moralists -- moralez, and i work with the community against violence. we work with intervention and prevention of domestic violence and hate violence. i am not sure if many of you know, but when somebody has just gone through an incident of domestic violence, they seem to be a little bit out of their mind. they do not understand what you are talking about. they do not make a lot of sense. they are confused. many times when police are called, they do not know what to say. they are answering the wrong questions. many times, they are arrested. it happens a lot in lgbt communities that domestic violence victims are arrested. i am worried that the police will use tasers on domestic violence survivors.

the lgbt community has been highly affected by budget cuts in services. new leaf services, which was a 25-year-old organization serving thousands of books dealing with substance abuse issues, closed this year. it closed. we have no place to refer lgbt people that is really, but -- really competent to deal with lgbt issues. david campos was able to -- i do not even know. thank goodness he did what he did. we're going to be spending money on tasers? let's put the community as a priority rather than tasers. thank you. [applause] >> good evening.

my name is richard terry kotch. i am on the executive board of the national lawyers guild. we signed on to community opposition to tasers in san francisco. i urge you to vote no. tasers can and do turn non-legal force situations into deadly force situations, especially for mentally ill people, who often react differently to many things, including physical events, such as being tasered. some mentally ill may not be stopped by a taser, increasing the risk of an officer using a gun. also, the cost of tasers to purchase, the training for officers, and the lawsuits, i would think would make this a productive budget item.

according to the bart police officer, he shot and killed oscar granted when he drew his sidearm, believing it was a taser. officers should choose to use one or the other, but not both. lastly, it is not a statistic, but i am shaken in some ways by the overwhelming testimony tonight of people who are concerned about how the mentally ill in our city are going to be affected by the use of tasers. thank you very much. [applause] >> my name is kim orbach. about three years ago, a young man in oakland was coming out of a store where he cashed his paycheck.

an officer by the name of patrick gonzalez, who has killed at least twice, and has killed in other jurisdictions, claimed he recognized gary king jr. as a suspect. he approached mr. king, not the bag of chips out of his hand, and proceeded to search him. king reacted, was tased, had the sincere of him before he fled to save his life, and was executed. this man is still on the police force in oakland. he has pulled a gun on a comrade of mine, saying, "i have killed two people. you know what will happen if you run." ever since judge perry issued his decision in november, sentencing with a slap on the wrist, thereby creating a "i

thought i used my taser" defense, there have been killings in oakland of unarmed young men, who are claimed to have been going for the waistband, for what the officer thought was a weapon, in one case an electronic scale while the victim was jumping over a fence. whatever tools we give officers, a very certain percentage of people in our communities know the officers will abuse. [applause] >> hello, commissioners. my name is marlin crump. i am the co-founder of the revolutionary legal advocacy corps.

when they had the theater performance of a 911 domestic call, when the police officer came here with a tommy gun displayed for everybody, the last thing is to criticize every one of you for allowing us to sit through all these meetings for all this time before you actually allow us to be heard. i know that president mazzucco tried to cut the time down a little bit. that is disrespectful. we sat through this entire process, almost five hours. some of us have places to go. some of us have a mobility issues. some of us have young children. it is disrespectful to prolong this entire process, these presentations, over and over, it just so you guys can get your presentations before everybody

else. you really need to start prioritizing the public more. nobody is overcoming the other. i want to be fair for a moment. i am against the tasers. some of my comrades here are against the tasers. but when police officers fly over and over again -- lie over and over again, how do we know if the use of a taser is justified? overall, you also the presentations. you saw what happens when a taser is used. what would happen to your body if 50,000 volts is going through your body? thank you. [applause] >> good evening, commissioners. my name is josh mann.

i live and work in the tenderloin neighborhood. i applaud you for adopting the memphis police department crisis intervention program, something that gave me some hope. i want to repeat a couple of concerns that have been stated a lot that in particular stood out for me. one is the history of inappropriate use and abuse of tasers. the other is the city budget priorities. i know i would much rather see money from the budget go toward what i consider crime prevention, education, mental health services, rather than being used on new weapons. finally, for me i have the question of when is the appropriate use of taster's -- of tasers. there have been a lot of warnings of when not to use them, where on the body not to use them, but i am not sure what circumstances do warrant the

use of tasers. thank you very much. [applause] >> my name is and garrison, i am a district 8 voter and a journalist. with the expertise of cultivated in recent years, it is u.s. interventions and involvement in east-central africa -- burundi, sudan, combo -- congo. the culture that we export, which unfortunately is largely a culture of violence, force, and control, is a culture we create right here, every day, in forums like this, and in the decisions that come out of them. the point about san francisco culture as it is now. every year, we host fleet week and the blue angels air show, a celebration of global military dominance and the question of

might and right. the public legislature issued a report saying that san francisco is the most racist city in california. last year, i believe, a study came out putting san francisco in the top 10 cruelest cities to the homeless. please do not add the police use of a weapon tantamount to torture to this list. [applause] >> good evening. i am a physician. i am retired. before retiring, i was board certified twice in family medicine. i am speaking to the subject that person's on psychotropic drugs are high risk of sudden death taser -- if tasered. many are medicated under the supervision of government- employed positions. i am speaking out to criticize

positions for failure to diagnose, thus leaving a patient and the public at risk. psychosis or depression is commonly related to nutrition issues or toxic exposures, people who have uncontrolled diabetes or cut toxic conditions -- hypoxic conditions. mental status is commonly overlooked. it is overlooked in the majority of patients who present as psychosis or major depression. molecular medicine has documented reduction with use of niacin in 50% of cases. this treatment is not commonly offered in the united states and is actively bought by members of my profession, the psychiatric order. humans hate side-effects of psychotropic medications and often forget to take them. these medications damage their brain and make the person more likely to be violent.

the pharmaceutical industry covers this up when there are cases that go into court. too long, my profession and the promise of the gun industry has failed the public, and left police officers -- my profession and the pharmaceutical industry has billed the public, and left police officers holding the bag. >> i am an attorney in san francisco, and i am going to be very brief. i have worked on a few recent conduct cases. i am not an expert, but i did learn something from experts tonight. the honduras -- john burris stated a taser would never be used in a deadly force situation. after that, the physician spoke and said based on his expertise, a taser should only be used in a deadly force situation. based on that, i would like to

posit that there is no place for tasers in the police department. [applause] >> good evening, commissioners. my name is barbara lopez. i currently work at an elementary school in the mission. i am concerned about disproportional use of tasers on communities of color. i am a career woman. i used to do a lot of parties in the mission and the castro for women. a lot of my friends are still promoters. when we talk about a gay agenda, our community disproportionately does drugs. a lot of my friends that are still on the scene in the castro disproportional the use cocaine, math, and other uppers, to deal with trauma. my have been two clubs, often police officers have had to intervene because of people on drugs. i am very concerned when the first, i heard tonight was

nothing bet -- that drugs are an appropriate of tasers. when you're under the influence of drugs, your heart beat gets faster. if you get tased, that increases the likelihood of a heart attack. a lot of gay boys i know are still doing drugs. they are going to be the folks that are going to get tasered, and i think that is a serious concern. i am asking you to vote no on tasers, because of communities that are going to get targeted. thank you so much for your time. [applause] >> good evening. my name is barbara growth. i am concerned resident. i vote against the taser because

of the long wires. i have a fear that the officer uses the taser and the other officer steps forward to protect him. you'll find the other officer dead sometime later with funny marks around his neck from another officer that may not be exactly on our side, because we let everybody in the department. the court is not going to turn them in either. i vote for the hand-held thing like i have gotten, which i use at home. it makes noise. i have not used it on a dog, like a wanted to. i wanted to show my son, but it pop so much he would not open his door and come out so i could show him how the thing looked or sounded. i would go for the hand held that those close to the person. that way, there is no mixup. you have to push it on one side and hold it on the other. there is no mixup at all. the net take routine -- anybody

can be made in that kick -- the nutcake routine -- anybody can be made a nutcake. i am 100 pounds overweight, compliments of putting it on in one month from difficult -- depacote, a psychiatric medication. they are nuisances. i divorced my problem. my ex-husband was a civilian employee with the san francisco police department who managed to get transferred to the closest district station. yes, this lady has a rap sheet, but i no longer have any problems, because i am divorced. thank you. president mazzucco>> thank you,r

opening and up to the floor. i worked as a community organizer in the commission, for predominantly the central american community. i want to point out for most it is often said that law enforcement is in place to protect and serve us. obviously, we pay the salaries of cops. a retired taxes are taken out of our paychecks, -- any time taxes are taken out of our paychecks, that goes to protect and serve us. i think you guys would be stupid to vote for this. why do i say that? it is obvious in this room that most of us in the community oppose tasers. if we are the ones who pay the salaries of the cops, how would you vote on something that goes against the interest of the people? [applause] obviously, expert testimony has not supported that the taser is

the way to go. until we see statistics and expert testimony, i do not see how we can allow our police department, on top of guns, to carry this device. we saw what happened with johannes. i am from massachusetts. there, he would have been put away for 20 years at least. but for the best interest of the public. we say no. [applause] >> hello, commissioners. my name is patricia ferrel. i am 59 years old. i love san francisco pd. i called and san francisco's finest. i lived 20 years in atlanta, georgia. i prefer a cattle prod.

>> my name is nick pasquerello. i testified a year ago against tasers. you voted them down. i hope you will do that again. one of the major reasons you voted them down a year ago was because at that time the department admitted it was a year and a half behind in the mental health training of the officers. this is another reason why you should not go forward with any further study of tasers until you have completed training of all officers in mental health training. thank you. [applause] president mazzucco: the left side of the room is now complete. the right side. >> i don't know about that. president mazzucco: not politically. [laughter] >> i am a community organizer

with the coalition on homelessness. i am working with the department. i was thrilled to weeks ago when the commission voted unanimously to listen to the voice of our community to prevent needless death of our community members through the cit model. i was also pleased to see another overture, when the chief attended a meeting of the lgbt democratic club to discuss our views on pacers. -- on tasers. thank you for doing that. community engagement is the heart of effective public safety and needs to be a consideration in every step of every issue. there are two things you need to do to listen to the community. nearly every person in this room who is now wearing a blue collar does not want -- who is not wanting a blue collaearing a b s

not want tasers. the same goes for those that were in the community overflow rooms. do what the aclu suggested. medical experts, representation from the school board, and representatives from the community must work with you on protocol and tactical options for less than lethal force situations. this group must look at all options, not just tasers. consensus is possible. but consensus building will seriously take time. correct me if i'm wrong, but you said last night you did not want the department to issue recommendations until after cit was implemented. is that right? if that is so, i agree. you need to give this process time to do its work properly. thanks. [applause]

president mazzucco: next speaker? >> i obviously want you to vote no on tasers. if you're still in this room, two minutes is not a lot of time, but it has been given to you and you should take it. the public comment has been almost entirely that we do not want tasers. these are people who of and set a -- have been staying all night to make their comment. if you want any semblance of representation of the public, of communities you would like to serve, you need to vote against tasers, or at least postpone it and have community engagement before you make any vote. in terms of deescalating, you

have just adopted a program to try to do that. why adopt a second program at the same time? we need to try to train people to deescalate. it has been called into question whether any weapon can be escalate -- can deescalate a situation. i understand why a police officer would be scared and want to use a weapon. when people have more weapons available, they use more weapons. it is just what people do. i think bringing more weapons into this situation is in no way going to deescalate anything. we need to try using a different method first. i have two minutes. i am going to use them. we were playing been go

downstairs. what did we have left that nobody setbacks -- nobody said? did anybody get been kodak's 3, 2, 1 -- get bingo? three, two, one. thank you. >> i am the president of [unintelligible] and a member of numerous other organizations. you have heard various arguments here tonight, but we also need to look to the moral issues. the effect of the matter is it is obvious when somebody gets hit with a taser the become agitated and it leads to escalation. the fact of the matter is that tasers are mainly used against homeless people, the mentally ill, and the poor. these are people who need help, not torture. i say torture because as amnesty

international states, it is a torture device. a fundamental question we need to ask in san francisco -- do we want to be regarded as the torturers of the world, as those to permit torture? i do not think so. also, why is there a different moral issue? we also have a budget crisis. i do not think we should be spending that money in arizona. there are other ways things can be used. if not, there are other alternatives. let us think about this.

let us not steal our funds. but as come down and do it properly, and then make a proper, intelligent, informed decision. thank you. >> my name is nate miller. i grew up in san francisco. i saw you guys on television on a bar down the street, and so i decided to come. hello, buck cavern. was i just on tv? [laughter] >> though you have anything else to do? >> were there at ball games? >> there are half price drinks for everyone who does this tonight. [laughter] [applause] >> go ahead. >> i grew up in san francisco. i think there is always an argument for more tools.

maybe you need a bow and arrow if the guy is running far away. maybe you need non-chuck p is a kung fu masters. but ultimately, -- maybe you need nunchucks if he is a kung fu masters. but ultimately, we need deesca lation. the best way is to show compassion. i encourage you to vote against tasers. that is it. [applause] [laughter] >> we have our last speaker. last but not least. >> good evening. i am carl stark. i am a rider. i am not familiar with shooting people. i am not really conversant with tasers. i guess it is called the wechsler study.

it was done by our very own ucsf. it did not really nail down why, but it seems that first year after the department' gets its hands on a taser, the impact is negative in the extreme. it did not seem to have too many positive points for officer safety either, not that officers are not members of the public. one of the questions i wanted to ask is if public safety does not really improve with the issuing of tasers, an officer safety does not really improved, besides taser international's bottom-line, what does improve backspin -- does improve?

i am a little concerned about how some of the academics were questioned into giving an answer regarding a very specific incident under a very limited control set of circumstances, with a very specific set of training guidelines in place, could this will possibly be useful. they were giving the answer yes. i am afraid the sound bite is going to be "yes," taken out of context. it certainly could not happen from anybody who has been part of the extensive and time- consuming proceedings tonight. thank you all for your time and patience on this matter. i think we have spent enough time and government money on this whole taser thing, in my personal opinion. thanks. [applause]