not know why you're doing it join the department for the right reason and do it to help the community and it is sharing you're time when you get into the department do is commented to the craft and enjoy it along the way enjoy it along the way i encourage you to talk about over with our families and talk 2 over with yourselves ultimately you'll do the job and find a senseably reason for doing it after the hard work everyday for 8 months straight and finally it pays off and you know as honey honor and privilege not anyone can do this job i look forward to getting often the street and learning and hit the ground running it will be a surreal moment day one i thought months

here but sat down me and my brother talked about it and we're on the right track and stay focused and walking tloo across the stage is a huge hono.

okay. see what my notes say. i don't want to miss anything that's important. i asked my boss if i could have this assignment because i'm so passionate. over the course of my career i realized that we really don't do enough for those suffering with mental health issues. nationally, we don't, locally, we do not, and i just think that medical professionals, politicians, and others need to do more. so again, it's a real passion for me, and that's why i asked for the assignment. today you're going to hear about 11 incidents where officers utilized different kind of techniques -- officers and one dispatcher. sorry, didn't mean to leave you

out there. 11 different incidents where officers and one dispatcher used different techniques to resolve the crisis. with that, i want to introduce courtney brown -- before i finish, sorry, there's a few add ones i want to mention. we have representatives from david chiu and anthony wiener's office. forth coming is a board of supervisors certificate for each officer, in addition to the plaques that your captains will be handtion out to the great work you all did. and eventually, you'll end up with a ribbon for your uniform in regards to the incidents that you were all involved in. and courtney started to make her way. come on up. [applause] >> thank you, everybody, for being here today. i'm honored to help emcee said.

i'm a representative for san francisco suicide prevention. i've been a hotline director there for seven years. i can't tell you how impressed i am with san francisco's support of the mental health community, especially time and time again how they have helped deescalate people in the throes of crisis. this is providing acknowledgement to the amazing work that is being done in the community every single day when often community members only get to hear about the incidents that they aren't supportive of. there's so many incidents, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds annually that deserve people supporting them and people receiving awards. so thank you so much for being here. i'm going to pass this back over to commander mannix. thank you. >> thank you, courtney. so can i get everyone to standup, please, for the presentation of colors and the

playing of our national anthem.

[presenting of colors] [national anthem]

>> next, megan fox is going to be leading us in the benediction. >> i invite you to carry the face that you have in humidity, or the face that you find in the training and the wisdom that we have shared together through the police curriculum and through the command staff. center yourselves in gratitude, center yourselves in compassion

and peace. claim self-care more often than you think you need to, and for those who are feeling a bit anxious about getting an honor when so many brave acts have been every day that maybe don't get acknowledged, i want to thank you for being a blessing to us for letting us thank you, and to thank the families and friends who have gathered for blessing us through the support that you provide to all of the officers in this space. may safety surround us, may love hold us, and may compassion be the undergird of all that we do. amen. >> please have a seat.

before i introduce my boss, i want to tell you that the chief of police is in front of the board of supervisors right now, talking about budget, so he is -- he's delayed, but i'll tell you, he's very supportive of the program and very proud of the work that you've done and that we're all doing out there. and with that, my boss, deputy chief michael redman. [applause] >> thank you. i also spoke to the chief on the way over here, and he wanted me to extend congratulations and thanks to all the officers here today for their brave acts on all that are described on this program. so good afternoon and welcome to the fourth annual crisis intervention team awards ceremony. we have come together today to honor san francisco police officers and department of emergency management

dispatchers for the extraordinary efforts they have made to preserve human life by i plying the c.i.t. principals and techniques they have learned in their training. one of the keys to police work is communication, whether it is simply taking a statement from a witness to establishing a connection with a person in crisis that enables deescalation, the ability to communicate is key in our profession. world renowned author thomas strenzy wrote, we learn when we listen. these san francisco police officer established that credo when they sought to help people in crisis. today, you will celebrate the stories of police officers and dispatcher who have put their c.i. tichlt training into practice. you will hear how these professionals ranging from a

new academy recruit to dispatcher on the end of a 911 call to an officer preparing to retire -- i believe that might be sergeant pat tillman -- used c.i.t. principles and training to resolve intense situations. none of these public safety professionals will tell you that they are heros. every one of them will tell you that there is someone they work with or that there was someone else on the scene that deserves the award that they will get today. their peers will tell you different, that on the phone or on the scene that day, these professionals delivered safety and calm in very stressful situations. their leaders will tell you different because they saw the extraordinary effort and the amazing results that these

professionals delivered in the midst of crisis. i know they are all probably very uncomfortable being given an award for their actions because this is something they do every day, and they know that their brothers and sisters in public safety have also routinely and successfully practiced the c.i.t. concept on the streets to deliver safety and calm to people in crisis hundreds of times. if our job is to listen and offer hope, then to all of you, i say, job well done. to all of the families and friends here today, thank you for being part of our extended family and supporting these officers day-to-day. we all know the toll this profession can have on you being part of our extended family, and i consider you heros just like the awardees

today. so at this time, i'd like all the officers to standup and give a round of applause to all of their family members in attendance. [applause] >> thank you. and lastly, i just want to embarrass one of my colleagues, deputy chief denise schmidt. after 28 years in the san francisco police department, is going to be retiring in eight days? seven days, but denise is a mentor to me. she's helped me a lot in my position in field operations 'cause she had that job, but i think on the command staff, she's held every job throughout the department, and even as an

officer and working through the ranks, she's held patrol and investigation, and is one of the few people on the command staff that has held every job. thank you, deness, for everything you've done for me and this department over the last 28 years. [applause] >> next, i'll be introducing brian copeland, who's an award winni winning actor, comedian, play wright, and talk show host in the bay area. he's hosted programs on just about every television station, including ktvu, abc 7, and

kntv. he's written and performed three stage plays, including "the waiting period," which chronicles his own fight with depression. he's a strong advocate of the importance of mental health care, and we are honored to have him here today. brian. [applause] >> thank you, and good afternoon. it is a pleasure to be here today. it was kind of weird when i was first invited to come out and speak. the invitation was would you come out and speak for our awards ceremony for the san francisco police department. and i said i'm not falling for th that. this is about that bench warrant, but it is an honor and a pleasure to be here. i was not aware of c.i.t. until i was invited to come out and

speak, and i sent some of the amazing stories that officers are going to be honored for their participation in the way they handled it today. this is such a critical and vital program because as i read the stories, i think about there was so many ways these situations could have gone wrong. you know, you have a guy who's suicidal who's on a ledge, somebody else who's i guess in a warehouse shooting at someone who is not there. there's so many ways, so many ways that these situations could have gone wrong, but because of the training and because of the compassion that was exhibited, those folks are still here. as was mentioned, i -- well, i have come about becoming an advocate for mental health in kind of a backwards way because i had suffered from depression my entire life. i did not know it, and i was not officially diagnosed

with -- with depression until i was in my late 30's, but looking back, my entire life since i was a kid growing up in san leandro, i grew up in san leandro at a time in the early 70's when it was like 99.9% white, and me, which is really funny. i go to my high school class reunion, they give me a name tag. stop it. so i grew up with strangers driving down a street, and adults yelling the n-word out the car window and these kinds of things, and i had some unfortunate incidents with police in my hometown, and i'd go in my room, and i'd sit in my room and read comics and not go anywhere. i realize now those were signs of depression. it really manifested itself in

a strong way with me when i was 14. my mother passed away suddenly when i was 14, leaving me and my four little sisters, we were ages 1 through 14, with my grandma, who took care of us by herself after that. the then, -- when i got older, i would have bouts -- with me, i would isolate primarily, meaning i wouldn't go anywhere. i would sit in the house, unless i had to go somewhere or unless i was getting paid to go do a show or something, i would stay home until it passed. you know, sometimes the bouts would last for a number of days, sometimes it would be weeks where i wouldn't leave the house if i didn't have to. and again, i didn't know what it was that i was dealing with. and there was a mental -- these horrible messages, at least with me, dealing with this, that are playing out on a loop

in my head. you know, you're worthless, you're useless, the world would be a better place without you, why are you here taking irrelevant air, why are you here taking up space, and when you're isolating, you're not talking with anybody, and that's the only voice that you get. so back in 2008, over a six-month period between 2007 and 2008, i had a real low point. over the course of that six months, my grandmother passed away suddenly. i was on the air, doing my show at kgo, kgo talk show, and i got the call that she had a stroke and was probably not going to make it. then about a month after that, my wife decided she didn't want to be married anymore. just one day woke up -- i'm sure that it took more than a day to get there, but she was saying -- i was saying my wife

was ill she was sick of my stuff. so my wife decided she didn't want to be married anymore. then, i got a car accident. i was driving to a talk from piedmont high school. and after i got in this car accident, i didn't go to the doctor. you know, i went on, and i see gave the speech that i was supposed to give, and i went for a jog after that. then, i started have numbness in my hands and feet. there was a bone in my neck that was pressed against the spinal column. so i was at this point then after this where i'm by myself, i've had these three horrible things happen. the recovery, i'm laid up in a neck brace, i'm taking vicodin and painkillers, and that loop, that voice is playing over and over and over again, you're

useless, you're worthless, all of these terrible things happen because you're a terrible person, and all these horrible things, they're your fault. and this is divine retribution, that's what this is. so i decided i was going to end it, and i went to a gun store and bought a 32 beretta tomcat, but as you all know, in the state of california there is a ten day waiting period before you are able to obtain a firearm. so during that ten days, i went through a change. when the change happened was when i talked to somebody, what i told somebody what was going on inside my head. i told my parish priest, who i didn't know at the time till after i came to him, also suffers from and deals with depression. and it was talking to him and

telling someone so that i heard another voice besides you're worthless, the world is better off if you're not here who made me go get help and come to my senses, because the thing is about somebody when you're dealing with depression, you're not in your right mind which makes these stories all the more fascinating and really indicative of the bravery of the officers, because to deal with somebody who is not in their right mind, to deal with somebody who is not rational, you have to use your mind because it can go bad in so many ways. so i did not pick up a gun. that is why i'm still here, and i wrote the play, "the waiting period," to tell the story.

what i did was i found out there's so many people who thought wow, you have your life together, they are dealing with exactly the same thing, but here, in our society, depression and mental illness are stigmatized. people are so embarrassed to have this disease -- and it is in fact a disease that they don't want to speak about it. and again, they don't tell somebody, and therefore, they don't get the other voices other than the loop that's playing out over and over and over inside their head. so we have to, i think, as a society, get to a place where we erase the stigma of mental illness and erase the stigma of depression. i was raised thinking did

depression was a weakness, it was a character flaw. if you admitted you were dealing with it, it meant that you were weak, and you were flawed. and guess what? we are all flawed. and it is a disease, and i was reading it's the 10th leading cause of death in the united states, depression and suicide brought on by mental illness. you wouldn't be embarrassed to talk about any other disease you had. lou gehrig disease, you wouldn't be embarrassed, you wouldn't think it was your fault. yet for some reason, with this, we are. so until we can get to a place in this society where we can look at -- and i hope -- we've had a couple of high profile suicides in america over the last couple of weeks, and so people are talking and people are starting to have conversation. when robin williams passed away a couple of years ago, that was

a teaching opportunity. it was a learning opportunity, and we started to have the conversation. then, it went away, you know, and hopefully, with what's just happened recently, we'll continue to talk about this. but until we do, and until we start to look at it as the disease that it is instead of being a character flaw of some kind, we're going to continue to see these kinds of tragedies. and until then, the work that you do is extremely important, and it's more and more important. there are people who are just so shocked when i tell this story because they'll look at me and go oh, the stuff you do, you're on tv, you're a comic -- you deal with that. how come you're always telling jokes. how can you be dealing with depression when you're always telling jokes? you know, i'll let you in on a secret. if you put 100 standup comics in a room, and you say, how

many of you suffer from depression, 99 hands would go up, and there would be one liar. that's what i found out after i started to research this issue during the waiting period, that the reason a lot of entertainers and people do what we do is we're laughing so we don't cry. we're laughing so we don't cry. that is how that we deal. so with that, again, i think the work that you're doing in the c.i.t. training is so important. i'm just so surprised that i haven't heard of it, and i think it's more important that this is highly publicized and more people in the community know exactly what it is that you're doing, know exactly what this training is. because i was talking with denise before the program began about how you have situations

where if something has gone bad in a situation like this, you'll see somebody who's in crisis who won't want to reach out to the police because of the fact that they're afraid of what happened and the situation with that happening with them. or family members who oh, my gosh, my brother's in crisis, call the police, but what if it goes wrong, what if it goes bad. but i think people are aware of what you are doing, and you're trained to deescalate, and you are trained to do everything you can to help the individual, even at the risk of your own lives and your own safety, i think it will save a lot of lives because of the fact that you will remove that apprehension that some people have about dealing with law enforcement in situations like this. so i'll leave you with the message of the waiting period, what i tell my audiences at the end of it -- by the way, i do this show for free. i do it most sundays at the

morris on sunday afternoons because i want to spread the message, you're not alone, you're not by yourself, and if i can standup and spill my guts to strangers for 75 minutes, you can tell somebody your thoughts that are not in your best interests. it's paid for by donations through gofundme that funds the program. i do this every week, but just tell somebody. if you're hurt, if you're struggling, just tell somebody. and the fact that you are doing what you're doing with c.i.t. means that people who are struggling can feel comfortable and can feel safe telling you, and i just think that's invaluable. congratulations to all the award recipients, and again, thank you very much for having

me. [applause] >> thank you so much, brian, before i go on and introduce the next speaker, i was remiss and forgot to introduce the two newest members of the police commission, john hamasaki and cindy elias. thank you for coming. with that, i'm going to introduce the brains behind the whole operation, lieutenant molina who's going to give you an oversight into the whole program. >> welcome, everyone. it's a pleasure to have you here. to the honorees, great work. i listen to the radio every day and listen to our officers respond to calls, and it makes my day every day when i hear i'm a c.i.t. training and i'm responding to the calls.

creating that time and dan distance, creating that report, but as she said, it's actually the leadership. and i want to acknowledge my boss, commander mannix and redman. it's because of their efforts and also, i see commander sullivan, i don't see him, he was also one of the pioneers of the c.i.t. program, it's because of their leadership, it's because of their support. it's because i see their faces when i ask for resources, and he goes okay, we'll make it happen, so thank you, thank you for doing that. i really appreciate that. so just a brief overview of the program. the c.i.t. program, it has two components. it has the training and the

psychiatric unit. so on the training, we do 40 hours that's taking after the memory miss model. officers are exposed to some of the different training curriculums. some of those would be suicide by cop, implicit bias, self-care. we do identifying signs and symptoms of mental health, of drug use. we also have panels from centers that come from the national alliance of mental health and from the san francisco mental health association. they come and a person on their part will have a list with mental illness -- they'll talk about how they're living with mental illness and how they're in the process of recovery. so this is important for the officers because we talk about mental illness, but we put a face to it. it's very important to do that. it's very important to do that. brian was talking about how people are very skeptical about

talking about mental health. we all are, but when you put a name to the face, it's easier. you know the person, you get to know what they're going through, and you meet them where they need to be, the level that they're being treated at. so we do that, and we do a ten hour thing. there's the force behind that. oh, there they are. can you please step up, because these guys have been amazing, honestly. [applause] >> we started this in our tactical training -- don't go away. last february -- i mean, last year in february , and so far, you guys, we have put 1,628 officers through it, and it's because of their dedication with our sergeant leonard, f.o.p., who helps with the scheduling. i mean, it's amazing, 1,628

officers who had training with the use of force in the academy. they've dedicated their time in their schedule to work with the officers with the assistance of the tac unit and the hostage negotiationors who come into role play [applause] >> and then, i have several people, officer manfreddy, and john fulgado. they're the ones who respond after mobile crisis, and they spend their time putting out fires. and i will give you some numbers of the work that we're doing. after the 40 hours, we have the

numbers go up and down. i had 97 last week, but two of them decided to retire. in the metro division, we have 279. in the specialized unit, we have 295. so if you look across the board, across the city, the metro division especially has 67 officers that are c.i.t. trains. mission, 73, norden, 60, tenderloin, 58, bayview, 67, ingleside, 61, and taraval at 55. so that assures me that there's at least one or two officers working every shift throughout every hour that the police department operates. it's very rewarding to know that there's at least one

c.i.t. trained officer, and to be honest, the san francisco police department at large has been practicing the same deescalation techniques since i entered the police department in 1994, but these officers have gone through the specialized training. we also did the promotionals. recently, the department had some promotions, and we promoted nine captains, 30 lieutenants, 76 sergeants. so these new bosses went through the training, they went through an 80 hour leadership program, and we included the tactical training that we have into that 80 hours period. so as i mentioned before, we have 1,328 officers. you can see it on the screen, on the next screen, how they're distributed across. we're pretty much even. our hope is we'll be done with the tactical training sometime in october. so we're almost done with

patrol, and we're now in administration bureaus and investigating bureaus. but we have prepared a media for you guys that show what the c.i.t. training is about and how officers respond to crisis on the street at least once a week. [video playing]

[video playing]

[video playing]

[applause] >> i want to thank you -- thank you the media relations unit for putting together the video for us. thank you so much. a lot of people ask me how do you measure the success of the c.i.t. program? i know there's numbers and we're working on the data that eventually will be put out reports on how we measure some of the training that we've done and how impressive it is, but today, there's no proof that these officers and sergeants that have deployed deescalation skills and have brought these incidents that were out of control to a safer resolution for everyone. first to the officers that responded to the calls and the family members that were present during the incident, thank you so much, and enjoy.

i want to hear great stories. [applause] >> well, he made it. i'd like to introduce now chief of police william scott. [applause] >> thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. first of all, let me say i apologize for being late. i got kind of held up at our budget hearings with the board of supervisors, and -- and i'm in a little bit of a crisis right now myself because i left both of my cell phones -- i was changing so quickly, and as you know, we live and die by our cell phones. i feel really naked up here without my cell phone. i had a three page speech. i'm going to skip the speech because i just walked in, i'm going to speak from the heart and tell you what i really think about this program, and for the families and those of you that are here to support

the awardees. thank you for being here. this c.i.t. program -- i think i'm qualified to say this because i came here from another city, and i looked at the sfpd from the outside in before i came to this department is probably the best program in the nation. and the way that we do what we do with the collaborative efforts and how we get to really refine the work of crisis intervention, i believe -- and i know i'm biased on this, i believe it's the best in the nation. i don't say that because i'm wearing this uniform, i say it because i was looking from the outside in from another organization, and the work is simply phenomenal. you are asked to do a lot, you, the officers that are sitting here being awarded these great awards today, you have to make split second decisions that can be life or death if you make a wrong decision, but at the same

time, you're asked to deescalate and slow things down. and when you think about that, that sounds maybe simple to some people, but think about that. split second decisions that can be life or death decisions, but at the time we ask you to slow it down, deescalate, take your time. they kind of work against each other. it's kind of counter intuitive. that really illustrates how complex some of these issues are and some of the people that we have to deal with that you come in contact with that are in crisis, how difficult it is to really do the work that's been asked of you. and i know you don't do it alone. we have a lot of help, we have a lot of collaboration, but the stories that you will hear today, and i think i've probably seen and heard all of what you will hear today are simply amazing. they're inspiring. they represent the best of this organization, the best of this city, and to your families, i know many of you probably don't share these stories when you go home at night.

if you're like me, your family never know the risk and the dangers that you face. but i want to tell you that some of you that will hear some of these stories for the first time, they are simply amazing. i am so proud to be associated with you and associated with this organization, and whatever i can do as chief of police to support this great work, you have my commitment. so can you for being here, families, awardees. thank you for the work that you've done. to the leadership team, none of this happens without leadership. to lieutenant mannix, deputy chief molina, you've gotten this program to where it is today, so i just want to say thank you for everything that you do. thank you. [applause] >> and now we're going to get into the awards, but before i bring up the captain of central station, amazingly, the first event was caught by someone's cell phone video, and it was

broadcast on a local station the night it happened. so we have that video, and we're going to show it to you right now. [video playing]

>> wel

[applause] >> i'm going to ask captain yepp and officer collins, officer peace, officer oropeza, and officer vizeral to come on up. i think joe vasquez is here today, too. >> thank you, commander mannix. good afternoon, everyone. it's a privilege and an honor to be here today, and we just saw the video version, so i'm going to tell you the novel version. on may 4, 2017 at approximately 3:53 p.m., san francisco police dispatch broadcast a call for service regarding a man cutting his own wrists in front of 245 jackson street. numerous officers responded to the scene. officer stephen colins, a

c.i.t. trained officer responded and arrived and located an agitated and in incoherent man bleeding from his neck and wrist. officer collins and his partner maintained a safe distance, called for additional police units and a sergeant to the scene and established a perimeter. officer colins started talking to the man who repeatedly told him, call my auntie. i want to hear her voice. officer collins established a dialogue with him by having him more about the man's aunt. sergeant tobin arrived on scene and utilized the crisis intervention team concept as training. the organized team consisting of officer collins, who was c.i.t. trains, officer jennifer vizeral, officer oropeza, and officer keith, and established

an arrest. sergeant tobin directly surprised the c.i.t. team while another sergeant managed the team. the man incoherent with a broken bottle walked up to an open area near an entrance to a public park. sergeant tobin and the team maintained visual as well as contact with the man in order to protect bystanders to the area. the erratic subject jumped over a guardrail and onto a ledge. officer vizeral attempted to get him back to a safe location. officer tobin established a rapport with the man about his aunt and was able to get him back over the guardrail. despite this, the scene remained fluid, dynamic and dangerous to the other

officers. the machine continued to hold the broken bottle to his neck and continued to be aggressive. the officers demonstrated personal courage and resolve to help the man even as he advanced on officers. he got as close as 8 feet while holding the jagged bottle out as a weapon. as one officer stated we maintained our distance in order to maintain the area but not as far as we would have liked. the officers continue to engage the man in a dialogue but they were unable to gain miss attention for more than a few seconds at a time. it was when the man sliced his own neck that officers felt they had to use a different strategy to save the man's life. officer oropeza gave him commands to put the bottle down. he then notified the officers on scene that he was going to use a less lethal shotgun in