good afternoon, everyone. this is the public safety and neighborhood services committee meeting. my name is eric mar and to my left is david campos and julie christensen. >> >>clerk, please , city clerk: please silence all devices. >> we have three items today. >>supervisor eric mar: we will hear public testimony on that item. and following the hearing on racism and bias on the san francisco justice system we'll be having a major hearing on the jail rebuild sponsored by kim and breed.

>> item no. 1. addressing hearing on bias in san francisco justice system and investigating officers complaints and district attorney's report. >> thank you, we have a number of speaker cards that i will be getting to. we also have a list of not only department law enforcement and department reps, but we have a list of members from the community from social justice to advocacy organizations as well. i wanted to say that the rules of order for our board are that we do not hold up signs during our meetings and also as the chair of the committee i'm going to ask if people can do their best to stay within their 2-minute time limit at about 90 seconds, a soft buzzard goes off and a louder one at the end of the testimony period. if people can refrain from clapping and use other means of appreciation

can help to get through the process. today's hearings, colleagues is a follow up from our hearing of april of this year to address racism, homophobia and scapegoating and other forms of bigotry within our police department, in particular with police officers that were texting and messaging. this is where officers for justice and the public defenders racial justice committee, aclu and many community based organizations testified. in a few moments we are going to hear from our various departments and members of the community. but i wanted to acknowledge that we have our public defender jeff dochey with staff and jackie wilson public defender from the

racial justice committee. some of you have seen the cover story on public defender jeff dochey in the san francisco weekly newspaper. we also have the director of the office for citizens complaints ms. joyce hicks and deputy chief mckail alley and commander bob moser and city attorney alicia cabrera and district attorney george gas conand chonsey smith from california and angela chan, our former police commissioner and staff anding agent law office and kenneth freed box on the director on homelessness san francisco and francisco uggarte

from sf island. lorena: a lead organizer for catholic arch diocese and lizey for cj for criminal and juvenile justice. the lawyers committee for civil rights coordinator and reverend smith and deacon wade from the episcopal church. this is to follow-up on to advance the racism and curriculum in police departments and other agencies and methods for officers to uphold civil rights and justice and free of conscious and unconscious bias. i also want to say the context that we are in

as we'll hear in the next hearing is the growth of prisons and industrial complex as some call it with critical resistance to all of us or none that are in the chambers as well. advocacy to create a society that really having law enforcement that is serving communities and to reduce the reliance on the prison industrial complex. if not to eliminate it. as we've seen from ferguson to san francisco and oakland to the alex nieto to the grant cases. the problems with racism and bias and policing is a national and social justice issue and san francisco is not exempt. on an individual level it's important that we'll hear today that we recognize that we all have biases of course and we need to consistently hold ourselves in check and call out these biases when they are kicking in and we need to constantly be developing skills to keep our biases from our actions and

keep from reporting and monitoring and chekz and balances. on a systemic level as a city, as a society, monitoring this and resource mechanism to address to this situation within our departments. i want to highlight some harsh realities provided by our administration of justice. these are harsh realities in san francisco. 6% of san francisco residents are african american or black yet 56% of our males in jails are african american or black. black drivers are three times likely to be stopped for traffic offenses than white drivers. black defendants are more likely to have bail and systematically lower

probabilities of pretrial release. they fill the jails more frequently and held more frequently than white inmates. black daefdz -- defendants are more likely to be in prison than white inmates for the same crime. 30% more to be in prison. the state is responsible for, we are responsible for effectively or the states responsible for effective police are so high in this city and through country. i think many of you can see outside that we have the mayor's of conference from los angeles to sacramento coming to this city tomorrow and i think what you will be testifying and hearing today hopefully is not just heard by our mayor and other departments, but by otherwise around this country as well. the police departments are places that are supposed to be able to turn,

where we turn to where we are threatened and victimized. police departments and police are who we are supposed to turn for protection and help and police officers are the only people in our so-called democratic society that can legally take our freedom or in some cases take our lives. when there is bias and discrimination and in some cases blatant abuses of power as we've seen and there is no security or effective policing. thus it's imperative that the police act collaboratively with the community to prevent racial bias and to better protect the people they serve. institutionalizing critical training for police officers as we have done in the past for communities united against violence in this city. but we need to develop new systems now and i hope that we can ultimately address disparities

in bias in jails and thefts and bails and to jury composition as well. we need to also discuss and identify possible solutions such as more effective disciplining of officers who exhibit racial and other biases on-the-job and much better training systems as well as those in related legal professions for racial and unconscious bias in our work. lastly we will hear from not only the 10 point program from our public defenders office who analyze data and racial disparities on more outcomes within our criminal justice in this city. i wanted to say now that we are now going to hear from a number of speakers but before that i wanted to let my colleagues give their opening remarks as well. supervisor campos? >>supervisor david campos: thank you,

chair, mar. i would like to thank everyone who is here. i see our office of complaints, public defender and i know our sheriff's department is here on a different matter but to the extent we are talking about law enforcement, they are a part of that, our district attorney is here. thank you for being here >> thank you for coming here. i wasn't here at the last meeting. i would like to thank supervisor mar for putting this on the agenda. we are not going to have a resolution for complicated issues when it comes to law enforcement in the relationship with the communities that law enforcement serves, but i think the more discussions we have, the

better. i believe that the one thing that we have to do before we move forward is to not unique and that we have issues like every other part of the country the issues exist and the challenges we face is that we have communities, especially communities of color that they do not have the trust we need to have through law enforcement including our police department. i think that's something that has to be addressed. and as someone who has served as a police commissioner and works for the police department all the time, i think it's important for that trust to be rebuilt. the only way we are going to rebuild that is to face the issue head

on. i know it's going to only get worse. we had the situation where there was an effort to have a discussion about this at the democratic central committee and unfortunately the democratic party chose to stick it's head in the sand and wish this issue would simply go away and not even hear the matter. i don't think that's the right approach. i have a great deal of faith in chief suhr and i know he's trying to deal with this issue head on. but also to deal with this head on, the city also has to put it's money where it's mouth is and we have to give the agencies involved the resources they need to make sure we have a full and complete investigation and that means not only giving the police department and the occ the resources they need to do that, but also our district attorney. i'm very disappointed that the

mayor's office did not include in the budget they put forward very small amounts of money so that the district attorney could do a full investigation of what happened. i think that's a disservice not only to the community, but it's also a disservice to the rank and file of the police department who i think at the end of the day will only benefit from from getting to the bottom of what happened. i think there has to be a complete and full investigation, not only with what happened with the police department and with the sheriff's department and we need to make an investment going forward and having as much accountability and i think the investment in the body cameras it's a good investment but it's not going to be a panacea. law enforcement

has a lot to do with it. and as far as the cameras, the same should apply in our jail system as well and that investment should also be made there. i look forward to the discussion, look forward to hearing from the agencies and from the public. thank you, supervisor mar, for putting this on the agenda. >> supervisor christensen >> i think we are very fortunate to have an exemplary staff from the central station. they have done a great job. we are a very diverse community with many non-english speaking residents. we need to look at what is not working well and what is working well and we have the opportunity to engage with the

community, with the schools, seniors, their integration with the community has gone a long way on the north east part of the city to actually feel the police force is a resource rather than a threat to them. i'm grateful for the leadership that our police captains have shown in that way. i think while that may not be the case, i want to say how grateful i am. one thing about being a supervisor, you get texted about things that happen in the district. being a supervisor for the last 5 months i get text about brutality and how much this is very exposed to. certainly viewing our police force as a resource and

a place of safety is what we aim for and any efforts on that as far as the police and the public it's welcome. >> thank you very much, supervisor. let's go to public comment. i have asked people to keep it as short as possible. we have our san francisco public defender jeff dochey and jackie wilson is with us as well, public defender. >> thank you very much for continuing this hearing. the challenge i think to us as both city officials department heads is to not only look as policing

but the entire justice system. i wish i can say it begins with the police department but it's not. it's endemic. i have been a public defender for 29 years and i have seen this since the day i started. i can tell you the issue of race has been one that is plagued, the criminal justice system the juvenile justice system has been around for years. the disparity is not new. they have existed as long as i have been around. they exist not only because of the way in which we police, arrest and detain people, but also the way that a criminal justice system functions. we've had to take a hard look at our work as public defenders and ask how do unconscious biases, implicit biases affect the way in which we do our work. obviously prosecutors and judges are not immune. there are so many judgment points in the

system where individuals, agencies and institutions make decisions on a daily basis. sometimes even hundreds a day where race bias does infect our decision making to the point that for most part we aren't aware of them. for most of us here, everyone doesn't wake up to race biases and people of color but you can look at the impact of what has happened in our city. it doesn't take much of a leap to reach a conclusion to see that something is very wrong. the initiative for 21st century policing in the united states was put forward by the white house. the attempt today will be to look at where we are in san francisco. i have been invited and plan to attend the first white

house briefing on 21st century policing on july 1st and july 2nd. it will be a 1 day a briefing where they will be talking about these issues and important reforms. we'll be gathering at the white house with police, prosecutors, probation officers and defense attorneys and policy makers to talk about how we can address this as a nation. i think it's very forward thinking that in san francisco we've been taking these steps early on. albeit in response to a number of crisis that has gripped our city. but these are problems i believe can be addressed. >> the reason the committee at the public defenders office was formed to look at these issues. it is a collective approach within our office and it's not an exclusive one. we made it very clear from day one and

that we are interested in looking at systemic reform and are open to working with whoever is interested in making these reforms happen. i do have a powerpoint presentation that i will direct you to and this comes from the ten point proposal that was recently developed by the racial and justice committee as a starting point to begin collecting points that the city should begin. this is not an exclusive list nor a complete one, but 92 nearly a starting place. going to the first slide, what it is, it's a proposal. because there is some confusion that it's my plan or only coming from public defenders. we tried to meet with community leaders, the leadership of black lives

matters, various agency to talk about what kind of reforms we might be able to focus on, practical reforms. this is a proposal to improve the criminal justice system overall. look at it as a general guide as you would coming to a new city or country. looking at the improvements that we can make. we are focusing on best evidence based practices from around the country. what it's not is an attempt to create any kind of binding legislation or to tell the police department or chief suhr hoss to do their jobs. i think what's more important here is that we come collectively together and look at how we can address these issues. so it would be a mistake to think if we address the issue of texts that somehow racism would disappear. that occurrence is a manifestation and not the core and root cause.

>> mr. darchi, you have a minute to go. >> okay looking at the first slide, the first recommendation is 24 hours of implicit training for officers. sfpd has already offered some officer bias training and that's good. we support any request made by the police department for additional training. we do think there is value in having a set number of hours. monthly reviews of field training officers for any racial bias, excessive force or unlawful search and seizure or filing a false report. already in compliance with this. assign patrol duty in black and brown communities to officers who less invasive in those communities and develop financial incentives to encourage officers to

live in the communities they police. they have individual officers preferences. body cameras are being funded through the mayor's task force. we had to fight to be on the committee. we are on the committee. those policy recommendations will be forthcoming. >> officer involved shootings, clearly now there is an investigation done by the district attorney. we believe there should be an independent investigation. there has been no movement there. however, there is bill in sacramento is sb 227 that would eliminate grand jury in officer shootings. these are laws kept by the police department which documents each instance where an officer draws and discharges a weapon regardless of an injury. this is clearly being done. so it is a recommendation that's being followed. however the logs are not made available to the public. we believe they

should on a quarterly bases. we believe that officers should not arrest or detain children in a school unless there is a threat of danger. there is now a policy of memorandum of understanding between the sfpd and the san francisco unified school district. mental health is a big issue. we are urging sfpd to provide crisis intervention. ms. johnson is here from the mental health unit but we have others who provide mental health training at the academy, but it's not mandatory. the idea of providing quarterly statistics as you know provided by malia cohen, and we support that initiative. the final recommendation was to have a youth on the police commission that would require a charter change but we believe it's something we should put forward to. there is a comprehensive report

that was developed by the edward burns institute that is a report that reentry council which is an official body of the board of supervisors will be releasing i believe next week. it's a comprehensive study that not only looks at policing but also all components of the criminal justice system. my hope is out of this hearing that we have a continuing body or an initiative where we can continue these reforms. thank you. >> thank you, mr. darchi. is jackie wilson from your office, deputy public defender here? >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name

is jock wilson. i want to thank you for allowing me to come here today to continue this conversation. i love this city and work in this city. coming across the bridge i saw something that said armenian genocide and i walk around and i see how lucky i am to work in this wonderful city. and the sign that says remember and demand. the reason that's important because as an african american public defender in this city since 2002 and the numbers we talk about, the remember and demand.

the remember part, as supervisor mar alluded. 56% african american, and 56% of the jail population are african american and 54% are african american and 62% of the youth that are arrested are african american. we must remember that. we could not forget that. when we talk about the demanding part, that is in a we need to demand and we are here to demand justice. in regard to data collection, we are here to demand justice in regard to texting scandal and all the other scandal that have rocked the criminal justice system in san francisco. if we don't get to the root cause of these issues, these cultures that have been allowed to permeate will continue. that's why when they wrote the report on racial

profiling and wrote the report about the incarceration of black men in san francisco, this has not been addressed. we are asking that you do that. the reason that it's so important is that 100 years from now, in 2115, when your great grandchildren are driving across that bay bridge. what will the sign say? will it say black genocide or will it say black lives matter. we took that issue back. >> the -- thank you for being here deputy chief alley.