>> yes. the priority is the uniform patrol staff and we are affected by the general order and we have 10 stations and specialized units and we are prepared to go out immediately and start training. >> maybe it will help for the audience could you walk us through what happens when one of our marked units, black and white, pulls -- goes to pull somebody over and a pursuit begins. walk the audience is what is the process in the general order, all the checks and balances and let the audience knows exactly what happens and whether the pursuit is called off. give us an idea -- we understand with the commission but give us an idea. >> absolutely. a officer pulls in behind a vehicle and puts on the lights and the sirens in an attempt to stop the violetar. if they flee they must decide

if it's a violent felon and is there a need and what is the risk to the general public? as well as what is the speed, date and time? all of those things run through my mind as i am continuing a pursuit. as i am thinking of those things and saying code 33 which is i need the radio channel for emergency traffic. i give out my direction of travel, speed and traffic conditions. at the same time a supervisor starts to monitor and says "i am monitoring this pursuit." either the primary unit or the supervisor hearing the pursuit going on based on the information this primary unit is broadcasting will then decide whether this pursuit needs to continue or whether this pursuit needs to be terminated. these things happen very quickly and you travel several blocks while you're trying to make this real

time decision. >> thank you. i think that explains a lot. >> yeah, and given that scenario if you could just summarize the main aspects that are going to be different now on a high level -- or maybe that's -- is that simple enough to do? >> the changes really are more to the point where the officer who is in pursuit will still have to follow the same protocols. to that it has not changed. where we have made significant changes is if the suspect vehicle starts to drive towards a pedestrian or a crowd of pedestrians we could use our patrol car to move in front of the suspect's vehicle in order to protect their life. currently we don't have that ability so we would somehow move our vehicle or another patrol

vehicle out in front in order to protect human life. that is the major change to our policy. we're always constaftly doing a balance and that's what we refer to as the balance test whether this pursuit needs to occur or not and the risk to the general public. we really wish to minimize any risk to the general public while we are doing our due diligence to try to apprehend this criminal. >> sergeant could you explain the situation that occurred that prompted this change. >> the reason for the major change is a gentleman came from the east bay and ran over 14 pedestrians in our city and i believe he was actually looking for a police officer to run over but he found 14 citizens to run over and severely injure and the pursuit came to a stop with the suspect hitting a car in laurel

village near california street. >> a non police car. >> a non police car. >> and our general at the time precluded the officers from using a vehicle to block the suspect's assault on pedestrians. >> [inaudible] >> if i may -- i know they have questions, but actually when i saw this i was hoping -- sometimes we get general orders and the proposed differences are out lineed in red so we and go directly to those and when i saw i remembered with the old one and different from the new one so next time that comes up that was helpful. i wanted to mention that because you can hone in directly what is different instead of asking you to go through scenarios so i would ask for that. >> commissioner, just to let you know we have been through about 30 different drafts of this document and it's so completely restructured that if we did a red line version everything

would be red lined and you couldn't have any meaningful way of telling the changes from that document. >> thanks. >> commissioner chan. >> so i'm glad you brought that up because it did take me to figure out the differences and i get there is a ton of work put into this and i can how lengthily and detailed and thoughtful that there was a lot of work put into this. i would like to thank the department, occ and all of the other parties in crafting this. i know it's a long time coming. i think i asked about this at least a dozen times so i am excited to finally see it and i can see why it took so long. there is a delicate balance protecting pedestrians and protecting the officer and address any public safety concerns especially with the driver of the vehicle that might be wanted for something so i appreciate that. i think it's well done and i notice the way

it's written and that word "balance" throughout and a consideration of the different factors that we just listed out and motorists and pedestrians and peace officers and protecting the public and i want to highlight something i think was helpful is the provision of contacting supervisors and keeping supervisors in the loop whenever possible and especially when it am cans to a vehicle pursuit there are many things to balance it's important to have someone with that level of seniority to supervisor and know what is going on with the exception of some rare circumstances it makes a lot of sense to do that. >> supervisory control over a pursuit and code three response is state law. it's required that we have someone who is not actually involved in the pursuit, a cooler mind, possibly more experience monitoring and extra set of eyes if you will, to make sure that the public is

safe and that we are meeting the public's interest. >> thank you for that clarification. that's helpful to know, and i want to ask two specific questions. on page five under the information to transfer during the pursuit number two. actually 2c is the specific section. it lists when radio traffic allows the pursuing officer shall transmit the following information if known and time permits. one traffic conditions and make and color of the vehicle description of the persons and any weapons. i didn't see in terms of public safety and pedestrians and vehicles are around and i assume that is in the traffic conditions. >> that's correct. if i can draw your attention to 2b. 2b is the very first item the

officer says as they pick up the microphone and begins to broadcast. therefore -- who am i? i will give my call sign and suspect violation. we're going for the violent felon or immediately need to apprehend, direction of travel and speed. with that first bit of information we probably all right started to move a block or so if not more. cars travel very quickly. you're broadcasting. things happen very quickly. the officer gives that information in the hopes that other units will it as well as a supervisor picking it up and make good decisions whether this pursuit needs to occur or not, and again it's also the balance test. throughout this entire policy it's the balance, the need to apprehend versus the risk to the public. >> thank you. that answers my question for sure. the second question i had was on page

eight, section e, coordination management and control of jurisdictional pursuit and below that is two sections, pursuits by other law enforcement agencies in the city and pursuits traveling outside of sfpd and outside agency comes in here or we go outside and i am wondering -- i assume that this is a case that all -- the balancing test and all these different requirements in here basically applies the same to when another law enforcement agency comes here and we support them, or when we go to another jurisdiction in pursuit. >> if we go to another jurisdiction it is still our policy that our officers are held accountable for. therefore, for example if we go to oakland san francisco policy goes with them. they must follow our policy. doesn't matter where they go. if oakland pd comes to our city their policy follows them. if they ask us to take over the

pursuit our policy applies otherwise oakland police department or normally california highway patrol their policy will dictate what their officers will do. if we receive information their officers are in our city we will send one car to enter that pursuit so we know what is occurring in our city so we can make good judgments as well, and if it's unreasonable if the city our supervisors can certainly call that agency and ask why are you pursuing and we need to cancel. again the balance test. >> thank you. i was looking for that sentence that would just basically say that, but i feel like you don't necessarily need t i think it would help to make it extra clear but without tithink it's logical that the rest of the policy applies regardless and the policy follows the sf police officer. okay thank you. >> commissioner truman. >> one of the things they was

struck by is reading criteria of the things that an officer must weigh and pretty much in a matter of seconds some of these may come upon you. i am looking specifically at roman numeral 42a and the listing there. are we anticipating -- are we training scenarios or something like this for officers to help hone these skills? this is a lot of information to take in and to weigh and to make almost a split second decision on every once in a while. how are we planning i guess drilling down with officers so they make the best decision possible? >> the code requires that every peace officer in the state of california that can potentially get into a vehicle pursuit must

be trained every year on their policy. we comply with that law, so every year our officers are trained by given our policy by the supervisor and it's reviewed. every two years you are sent to the san francisco police academy for san francisco police officers for state recertification. at that point you are sent to our driving stimulator. again you're given that policy. the chief's foresight he sent me and the emergency operations crew which is evoc out to the stations and teaching at the district level these policies so we are doing our very best to constantly keep this in the minds of the officers as to what the policy is. we have a two day refresher course if you have been out of

patrol for more than six months and returning they are required to come to us. we go through the entire policy and physically getting behind the wheel in stimulated pursuits and we invite you to come out so you can see our program. >> very thorough exercise. thank you. >> commissioner loftus. >> yes. just last point on this. when you say they're trained every year are they trained at line up like i saw or is that an extra train something. >> it would be tratraining. they have to be given the general order and a supervisor would go over the policies. >> that counts as their every year training? supervisor going over the travel pages with them individually. >> yes. >> okay. i want to say because there is are two sides of a coin and this commission holds the officers to doing that and the general orders and our

expectation is officers follow this and given how complex it is and this is an example how difficult a job it is and how hard it would be at any given moment to be responsible for this and i echo what the colleagues say and the chief and we're providing every opportunity and training and every support and they're the ones making the real time decisions and this is a lot. it takes into what -- we haven't covered that but i want to support the chief's efforts in training folks and we have to do that if we hold them accountable. >> commissioner truman. >> any comments? >> the occ policy. >> thank you. i want to under score a few things because this say document we have all worked on for several years and the commission was asking what are

some of the fundamental changes and in ways that i think the department might not emphasize some of those changes because in part ultimately we all feel proud of it being a clearer document and including much more mandatory language and i wanted to highlight on page three the definition of a pursuit or when it's authorized it looks at -- there needs to be -- there is a subspigz of violent felony so it's narrowing the incidents that would give rise to a pursuit so the individual expected of a violent felony and the person apprehended is oppose a risk to the public and if you look at the 1997 policy versus this there is much more clarity to what nature would give rise to a pursuit and i want to under score some of the policies from the 1997 policy we wanted to make sure that the control is

placed in the hands of the supervisor who is not at the scene and making those decisions so in the old policy there was certain provisions where the language was should and we advocated strongly that the language be "shall" and it's clear for instance when a unit can join a pursuit and we know they're one of the most dangerous activities of the police department and certainly to the officers themselves and the public, but also when there are multiple units the chance of accidents rises phenomenally so to make sure it's the pursuit supervisor that is limiting the number of units and again this policy does provide those limitations so in that regard we were happy to have the discussions with the department and ultimately came to those kinds of agreements so we endorse the policy and glad it's before you now. >> ms. marion and to that point

violent felony is a legal term and defined in the penal code and i think this is the section but don't check. there is a distinction between the officers and new officers you would think assault with a deadly weapon and it's not a violent felony and i hope when we make those changes that is part of the training and set them up for success and oftentimes whether something is a grand theft from a person or a robbery and the decision the da might make and we know what that is and i think that can be quite confusing. >> thank you. chief maybe you can explain what percentage -- i know i talked to the officer assigned to us tonight from southern station and said he had a surpiewt recently and it was

called off. how often do the supervisors call off the chases? >>i think it's important to make the distinction. i appreciate the comments. the decision to in fact the pursuit and the real time decisions, split second decisions, those are made by the officers. it's a monitoring of the pursuit that is made by the supervisor and depending on the rank of the supervisor it's starts with a sergeant but oftentimes whoever comes on the air is the senior ranking officer responsible for the pursuit. i wouldn't know the percentage but i hear pursuits canceled all the time in progress so i think it's important to make that point also that this is a clarifying order. the sergeants -- supervisors have always been required to monitor pursuits and who goes in and who goes out and it is the officers -- it's kind of funny we're talking about -- this is actually a long general

order. it's about 12 pages but there is a binder 2 inches thick of the general orders that these officers that do a great job everyday are responsible to and they come upon the incidents and respond for calls of service and they have to decide in real time and certainly since the advent of columbine and the officers waited now whenever there is on going or serious injury or loss of life the officers don't wait. they have to go in and figure it out and god bless that we have great supervisors that take charge of the scene and the officers are making split second decisions and i have to commend the sergeant because when it comes to trainers he sets the bar pretty high and maintains a standard few can but he does

and tocey yokimono was there and all 30 copies and like you dr. marshall i like to see them but it was dizzy looking and this is consistent and the officers do a great job with all the general orders. >> all right. thank you. any public comment? we're not voting on it tonight but at the community meet ing but we wanted to do that before that. >> i think the chief brought up. this is 12 pages. is this thing on or not? it's difficult for a police officer in pursuit to actually use this unless he memorized it seven days a week. two, i have driven police cruisers as a taxi driver and

they wouldn't accelerate to 150, 160 miles per hour but you can cars that police can't follow with a cruiser. even if it's a toyota camry and if it gets on the highway and there is no recourse and it's not i think you should have orders two, three pages deep and the officer can memorize it and do the job. i don't see him doing this. it's convoluted and check with the supervisor non step and cut off any given time based on the incident and i think that's a major problem and it comes back to even your -- why the chief

is here and mr. mansiewko -- >> you're confusing. >> i'm bringing up to this incident and you're talking about training on the job and this has to be reviewed every two years and the tax and officer has to use proper protocol and if he doesn't he leaves it on the desk and go about doing his job the way he sees best because you have too many rules for him to use immediately and that is a problem and i have seen police in pursuit of suspects in this city probably 30 to 40 times. no police cruiser in this city can out maneuver a lot of cars on the street today. they may do it on the highway but you can call the highway patrol but you don't have a speed limit here and the police automatically the guy is at 140. we're at 110.

we have to stop. that's not even in here so i leave this for you review. i thank you for your time on this issue. >> thank you. any further public comment? with reference to what he talked about i didn't say the police officers weren't doing that and i think they were doing it more and risking their lives and i think you got that confused and you should look at the new cars too. >> and i want to assure the public that 140 miles per hours are routinely canceled. >> any further public comment? seeing none public comment is closed. please call the next item. >> next item is whether to have closed session and vote whether to have closed session. >> any public comment on this item? seeing none public

comment is closed. next item. >> vote on whether to go to closed session and attorney-client privilege regarding to item 8(a), (b), and (c) section 67.10. >> do we have a have a quorum. commissioner chang, truman and kingsley and loftus. >> president mazzucco. >> we're back on the record. do i have a motion with reference to disclosure or not disclosure. >> move to not disclose. >> all in favor. >> aye. >> please call the last item. >> item 10 is adjourn mentd. >> do i have a motion? >> move to adjourn. >> move to adjourn?

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