public safety matters on a number of different issues that were being studied by the city at the time. district boundaries, foot patrols, and general organizational issues in the police department. the consultant did some of this work, so some of you may have seen some of this before, working with the city. the comptroller's office has city efficiency under the charter, and so we work with departments to analyze services and try to get to effectiveness and public safety delivery. we assisted the police commission and responded to the board's request by contracting for this work and a managing on behalf of the city. that is where the comptroller's office comes in. i am joined by two principles of the public safety's strategy group. i will let them introduce themselves and their qualifications. they will walk you through the findings and recommendations in

their report, and i am sure we welcome questions as we go along. as the commission said, this is a discussion item. i know there is also interest on behalf of the board of supervisors on having the same discussion at a future date, and i am available to answer any questions at how the controller's office may assist or act in the future, and i will stop right there. >> thank you. good evening, commissioners. i am pleased to be back here to deliver this report. a brief introduction of myself, and then the findings. i have been involved in public safety, specifically law enforcement, 25 years, previously being a sworn officer, switching to research and development. since 1994, have been working actively, helping departments across the country with data analysis, researching policies, procedures, good governance

within policing, community policing, employment issues -- many of the things you do here in san francisco. i have had the great privilege of working in san francisco since 2007, and other cities like dallas, the state of vermont, the entire state of massachusetts, and about 350 other municipalities across the country. it is great to be able to bring those lessons learned it to the city tonight. >> good evening, commissioners. is nice to be back in front of you again. my name is rick. i have 34 years in law enforcement. i retired as a police chief and move into consulting and public safety strategies. i am not sure you need to know any other background. i have worked on all the same projects with kim across the

country and enjoy working with san francisco. president marshall: thank you. >> briefly about the methodology and how we did the research on patrol specials. we were under contract with the city comptroller's office. the discussion on patrol specials and the study began in late 2008. at that time, the commission started to draft the rules that were put into place in 2009. we initially started our study in april, 2009. we came to the city and spencer will days reviewing all of the records -- and spent several days reviewing all the records, meeting with everyone of the then-29 patrol specials and assistance, members of the commission, members of the san francisco police department, clients of the patrol specials, and members of the general citizenry and the extended

government. during that time, we looked at every bit of paper that we could possibly get our hands on. we did research on historical documents from the patrols specials. some of them were kind enough to give us lots of material on the history of patrol specials and some of the evolution. we also looked at the rules and procedures and the evolution of those and all the changes that occurred since the commission started with rules and procedures, right down to the current interim rules. we looked at disciplinary cases, we looked at actually were the beats were. there are 64 beats. the city, and that has an historical -- there are 64 beat's throughout the city and that has an historical background. we look at which ones were active and which were not, and we met with a smaller group of concerned special patrol clients and a few patrol specials themselves for more in-depth discussions on things as we were finding them out. some of the things that we found

out i will go over in detail. but because most of you will have had a chance to chat with and all of you have had a chance to read the report, there is a lot more in the newspaper and on the television already about this. the final recommendation for the city. keep in mind, are charged with this was to look at, what is the mission, vision, and values of the of sfpd and where does patrol specials fall into that and the governance of the patrol specials, is it meeting the needs of the city and the citizenry. with that, we found what the patrol specials perform a very specific service for their private clients, that the city should invest itself of its public oversight. let me back into why. as i mentioned, they are providing services for private clients. they are under your umbrella.

you set the rules and procedures. you handled the discipline. but you cannot select who is a patrol special. you cannot advertise the position of a patrol special and invite individuals to apply to you, and you do not have the ability to interview them or selected was working under the city umbrella. you do not have direction and control over their day-to-day activities, within city governments, when they are employees, you are able to direct their day-to-day activities. because they are paid for privately, you cannot do that. you cannot have anyone on the police department find a patrol special and ask them to go patrol somewhere else on your behalf. they do not work for you, they work for the private client. it is a very private business. when we look at private security in the city, they are separate and distinct and not under the umbrella of the city charter. we suggest that is how this

operation -- essentially, their security guards performing security services, and like other security guards, they should be separate from the city. right now, they are afforded special privileges as a private company working within the city. some of those privileges include access to police data. on some of the web sites, which promote the activities of the patrol special, they actually say the patrol special goes into the police station, checks the crime line, listens to the police radio. they are civilians. they are not sworn personnel. they should not have access to that information. currently, the patrol specials have police radius. granted, they have purchased them on the run, but they are connected to the police channel. in california, there is a specific commission that oversees the use of those

radios. patrol specials are not granted the authority to utilize that system in the state of california. they are being afforded a privilege they should not have. when we talk about liability, because there is some extension here of your commission and the city and the san francisco police department, you will be liable for the actions of the patrol specials. they carry limited amounts of liability insurance as patrol specials, and they have to carry workers' compensation insurance for their assistant patrol specials. however, there has already been a case filed previously by a patrol special to the city to try to get workers' comp benefits while that individual was working as an assistant patrol special. there are currently claims against the city with the connection to the shooting earlier this year.

you are in the chain of liability, yet you do not have direction and control over these individuals. when it comes to training, while there is a certain level of basic training that patrol specials must have, there is not in fact a patrol special certification. the post does not recognize patrol specials as police officers, nor does the state of california in the court system. they are not police officers. they're very basic, 64 hours, but that's a fear minimum training, other standards. you are allowing them, free of charge, with the exception of the cost of their ammunition, to use your range, and your personnel are taking their time and resources to set up the training's and give the training to these patrol specials. however, you are doing this free of charge and you are doing it

without oversight of day-to-day activities. again, the gap has been created, keeping you in that chain of liability. the other area that we looked at, because the patrol specials put out information to the public, through pamphlets and publications, and expresses quite often that patrol specials are free to the taxpayer. so there is not a tax burden on the citizenry, but in fact that is not correct. there is a position within the san francisco police department that is the liaison to the patrol specials. there is administrative time spent by the command staff and by the lieutenant for your liaison to the commission, as well as all the time that other city departments are placing on this. are very conservative number is not shocking, given the whole budget of the whole city, but it is the fact that the city is providing free services to a

private business that have been contracting outside of the city for what ever contract they want to set up without your oversight and recouping the benefit of city services. again, the number is conservative. we do not want to put extra burden on other parts of the city. that is something that you can follow up with with the controller's office to get other numbers, such as the thing with legal cases. we looked at 11 different cases. some of them are in fact placed against the commission, where the patrol specials have pursued the commission. and every case, the patrol specials have lost their suit, but has taken time and resources to defend against those cases. what is noticeable and notable about that is often the lawsuits are against rules and regulations. if you put a role in place, you have been sued for that. -- if you put a rule in place,

you been sued for that and that is ticking of times and resources. the other thing we found through our research is the patrol specials routinely were disregarding your rules. one of the big things is the uniforms. if you look at the screen, this is out of today's paper. as recent as today, a patrol special is photographed in public out of uniform. as you notice, they are not wearing the blue epaulets on the soldier -- on the shoulder and they are out of uniform. that is in today's paper. when we went out to look at different areas of the patrol specials, we saw numerous infractions of the rules and procedures. the uniform and what the rules say, and what california says, is these patrol specials are not in position to be making arrests. however, they have made arrests, both through our visual observation of them and on

videotapes we have seen. they have not only made the arrests but preceded the arrests by calling themselves police. the state of california and the commission did not recognize patrol specials as police, yet they are letting the public think they are police. this whole issue of the uniform causes confusion. when we talked to people in the public and asked them what a patrol special was or what the difference was, because the uniform is so similar to that of the san francisco police department, there is a lot of confusion. that is not something that is in the best interests of the police department and of the city. our goal was to look at how does the operation of the patrol special fit with the mission, vision, and values of the san francisco police department. you have someone out on the street wearing a uniform that looks very similar to the san francisco police department, and

in fact the patrol specials expressed concern that if they did not look like the san francisco police department, they would not garner the respect of the people in public. so it is a known confusion. they are aware of it. people and the public are aware is hard to distinguish. so patrol specials could be doing something improperly and be mistaken for a member of the police department. that is all of concern. the fact you had to create interim rules to address the fact that people under your authority refused to wear the light blue shirt is of concern. it shows blatant disregard for the rules. certainly, they have said if they wear a light blue that they are going to be visible to criminals. they don't want to be seen by criminals. there is law enforcement across the country that wears light blue. there are many other law enforcement that where other colors. there is no reason for patrol specials to look like the police department itself.

one of the other things we discovered it is there has been great discussion of how the patrol specials or the entity that should be performing community policing activities. if you look at the history here, on the commission, you have spent valuable time and resources taking a look at the police department, a lot of reorganization, and a lot of effort place towards community engagement. five years ago, we had a study on community policing. there was a lot of community policing emphasis with the police executive review and the three reports that came out of that. to have an entity under the commission publicly saying that the san francisco police department is not the right entity to be conducting community policing flies in the face of the mission, visions, and values that you have set for your own police department. let me talk about the advertising. there is actually a rule that states that patrol specials must

have their advertising approved by the san francisco police chief. that has not been done. there is a lot of media, text media, distributed media that goes out without the approval of sfpd. that is a blatant violation of rules and procedures. in fact, the distribution of literature on patrol specials was so unsettling to was that we want to call to the attention of the commission and sfpd that on several occasions we look at literature that was handed out by the patrol specials and, in fact, said if something goes wrong at your establishment, call us. if something goes wrong here on the streets of san francisco that is of a nature that needs police attention, citizens should be directed to call police. somebody acting under your charge and under your direction and authority of the commission

should not be asking citizens to not call the police. again, getting back to where they patrol, there has been a lot of discussion about community policing, a lot of community members. we asked for and the commission asked for as part of this the client list of the patrol specials. they would not give that willingly. not only would they not give the client list, they would not disclose what they made or when and where they worked or what activities they were doing. some complied and a minimal way and give us short lists. with those short lists, we not only went out on our own but took up the offer of some patrol specials to meet them at their clients' location and look around. because most of the public does not know what the patrol specials are, we wanted to share a few photographs with you. this is one area that is a patrol special location.

this was taken in the middle of the day. it is boarded up buildings. while this is an important service the patrol special is providing to that individual client, it is not something that they need to be doing under the city. this is a security function. bacon be doing it without the city. -- they can be doing it without the city. a second picture, similar location, downtown. there are several streets. there are buildings on this street that are boarded up. the role of the client patrol special is to go there and make sure the doors are still intact. at the boards are still on walls and that any cameras that are on the building have not been damaged. >> that is my old office. >> you are not supposed to know where that is. >> sorry. >> this is another.

that is a patrol special area. there are many small businesses and the it's a large warehouse buildings and a hired to patrol specials to go out nightly and look at the buildings to make sure they are intact. a good, fine service for a security company to provide to a private location and private client. we're not dismissing that it is an important service, it is just not one that needs to be done under the auspices of the police commission. this particular location is in a neighborhood. again, people go away. they might want their house checked by someone. perfectly fine, but not something that needs to be done under a patrol special that is under the commission. so these are all activities that should be done by private security company. there are two other locations that are unique. this particular one, they

started hiring patrol specials after a very unfortunate incident. while it was unfortunate and we do not want to dismiss the severity of it, incidents like that tend to be random. so having want someone stationed there -- so having someone stationed there may or may not call something to happen. as you know, there have been unfortunate incidents right outside of the police department. there has been an unfortunate incident with a patrol specialist present. the mere presence of the uniform does not mean a crime will not happen. we're not dismissing the importance that the citizens or the business place on having the patrol special there, they're not performing a service that needs to be done under the commission or affiliated with the city. this picture is another business location that has had lots of clients. they were individual businesses. certainly, the patrol special in

this area was a very popular patrol special and did a service for their individual private clients. so how does this differ from what is happening now? because the patrol specials are private business, and you cannot direct and control their activities, they are not working for you. there has been lots of discussion around the fact that since the city is in a tough economic time, as are many other cities, and there has been promotion for supporters and by the patrol specials themselves that you, the commission, the city, the san francisco police department itself, should hire them. one of the examples is around muni. they said, hire us, we can ride the muni. crime and north beach, crime running rampant. why is it that this entity under

the commission is speaking about crime and saying if anything is going wrong, when it may or may not be. that is for the police department to be making the statements on behalf of the city, and that goes back to the fact they are advertising and promoting the patrol specials without going through the san francisco police department. that is certainly a complication. why i bring this out is because, at first glance, that may seem to be a good solution -- patrol specials, let's hire them -- but the reality is you cannot. the city cannot just decide that you are going to hire some private individual to perform a function. if you want private security on the buses or any location in the city, the only way you could do that is to it publicly. this city is well known for

fairness and transparency. you cannot just hire a private business to perform a service for you without actually advertising that. again, our basic recommendation is for you to not have any connection with the patrol specials. we understand there is history there, but as someone told me earlier this week, back in the days when patrol specials start, we also had the pony express. things change, but times change, the needs of the city changed. what we're saying is the patrol specials can keep their businesses. we're not taking away anyone's livelihood with this recommendation. what we're suggesting is you allow them to become security guards. right now, the assistant patrol specials actually have their security guard card, said that leaves a few patrol specials that would need to transition to that. we know that cannot happen overnight. in the interim, we suggest there

are clear steps taken to limit the exposure, mitigate the risks when it comes to the city. first and foremost is the color of the uniforms. our report says use light blue because that was in the original rule. quite honestly, to what it does not matter. if it is light green, light tan, light blue, as long as it is decidedly different from the san francisco police department. let the san francisco police department keep the star and the patrol specials keep the shield. let's separate the difference. let's make sure they are a different color. this whole issue of accountability. right now, you are getting greater compliance. if they're going to be under your auspices, not only do they need to sign in and out, but you should also know exactly where they're going to be.

because they have this alliance with you now, it is important for you to know exactly what businesses they are serving, the hours, and their duties so it is not in conflict with what is allowed by sfpd. their insurance cards, their firearms cards all need to be in on time. we looked at place at the records -- we looked at length at the records. late notices, late notices. other private businesses in the city did not have that luxury of late notices. if you are late, you could no longer work. we suggest you do that as well. when it comes to the police radios, we suggest in the interim there is no access to police information by a civilian who was not working for the san francisco police department. with that, you should turn off the radio communications. they say it is for safety. there are many security companies that have their own

radio systems. it is permissible for them to have that and is a great idea for safety and communication between one another. however, they should not have access to police information at all. they should not have access to the back part of the police station. when they signed an, a should be on the citizen side of the glass. we have heard that the patrol specials are getting hot sheet, which is police information. disch not be having that. -- they should not be having that. there has to be specific controls on their vehicles. we have not observed patrol specials by letting traffic laws, going up one-way streets. -- we have witnessed them violating traffic laws, going up one-way streets. all of these are interim steps, along awith seizing and assisting, mitigating your risks

and liability, but still allowing the patrol specials to do their work. drpvagain, are highest and best recommendation to you is to divest yourself of any oversight of the patrol specials, allow them to keep their businesses, their clients, and security companies, but do that just as all the other security company is due out in the city. i told lieutenant reilly i would take 18 minutes. i am sure i am over, but i appreciate the time to present and i will entertain any questions you may have at this time. president marshall: 1 statement first, and then commissioners can jump in. from my reading and conversation, the one thing you are not saying is that the patrol specials have not or do not provide a service that a lot of citizens are pleased with. >> absolutely not. president marshall: it was not a

comment on the quality of their service, it was a look at the patrol specials and their relationship to the commission and to the police department and the city. >> exactly. the clients that we talked to, by and large, were pleased with the services. some said there could be a higher level of accountability. but they hand-picked about 160- some clients, 63 of which responded. their clients said they were happy. we don't dispute that. they are performing a service that citizens can be entitled to that a patrol special can provide. they just don't need to do it under the city. president marshall: commissioner kingsley, you are first. commissioner kingsley: a follow- up to dr. marshall's question. did you attempt to measure, quantify any benefits to the city from the police specials? >> we did, actually.

we asked for their records, and most of them did not have any. when you ask, what do you do day to day, what are the things you are performing for the citizens, very spotty at best. in order to have something quantifiable, everybody has to submit the same information in the same way. they did not keep databases, so it is hard to tell, but we do not dismiss that they, like any other security guards, have an impact on public safety. however, what they don't offer is the ability to use their services to address the concerns of the city and the city government. just like any of the other private security -- for example, there is a private firm that has a fixed booth at a location. i am sure that person out there has made some people say, oh, there is someone there, i better not do something. what is hard to do, commissioners, is rv