safety, for the parent who visits, with their child, and i believe that i don't have any conflict, in this matter. but i do just also want to state that. >> thank you, commissioner. >> it sounds like there is a richness of experience, which is i think, is the idea. >> don't let me get started with the kids that i work with. >> any disclosure. >> i think that all of us are... and could we put that to rest. >> all right. >> you are up. >> thanks. i thought that i was here to talk for the squad vehicle for the company, no? okay. madam president loftus and commission, chief suhr and director hicks, i just wanted to, and those who don't know me from the commission i want to introduce myself and the experience that i have in the area of domestic violence, and so over 25 year of police career. and about 15 of those were spent in investigations about ten plus years of those were spent at the domestic violence

at the time in 1996 and after that, i went to the internal affairs division for four years where we did investigate the officer involved domestic violence also. and i have, and i do teach as an expert, and both at the academy of the police officers standards of training and i also instruct for the robert presley school of investigation and i currently still teach, and keep my certificates up. and i have testified in the expert witness in superior court and criminal and civil court and both for the city and county of san francisco and for the county of somona and i have also been a guest lecturer for the attorney general's office of california and oklahoma and i do have the experience in the area, and prior to going forward. and back in about, july of 2012, chief suhr asked me because of my experience, to help to develop the new

domestic violence general order one because it was out dated by ten years, and it had not been looked at in ten years and with the changes in policies, and code sections and the awareness that happened from it and including with the community shareholders and chief suhr asked myself to get involved in the redo of the general order, and also to look at officer-involved domestic violence and at some point during our two years of numerous meetings and too many that i care to announce, and working with our community shareholders, from the family violence projects specifically and beverly up ton is here tonight and we spent the countless hours, and like i said it is two years in the making so far and i know there are several issues about it, and this is a culmination of these two years and i am going to present those today. sergeant killshaw and she has been more of a frontrunner in then than anybody here and i

can't say enough about her. and anybody that has worked with her, knows that she is right on top of it and it is because of her that we are here tonight because if it were on me, it will be another two years, and i write really slow and i did wear my purple today in honor of domestic violence month and so i am going to go right to our presentation. so this is involving our old domestic violence unit, the department general order, 6.09 and what changes we added into there. and so, if you will all have copies of it and it is great to follow along and i am going to help you by mentioning what page of the general order it is on and you can find it, and so in paragraph c, page one, we talk about the factors in domestic violence investigations, and what we did is we added two additional factors and with the language, lying things that we have had with the san francisco police department, and we have added whether it does not matter whether either party has

limited english efficiency and so it behooves the first responders that the limited english professioncy language is used in the report as we talked about earlier with the director hick's report and in section one, page 2, we had the paragraph d, and requiring the members to provide the language assistance with that, with the lep, and the persons, and so, right now, just so that you understand, is the first process by which the chief had mentioned, and is to ask for the officer who speaks that language, and of the victim in the suspect, and have them respond, to the scene, and interpret, and if that is not, and if there is nobody available, we can use the lep devices, and we do have and i know the years of investigation i have been doing it to hundreds of domestic violence scenes and i have had to use this ourself and we have at the last call we use the language line to call and have it sperped and we use that for the

first responders and investigators later and that is on page 2. on page 2, also is the definitions and we looked at and we reexamined smf the definitions that we had in the domestic violence and so we wanted to add all of the things that we commonly see with the suspects and you know, the domestic partnership and so the property crimes and bodily injury and threats and sexual battery and physical restraint and the false i am prisonment and stalking, and the restraining, orders, that we see, and we just redefined and we revisited the definitions. and the fact of determining about the co-hab tants about whether the parties claim to be husband and wife is changed to whether the parties claim to be married and so we ask them and i teach it at the academy that we have to ask the further questions, how do they hold themselves out? do they go out in public, and do they put out to the public

that they are a couple. and we look if they share the bills and things to that effect and it is capturing more of the people that we want to in domestic violence and on page 3 with the definitions continued, and we added and we talked about the court ordered injunction and so this includes and we so often see with the domestic violence scenes is after the fact and the retraining orders and that is to include, the violence and threatening acts against the victim, and stalking or harassment and the contact with the communication with the protected persons, directly or through a third party and what we have often seen, is the suspect not contacting the victim but having either a family member, it could be a former gang member and it could be someone else to call and threaten the victim and so the third party is ruled out and we put it in the definition so that the officers and the first responders are aware of it.

and the proximity and it is usually 100 yards and, we do educate our victims in getting further action with the civil restrainingorders and continuances of that and mecasa has been unbelievable in helping us with those types of things, and so, and we, add also to ask for the specific interaction, and that might have been lost, or the activity that was ordered by the court and if there was anything additional that needed to be added to that epo or to that court order to to let the district attorneys know when they go forward to the court. paragraph c, page 4, and item 1 was added and advices the members, if possible, to interview a domestic violence victim in private and to provide the confidentiality, and it is a huge thing and what we have now is with our current computer systems which is great and when i came in and said that it was archaic and it will, list in the water pattern

across it and so we can't make copies of that and issue it to anybody and unless it is by court order and we dealt with that a lot when i was the captain of the special victim's unit two months ago. >> and also, item 6 was added to the direct to the members to shelter and just so that you know and so that you are educated and the public is educated about it and we have been doing this for years and we have been doing it since the inception and we want to add it to the general order and, when i was the inspector and we didn't know where the victim was and we didn't want to know and this is why i have to echo what cathy black has done, and we simply called her, and or call some member from the lacasa to try to locate the victim and then we set up an interview and they have been, and i never have heard them fail on that, thousands of cases that we have done and they have always been great about contacting the victim and getting the victim to us, for follow up and investigation for the photograph and for the medical care and for retraining, orders and everything, and they are

unbelievable and i can't say enough about them. and helping relocate the victim to a shelter, which we teach in the academy and it is one of the things that they have to pass when they are doing simulation and they have to offer it and provide transportation to the shelter and they do not put in the bod yf the report where that shelter s and they took hem to a sister or an aunt's house, somewhere that they feel comfortable, and what they do is put in a separate sheet and put it in the report and send it down to the svu and be able to contact this victim in 24 hours and which we find is very pertinent to the investigations. with the shelter we added the information about contacting the victims that relocate and like i stated they have been incredible, and we do not allow them to get telephone information even the first responders and it is up to the inspector who is in charge of the case who gets that contact

number for the victim so that you have the one on one investigation with the inspector and the victim, and that is why we added that. can or should attempt. >> yeah >> should. you are correct. >> so we can change that. >> yeah. >> they can attempt when a victim is going to a shelter and they can attempt to get a cell phone number and or e-mail number with that information that has to be sent down in a envelope to the svu unit and

not included in the initial report. so, we are not going to get the number of the shelter, but, some, i know, but, it is two, and that says can and the draft says should. >> and it should, should. >> okay, they are the different words and this is just an explanation of the order and so it is remaining in the order that it should. >> and we are not changing the language and this is just a guide basically for you to follow along with. >> and on page 3 of the procedures and this is where the family and children services comes in and the old cps and so, we had recognized while we were going through this with the community, stake holders and with everyone involved that we had in it, because the children are the unseen or the voiceless victims that we need to protect and

because that have and working with samera, by the way, from the occ, and has been brilliant and i want to give her accolades for what she has done and she looks through with a fine tooth comb and gave us language along the two year interpretation of the order and whereby we added that we must have changed this thing 12 times and just so that you know in the article that i do want to speak about, in today's examiner, and somebody leaked an old draft of the general order, and that was probably six months ago. that is revised six or seven times and most live with who helped us with the language and incredible with what she does and captures every single thing and some of the things that that she caught early on when we were reviewing this order, and was that led to the department general order, 7.04 which i presented to this commission, seven months ago and that is children of arrested parents, and so in addition to that, we added to

the domestic violence order, because children especially in domestic violence situations, face physical, assault and threats and sexual assault and all kinds of things that we have to deal with with the children, and so we have to take care of the children. and it has been one of the forefront's of the chief's administration from day one, and take care of the children. we have to address and get to that in the general order which is what we did with the language >> this language went back over one dozen times between us so that we got it right. here was a suspect and a victim when when i walked in the little furniture that she had was broken and the place was in disarray and it was filthy and

there were cock roaches all over it and both parents were in an advanced state with alcohol and drugs and to walk in as a young officer and i will never forget it, a less than five-year-old kid with a limited language barrier between the parents and myself and the child and you can look in the eyes of that kid and know that kid needed help. >> that kid came to my leg and held on to my leg and i felt like superman, and i am getting choked up, and... >> you are not fooling us. >> big old softy and something like that. and when that happened it was very early on in my career, four years into it.

this is why we made this because we are forgetting about the children in this and with that said and with what we see we are not talking about a simple beer in the fridge, we are talking about drugged up parents life ng filth and squaler and that is the cases that we need to address. if you have the vision that i v and that is what i envision when i think about a kid and that is who needs the help,

around it. we need to take care of that kid and since we did not have the cps at this time and the man toring reporting, and we ended up finding a neighbor to leave the kid with and that is all that we could do and we had no idea who the neighbor was and i didn't know if this neighbor had a sexual assault history and i didn't know if they were violent or if they used drugs but it was a way to take care of the situation at the time. and we were not mandated, and the chief is stated that he wants a bright line, effect for the officers to follow and, something direct, and something simple, and someone who can handle it, and that is why we

work with the fcs. and so, we worked with the language, tirelessly and here is one of the things that we talked about, it is any crime against a child, of course, and fcs will be notified, and any homicide or an attempted homicide and these were all areas that we took from a national perspective. on when we should notify fcs and this is adopted from several of the other department and this general order that we are working on today and that you vote on tonight, is going to be it is going to be a precedent setting across the nation, because of all of the intracaseys in it and it also involves, serious bodily injury and i have seen where a shot gun is laying on a coffee table with the kids present or the firearms and i have seen the cocaine on tables and the opened booze bottle and i am not talking about going into a fridge to find out if it is beer and that is not what it meant for, and this is a straight line thing and the threats of crime because the children are often threatened when we go into these scenes,

you can see these kids and what normally happens is that they run and hide in a closet and one of the things that i teach to is to find those kids and they might be in a tree house in the backyard and might be in a neighbor's house and i had one kid that ran all the way from the engleside district to go to his grandma's house and he was about 8 years old. and just to get away for the cops and this is the effect on the children and that is why we address the threats to the kids too, and often times we see that the batterer might give a look to the child and the child will go and hide somewhere. and i emphasize with my officers when i teach them and the children are present and the children hear it and the children know what is going on. and if i had my way with this, we want to get that child to cac and to a child advocacy center and it is amaze whating they do in the interviews with the children and the things that come out with them and

sthe see it and bring it forward and whether we can take it to something to court and imagine if you were a prosecutorer, or a juror, and you aid 5-year-old get up there and tell you storis about daddy hitting mommy, there is not a juror in the world that would not want a conviction. >> any way. so, we talked also about the impairment of the care giver and the parent who is in charge of this child and what we want to emphasize is somebody overly entox indicated and not able to take care of themselves much less a child or the children in the home. and so we want. >> and the language, captain. it is specifically the child had immediate access to drugs or alcohol and the parent or care giver cannot or will not take protective action, and i understand that sam from the occ was helpful in narrowing that language. >> absolutely. >> and the second provision is that the child's parent or care giver was impaired by the drugs or alcohol and the impairment

interfered with the parents or the care giver's ability to provide adequate care or supervision for the child. >> corrects. >> that is another edit in narrowing to make sure that we don't have the unintended consequences of you know, the beers on the table and they are filing a cps report. >> i am glad that you brought that up because it is because of these new officers that we have and the influx of the over turn of going from an old department to a very young with all of the academy classes and we want to teach them right and give them a guideline that is simple and easy to follow and they have one point of contact. >> and so we want it in all cases of db and that is why we put it in there. bright line,

>> we are talking about serious bodily injury as you all know as attorneys, and several of you can attorneys and what it says about seriously bodily injury and dbi and so we are talking, you know a loss of consciousness and bone fracture and we are talking concussions and impairment of a function of an organ and the wound requiring extensive suturing and strangulation which we see so commonly and we give a lot of training, it is not choking it is strangling and it is marks and sites that come up afterward and there is follow up and medical exams for the dbi and the broken blood vessels in the eye and the

redness around the neck and it is important that we get the care for the victims right away because they could be dead within 24 hours, and six hours after the fact. and so we want to emphasize the seriously of these injuries, we are talking if we don't do this, that we have these other circumstances that are going to lead possibly to a homicide on that victim. >> and so, and with the child seeing that, and seeing the beatings and the bat at theringing and the strangulations and the threats and the threats are very important, and you and anyone who is a parent will know that like i said before, sometimes all that you have to do is give a child a look or a guesture and that kid may feel threatened and in a lot of cases, a child is beaten or abused when in a domestic violence home. just to ask this clarifying question, too, the current policy is silent as to what an officer is to do in this

situation. >> correct. >> and so, that, is and that is why in addressing it and it was brought up by tamara and some of our community stake holders about addressing this concern and they brought forward that it had not gone out to the other crimes and we were, we were and they found fault in it and they were correct and 100 percent correct which is what led to the adoption of 7.04 with the children of arrested parents and the commission heard the statements from the children of the parents become a few months ago which was heartwarming and true statements because the children don't lie when it is about drama. they don't like to come forward with it, true statements. >> that is right. >> okay. >> and oh,, yeah, commissioner wong? >> thank you. i guess that i had a concern about the specific language in point number 7. talking about the impairment under the the drugs and alcohol and, interfering with the parents ability and i guess that the question that i have is it is kind of mixing the language from the two section

and impairment sounds like the driving of the influence, and xh is a lower standard, right? and what think that you are trying to get to, is the standard of the ep standard and someone who is under the influence of drugs or alcohol and unable to care for themselves or others, it is a higher standard than the impairment standard. >> it is not just being drunk, i have seen the people and they can care of the children and not for the kids and i don't want a parents passing out who is drunk and having the child left alone. and so, i agree with the intent, but i am just saying, that the language suggests for officers, maybe ambiguity when we look at the lower standard and when i hear the impairment and interference we are at a dui of 0.08 percent and you have are talking about someone who is so drunk that they are imposing a danger to the child.

to indicate that we are looking at a higher standard and not having a beer or two. >> yeah and i think that the fact that the second piece of it and i know that this was done, really, to address that point, and so, i hear what you are saying and i think that the part that it is coupled with the impairment and interfered with the parents and the care giver's ability to provide adequate care or supervision for the child, addresss that point and i agree in the law in terms of prosecution and we are talking about two different standards and the question is it that stuff direction for the officers? >> right i would suggest that we are going to fine tune it and as opposed to interfering and there is no comparable, code section that they would refer to and they don't know what it is to interfere and to know and to use that language and unable to caper for the safety of the child which would mirror the language that the officers are trained on. >> right. and we can't put a standard where it says, and the parent

is passed out. >> right >> and we have to draw some lines and so that it gives the officers some flexibility and i don't believe that they are going to walk in, and say that she had a beer and let's take, and let's go in and remember, that this is just a notification, of fcs and it does not mean, that fcs is going to respond with a group of people and grab this child and take them away, and i think that there is something that the people think about that as soon as you phone the cps that the fcs that these children will be taken out of the home and these are providing service and it means that they may and there are parents out there that may need the counseling services that are provided through the fcs and this is just a hot line for them to be notified that there was a child here, and that the mother had been drinking and sthe was stumbling and they are going to ask the questions and we already have countered this with them to ask them, they are going to ask the continuing questions and almost like cart, when you call the cart have you to give them a little bit more than we arrested a kid for breaking in a car and you have

to give them a detailed description of what goes on in fcs and we have talked to the stake holders in that and they can sustain that but they are going to do the follow up questions with the officer from the scene, and whether they are going to respond or not. and we also have a referral card that backs up this very thing about the notification. and that is included in your packet. and you will see, and it explains exactly what the process is, by which fcs is going to come forward. and so, it is kind of an explanation, sheet, if there is a child in a home, and let's say that it just gets down to the factor of the impairment, and you say, well i have to notify fcs, and here is what it means and these officers are going to hand this sheet, which you have in front of you out to the victim, of the domestic violence, and say that you may, and you may get contacted by fcs and they may call you and ask the questions tomorrow or within 24 hours, and when you

think of the severe case and there is a beating or the threats to the child or the severe mental trauma to the child that the officer and the first responder can document, and dictate to the hot line, and then they are going to respond, but i don't believe that it is going to be a huge amount, and i think that it is going to be a lesser amount and on most of the things and it is just, allowing if you, if you could picture yourself, as a drunk victim of domestic violence and you have a child and you get a follow up phone call from the fcs who says, you know, we want to talk to you about impairment. and so you are impaired and you were drinking our your kid was there and you got involved in this domestic violence scene, do you think that you might need alcohol counseling while you are with this child. it does not mean this they are going to come storming in and grab that child. >> we did it in light that there was a change and we were silent as it was required for the mandatory reporters but we did have the language, and there is a representative for the child and family services after we finish this piece, it will be great to hear from you

about what the response will be. >> so we can hear from the horse's mouth. >> okay, we could bring them up, since the next section goes to the documentation and document, if you want. >> i have been with the agency for 21 years and we have been involved in the development and the feedback to this policy and to a language. our deputy director and our city attorney has been involved in it and we strongly support it and so in terms of the question, of what do we do when we get a report?

so the report comes to the hot line and there are two different situation and it could come in the regular business to a hot line as a report and, it could be >> if we decide that we are going to assign it and have it investigated we are going to have twot-hour response or a ten day upons, and in a ten day