how it affects the people subject to the discrimination; how it affects the people subject to disparate treatment and affects the children in the community when they grow up and learn day-by-day year by year that they're less valuable that they're seen as less important and that resources will be spent on some people but not on them, and these decisions by in large -- the decisions that lead to these outcomes by in large are not made consciously but what we do in the city affects people so deeply and begins altan early age it's incumbent to understand all of the things that go into the decision making process and learn how to begin to make decisions that are free of bias or free of bias as possible, and in this training we did learn that there are -- there are ways, there are exercises to begin to address the biases that we all have and these are things that i think we should have to

do as city employees so i am hoping that when you review our request for funding that you will join us with that in that effort. one of the other things we asked for this year are is funding for hearings on structural bias. the relationship between explicit and implicit bias and the resulting structural bias that gets there are issues to address and we hope in conjunction with the board of supervisors to hold hearings so the various city departments can come and things

exist that and the people of city and county of san francisco tell us what needs to done and also the kind of struck uferl issues they have confronted so we hope deeply to work with the board and the rest of the city -- >> supervisor cohen. >> thank you. just a quick clarifying question. could you define for us structural bias? >> i actually -- i can give you an explanation that someone that has been given. i think the naacp actually gave -- defines it as bias is legitimizing a a rare of dynamics and (paused). now racism isn't the only form

of bias. obviously there is sexism and home phobia, all sorts of things and structural bias is the bias built into the way that we do business. it's been built into the kinds of resources that are available and to whom they are available and at what level and based on what requirements. things that look objective but really in practice discriminate against people and advantage certain people over others. >> thank you. it's good to hear that as we go into the budget cycle and which nonprofits get funded and which don't and which pet projects that move through thank you. >> thank you. so i wanted to say it's kimberly pap ion is the consultant that the commission is working with. >> yes. >> and i know supervisor cohen raised other models and i think

seattle has a racial justice commission and oakland desley brooks introduced arch ordinance to have a commission there. sounds like there are different models but what the human rights commission is leading sounds like what other cities are trying to do and deal with these issues and bias and sexism within the city and it sounds like good work and the mayor is supportive and the department of human resources you said? >> absolutely. it's a joint effort and we began this on our own and the mayor's office and others have joined with us. we will 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 comm