at oakland. oakland has a demographic, a population of african-americans of 28% and they stop 62%. we are almost three times that, three times that in san francisco. when you look at arrests african-american people in san francisco according to the aclu 2013 study were four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession and to his credit when the statistic came out chief sure ordered the police department and i don't want to misspeak and not make the arrest frs this. according to this study from 2012 and african-americans experienced arrests 19 times higher than others in san francisco and seven times higher than

african-americans early where in california and i have a copy of the report attached to the report i gave you. >> >> african-americans are 6% of san francisco's population -- actually less but they're seven more times likely to be arrested than whites who represent 41% of the city's population. this is from the california department of justice. african-american female youth and this is insane account for over 40% of the felony drug arrests of african-american arrests in the entire state and remember our population is under a million and this is the same report and have rates 50 times higher than others. and despite the disproportionate arrests and study after study that shows drug use and abuse that african-americans and whites use drugs at the same rate and if

you look at the people that over dorsed in san francisco and 62% were white. if you look at the san francisco jail population under 6% now of san franciscans are african-american yet 56% of jail inmates are black. whitings make up 22% and 42% of san francisco -- latino americans 15% and asian and the statistics are here and wildly disproportionate. for youth it's no better. african-americans ages 18-25 are the largest demographic in the san francisco county jail and the population of san francisco juvenile hall is about 51% black and 6.6% white. this indicates that's 50 times more likely for an incarcerated black youth to

be be at the youth guidance center. according to usa today san francisco is one of the cities listed along with 1580 other police departments that have higher arrest rates of black people, higher than in ferguson. in terms of in a criminal case one of the first things that occurs is the bail setting. these are national studies. we don't have any studies for san francisco but this shows that black defends are assigned greater bail levels than the white counter parts when they're accused of similar offenses and as a result have lower probabilities of getting out of jail. that is 2010 study. according to the stanford 1994 study due to implicit bias judges set bail 25% higher for blacks than

whites. it's also been found in a study by paterson and lynch judges are less likely to give black suspects the benefit of like whites and this study was on the manhattan da's office and we had a similar one in of the district attorney's office and he invited them to do that study but they found that blacks and latinos charged with drug offenses were less likely to get three offers and found that blacks were 27% and latinos 18% more likely to receive a jail offer and this is the plea bargaining process. in sentencing the study from the journal of legal studies and done by an economists and not a justice system professor and

found that black defendants are 30% more likely to be in print prison for the same crime and judges take race into account and at a punish differently based on the race and only at the race even when they looked at other factors and judges are more likely to sentence black defendants to prison than whites. and there was a study from duke in 2012 and juries from all white jury pools in florida convicted blacks more often than whites and this is a huge issue in san francisco and from the jury pools we see now we're lucky to see a few african-americans in a panel of 80, 90 jurors so it shows there is a direct correlation between the race of

the jurors and the race of the defendant and it's interesting they found this this gap was nearly eliminated when there was at least one member of the jury pool who was african-american. so how do we address racial bias in a justice system system? it's access to point fingers and it's you or that department or that department and that's certainly not my point here. obviously when we have officers who are engaging and exhibiting expressed racial bias like we do with the texts they shouldn't be on the force. i think everybody here -- well, when i say everybody here, but certainly everyone from the chief to the police officers association, officers for justice have expressed that sentiment, but the bigger problem in my view is unconscious bias and when we

talk about this it is a residue that we have in our minds that is relying on stereotypes as a default, on prejudices that we may have, on fear. there's actually a part of the brain called the a mig dalaand responds to perceived fear so if we see someone because of our own biases and our experiences and something we read or seen even on tv we respond to that. our brain has a physiological response that telegraphs danger and this is very, very dangerous when it comes to decision making in the criminal justice system. there is a whole science behind this ask a test developed by harvard. anyone can go online and take it and it creates associations as you're going through this. you take it on

the computer and punch the key to indicate your choice and it will give you a score at the end and it actually shows the amount of bias you may have and towards people, towards products that you buy, towards food, and it is really a part of human nature which is what makes it scary. they even have an implicit association test you can take that you're simulating pressing a gun on the computer board and have different people come out and have a white person come out with a bag of groceries and then a gun and a black person do the same thing and what happens you see it again and again people are going to punch that key and pull the trigger when they see an african-american much more than if they see a white american. most of the tests only involved white and black subjects. it's impossible i

think for anyone to try to suggest what the solutions are, but i think we have to start somewhere and how do you legislate away racism or sort of wrong thinking? that's very difficult to do but i do think we can take a big step by measuring bias, and we've already taken that step to one extent with traffic violations. sfpd now reports on traffic stops. but we should extend it to detentions whether or not it results in a arrest or not, who is being detained? who is being frisked and searched? who is being arrested and tracked for racial disparities? we just started doing this. we have a racial justice committee and we have a partnership with the center at the university of

pencil zaneia and we need to do this and they do this and the chief said and they need to follow up and make sure that the reports when they occur are taken seriously. i think that it's important that we require officers who witness others who are engaging in this conduct -- right, because we had the first person talk about how one officer was silent while the other officer made all of the racial epithets and the other officer told him to just keep his head up. that's the solution. well that conduct should have been reported to the superior officer and having a general order that requires that or a policy that requires that i think would go a long way because an officer who acts in that way should be rewarded. i

saw a television report on the three receives that came forward and reported that one of the fellow officers had stolen money from the lgbt fund but what struck me when i saw the officers on tv they were in the shadows. they weren't allow their faces to be seen and i think that sends a powerful message to the citizenry you can't speak out. if another officer can't speak out when an officer has misconduct how do they expect citizens to do the same? obviously vetting officerrings for racial bias and i'm not an expert in that and i know there is testing and there has to be training. i understand there was a training on bias and sistivity and i maybe wrong but it was stopped and i think it should be continued and also there needs to be an implicit bias

component. you can do the same thing for our staffs. about two years ago someone came to me and say why don't you do a training on implicitly bias? we're public defenders and represent people of comfortable and what are you talking about? and after i saw the presentation i realized we need to do this and public defenders and attorneys suffer fromace as well and we did a film and discussion on bias and attorneys in the office and a seven hour commitment but we did it on a non workday. we also did another training this year. it's very fortunate because for example the defense attorney who harbors unconscious racist bias might not try as hard for this kline closed to this client. >> >> could you wrap up? >> sure. i am just about done.

i would just note that bay area police departments have began recording the races of the people they stop and arrest and some make it all but impossible for the public to gain access to the data i have two members of the racial justice committee. i told them to be very brief and then i will be done. >> i have a question. >> yes president breed. >> thank you. so thank you for your presentation. thank you for being here today. can you tell me we know what the statistics say as it relates to the challenges in racial bias in our criminal justice system sadly, but one of the challenges that we also experience are the sad reality that oftentimes african-american boys and men are victims and perpetrators of some violent crimes in our city and i am just wondering how you think that factors into this

data too? what role do you think it plays? because i for one just to be clear i don't want violent criminals on our streets. it doesn't matter the race but more importantly i want to make sure we're are doing everything we can to get those individuals behind bars so just understanding what we can do better because on the flip side we have had challenges with people who -- i have experienced this personally with kids i worked with that i know for a fact never committed a crime but sadly were falsely accused or encounter some situations where they ended up doing time or spending time in juvenile hall for something they didn't do, so i guess i am just trying to understand how does that play a role in some of these challenges that we face as it relates to racial bias? >> it's a very good question.

whether you're a victim or a defendant you have a right to be treated equally and i think when there is a perception you're not going to be treated fairly by the police then the response from a victim is not come forward or not cooperate or refuse to testify. certainly we have experienced that in san francisco. i think the other thing to look at too i can tell you many of our clients when you look at their case histories were victims. they were victims of sexual assault. they were victims of trauma, victims of violence in their own community, and the fact that they didn't feel protected by police in some cases causes them not to take the appropriate steps that they otherwise should that a person who is not burdened by those perspectives -- perceptions or experiences might so i think

it's very important that we look at the system in terms of the impact on everyone whether it's witnesses, whether it's jurors. you know it's interesting we just had a situation in a homicide case where jurors actually raised their hand when the prosecutor said something to the effect that you just have to be color blind and there are no african-americans in the jury panel and the defense attorney had raised that and the prosecutor said something like you just have to be color blind and a white juror said "that's a racist statement" and half of the courtroom applauded and the judge solved the problem by excusing the panel so we're definitely seeing people reacting because of what is happening, because of what happened in ferguson and stalt an island and with the black lives matter movement. >> so i going to ask if the

members speak at the public comment time so we can get to the chief of police and a few other speakers so the next speaker is greg sure our chief of police and the district attorney and the human rights commission and joyce hicks from the office of citizen complaints. chief sure thank you for being here. >> thank you. good afternoon. i think as reprehensible as the texts were my stomach isn't where it ought to be. we have expedited this investigation and done by the close of business tomorrow. there will be suspensioned. there will be more than a few officers referred to the police commission with a single recommendation of termination. i cannot unring the bell on these texts. i am as disgusted

by them as everyone should be, and we will do what we can to rebuild the damage done by the exchanges back and forth with mr. feringer who sits as a convicted felon who will be reporting for incarceration i believe before the end of the week. to that end it's been mentioned how -- i wanted to correct a couple of things that came up. one, supervisor mar we don't do stop and frisk. i have been very clear on that in san francisco. constitutionally terry versus ohio. we stop or detain based on reasonable suspicion and we research and/or frisk based on facts and concern for officer safety so i want to reassure you that the program spoken up and received attention in new york city stop and frisk i think i was straightforward

and firm on it when originally asked about it a couple years ago. we don't practice it here in san francisco. also there were slides mentioned in regards to narcotics. narcotic arrests were off qift 85% in san francisco prior to prop that time and they're off more and i have spoken to those people and now have trafficking in electronic goods and that seems to be the new trend and it's not lost on any of you at the board since we talk often about the up tick in property crime really across the state. and then lastly when it comes to some of the objectively that he speaks of he have been together in court many times and upon

coming into officer he asked about o adopting double blind [inaudible] spreads and provide a more better and objective result in less false positives. that's something we adopted just about before any other law enforcement agency across the state and we have more things that we do as well but i wanted to correct a couple of things that were addressed. as far as these officers the first thing is and i think it was mentioned earlier how did they get into the san francisco police department at all? so we're asking for our personnel division to audit their personal history questions and the questionnaires that come through the application process to see if there is a common denominator among them and should have been a red flag and prevented them from being hire. we are

randomly selecting other officers who haven't engaged in misconduct at all to think that the red flags in these officers are present with others just to make it an objective productive look. i know that he's made policy recommendations. i know the district attorney has made policy recommendations. other people have. i have been in close contact with the president of our police commission. they are the overseers of policy and discipline. they are the ones that will receive the allegations with recommendations for termination and i think it's fair to make these suggestions, but i think the proper body to make the suggestions to is the police commission for consideration and we will work as we do already very closely with the occ and policy analysts to make the police department better, and there are many

instances of that whether it's our cit training, our creating time and distance bulletin for people only in danger to themselves, what we have worked with young people whose parents were arrested and had unfortunate encounters on police and [inaudible] parents and others in the country are starting to adopt as we don't want to traumatize children anymore they are already by their parents arrested. i would like to speak a little bit on president obama's task force on 20th century policing. they write in light of recent events that weakened the relationship between police and the communities they protect president obama signed an executive order establishing a task force on policing. trust between law enforcement agencies and the people they protect and serve is essential in a democracy. in the first pillar

they speak to building trusts and legitimacy on police and community divide is the first pillar but the foundational principle under laying the relations between law enforcement and the communities that they serve. he speaks to police officers as guardians and he quotes plateau -- playdoe. only those with the most impeccable character that choose to bear the responsibility of protecting that democracy. that is why when i recommend these officers for termination they have sullied the rest of the fine men and women that have high character that they speak of and they do establish themselves as guardians and i think some members of the board here know how hard the san francisco police department has been working with the community

including developing a community policing general order that we work with supervisor campos and supervisor avalos on in the mission district. the first of itself kind -- >> chief, can i interrupt you for one moment and say that the racist homophobic texts -- do you think they're isolated cases as some have tried to say or is it a symptom of a much larger problem to be addressed in the police department and a culture within the police department? >> obviously every profession has ts culture and law enforcement has its culture. i think in the san francisco police department we try to do so much with the community and try so hard to be transparent. obviously since these text messages caught me completely by surprise and only came after a criminal previous a federal investigation less we may not

have known about them at all so i think erring on the side of caution it's not limited to these officers we reinstituted the racial profiling class that was talked about earlier and going away and thanks to the reverend he asked what happened to that and a grant funded class that i now fund with general fund dollars with some of the original instructors and reinstituted back in january before the text messages came out. this training that was spoken about actually director hicks and i and other top leadership in the police department and other department heads in san francisco under took under the leadership actually of president of the vhrc susan christian yesterday at the public library and took some of these tests that they talked about so i think it's really important that we institutallize training, institutionalize auditing,

really, really look for this sort of -- any kind of indicator we can find when hiring. right now we're hiring as many police officers as when i came in at the 80's and we're working with neighborhoods in at risk communities. we start the a cadet program with the young people and my time as chief and bay view and 900 jobs given to young people in san francisco and 97% are given to people of color and 59% go to african-american children. we want young people to see themselves in the san francisco police department so they come to us. we want them to join the police department because the best way to ensure that this sort of thing never happens again is from the inside so we have 300 vacancies. if my request of this commission goes as it should we're going to have a few more. i would love to fill those positions with young

people that are right minded. >> any other questions for the chief? president breed? >> thank you chief for being here. i just wanted to have a little more information about what the plan is for -- i know that there are going to be recommendations, but there are things that we have heard, that i have heard, that not only are the officers involved and the whole text message situation but 10 possibly more so can you give us clarity on how many and what the plan is in each of the particular instances? >> sure. so over 30,000 pages or lines of text messaging were combed over, volumes of paperwork came out of this federal investigation. it was working in cooperation with the

occ and director hicks that we first learned about the text messages as we were in another box of documents. we shut everything else down and everything was about the messages. we were able to identify 14 officers that were text messages with him. not all 14 officers were engaged in these hateful racist homophobic texts. all of the officers though did something to some degree that was inappropriate against department policy. for instance without jeppizing the process one officer was not in the area of assigned responsibility and that was clear based on that he was on duty and texted where he was to mr. feringer and not where he is supposed to be and that is not allowed unless approved by a supervisor. others had text conversations where

mr. ferminger said a reprehensible statement and instead of as -- as spoken about that was it reported to the department and not in a response and however intended to be dismissive wasn't appropriate either so there will be some of the officers who won't -- that don't reach the same level as the officers that i will be referring to the commission. eric director hicks and i sat down and we want to get it right. >> >> and those that fall below the minimum qualifications upon the character that we incest upon be dismissed and i am. >> >> going there after this meeting. i have to go over all of the allegations as sustained and sign off of them and sign some suspension letters that are immediate and the letter vs to be served and at that time it's

agendized at the police commission and from they take control of the investigations. >> so what's the timeline on this whole thing, do you know? >> there are -- i don't have it off of the top of my head. there are statutory guidelines but it's a quasi judicial procedure once it gets to the commission. >> and i guess this is two questions. number one, so for example if there is someone who retired early who is involved in the situation like this will they still -- if there's wrong doing discovered will they still be eligible to receive their pension? >> so pensions as is in the case of some of the criminal convictions of late are crimes of moral turpitude which could impact the pension. all of