go forward regardless of who joins us or not and one thing i. say and applicable to this hearing. >> >> we that the trainings and workshops should be given on an annual basis but when we think about the police department we believe it should be integrated into the academy and that it should be a part of training in a dynamic way where people once again all of us but specifically we're talking about the police department here perhaps, can check in to see what kinds of biases we have without knowing it because these are all unconscious and you check in. you see that you have this bias and then you take the actions necessary to deal with it and it's an ongoing process. it will never be good enough or end because the brain works in a certain way and that's one of the things that the course that we are piloting talks about.

explicit bias is just the beginning. you learn what it is and how it works. the rest of the workshop is about understanding how it works in our minds and the ways that we can interrupt it, understand it and flip it, so that is what we're seeking to do. >> thank you so much for being here. i really appreciate it. the last department speaker is joyce hicks executive director of the office of citizen complaiptds that was here at 2:00 p.m. and thank you so much ms. hicks. >> good evening supervisor mar, supervisor cohen and president breed, and i do appreciate you inviting me to speak with you this afternoon to address issues about bias in the san francisco police department and how to restore the public's

trust after the horrendous racist and homophobic texts that have now seen the light of day, but which the office of citizen complaints was privy to a short time prior to their release, but we were not able to comment on them, and i will say it has been an incredible burden for me to live with the hatred that was reflected in those text messages, and one in particular struck me about african-american children swimming in the swimming pool where former sergeant ferminger's children swam and how that would contaminate -- i'm not going to use the word that was used but

how what would contaminate the pool and so you know about joyce hicks. i'm a daughter of a tuskegee air man and one of the last surviving and his career was stymied because after the air corps were operated in the army and the arm forced were allegedly integrated my father spoke out about that very thing about how african-americans -- officers could only swim in the swooming pool on the base on a wednesday and then they drained the pool and then the white officers could swim for the rest of the week, so i am relieved that the chief has acted swiftly

and decisively and is referring not just the matters that the occ uncovered with our limited staffing, but is referring additional officers to the police commission for the police commission to resolve. i not only speak to you as the director of the san francisco office of citizen complaints but also as a board member of the national association for civilian oversight of law enforcement. our president brian buckner was invited to testify before the president's task force on 21 ftd century policing on a segment that dealt with civilian oversight of law enforcement. as a result of that testimony and also the testimony of char charlie beck, the l.a. pd chief and others

one of the recommendations from that interim report of the task force is that every law enforcement agency should have some form of -- oversight of law enforcement. san francisco has that by charter, but i think sometimes it's forgotten that not only does the office of citizen complaints investigate matters which are confidential and protected by the public safety officers procedural bill of rights you, but we also make policy recommendations for improvements in the police department that will improve the police department's relationship with members of the community, and chief sure mentioned some of the policy changes that the

department has made and they were based on a collaboration with community groups, leadership from the office of citizen complaints as well, but i know that the hour is late and i do want to talk about the three measures that i think are very important for the reduction, and i will not say the elimination of bias, but the reduction of bias in the san francisco police department, because the previous speakers have said we all carry biases with us. it's how we act on them is most important. a second matter that -- well, the first way of addressing bias and it has been discussed previously and that has to do with who is on the san francisco police department? who is recruited? how the police department

matters are -- members are retained and are they getting promoted? and just quoting from a couple of recent reports which can be a play book for improving issues of bias and community trust in the san francisco police department those two reports would be the report from the department of justice civil rights division on the investigation of ferguson police department and the other one we have spoken about a lot this afternoon, and that is the task force on 21st century policing, and quoting and inserting san francisco police department it should strive to create a work force that contains a broad range of diversity anything race, gender, life experience and cultural background, and i would add of course sexual

preference as well. additionally enhanced training to reduce bias in the san francisco police department. supervisor cohen asked which department heads were invited to yesterday's training. i wasn't invited but i invited myself and was allowed to attend. i do have a background in training on implicit bias because of the result of me attending previous training i was introduced to this concept at one of the panels by a national expert on implicit bias in police departments and by dr. lori fidel and worked for the research forum and now a professor at university of south florida and does training for many police departments including some training for the san francisco police department

because using the occ's limited training budget i brought her to san francisco two years ago -- three years ago and had her conduct an eight hour training that included the investigators on my staff, the attorneys on my staff, members from other civilian over sight agencies throughout the bay area as well as members of the internal affairs division. it was an eight hour training and her model of training is to not just include the members of the police department that she iss s if focus -- focusing on but add diversity and additionally we had members from the community and it's extremely important when any of the training takes place on implicit bias that members of the aggrieved

communities, the individuals in the communities that have been hurt by bias should be there at that training to tell their stories. otherwise it's in a vacuum and just moving to some of the more detailed recommendations that i have drawn from the report on the training provide initial and recurring training and send a message that bias and discriminatory policing are prohibited and should include relevant and ethical standards, information on how stereotypes and implicit bias can affect police work, the procedure of public works and legitimacy on trust and officer safety, the negative impacts of profiling on public safety and crime prevention of the next part is

provide training on detecting and responding to bias based policing and other forms of discriminatory policing. include community members from groups that have expressed high levels of distrust of police in other training. take steps to eliminate all forms of work place bias from san francisco police department. additionally president obama's task force on 21st century policing and in the interim report says that police officer training standards should ensure basic recruit and in service training that upon incorporates contacts around recognizing and confronting this bias and cultural responsiveness and without going any further into detail about the training except to say that i have also participated in implicit bias

training with other police departments when dr. fidel has conducted that training because she believes strongly in bringing in a diversity of individuals and i attended a training -- a two day training in palo alto at the time when the former palo alto police chief said in response to a number of burglaries in the community "stop all black men" to her police force and as a result of that dr. fidel was brought in. members of the san jose police force were part of the training and of course palo alto police officers were part of the training as well. i talked about other measures. the second measure and it's something that this committee has addressed previously and that has to do with on body cameras. on body cameras should be a priority for this city to

create transparency and not just on body cameras for supervisors who are conducting searches et cetera, but really and i will use this word a robust program that provides enough funding not only for the equipment but that's not the major expense. for the storage of the information and anecdotally in the police executive research forum report on body cameras police chiefs have indicated a huge drop in citizen complaints and use of force complaints as a result of having on body cameras. >> ms. hicks understanding you please wrap up so we can get to the public speakers. >> i will wrap up and the third recommendation i have and it's something i am addressing with the mayor's office and that is to adequately fund the office

of citizen complaints so that it can conduct its investigations in a timely manner, and that it can provide policy recommendations with more frequency so thank you very much for the time. >> thank you and i will make sure that my staff reach out to you for the recommendations and professor fidel and all of the great recommendations that you have given us and thank you so much. >> you're welcome. >> i see no questions. i'm going to open up public comment and first call reverend amos brown and president of the naacp and i have other cards as well followed by other speakers. [calling speaker names] . reverend brown.

>> thank you very much mr. chairman. president breed and supervisor cohen, ladies and gentlemen, i am president of the san francisco branch of the national association for the advancement of colored people, and more importantly i have been pastor of the historic third bacht baptist church 40 years and i thank you for having the hearing. however, we are regurgitating, repeating what has already been said. secondly i want to acknowledge that we are going after these four officers and possibly 14 or 16, but this approach we're taken

maybe analogous to that by going after the man that stole the ham out of the meat house instead of also looking at who left the meat house door open? this door my friends was opened [inaudible] by this city of san francisco, not using the "n" word to refer to black folks, but black folks in san francisco have been treated like they were to be called the "n" word. over a year ago the naacp presented a three point program

to the chief, and i leave copies of it to you. it's nothing new. >> please continue reverend. >> and when you speak about implicit bias we have it on the part of leadership in this city for doing the tenure of mayor willy leis brown junior. all of these measures and approaches that we're talking about now were advanced through a community based board and that document is still available -- >> what you're -- reverend brown what year was the three point plan presented? >> last year. however what i am saying is that 15 years ago during the tenure of mayor

brown this african-american community did through a deliberative process, through patience, through a civil approach sat down and crafted a document. i know we can learn from other places but we don't have to go to boston or seattle. if we would respect indigenous leadership in this town and follow through on what we already said was an answer to bad relationships between the african-american community and the police department, and notice now i began with the african-american community, but you must permit me to say i am a world citizen. i am concerned about everybody, but if we're honest with ourselves this is a black problem. black folk in

this town are treated meanly. black folks can't get housing. black folk are doing poorly in the educational system. black folk can not get loans because of red lining. black folks enclaves have been destroyed by the policy of the city and vis-a-vis the redevelopment agency and now we look at the police department but the answer is in a story of an old preacher. told some members one night you all appointed things and blame everybody but the answer is in the box and when he told everybody to come around and look in the box to find the answer low and behofl there was a mirror and reflection of everybody who was in that church. this is a mirror of san francisco and i hope that we

will stop this paralysis of analysis playing games with numbers, and admit that racism is alive and kicking and doing well in this town and we shouldn't be surprised or shocked about what was revealed and mr. chairman and members of the committee for a whole year naacp and the black faith community call on the human rights commission. they did absolutely nothing with the data, with the facts. we call on the police commission who did absolutely nothing particularly in the wake of ferguson, and when i in a meeting right here in room 202 with faith leaders, the chief of police, and the chief of staff sat right there.

ferguson is in san francisco and the chief got on the defensive. i thank god he's got religion today and going to be cooperating with us but he's the one that said "oh no this is not ferguson. we're a liberal city. we don't have that here." well, i said to him again chief -- let me finish my point. geographically ferguson is not in san francisco, but attitudally and in terms of practices in this police department i still contend ferguson is in san francisco. >> thank you reverend. please wrap up. >> i am wrapping up but i hope you wrap up a good package for us to deal with this problem of racism that's been perpetrated against black folk across the board. it's in the health department. it's in the school district. it's at juvenile

hall. it's all around and that means also the black community has its responsibility too. it takes two wings for a bird to fly. two wings for an airplane to stay in the air and we can't solve the problem as long as a fire wall is put up between the community, the police department, the board of supervisors. we got to work as a team and collaboratively and stop pointing fingers about who stole the ham out of the meat house. we got to look at who left the door open. we left the door open because of our faulty public policy that has been discriminatory against african-americans. >> thank you reverend brown. [applause] next speaker. so if your name has been called you can come up.

i believe reverend townsend and several of the public defenders and i will call a few more names. [calling speaker names] . >> thank you to the board of supervisors for calling theory this meeting. >> >> our members were a appalled about hearing about the text scandal and a poor reflection on the city and the police department and with the recent things going in the country and racism and corruption and the citizens shouldn't have to fear those sworn to protect and serve them and it is for this reason it is incumbent that we address this as a systemic issue and we realize that this is just an example of implicit racial bias

policing and it stems from bold blatant actions from before. when i where there is four there is more. there are rouge cops in this doesn't and like others across the nation but i think we need to do something a little bolder. we need to call for terminations and suspensions but if it's found that any person involved in the texting is of a higher rank they should be demoted. it's despicable behavior and it is this type of behavior which has created relationship break downs between us and the community and now we have issues amongst our officers wondering who was amongst them is truly one of the colleagues and how far they can really trust them? this comindicates so many relationships and we have to start a healing process and this is a gaping wound that

has been opened and it's a critical incident and the city and county of san francisco must address it like a critical ins defnlt i have officersel doing with post traumatic stress and how they're dealt with in the san francisco police department and how they're treated today. as an african-american officer i can tell you that racism is alive and well. what we recommend as a solution is we want to see a task force that includes the naacp, community leaders, the chief of police, the leadership and any other group and organization that is willing to engage us in a debriefing on racism. we want to have mental health professionals that are there available to us so that our members can tell you how we felt, how we have been hurt by being a member of the san francisco police department. we risk our lives on a daily basis

because we love to do this. we are here as your servants. however for us to be disrespected at this level is inexcusable and we are asking you to help bring healing to the members of the san francisco police department. we ask you to allow us to engage those who are the commanding officers of this police department in conversations as to how we have been disrespected; how we have been distreated; how we have been victims not only of racism but homophobic behavior of others who have been allowed to abuse us and misuse us, and again i want to say that it is not only incumbent that the city and county train the leaders, but you got to start with the rank and file. bring us some healing so that we can in turn

do the job that we have been sworn to do and the manner in which you can be proud of. i thank you for your time. >> thank you president williams. next speaker. >> good evening reverend richard baker is my name. when i was preparing to come here i couldn't help but think of the old testament prophet daniel around the fifth chapter of the work and the king called him in and said interpret the handwriting on the wall, and it's clear that the handwriting on the walls of these chambers and indeed the halls of justice here in san francisco reflect the fact that there is an utter disrespect for the african-american citizen in this city as well as the purported disciplinary process that is

imposed by the san francisco police commission. we have to look at the disciplinary record of our police chief gregory suhr who is a defendant in a case pending set for trial on april 20 brought by kelly o'hare. and in that case the court filings -- it's all a matter of public record indicate there is a disregard for the disciplinary process in san francisco because our own police chief has what i consider to be a staggering disciplinary record himself koording to the -- according to the court file scption failure to report some complaints and charged lying to the fbi getting a security clearance, his involvement in the faheato gate scandal and

release of protesters and suspension in 2009 for his failure to report a domestic violence ins incident. is there any question in your mind why the police officers of san francisco felt at liberty to exchange racist bigoted text messages? the handwriting is on the wall. we need a new police chief in san francisco. we need to stop the rhetoric and the ignorance of the rights of african-american af people in the city and i will close african-americans come into contact with the police department more than any other racial group in this city. i live in the neighborhood and the hood. i live there in the heart of it and i love it but i will share with you we need the police -- the african-american community needs effective and lawful policing as victims as

well as persons who are alleged to have been involved in criminality. i thank you for your time and your attention this evening. >> thank you reverend baker. reverend townsend. >> thank you president mar and president breed and supervisor cohen and let me say that the problem here is first of all if we believe that the owner people that saw the texts were the four officers and the other 10 or 12 then you're probably too naive to be living in america number one because america is a dangerous place. and it's a culture and a psychology that sets up in the police departments all over with many officers. (paused).