>> ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

. >> black americans being stopped proportionately more in san francisco as well as hispanics versus whites? were you given any of that data. >> i'm sorry. our study was

about connecticut, so i'm not sure i understand the question. >> were you given any information about san francisco's data, in terms of use of force? >> yes, it was. the san francisco data was shared with us, and i didn't have a chance to study it in detail, but it was my understanding that -- it is my understanding that in san francisco as in most other u.s. cities, african americans are more likely to be relate use of force situations, even when you take into account higher arrest rates. >> commissioner ong hing. >> commissioner, you alluded a second ago to under reporting, and when i read your report, it seemed like you were -- well, maybe i'm reading into this, were you surprised at the level of under reporting, and what did you discover anecdotally about the under reporting? >> well, it's not so much

that -- i'm going to -- i believe we discuss this at page 35 of the report, and i'm just flipping through it... page 32 -- bottom of page 32 of our report. we had -- so this was the first year in which police departments were reporting. before this, it had not been required by law, and i don't think we should assume that under reporting was the result of anything strategic or nefarious on the part of the police department. police departments had different understanding whether they were required to report every single incident in which the tazer was arched -- arched or cited, when they gave someone a shock. in other words there were studies in large cities where only reported incidents where someone was tased, and so i

think there was some confusion in 2015 about what kind of reporting was required. as a result, it seemed to be inconsistent, and we assumed it was incomplete. but to the extent that the case incident report showed discrepancies between what had been reported in the tazer reporting forum, the case incident report, we also found a trend by which the case incident reports tended to show more tazer deployment than tazer deployment that were indicated in the form, and that was troubling because we can't see those mistakes that happened in the other direction, but i think on the whole, there was confusion about the police departments, about whether they -- what exactly they were supposed to report, especially when it comes to tazers that were shown to people without being used. >> thank you. >> commissioners, any further

questions? all right. miss buchanan, thank you for your time. >> thank you all for listening to me, and i wish you well in your decision making. thank you. >> the next speaker is sergeant joe vigil. [ inaudible ]. >> excuse me. if you have something to say, please tell it to the sheriff's officers. they'll be glad to convey any message. >> sergeant vigil. >> thank you so much for the commissioners to having me tonight. thank you to everyone in the audience for listening to what i have to say. my name is sergeant joseph vigil. i'm a police sergeant with the richmond police department right across the bay. i've spent any last nine years working in the city of richmond.

i am one of our lead defensive tactics instructors. throughout the course of my career, i've been a training officer, a detective, a sergeant, and i instruct in different areas having to do with policing. tonight, i'm going to talk to you about the tazer and how we use it in our city. i have some statistics, and i'll go over some of our policy stuff with you as well as over sight. since i started working with richmond, i carried the tazer with me. it predated me to arriving in richmond, so it was already in service when i got there. when it first came into service in richmond, it was only issued to sergeants for a test period. after the test period, it was issued to all the officers. the tazer that we carrie currently are the x-26p's.

they are detectiveirectly linkr cameras with a 30 second buffer, so anyone wearing a camera with a tazer, if it's within the radius, any time the tazer goes into the on position, every camera automatically starts recording with a 30 second buffer. we carry the x-26 tazers. they're bright yellow. we carrie the cartridges with bright green blast doors, and our department only authorizes us to carrie the tazer on our nondominant hand, so there'll never be an issue of going for the tazer and pulling your gun because it's on the opposite side of your body. our tazer operates in two different modes: drive stun where you activate the tazer to press the trigger, or the blast doors on the tazer cartridge,

where you can touch stun someone essentially, and they feel the effects in localized pain in the area of being touch. the other mode we out williuti in is the probe mode. there were several different links for tazer cartridges. the ones we issue range between 20 feet, 25 feet, up to 30 feet. so any time we have a tazer incident, it gets reported at every level, and it has to be approved at every level before it moves up the chain of command, so if i have two officers who use a tazer on a detail, they automatically report it to me or to the team sergeant, who then enters that information into the a computer system that tracks uses of force. now i understand every department tracks force differently, every department has different use of force definitions. for the purpose of our department and how we track force, any time the tazer comes

out of the holster, it's activated or threatened to be used on anyone, that's force, so that gets documented in our system. after the sergeant is made aware, all the information gets inputted, and it gets forwarded to the lieutenant. the lieutenant and the sergeant both review independentally of each other for any thing justified in the incident. they're look are info-- lookin for, is the force justified? was the force reasonable for the force being used. that gets forwarded to our civilian committee. they all see the same information when it gets forwarded from the sergeant to it lieutenant. any time we have a tazer deployment whether it's a drive stun or it's in probe mode, our policy states that individual will be medically treated and

medically cleared, whether they're being placed on a medical evaluation or booked in the county jail, as well as immediately after the incident. that's something we've been training our officers on for the last couple years, and it's nothing that's going to change moving forward, so in essence, if the tazer is used, as well as any other force, as soon as the individual is subdued, officers are to immediately start first aid, whether it be putting someone in a recovery position, attending any visual injuries, or just a verbal checking out, hey, are you okay? take a couple seconds, and then, walking them through any force that was used, helping them cope with the after effects. i talked a little bit about training. our training protocol has been the same ever since a became a defensive tactics instructor with richmond. we follow the tazer or axiom tradition for training. for the purpose of our department, we made changes to it and added to it. so before we issue a tazer to

someone, that officer has to sit in a class. it's a combination of lecture, video, and then, we add to it practical application, instruction drills, as well as to maintain the tazer to prevent issues in the future. that way we can determine if there's an issue with the tazer, we can try to diagnose what's wrong with it. that way, we're not putting tazers into service that in essence will not work, will not function properly. as well as our regular eight hour training when we first issue that, that then becomes a part of our continued use of force training, whether it be on a monthly or yearly basis. we have defensive tactics training every year on a yearly basis for our department so everyone gets trained the same way. tazer is incorporated into our lethal or less than lethal force training that we have every month, and it differs from month to month, so just because we have certain training for one month, that doesn't necessarily mean the

tazer will be incorporated that training, but it does happen in other months that'll supersede the year, so officers are always training with it and inspecting it to ensure that it's used properly. so real quick, i'm just going to take a second to talk about how or policy is written and how it's written in the report system. our policy mirrors state law, and it mimics axiom about tazer training, tazer law, and after action care which is also in place in our policy. and at every level, it gets reviewed after incident. even a -- if the tazer is outilized and not taken in drive stun mode, it still gets looked at by the captain. i also had the privilege of sitting on our use of force review board. all of our uses

are captured every month. we get a copy of that every month to review, along with all the video that was captured of that incident, so it's my job to package these and prepare them for the use of force review board. we meet every month, we review every case of force for every month, and we ask the same questions that have already been asked to ensure that we're utilizing the lowest level of force, as well as using it properly within policy and within state law. any -- any issues that come up are addressed immediately, and i would just like to finish with just some stats to kind of put things into perspective. so we're richmond. we're a smaller city than san francisco. our population just under 100,000. for the year of 2016, we averaged just under 260,000 calls for service. of those 260,000 calls for service, we had 164 calls

positive use of force incidents. of those 174 incidents, the tazer was used 12 times. out of the 12 times the tazer was used, four times it took more than one cycle of the tazer to work. of the four times, one time the tazer was ineffective, and it was due to heavy clothes. in that same period of 174 use of force incidents, there were 15 tazer give ups. that means the tazer was presented, the officer made an announcement, hey, you're going to get tased if you don't stop, and the individual complied, and for us, voluntary compliance is what we're always trying to get. even though 2017 isn't over yet, we've had 194,000 calls for service, we've had 107 use of force incidents. in that, we've had 14 tazer give ups. where the officer made a warning, and the individual

complied. there were 12 incidents where the tazer was used. of those, we had seven incidents where the tazer was ineffective because the officer was too close to the individual, two individuals where the officer was too far from the individual. one incident was a dog. two incidents had no effect because of improper placement and large clothing, and then one incident, the tazer failed, and the officer followed up with a drive stun because of poor placement. >> all right. >> thank you, commissioner. >> thank you, sergeant vigil. mr. lionisio? >> good evening, mr. lionisio. >> sarmg, i believe if there's questions though, they'll ask you to come back later. thanks.

>> good evening, mr. president, commissioners, chief. i want to thank you for having me back. my third visit with you speaking about these issues. i guess what's really kind of -- what i want to rely today is through this process, there have been a lot of different questions asked, and i think as i stand here today, a lot of the questions that have been asked regarding the efficacy of these weapons really haven't been answered. there's been a lot of talk, there's been a lot of talk of studies that have been done, but so far, everything that i've seen on the studies, they all apply to the old weapon platform. very, very little that i've seen applies to the weapon that san francisco p.d. would be adopting, so again,

it's interesting to see how effective and how safe the researchers found the old weapons, but those weapons are no longer made. so i guess my biggest concern is the fact that we've, what, spent months in this process, and i don't see where we're really any further along than we were in the beginning. the only studies -- independent studies that i'm aware of at this point are the study from the u.k., the study from lapd -- if you call that a study. it's more of a report -- and both of those actually call into question the

efficacy of this weapon. so i just -- i wish i could stand here and give you a lot of new information about this weapon and the studies that i've seen since the last time i was here, but i've been searching and searching and there really isn't much out there. so again, i just see that we are -- we really haven't progressed in the debate to the point where i would have expected, at this point, unfortunately. like i say, i don't really have a whole lot of additional information to offer because this really isn't any, and short of some independent research that could validate and/or confirm the efficacy of these weapons, i just -- it's something that when you're reporting 50% failure, when

you're reporting 50% electrical output, when you are basically creating conditions around the country where the inventor, mr. rick smith, he predicted that in 15 years ago in his patent writing. he, in great detail, described what would happen when an ineffective weapon was used on a motivated individual; and what he reported 15 years ago is exactly what we're seeing in the cases of failure today, so again, i wish i had some -- some pearls of wisdom to bring to the commission, but since we last met, i have been searching and searching for more data to either confirm or

deny the efficacy of these weapons, and there just isn't any out there. i've only used five minutes of my time, but i really don't see where i have a lot more to say, unfortunately. >> okay. thank you, mr. lionisio. >> thank you. >> next speaker is mr. michael brave. >> good evening, mr. brave. how are you, sir? [ inaudible ] >> i'm going to get started while she's setting this up. mr. chair, commissioners, thank you for having me here.

if there's any questions i can answer for you tonight, that's he what i will do. my prince position with axion is -- to follow up just very briefly on mr. lionisio's statement, the platform that the x 2 is based on, first came out with the x 3 in mid2009. the mid2 came out in mid2011. there have been over 220,000 x 2 units that are in the field, and as far as united kingdom, in their study, they have now fielded 200,000 x 2's, and those are the numbers as i stand here tonight. just a few things to go through -- and the down arrow is not working... because the num lock was on. just a couple of things.

i think we all agree that we're looking to go with the standard that's he announce i didn't telled by the united nations, which is the minimum force necessary to obtain the objectives. i think that's the way to go, but that is the united nations that's been in place for a couple of decades. in doing that, we're looking to help officers with the right equipment to make the right decision under the totality of circumstances that they're faced with. part of that is to help them lower the foreseeability of probable injury when they have to use force, and if you look at the numbers, the numbers are real simple. for every 71 encounters with uses of force by police officers, there will be one -- those are the numbers, they've been published, they've been around for a long time.

what i wanted to address with you very briefly that i was asked to do is independent of cew studies, use of cew studies on those are alcohol or drug effects, effectiveness versus constitutional law, and effectiveness that negates the use of force. >> as written in 2010 by the international association of chiefs of police when they were putting out their policy, which is in the present process of being replaced, but at that time, they looked at # 4 research papers on tazer devices. seven of those were somehow tied to the manufacturer. secondly, when it comes to electricity of the human body, this has been researched now for 120 years. there are many, many papers on this, and when you think about who does research on manufacturer's products, whether it be bayer aspirin or whether it be your car or anything else, it's the manufacturer that does it. the bottom line is tazer

weapons have had more independent research on them than any other force option, and any other -- they've had more independent research than any other force option, and of course there are hundreds of papers, studies, etcetera that have been public hirschshed on those that i'm going to speak on tonight, none have been published or researched by exxon. across six universities published by the u.s. department of justice, they looked at 1,201 cases, and they found there were no injuries or mild injuries in 99.7% of incidents. when they first went to them in housto houston -- the tazer, because of what it can do, is the ideal

weapon that when officers are forced to attempt to control someone who is not in their rational thought is the device, and the reason why is real simple. i'm also a police officer, i'm a police trainer. i've been certified to teach every weapon available to street law enforcement officers and still am. it's real simple. use of force weapons create one of two way: either a, you cause sufficient pain to cause them to comply, or b, you cause sufficient trauma to get them to comply. the tazer device is the only option that allows you with an adequate probe spread under the circumstances that you are very much aware of to take away their volitional muscle control, and when you take away their volitional muscle control, it allows you to control, capture, and restrain them, and if necessary present them for medical attention without the need of additional force. that's why when you look at the studies that have been done on people that are in agitated states, are in excited states

of delirium, there have been numerous papers that have been written that basically say the tazer, when used in probe 340ed with adequate probe spread is the optimal force tool. now, obviously you want to use it as little as possible, but if your goal is to get someone who's completely out of control under control, the best way to do that is take away their volitional control as quickly as possible. the verdict study, again, not done by tazer, shows that for less restrictive policies, you can drop fatal police shootings by two thirds. use of cew's -- here's one kpamp will. this was a recent book chapter that was published, use commonly in the prehospital setting, and increasingly used to control violent and aggressive individuals while maintaining a margin of safety as well as to reduce the need for impact weapons or injuries associated with their use. that reported prevented many

law enforcement personnel injuries, as well as suspect injuries. one of the studies that was done showed that in -- this has already been mentioned by the chief, but in 24,000 uses of force across 12 agencies, it decreased injuries by 60%. manufacturer's warnings: manufacturer's warning are not the staple same as constitutional force. it's not the same as tv. they show a drug on tv, and then they list all the warnings. if you were going by warnings, who in their right mind would take that drugs. interests there's a huge difference between these two concepts, and also, people have stated, well, tazer says you cannot do this. if you read the warnings, it says there is an increased probability of injury or death. that is absolutely correct. it doesn't say this. it says when

you do use it, you have to do it based upon knowledge and information, and based upon the probability of injury or death, and that's a probability in any use of force option. whatever it is, you have to take those into consideration. it is just as dangerous to intentionally tackle someone or intentionally ground them on the pavement as it is to use a tazer. actually, it's more dangerous because the tazer takes away the increased momentum from the officer's body weight, and it also takes the officer's weapons out of reach of that individual, so it's actually if you're justified in using a takedown on this individual on the surface you are on, the tazer device actually is a greater, higher level of safety than the other things do, so they're not synonymous with constitutional standards, and the tazers, they do not have

some of tin fact prohibitions that i've heard tonight, and i've been integral in writing these since 20 2004, so i'm pretty knowledgeable, and i'm happy to go into detail. next, the x 2 does account ability tests, it -- here's the best example i came up with this. i just had my tires rotated on my car. i've got a relatively nice car. it constantly monitors my tire pressure. it warns me when it's too low. if it alerts me it's too low, i go in and have it fixed. that's what you do. that's the kind of thing the tazer does. the difference is the tazer cannot be externally cal belated. the twice will tell you if something is wrong. it will do a function test and tell you if something is wrong, and also, the logs will tell you what is wrong with it. and then, you have to dale with

that, but you cannot be calibrated. in other words you're going to have to have it replaced or sent back to axon to be calibrated. so just -- or repaired. just like if your automobile automatically checks your automobile for you and alerts you to a problem, the tazer device does the same thing. i don't know if i used my ten minutes, but that's what i came to say. thank you. >> thank you. mr. brave, we will be back for questions, so please stay, too. >> yes, sir, i will. all right. i believe it's time for -- dr. zhang, who's been before us several times. >> commissioner, president, chairman, i'd like to make a statement that dr. zhang's powerpoint will be available on-line monday. we will also have hard copies available for

the public at the commission office. >> thank you, secretary. i believe there was another powerpoint here that wasn't made available to the commission, too, is that -- or will you make that announcement later? >> i believe that was -- that was available. i do believe it was in the packet. >> yeah. >> no -- the -- okay. all right. thank you. >> but they are on-line, and if members of public would like copies, we can provide them at the commission office. >> yeah. thank you. >> good evening, doctor, welcome back. >> thank you. >> thank you again for joining us. >> thank you. sorry for the delay here.

so i wanted to use my ten minutes here today to review the real world evidence and what can we learn from previous experiences if we might apply it if we were to bring tazers to san francisco. i was encouraged to highlight that i have no skin in this game other than the public's interest. i have spent my career trying to prevent sudden death, treating patients with cardiac arrest, both police suspects and first responders, so that's been my career. i've never taken a dime from any legal case regarding tazers, and i have served as a consultant for government policy in canada as well as at ucsf. i apologize. i brought up the wrong presentation here.

>> sergeant riley, could you see if you could -- thank you. >> so i'm going to skip ahead

to -- >> mr. president, we're just going to transfer his file to the jump drive and switch it over. >> thank you.

>> hi. my name is veronica fimbres. i'm a registered nurse in the state of california for 15 years. >> are you speaking for dr. zhang? >> i asked him if i could speak. >> you can come back during public comment. >> well, he's being setup. >> you can come back during public comment. thank you. >> thank