uniformed officers, present arms. ♪ oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? ♪ whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight, o'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? ♪ and the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave

proof through the night that our flag was still there. ♪ oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ♪

>> please be seated. good evening, i would like to welcome to you san francisco police department medal of valor ceremony. i am inspector, john monroe, and i will be the master of ceremons this evening. i would like to first welcome everyone here. and welcome mayor lee, and i believe that supervisor wiener may be the audience. and a few thank yous. first to the allegiance of honor, for being generous with your room and mccall's catering, and thank you to the san

francisco police department for the generous donation and poa for their jgenerosity to this event and reesa, that does most of this work. thank you. and last and not least, the families and friends and mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers that support your officers every day and night for them to come out and do the work they do. give yourself a round of applause. thank you. first i will introduce you to your commission. your police commission, and then introduce you to your command staff and then we will have the chief speak, the mayor speak, the vice president of the commission and the president of the commission. i would like to start with your police commission. first we have commissioner carol kingsley.

commissioner joseph marshall. commissioner suzy loftus. and commissioner petra dejesus. vice president julius turman, and president, thomas mazzucco. and the command staff. commander hector fines. commander joseph garrity. commander charlie ork. commander alie. commander richard korea. deputy chief denise smith. deputy chief david chen. deputy chief john loftus.

deputy chief michael beal. deputy chief tomakia, my boss and the chief gregory pesir. and last and not least the mayor of city and county of san francisco, ed lee. first i would like to start with vice president turman and president mazzucco to say a few words for you. >> thank you very much, inspector monroe, distinguished guests. tonight i ask my vice president turman to be present, because he actually participated in the selection of these awards. on behalf of the police commission i want to congratulate the officers and their families. we have had a busy week at the san francisco police department, on friday night we graduated 46

brand-new officers from the 235th recruit class, and during my speech to the officers, i talked about being courageous. you are courageous. i talked about becoming san francisco's finest. you are san francisco's finest. on tuesday we had a promotion ceremony and another speech speaking to officers and commanders and i spoke to them about their role and what is expected of them training the next generation of san francisco's finest. and during that i talked about leading example. i said lead by example by the plan there, chief suhr. and i talked about an example that is relevant to you today. i talked about how he could comfortable and officers could be comfortable with him despite

their rank, because there is a mutual respect. and that mutual respect is that the chief knows at any given moment those officers would be called upon to do something more important than his duties as chief of police. you are those officers and to you and your family i want to congratulate you for your courage. i am proud to serve as one of your police commissioners. >> good evening, so this is what it looks like when men and women and people every day human beings are everyday heroes but today is no ordinary day. because those everyday heroes have gathered, considered and contemplated. and we stand here today to honor

the extraordinary effort of extraordinary people. today you will hear stories about the officers of san francisco police department. all ranks. all stripes. different backgrounds. different knowledge. different abilities. but with one common thing in mind, they cared. they cared enough to go that extra mile to protect the city and county of san francisco. and its citizens. but it is no wonder that we are gathered here in this place to name some individuals. because this is what it looks like. an extraordinary police department. but they should be extraordinary. because it is my privilege to sit with these ladies and

gentlemen who have the privilege of working alongside of an extraordinary command staff, extraordinary captains, and extraordinary police chief. today you will hear stories of sacrifice, of danger, of caring of others before they cared for themselves. but it is no secret as to why that happens. because it's something that is bred in the san francisco police department. i am proud to say that almost every -- almost every interaction i have had with a san francisco police officer is one filled with mutual respect and dignity. now the one that gave me the speeding ticket the other day -- maybe i was less respectful than

he was. but in any case, i will say that this is a department where respect, hard work and an earnest desire to serve starts from the top. and it goes down throughout a department. when you listen today, you will hear stories of fabulous individuals. and you will say, wow, what is that san francisco department doing? it's not just them, look to yourselves because those values began with all of you. family and friends and those who love our officers. and thank you for being here today. it's my privilege to preside over the process to select these officers. and i look forward to the presentations by each of the captains. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you, vice president turman and thank you president mazzucco. i understand that the mayor is on a tight schedule. i would like the mayor to come up and say a few words, please. thank you. >> thank you officer monroe. good evening everyone, this is a really happy occasion. and i did when chief suhr notified me that this would be happening, i wanted to make sure that i put time in to come before you for a brief moment. and to share my appreciation to the police force. to commissioners, the president mazzucco, and to the entire commission, to chief suhr and the entire command staff. to the awardees tonight. i know there is 41 of you out there with family and friends. but i want to say this to the

entire 2,000 sworn men and women in san francisco police force. i am very proud of you. as hard as i work, i know there are people that work even harder than i, and i don't necessarily put my life on the line every single day i go out there. but for a world-class city to have this status is one of the best cities to ever live in. to work in and to visit. you got to have a police force that rises to world-class standards. and the san francisco police department is in fact world-class standard. tonight with the recognition of the medals of valor, we continue, i think, a very important culture. a culture that is measured by the performance of its officers and those who tonight exceed

that standard in every way. and you know it's kind of hard for me to get know everyone of 2,000 officers that work in our police department. i do see the results though. and i don't think we could have landed the bid for the super bowl hosting l without a world class police department. we could not have landed the americus cup in san francisco without the best police department in the country. we could not have landed so many of these world-class events and continue the pride of being one of the faster recovering cities in all of our country without a good police force. so i made it a point tonight to come here and let you know that i may not know each of the officers allegiance to your favorite baseball team, your favorite football team or

favorite basketball team. but i will before i am done. because i do know that we share in common the success of the city. i know that on a daily basis whether you are walking the neighborhoods of south of market or the tenderloin and bayview or any number of our neighborhoods. you are doing the best you can. you are looking out for people. and i want you to know that as the mayor of this city, we also got your back covered as well. because we don't have each other's back covered, we don't have the trust that we need to move forward in this city. so i want to say thank you to each of the 2,000 men and women who serve in this police department. the commission. the commanding staff. the police officers association that works closely with all of us as well. and not only say thank you to all of you, but tonight for those who have earned the medal

of valor. you know it's important to have these events. because the particular event that caused the bravery to occur, is no longer on the front pages of our newspapers. but they are in our memories. in the men and women, the people that you work alongside, your family and friends and commissioners, they know who they are. and the rest of the city, 26,000 people that work for this city, we also know who has put themselves on the line. to save others. to bring more efficiencies to the city. to bring pride and who you tutor, the kids, the extra time it takes to get at-risk youth to turn their head, and make a pause. and suggest a better life. the extra hours that the officers put in, all of you, i see that every day. and i know there is results.

in fact if you look at the numbers today, knock on wood, we are still at the historic time of low homicides in the city, we want to keep it that way, we want to keep the success going. thank you from your mayor. i want you to know that i am a grateful mayor to this police force and all the people that serve it. and tonight i celebrate with you the recipients for the medals of valor, to know that i appreciate the extra effort that its taken for you to get this award and recognition. i am proud of you. proud of you not only being officers and employees of the city. but proud of you being our city's heroes tonight. congratulations and thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, mayor lee. now i would like to introduce

your chief of police, gregory p. suhr. >> good evening, i don't think it could be anymore appropriate tonight that we are here at the legend of honor. that's what this is about, honoring folks, that we literally hear a lot and put our lives on the line every day. and in the instanceses of the stories you are about to hear, it did happen. the men and women that will be spoken about tonight. i can't even tell you how special and spectacular the duties that you performed and the way that you did this, impressive. it would be lame if that's a word i can say. i thought what i would do, i don't think that the sworn officers here know the process by which we got here tonight.

so the process is rapid protracted. every day i get a folder full of what is called captain's complimentary letters. in those letters written by supervisors in the police department, there are bank robbers arrested. and guns taken. and gang members identified. and on and on, if you read these things, you would think, my god, everything that is mentioned in these captain complimentary letters surely they will get an award. and they do, they get captain complimentary letters, and that's what we do. when someone does something over and above, as the case for everyone here. the commanding officer will write that officer up for a consideration for medal of valor. that goes to a three-captain

committee that vets many recommendations. some of those move back to captain complimentary letters because they don't make the thre threshold of a letter. and many result in a police commission complementary. and i want to thank the commission, and the mayor, if you think you have a busy schedule, it doesn't compare to his. i assure you. and the police of honor and these awards is not on the way to anything. he came here for you, and he is our mayor. and back to the story. these three captains then will make recommendations and come back and forth and certified before the medal of valor committee. the medal of valor committee is by rule and commission only the captains of the police department and the command

staff. that's it. so low 40 something people max, and to get a medal you have to achieve a two-thirds vote. and to get the two-thirds we do that with marbles. i am not kidding. we have a box over 100 years old that dates back to the turn of the century. and inspector monroe is demoted back to officer and he's the mayor, we will fix that. and this box is passed around after the presentation of the captain, and then vote. you need to get two-thirds of a marble of a certain color to achieve a medal. if you do not get two-thirds that is somewhere around 28 votes. it diverts down until you get to the medal that is appropriate. so i know tonight we don't have a gold medal.

gold medals are rare. they are really rare. i have been on the medal committee since 1997, and i can tell you that just about every gold medal was unanimous. and i was commenting and the one that everyone could understand the most is when the tiger got out in the zoo. and is the police department went in with .40 calibers to hunt tigers. and someone said there is only three things that tigers do. they eat. they sleep and they make baby tigers. and that's all they do. and so to go in and they rightfully got a gold medal. the threshold for the gold medal, outstanding bravery of that expected in the line of duty, where risk of life existed

and the officer had sufficient time to evaluate that risk. and the objective is sufficient importance to justify that risk, and the officer was able to accomplish the objective by disabling injury or death. and sadly we have awarded more gold medals than i would like to talk about postously. and silver medals of honor, is awarded when the following elements exist. when the officer protessed outstanding bravery not in the provisions provided for the gold medal of valor. where the officer assessed the damage involved or a reasonable person would consider that his or her life was in grave danger. where objective is of sufficient

importance to accomplish the risk and the officer accomplished beyond their control. a silver medal is a big deal. bronze medal, the third medal of valor, the members of the award committee shall evaluate and determine by their vote whether a silver or bronze medal of valor is granted. a bronze medal of valor is a big deal. the only thing it feels like not a big deal, when you go in and think you get a gold, silver or bronze, the road to where you are, a bronze medal of valor. i don't have one. it's unbelievable to do what you did to get that honor. and there are more bronze honor medals of valor awarded since i

remember since 1997. and you are to be congratulated. so my message to you all. i will go to a movie, i am a big movie guy. there is a scene in one of the "three muskateer," they are trapped and don't have anything but their swords. and they know that everyone else around the corner has guns. and aramus says, hey, they have been winged on our legends. it's an advantage. and then plutus that is the attack guy, exactly, so we should charge them. and they do. and all the guns go off. and they live. because i only watch movies where the good guys win. so my message is, we are hiring

1,000 police officers. we got about 200ish in the pipe once september starts. they are being weaned on your legend. so when you hear these stories tonight, just know that you are impacting 1,000 cops just like the 1,000 before impacted us. congratulations. >> thank you, chief. i had to do a little clean up. i failed to thank sergeant darcy for his rendition of the national anthem. could we give him a round of applause. and could i have a round of applause for the color guard that did a beautiful job posting the colors.

[applause] thank you, now we will start the ceremony and the presentation of the awards. first i would like to call up sergeant thomas mcmahon and commander garrity to read the citation. >> on new year's day, january 1, 2012, officer mcmahon responded to the crystal hotel at the tenderloin. to a distraught woman hanging on a fire escape near the top of the roof of a six-story

building, between the roof and the upper floor. officer mcmahon assessed the situation and responded to the top of the building. and once there made verbal contact with the woman and spoke with her and get a kind of story or rapport with the woman, and the woman told her life story. why she was on the roof and why she was going to jump. i want to emphasize that then officer mcmahon was able to establish and maintain a rapport with her and the issues and homeless and wanted to end her life as others looked on at the christa hotel. throughout the conversation the woman told the officer that she didn't want to live anymore. and wanted to jump. and