>> role call of the commissioners. >> present. >> commission vice president joe marshall. >> president. >> commissioner james hammer. >> president. >> commissioner angela chen. >> president. >> present. >> commissioner james slaughter.

>> here. >> good evening. thank you lieutenant. and welcome to the april 6th, 2011 meeting of the san francisco police commission. we have a pretty heavy agenda tonight and we will move into our first item. excuse me. if you are here for line item number three there is a brief meeting between three commissioners. we ask that this matter go off calendar for further discussions with the board of supervisors and the san francisco police department. is that correct? >> correct. >> let's call line item one, the consent calendar. i see we have our unit present tonight. >> request to accept equipment from cindy tamara valued at approximately $4,850 for use of

the sfpd mounted unit. >> you have a memo in your packet regarding the donation of this equipment. it needs approval of the commission. do i have any objections? >> move to approve. >> all in favor? >> any public comment regarding horse saddles? >> hearing none, next time bring the horses. >> see you. >> line item number two, please. >> item number two is general public comment. the public is welcome to address the commission regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda. speakers shall address their remarks to the commission as a whole and not individual commissioners or department. under police commission rules of order during public comment

neither police or occ personnel nor commissioners are required to respond to questions presented by the public but may provide a brief response. individual commissioners and police and occ personnel should refrain however from entering into any debates or discussion with speakers during public comment. >> first speaker. >> good evening commissioners. i am a field representative from seiu. i was intending to speak on item three but i will briefly speak under general public comment. you mentioned that there was a meeting earlier with the board of supervisors and the mayor's office. my question is whether or not the new chief of police, i know that there were names submitted to the mayor's office. and i was wondering what the status of that was and whether the chief of police would have insight into item three specifically in that ongoing

discussion. >> we don't answer questions but one of the reasons why we discussed putting it over is at the time that we do go through the resolution at that point in time we will have a permanent chief of police in place. that is what we are trying to do. >> thank you very much. >> next speaker. good evening, good to see you again. >> good evening. i am apeering on behalf of my brother, charles harrison who was murdered at the beginning of this year. i wanted to ask -- i am being told different things. somebody will tell me that they are go to contact me about the issue and then i won't get a call. i have been told that a poster would be generated for the suspect who committed the crime

against my brother, and when we looked there is just a poster of my brother. i have the recording of the inspector that told us that there would be a poster generated of the suspect who murdered my brother. this person was caught on camera doing this crime. and from my understanding, based off of information that we received from the police that they said this person is a known narcotics dealer who sells drugs to children. i am trying to figure out why is a man able to kill somebody on video and then turn around and still be out there making a lucrative business. he is extending his debt to children. now we going to wait for a child to o.d. off of the drugs he is selling. i think something needs to be done, you know. it was caught on tape. and i understand that the tapes

do not come out clear. but if you can't identify the person on tape can a poster of that person be generated and circulated and maybe somebody else can identify them if that is the issue. i don't think this person should be allowed to continue his deadly string of deaths and keep perpetrating crimes on the people of san francisco. so if we can get a response from that i would really appreciate that. >> thank you mr. harrison. commander, if you can talk to mr. harrison again about that situation. thank you. next public speaker. >> my two issues i want to bring your attention to -- >> number one the patrol specials. they are not only a violation of the 14th amendment but there is no equal protection when someone can hire them as hire cops but have special privileges within the police department. they are assigned to stations.

they are not legal. i want to know when you will put them out of business. i know out in the castro they ignored your request to follow the law. that organization exist and they victimize people like me. the businesses do not want the law enforced. that brings me to my second related point. the community policing done over in the castro, the gay relations and the other corrupt people in the mission stations, i am told the community policing is being discontinued in this city. if it is not so discontinue it because it creates a corrupt environment where people think they are beyond the law and can do anything they want. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker.

>> good evening. i haven't seen you for a couple of weeks. how are you? >> i have been very busy with other stuff. i am the co-founder of the revolutionary legal advocacy group. can you do me a favor and circulate this amongst the commissioners and people up there? on that page i found out yesterday that the same officer who was responsible for what happened with me is now lecturing at schools. that is disturbing that he would be allowed to go into a school and teach kids, you know electures about books and everything like that considering his history with me and as members of the public. and my second thing is to address the insensitive

question that joseph marshall asked me following my presentation about the kid that was brutalized. how can someone ask me a question about a 14-year-old point, considering the fact he is already traumatized enough which is why i came in to speak on his behalf. as a man that is the founder of street soldiers, would ask me an insensitive question like that. my thing is i have been coming here for years. i give people respect who give me respect. not only did he disrespect me but he disrespected an entire family without realizing it. he never said one word to me since i have been come to the meetings. you don't like me. i don't like you. that is fine. how can you ask a question like that in front of everybody in the world about a 14-year-old

boy make a complaint. he is not a fully grown human being in that sense. i wanted to dress that to each and every one of you there and to mr. marshall for making that insensitive comment to me. >> if i may. i did not necessarily him making the comment. the complaint to occ does haven't to be made by the individual. any citizen can make a complaint. >> you said did he make a complaint. i am a trained journalist. that was very disrespectful. i am done with that. thank you very much for having me speak that testimony. >> good evening. welcome back. >> before i start my remarks i want to acknowledge the fact

that we are pleased with their commitment to address these issues. i thought it was important that we were here in the two minutes and 45 seconds i have left to give you an outline. i served the aclu for more than 25 years. i was proud to be appointed by this commission to serve on a special committee to rewrite the san francisco intelligence policies. that was a collaborative process. what we did is take best practices from four cities throughout the u.s. and crafted a policy from san francisco to meet the intelligence gathering needs of the department and also protect the first amendment. i am not here to talk about the history. the history is still reflected in your general order. what i am here to talk about is what we discovered a couple of days ago about the current

arrangements between the f.b.i. and san francisco police department in the joint terrorism task force. for the last several years, the san francisco police department has been very open about its relationship and it has been very clear it was participating in it under the constraints of 8.10, the prior memorandum of understanding has specific pro villageses that says san francisco police officers comply with 8.10. the special agent in charge of the f.b.i. promised us that was still the case. but the one that was finally released shows the opposite. we can have a disagreement about the interpretation but the provisions that protects the policy are gone. i don't want to talk about the implications of that tonight.

that is very serious from the standpoint of the policy, of people's right to privacy under the california constitution. i want to talk about the role of the police commission. the san francisco police commission has the authority to set the policy for this department. orders can only be passed after a public hearing or amended. there is no exception for side agreements with the f.b.i. entered into. but at some point in 2007, and we are finding about it four years after the fact, that was changed. it changed in ways that we believe conflicts with 8.10. if i can briefly try to wrap up here, that goes to the heart of this commission's authority. in san francisco, we very much value and respect and seek out the professional expertise of our police commanders. we make them responsible to this body. the way it is articulated is

that they can exercise their management discretion within the boundaries you have set. and those boundaries are set by your general orders. thank you very much. and it is so critically important for the credibility of this commission and the credibility of the civilian oversight process that those general orders, and i want to be clear here, it may have been unintentional. i am not in any way suggesting intentional conspiracy. but what we have found right now suggests that there is an agreement with the f.b.i. that is contrary to your general orders and we believe it needs your immediate attention and i am pleased that you have some ideas about how to address it. we want to be very clear that it is a highly serious matter, that in this town the police are accountable to this body and this m.o.u. appears to be inconsistent with it. leave it at that and look

forward to further discussion. >> good evening commissioners. john crew is always a hard act to follow. i am a staff attorney and i wanted to follow up on a few of john's points. in 1996 it was the first time the f.b.i. approached san francisco to join what was then not called the joint terrorism task force but was similar to it. when the f.b.i. asked san francisco this they say you have to follow our rules. mayor willie brown said in 1997 absolutely not. we are not giving you our resources so that you can follow your rules. if you use our resources you will follow our rules, particularly with regard to intelligence gathering. then in 2002 san francisco ended up joining the joint

terrorism task force as did many towns across the tunt. there is a specific language for making sure that police officers followed 8.10, followed local rules and guidelines. our reading of the m.o.u. that came out on monday as my colleague pointed out is that f.b.i. practices and f.b.i. guidelines are in effect for san francisco officers who follow the joint terrorism task force and our concern is not violation of local 8.10 but violation of the state california constitution which has a strong right to privacy. as john said, if this is in fact that our reading is correct, and i should add that our reading is backed up by my meeting with special agent in

charge stephanie douglas who confirmed the officers follow federal guidelines and not local law, if that is correct this m.o.u. was signed without your authority. and your role and your authority of this commission was in fact undermined. i understand that you can't act on this tonight and i really appreciate the comments that this will be discussed and addressed at a later date and you are very much behind the community. we really, really appreciate that. i wanted to lay it out for the other commissioners and say it is being discussed robustly in portland by the f.b.i. and the city. f.b.i. saying we can write an m.o.u. that accommodates state privacy law and your concerns. we hope the same thing is possible here in san francisco. finally on behalf of the asion law cacous and aclu we never

said that we do not want sfpd to gather intelligence. we think that these things cannot be done in a manner in violation of state law and local policy and that stands contrary to the powers granted police in a free society. thank you for your consideration. >> after the next speaker i will explain where we are at with this. i will do that to put everybody at ease here. >> you mentioned portland. i think for the commission's sake it is my understanding that portland pulled their police officers out of the joint terrorism task force because there is the issue about security clearance and they did not want them violating any of their local rules. now there is -- >> it is a very open dialogue.

i flew up to portland to watch it in february because it was so open. the f.b.i. flew out their general counsel and did a power point presentation. all available on their website. it was a very robust public discussion. >> getting a nod from the city attorney we are deviating from procedure and protocol. next speaker. >> good evening commissioners. i am the executive director of the san francisco bay area counselor on relations, c.a.r.e. i wanted to highlight a couple of briefcase stories. the human aspect highlights the problem. two are from the bay area and one from southern california. all three alleged involvement

by local p.d. violating california constitutional rights. in the first one my client insisted that he would like to have an attorney present for any conversations with the police officer. and the police officer continued to return to him saying i don't want to work with your attorney undermining the trust between that local police department and the client. that is one incident. in the second incident we had a young man with a g.p.s. tracking device placed on his car, seeing it was a larger operation by local law enforcement and the f.b.i. again it was a warrantless search conducted by local police undermining trust with local police under guise of working with the joint terrorism task force. and the third one which is the one we know for sure that local police officers were involved in the operation is a story out of southern california where a man continued to visit a mosque

for 14 months engaging in provocative behavior in that the mosque sought a retraining order against the individual later to learn he had been sent in by the local operation to spy on that muslim community. all three of the stories involve muslim individuals who are of arab or south asian decent and raise concerned about the police officers undering under the guise of the joint terrorism task force and i share these stories because i think it is important to understand that when we are talking about policy and who signed what and what it means keep in mind the people impacted by this and the fear created in the community and the long-term impact in terms of under mining the relationship making community policing less and less a possibility. >> thank you. >> at some point tonight i will be asking the commission to

schedule a joint hearing with the human rights commission. this is supported by the mayor. just for the record myself, the chief and commander mahoney met with teresa sparks, our former president of the police commission and now the executive director of the human rights commission. we met with their council. the reason for the meeting is specifically in response to the release of this m.o.u. between the f.b.i. and the san francisco police department. and i will state for the record that people read paragraph five of page 5 a little differently saying out that the officers are subject to their rules and regulations. it does get murky in the second half of the paragraph but i can tell you the answer to that question is very simple and there is no hiding the ball here. commander mahoney has run that unit since 2004 and made it perfectly clear that our officers, if there is a

conflict, they respond to general order 8.10. our general order. we want to get it out there. we will answer the question tonight. but we are go to have a joint meeting with the commission's approval with the human rights commission the next two or three weeks. i was go to raise that down the road. i want to let you know that we are not violating 8.10 and commander mahone sepresent tonight. he answered that question. we will do a hearing. a lot of this is about perception. we have to feel strongly about perception. the stories he told us are very important and it is ayodele cat balance between public safety and protecting the rights of all of our inhabitants. i understand why there is concern. i worked for the department of justice headed by alberto

gonzalez. i can see why there is doubt and concern. but keep in mind the good men and women of this police department follow 8.10 and don't violate the constitution. those that assigned to the task force are the cream of the crop and respect everybody's constitutional rights. i think it is important that the public gets a handle on this tonight that there is nothing to be concerned about and we are going to work with you. >> i don't want to have an extended conversation about it and i know it is not in the agenda, but there are things in the press today people are fearful of. people are not crazy to think what they are thinking. i don't want to go in-depth but when we bring it up tonight i want to address some of the comments that are leaving smart people to be fearful about what is going on. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >>

>> i want to talk about a word called transparency. there was an article in the newspaper about a police officer brought up on charges for hanging around with a transgender. not relevant. we have a lieutenant at the airport who forged $14,000 worth of overtime, she gets transferred to the airport. no charges are brought. no charges are brought. not a word is said. every cop i spoke to because i know a lot of cops. how come she is innocent jail? that is up to the police commission. i think we need to look into that. transparency is honesty and openness. an officer terminated last

week. i know the details. i won't go public with it. i won't go public but why doesn't the public know about it? when and if a small percentage of our officers. we have a small percent. when and if they mess up, the public needs to be knowing about it. hey, we handled it, disciplined him, terminated him or her in the best interest of the public. when the press doesn't pick it up, the general public, never going to beat the system. i know there are laws probably more complicated than i am smart enough to know that the officers are protected by. when a police officer's name can be public in every name and charge he had, but when you get lieutenant her name, you can't say the word. have a nice evening.