>> good afternoon, commissioners. i am a 37th mayoral candidate for san francisco. i was not allowed out of the box. immediately after asking for protection i was called off -- hauled off. my campaign papers thrown in the dumpster, and my life has been a living hell. a lot of it has to do with the facts. i was nearly killed 1 million times. he was put back on the streets and allowed to go free after a 145 that fell on me. i have been held body with three holes in my head being a seizure victim by a

sheriff. and another 300 town sheriff punched me in the head. i have had my private parts hurt. i have had everything under the sun done to me. the sheriffs have not been supervised. they have been,'p taught torture techniques. i have come forward on a regular basis that we need cameras, supervision. law enforcement has been illegally hired. i found the man who did this psychological profiling. he was 500 pounds. it is not ok. when i stood up in san francisco and said 98 percent of our police and law enforcement, if there were dogs, we would shoot them and are not accountable for their time brought standing ovations. we did not have equality, justice, and we cannot have it until we have transparent

society, until we have equality and justice for all. i do not have any criminal record, but i have been arrested 55 times. i've been choked and stabbed. >> thank you. >> [inaudible] >> thank you, commissioners. i will be brief, but you might consider appreciative the line outside. i just want to say first our criminal justice system is broken. we lock people up and throw away the key. the thing that happens, or one of the results of that is the u.s. has the largest incarceration rate in the world. the leak of voters supported him because he is committed to

oçvchanging that. it is brutal irony to watch the super tie warrants -- the zero tolerance laws applied to this case. we're very uncomfortable with the democratically-elected official being unilaterally ousted from office by political opponents. we are disturbed by the reports that the mayor committed perjury in his testimony. we ask that the ethics commission recommend that ross mirkarimi be reinstated as sheriff. we do not believe he has committed official misconduct and we ask the commission to fully investigate the mayor's perjury charges. thank you. >> thank you. just a couple of things. my name is [inaudible]

i have been here in this case for the past several months. [inaudible] [inaudible] i am sorry with my spanish. t([inaudible]

>> good afternoon, commissioners. i am sorry i cannot stand and see all of you, but ross, i have known him for at least 20 years i worked with him.

i worked in the d.a.'s office for a very long time. he is a very respectful man, and very friendly and nice to everyone, but the thing i want to tell you, he was the supervisor for district 5. i live in district 5. i want to tell you everything that happened in district 5, whether it was a car wreck, a fire, shooting, a fight, arguments, he was there. i do not care what time of night it was. i do not care where it was. he was there. he came in his pajamas. you could see the pajamas under his jacket to come and see about a child that got killed. he was very much concerned. where i live that, if it was not for him, and i cannot thank him

enough for what he did for marcus garvey, fighting for us for two years to get the funds to renovate, we cannot thank him enough. i am speaking for the people and the addition that could not make it. i was going to come if i had to crawl. he is a good person. and he is going to be a good share of. i will tell you why, because he has the heart for it. he is compassionate, but he is strong. he do not take no crap and knows when you're pulling him in working around with his mind. he will not allow that.

and [applause] >> thank you very much. >> good afternoon, commissioners, and thank you. the mayor's charges of official misconduct against sheriff have results in an excruciating demonstration of the abuse of public resources to justify an unwarranted decision by the mayor to undo a democratic election and destroy a family. did the mayor not consider these

extremely serious consequences of the action or in fact intend to cause these results? yet, he made the decision without the most minimal investigation. he failed to even speak with miss lopez. after taking this action his of justification in evidence. the charges repeatedly fluctuated. the only evidence is that he pled guilty to false imprisonment, and for that he is serving his sentence. there is no evidence of what the situation. the city attorney wants you to believe messages and communications constitute witness persuasion. of which witness? their only evidence of a very upset lopez deeply purred trade -- deeply betrayed by her neighbor. who would do otherwise in that situation? december 31 incident was addressed through the criminal justice process.

none of which would interfere with him during his job. he did perform his job throughout the media service at criminal justice proceedings. should he have chosen different words or made different choices during this entire time, maybe so. but any of those occasions when he might have chosen a different sentence, the the amount of official misconduct? i am sure you cannot possibly arrive at that conclusion. by the way, the mayor should have made other choices. if we believe the domestic violence crisis work, and why would we hire them if we did not believe that, we must believe in rehabilitation. >> commissioners. i am a native san franciscan and have followed the hearing.

the attorney told you to interpret common sense when the chairman asked him how he should interpret is as and part of experts tell you. allow me to offer comments. does not rise from the removal of elected office. in response to the actual charges, the share of reached a plea deal. he is played guilty in diligently engage in real politic their bait every sense. -- engaged in the bill would of therapy ever since. as for persuasion of witnesses, there was innuendo, but no evidence to the contrary. moreover, the mayor's case rests on a witness who did not appear, did not get cross- examined and whose council told the witness minimum exposure.

despite her planning to involve the police chief sir and gavin newsom, which is a clue there was a great deal of political under current behind us. by contrast, most ordinary citizens like myself interpret lying under oath as serious. especially when someone as important as the mayor might have done it. lying under oath by an official is official misconduct. if one interprets the allies as going to motivation for removing the sure from office, then the perjury goes to right action and decency, which are explicitly required of all public officials, a standard the mayor himself refused to reply to himself.

>> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is danielle. i would like to see ross reinstated to his job as a sheriff. i believe domestic violence is a serious offense, and as such, am glad the allegations in this case were brought forth and taken seriously. however, i do not believe any serious offense was committed here, certainly none that would preclude him from serving as sheriff. we're all humans, including high-level officials. we all have faults and

weaknesses, and sometimes in life those come to a head. in retrospect, it is those times in life we are thankful for, provided we are shown the way to healing and cold mist, which has certainly been a part of this case, as well as the original intent of the mirkarimi family. domestic violence is about violence, but there are many other forms of violence, including being too harsh in one's judgment and and willing to really look into all aspects of the case. when i look closely, i do not see a reason to bar him from his work. finally, as much as domestic violence cases are about violence, they should also be about compassion and learning to resolve conflicts in a way that meets the needs of all parties.

here we have dealt with the offense, the root causes are being dealt with, and only fair the voters of san francisco have their share of fax for justice. -- have the facts for the sense of justice. >> my name is tammy brant, a long-time resident of section five. official misconduct has to do with his actions related to elected office. in this incident, nor anything that transpired after words does not even come close to official misconduct. the city has done an excellent job of demonstrating no official misconduct has occurred. no matter how hard they tried, the city has not made the case.

i work for unemployment insurance, and my job is to determine whether people qualified for an employer of based on their actions at work. there was no work-related misconduct in this. i implore you to remember that your duty is to ask the voters to be an impartial body that works for us, and of those who appointed you, and finally, i survived domestic violence two decades ago. i feel offended by the domestic violence exploiting a family crisis for their own agenda, which is nothing to do with protecting victims. the situation was not a criminal incident. please be independent and impartial when you make your recommendation that there was no official misconduct and removing him was wrong. thank you. >> my name is terrance faulkner.

i have served on a couple of the commissions. i was a republican county chairman on occasion. i am speaking as an individual. i attended the trial the last time there was the removal like this. like this trial, he was an airport commissioner and a union strike and in official capacity. in this case he is not part of the a establishment or machine or whatever you want to college. his offenses are really political in nature. the whole situation is one that reeks with politics at its worst. i strongly urge that you not to

vote to remove the share80" of. he was legally elected. nothing that happened in the unfortunate dispute between himself and his wife had anything to do with office of sheriff. t(he was not even in office of e time the offense occurred. frankly, some of the problems of a guy being a little bigger than a woman and an accident to give it without intending to do it. i can only say that happens to be facts of nature. blame charles darwin. and i know on one occasion -- i was with a young woman at a restaurant and she started to cry. she started to fall. i grabbed her. at first she objected. i said i just saved you from breaking your neck. sometimes guys are rough. unfortunately, we are big. i do not think the chair should be removed. i think this is a political lynching. and the sermon.

to g>> commissioners, members of the public, and ross mirkarimi, i know you talk to supporters in the campaign, and i talk to you on the telephone. we said the program of in 1980. it has become the state standard. in i have worked with thousands of batterers and programs. we of trained people all over the world, even in singapore. i keep doing the work because i am very optimistic that if men who are violent get treatment and it helps, syria's help that

deals with the violence, they can certainly recover. i hope ross gets to do that, because he is very popular with his supporters. is an excellent political program. that is where i think as commissioners, as citizens, we have to draw the line. there is a certain question about the willingness to do violence, particularly as a public official when you have 80 people in your jail right now better there specifically to stop the violence. command influence is a very important factor. in my contract i send that to people around the world who want to have this program. i first line is we require the

entire command staff to be present for the first four hours of training so that they will understand the gravity of their role in supporting -- >> thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is karen l. levine. i am a retired sheriff's department employee. i worked three years as a deputy sheriff. i--25 years running programs in the jails. i currently work with the male survivors and perpetrators of domestic violence. there is the reason why the state set up a 52-week programs. it really requires a complete belief system change to stop violating yourself and others.

that is just the very beginning. and that is just the very beginning, 52 weeks. it is not for nothing that our formally esteemed sheriff, michael hennessey, had a rolule that you had to be arrests-free and off a probation to enter the jail. that is because people need to heal, make restoration, and people need time to make some change. i find it very ironic that the sheriff is someone who would basically not be allowed to enter the jail because of the actions he has taken. so, while i believe in redemption and hope for the redemption for ross and his family, i do not believe he can currently served as sheriff. thank you. >> hello, members of the

commission. my name is susan loftus, a native san franciscan and mother of three. as serve as a prosecutor in san francisco and the domestic violence unit. there is one thing i really want to convey. i think something is really at stake in this conversation. i have watched it on mine and sat in the hearings. we have made tremendous progress with the criminal justice community on how we address domestic violence. we've done better at listening to victims and protecting them in the wake of tragedies and done better at healing batterers. no one wants a batterer to continue to batter. but as a misdemeanor and domestic violence prosecutor i have watched men convicted of a misdemeanor push or slap, just because it was not in the papers does not mean we never prosecuted pushes or slaps. we did it because it is domestic

violence. i have watched men who pleaded guilty in -- plead guilty in court in their body changes. the moment you stop minimizing it, you can start healing and start getting better. from my experience and what i know about domestic violence, i have never seen any of that from sheriff mirkarimi. we have nationally recognized programs to hear batterers, of which he would be charged with overseeing. these are men who were going to be sitting in our jails talking about how they're going to change their ways at a time when their share oerriff minimize the conduct and got back to being share rep. i really hope you will find his official misconduct and have him removed. thank you. >> hello. i am the interim executive director of womeat women inc.

i want to share from our perspective what really resonates about this situation, and something we have talked about a lot, our team. for a survivor to reach out for assistance, even at an agency like ours that exist to serve them, it takes a lot of debt and courage. -- guts and courage. the majority did not go comfortable reaching out to the police department, and we do a lot of work with that. we tell them about the laws and can vouch for the police department. their concern is they are not going to care. who cares about this? this happened in my home with my partner, who will care? our message has always been they do care, it is against the law. we also talk a lot about

domestic violence is more than some of describing someone on farm. it is about the pattern of power and control and a privilege that comes into the right i have this right to do this to you. we do so much work with our clients to get them to the point where they're able to reach out and feel good reaching out to the staff network of services. if someone was arrested for domestic violence and allowed to stay at the head of the system that we vouch for, what message does that send to the people that gather the courage over years, sometimes decades to reach out for help? are they right? those are criminal justice system -- does our criminal justice system wheñilpcare? we should, and i know you will do. thank you.

>> excuse me. >> excuse me. it is a little bit hard to hear because of the noise outside. and i do not know if you can do something to move people further away. thank you. >> thank you.

only does it have to be fair, but there must be an appearance of fairness. and there is no appearance of fairness with the sheriff. in washington state we've formed a task force with the supreme court justice. we had a task force of police prosecutors, batterers, victims, everyone on there, 80 people. we formed by officer-involved domestic violence policy that say for every police agency in the state of washin!íj must have mandatory millet -- minimal policies in place to handle officer-involved domestic violence. i have not seen anything like that here. you do not have that. step one. i had an expert on police- perpetrated domestic violence, out to train the advocates to train the police, to train the prosecutors. when i say i come i mean the

entire task force. i am alarmed when i see the same thing going on. no, we do not have a murder- suicides, but do we need to reach that point before we already have policies in place to handle this? i am not going to turn to the sheriff and assist him, because he has not been held accountable. he pled guilty to the crime, and yet he does not take responsibility for it. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. sanford says go domestic private consortiums. we're so honored to be a part of this process and be able to a public comment today. san francisco has made huge gains over the 35 years that this has been happening. this has been happening. homicide rates for domestic