september 12, 2012 san francisco police commission meeting. i'm going to announce at the very beginning we're going to do a couple of things out of order. we're going to switch line item 2, general public comment after line item 3 because a lot of the issues that will be commented on will be discussed in line item 3. if there's anything different from line item 3 we will cover thereafter. also we regularly adjourn our meetings in honor of certain

people. and we don't do that 'til the end. before we do this i would like to notify the public that we're going to adjourn our meeting foant in the honor of two important people, chp officer kevin youngstrum, he is 37 years old and he is part of the law enforcement community. i've been asked by the chief and inspector monroe and the police association to adjourn in his memory and also in the memory of retired inspector art fobs of the san francisco police department who left us last we week. inspector fobs was a 30 year plus veteran and one of the pioneers in officers for justice. so we will also adjourn in his honor. i want to state that out the out

set. call item one. >> adoption of the minutes, action for the meetings of july 11 and july 25, and august 1, 15, and 22, 2012. >> commissioners, you have the minutes in your packet for your review. commissioner chan, any additions, corrects? commissioner loftus, commissioner turman? do we have any comments regarding our agendas? hearing none, public comment is closed. do i have a motion? >> i move that we adopt and accept the minutes for the meetings of july 11, 25, august 1, 15, and 22, 2012. >> do i have a second? >> second. >> all in favor? >> ayes. >> thank you. inspector monroe call item 3, reports and announcements ingeddle reports and announcements, 3(a), chief's report discussion, review of recent activities. >> good evening, commissioners.

recent announcements from the department, we're working with the mayor's office and department of public health on a call for services program to get service to our most chronic eneeb rats before the winter months and issues with wet and cold. we continue to work with the civil rights groups on the civil rights ordinance, and implementation. we've had a couple of real productive meetings. staff met with the immigrants rights commission on monday. adrian pon and supervisor kim were appreciative of the -- that everybody gets 20 minutes before we tow a car which is consistent with the -- that that's the right thing to do. we just started an academy class, 10 lateral, started on september 4th. good-looking class. that will be an abbreviated

academy. again, they will all go out to -- these are all former police officers and will start in the southeast sector of the city, as those laterals get scattered to the o other statio. we had a neighborhood meeting down in south park, south beach, to discuss -- park upcoming issues hopefully with the giants in the playoffs, the new -- stadium, and issues to come with the pronounced you crowds that come and go there, based on events. we concluded our 18 day summer program, avoid the eight, which is a drunk driving campaign. there were 1 44 deaths and fortunately we suffered no drunk driving deaths this summer and announced on labor day, where there was nearly 100 vehicles stopped, nine people arrested, two for drunk driving, one for

driving with suspended and revoked license and 13 tags were issued. we celebrated the 9/11 memorial. i thank the commissioners that were in attendance on sunday. i know that's always appreciated by the officers, and those who -- and i'm sorry, and director hicks was also there. and i mean it's just really nice for that event. and then yesterday, i was at the fire college for the reading of the 354 firefighters names, that were killed on 9/11. and it was just really a nice show of support, an unfortunate event but a great outpouring of the public that the losses never to be forgotten. we continue to do recruitment efforts. we're hopeful to give off both entry level and a lateral test by year's end, if not within the next 60 days, working with hr to do that. as we're coming close to running out of names to fill the academy

classes that are upon us very quickly, continue to work with youth, and actually commissioner marshall, to try and do, as part of the organized piece of the mayor's interrupt predict academy organize program we had a great august where for the first time since 1963 there were no homicides in the entire city of san francisco. so we were able to catch our breath after the first two summer months were tough. violent crime, despite the fact that homicides are up, continues to be down this year, albeit slightly. property crime however is up by about 8% and we're working with all the other city partners and the community as we try to get ahold of the issues presented to us from real linemen that put a lot of property criminals back out on the street, and grappling with how do you do violations, probation, and/or parole and still stay in compliance with

ab109. that conclusions my portion of the weekly -- recent activities. for the second piece, on friday, the three commissioners, commissioner chan, loftus and turman received the research the department's discontinue on other less lethal weapons in addition to taser, a draft policy looking at other policies across the country, additionally with recommendations of the doctor that came they're also incorporated in their appendices where you can see where it all came from. and then a proposed schedule, where we would take the show on the road, if you will, to continue with the board's -- with the commission's resolution that there be a 90 day vetting with significant public input, and that of the commission, the occ and the department. so that is before you, as to how

you'd like to engage the community going forward. we would not pretend to say that we should be the only word on that. and then the next item, i'm going to have director given come up and speak to the arrests. supporting statistics here is the department bulletin that i signed and put out today with regard to our collection of data, which i can and will report to this commission at a very minimum biannually regardless of what happens with the ucr reporting and/or doj reporting. and that concludes the first two pieces, unless there's more comment, and then i'll give it over to director given or take it at the end. >> i want to respond and move on to the next piece. thank for the research on less lethal options. i was glad to see just the options out there. i was saying to president

mazzucco when you purchase something, you shop around, see what's out there, what's the best technology, what's the most effective and safest. i appreciate the department doing that work. in terms of community meetings i had suggested to commander ollie, who i assumed did a lot of this research, did a got job on the research, that any time a community meeting is set up that there's engagement with interested community members as to where to hold it, and when. we can certainly given suggestions and that it be heavily publicized so people know when these meetings happen. i think there were suggested dates in the packet you sent us. are those dates set or are those just suggestions for now? >> those are dates i can make for sure and supplemental dates are fine. i wanted to participate personally. so those are dates that i can make it for sure. >> got it. i suggested to commander ollie that we might want to schedule an initial meeting with the commissioners that are on this issue, to lay out how we're

going to have those meetings. we just don't have one, we have an idea -- and of course the director, yes, of course the occ. i see the next step before the actual community meeting. >> maybe a meeting to set the -- >> the screand, how to do outreach, making sure everyone is there, what are the goals of the meetings, who we're reaching out to, all that. >> sure. if it's okay we'll have resa coordinate everybody's schedule and get that off as soon as possible. >> she doesn't mind. thank you. >> she asked me to ask if she could do that. >> thank you, commissioner. commissioner turman. >> commissioner turman: i also want to join commissioner chan and thank the chief for the information. i read it with great interest this weekend. it certainly was a thorough gathering of information. and i'm looking forward to also talking about the process in which to engage the public. i would like to say that what

was interesting to me, is i spent most of saturday reading the fact, and found some very interesting details that i'd like to talk more fully about. so i'm glad that we're going to have a meeting of the commissioners, as well as engage the public. but i have to tell you that on sunday, i went to macy's and a woman came up to me and said i see you on television all the time and i like the fact that you always listen to people, and that you hear what they have to say. so i'm looking forward -- and her expressing those words to me made me think about them. i want to express the opportunity to have that discussion with the public. and although anecdotal information is important, and i want to gather as much of that as possible. i also would ask the public to think about any kind of scientific or other information they may have in presenting their views on the issues as

well. i want it to be a thorough hearing, but i also want it to be a factual hearing, and let's try and keep it less personal, more about what's best for all of san francisco. so thank you for the opportunity, chief, for setting it up. and i look forward to engaging everybody in the process. >> thank you. >> anything further for the chief on this issue? i want to thank the commissioners and the chief for their work. we've asked for pursuant to the resolution is a calm, coherent, let's see what's out there and we're doing that now. thank you for that. >> before we move on to the drerk, inspector john crudo was also a very able assistant to commander ali. >> thank you. director given.

>> for the record our technology people are having technology problems. sorry, director giffen. >> everyone can relate. >> yes, ma'am. >> be bold to say a couple of words of commendation. i was told that the public comment came at the beginning of the meeting and i have another -- >> we're moving it back so i apologize. after this report i'll let you

come up and do it then. i apologize. >> yes, it happens to the best of ution, technology problems. good evening, commissioners, and members of the public. this presentation is about a arrest reporting in san francisco. this came about as a result of a report that came out in the newspaper a few weeks ago regarding the way san francisco reports arrests by race to the department of justice. so i'm here today to talk about, yes, this is how we report, what categories we report, and why we report. before i get started, i brought something with me, show and tell. this is our sort of our bible for how we do crime reporting. so the way this works is every law enforcement agency in the united states is required to report per a certain set of standards. and that is so you can compare crime in one area against crime in another area. so there's some specific

guidelines on how to do that in this document called the uniform crime reporting handbook. this is produced by the f.b.i. we don't have a choice in how we report crime to the state and to the federal government. and so it's important to understand that as we step through that. step through this. so three of the key agencies involved are the california department of justice. that's the state level. the f.b.i. uniform crime reporting, that's the document i just showed you, that's the federal level. and the white house office of management and budget, who is kind of the group that defines how these categories will be established. so if you look at the racial designation by agency, all three of these agencies define race in the the exact same categories, other than the the white house has recently separated native hawaiian or pacific islander.

those are two categories. the state, the federal and the white house are consistent across the board in how they define race, and how they require us to report our arrest statistics to them. so this is sort of the most important concept of what i'm about to present. see you'll notice there is no hispanic on this list. so, again, as defined by the federal government, persons of hispanic origin are -- of any race. so you can have white, hispanic, black hispanic, asian hispanic, et cetera. and we are to report hispanic ethnicity according to the appropriate race. so hispanic is not on the dropdown, if you will, for race. , in crime reporting in california or at the federal level. so that was kind of new information for me, so that's kind of fundmental to how we report race and why this got a

little bit confused. so as i mentioned, all law enforcement agencies are required to report monthly to their state and then the state reports to the federal government. we're all required to use the uniform crime reporting standards. individual agencies cannot define racial designations. agencies may opt to report ethnicities in addition to race. and that is considered optional. so what was reported in the media is this quote, the san francisco police department has underreported arrest rate of latino arrest es, classifying them as white and asian classifying them as other. both statements are incorrect. for latino arrestees, we correctly categorized both

hispanic and latino arrests as either by their correct race, and for asian arrestees, we also correctly report them as for adults, it's asian, and for juveniles, it's chinese, japanese, and filipino. in no cases do we classify asian arrestees as others. so both were incorrect as reported in the media. any questions about this so far? >> i have a question. about the reporting as hispanic, either as black, white, i'm looking at the categories here, how do you know? how do you know -- >> well, what we are asked to do is to self-report it. so we ask people. >> and if they refuse to respond? >> unknown or other. >> it's delineated in the

bulletin that i just passed out. >> thank you. >> so the -- i just kind of -- a little context here. you know, sometimes when we're asked what seems like a question it's difficult to give an answer so i want to give the context answer. when i say nine plus, this is the number i've found so far systems involved in the arrest reporting process in san francisco. and when we say the police report arrests to the department of justice, what that is, is the police run a computer job that actually collects data from nine different systems that come from all different agencies. it creates a computer file that's really not readable. it's computer file, computer code, that just get sent to the doj. a question what did you send to the doj is not a simple answer.

it's a project to go back to the nine originating systems and sometimes those stm systems got their data from other systems so it's highly complex the way this goes through in terms of technology. additionally, we are not the only agency in san francisco to report arrests data. so there are six agencies that are reporting arrest data, including csu san francisco, bart, hastings, us california highway patrol. when looking at a justice report arrest you're looking at data from all those agencies, not just san francisco police department or san francisco sheriff department. >> direct giffen, can i ask another question. i want it to be clear so that i understand. so an individual is arrested, and i understand that they self-identify. so if they come in and we say what is your race, and they

respond -- most people of hispanic or latino origin usually say hispanic or latino. and then we say what from there? >> well i'm -- i'm talking about -- >> i'm a lawyer. i often help employers interview applicants. and the process i just talked about is how i've seen it play out. perhaps it's different in an arrest setting. i can't imagine why it would be. so -- and perhaps maybe i should be asking an officer who actually does the arrest rather than you this question. that's fine. i can hold the question or maybe the chief can jump in and address that. but i'm just confused -- i want to understand exactly how it's played out because i want to understand exactly how our numbers are reported and perhaps

there's a better way to clarify so we don't have misconceptions and misunderstandings with the media. >> so the bulletin will clean this up, and then we will report all the ethnicities in addition to the race reporting. however, and i think director giffen will get to it, we've been told by the collection agencies though, that they will in you will likelihood reconsensus them down to the races anyway. in the case of doj, then they report it out, hispanic as one of the 18 ethnicities. so what we're saying is we're going to give a report -- a departmental report to this commission, with the race reporting and the ethnicity reporting of all 18 ethnicities, what the f.b.i. or doj does with our information, we have no control over. but at least for the city of

san francisco, this commission will know the race and ethnicity reporting of all the arrest data. >> yes. so i think we have a little bit of good news here, while i go on with what the chief is saying. so the sheriff system -- they just upgrade recently to a new version of their system and it had both the five ucr races and another category called ethnicity which the chief just talked about so we will be able to get both, we'll be able to satisfy ucr reporting and internal reporting within san francisco for 19 ethnicities at least. there are like 1500 ethnicities in wikipedia. but anyway, there are 19 that the doj, the state, will accept from us. so -- and those are the exact same 19 that are in this system. so there is already a project underway to have the police and the sheriff be on the same system.

it's called a single entry booking and we've made some really good progress on this. once that happens, that will take us hugely forward because we won't have the police on a separate system, our numbers trying to sync them up and we will each be able to report both race and ethnicity, and we'll have the same categories. so the recommendation here is that we basically complete that project. that way the police start the arrest, the sheriff finishes the booking, we replace three different systems in the process of the nine. so that's progress. that system also has a built-in tool that we can report directly to the department of justice. and it allows us to do the tracking that we want. there's a dependency here in that we're waiting for the vendor to make critical updates to the system and we have to identify juvenile arrests which is one of those nine systems, can be entered on that same system which will then allow us to give all arrests accurately

to the dongeg. but i think this will help go a long way and then procedurally, the chief and the sheriff have both already agreed to process-wise begin asking for and tracking both the five races and the 19 ethnicities. >> sheriff hennessy has put out a bulletin similar to this for the sheriff's department. >> questions? any questions for director giffen? maybe we could turn the screen back to the commission. thank you, director giffen for your work and chief for addressing this issue. to sum it up we are essentially have always been in compliance with what the department of justice wants, both state and federal. the issue is what are the actual statistics as there is many different categories of individuals and hispanic, and asian. so i want to thank the police department for their effort in providing us with the commission will get a complete report on a vere thorough breakdown, 19