helmet and down, and i am thinking, there is an overreaction. the people are engaging in legal first amendment rights, and the police department is overreacting. there should never be violent your your -- there should never be violence. threatening grandmothers on the street for no good reason is unconscionable. i would like to remind you you are in the 99%. if you think you can protect your interests with this violence, you are mistaken, and the police need to protect and serve as we expect them to do.

>> thank you very much. >> thank you for enforcing the law. it took two months, but they finally did it. the speaker said what they are doing is legal. it was illegal, and you finally stop them. thank you finally for doing your job. i appreciate it. it was really well done. it has been 67 weeks since the comptroller's report recommending the dissolution of the patrol specialists throughout the entire city. it has been 21 days since we were told there was going to be discussion about apparent ambiguities regarding the disposition of illegally operated specialists in the

castro. he has for eight months been ineligible to operate but has done so regardless. i see on your agenda there is another disciplined for another patrol special. every week it seems we get another one. this wastes your time. finally, i recommend an article published last wednesday. although it does not concern the police specifically, it concerns the district attorney, and i recommend it to yeaou regarding prosecution of hate crimes as a warning and as guidance for you about how

important your role is to keep police and control specialists under control, because when they are done, it goes to victor wang who is correct. >> the police commission does not have the ability to eliminate control specialists. good evening. >> i tip my hat again. i heard about the raid at about 11:30. i got down there. the officers were so professional. it was a well-organized team that was effective, deliverance -- deliberately. it had to be done.

the mayor took a lot of heat for being indecisive. at this point, i know how you are. he did a great job. a few people got hurt. >> next speaker. but i do not know where these gentlemen are getting the idea there was nothing wrong with police said activity throughout this movement. i do not know where they are getting the ideas of what we are doing is illegal. anyone aiding in affecting such

is liable for treason because a corporate person cannot allow poland the constitution during good -- cannot allow this. this is the notion that does not surprise me. all i have been worrying about the past few months dealing with this is any one who behaves like this in an administrative manner or otherwise is a fraud. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker regarding this. >> i am a resident of san francisco.

by profession, i am a recovering lawyer and part-time mediator. i am a supporter of the occupiey movement. i am too old to go to the camp, but i heard about the rain early this morning, so i went down to see what was going on. it is unfortunate this raid would occur on the anniversary of pearl harbor. i cannot imagine a worse time other than christmas. i have an opportunity to speak to police officers. what i would hope is we can

keep the lines of communication open. it was sad to see 100 or so police officers also mounted police officers. i was in the front line trying to walk across the plaza. there was a line of police officers and year. that is so poor impression. >> next speaker? hearing none, public comment is closed. there is a matter regarding language access to the commissioner has been working on, and she has participants who need to get home earlier, so if

we can call about out of order. >> item #5, an update regarding language access for a limited english persons. >> we have had our retreat not too long ago, and we voted on our priority, and one of our top priorities was language access, so that is part of what brings us here today to bring up the general order adopted a while back on october 17. my question is where are we in terms of implementation and how often are these resources to use? if you can give us your report,

that would be great. i knew she is still working on this issue. >> good evening, commissioners. i am the department's language access officer. as commissioner chan brought up earlier, she brought of specific questions. i am here to address them. i gave you a copy. each of you should have a copy of specific questions and answers, and i will address them, and if you would like to follow a round, that would be of great help. i am going to give you a quick profile. the san francisco police

department has 2000627 members, including civilians. -- 2627 members, including civilians. 467 of sfpd members are bilingual. 163 are certified by the department of human resources as bilingual in foreign languages. 6.2% are certified bilingual in the five core foreign languages. question no. one, how often is language access use? that is the most current data we have. department members reported

coming into contact with limited english proficient speakers in using language access tools on average 50 times a day. question no. 2 was which languages are used and how often? the five or languages identified by the city and council of san francisco are spanish, cantonese, a russian, vietnamese. the following top languages were primarily spoken find speakers with their contact with members in the most recent fiscal year. number one was spanish roughly 17 times a day. no. 2 was cantonese 15 times if dave. -- 15 times a day. no. 4 was french at two times a day and number five was japanese roughly two times a

day and sixth and seventh are russian and vietnamese. russia and approximately two times today, vietnamese approximately one time i year. the question was what district uses language access the most. the officers and members of the bureau have used language access the most. in parentheses you can see 16,406 contracts were from sfpd airport. where are we in terms of implementation? what has been implemented, and what has not? the following recommendations were made to advance to the department's language

a. enhance the current system to effectively dispatch them. the department of emergency management, which handles police dispatch, provided an estimated cost of $57,000 as of 2008 to enable the dispatchers to identify certified bilingual officers in real time on their display terminals. dispatching only bilingual officers has the potential to jeopardize public safety and officer safety by causing slow response times. the department's first statement of the value, and the protection of human life as our highest priority, cannot be compromised by not discussing the nearest

police officers to a call for service. on any given time, there are limited numbers of certified bilingual officers on duty throughout the city and county of san francisco. there are approximately 160 certified bilingual members out of a total of 2627. next question -- next recommendation by occ -- for my interpreter training to qualified bilingual officers and civilian interpreters. in may of 2009, classes in cantonese and spanish interpretation with an emphasis on domestic violence victims were offered to department members. that was department bulletin 09- 105. there was an indication in june of 2010 that there were no funding for the glasses in the future. in inquiring for the

availability, it is costly and may be difficult to burn approval and during fiscal difficulties. for example, language services, the contracts service we have, they offer a course relevant to any language interpreter. the six-hour class taught -- the six-hour class costs $260 for students. the total cost, including for the instructor to of all certified bilingual instructors to stay the course, is $30,000. san francisco state university extended learning has a spanish- english interpreter program. the cost for the six-course program per student is approximate $3,650. the next recommendation -- rank and bilingual officers and bilingual civilian interpreter is by their language proficiency 2 or really match

personnel with the complexity of the communication. the department of unum -- the department of human resources certified bilingual capabilities of the city's employees, including members of the s.f. deede. it is a tier one city department with a separate budget. there would have to develop a system to test and rank the efficiency of bilingual members. the resources to do so would be costly. one individual member costs about $150. the next recommendation was to equip officers in the field with cell phones to access a phone interpreter when a qualified bilingual officer or civilian interpreter is not available. due to the current budgetary constraints, as a result of the poor economic caught in -- the

poor economic climate, equipping every officer with a cellular telephone would be prohibited. no cellular telephone has been issued to individual officers. the next recommendation -- develop an in house translation unit that translate documents, forms, materials, and presentations for the department. the department directs all translation to the language access officer who is a member of the community relations unit. the officer is required to of all requests for translations and interpreters fulfilled because he has access to the needed resources. therefore, that act as a centralized body that handles translation and interpreter requests. additionally, the community relations unit keeps in close contact with the office of civic engagement and immigrant affairs, as well as the san francisco safety awareness for

everyone. it is a nonprofit group that we have contact with. they handle a lot of the community relations separately. however, we do cornet with a lot of their activities. next, the recommendation was to implement a data collection system to analyze and make recommendations concerning the department's use of qualified bilingual officers, qualified civilian interpreters, and phone interpreters in light of the city's non-english speaking population and its needs. we are directed to add a comment in the computer dispatch system when a certified bilingual member has came into contact and interpreted speakers for each service call. this allows the language access

officer to remotely access data regarding the lep contacts. it is higher -- it is handled by a commercial entity. they provided data regarding the number of calls, the language and duration of the telephonic interpretation. the language access officer was able to analyze the over 60% of interpretations are made with spanish speakers. the next recommendation was to develop an in house subject matter expert on linguistic and cultural issues to design training materials, conduct community outreach, address language access concerns, promote technologically response of solutions, and evaluate the effectiveness of the

department's language access services. the department's language access officer has a cross-cultural, language, and economic certificate from the california certificate on teacher credentials in. the language access officer has training materials that he plans to use for upcoming training of recruits and veteran officers. as you know, we have not had eight recruit class recently. we look forward to providing training as soon as practical. the language access officer is also a member of the community relations unit. as a member of that unit, the language officer has access to technological tools such as wireless interpreter assist devices to use during community meetings. nearly every community meeting that occurred after the interpreter assist devices were acquired had the presence of interest.

the following were implemented to strengthen our compliance with the language access ordinance. number one, translation of juvenile justice brochures in five dominant foreign languages. purchase of 33 mode interpreter systems, receivers, and transmitters for use in meetings. translation of the advisory notice forms in five of the dominant foreign languages that are labeled as for foreign languages by the city and county of san francisco. no. 4, translation of follow up forms in five foreign languages in april of 2011. those are the new forms that we put together. translation of sexual assault

billons -- sexual assault victim's dna rights form in five or light -- in five foreign languages. hiring a certified interpretation for a heady task parmit hearing. these are events that occurred in the fiscal year and shortly after the fiscal year. commissioner chan raised a question no. 5 -- when the commission makes budget requests, what are the additional needs of the department for language access implementation, equipment, and other resources? the current language officer has not developed a formal list of implementations. every request from him regarding language access was approved by the administration during the 2010-2011 fiscal year. how are we doing in terms of complying with the language access quotients?

for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, 1.75% of complaints were made regarding violation of general order 5.20. the relative low number of complaints suggest the department was complying well with language access. the department aims to have zero occ in place and will continue to make improvements in providing excellent service. >> thank you for the presentation. did you want to have questions now, commissioners? i want to recognize we have missed beverly upton hear from the san francisco domestic violence coalition. do you want to wait? we can wait, then. if we could have the next presentation.

thank you, officer ha. >> you are welcome. >> good evening, commissioners. i am a policy analyst. and thank you for holding this hearing and i look forward to further discussion about language access. a little bit of background -- four years ago, this commission passed dgo 5.20 in collaboration with over 20 organizations. at that time, we said that the easy work had been negotiating a 14-page document. the real hard work would be implementing it. here we are a few years later and there are many things we can be proud of. shortly thereafter, community organizations continue were the with the police department. which produced a great video on training for officers in collaboration with the department. which produce an officer reference guide on language

access. many different forms were translated. we produce a brochure for the public in multiple languages. in that regard, we are happy with the progress that has been made. in 2009, looking at the kind of complaints are agency was obtaining and working with community organizations, which made a series of recommendations to enhance the language services that the department provides. it was really an opportunity to move here from good to great. in that regard, i want to talk about some of those recommendations right now. officer ha has talked to about some of those recommendations. there are seven particular recommendations. the first one is enhancing the protocol between 911 and the police department. the reason i raise that is, on one hand, one could say that does not provide an officer safety risk if 8911 -- if 911

knows the language skills of the officers on watch? but we want to look at where other law-enforcement agencies are going on language access. what we know is that the language skills of officers as well as other specialty skills of officers are a capability that many dispatch systems have. when we look at can the current system be enhanced, right now, we are looking at $59,000. why are we not looking at how do we get that money? how do we move it so that when someone calls, let's say they have a language issue. they have a weapon. the dispatcher is able to look and no of officers who are on duty, are these officers who have particular skills in the language of the caller? are they officers who are cit trained, certified for eiw? this capability to know the

skills of the officer, we are moving in this direction. when we made the recommendation in 2009, we were hoping we could come together and figure out how to enhance the current dispatch systems. another reason is when we look at the complaints that our agency has received and in the last two years we have had about 2500 language access compliance. we have sustained about five of those complaints. in six others, we had policy and training failures. what we see is that often, individuals will call. it will be speaking in their own language or they will be speaking in a way to let the dispatcher know they need a spanish interpreter or cantonese or russian. 911 provides them that service. what we do know is that information is not conveyed to the officers. the offer comes on scene and not knowing there is a language problem. in -- perhaps the officer did not have an opportunity to look at it.

there is no ability to plan for the language service at the scene. we have an example of when a sergeant did realize that there was a language need and that sergeant did make those arrangements. when we looked at the technology and how can we enhance the department, part of what we look to is can we improve the 911 dispatch system along with sfpd? they are saying this is a priority so that the language needs of individuals are being responded to at the scene. other recommendations that we made involved the training so that officers who are bilingual and civilians receive interpreter training. we also recommended cell phones for officers and the ranking of officers. certainly, those things cost money in. when you look can we enhance the kind of services, can we let that kind of -- can we look at the complaints we are getting and make sure we remove obstacles, those are the kind of

things i would hope to see in the department budget so that when the department is allocating and identifying areas that can be strengthened, being able to have a ranking system so that an officer who is doing a homicide interview is truly provision at that level versus an officer who is on the street providing a ticket, that there is some -- there is a way to match the officer with the type of call that there needed for. similarly, interpreter training -- the department of justice says it is basic training that a bilingual officer who is also working as an interpreter or is a filly in -- or a civilian working as an interpreter, the need to have a basic training so they know the rules of ethics, confidentiality, they know the rules as to what are the techniques of being an interpreter. those kind of things -- we would hope that the department would look at that in combination with