what i want to know is, it really comes down to, what adults are going to do. with this model, how would those things have ruled out differently? now, i work with young people who are put in dangerous situations every day. i have to do a couple things for them. i have to be able to tell them how to cut down the chance they will be in those situations in the first place, and when they end up in those situations, i have to tell them what to do. if not, i'm not doing them any good, because i want to keep them alive and free. so the officers are confronted with these incidents. so i would like to know from you, how would those things be handled differently? how would they be handled in the future? >> the circumstances in every community are very challenging,

and how law enforcement proceeds to follow with their training, and as i difficult situation. but for somebody to come before you and present any program that says if you do this you will never have another tragic event within your community would be very wreckless in making those kinds of comments. the crisis intervention team is an approach that addresses the broader issue of the community. it also allows the officers that have many years of experience in their own law enforcement training to work with mental illness issues from a level of the training that they receive as a c.i.t. officer. every officer is faced with circumstances that are challenging.

it is going to fall back on his or her training and on perception of what is it before them. the c.i.t. officer as a process allows an officer with excellent judgment and maturity as what was suggested by the association member of experience to be critical but that officer is going to have to make that decision. c.i.t. is an extra level of competence, extra level of knowledge, an extra level of passion and concerns to address the difficult challenges that he or she may be facing with any event. and i think within the context of what you are asking, i don't think that i can sit here before you or stand before you today and give you absolutes.

i can tell you from my many years of experience that when i would read reports that would be turned in by our officers faced with challenging situations, i would see that the c.i.t. influence made a difference. but it is an individual decision sometimes based on the interpretations of whatever those scenarios are. but i think that the c.i.t. is a program that allows the officers competence by the fact that the c.i.t. officer arriving on the scene is the lead officer. so you may have other officers that are present, and the c.i.t. officer is going to be the director, if you would, of the crisis event. and i think the clarity of a crisis really hinges a lot on

that level of performance. these things i'm making before you can easily be somewhat minimized by an expression "but the officer had to act immediately," "the officer had no choice otherwise." those are hard questions for me to counter. vice president marshall: i know. i realize that. if you are telling me that something that might have happened is someone differently might have intervened, those are the things i want to know. i don't want to give people false hope. i don't want it to be like, we got this here and things will be different, i want to know what would happen in those real-life situations that occurred. it is a little tough, because

you don't know all the realities. i've been here longer than anyone. people say, they should have done this differently. well, what should the officers have done? i hope that makes sense to people. really, that's why we're here. we can't do anything about the money, but the situations that come up that officers face, i want to know, as a result of this, what is going to happen that would be done differently in those kinds of situations. give me one. if you can give me more nuts and bolts, that would be great. that would help me. again, i can pass something, but it is not going to change what happens in those moments, to me it is hallow. >> i think the emphasis of the training within itself, the leadership, those officers do rise to remarkable 0 cages that i -- remarkable occasions, that i have seen.

unbelievable. other communities have reported the same. otherwise, every situation is unique, and the word "depends" comes into play with regard to the chenks challenges that are faced with the officers, the officer's interpretation of delicate situations. the fact that the officers have a better understanding oftentimes. i'm not reflecting my comments toward san francisco, but across the country, many times law enforcement officers are afraid of people who have mental illness. many times they see a person that may have a mental illness. prejudice and stigma toward mental illness would suggest that that person is out to kill somebody and is threatening them in a way that i could harm someone else. i am not saying this about the san francisco police officers. i have met many, and those officers are excellent as a

comparing and statchtri enforcement person. but i am telling you there is a lot of stigma and prejudice not because they are law enforcement officers. but is there stigma and prejudice within the community? the law enforcement is just a reflection of the community. c.i.t. helps understanding mental illness in a way of addressing some alternatives. i can't give you absolutes, but i can assure you a c.i.t. officer in performance of his duty will be diligently seeking and searching and accomplishing, i believe, those other alternatives that they are faced with. vice president marshall: let me say a couple more things and then i will pass it off. we have had officer-involved shootings. not involving those with mental

illness, but sometimes people say, why not just shoot-out the tire. well, that makes it worse. people suggested things that could happen. here's what i hear you saying. let me use a model. that's important to me. school resource officers handle things differently because they are at a school site. if that is one of the things that you might interface differently is because they are at a school site. they are trained not to necessarily arrest. they go and talk the kid down there. the last thing, they -- if that's the type of thing you are talking about, that's fine. that's the kind of clarity i need.

i want to know what the officers are going to do in those situations. for me i think that's crucial. >> what you are talking about a school resource officer. just to let you know, there is a serious effort to put c.i.t. officers within that role of school resource officers. it goes hand-in-happened because many of our -- it goes hand-in-hand because many of our people have, youth, have mental health issues. but the special zation -- specialization you were talking about, when a call comes in, and the dispatcher is screening the call, and clearly the dispatcher

indicates the call is about a person with mental illness, that person has a listing of available c.i.t. officers and will dispatch at least one particular c.i.t. officer so that scene event. other officers that are appropriately or necessary for that call event will also be dispatched. when the arrival of the officers, we'll say three or four, whatever the number that might require for that particular call event, because of the policy and because of the understanding, the c.i.t. officer is the lead officer. you heard about the c.i.t. referred to -- often referred to as a badge, like what's on my lapel, that little pin sometimes represents competence of our people that have a mental illness, and clearly with confidence the family may be calling in. but the leadership, and the leadership within the frame work of clarity is very, very important at a crisis event.

i cannot over-emphasize that if you are faced with a challenge examining circumstance or issues, you must have total clarity of the performance of that particular officer and how they interact with an individual that may not see that individual as a law enforcement officer but may, because of the severity -- or the huh hallucinations may see this individual as a threat against the individual. understanding the uniqueness of an individual in crisis will back off to allow a cooperation and not to engage. but that's clearly within the training of the officer. i cannot give you absolutes. vice president marshall: you answered the best you can. i wanted to put this before the body my major concerns here. if i can get some help with

that, i would appreciate that. president mazzucco: for sake of clarity, i know the answer to the question, and i know you don't want to answer this, but what has been the change in flubs in officer-involved shoot -- change in numbers in officer-involved shootings? >> it has been a dramatic decraste crease. we are not slure if it is 2 or 3 within the last 10 to 15 years. president mazzucco: all right. now it is time for public comment. commissioner chan: thank you for answering our questions. [applause]

president mazzucco: can we have people line up on that side of the room. we will limit public comment to two minutes. >> thank you. i'm coming from memphis, but memphis is a long way from san francisco. i would love to challenge our 1515 against this. i would love to. this c.i.t. issue, think about this, it won't work. we have 10 districts, three shifts a day. do the math. we would need a c.i.t. officer at 10 districts three shifts a day? how much does that cost? i don't know. a couple million. no one wants to talk about the taser. we all dodge the taser. the last four incidents we had with san francisco police involving officer-led shootings

with allegedly mentally ill had a case of e.u.'s, all four westbound alive. chief gas gone who -- gascon who was on with ron owens today, confirmed me. people listed these tasers with all the spin doctors. it is getting old. >> commissioners, the reason why my certified dog is here with me is because of ptsd exasbation. and i'm 5150. i want to make sure he doesn't get shot. you see him, chief? and also we're saying do not

days us. since taser has been mentioned today, all -- although it shouldn't have been. because it is commission and i understand the rationale separated the taser. i'm here to articulate my agency's position that education is the appropriate foundation on the allocation of the budget for s.f.p.d. for mental health. you have heard me say before calling the mortician to deliver p.d.'s is like calling s.f.p.d. to do an intervention. i am not anti-cop, it is just being realistic. we go down to district five safety meeting expressed concern and doubt about the capacity of

officer's conduct. there is an average ever 37 5150's per day. this should go to train officers and also to train all the dispatchers. calling my son a crazy man with a knife is not acceptible. thank you. >> good evening. my name is clay hathaway and i'm a deputy public defender at san francisco public defender's office. i have been practicing criminal defense for 15 years and i've been a public defender for eight. i wanted to give the commission and hearing some real examples

of what we as public defenders are dealing with all the time. because this is a huge fiscal impact. these are the kinds of cases that are not going away. we have mentally ill clients who have called the police or someone who has called the police on their behalf because of one reason, and that reason is they need help. subsequently, because at some critical moment -- and i'm glad commissioner marshall brought up, what could have been done differently? because often there is a critical moment where those officers who have had the 40 -hour training, not the thing in place right now, those officers made choices to escalate instead of deescalate. three examples briefly. a case i tried two years ago.

a woman 57 years a-- old. she's living in an assisted living center. she's diagnosed merntly ill. her caseworker calls the police to get assistance. the police show up to her house and she is in her room. she is in her room. she doesn't want anyone to come in. they force entry and she grabs a knife. the police then leave the room and they don't wait for the less than legal, they don't wait for someone more qualified to negotiate that situation, but they choose to force entry again and -- can i have one more minute? >> we have to take our two minutes. i apologize. >> i have two other examples that are incredibly per swacive.

the common denominators are mentally ill persons who are -- they need help and consequently they didn't get it. >> hello. my name is mike. one thing i didn't hear durring the presentations is any concern from the mental health patients? is anyone asking thm how they want to be treated?

i can't tell you how many stories, there are probably two dozen that people have relayed to me of they were victimized, they happened to be a mental patient. the police show up, beat on them. they get put in an ambulance. quite often they are harmed in the ambulance, and they go to psyche emergency and they get harmed again. what i see is there are so many directions that trauma is introduced into these people's lives, that you can't expect them to not be mentally ill. way before the police get there, we need to did decide how we are going to reduce the trauma in the people's lives. i also see the police focusing on things that -- you know, the crackdown on the muni. $2 tickets. we have a whole force of people. let's go out and get some violent criminals.

i don't know. it is really hard to say what all the answers are. i wish i had read the suggestions. it sounds very intriguing. definitely, train the officers. i don't know. is this a perfect model? i don't know. hopefully it will lead us somewhere with the nuts and bolts with some good ideas that could de-escalate the situation. that's all i got for tonight. thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker? >> hi. i'm jane goldman. i've been a psychiatric nurse of san francisco general hospital for the past 30 years. i believe that the police can learn to deal bettr with psychiatrically ill patients because in 1980, in the 80's we trained all the rookies in the

sfpd. you guys aren't old enough to know this, but i am. we gave them classes, pro-bono from psyche emergency where i worked on how to deal with 6 c1 worked on how to deal with mental health patients who are out of control. and in answer to dr. marshall's questions, very briefly, there are de-escalation techniques that i believe the memphis police use, they just maybe can't articulate what you want to hear. i can give you a couple examples. most paranoid schizophrenic patients are off their meds and they are scared out of their minds. they are hearing voices. they think the police are coming to get them. just as they do in psyche emergency. so instead of saying, ok put the knife down. what we in psyche emergency would do is hey, you look really upset. can i help? your mom called and said that

you've been talking to yourself and busting up the room. what's going on? so instead of moving in when there is no imminent danger, psychiatric nurses move back. that is just one de-escalation technique. you show empathy. what we teach, and i'm head of the program now, is called s.m.a.r.t. training, which is ironic. safety management and response techniques. we teach deescalation techniques for patients who are having a psychotic episode. those are the techniques these guys are talking about, and they know what they are talking about. it works. president mazzucco: could you say your full name again, please? >> jane goldman. president mazzucco: and you work where now? >> san francisco general hospital. and we used to give the same sort of training to the rookies

in the early and mid 1908's. president mazzucco: i would like to reach out to you. thank you very much. >> thank you. [applause] >> how do you do commissioners and chief godown. i wanted to say i'm a disabled american and i'm also the chapter president and organizer for chapter 16 for the californians with disability rights. i wanted to remind all the commissioners and the chief that individuals who are being visited by police officers in their moments of crises are disabled americans. they do have rights. they do require the kind of compassion and dignity anyone in crises has afforded to them. in speaking about this, this

particular model that the officer and doctor brought sounds like one that has previously been here but that the network fell apart. one of the things they bring to the table is the interaction with agencies that support the mentally ill and provide services for the mentally ill. persons who are mentally ill have moments of high crises. those high crises are passing moments. for the most part, individuals find methods to cope, and only when he have they have the crises do they have the interactions with the officers. so dr. marshall, i want to comment about something i heard on npr today which is the program about proposition 63 funds used for early

interventions for mental illness with children and teaching cogtive behavioral techniques for individuals that started showing symptoms. on times -- oftentimes symptoms for individuals that will show up in the criminal justice system show up then. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> hello. my name is dale monavi. i have had the opportunity to -- i am very much in favor of the memphis modl. san francisco claims to be the city that knows how and it must now find the courage to become

the city that can learn from others. we must learn how to embrace change. what is important is compassion, communication, cooperation and coordination across the departments. that is critical to address the kinds of problems that are before us today. thank you very much. >> good evening, commissioner. my name is francis sheehan. i was made of tonight's meeting from the san francisco office. i flew in from southern california to attend and be supportive of this program tonight. on approximately 11:00 a.m., august 7, 2008, my mentally

disabled sister was shot a minimum of six times resulting in 14 bullet wounds by the sfpd. the last shot was execution-style to her head. she has survived. thank god. i have asked the san francisco police officers, responding to feinstein what their protocol has been. she needed help, not bullets. mental illness is a diagnosed brain disorder and those affected need to be treated with the same respect, dignity, and compassion as those with heart disease, alzheimer's, diabetes. i read with interest the recently advertised police chief of san francisco. it stated in part "the city has been implementing an unprecedented series of studies

that laid out a framework of fundamental changes for sfpd transforming it into the national mold he will for the 21st century urban policy. the new chief will have the conviction and courage to address problems and tough decisions while setting out what is in the best interests of the department and the community. based on the shooting incidents before my sister was shot many in this community and around the world are watching to see if this city will do what is in the best interest of their communities for which they serve. in closing, tolstoy stated, everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing ones self. i ask your support to adopt the memphis plan and i thank the team from memphis and all their supporters here tonight. thank you very much. [applaus