speaking community, and i want to bring one person with us to talk about some of the aniston of information she has received to give us a better picture of what survivors of domestic violence to our lep might be facing. and then i believe that heidi has a global perspective that she would like to bring to us, as well. thank you. >> hello. thanks for having us here tonight. this is all very timely, because unfortunately, we had a fairly adorable interaction that occurred, one in december. this is unfortunately but the same client. we had a client in our latina program. spanish, very limited english

proficient, and i do not think she can speak any english at all. she built up the courage to make a police report, and one of our people accompanied her to the police station to do so. unfortunately, she did not have experience at that station. there was no attempt made to find a certified translator, and the language was not even brought up as a possible option, and the latina program co-manager was asked to translate for the police officer, and the client, it is against our policies to do that, and she informed them of that. after three hours of waiting at the police station, the client broke down and said, "i want to get out of here. i do not want to do this.

let's go." so the latina manager and the client left the station. they talked a lot about the interaction and decided to make another go and make a police report, and this just happened on monday. we were talking the day before yesterday. did not want to go back to the same police station, so our staff person to occur to a different one, and unfortunately encountered a very similar response in that she was not provided a bilingual police officer to speak with. there were no attempts made to translates using the language mine, and again, our staff person was asked to translate on behalf of the client and communicate with the police officer. and again, we are looking at another five hours, because the staff person was told that someone should be coming, someone who is bilingual, to

take the report, and it just never happened, and unfortunately, she was there with the client for five hours. and i know that is definitely not the way any of us want to see this type of situation play out, and so we are very appreciative of the opportunity to get solution oriented and assure our clients that when they do decide to take that very difficult and sometimes unsafe step to report an incident of domestic violence, especially if they are modeling will, spanish- speaking, do not speak spanish or -- if they are monolingual, and can feel good about it. commissioner: this is separate. why is your staff policy not to

do that? why is it yours that policy? i am just curious. >> yes, well we make it pretty clear that our role is to support the client, and they are not certified translators, so, of course, there is also a concern that something could go wrong with that, that their translation capabilities could somehow be called into question, if this is something that is prosecuted, and it does kind of tape with a focus from i am here to support the client, and that is my directive, and your attention is put in a different direction if there is a translation going on, and some of the people, even though they are bilingual, may not have very great translation skills. not everyone feels comfortable doing it either. >> many organizations have that

policy. part of it is also concern in those limited resources and that you are not translating things that you are not qualified to translate. i want to point out that we provide access, and there is no exception for if you come with someone who happens to be bilingual. commissioner: can i ask you, please, how many usually come in with some time notice put some notice of time before they go to the police department? they know they are going to the police department. there may be hours or a day of that nature. >> for clarification, how many of our clients typically know ahead of time that they are going to go to make a police report? >> for example, in the example

that you made, there was a one- month period of time between these two visits. >> if they do not call 911 when the incident occurs, we arrange for that because that is something we need to schedule for internally, so we did but we have noticed a day or two ahead of time sometimes. i have seen it though where a client may be coming in for a case management appointments, so they might be scheduled with a staff person, and then they decide, you know what, we are here, let's just make the report. commissioner: is there a number available that they could call in advance if they know they will need an interpreter? >> certainly, we can arrange that if there is a workup case, but as commissioner chan said,

we are committed to providing full language access 24/7. there are some major issues here. the first is, let me ask the inspector, let me give you my card. the last thing we want to do is the domestic violence victim with the courage and fortitude to come forward in a very difficult time, we want to make sure that that individual is treated with the dignity and respect that they are entitled to, so i apologize. >> thank you. >> this is not something we want to be associated with. the other is that we have an incredible training opportunity here. this should not happen to anyone. maybe to get some more directives out to the troops so no one else has to experience this, and the other thing, and would like to encourage you or maybe discuss with the victim about generating an occ

complaint. i am not going to sit up here and defend bad behavior. that was inappropriate and should not have happened, especially someone who was so traumatized, as in this anecdotal story. >> thank you very much. we have our own issues and capacity issues offering service provisions in spanish. it is something that we have a need for in terms that it can be hard to range, and certainly why we are coming tonight is we want to be solution oriented, and i really just from the bottom of my heart appreciate very much your response. thank you. and we would be happy to discuss how to use this incident as a catalyst for better interaction with the police department in the future. >> blankey. president mazzucco: -- thank you. president mazzucco: being a

former prosecutor, like a lot of policies, again, there is no excuse, but a lot of these cases, it is a serious life or death situation, and sometimes things need to be acted on swiftly with knowledge of the whereabouts of the perpetrator. i would probably appreciate it more if the manager could at least give us some fundamental information to the officers so they can start the process. the officer that speaks the language. i think that goes to the protection of the victim, going back to a household where there is an issue. again, i understand what you said and what the commissioner said, but they should be proficient enough to be pleased to tell the officer at the statement -- station that he beat her, he is still in the house. icl domestic violence cases have gone, and it is never good, so i

appreciate that there is a little more flexibility on your part. vice president marshall: that is the spirit. i really just wanted to know. >> understand. i want to say that the manager did, indeed, do that. provide that very fundamental information, but where she but she really needed to put a battery as when it got to the declaration, and she felt completely out of it. president mazzucco: thank you for what you do. vice president marshall: we will make sure the department does its part. commissioner: thank you. we have another. her organization is one of the primary areas of help.

>> thank you all to the commission tonight. i just want to follow up and say it is heartening to hear the response he provided just now, and we mentioned we were back here in december. we have had some clients situations that happened during the course of 2011, in particular one where there was some follow-up reporting and some real challenges and barriers that resulted, so we look forward for some continued discussion on how that can be improved upon going forward. i just want to close by saying we are really very, very i think excited about the fact that the commission is really working so closely at try to implement and move forward really concrete laid these orders and the recommendations in particular of the occ that have now been prevented. they are really good one. bobby my organization and i think other members here really

want to advocate that after the december commission hearing, the occ did follow up with a letter, and in particular, recommended for implementation purposes there would be certain things to try to really focus on, and we just want to say that we support those things and like to request that there could be some time lines, maybe some benchmarks to try to implement these in particular. the roll call training to have that occur within a 60-day period from now, would be to really doable and achievable and something that they could really move this process forward. as far as the issuing of the departed bulletin, a directive, that is something that also we feel could be hopefully accomplished in a 30-day period from now, and then as far as the and hanson were implementing the current sfpd protocol, including

to me lep protocols -- including two of -- the lep protocol. we look forward to what is happening between them and the community, but we would also encourage that that be something that be on going, perhaps on a quarterly basis, and i think that would be something to help continue this process moving forward and continue to have some good positive outcomes with are addressing these issues, so thank you very much. president mazzucco: commissioner turman? commissioner turman: can you remind me of the reporting

criteria? >> i am sorry. i do not have it. in summary, i can tell me there is a report. oh, thinking. -- thank you. it is on the last -- page 6. do you have a copy, commissioner? commissioner thurman: no, i do not. >> can i just read this? it starts with one of the requirements is a yearly report to the police commission. the department shall provide it, concerning number one, the number of calls for service and contact involving an lep person, and that would be where a case number is generated. number two, the manner in which interpretation services were provided. number three, any complaints concerning language access

whichever and forward it, and number four, the department resolution to any language access complaints. so far, there is a separate report that i have to do for the officer engagement in immigrant affairs, and it is a requirement for quote unquote tier-1, such as the police department. the report, some of these reports, the specifics are dressed in that report, as well, butthere are some others, like a biannual report for the department efforts in addressing language access.

commissioner: how does that fit into the report? access was requested but never received? >> cents a case number was not -- the officers, therefore, it no report was made, there would be no record. commissioner turman: that is a situation that we need to fix. that is a situation that we need to know about, that the commission needs to know about an address. >> yes. commissioner turman: thank you. commissioner -- >> thank you. there are those that provide this really important service, and they can lead us know.

the request is not even catalogs because the person did not receive the service. the response you really get. it is important to have. commissioner turman: i agree with you wholeheartedly, and i appreciate the comments. >> i also want to make sure that we have summoned from the office of citizen complaints present the recommendations that were outlined. >> good afternoon, from the office of citizen complaints. the evening, vice president marshall, director, members of the public. after the december 7 hearing, and met with stakeholders and talked with the police department and formulated some recommendations to address the kind of issues that you heard about tonight and on december 7, as well, and the recommendations

that we presented to the police department and presented to you last week presented the report, but the recommendations really are simple and that we are looking to see roll call training as soon as possible, based on the scenarios that you have heard, and also, within our own agency, we have that 24 language access complaints in the last two years, and nine of those involved training failures and policy failures, so we have got plenty of material that we can use to effectively create roll call training to be responsive. iannetta aspect would be to provide a department bulletin within 30 days to address some of those issues. ongoing is the concern about getting better information between officers who are responding and also dispatched to enhance that protocol between dem and the police department. we are looking forward to the meeting between community

stakeholders and the police department, because we have a format to just really address these issues, and i really appreciate the responsiveness. >> thank you. i want to give the officer a chance to respond if you of anything you would like to close out with, and also see if the commissioners had any further questions and also ask you when the annual report is coming out, what the best time would be. i do not think we have seen an annual report for at least one year. >> the department would certainly not want to excuse -- as soon as we can resolve how we can get the incident report generated calls. as soon as we can get that together in a place where the language access officers gather the necessary data. by emily hoping this can be resolved very soon, very, very soon. in addition, it is inexcusable,

as the deputy chief said it is inexcusable but this particular event occurred, but members of this department are bound by the department general orders, and there is absolutely no excuse for not following those department general orders, and we have a mechanism for complaints that assesses and overseas that we are in compliance. >> thank you for your hard work and your problem-solving skills. it is a big animal to tackle, and where there is quite a bit of room for improvement, we are the leader on this. we are the model for other police departments, so i think we can continue. any further questions or comments from the commissioners? thank you. president mazzucco: any public comment regarding language access?

>> commissioners, good evening once again. very briefly, as a resident of the city and county of san francisco, i think you are going backwards here. i do not expect the sfpd to know the 160 different languages on the planet let alone that some of them do not even know their own language. according to something four years ago. they do not even know their own language properly. for a certain dialect of spanish, you have to translate it into english. that is not the job of the sfpd. and then you create problems when you try to translate some of its report into english and then take a report out of it to possibly be used in a court of

law. throwing out 1200 cases related to tainted dna and other items. you're just creating amount of paperwork here that is going nowhere. i think part of citizenship and part of a citizens obligation is that if they want to fill out a police report, go to a translator, fill out a report, and then take it to the sfpd in both versions would be a better way to go. there are translating departments in every community of this city, as far as i know. but to have a policeman waiting to translate whatever language that you happen to speak, that is not english, that is not part of the policeman's profile or the city and county profile, and if you looked at the break down in cost for languages in this city, there are only several that have transparency is in terms of translations. almost 90% are used one to four

times a year. that is the remaining 100 or so. so i think you should look at this in terms of a cost basis as well and set some of the citizens or non-citizens straight that they have on their own volition to make the best attempted to do a police report, to get it filed in english. it is not a policeman's job to take a translation or a translation of someone's translation and reiterate it and write in english, and as far as i am concerned, i have taken police report writing as part of the administrative justice could, and if you look at it, police report writing is a science. you just cannot put a bunch of mumbo jumbo down on the piece of paper and have in amount to anything. as witnesses, observations, times, streets, descriptions, etc., so you should look at it in that light.

i thank you for your time. president mazzucco: any further public comment? yes? >> ok, i am really sorry for the lady who went through the domestic violence. i am also very sorry there was no translator there because there are translators, and spanish is one of the languages spoken almost all of the world. it started with latin. here in america, we speak english. president mazzucco: any further public comment? the rules state that we do not ordinarily engage the audience in san francisco with a long history of immigration, the city of st. francis, we have always said officers to translates. now it is the influx of the

hispanic community and the asian community. it is our goal and our world that we will have somebody available to translate, to make this a safe city, to make people feel comfortable being here, to make it able for people to report crimes. it is unanimous policy of the commission and the police department. we will not discriminate against anybody because they do not speak the language. that is absolutely wrong and has been happening for years. next item, please. clerk: item 9, adjournment. president mazzucco: before we adjourn, we'll just learned that the mayor and the supervisors will honor our own commissioner turman, who will be

honored with 10 other black san franciscans for living the legacy, the human rights commission, the san francisco police commission, and he has been chosen. he will be honored on valentine's day, february 14. [applause] so we now move to adjourn. all in favor?