bandages and know how to use a toilet when there's no sewage and water flows down. and the owners of the building should be proactive in that regard as well. >> so, george, thank you so much for joining us. that was really great. and thanks to spur for hosting us here in this wonderful exhibit. exhibit.

[gavel] the meeting will come to order. welcome to the april 25t2018 regular meeting of the public safety and jade services committee i am. >> supervisor sheehy: and to my right is. >> supervisor ronen: and to my left is -- subbing in. i would like to thank jesse larson. >> please make sure to silence your cell phones and device. files should be submitted as part of the file -- indiscernible. >> supervisor sheehy: i would like to announce that at today's meetings items number two and

three will be called out of order. >> clerk: agenda item 1. [reading item] >> supervisor sheehy: we will hear from super visor stephanie. >> thank you. based on amendments we made last week to have this apply to a broader network of event. we changed it from 50 to 20 to -- attract larger crowds through protest. this will inhibit crowds from carrying concealed file arms to create a safe place for people to express their rights like the woman's march -- and all the other marches we are having to engage in. gun violence is a sick and

pervasive problem in this country and i have been fed up and fighting back since columbine which was 19 years ago this week on april 20, 1999. i have am going to do everything that i can to make sure that people are safe from gun violence. this is a step in the right direction and i urge your support. >> supervisor sheehy: thank you. do any of my colleagues have questions? >> i just had a comment. first i just want to thank supervise stephanie for your decade long fight against gun violence in this country. you have become a hero of mine in your struggle to protect children and people from this epidemic in our society. i think this legislation makes so much sense. someone who goes to public gatherings with my 5-year-old daughter knowing that firearms are prohibited at those events

will make me feel safer so i enthusiastically support in and thank you so much for your work. >> thank you. >> supervisor sheehy: are there any members of the public who wish to testify? speakers will have two minutes and please state your first and last name clearly and speak directly in the microphone. those who have prepared written statements are encouraged to leave a copy with the clerk for inclusion in the file. seeing none, public testimony is closed. [gavel] any additional comment. >> i would like to make a motion to send this item forward with positive recommendation. >> supervisor sheehy: colleagues may we take this motion without

objection. mr. clerk will you please call the roll. >> clerk: you can take it without objection or i can calthe roll. >> supervisor sheehy: i will take it without okay. the motion passes. will you call item number plea. [reading item 3] cases are investigated by the police department, handling of the prosecution of these cases by the district attorney's office -- >> supervisor sheehy: thank you. i will now turn it over tovis chair rh ronen. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. i will read some introductory remarks and then read the story of a rape survivor who lives out

of state and couldn't be here today and then i will turn it over to my colleagues who want to speak and then turn it over to public comment. we have many brave people here today who want to share their story. one day a couple years ago when i was meeting with a city colleague who had returned from a leave of absence i asked her why she had been away. she told me about the nightmare she experienced after being drugged and raped. i began to work with her to advocate her case for the police department -- and learned about th-- since then a number of survivors of sexual violence have come forward and shared

stories with my office. secsexual violence is a national epidemic. 1 in 2 women and 1 in 6 men report experiencing sexual violence. with the powerful me too movement, thousands of survivors have been inspired to break their silence around abuse. frankly, i wasn't surprised to hear that so many women hear in sasan francisco go through this experience. what did shock me is the appalling failure on the part of city systems to respond to these survivor. it is common knowledge that sexual assault and sexual harassment occur with shameful frequency, i would think that our city government would be doing everything in our power to shield more san franciscans from this violence. instead, rape survivors are

telling me that city officials made them feel they are to blame for their assault. one survivor was told that everyone needs to take responsibility for their actions as though she had as much fault as her assailant. i find this comment unspeakably cruel. in another instance, a survivor who came to the police station to obtain her rape kit results, was told by the investigator, there is no doubt you had sex, the victim was crushed feeling the investigator didn't feel she was raped. i have heard enough stories that it is clear to me that these are not just a pattern of violence. there is a pattern of treatment that i consider abusive towards rape victims. these are our city employees

blaming victims for these resu results -- it is unconscionable that the offices tasked with making people feel safe keeps failing our victims again and again. i call this hearing so departments hear directly from survivors about how they are being treated, and to begin the process of change and accountability within our system system. i'm going to read a story of a survivor that is out of state and i will call my colleagues who want to make any comments and then we are going to begin with public comment. this is a story of a rape survivor. it's a tough story so brace yourself. i am a rape survivor. one afternoon in early 1990s a stranger pushed his way into the

bathroom in an empty office building while i was at work. i screamed and tried to push him away from the door. he kept telling me to shut up and i couldn't move him out of the way so i cried and i begged for my life. i negotiated with him not to kill me. i stood there with a man in rubber gloves, a knife and i gun i found out later. i begged him not to kill me and when he finally said he couldn't i asked him please not to rape me. i have told him i couldn't deal with it. he said why can't you deal with it? i said i was abused as a child and i wouldn't be able to take it. he asked me you were abused as a child? i told him i was and started to cry. he smiled at me, found it humorous and made me sit on the toilet and made me manually cop

pew late him while he had his hand on my head and a knife at my throat and said does that feel good? immediately following the attack i did everything a rape victim is supposed to do and more. i went through a medical examination. i cooperated with the police despite ptsd as a result of the rape. in 1993 i was told to look at photographs of men to see if i could identify him. i was not certain and i told the detective. she was stated that she was sure the suspect's photograph was in the photo. she said the police believed he had done this to five other women. when i couldn't identify the men, she said you tainted your testimony, the case is closed. that was it. i didn't know in six months he was convicted of raping a woman

in carson city and would be incarcerated for the crime. they did not process the dna for 20 years despite knowing that the timeframe would expire in 2004. in 1993 my case was closed and my rape kit unprocessed. i went on with my life but the effects were tremendous. i don't remember a year of my life since the rape. i have strucked with ptsd. when i walk into a building or elevator his face flashes before me. in november of 2016. this is why i'm reading this story. in november 2016 i received a call from sfpd that would begin a whole new traumatic experience and violation. i was you wili was called by sey

bear. she left a message with my husband who later she said she thought may have been the perpetrator because there was another dna hit in another story. i asked her why she thought i would be in a relationship with the rapeth when she said it was a stranger rape? she said we lost your rape file she said she had a list of rape kits processed from cold cases and she was calling to inform the victims. she said a lot of times women want to get on with their lives and not prosecute. i told her i do. she asked me to recount the rape in detail. she said the one strike law may have applied and the assailant would have to cut you with the knife or kidnap you for it to be a serious offense. i called and spoke to the da on

my case. he said he didn't know that sfpd lost the file or the rapist had a weapon or the circumstances surrounding the rape. he said i would have been able to use the -- i asked wendy why she called me in the first place. she said i didn't want to. the police is like the military you do what you are told. then sergeant bear told me she was come to the state and inform the rapeth about the dna hit on the case. i told her i feared for my safety. she said he hasn't been incarcerated since the rape in 1994 and maybe prison scared him. i contacted the sergeant and da and asked for a photograph so i could protect myself and my

daughter. she left me a message since i want to stop the investigation she couldn't. [. [reading] ing] dave burn told me that suggest beasergeantbear is a good detec. he said he coulhe said he didn'e up the beehive. as a rape survivor my trauma was multiplied not only did they not care that my rapist is out free becausand they didn't test the r

20 year. i read this story because it looks like things haven't changed much since the 1990. i think it's outrageous and something must be done. i want to ask my colleagues if they have opening remarks before i open this up to public comment. >> speaker: if i may, i want to say thank you very much. >> supervisor ronen: fomuch for. i think we have had these discussions where we are also talking about victims of sexual violence of violence of transgendered people when we had

ththis discussion and this is al related, so thank you very much for bringing this forward. >> thank you supervise ronen, i know it was hard to read and - hard to hear. i appreciate you reaching out to me on this. when i was working for -- we passed legislation to test rape kits sitting on shelves and that was in 2010. here we are still talking about it. as a former prosecutor, i feel that we need to be doing more and we cannot let these cases fall through the crack. we need to stop blaming the victim. the more we deal with toxic masculinity in our society, the

more we have gun violence and the more we talk about this is good. thank you for including me in the conversation. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. i would like to open this up to public comment. i want to ask the survivors if they could come forward first. we are going to give three minutes for public comment given the sensitivity of these stories and not wanting to cut off voice. you can begin to line up over here to your right, my left, and i want to thank everyone so much for coming out today and your bravery in telling your story. feel free to come forward now to the microphone. i can call up some name. julia weber. if julia wants to start.

why don't the survivors come up first. thank you. >> i am rachel sutton. when i was 20 years old a supervise and mentor at my work raped me when i was half conscious on february 14, 2013. i reported the crime because i wanted to do the right thing. i tried to get help but in the process what i experienced was 4.5 years and counting today of negligence and incompetence numerous times in every agency i encountered in the process. in the hospital they told me i could urinate before the process which i am now aware i can't.

there was strong evidence tha bt the da didn't even interview me. he took me to a room with no windows where i realized three men would sit between me and my path to the door. as a certified fraud examiner, i know if i conducted an interview in that way -- i recently taught a class at sex crimes and they told my understanding of consent clause was not like what i learned in my little class. [ reading] when the subpoena results came -- i have yet to see my tox screen and report of evidence,

this is 4.5 year. this is not only negligent but a violation of constitutional mandate to respond to a subpoena in full and these are only a few examples of it. it's where i am today. exposure to great bodily harm of course means ptsd that is a given, but being personally inhumannized and bullied by the people you can trust in your most helpless moments. you know how a dog reacts when it expects to be kicked again because it has been kicked so many times that causes things like ptsd. [bell ringing] my mind often feels like it no longer belongs to me. going through this process is not liberating or freeing, victims like myself get nothing. we are told that we are doing

the right thing, but why does doing the right thing look like drowning in the pool while everyone talks about live pre- servers as the water fills your lung. with the remaining breath in my lungs i am telling you we must fix this for those that come after me. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. >>.>> [speaking in spanish]

>> translator: i am a sexual violence survivor and i am here to share a little bit of my story and to help other women. some years ago when i moved to this city, i was living with a family member and i felt very vulnerable. i was in a new country and i didn't know any english. i was working at a restaurant and in my free time i would go to school to learn english.

one day somebody in my home started sexual my harassing me. he started chasing me around the house telling me things and he would tell me that if i ever told anybody about the sexual advances that he would do towards me, he would make me feel and look guilty. he would tell everybody that i was at fault. one day the sexual harassment became physical assault and since that day he continued sexually assaulting me and raping me for several year.

i never went to the police because i was afraid i would never be believed and i really didn't know how to system worked. one day when i became pregnant, i talked with the hospital staff at sf general and told them that i had been sexually abused. they told me, all women go through that, and they have to continue on with their live.

i was able to meet some women part of an organization that helped immigrant women and after listening to what my rights are and how the system worked i was able to make a police report but only being accompanied by an advocate. with the police i felt pressured and mistreated. the officer told me he needed to ask me a bunch of questions over the phone but i asked him to please interview me in person. i said i couldn't talk about this private stuff over the

phone. he got upset with me and made me feel like my case wouldn't move forward if i didn't do exactly what he asked he. me. my advocate as it were called the police department to share my complaint and how they treated me. the police department did say sorry to how they treated me, but they still made me work with the same police officer, but at least in this case it let me have my od advocate with me at every step.

my case at the end was closed and they didn't get prosecuted because many years had gone by. i am speaking up because i don't want any other woman to feel afraid to break their silence. [bell ringing] >> my name is tiffany tonell and i was drugged and raped by a coworker on tuesday september 20, 2017 here in san francisco. i came forward to my manager at work and i found out two other female coworkers had been

drugged and raped by the same guy. i reported my rape. i have want to read a quote that was included in an article by the sf chronicle. when asked how the sf police department, they said they are committed to treated sexual assault survivors to empaity, dignity and respect. we take these seriously and thoroughly investigate these while mindful to all parties involved. this statement is completely false because i was not treated this way. i was victimized and traumatized by the way she handled my case. i told her every detail that i could remember that night.

at one point she told me she would try her best but basically it wouldn't go beyond this room. she asked he towards the end, what do you want out of this? i replied i want this person to accept responsibility for their action. she responded, after what you told me whole played a big role in all this and everyone involved needs to accept responsibility for their actions with a long look at me. i was shattered and completely fell helpless. i thought this person wanted to help me. my boyfriend mentioned that gonzales told him about a toxicology test over the phone where you could take a sample of my hair to test for drug. i e-mailed her that i wanted to do this hair test. she said at this time have

submitted the specimens you provided to be analyzed and i will contact you tomorrow. her e-mail had several typos in it. over the phone she said the test was unnecessary because she had already submitted the rape kit. this made me feel she didn't care. she was lazy and didn't want to spend more of her time to thoroughly do her job. on tuesday october 18 i asked her if she followed up with one of the key witnesses, one being one of the women also raped by the same guy. i had not heard from her and wanted to stay updated on my case. she called me and was curt and vague show she had spoke with the witnesses and at one point said, according to my training experience there is no doubt you had sex. what it comes down to is your

state of mind. it will take six to twelve months to get result. after investigation it came down to my state of mind? what does that mean? sex is consensual and rape is not. i could not consent in the state i was in. i was told my coworkers that i was incapacitated and i couldn't stand, speak up, or keep my eyes open. what real training do investigators go through to handle these cases appropriately. i was shocked and extremely enraged with the little time and care and empathy she treated me with during this investigation. i felt like i was dropped by her. almost two years later i got an e-mail stating despite efforts the police and prosecutors have

showed no ability to move forward in your very important case. the monster who raped me is still out there. there were two other women at my workplace he raped in the exact same way. i wasn't the first and i won't be the last. he is the most common predator out there and there are loads of men like him that need to be stopped. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. >> before we go into further dispute. this isn't a matter of negligence, it's willful misconduct by the san francisco police department and the da's office. the police offered a $2 million grant to process rape kids.

you got thousands of rape kids i predict sitting in the hall of justice that have not been tested. that is an example of poor supervision and management in these cases in the first place. the females that believe that the statute of limitations has passed i have found out through the law library and advanced research, that there is no statute of limitation on rapes if you use this law that's called continual injury. i came across that watching the educational show and watching a victim of bill cros by wh cosbye main word to use is continual injury and the police department and the district attorney can process those case. now the district attorney sitting on these cases has been at the hall of justice for 10-20

years is disgusting, they should be charged as well for time delay and obstruction of justice. you are discriminating against female. you have those rape kits and all you have to do is put it in a coder system and it will run a nationwide database search through the united states and pinpoint the rapist and bring them to justice. it's disgusting. for example, the police right here it states how a pair of $2 million grants was offered to the district attorney's office and it was denied and then it also explains how rape cases have a statute of limitation of ten year. ten year wait on a rape kit should not be sitting in storage. it should be processed just as

fast as the information is collected from the female victim. if they were to use this $2 million grant they could have tested all these cases and the rape kits that fall outside this statute of limitation. moreover, the police department announced it has 753 rape kits that fall within the statute of limitations and by the same response, you have a ten-year backlog, that is called obstruction of justice. you are violating the female's right. [bell ringing] >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much for your testimony. next speaker, please.

>> good morning. my name is jane manning. i represent women's justice now, the service organization that partners with the national organization for women. we advocate for survivors of sexual assault in multithe cities including the wonderful community of san francisco. what i have seen is this, in justice systems around the country we are failing survivors of sexual assault and safer is no exception. what stand out about san francisco is that the makings of a solution are all around us today. an article in today's san francisco chronicle features three heroic survivor. you have heard from two of them and you will hear from a third today. i have accompanied them and other survivors through the

justice process. here is what i have learned. first, the san francisco police department is not treating sexual assault as a high priority. many survivors encounter police investigators who fail to secure key evidence and make shocking comments to victims. in one of my cases i personally heard a police sergeant tell a victim he hadn't decided yet if he was going to let her know the results of her testing. when she pleaded with him that every day not knowing was added anguish. he said to her, now i have made up my mind, you are not going to get the result. this kind of cruelty towards a survivor of rape is outrageous. it is not only devastating to the victim, but by ris risking e loss of her cooperation it allows a predator to remain at large. it doesn't have to be this way.

the police chief can change how resources are allocated so investigators assigned to special victims are experienced detectives with top-notch training. it's not just the sfpd that needs improvement, we need prosecutors and justices to be committed to holding those accountable. they are winnable cases we need the san francisco da's office to cultivate the commitment if they believe the victim they will take the case to trial and fight for it even when it's difficult. supervise hill reronen has listened to and we need one city advadvocate within government to drive reform. i couldn't agree more, a better

police response, improvement at the da office, better coordination between police and prosecutors in the early stages of an investigation, better hospital protocols, better proceed injurieprocedures at mes office -- better availability of data. indeed if i could add anything tit would be a bill on sexual assault cases, how many lead to arrests and how many lead to conviction. i believe the answers would b we eye opening.

from supervisor ronen and her staff and this board of supervisors, this is a progressive city and holding rapists accountable is a progressive value. a city advocate for survivors would empower san francisco to lead the way. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. >> ever since i was a little girl i have lived and worked in the excelsior district and i love my hometown of san francisco but i am here today because i didn't know it was so unsafe for women. i was sexually harassed at least workplace. whole foods in 2015, cots coin 2016, and gus' community market

in 2018. each time service systemic sexual harassment. the men, women, supervisors and upper level management knew what was happening. i was afraid of white men with gases, bullying in the workplace, depression, and humiliation. i am speaking up because sexual harassment and the accomplices i feel should be charged as crime. i went to the police station, to various police station. they repeatedly told me that sexual harassment wasn't a crime and there was nothing that could be done. finally one policeman reluctantly took my police report. i feel that sexual harassment

and those involved in it, hr, as i experienced at these workplaces, that do absolutely nothing when you come forward and you tell them that your supervise or manager is sexually harassmenting you, it should be considered a crime. the definition of a crime is activity considered to be evil, shameful, or wrong. how could these men and women get away with something like this and hurting me so much and hurting other females? i would love for stricter laws in san francisco and everywhere for women in the workplace. thank you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. >> [speaking in spanish]

[voice of translator] good morning to everybody here and th.i am a woman that is 54 s old i go to the women's collective in san francisco. in all the time i have been going to the collective i have been hearing about cases of sexual assault to these women. it's going to be very hard what i'm going to say, but i was one of them when i was 10 years old, i was sexually assaulted.

i was taught in mexico that i needed to be kind to people when they asked me any kind of questions like where certain street is or a certain location to just answer questions and speak to people. i was sitting down and i had just bought a bag of tortillas, i was very hungry. then one guy came up to me and i will never forget his face and his hair. he was red-haired with very

light skin. when i put my head up and i saw him, he had his sexual part out and he was touching himself. he was telling me that if i wanted to i could touch it and i could do other things to it too. i'm not going to share anymore because honestly even though i am a 54-year-old mother, i also feel still very ashamed about what happened.

now that i am here and an adult and at the collective, i hear stories of women going through sexual assault in their homes with relatives and acquaintances and also at the border and it is way too many stories. because of shame and because we are afraid of the police and we feel intimidated and feel like maybe they are going to judge us and blame us, we just don't report.

i wonder, when are men going to remember that they came out of a beautiful woman? they have to remember that they have wives or sisters or mothers, and they should not perform this kind of violence on other women. i'm asking to everybody who has authority whether they are in the police or in any other position of power to remember about the value of women.

it's not okay to abuse us in any way, verbally, sexually, in our bodies or any other way. [bell ringing] we are asking for a change. we are asking for not one more sexual assault. we are asking if it's in your power you do something to stop this.

because we have to stop being afraid of the position of the authority that you have or that you are a police officer. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. >> i was wondering if where there is substantial evidence in collection is it at all possible to transfer no greater than 20% of it to a lab at university level or to the private sector so that the originalal evidence is pre- served remains untainted and under police authority and that way you expedite the processing of material which to build a database while pre- serving the original evidence as through specimen for testing in the event of a future court hearing, and i think somebody

can put together software to anonymize the dna sequencing from the testers and they would not even know what the results are. there are labs such as in uc berkeley which focus their attention on dna sequencing of d it is out there. the justice department here is no more than 3% of civil rights cases that are referred to by the f.b.i. that the f.b.i. thinks there is merit in, so the problem is significant and it's widwidespread. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good morning everybody. thank you for being with us today. i am 64 years old, and i'm from

peru, and when i was a kid, so i went to a school and i learned a lot about this kind of rape, so i was prepared to help people because we have a lot of people calling into the crisis line about help. we usually receive about 150 calls from people who has that kind of problem like they say they have domestic violence and we tried to talk to them but they were afraid. sometimes we get success with 80 calls and the others they start crying and they don't want to talk anything. when we usually get the women to be in an organization we encourage them to go to the police department and they say

they are afraid because they say the police department is not so kind with them usually because they ask people about what happened, what did the man do to you in front of everybody, and they usually blame them. it's not good for us to know that the police department is not giving a good help to us. we need more work. i know that some of them are very successful, but sometimes we need more help. many, many ladies, many women are complaining every day about what happened. most of the times we need more help in finding policemen who speak spanish because ladies from different kind of country has this kind of problem, so we need police who will speak spanish. sometimes we find that the

police knows spanish, but i don't know why, he doesn't want to speak, which is bad for us. i don't know if they feel bad or whatever, but we need that. the thing is when the women go to the police department, she says nobody helped me, so they come to the organization and that lady has to go with somebody like me for example. [bell ringing] when they say i'm from mua, they usually help us. it doesn't make sense because we don't need to have somebody to go to get help from a police department. it's not right. everybody deserve a kind of help from the police department. believe the lady, and don't ask too much not in front of everybody. it's not good, so that is why many people preferred to stay inside and not say anything.

thank you. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. >> good morning supervisors and everyone here and thank you for being here and spending this time together and listening to each other. i am coexecutive director of community against violence. we work with survivors of violence -- the reason that i'm here is i don't presume to speak for every survivor that we have encountered but i am here to share what we recognize when people come to us seeking services as survivors of sexual assault on occasion. the majority of those that come to us if they are survivors of sexual assault -- most of them are not comfortable going to the

police. most of them already understand that there could be barriers to them getting effective investigation or even being able to have prefers take their police report and it's not just because of them being psychic or anything, but it's what's out there in the community and what they have heard from survivors and friends and people they have come in exact with who have experienced these moments of disservice, and not every case is the same. of course some people go forward and want to file a report, want someone to take responsibility, but you know there is other people who they may have a bad experience at the beginning with trying to file a police report and they don't go back.

[please stand by] trying to file a police report

thank you very much for your time. >> thank you. next speaker. is there any other member of the public who would like to speak? if there are other members that would like to speak, please line up to my left, your right. >> hello, my name is alice james. this is my cousin, she is here for support. i am a 24-year-old college student at city college and i work with project survive. i'm a peer educator, i'm giving education to students around rape, sexual assault, and sexual assault prevention. it's really awesome. but when i started my college career, i definitely wasn't in the same place i am right now. i was 19 years old. and just to get to school and

to walk to school everyday, i had to drink. i was an alcoholic. i couldn't walk to school because i couldn't pass men on the street in order to get to class. thankfully my city college professors didn't throw me away. they helped me. they advised me to go to a program. so that's how i'm doing the things i am today. one of the things that happened, when i took the classes, in order to do the job i'm doing today, i learned that i was raped. that's why i couldn't walk down the street with men. that's why i couldn't hold my head up. that's why i couldn't function in society and i didn't know that's what happened to me. fast forward two weeks ago, i'm in class, in a college classroom. we are talking about rape and how people don't always know they have been raped. a woman spoke up, she had to leave because she realized she had been raped when she was 15.

she is today in her mid 40's and she just had this realization two weeks ago. she told the whole class, she came back and told the whole class this was a huge day for her, just as big as the day when she was 15 but today she felt empowered. she felt like she knew what happened to her and she finally put a name to it and said after that class she wanted to go get therapy. after that presentation, i definitely talked to her, we exchanged social media, we are still in contact. she wanted to make sure i said her name, maria cruz, she wanted me to share this story for her. education and prevention is so important. i could have been that 40-year-old woman. i don't know where i would have been today if i didn't have the professors i did and the classes i did, and if i wasn't able to do the job that i do. i could have been her in that classroom. prevention education is really important. support around that.