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June 5, 2020

The outrage of America and the world at the brazen killing of George Floyd, a Black American, is a righteous response to the continuing plague of racism in the United States. To remain silent in the face of this obvious injustice would be to assent to the deep harms of outright and implicit racism. Racism has been historically, and continues to be, an insidious driving factor in almost every aspect of American culture that has stolen rightful opportunities for human fulfillment for generations of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color. The time to end this scourge is now. Outrage and protest are a necessary, but not a sufficient response, to achieve enduring fundamental changes in social behaviors, cultural expectations, and laws necessary to finally end this endemic bias. It is time to voice our values and to act on those values in our personal and professional lives. The responsibility is shared by all, and thus must be fully embraced by everyone.

Our mission demands this of us. The mission of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) is to promote, undertake, and evaluate activities, studies, and programs that improve individual and public health, welfare, and safety. We acknowledge the devastating impacts that racism has had and continues to have on the health and well-being of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, which may include PIRE staff, colleagues, and communities with whom we work in partnership.

To respond effectively, we must further recognize it is more than individual racism, but bias within and across key systems of policing, criminal justice, education, employment, and finance that disproportionately impact Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color. PIRE continues to strive to provide a safe and equitable workplace, working towards social justice and health equity.

Everyone at PIRE is uniquely positioned professionally with the responsibility to identify and support efforts to improve the physical health, mental health, social health and economic wellbeing of those who have suffered the most from unjust prejudices. Because we know that social inequalities driven by racism and other biases are the primary drivers of health disparities, our work is needed now more than ever. This is the time to redouble our efforts through inclusive partnerships with organizations and all communities to identify, ameliorate, and end the scourge of racial biases.

William F. Wieczorek, Ph.D.
CEO and President

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Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) founded in 1974, is an independent, nonprofit organization. The mission of PIRE is to promote, undertake, and evaluate activities, studies, and programs that improve individual and public health, welfare, and safety. Included in our portfolio is work with agencies and organizations in doing Sentinel Event Reviews (SER.) Working in multi- stakeholder environments, the SER is a useful tool to identify and understand root causes that can be mitigated to reduce or eliminate critical events in complex settings. The result should be a locally owned and locally driven SER model that can be replicated as a quality improvement process that builds trust and legitimacy both internally and externally in a law enforcement agency. Different industries, such as medicine and airline safety, have employed this multi-sector and multi-systems learning approach of reviewing and analyzing events that did not turn out as expected to improve policies and procedures. The PIRE SER project is supported by a federal grant with a research and evaluation component designed to provide results to guide future utilization of this problem-solving technique.

PIRE has been contacted by Louisville to potentially implement a Sentinel Event Review on the procedures used in the Breonna Taylor case. PIRE has not yet made a decision whether to proceed with the SER. Our decision will be based on whether pending investigations, including the FBI, and possible other civil cases may inhibit our ability to have access to the necessary documentation. It is worth noting that a SER is not an expedited process but is one that requires adequate time to identify participants, request materials, and to analyze all relevant factors. The intent of all SERs is to focus on identifying the elements of critical incidents in order to problem solve the underlying factors in complex multi-jurisdictional systems in ways that result in improvements in the criminal justice system and in police community trust and legitimacy. A decision to conduct this SER will not be made until it becomes clear whether all of the information and participants necessary to the process will be available, as continuing local, state, and federal cases may preclude access to both participants and information at this time.

Mary V. Gordon,
PIRE SER Project Director