>> this is smack in the middle

of the tenderloin neighborhood where there are 50,000 people within walking distance. you see the kids that are using what's provided, but there is so much opportunity for this to be a stronger, more welcoming, healthier, cleaner, safer place for the people in this community to play. there are going to be new green areas, a full-size basketball court, outdoor fitness equipment, community gardens, a brand-new clubhouse. it's going to be a much more welcoming spot for a neighborhood that really needs it. ♪ ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, the chair has called the meeting to order. can you please turn your cell phones off as they tend to interfere with the audio equipment and can we please rise for the pledge of allegiance? i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic

for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> mr. president, i would like to call roll. president mazzucco? >> present. >> vice president marshall? >> commissioner dejesus is excused. commissioner angela chang? >> present. >> commissioner kingsley? >> preponderant. >> commissioner turman is excused and commissioner loftus is excused. mr. president, you have a quorum also present with us is chief of police gregory suhr. and director of office of civil

complaints miss joyce hicks. >> ladies and gentlemen welcome to our san francisco police commission meeting our first meeting in three weeks and this is our regularly scheduled community meeting. it's our opportunity to come to richmond station, and hear from the residents, and to hear from captain ferrigno with her presentation and what we usually do in these meetings of the commissioners introduce themselves and tell you what they do in their day jobs and we'll have a quick agenda where we hear our normal reports. then we'll move into the main event, which is captain ferrigno's report and after that we'll have public comment. so hopefully we'll hear from the community about your concerns, but without further ado i will start with commissioner kingsley. >> thank you. thank you to captain ferrigno and roosevelt middle school for hosting and thank you to those who are residents who came out

this evening to be with us and to let us know what is on your mind. because that is what it's all about. so thank you. i have been on the police commission for a little over two years now. previously served on the ethics commission in san francisco. my day job is that of a business contracts mediator. i also on the board of law center to prevent gun violence. i have lived in san francisco most of my life and have raised my son here. thank you very much. >> and i am commissioner mazzucco. i'm a native san franciscan and my mother-in-law lives in the richmond district. i have raised my children in this city. my day job i an attorney, but for 19 years i was an assistant district attorney and also an assistant united states attorney. so i was in law enforcement for 19 years before going into private practice. and i played football at sacred heart high school with your

lieutenant over in the corner. >> dr. joe marshall, and i am the co-founder and executive director of the omega boys club. >> hi there. my name is angela chang and i have been on the police commission for i believe two and a half year and i also want to thank captain ferrigno and roosevelt school for hosting us. i am often here in richmond and eating in the restaurants and excited to come here. i manage our council justice and work on language access issues, immigrant rights and also in the juvenile system and happy to be here and look forward to hearing public comment tonight. >> thank you, please call line

item no. 1. >> i would like just to mention quickly that we do have a cantonese and mandarin interpreter available if anybody needs that during public comment. line item 1, adoption of minutes, action for the meeting of october 29th, september [#12*-7b8/], september 19th, october [#10*-7b8g/], october 17th, october 24th and november 7th, 2012. >> all of these meeting notes in your packet. i want to thank inspector monroe for putting those together. any corrections or changes and i will turn to commissioner chan? there are none. do i have a motion. >> move approval. >> sec. >> all in favor? >> aye. >> thank you very much, please call libe item no. 2? >> line item no. 2, reports to the commission, discussion. a, chief's report. review of recent activities.

>> good evening >> i'm greg suhr, the chief of police of san francisco. we spent pretty much all of our time when we weren't in class studying in the restaurants and bars on geary street and clement street. if anybody ever wants any tips i could tell you where to go and you could help me out. i'm going to be relatively brief and defer my time to captain ferrigno, who actually i went to grammar school with. she was the may queen in 1972. [ laughter ] but i'm sure she will tell you more about that when she gets up here. it was quite an honor at st. brendan's. on november 19th we celebrated a dedication of the community garden -- i'm sorry, let me start with citywide crime stats.

crime in san francisco, violent crime in san francisco remains down about 3%. despite the fact that we're down almost 300 police officers. however, through the efforts of commission, and mayor lee and cooperation with the board of supervisors, we do have a hiring plan. we are hiring right now. i will speak a little bit about our recruiting efforts at the end of my presentation. but for anybody that is watching on sfgov and wants to apply to be a san francisco police officer, if you live and work and/or go to school in san francisco, this is your city. and you know, we are a world-recognized police department. and we would love to have you, if you interested in helping people we are that police department and we would love to have you. violent crime is down about 3%. unfortunately property crime as we focus on violent crime is up about 10%. largely a lot of that is auto

burglaries, the thefts of cell phones, electronic devices and we have been doing a safe-shopper campaign as we move into the holidays. please guard your cell phones when you are walking around and when you are shopping and/or coming home to and from work. please make sure you don't leave things visible in the passenger compartments of your cars. put them in the truck. don't get overladen with presents, so that everything makes it home. we are having a problem right now with property crime in san francisco. as far as events go, there was a memorial for bryan tuvarra who made the ultimate sacrifice about six years ago and there is a community garden dedicated to him. nirwho has the opportunity to be near the west side of the playground it's really a great,

special place and remembers a fine officer. at the 49er game monday night, where the 49ers were victorious, they gave an american red cross award to tenderloin station and especially lieutenant ed kotta and he was very surprised and taken aback, but it was for the safe passage program getting kids in the tenderloin to and from kids that were recognized. we were activity during the holidays, going to the interfaith breakfast and congresswoman pelosi spoke. the st. anthony's turkey carving and we were given

celebratory big mac cookie jars if anybody would like to see what those look like, you can come by the office. we did a community meeting in the mission district and there was some concern over the uptick in crimes and the general consulate in mexico convened the meeting and we had a great meeting and did a little bit of recruiting, because we found out that don't have another mayan-speaking officers and we have a burgeoning mayan -speaking population. the police department will be accepting applications online through friday, december 7th. over 500 people that put interest cards were solicited to complete their applications. the post website is running it and we have a ticker on kgo and the bone. we're working with chinese

television and chinese media, hispanic media kiqi is going something. we have talked to the colleges and universities. 1300 applications were submitted on the very first day, which overwhelmed the actual hr website, which actually happened last year. so we still have great interest and there were several outreach efforts across the city. i don't want to take all the good captain's time, but we're comfortable we'll get a big applicant pool and i would encourage those watching on

sfgovtv if you know those interested in helping people being involved in an engaged police department that wants to make the city safer we're that police department. the pay and benefits are outstanding. and i think that again you would be joining a world-class organization. and i will defer the rest of my time to the good captain. i think there is more stuff. >> please call the next item line item 2b. >> 2b occ's director report, review of recent activities. >> thank you. good evening president mazzucco, commissioners.

chief suhr, captain ferrigno, and members of richmond district community. i am joyce hicks, the director of the san francisco office of civil complaints. also here this evening is senior investigator eric balatzarmeted the office of civil complaints is the third largest oversight agency and only surpasses size by new york and chicago civilian oversight agencies. the office of civil complaints was created by a board of supervisors-sponsored chapter amendment in the 1982 and the office became operational in 1983. we are 30 years old. the occ was originally an office in the san francisco police department. but it was later placed under

the jurisdiction of the police commission. the police commission is also a civilian body. the occ's function is to assist the police department in building trust with the community by being a bridge between the public and police in matters of misconduct and police policies. to that end the occ has a mission to ensure police accountability by conducting fair, timely and unbiased investigations, making recommendations on police polices and practices and conducting mediations between complainants and the police. the office of civil complaints investigators complaints against san francisco police officers and makes policy recommendations on san francisco police department polices. in california, law enforcement agencies must have a procedure to investigation complaints by

members of public against peace officers. the occ serves that purpose for the san francisco police department. our office is staffed by a diverse group of civilians who have never been san francisco police officers. the office has a 35-member staff, the majority of whom are investigators. and the balance of staff consists of attorneys and support staff. what we do is we conduct investigations to find out what happened. we follow the evidence by interviewing the person who brought the complaint, the involved police officers and civilian witnesses. we have subpoena power to compel testimony and obtain evidence. we also obstain additional evidence in the form of documentation that is generated by the department. we visit the site of the alleged occurrence and we may take photographs of places or

persons. we have a goal to complete our investigations within nine months. and with limited exceptions we must complete our investigations within a year. when we complete an investigation, we make a finding of whether the complained of conduct violated any police department rules or local, state or federal laws. we have a standard of proof that is the preponderance of evidence and that means the probability that the complaint of conduct occurred is more likely than not, that is the probability is greater than 50%. if we do find after investigation that an officer violated a rule, we will forward a complaint to chief suhr for further action. chief suhr can impose discipline up to ten days' of suspension and the police commission has jurisdiction

over greater discipline, that is discipline greater than ten days' suspension. in addition to investigating complaints of misconduct the occ provides mediation as an alternative to discipline. last year the occ facilitated 61 mediations, that represent 7% of the 846 cases we closed last year. when we conduct a mediation it allows the complainants to resolve issues with the accused officer in person, in a dispute-resolution format. and the goal of mediations is to bring the involved parties together in an effort to achieve mutual understanding. we have a partnership with community boards in the san francisco bar association, so that we can provide neutral mediators for our mediation program. our mediations can be and have been conducted in languages other than english.

our mediation program is voluntary, which means that both the officer and the complainant must agree to mediate. the police department's participation in the mediation program is 90% of those officers who are eligible to mediate. and the office of civil complaints won an award this year from community boards for excellent and alternative dispute resolution practices. i will share a few statistics with you about the complaints that the occ received last year and how we resolved those complaints. in 2011, the occ received 784 complaints. it's an 8% reduction over the prior year when we received 854 complaints. last year we sustained allegations in 7% of the cases

we closed. we found proper conduct in 25% of the allegations we investigate and we found that 4% of the allegations were not true. the largest percentage of allegations we received were for one warranted actions followed by conduct reflecting discredit and allegations of unnecessary force comprised 10% of the allegations. but in those unnecessary force allegations, they only comprised 2% of the findings where we found misconduct. in 2011, approximately 28% of complainant were african-americans, another 18% declined to state their race. asian americans comprised 5%, latinos 13% and native-american and pacific islanders, 1%.

plainchants who declined to state their race comprised 17% of our complainants in 2011. we are located on the 7th floor of 25 van ness avenue near the corner of van ness and market. we're easily accessible by public transportation and we receive walk-in complainants monday through friday between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.we also receive complaints by telephone, email, mail and fax and we're currently working to provide online complaint filing, which we anticipate will be available to the public early next year. for after-hours complaints we have an answering service. and one can also file a complaint at a district