>> okay, good morning, everyone, and welcome to this press conference today. as you can see, i'm honored having the mayor here with us

who is tremendous partner in this process. as well we have dr. morassi from the department of health and women. and we have behind me a group of advocates that have tirelessly worked with our office and the community to make sure that domestic violence victims in our city are well treat and had provided with the services that they require in order to recover, in order to be able to move on. today we're also announcing a grant. we were given a grant of $650,000 from the department of justice. this is a grant that my office applied for with the assistance of casa de las mujeras. i don't know why i keep saying that. [speaker not understood] the issue of women's shelter and other organizations. the goal of this grant is to be able to enhance our ability to deliver services, especially for the most vulnerable victims of domestic violence. as many of you know, this year -- this month we celebrate

domestic violence month. and every year my office has an event that we do in order to educate service providers and the public about the things we can do in order to enhance our services. and we're so fortunate today that we're also getting this grant. the reality of domestic violence is a serious crime and don't let anybody else tell you otherwise. one in three households in the u.s. are impacted by domestic violence. around 22% of every women report having been the victim of domestic violence. if you walk into any of our prisons, you will find that the majority of the people that are in custody, that are in prison for violent crimes have themselves been either the victims or witnesses of domestic violence in the home. this is a real problem, and i think that we need to ensure that we focus on the victim and that we focus on the family and that we make sure that we continue to do everything that

we can to protect the victims of domestic violence. this is not a personal issue. this is not an individual issue. frankly, this is not a political issue. this is a public safety issue and i am so honored that our mayor is here to say a few words and then we're going to turn it over to dr. morassi and then we'll answer any questions you may have. >> thank you. let me begin by thanking our district attorney george gascone. he's been a wonderful leader, a very, very solid collaborater on this domestic violence challenge that we all have. you know, the month of october has been incredibly exciting, and whether we announce its a the innovation month or the orange month, we also have always committed it to being domestic awareness month. and the people that are standing to my sides and behind me really are to be congratulated because one of the reasons why district

attorney gascone and the commission on the status of women are recognized by the department of justice is because we have a solid, solid community-based level of organizations that touch literally every one of the survivors that come in to the services, reach out to them, making sure we're taking care of them, making sure we have community-based processes as well as services to help survivors and help the families. now, it's in the context of some very serious data that will be reviewed by everybody here, sobering data. 17% increase as reported by our adult probation on cases involving domestic violence. 47% increase in the crisis hotlines that we're receiving, whether they're nonprofits or coming through directly with the da or commission on the status of women, compared to last year of 47% increase.

in child support cases, over 200% increases in those cases, they're reporting increases in some form of family violence associated with the child support cases. so, these are very sobering challenges that we have as a city and county of san francisco. and, so, it is within this context that the d.a. and the commission on the status of women went to and proceeded to get a grant application with our department of justice. and i will first and foremost thank president obama and the department of justice for recognizing a big gap that we have, a gap that is reflective of our multi-culturalism. and, therefore, this specific $650,000 grant is really to fulfill a huge gap that we had when we are looking at immigrant families. we're looking at particularly latino and asian families, but

immigrant families who, for many years, we knew that we were not getting the right level of reports, the right level of services because of the cultural gaps here. so, this is targeted and aimed at that gap. and it is, i think, very telling that we have our immigrant families stepping up and feeling confident in this city that they can work with all the community agencies that are involved here, and really try to help us end domestic violence because that's the goal of all these agencies. it isn't really to tolerate or just provide a service. it really is to end domestic violence. and that's been the goal of this city. and that's why we work so hard. george and our office. it is part of my new program as well, the interrupt, the predictive policing, the interrupting the patterns. the most important part of that is community organizing, dee anna and my office is doing, is really organizing our communities eastern better. and i think that with this

emphasis on our immigrant populations, that oftentimes don't get the initial treatment and word out because of the language blocks or the cultural barriers and the strong, strong cultural barriers here that really have a dominance of the male side of things and attempt to kind of squash this and make it other than what it is. * even we need to bring this out in the shout and making sure that all of our services are available, that there's reports and ultimately every agency here today wants to hold the abusers accountable at the highest level. we need to make sure that accountability is visible so that we can offer a preventive nature of these programs and stop domestic violence from ever happening. that's obviously the very strongest goal that we have to have, but we have to do it in the right way, holding people accountable, having multi-cultural services for the victims and survivors and allowing their voice to be

heard, and not suppressed in any way. this is the goal of this grant, and it will i think help in the next two years with every single agency. so, i am so happy for not only the department of justice and president obama seeing this to be important, but that all the family of agencies that we have are can you having together very strongly to prevent this from happening. so, migratefulness to especially the community-based agencies because without them we would not have the model programs that we have. * we wouldn't be able to penetrate the barriers that exist, or to offer hope to victims and their families for overcoming this very, very strongly challenged area of our city. and i want to continue making sure this city is very strong in this and makes it very visible as part of our public safety approach to everything that we do. thank you very much. (applause) >> next i'd like to invite to

the podium dr. morassi, the director of our department of health. >> thank you very much. i'd just like to take a minute to introduce who we have behind us today. esta solo futures without violence, cathy black. (applause) >> from the casa. from asian women's shelter we have orchid, [speaker not understood]. (applause) >> from mujeras juan a flores, and my commission on the status of women vice president nancy rodriguez, president julie sue, and commissioner andrea shorter. (applause) >> so, thanks to the work of the people behind me, i'm happy to say that despite the fact that our police department receives 4 thousand cases of domestic violence annually, to date we have zero domestic violence homicides. that's something to celebrate. (applause) *

>> 10 years ago we were looking at 10 or 12 domestic violence homicides a year. and today, knock on wood, we still have zero. it's really a testament to the community-based agencies, to the $3 million investment led by the mayor's office in direct services to our domestic violence direct services. and what the past year has taught us is that there are many misconceptions about domestic violence in our community, and i want to set the record straight. for the record, number one, domestic violence hits all demographics, regardless of income, regardless of education levels, it hits white, black, asian, latino, straight, gay, lesbian, transgender, young and old. number two, domestic abuse, whether physical, verbal, or economic is a crime. number three, there are dozens

of resources to help those experiencing domestic violence represented by the folks behind us. the city invests $3 million to provide crisis lines, emergency shelters, transitional housing, counseling and other vital services in dozens of languages. we're expanding these services substantially with this grant from the department of justice. and i just want to acknowledge maria and tara and paul henderson from the mayor's office for their work on this. (applause) >> language should never be a barrier to receive services or to report a crime. that's what domestic violence is, a crime. like what giants' pitcher romo did to the detroit slugger at the bottom of the 10th inning last night, let's strikeout domestic violence. together we are a world champion team just like the giants to end domestic violence in san francisco. lights out. game over. (applause)

>> does anyone have any questions for any of us? >> [inaudible] [speaker not understood]. >> let's set the record straight. this is a grant and we applied for it a long time ago. and we just got the grant award, number one. number two, my office has been holding the seminar for domestic violence awareness month for several years. so, the grant and this event has nothing to do with anyone. the other thing that i want to make really clear is that i think we need to -- and i'm going to use a metaphor here. we need to keep our aye on the ball. when it comes to domestic violence, the ball is not ross mirkarimi, it's not george

gascone. it's the hundreds and thousands of victims and their families impacted every day. women's are suffering in silence. and there has been unfortunately in the last few months in this city, a setback because of the way that one individual has elected to handle his own personal shortcomings. let's be really clear here. there is only one person that committed a crime here, it's ross mirkarimi. george gascone did not abuse his wife. ed lee did not abuse his wife. ross mirkarimi did. we have a really horrible situation here. we have a high position, law enforcement officer, who committed a crime. then denied that a crime had been committed. then tried to mitigate his actions. then tried to blame others. and then put together a whole

campaign to go after anybody that called it what it was, a crime. so, what is not being talked about here is the victims. the mayor indicated [speaker not understood]. we have had a surge in reports of domestic violence-related incidents. we've got women every day that are suffering in silence. we know how difficult it is for women to come forward. the reality is the majority never come forward. because they're afraid. and we're making it more difficult by playing games. so long as the district attorney in this county, i'm not going to play any game. this is not about politics. this is about public safety. and we're going to do the right thing. the mayor will do the right thing. and i'm going to let the mayor say a few words as well. (applause) >> if i may. thank you. thank you, george. the other thing, it's been talked about in the political context. let me say this, because i've had numerous meetings with community-based leaders.

there's a difference between what some people want to do as move on with the issue and what i think everybody wants to do that's involved here, is to move forward. the way you move forward is you really have to take care of business. and as a nonpolitician in this city, again, i emphasize to you, i think the only way to move forward is to make sure that the cases are handled adequately because the sheriff's department really critically is a key partner in this. you can't just move on and forget. you have to move forward with everybody making sure those cases are properly supervised, all the programs are properly supervised, and you've got to continue working with the victims and advocates. and when there's doubt, the only way to overcome that doubt is not to dismiss it, but to work with them more directly and even more intensely because that's what it commands. and, so, i think that d.a.

gascone, mayor's office, we are all about moving forward on this and that's why we had to document the kind of level of standards that we have to work in. not dismissing things that happen in the past, because the only way you can change it and move forward is to account for them and then take care of that business. that's what we're doing. >> when you say move forward, you have to work with the sheriff also [speaker not understood]. >> well, again, it's not about day taunt. we have set the standards. if you read the letter that i've issued, it is very much aligned with the letter that the d.a. issued that we're still waiting for a specific detailed response to. and that's what we're trying to do, we're trying to set the standard for everybody in the city to work under because of what has occurred, and in our opinion, the lowering of the standards that the city will not tolerate. >> just because it's son through the process already, why will you not sit down and talk to [speaker not understood] about it? >> because it's political in that way. i don't want anything

misinterpreted. i think by putting it in writing and also aligning ourselves with the law enforcement entities that also similarly have done that, i believe wendy still from probation will similarly do that as well. we're all trying to set the right standards because there's been a pause in all these programs because of what happened. and we want to go forward saying, we have to all work more intensely to really recover from that pause and get all the programs in line so that nothing is dismissed as unimportant. >> do you have any evidence or knowledge of any particular instance that has not been handled correctly as a result of mirkarimi being back on the job? or is this more a concern going forward and a perception that the public might have because of what transpired? >> well, certainly we have both received reports -- there's a lot of concern with the community-based agencies that where working with today and

the concerns continue to be will people be treated fairly. * we are once people have a question in their minds, anything that happens in the future can be cause for them to suggest that they don't have faith in the system. and i think that's what we're trying to deal with, set the right foundation so that everything that we do do with the sheriff's office, with the leadership of that office, is undoubtably one that is not to be questioned. and this is, i think, what we're trying to do, is set that standard so there won't be any doubt in going forward. >> you believe the only way that can really be done is for him to recuse himself of any [speaker not understood] at any level or any way of anything that has [speaker not understood]? >> well, i think that the doubt is because that person is currently under probation and must be reporting to probation officers for domestic violence. this is where we have that doubt.

we're constraining ourselves to that period of time while the probation exists. >> here is the problem that we have. we have a leader with a law enforcement organization that has committed a crime. that is pretty unusual, especially given the fact he is continuing to be a leader of an organization. he is on probation for having committed a crime. how can we expect that there will be faith in the system with the individual that is running many of the programs that will address the problem of people that are coming into the jail for the same problem is going to do the right things? the reality is that this person [speaker not understood] common sense. >> [speaker not understood]? is this a perception problem, [speaker not understood] confidence, or do you actually believe that he could give slack to -- cut slack to people who [speaker not understood]

domestic violence [speaker not understood]? >> i believe it is really unimportant. the reality is that he's on probation for domestic violence incident. his jail oversees programs where people have been found guilty of similar conduct are coming in. he can now with a straight face lead a rehabilitative process. he cannot with a straight face hold people accountable. internally or externally, by the way, we are currently prosecuting a member of his organization for dealing with domestic violence. once we finish the prosecution, there will be an administrative process. how can someone that is on probation for domestic violence provide discipline for someone that committed a similar event? we just recently referred another case to his office, but we do not have sufficient evidence to prosecute criminally, but we know that it requires administrative

attention. the reality is that under the current set of circumstances, if the sheriff is too harsh, he will open up the city for liability and criticism because some people may say he's overcompensating for his dee advertising is. -- deficiency. if he is perceived to be too lenient, he will be criticized because he's being too lenient. if he releases someone at the wrong time and there is additional violence, there will be additional liability to the city because it will be perceived as being a release that took place because of his own personal problems. it doesn't matter how you slice it, and that's why i sent him a letter and asked him to voluntarily recuse himself while he's on probation. that was a very, very narrowly crafted letter. it was very reasonable. and he has refused to do so. he sent me a response basically saying, i have