudy Gay But at the end of the day they are not going to be able to compete against the Lakers, Clippers, Jazz And all the other teams in the Western Conference and they didn't even end up getting Marcus Morris Which means I just don't think that they did very well But in saying that it's the Spurs and they don't need to always do well during the draft and the off-season The next tier is D I have the Dallas Mavericks and I just feel like they already made their move getting Christophe Pozingas Re-signing him obviously to a bigger deal this off-season was very good for them But at the end of the day, they didn't really do anything else They lost out on Al Horford, which they wanted But at the end of the day they still have cap space to get somebody in the future Which means in the future they should be set but as of this off-season It was just okay, and they ended up getting Pozingas at the halfway mark of last season So they already made their move. The Bucks are the next team that are at D This is a team that obviously lost out on Malcolm Brogdon, which was a key piece to what they were doing They obviously re-signed Chris Middleton to a max contract, which to me I don't think he's a max player, but I understand why they did it They keep Giannis happy. They go into the Eastern Conference with basically the same team I do rate the signing of Matthews and I do like Brooke Lopez Re-signing and obviously Middleton re-signing as a team But as a whole in the future if Giannis is entering the 2021 free agency And this isn't a team that can go to the next step with an aging Brooke Lopez and Chris Middleton on a max contract This will be interesting to see how the Bucks go and to me because they were a contending team They didn't have to do anything special, which is why they didn't do anything special But to lose out on Malcolm Brogdon, I just think that they deserve a D Okay, now we're going to the C level where all these teams just did average They didn't do amazing but they did average and these are basically all the lottery teams that ended up getting decent draft picks The first team I have at C is the Washington Wizards The main piece that they got from the NBA free agency was obviously Isaiah Thomas He if he is healthy can be an MVP candidate and he's shown that but the thing is we definitely have no clue What he'll be which is why at this point it's just hard to rank them But simply because of their draft pick and Rui Hachimura I believe that they had a good off-season because I really do like Rui Hachimura And I believe that he'll be a good piece for the Washington Wizards the Chicago Bulls I really like their draft pick in Kobe White I think he'll be a great point guard for them and they needed a point guard And I just think Thaddeus Young is a great veteran to have alongside their young core and obviously to add Sadaransky Who is a decent point guard is not too bad either even if he's just a backup to Kobe White or even if he starts I feel like the Chicago Bulls did well with what they had. I have the New York Knicks I believe it's not as bad as everybody makes it out to be This is a team that to me was obviously trying to attract the best free agents possible Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Kawhi Leonard all these guys and when they lost out on them They said to themselves, you know what? We're not gonna get the top guys. Let's wait till the 2021 off-season Which is just insanely stacked. Yannis, LeBron, Paul George, Kawhi Leonard All these guys are going to enter the 2021 free agency and the Knicks will try and get them then They just signed a whole bunch of roleplayers to two-year deals Which means they'll be off the books when the big free agents are available and they did sign Julius Randall Which to me is a great player to sign and a young player that you can build around your young core Of RJ Barrett, which means their off-season automatically goes up Considering that the off-season includes the NBA draft and RJ Barrett was the second overall pick So you add that with Julius Randall and you still have guys like Kevin Knox and Dennis Smith Jr And I believe that that is still a great off-season just by simply adding a guy like RJ Barrett and Julius Randall to a team That is just rebuilding. The Minnesota Timbers, like I said, they're at the CE bracket. They just did average I like their draft pick of Jarrett Culver, but apart from that they just had an average off-season They signed a guy like Jake Layman and a few other pieces like Noah Bonley But they just didn't really do a whole lot and they also lost out on Derrick Rose. He was actually a decent player So I'll just say that they did an average job simply due to their draft pick of Jarrett Culver And if they hadn't got him they probably would have been even further down But Jarrett Culver brings them up to a C. The Pistons, they also were to C They were just average this off-season They still have the potential to do something but as of now they got their point guard in Derrick Rose Who had a pretty good season last year and I do like their draft pick of Sekul Dumboya Who has the potential to be a decent player in the league. Obviously we don't know what he will be But I like their pick so I'm gonna give them a C. Same with the Orlando Magic They re-signed Vucovic, they re-signed Terence Ross, but they didn't do anything spectacular But they still have the assets to make a trade but as of now they just had average in this year's NBA off-season I like Vuc, but they're still just not a good enough team to do well in the East Even if they wanted to and that's why they just had an average off-season Because really all they got was Alfa Ruka Minu and I guess that's just average to me And obviously we don't really know what their pick will end up being but behind guys like Mo Bumbo and all their other young assets I feel like he'll just be another trade piece. The next team was the Cleveland Cavaliers They obviously didn't do anything this off-season in terms of free agency But I do like who they drafted. Darius Garland was the best player available And they also traded for the 30th overall pick and selected Kevin Porter Jr Who I really really like and they also got the 26th overall pick and deal in Wilderness So I just think that the Cleveland Cavaliers during the draft made their team even better and obviously during the off-season in free agency They didn't have the cat space to do anything But their draft picks just push him up to a C because I do like what they did I believe that the Houston Rockets automatically jump up to an average team They obviously made the trade to get Russell Westbrook to pair up with James Harden if you want to watch that video I made a whole video on it. You can check that down below So I'm not going to get too into it this video But I believe that considering they hadn't really done anything else but replaced Chris Paul with Russell Westbrook I just have to give them a C rating But I think it gives them a good chance to now compete in a tough Western conference And the last team at C is the Sacramento Kings They lost out on Willie Colistine who requested out of there, but they ended up getting some decent players They obviously re-signed Harrison Barnes to a pretty big deal Which I'm not really sure why they paid him so much, but I guess they do like him They ended up getting Dwayne Deadman They get some veteran guys like Corey Joseph, Trevor Arisa and Holmes and obviously they didn't have a first round pick this draft So I just think they just had an average offseason with what they could have done And they got some veteran guys on a young team to help them develop So I don't think they did bad at all. Now, this is where it gets interesting. Here we go to the Bs I have the Oklahoma City Thunder as of now as a rank B But obviously the Thunder is definitely subject to change with what they do with Steven Adams, Dennis Schroeder The Oklahoma City Thunder, they managed to transform PG and Russell Westbrook into Shea Gilgis Alexander, Danilo Galanari And about eight first round picks, which is just insane Obviously they lost Paul George, which automatically brings them down to an E But what they got in return was a ton of assets The most draft picks ever, which brings them up to a B in my opinion And because it wasn't just the Clippers draft picks that they got, it was the Heads and a few other teams It makes their draft picks even better And obviously they now have the potential to rebuild and they built with some very young assets of Shea Gilgis Alexander and a whole ton of picks The next team is the Denver Nuggets. This is the team that didn't need to do anything this offseason They're a young team in the Western Conference that really could challenge any team But they managed to add Bulbul, who's the guy that has potential to be anything in this league And with the draft pick that they selected him at in a trade with Miami It's basically a risk-versed reward and if it's a risk that doesn't pay off Well, it doesn't even matter because they have their team set anyway But if it's a risk that actually pays off, it is insane Not to mention they picked up Jeremy Grant from the Oklahoma City Thunder Which I actually really like for this team a guy that is very athletic a guy that can stretch the floor a little bit If he's wide open can hit the shot and they lost Trey Lyle So to get Jeremy Grant is a very good replacement and they just did well with what they had The next team is the Boston Celtics Now I don't love the acquisition of Kemba Walker But I do believe he fits well in Brad Stevens offense and he's a very good replacement for Kyrie But the fact that they lost Kyrie, Al Horford and Marcus Morris is a pretty tough offseason for them in my opinion Gaining Kemba Walker but losing out on three players that will keep us to their team I just don't love it But they ended up getting Kemba Walker, which I guess you can't complain if you're a Celtics fan And then Ennis Cantor is a guy that is decent, but is nothing special. So I just think they ranked a B I could have ranked them lower But I think that Kemba Walker will elevate his game in Brad Stevens's offense He'll be kind of like what Isaiah Thomas was for the Boston Celtics And if Tatum and Brown can improve to that next level Gordon Hayward can come back a little bit better And the Celtics will still be a decent team in the Eastern Conference and can still challenge And the last team on the category of B is the Memphis Grizzlies This is a team that very surprisingly made moves this offseason Obviously, they already go all the way up with their acquisition of Jar Marant A guy that was the third overall pick in this year's NBA draft But what they did in free agency was also very good This is a team that ended up getting Dwight Howard, Andre Gdala Freed up some cat-spays and Chandler Parsons Have the ability to get some more assets in trading away Dwight Howard and Andre Gdala And they ended up making some moves where they traded Carl Corvair away for young assets like Josh Jackson I just believe that as a whole, it was a very good offseason for the Memphis Grizzlies considering They weren't expected to do anything But in a rebuilding stage, getting Jar Marant and adding some veteran guys that they can release And get assets from, it's just a very good position to what they were in before this offseason Now, here is the A-Team The first team is the Golden State Warriors When we expected the Golden State Warriors to have a terrible offseason After obviously losing Kevin Durant and DeMarcus Cousins They ended up balancing back with DeAngelo Russell A guy that can replace Clay Thompson while he's injured And obviously Willie Colestine That is something that no one expected heading into this offseason Now, obviously they won't keep DeAngelo Russell in my opinion when Clay Thompson gets back But it allows them to have a trade asset And obviously they lost Andre Gdala and Sean Livingston But these are guys that were aging and just veteran guys And to get DeAngelo Russell, a young guy on that team Alongside Willie Colestine Is just incredible for the Golden State Warriors And I think they did very well The Miami Heat, obviously getting Jimmy Butler Getting Tyler Hero in this year's NBA draft And obviously freeing up some cap space Which they didn't really have before the offseason Is a great move for the Heat Now, I'm going to go through the rest very, very quickly But these are my major winners At A, the Portland Trail Blazers I think getting Hassan Whiteside to replace Nurkic was a great move And once Nurkic gets back Whiteside can be used as a trade asset Along with the first round picked to even get a guy like Kevin Love in my opinion The Pacers did quite well Obviously they lost Bogdanovich But to get a guy like Malcolm Brogdon and Jeremy Lam I believe that they did well Even if they did lose Bogdanovich I still think they did very, very well Getting those two guys on their team The Hawks were major winners Not really what they did in this year's free agency But what they did during the draft Obviously to pair up their young piece Alongside Trey Young and John Collins They ended up getting Bruno Fernando Which I really, really like And obviously getting DeAndre Hunter and Kam Reddish Two top ten picks is extremely good for them And they're major winners in this year's off season And then the 76ers obviously to replace JJ Redick With a guy like Josh Richardson Way younger and can still hit the three Is extremely good for them Plus the addition of Al Horford on that team Amazing defensively No one's gonna stop them in the Eastern Conference With Joellen Beaton Al Horford Insane moves by the 76ers And then the A-plus teams Obviously the Pelicans It literally could have been Zion Williamson alone And they would have gotten an A-plus But not only that Lonzo Ball Brandon Ingram You know the rest Jackson Hayes incredible off season for them Obviously the Lakers did incredibly well Not only did they get Anthony Davis But they were able to build their depth around LeBron and Davis And they ended up getting Boogie Carsons, Danny Green So I believe that they did very well Obviously the Brooklyn Nets getting Kari and KD No need to get into that The Utah Jazz Mike Conley paired up alongside Donovan Mitchell Is a small backcourt But insane defensive backcourt They also got Bogdanovich, Ed Davis Jeff Green and Moudier Amazing, amazing off season by the Utah Jazz Their depth is looking incredible And then the last team is obviously the Clippers No need to get into this Paul George Kawain landed You know the rest With that being said, let me know what you guys think Who are the winners and losers of this year's off season Be sure to leave a like if you enjoyed the video Subscribe if you're new for daily NBA content Be sure to hit the notification button And follow me on Instagram And I'm out


Hi, I'm Marvin Lewis, head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, and the honorary chair of the DAV5K November 5th at Sawyer Point. And I'm Mark Burgess of DAV, Disabled American Veterans. The DAV5K honors the service and sacrifices of America's veterans and gives our community the chance to say thank you to the brave men and women who serve. Veterans, when all the way for us, join us to go 5K for them. Register now at DAV5K.org. We hope to see you on November 5th.


Welcome on a cool night and thank you for joining us this evening. A couple of things I think most of you are aware that there was some youth that were involved in a shooting earlier this morning, not in our district I think district two I think where there were some six middle school children. District four. District four, thank you, six, two unfortunately passed away due to the shootings for our in the hospital one is critical so before we open I'd just like to take a few just a minute just have some silence as we you know continue to come together in this participation to try to work with our police officers to help reduce the shootings but unfortunately you know now it's middle age middle school children who are involved so just have a moment of silence to remember the six victims and their and their families. So thank you. Well this evening, we'll go through our normal committee members will be presenting, but we also have a guest speaker Elaine towner with the fire department she's going to be talking about home safety during the winter season and so we'll go through our, our departmental presentations and then at the end of that Elaine will go through her presentation so Elaine thank you so much for coming on this evening and we look forward to the presentation that you have for us. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah, you're very welcome. And so with that I'm going to turn it over to Rebecca and she's going to take us through the remaining part of our meeting back up. Thank you Brian and I also like to say happy holidays everyone and also to. We just have to continue to keep the great city of Durham, you know in our prayers with the sadness of the youth. I just wanted to share you know just my heartfelt feelings when you hear something young people, unfortunately involved in, in tragedies like that but it's good to see everyone. So we'll start with our monthly department presentations with our police department we have commander Robert Gatti here, and he will share with us. What's going on in district to it's yours. Thank you, thank you. Good evening to everyone and always for being here and taking the time out to try to make a difference. This should. We've only, we had a homicide. As a matter of fact, I told Nick, I got on the last time we were here, Nick was bragging and said he put it in here that we didn't have any homicide. Probably the day after he said that's when we had one so he jinxes, but we've had one homicide and that was at 2309 lead them straight that was on 1113 2021. So far this year today, we've had seven in the district. We did see a decrease in robberies there were nine robberies in November versus 14 from October. And then you know as always we really want to remind you not just just be aware of your surroundings when you're out shopping. You know if you're buying bunches of things bags and all that, make sure that you can put them away in your car out of sight out of mind. If you're ordering packages we've seen some package steps.   That's one of the suggestions we would make just to prevent people from coming in and trying to take your items that you've ordered for Christmas. We've seen a decrease aggravated assault. We had 16 incidents versus 19. In the previous month, 16 incidents where we actually had 19 victims in the 19 incidents we had 19 instances with 26 victims, but this means to say there's a decrease. Burglaries have decreased as well, 36 in November versus 43 in October. And all our larcenies have decreased significantly. We were had we only had 174 versus 221 larcenies in October. And so the of the larcenies that we had of the 174 82 were from motor vehicles. And so about 75% of those vehicles will unlock at the time. And they're again just remember, don't leave variables in the car. If you have a nice laptop, take it in. Bring it to your house, take it in the house with you, particularly folks that like to leave weapons and cars. A lot of times these folks are breaking into cars looking for guns or whatnot. And so they will break any car steal the gun and unfortunately that's another weapon out in the street. And so just be mindful of that. We are looking at several different operations aimed at quality of life throughout the district. I think that you all have seen the increase. If you hadn't noticed it, of the homeless population on Hillsborough Road, guest road, no point drive area. We're working with our CIT crisis intervention unit to provide different types of relief or shelter for these folks and try to get them out of the situation that they're in. And I think one or two people that have actually entered into the program, and I would also back it and so it's just a good opportunity for them to get a new lease from life and started in a whole new direction so we will continue to do that. As I talked about package deliveries, and as I caution you all what to do, we're also doing some things for you. We have officers and Mark and on Mark vehicles in your residential areas. We have a local vehicle. You definitely call 911, but it could be my officers out there just doing surveillance, trying to catch somebody and act or some packages and so we'll hopefully kept some of these folks that are doing that. In terms of if you have any specific quality life issues that you want to have addressed please reach out to Lieutenant Cloninger or myself. We can be emailed. Here's Nicholas.cloninger and what I'll do I'll put that in the chat and I'll put mine in there as well. That way if you have any quality life issues that you want to look at want us to address we're happy to do that. In terms of directed patrols. We conducted 2,135 directed patrols during the month of November which is a lot. And of course, you know, you will always see the increase because of Christmas holidays and so that's kind of what's going on in district two. I think, you know, it's an unfortunate incident that happened in district four and my heart goes out to the families as well as it relates to that and we'll just keep everybody in and then grow some prayers. And so I'm looking through the questions. Yeah, I guess with the incident people are concerned if there's any specific things that you're doing, you know, with the violence and the shooting that you normally just don't do just to keep us safe. And part of what I will tell you, and I see friend Captain Webster and Captain Whitaker both up here. We've done a lot of work with Sheriff's Department to do joint operations as well as our own staff as much as we can between calls for service, unfortunately due to our staffing issues and our patrol section particularly, we have not have the opportunity to get out there and do a lot of work with it. But if we notice things that are going on, I've referred stuff to my gang union. And they've been very vigilant. We've had some issues out in Briar Rose. We're in downtown which is either in a swan's meal and all that. And so I know that they've been very active in that area as well as Old Oxford Manor. And so as we see areas, we get information that things are picking up, we're definitely sending that information out there. And it says all the shootings gang related, some of them are and honestly, I would hate to tell you that they're all gang related, because I don't work that area. And so what I can do, I'm happy to have one of the SOD commanders join us on the next pack meeting if we need to get some of those questions answered about gangs. Somebody also was asking about is the homeless take kind of related to, you know, people being released from hotels on certain areas of town. I don't know. I think it's definitely a more of a COVID issue, not just so much hotels but just in general, people not working or not receiving the assistance that they once received. And so I think that that's where you see a lot of uptick in it from. And I've dealt with people here recently from other areas like Charlotte from across the different state Asheville that we've ran across talking to them as they're out there panning. And so this I think is more than just the hotels is is greater spreading than just that. I also have a question. What, what is the staffing number that is normal for district two. And what's the shortage. And so, you know, we tip on the regular here recently probably been running about 57 to 60% 62% staffing. And so it just, it varies, you know, it could this could be a number of things if another district is short, then they may pull staffing from district to supplement that or if I have people that call out sick or family emergencies and so it kind of fluctuates, but on average we're probably running on 57 to 62% staffing, but just my staff, but now there's also supplemental control that comes in. And also, we have a slide unit that comes in that boasts that 62% up to 70, I think it's high 77% so 62 that that number I gave you is just what my staff is the vacancies I have. Thank you. I have a question.  But I also know or at least I've been told that our police department does not get paid as the surrounding counties or cities do. I'm a police chief, and I know the previous police chief was very active in trying to raise the salaries for our police officers. And now that city council has been voted in that stun so that's not going to change. What is it that we as citizens can do to help support the increase in wages so that people want to be police officers in Durham as opposed to driving 10 miles someplace else where they can make more money which I don't I don't blame them for that so I just, I would like to support the idea of raising wages for the police officer especially since city council gave themselves a price increase, their own cost increase of $10,000. So I would like to, I would like to know how we can help make that change and make it happen as quickly as possible. Well, and what I would tell you, just just first of all, professionally, I think we, every agency across America has experienced the same thing with the ability to get people to apply for the job and become police officers. So, you know, it's a, it's not just a, a pain thing per se. However, that does pay into play into it. And so what I will tell you that I know for a fact is that the city manager, they've done a workplace study, and so hopefully they'll be presenting some numbers to the city council that shows where we are in relation to other cities. I think that, you know, if anything, if you, the biggest thing is to urge your, you know, your ward representative or your even, even, even, even the mayor and people like that, that, you know, as citizens urge them to this is important as it all just get paid, and we don't lose them to that. So if you want to help us, that is usually the biggest thing I will tell you is just talk to your representatives and the people that we as community members have elected to represent us and make sure that they're holding our best interest at heart. When it comes to things like public safety when it comes to any type of thing that affects the community as a whole. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Any other questions. If you don't, if we don't have anything right. Let me see, do we have anything left in the. I guess people were talking about. What is it. Previous shootings I guess we've sort of addressed it I mean, if you have anything specific that you want to address we're going to continue on with our department of briefings. But Captain Gatti will be here with us. And so he is going and ready to answer any questions, but please just get specific in the chat so we'll know exactly what you're talking about. And we'll make sure that he gets those. At the end of the presentations or during the presentation. All right, let's go to our sheriff's department. And I see we have Captain Whitaker, do we have Captain Webster here. Yes. Yes, Captain Webster I see you. Captain Webster. What's going on with the sheriff's department. Let us know. I'm going to turn that over to Captain Whitaker tonight. Captain Whitaker, let us know. Right. How's everybody doing this evening. Everybody's doing well. Everybody had a great Thanksgiving and happy holidays. For the month of November, the sheriff's office patrol division responded to 2393 calls for service. Our residential break-ins outside the city limits of Durham did drop with only 15 break-ins in November. However, there were 46 break-ins to motor vehicles, which is slightly higher than the previous month. On five of those break-ins, the type of motor vehicles, fire arms were stolen. We seized 28 firearms in November, which puts us at 185 seized guns so far this year and recovered two stolen firearms last month. And 29 stolen guns have been recovered year-to-date. 61 traffic accidents were investigated where 32 were property damage only and 29 did result in injuries. We conducted 592 directed patrols. 421 were property related and 171 were directed patrols for traffic. A total of 490 traffic stops were conducted, of which 80% of those were speeding violations. The first division received 114 ritz of possession, which is residential padlocks from landlords and apartment companies. Out of those 114 padlocks, unfortunately, only 13 were returned to the renters being able to pay their balance or working out something with their landlords. The last four, I'm sorry, 101 padlocks were actually conducted in November. And lastly, there were five incidents where people suffering from some kind of cognitive impairment or mental illness were located after being lost or wandering off. All five of those citizens were a part of our what we call a project life-saving program. For those that are not familiar with our program, it's a free service we provide that saves lives and reduces potential injuries by quickly locating adults and children who will wonder due to automers, autism, dementia, or any other related conditions. There were a small personal transmitter around either their wrists or their ankles, and it emits this tracking signal. If the client goes missing, the caregiver notifies us, the sheriff's office, and we have a trained search team that will go and respond to the missing persons to their last known area. The average project life-saving clients are located within 30 minutes or so. And that is it from the sheriff's office, although Captain Webster has anything else that he wants to share. I just have one other thing.  This past Saturday, Captain Gaddy spearheaded a FOP cops and kids event at the target at the old South Square Mall, where he had pulled together a lot of law enforcement officers to go shopping with kids who are in need. And that made a lot of children's Christmas and the faces and just the kids themselves had a wonderful time, but I want to publicly thank Captain Gaddy for doing that and putting that event together. Well, thank you Captain Webster for highlighting our commander out here in district two. We always feel like we have, you know, between the police department and sheriff's department. We're very fortunate. So I'm not surprised you did it. And everyone was involved. So that's a wonderful thing. Congratulations Captain Gaddy. Well, you're welcome for sure. We're going to continue on. And like I said, make sure that if you have something specific put in the chat and me and Brian will be, do you have something there. Yeah, there is a Nancy. I'm sorry. That's okay. Yeah, she just said that she read the sheriff's department was awarded a grant called the NC governor's highway safety program how does that assist the sheriff's office in our county. We're going to see another kudos to district two out here the sheriff's and in tandem with our wonderful police department. So, you know, we just got to, you know, tip our hats to the brave law enforcement out here in district two so kudos to y'all and congratulations once again. We're going to continue on with parks and recreation, and we have calling tumor to me is where it's calling. She's here, but my reception is not working well. Give me a thumbs up if you can hear me okay. We can hear you calling so that's good. Okay. All right, so I'm sorry, can't see my shining face. Anyhow, I'm glad to see everybody out here we have a good group tonight that's encouraging. All right, so quick we have a holiday parade is coming up this Saturday everybody prayers it's supposed to be 73 and rain right now so we all have to pray that there's no rain the 73 would be wonderful, but you know, rain, no rain, even better. 11am straight down Main Street starts at the health department and heads all the way down along the route there so seating will not be provided so inspectors are encouraged to bring your own chairs and blankets. The masks are optional outside our parade Marshall will be our new mayor Elaine O'Neill, and then the parade emcee this time is the WRAL evening anchor Lena till it. So, if anybody is going to be in the parade. Thank you. And I know that our Durham police and sheriff county sheriffs will will be there. But we are looking forward to reinstating our parade once again. We're going to be going into the new year. Exciting news that the WD Hill Recreation Center, located on Fayetteville street is has a new look for the new year if you haven't been by there. And you'll see that facility renovated both inside and out. And there's going to be a special day on Saturday, January 8 from two to five recognizing Martin Luther King day and an official reopening official ribbon cutting ceremony. We're also going to be at a room dedicated to the Algonquin tennis club this club was originally way back when was the original part of the original founders there at WD Hill so we've got that news the Weaver Street Recreation Center has had a facelift and that grand reopening celebration will be Wednesday January 19. We don't have any residents or friends in the Weaver Street area. You could plan to attend that. We have the Dean Durham senior games are coming back again registration opens Monday, February 1 with the kickoff opening ceremony in April. So we'll continue to talk about that. We have new engagements coming up for the community after the first of the year. If you haven't been out to the Hoover Road, new park property. That's exciting to see all the new fields we have a new playground going in up there. And across the street at wheels we will begin to have some listening sessions for the community so watch for announcements if you are interested in providing feedback on the wheels property. Any questions, comments. All right, well thank you Colleen for that wonderful information and the parade. I'm going to try to get down there I think I hope it doesn't rain. We're going to continue on our departmental presentation. And we have the health department is. Good to see you all on. I didn't see Brian. Did you see you? Yeah, she is. Good to see you. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Good to see you all too. And Aliyah is going to is joining me today. She's going to go ahead and she's going to go ahead and take over with a with the announcements. Thank you so much. All right, go right ahead. No problem. Do I have the ability to show my screen. Yes, Alexis can. Fingers crossed it's been a technology day for me so. Oh wait I don't have the rights. I thought you did. Do I have it now. No, it's still not available can someone give me screen sharing capabilities please. I'm going to give you guys a quick update about the on the con variant and then just some health department updates on with our new vaccine schedule. Okay. Alexis, having screen problems and unfortunately she's the host. I'm here give me one second. Okay. The whole screen just went black. I'm sorry it must be contagious. It's a Monday in December. Okay, go ahead and try now. Okay. Good. And even just let me know. It's good. We can see your notes. Okay. There we go. So hello everyone. My name is Aliyah Brown and I am here with Yvonne Ressa. And even feel free to jump in because I can't see any of our notes. Feel free to jump in whenever you can. Okay. Okay. What we know about the virus. So how easily does I'm going to spread and even if you can share a little bit of information about this. Let me go ahead and pull it up. All right, so just are you guys able to hear me. Yes. So as far as the Omicron what we know how easily does it spread so the Omicron variant likely will spread more easily than the original stars. COVID to virus and, and how easily Omicron spreads compared to Delta remains unknown. The CDC is expected, expects that anyone with Omicron infection can spread the virus to others, even if they are vaccinated or don't have symptoms. So it causes a severe illness. More data is needed to know what the know if the Omicron infections and especially re-infections and breakthrough infections and people who are fully vaccinated cause more severe illness or death and infection with other variants. So everything is still very new. So they're still trying to go ahead and get all that information. So basically there's not too many cases. So they're trying to nip it in the bud, but it is spreading. Will vaccines work against the Omicron current vaccines are expected to protect against severe illness hospital hospitalizations and deaths due to infection with the Omicron variant. However, like, like with the other variants breakthrough infections and people who are fully vaccinated are still likely to occur with the other variants like the Delta vaccines have remained the best effective and preventive measure for severe illness and hospitalizations and death. The Omicron further emphasizes the important vaccinations. So the rest of the information Leo will go ahead and cover as far as our hours and all that stuff. And the variant has boundaries way to North Carolina. It is not in Durham County as of yet, but the one confirmed case that's in the state is in Mecklenburg County. So update from the Health Department from us. So we have Pfizer booster vaccinations are available for our youth age 16 and 17 beginning today at the Health Department. Misconceptions. If you've already had COVID-19, you can pass it along to others you can be reinfected do need to be tested. So continue to wear your mask. And of course continue to promote vaccinations to others because that is the number one recommended precautions against COVID-19, as well as the additional variants. So which vaccines are available here at the Health Department. We currently offer all brands and doses of the COVID-19 vaccine so you can get your first second and all boosters. All vaccines are free for people five and older with no appointment or ID needed. And so our vaccination clinic hours are Monday, Wednesdays and Thursdays from nine to four, Tuesdays from nine to six, and we are closed for lunch. So be mindful of that when making your plans. So a recent update to our vaccination clinic hours is that we will be offering Friday clinic this week and next week. So it will be this week I'm sorry so last week we had it on the 10th and then this Friday we will have it from nine to 430 and that's all doses and brands. And so you can walk in or make an appointment so you can call 5609217. With holidays coming up we also have some tips for a healthy holiday season so of course I know we're going to beat this down but get vaccinated or get a booster if you're eligible. Follow all your local and state guidelines, your social distancing, take precautions indoors, choose outdoor spaces when possible I know it's cold. And oddly some kind of, we have warm times as well too so just make some conscious decisions and stay at home if you're feeling sick. If you are in need of transportation to some of the vaccine sites around town you can call go down at 5601552 but just make sure you're calling them at least 24 hours in advance. And for those who vaccine cards getting a little flimsy or you probably lost it you can call the COVID-19 vaccine health center at<PHONE_NUMBER> Monday through Friday and on the weekends to receive a replacement. And also they can guide you whenever you went through any retail locations like CVS Walgreens and things like that can give you information on how to receive your information from them as well. So we still have COVID testing and that's free available for anyone regardless of the insurance documentations. You can go through here and register for a test or you can also call to get on your COVID testing scheduled as well and so these are some of the testing sites. So we have one through central Espano some of the local housing authorities as well. So if you need this information please reach out to us and of course if you need transportation to this they do offer that as well. So here are some of the links to join some of the email listings. And we send out an update every week, even though I know information comes out so fast but we try to make sure the information is up to date, and you can also access information from our COVID-19 data hub as well. And that's all for us. No, it really wasn't it was wonderful, because it's always good to be reminded we really do appreciate it because we always were asking this resident, you know, continue to give us this information because you know we're still in it. Yeah, we appreciate it. Absolutely. All right, we'll keep us updated is anything else we have any questions for the health department once again. Put them in the chat and me and Brian will make sure that we'll get them to there is there is somebody there is there is one Colleen asked what's the average walk in wait for a booster. You know what the average walk wait time is for the booster if you were just walking. I haven't seen any lines at all. Colleen at all. To be honest. It's everybody's going in as soon as they go and check in not even at the check in booth. They're going in right away. So it's still, it's still doing pretty good the first week that we started with the boosters there was quite a bit. And we're still we're seeing a frequent flow of people, but no lines have have yet to be seen yet. So, and it's important to go ahead and emphasize on for the 16 and 17 year old. Keep in mind that those boosters are just Pfizer. With the adults they did go ahead and say that once you got the booster if you decide to go ahead and get any other now that all of them are available you can go ahead and get it. And with the with the teenagers only the Pfizer up until now has been authorized. And really quick about the way. Although you don't need any appointments to come in. If you're worried about the wait time I haven't seen too much of a wait but you can always call and see this prior to you coming but honestly so far I'm seeing the longest time being actually getting into the building. Yeah, going through the screening process. Perfect. Thank you so much. Well I'll tell you what that was wonderful I thank you ladies for that information. We're going to continue on in is has just room just really supportive of district to Ms. Spana is not here this evening but we are just really fortunate to have Alexis john if there's from in Is if there's any information she'd like to share. I'm going to give the floor to her. Hello, Ms john. Rebecca and I will be really quick. I know we're getting close on time. I do want to thank everyone who came to the community conversations last month. We had over 100 folks tune in and definitely more on the YouTube and the Facebook page if you didn't see that it is available on both of those. So you can definitely go to community engagement team on Facebook and view it there. But that's only the beginning. We definitely had a good conversation there folks were able to ask questions. We received information from the community resource unit the community engagement unit and victim services, the 911 center. And there are words from Chief Andrews and Sheriff Burke head, but definitely this is the space to continue those conversations and put actions to those conversations. It's one thing to come and meet and have our questions answered but it's a whole another thing to actually put strategy to it and see where we can support. I just want to say thank you to Miss Nancy Nipkins for asking the question how do we support you, like what can we do to support you and that's so important when we're asking our questions is we're asking them so that we can then take action after the conversation is given so I just want to say thank you for that. And so as we go into the new year. Hopefully when we come to the next meeting we can continue the conversation that started with that community conversation and see what we can do as a pack. So we can actually put action to our words. And thank you. That's it. Thank you so much, Alexis. Alexis to for reminding us how it all we all really are working for together for the greater good of, of Durham. So we do have a speaker this evening we're very fortunate to have Elaine towner here from the Durham fire department and since you know we're doing these holidays and people are, you know candles and lights and then we just wanted to give something just a reminder to everyone how important it is to just be safe. So I'm going to put the floor to you Miss towner and thank you for being here. Well thank you very much Rebecca for the invitation and I've enjoyed hearing what your pack group and all the department members had to say. I really thank you for the invitation it we are always looking for communities and people in the community that want to know how to keep themselves safer keep their friends family their homes safer. And that's what the fire department is all about where we're always trying to figure out how to get the word out so this is a wonderful opportunity. I am a captain with the Durham fire department, I've been with the fire department for 27 years, and the last two and a half have been in community education. I've been on business on the meeting I've gotten to work with her and a lot of different avenues and it's always great to be out in the community, even virtually. So, the thing that I want to tell everybody and talk to everybody about tonight, we're going to kind of start with a picture that I sent out and I think Brian was going to share. A picture of that says shoes. So if you can show that Alexis I cannot this is host disabled participant screen sharing. Go ahead and try it again. Okay. Yeah, I sent this stuff out. I wasn't sure who was going to be a problem. Let me know which one you're talking about just give me just a second. It was an attachment just that it's just a steal. Right. So, when Brian gets this up. This is a board that our fire chief out in Bahama put together to use in different venues around the state it's been to the state fair. It's been in a couple of different places.  So that board right there has 81 pairs of shoes on it. I took that picture a couple of months ago. There are now 110 pairs of shoes on that board, and each pair of shoes is representative of someone who died in a house fire in North Carolina this year. So we felt like that that was a very impactful way, because the they tried to get the shoes to be representative of the people. You can see the little tiny ones up there at the top there. We lost some children in these fires, the I believe the shoes that belong to the oldest person on there it was a gentleman who was in his early 90s. So you can see from the shoes on that board that fire can affect everyone and it affects everyone across our state. One of the most important things that you can do for your family and your friends for yourself for your own protection is to make sure that you have a working smoke alarm in your home. 47% of those shoes would not be on that board. If those homes had had a smoke alarm or had had a work a properly working smoke alarm in their home. So that really is the major number one message that we would like for everyone to take with them this holiday season when they're in groups when they're meeting with their families when they're visiting elderly relatives people that might not need to be climbing up on ladders to change batteries I mean that could be the best holiday gift that you could give someone is to make sure that they have a working smoke alarm in their home. We out of five deaths in homes in house fires are in homes that don't have a smoke alarm or don't have a properly working smoke alarm. The theme this year was to make sure you know what kind of sounds that your smoke alarm is supposed to make. So we all have experienced the battery beep on our smoke alarms I'm sure most of the time if they're going the battery is going to go bad. It's going to be three o'clock in the morning and it's going to wake you up for absolutely no reason. So that's just that little chirp sound that is very very annoying. That's why we encourage people to get into the habit of changing your batteries regularly. A lot of our homes nowadays have smoke alarms that are wired into our electrical system, but they're going to have a battery backup and that's so that if the power goes out, you're going to be able to still have that protection from the smoke alarm. So just make sure that you get into a habit of changing your battery, whether you have the hardwired kind of smoke alarms or whether you have ones that work strictly on a battery, just make sure you change them once a year. We used to say every time that you change your clocks, but a lot of the batteries and that we are using now are a little bit more effective than some of the older ones so you'd be in good shape if you make sure that you changed them once a year. The smoke alarms have a life, a life expectancy, and that's one thing that a lot of people don't realize they think as long as it's going to make noise that that means it's working effectively. It is not because those little sensors that are in our smoke alarms and our carbon monoxide alarms too are constantly testing the air and looking for the danger in your home.  So you've got about a 10 year lifespan on smoke alarms and around a seven year lifespan on carbon monoxide alarms. So think about that the next time that you change your batteries and see if you can look find that manufacturer date on your smoke alarm on your CO alarm and replace it if it's within those times.  Use a kitchen rag, wave it, don't take the smoke alarm down because sometimes you may forget to put it back up. And that's where the circumstances come in sometime where they had a smoke alarm in their home but it wasn't where it needed to be. Some of the causes of these house fires, you probably guess what the number one is is cooking mess. That's one of the number one causes of house fires is unattended cooking. It's not that they were a bad cook or that they didn't, they didn't know what they were doing with the cooking is just that they walked away and left their stove unattended. In some of the classes that we do and the groups that we, we meet with, we try to encourage people to never walk away while there's something on the stove turn the stove off. But if you absolutely have to leave, take something with you from the kitchen take a hot pad take a wooden spoon take a spatula take something that when you see it in your hand. You're going to remember to go back to the kitchen and check and see what you have on the stove. I can't remember from one end of my house to the next while I left one room and went to the other so having that item in your, in your hand is going to be a good memory jogger for you. So improperly discarded smoking materials. I know people don't smoke as much as they used to. And a lot of people won't smoke in their homes which is good, but they may go out on their deck, they may go on a porch, and they don't dispose of their smoking materials in a bucket, or in a, in a pale water or something like that. And then the next thing you know the side of their house is on fire. We've had a couple of recent fires either in a garage or on a person's back porch, because of improperly disposed of smoking materials. So if you do smoke, or you have friends and family that smoke, especially when they're coming over for the holidays, make sure you've got a little bucket has some sand or something like that in it so or a bucket with some water in it, so that when they're done they can drop their, their cigarette butts or if they're having a holiday cigar on the back deck or something they can put it in a bucket of water or in a bucket of sand. The other thing that we see this time of year when people are using their fireplaces they're using their wood stoves and that's wonderful it's all nice and cozy. Then they get ready to clean those, those wood stoves and those fireplaces out. It takes a lot longer for that ash to become completely cool than you would think we've had people that have shoveled that ash out of their wood stove or their fireplace, and put it in one of those handy dandy Amazon cardboard boxes that everybody's having piled up on their front porches now. And they set it outside they set it on their porch they set it on their back deck because it was, it was cool enough to shovel.  So, put that ash, if you have to put it in a cardboard box, then wet it down and keep it away from the side of your house. The best thing to have is a metal bucket to scoop everything out in, even if you're two or three days away from whenever you had your last fire. Put it in a metal bucket, fill that bucket up with water and let it sit overnight.  The having a bunch of people come and be with us in the holidays it's all fun but it's also sometimes a lot of confusion. So just what a yardstick looks like that three foot distance for the yardstick is just it's a distance to keep in mind that's the safe distance for keeping children and pets and anything that's combustible away from things like your stove and away from space heaters and away from fireplaces and away from wood stoves. So just kind of keep that in your mind. When your house starts to fill up with all the family and friends that you have over for the holidays, and make sure you can put a little distance between your guests and the anything that might be combustible. So just one if you will, if we have time, if you will show that video, that's the legacy. One of the reasons that smoke alarms are so important nowadays is because we have legacy homes which are older. We have heavy timber, all wood construction. So we have those anything that's probably older than 30 years old is would be considered a legacy home, and then we have our modern homes and our modern furnishings. These pictures that you're going to show or this. See this little video that you're going to see. I saw part of it in the corner, but I'm not sure where it went. Drag it back. But it shows why it's going to show why you don't have as much time now in our newer modern homes to get out safely and that is again another reason why these smoke alarms are so important. We've got the natural home that's going to be wool and cotton and wood and all linen fabrics all kinds of natural fabrics fabrics that's on your left the synthetic ones are a lot of the materials that we have in our homes now they're they're petroleum based they're chemical based, you can see how much darker the smoke gets in that synthetic room and how quickly it happens. In these legacy homes years ago, when the for those older homes, you had around 17 or 18 minutes to get out of those homes safely, which means that the fire department had that amount of time to get there and get a jump on the fire. Now, in these modern homes with the synthetic furnishings and with the building materials that they're using nowadays, you've got about three. So that's a big difference. And you can see that room the synthetic room. I mean, as a firefighter that natural room I'd still go into that room with a water can a water extinguisher like you used to have in the school buildings. And you could put most of that fire out, you absolutely could not do that, you know, two or three minutes into the synthetic room, because of that toxic smoke, and because of how quickly and how hot the synthetic rooms and synthetic homes. Say that three times fast, and it goes go up. So that's probably the, the biggest and the most important message that we would like for people to realize Durham Fire Department has a five minute response time goal. But as you can see with the times that we have here and with the time that you saw those rooms on fire. Even if we get there we're right next door to you practically and we get there in less than five minutes. There can still be a lot of damage done. And we can still have people that we have to come in and save just because of how, how black the smoke gets and how toxic, toxic, it is. So those are just a few things that we would like for people to, to take with them and to remember and to have really, really safe holidays and wonderful happy gatherings with your family and your friends and share a little bit of this information everybody can can give the gift of having people be a little bit safer in their homes and with their families for the holidays. I totally agree, Elaine. And I just want to again thank you for, you know, such timely information and holiday season is people can forget. I didn't read because I'm not a smoker I didn't. I'm just thinking, when you do have people over. Maybe you should just get a can of sand anyway because you don't know who's walking out your house. Exactly. People, people smokers are polite they don't want to smoke in somebody's home but they may go out on the porch or they may go out on the deck. And if you if you know you're having smokers come over then you can make sure you've got those buckets of sand or those buckets of water or something like that. It's better than them being stubbed out on your deck or even if they just they fell off of the arm of the chair or something like that it's just just a, it's just a nice small and make sure it's a it's a metal bucket.  I think so. Well thank you once again we're going to definitely have you back. Well I'll tell you what, it's just been, you know just such a eye opening experience and just, I'm just so happy that we had, you know, all our presenters to share with District two, and just go out and let our neighbors know. And all the people that we know up here that you know this is this is the place to be if you really want to find out what's going on and we need more people to get involved so we're excited about that. So I want to thank you and I'm just going to pass it back to Brian. All right, thank you. Colleen did have a question she asked is the fire department still come to your home and replace smoke detectors if needed, or did that go away with covid or low staffing. No, we do that the we partner with the Red Cross and with the Department of Insurance office the state fire marshals office and they, they donate smoke alarms to us to be able to go and put in people's homes that need them, and we are still doing that. We have been up and down as far as the covid cases as to whether our firefighters can come and do it or whether my partner and I try to to come and take care of it ourselves. When the covid cases are high then we try to protect our firefighters and keep them from going into people's homes unnecessarily. And out of sick people's homes when they have to be on calls but we do try to keep a lot of people's homes so my partner Antoine and I can can take care of that.  And having a smoke alarm or a CO alarm for that matter is one of those options. Right. Okay, well thank you very much and Rebecca and I again thank you so much for all of our presenters we thank you for coming this evening and participating. A lot of a lot of good questions, and we appreciate those. So I'll just stand by wishing you a happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Try to enjoy time with your families. Specifically want to thank all of our police officers fire EMTs because you're seven, you're seven 24365 so we appreciate you guys still being available even during the holidays. Hopefully everyone will get opportunities to spend time with their families. Have a great evening and we'll talk to you guys in January. Bye bye.