thank you very much, and i want to thank former president teresa sparks for all she's done throughout the years and her input at our looking into this department general order. i do agree that i would like to enhance this by putting the language requested by president sparks, if we could do that, and we could sort of find the appropriate place to put that in. >> i'm going to defer to sergeant kilshaw here. for the record, sergeant kilshaw

is not only the department secretary, but she's been in the department putting together the general order. >> vice president mazzucco: okay, department department general order will stand on tonight, and the departmental bulletin we'll put the language requested by former president sparks. okay, perfect. it's now time to open this to public comment. >> secretary: commissioner, before we start that, i'd like to add the letter that commissioner sparks submitted was presented to you, the commission, and we have copies for the public here. we will post it on the commission website tomorrow. >> vice president mazzucco: perfect, thank you. thank you, sergeant, thank you, officer. any public comment regarding department general order 5.22? >> i have a question. will you also post the bulletin -- the one that she refers to? because i couldn't find it, the a-18-105.

>> vice president mazzucco: if it's not posted, we can get it posted. >> commissioner dejesus: great, i couldn't find it. >> i could provide you with that now. >> commissioner dejesus: no, no, i think it would be good. we have a section where we post bulletins, i just couldn't find it in that section. i figured we'd just post it in case people are curious and want to go to what we are talking about. thanks. >> vice president mazzucco: any public comment regarding this? good evening. >> hi there. i'm from district 11. i agree, we should have best practices in this regard. i would say my concern is after tooling around the internet and taking a look at general order 5.01, use of force, looks like a very well, thought-out document, somebody put a lot of work into

it. however, you can say this is how you conduct yourselves. it's not the same thing. there's a number of folks in our community who believe that this document just isn't consistent with reality. i think it's great to have a document, but when you have an inability to, say, test for compliance, for instance, the police officers association, the p.o.a., is steadfastly against, say, auditing body-worn cameras. there's no desire for any accountability in that front. it's very difficult to have a

population, to have a total universe of what conduct looks like when you have all this pushback in any way that you might determine there is compliance, and that's one of many. so i just feel that there's a number of instances where it's not about the documentation, or it's not about the policy, it's about execution. >> vice president mazzucco: thank you, any further public comment? hearing none, do i have a motion? >> motion to accept. >> vice president mazzucco: a second? all in favor. direct reflect, passed unanimously. thank you very much for all your hard work. again, this shows that this is just more than a document, the members of our department from the transgender community, many different communities, participated in this and they will fulfill this obligation, because if they don't, that's what the police commission is here for in terms of discipline. we take this seriously, so thank you very much. please call next line item, number 2. >> secretary: consent calendar receive and file action, request of chief of police to accept a $100 donation from ms. belinda chin to be deposited to the community engagement fund. >> vice president mazzucco: members of our commission, any gift over $25 ends up in front of the commission, whether it's a donation from an old coast guard cutter, to a $100 gift, which we gratefully accept, to furniture, so we have to approve that. you have it in your packet.

any comments or questions? hearing none. public comment? hearing none. public comment is now closed. all in favor? >> secretary: need a motion, commissioner. >> vice president mazzucco: second? all in favor? thank you. passed. please call line item number 3. >> secretary: item 3, reports to the discussion 3-a, police report. crime trends, provide an overview of offenses occurring in san francisco and the trends in those offenses over time. significant incidents, chief's report will be limited to a brief description of significant incidents that have occurred since the posting of the agenda. commission discussion will be limited to determining whether to calendar any of the incidents the chief describes for discussion or action at a future commission meeting. pink patch project month, provide an update on the implementation of the commission-approved use of the pink patch for breast cancer

awareness during october 2018. fleet week, provide an overview of sfpd preparation for planned activities for october 5th through october 8th. status update regarding environmental testing at building 606 located at the old hunters point shipyard, and presentation regarding rules governing missing persons. department bulletin 17-086, missing persons assignment criteria, department general order 6.10 missing persons. >> vice president mazzucco: thank you very much, good evening, chief. >> good evening, vice president mazzucco, commissioners. >> before you start, point of order on the agenda -- [ inaudible question ] -- we can have a discussion on these items. i don't understand that paragraph. >> so any of the items that are specifically outlined, pink patch project, fleet week, those

are items you can have significant discussion on. anything else not specifically agendized, you can ask to put the item on an agenda at a future meeting, but shouldn't be discussion on that item either from the police report or from the commission. >> can you define significant discussion, please? what would be significant? >> so it's not, as we discussed previously, there's not a formula that i can give you. it depends on a number of factors, but anything in general that's longer than a twitter feed should not have a discussion. >> we get 140 characters? >> the significant incidents should be reserved for items happening after the posting of the agenda. for instance, if we had an officer-involved shooting over the weekend, no way the

commission could have anticipated that, so that's something you can ask questions about, try to get information, if there was a burglary or something significant the chief would like to report on, then he can do that, as well. so we are required to post items 72 hours in advance. if we know that ahead of time, it should be on the agenda. >> i have a question, and that's what i was curious about a. we have a mass shooting the day before we meet, i would imagine we could ask questions on that. can we also have, when it comes to the commission part, can we also have a broader category of discussion of significant incidents that have occurred since posting the agenda?

does that make sense. if we have a mass shooting, he's going to report on it, but we also have a standing kind of prong under the commission that, you know, to discuss in depth any significant -- >> so it shouldn't be in depth. let me clarify. any significant issue that's happened since the posting of the agenda is meant to give the public and the commission and the chief the opportunity to ask questions about that or give information out to the public, but it shouldn't be in-depth discussion. that is sufficient information so that the commission can make a decision whether to put the item on for the next agenda. so those are the parameters and the rules that we operate from given that we have brown act and sunshine ordinances we comply with. >> vice president mazzucco: gone astray on this topic itself. members of the commission, we were briefed by the city attorney's office two weeks ago, and i think you're all available to speak with the city attorney's office about the parameters of this, so please call the chief's report. chief? >> thank you, commissioner mazzucco and good evening commissioners, director marian. i'll start with crime trends, and i'm going to give an

overview of year to date, how we compare this year to last year for the major crime categories, particularly violent crime, and also give you an update on how we fare over time, over the last

five years, in these categories. i'll start with homicides. we are currently down 26% in homicides year to date. 37 this year, as compared to 50 this time last year. over the last five years, the only year that we've fared better year to date is 2014, so we're below four of the five years, we're below where we were this time year to date, which is

really a good thing. in terms of our gun violence, we are down 23%.

we have 112 total victims of gun violence year to date, compared to 145 last year. this is the lowest year for gun violence at this point in the year for the last five years. homicides

-- brings unique challenges for public safety. we partner with our public safety agencies, brother and sister agencies in the city, to make this happen, including the department of emergency management, the fire department, and all the partners, u.s. navy, u.s. coast guard, there's a total partnership to make this happen and to keep it safe for all of our visitors and residents. it's also a special time to pay

tribute to our military personnel, the men and women that serve our country to protect our nation. there are soldiers all over the city, marines, naval personnel, coast guard personnel, so we're asking the public and everybody to thank them for their service when you see them. i know i do it every time i see a soldier, but we really appreciate them being here and really appreciate them doing what they do to keep our nation and our borders safe, and we want to thank them for their service when we see them, so we'll pay tribute to them while they are here, and hopefully they have a good time in our city. we're fully staffed this week, all hands on deck, we have foot patrol, bicycle patrol, motorcycle officers, marked cars all over the city. we'll be patrolling the bay with our marine unit, and we also have had a chance to visit the naval vessels, which is always a good thing for our people to be able to interact with the navy and visit the ships.

it's really a fun event and the navy has been very accommodating. as always, our mission is provide safety with respect to our residents, but another thing about fleet week i want to point out, it gives us an opportunity to train and for emergency preparedness, there's a senior leadership seminar that happens during the week, and we can never be too prepared. we can never train too much for catastrophic events or emergency events that might come our way, so fleet week, although it's a fun time, it's also a serious side of that, it gives us an opportunity to train and interact with our local and federal partners and much of that week is spent doing just that, so everything is going well to this point, and i'd like to thank, again, all of our partners that have been a part of this. couple of tips for the public that i'd like to point out, and we said this in the press conference earlier in the week, it does take a lot of coordination, but also we know that traffic will be heavy

during a lot of the more popular events like the air show, so please allow extra travel time to get to your destination due to those anticipated crowds and traffic. if possible, we're asking that you use public transportation, b.a.r.t., san trans, the ferries are a great way to get around the city, and once you're in the city, get you where you want to be. if you are driving, make sure you park smart. we have talked about that all year of not being a resilient city and not allowing people to victimize you, so make sure you park smart. don't leave valuables visible in your car, take your valuables, cameras, that type of thing, laptops with you if you can, or lock them up if you have to leave them, and keep an eye on your smartphones and cameras. again, there's a target-rich environment for people that want to take advantage. park smart, you'll see the park

smart posters and placards throughout the city. we've distributed them to these locations, so we're asking for the public's help on that. also, make sure you have a reunification plan, particularly if you're bringing your kids to some of the events. sometimes kids and adults get separated from their families and groups, and it's always good to have a reunification plan, pick a meeting spot and make sure everyone in your group knows where to go and meet up in the event you get separated. and finally, with large crowds we always want the public to be vigilant and resilient, so if you see something suspicious, please say something. if it's an emergency, call 911. call 301 for nonemergencies. if you see something that just looks out of place or suspicious, please report it. there will be plenty of officers out there, parking enforcement officers, park rangers, police officers, so if you don't have a phone, flag somebody down and make known what it is you think is suspicious. and with that, that is it for my

portion of the report, so if there's any questions, next items. >> vice president mazzucco: chief, i want to thank you for your report regarding the crime rate and the homicide rate. that's very significant, and that couldn't with done without the hard work of the men and women in the police department who are taking proactive measures, but are working with the community to make sure that gun violence goes down. i know a lot of these homicides have been domestic violence related, unfortunately, so i want to thank the men and women of the police department for their hard work. they are the ones responsible for those numbers going down. also with reference to fleet week, thank you for your presentation regarding that. i want to say fleet week has special meaning to our family this year, because my 19-year-old niece lexi bardini is currently serving on the u.s.s. reagan somewhere off north korea, so we take special pride in the men and women serving our country, because our little niece is out there doing

that, so special week for our family, too. commissioners? >> next item for the chief's report is commander robert o'sullivan to present on the status update regarding environmental testing of building 606 located at hunters point shipyard. >> good evening, vice president mazzucco, commissioners. >> vice president mazzucco: welcome back, commander. >> thank you, it's good to be back. marian, chief scott, as mentioned, i'm here this evening to provide you with an update on the department's efforts to ensure the safety of our members who work at and visit building 606 in the hunters point

shipyard. in late july the "chronicle" issued efforts of building 606. in anticipation of the article, command staff and members of the san francisco department of public health occupational health and safety and environmental health divisions met on july the the 27th with employees assigned to building 606 to discuss concerns they might have. as a result of the discussion, the department deployed a plan to test the water, air, and soil at building 606 for the presence of biological heavy metal, petroleum, and radiological contaminates. it was deputy chief moser who spoke with you regarding this plan on august the 15th, so i'm here to give you an update regarding the status of the testing, and i'm very pleased to say there has been progress and we have some, but not all of the results. the way the plan has been categorized, as i mentioned, is in three different disciplines, it's air, it's water, and it's soil.

our partnership in this endeavor includes the department of public health, as i mentioned, as well as outside contractors. so specifically with regards to the air sampling, mr. kevin molani, the department of public health industrial hygienist assigned to the police department and has been for some time is covering this part of the testing for us. on august the 24th he did what are called direct readings, and i will say up front, i'm not familiar with all these terms, but i will do my best to answer your question if there are any technical ones. with the direct reading, what he measured were the particulates, both outside the building, 606, within the main bay of the building, as well as within the crime lab. and what he found successfully was that there was a 50% less reading of particulates inside

the building as compared to outside, and 25% -- only 25% of the particulates measured outside were measured inside the crime lab itself. what this means to us is that it's a good indicator that the ventilation system is working, it's filtering and preventing particulates from the outside air from entering the building. furthermore, he took additional air sampling within the building and was -- those particular samples tested for both asbestos and lead and came back as non-detect. there was no asbestos or lead that was detected. those samples were taken from the period august the 27th through september the 7th. and finally with regards to air, mr. molani did swipes of dust that was on equipment within the building, and those particular swabs have been sent out to the vendor that i mentioned earlier, an outside vendor.

testing on that will include radiological -- looking for radiological substances, as well. we anticipate those results will come back within four to six weeks. with regards to the water, our partner with this endeavor is the san francisco public utility commission. they handle the water for the city and county, as we all know. there was a preliminary screen that was completed on august the 8th by sfpuc staff, and those samp samplings were taken from outside the building and the water piping that is connected with building 606. the criterion -- samples met the criteria with the exception of chlorine residual and iron oxide, and as that was explained to me was the chlorine was, although it was low, it was acceptable, and with the chlorine, it is primarily in the water to fight bacteria, and there was no bacteria detected in the water.

the iron oxide would come from rusting that occurred within the pipes. subsequent testing was done inside the building for the potable water, so that would include water in the kitchen, and within the crime lab, and the water chemistry came back within p.u.c. criteria. the drinking water review is going to be ongoing for a period of october through december, so there will be samples taken for a three-month period, and then finally, the water samples have been sent out for radiological tests, as well, and we anticipate those results will be back in the latter part of december. with regards to soil, there's really two components for this. i know deputy chief moser mentioned it in his presentation last month, or in august, there is a pile of soil that's to the rear of the building. it's in the outside of the building, but it's within the footprint of the building within the fence, and that pile of soil is associated with excavation

that was done to put in a new pump sump -- or pump. that soil has been covered. it remains covered, and a soil sample has been taken and that has been sent out to test for all of those different chemicals that i mentioned earlier. we expect that those samples will come back towards the middle or latter part of this month, and then finally, with regards to radiological sampling, the department, more specifically ocii, who is the landlord, they are in talks with an outside vendor to do radiological testing. i've been informed that process is moving along, that we expect to have the contract completed and signed relatively soon, and at that point the vendor will come out, and he will be on site for several days, and he will test through direct testing. he will test both inside the building and outside the

building on the perimeter for any radiological readings. his report should come back once the contract's approved and he's on site within a couple of weeks. all this information that i shared with you has been presented to our employees that work at building 606. they were updated with regards to this. i know deputy chief moser probably, or did inform you that we will have monthly meetings with the personnel at building 606 until we have all the results. thereafter, provided that the results come back and are favorable to the sties liking, we will continue with this process and have quarterly results with the employees and continue to test the water and air samples on a quarterly basis. >> vice president mazzucco: well, thank you, commander. we have a lot of tests and there's been a lot of tests going on. still very concerned. for the new members of the commission, building 606 was a

building that the san francisco police department has used for a couple decades. they've had the tactical units out there, many different units now. the only units out there are the crime lab and the property evidence room. so we have approximately, what, 44 employees out there at this point? >> 41. >> vice president mazzucco: 41. and there was a series written by the "chronicle" about the soil out at the hunters point naval shipyard, which historically has been contaminated and our concern also rises that a lot of the reports we relied upon, those two individuals that prepared those reports are now sitting in federal prison for lying. and for decades, at least a decade, the police department has been providing drinking water to our employees out there, so the police department has been great about taking this issue on and doing testing and moving away from it, but you hear about other areas out there in the shipyard, members of the community that are concerned about it. and our concern is, what do we do about having our employees there, because they are our most

important asset, so to speak, they are members of the police family, and i'm very uncomfortable with them out there, and we've had a lot of testing without any hard-core results. for example, you just said the good news is, the air conditioning system, the filtration is keeping the stuff on the outside from the inside, but officers and civilians are on the outside. there are dirt piles, and i remember from being out there many times, it's really windy out there. it's very windy. so these are concerns, and for the new members of the commission, we are actually moving out of those facilities, i think, in 2019 and 2020 -- >> 2020. >> vice president mazzucco: so there will be a new crime lab, they'll move all the evidence, but i've spoken to the chief about this, and he's been good about this, but if we have to, we'll find a way to move our folks out of there. we can have other crime labs do the work, which we've done before when there's certification issues and somebody else can move the evidence to a warehouse somewhere else. i'm concerned about it, commissioner dejesus, who has

expertise in this field, shows concern and had a lot of knowledge about other cases she's handled out there, so we're very concerned and i want to thank the department, who's gone above and beyond. [ please stand by ]

>> what's the favorable number? >> there's a threshold. i'm not the expert for that. as you might imagine, you are on point. there are a lot of threshholds and it's relative to a lot of different substances that are being tested. a laundry list of potential contaminants out there. it's relative to what the industry's standard is. it's -- our partnership with d.p.h. and p.u.c. and we have outside venters who lend that independent eye to things. we're going to have plenty of

opinion as to what is acceptable and should something fall outside of a black and white zone into the grey zone, then certainly we have that discussion. >> mr. dejesus. >> we have a brief discussion and we've talked about it but i'm still concerned. as, there is an article august 17th, where it basically says that the u.s. environmental protection agency has ex coriated the navy's plan to retest part of the former hunters point naval shipyard for radio activity. as inadequate and unscientific. it talks about the test the navy is proposing to do, are not going to find a heavy metals, the asbestos or the radiation that everyone is concerned about. and so i wonder who we rely on though do these tests because if it's it the navy is driving this and the e.p.a. say the tests

won't show the real extent of the contamination. i am really concerned. it sounds like the department is caught between the city, the navy and the e.p.s. here and the fact they found this significant radioactive something recently is also concerning. i guess -- i don't know. we have to rely on these government agencies but the government agencies are having an issue among themselves. i mean, i really think we should start looking into getting another -- restoring evidence there. we can find a warehouse to store the evidence. i don't know why we have to wait two years or 18 months to do that. i don't know why we can't look into sharing a lab. are you allowing officers who are young and expect to have children or anything like that, are you allowing them to say i don't want to be stationed at building 606? are the crime lab people, are

they saying you know, this is unhealthy for me and i'm concerned about getting cancer or anything else. are they allowed to say i don't want to work here? i'm more concerned, not just the brass saying they have to stay there, but i'm concerned about the health and the fact the government agencies can't even agree. >> commissioner, there have been several meetings with the personnel that worked there. number one, to inform them and number two, to answer questions and address any concerns that they may have. no one has made that proclamation that they don't want to work there. the communication is on going. i mean, of course, we are concerned about our employees' well-being as well. we don't want anybody in harm's way. the key for us right now is to inform them of what we find out, when we find out so they can make informed decisions and they can weigh in. they do have to work with it and live with whatever comes. >> i appreciate that. is there anyway you can talk

with the e.p.a. about their concerns and what they suggest are the actual test that would be more accurate to determine if there's radio activity, heavy metals or contamination at the site? then be a little more armed to know what tests should be conducted there or have some discussion regarding those tested. >> to that point, i can tell you with regards to the water, everything is being done according to e.p.a. standards. i don't want to miss speak here but i'm more than happy to check with regards to the air and soil sampling. the vendors we will have come into test for potential radio logical contaminants, that would be in accordance with the e.p.a. to your comment about the article on august 17th, i saw the same thing. we do have to -- at this point we're compartmentalizing it and recognizing there's an issue between the city and the alphabet soup of regulators. our focus, as the chief said, is

ensuring the safety of our employees. so we're doing what we feel, under the advise of our partners, our city partners, and vendors, what would be best practices for the testing. >> is there any driving on unpaved roads? i know it's windy up there. are we stirring up the dust going off road. if we are, are we wearing dust to capture the dust and test it on the cars driving in and out and walking in and out on a windy day. >> to answer that, with regards to the dust. as part of the air-born testing there was a member at the crime lab that wore a collection device. those samples were collected. with regards to the roads, i think we're all well aware that the roads are not maintained well. we did have in one of the meetings that we had, the most recent meeting, to my knowledge we're not driving on unpaved

roads. there's a lot of potholes along the route that our employees would traverse in and out. that request has been made through our facility's manager to d.p.w. to actually fix the hot potholes. that issue is more on a mechanical sense. there's water that, when the rainy season starts there's water and the collection. >> have we talked to the mayor about maybe, i forget, 18 months or two year timeframe when we hoped to move our people? have we talked about advancing that in anyway? is that a possibility? >> through the city administrator's office and the real estate team that works in her office, we've talked about the timeline. as far as advancing the timeline, at this point, i don't think that's going to be a reality. we have had the discussion

and -- well, it is a urgent matter for them as well. particularly because of all the issues that had been reported here. it's an urgent matter for them as well. it's still an ongoing discussion as to what we can do to advance it. >> ok. >> thank you, commissioner taylor. >> hi. >> i think you mentioned that the soil testing is kind of an issue that is still outstanding. you are waiting and finalizing contracts with the vender. >> correct. >> do you have a sense when those contracts will be finalized and how long the testing will take before we have results? >> yes, so, i don't think it's going to be much more than a couple of weeks. we actually had expected that the contract with the vender for the soil would be done in september. as recently as today, i had a conversation with our facility's manager. he has a call into d.p.h. to get a status on that contract. i would expect very soon. once that individual's an site

we should have the report back. the timeline has been discussed in early december. >> that's radio logical testing, right? >> correct. >> mr. hamasaki. >> just one last question. commissioner dejesus triggered this with her question. would it be possible for some of the commissioners who have been following this to actually get e that -- review the tests that we're doing to make sure they're consistent with -- i don't know this area so this is my area. either the e.p.a. guidelines. you mentioned best practices. i think it would be good for us on the commission side to know that we are doing the tests and later on we don't get called and say, they did x test but didn't

do y test. would it be possible for some of the commissioners to review. >> yes, i was provided with a couple of the work plans. i will, through sergeant killshaw forward those to the commission. >> again, getting back to the desk, i know we had complaints for four or five years ago when the cars were out there they were covered in a strange mud. cars were filthy dirty and there was a lot of particulates and dust. there was talk about a fire that burned underground for nine months and they buried it and covered it up. we're concerned about this. you are a police officer. you are not an environmentalist. maybe we should reach out to the e.p.a.'s office of inspector general, which handled the criminal investigation on the two individuals who were supposed to be doing the testing but were fabricating the results. i think you should reach out to them. they have some form of an

obligation, unless there's an continuing on going investigation to tell us what they know about this. again, i suggest that we reach out to them and see what they have to offer. >> ok. thank you. >> anything further? >> thank you, very much, commander. welcome back. it's good to see you. >> thank you. >> thank you. next we have commander greg who will present on the rules governing missing persons department 17.086 missing persons assignment criteria and the department general order 610 missing persons. >> good evening. can you just hold on one quick second. this was a request by commissioner dejesus and she

stepped out. congratulations. i hear you are a grandfather. >> for the fourth time, yes. [laughter]

>> thank you. good evening. ms. marion and chief scott, i'm the commander of the san francisco police department's investigations division. i've been asked to present to you some information on or response to missing persons. it's under department general order 610, which came out in 1999, as many of you know. many of our general orders are old. older. it has not changed much to the 1999 policy, which is governed by state law. we have updated our response through department bulletins. the most recent bulletin 17086, which you may have and should have in front of you. so today i'm going to talk about the role of the department in missing persons investigations. we are required by state law to accept a missing persons report from any individual, whether it is in-person or over the phone.

if they are requesting a missing persons' report to be filed, then we are required by state law to take that. there are two forms of missing person reports. for lack of a better term we handle. one is a standard missing persons report. one that may have exceptional circumstances or at risk circumstances that play a different role. when someone makes a missing persons report the aid will take the report. they're required to notify the department operations center within a very short period so they will go back to the station and make a immediate notifications. at the department center, the personnel will enter the person into a missing and unidentified person system. if it is required to be entered within two hours if it's not,

it's within four hours but we generally enter it within the two hour time period. when there is a report that is not exogent, it is assigned to the station investigative teams so he or she would, over the next 30 day period, take actions to try and identify locations that the person may or may not, contact the family. locate the person and if they do, they would close the missing persons with it with a filing persons report. if they do not locate the person within 30 days, that report then gets transferred up to our special victims' unit and they continue the investigation from there. in the average year, we take a more than a thousand missing persons reports. between 1,000 and 1500. this year we're on track to take the same amount as we took last

year. if there are exceptional circumstances in a missing persons, there's certain criteria. that includes if someone is under 12 that is abducted or missing, it's one of the components. if they are over 75-years-old. if the person is lacking cognitive ability to care for themselves. if there's a threat of suicide or harm. the officer is aware of. if the information leaves the officer to know that the person requires immediate medical attention or if the officer expects foul play or believes exceptional facts exist. in those instances there, s.v.u. is notified immediately and is the lead on it. in those instances, at the station level, they assist and they will do a continuous search until it puts you in commander that decides it's not feasible or appropriate. it could be a short period of time if the individual is located. it could be a long period of time, four or five days.

during that time, there are a number of things that may direct the officers to do. going by the house and by in contact with the person who reported it. maybe enter the house if there are other circumstances that have a risen and to try and continuously search for those persons. there have been times where we've had missing children and four or five-years-old and we've done continuous searches for days. there's times with other exceptional ones, because of staffing levels, we may stop the continuous search but it doesn't mean we stop the missing persons report. after the 30 days it's transferred up to the special victim's unit and they continue on from the search. the reason we changed the standard of who was responsible for the investigations, is for a division of labor. our missing persons unit. in the early 2000s had a

number of officers. when we decentralized and sent officers to the station under the investigative teams, we utilized those resources there to assist us. they are at the street level and they can direct officers to assist in the investigation for the first 30 days. if we do have an exceptional missing persons report, even though that will be handled by s.v.u., they will be in coordinations with the stations to follow-up on what continuous searches were done and any other task that they may require station personnel to undertake. and that's how our missing persons reports are handled and i'm more than happy to answer any questions you might have regarding that. >> thank you for waiting. i'm sorry. this is good. this is a good start. i think one of the things people keep asking about is well-being and you know, there's no well-being d. g.o. it seems to follow under missing

persons. when you talk about exogen circumstances, a child under 12, the last one says the officer suspects foul play or beliefs exceptional facts exist, i wonder if you can give me an example of what you mean by exceptional facts or foul play that would constitute exogen circumstances? >> so you are correct of that. there's not a specific order on well-being checks. they can be a component of a missing person. they can be a well-being check for a couple of youth left in the house and they want someone to check to make sure they're ok. it can run the gamut. as it applies to a missing person, we asked the officers who are responding out to look at the circumstances that are presented to them, in front of them at that time, or information they mayor may have from prior responses to the accident. or information they may have from information they have obtained from individuals. make a reasonable decision that

they believe there is an exoden circumstance that they will make it an exogent report or take other actions as they are out there. we rely on them to look at what is in front of them at the time and to make all reasonable efforts to try and locate the person based on the information they have in front of them. we also ask them to converse with their supervisors if they have questions or concerns about whether or not it is a an exceptional circumstance. when it it comes to well-being checks, those are the times where we specifically ask for them to have a conversation with their supervisors about what they have, what they see and what's the next course of action to take. >> if it's not exogent, all other missing reports you have in here shall be assigned to the station investigative team. and then you have, if a missing person is located, you have to

prepare a found report. they shall confirm the identity of the found person and conduct a well-being check on that person. how do they go about identifying the found person and conducting the well-being check on the person? there's a number of ways they can. in the ideal situation, the officer may encounter the person who is now found and is able to identify them through driver's license or missing persons picture. some time the person may be found out of county or state and ask law enforcement agencies to verify if that's the individual. we don't want to have someone call us on the phone and say, i'm joe smith, i'm no longer missing, i'm fine. and it becomes not accurate. we try to make every effort. if we can't we have to leave them in as a missing persons. >> in the middle of the paragraph, it says members shall not use phone calls, e-mails,

text, social media to confirm the found persons return or identity. members are required to see the found person before writing a found person report. can you tell us why that particular language and why social media or telephone calls is not sufficient? >> well, i think as i mentioned earlier, there could be instances where someone reports another person found because there are exceptional circumstances. they could be injured. they could be hurt. there could be some other reason for them not to want to identify that that person has come under some distress. we want to make sure that the officers are able to be certain that that individual is the person that is found. through e-mails, through text, we know we can't physically see the person or have someone from a law enforcement agency verify they're that individual. so we go to those steps until we do. >> would you say this is the best practice in the country is

make the confirmation in-person rather than social media or telephone? >> i would say that's the best practice. that's part of the on going ways. when our order was written, we didn't have social media, e-mails and so fourth. we know we've evolved but we know the limitations. >> i looked at our general order and it's 19-years-old. i do notice the general bolton updated in 2017 and we would use the best practice criteria at that time. >> if you look at our general order and the exceptional or the a risk, they're similar in the missing persons. what has changed is how we investigate them and who we assign them to for a division of labor. that is why in two years we've updated until we can update the general order. >> when it comes to this section that we're talking about, when you want to confirm the identity of the missing person, this

bulletin applies to officers and sergeant and everybody in the police department, is that right. >> it does. >> would there be a -- i don't know the word i'm looking for. a supervisor. would a supervisor be involved when a member comes back and says i've confirmed through telephones, or however i confirmed it, is there a exercise who reviews and signs off on the confirmation of the found person's identity. >> just like any other report that an officer makes, a supervisor is generally -- there's consultation it in it. the supervisor will read the report. he or she is the approving person has obtained the information and read it in there that the officer was verified of the identity of the person. that's how it's confirmed. >> is that uniform throughout our station. is that the way it works? >> yes, all of our reports are signed off by a supervisor and a manager. >> you may not be able to answer this and i won't hold you to it, when i was looking at it, we

have missing persons, elder abuse and child abuse. we have different criteria. i'm wondering, when it's -- is there a different criteria if you get a report of elder abuse? is there a different standard versus the missing person or child abuse? >> wes, we have a component that handles elder abuse. they are the officers and sergeant and investigators that investigate all elder abuse reports. the missing persons is the one that we've divided the labor up because we have so many of them. we need to leverage the personnel that we have at the station. we've divided up the role and responsibility between the s.v.u. and the station investigators at least during that initial 30-day period. >> i just have one other question. when we go back to if an officer suspects foul play or exceptional facts exist under the exogen circumstances, and i guess it would depend on the circumstances if they would need

a warrant or if they would be able to act on their own accordingly in the field? >> well, essentially an officer does not need a warrant to go into a house if he or she has grounds to believe that the inhabitant and the residents is in dangered. based on the information that's in front of them that they have, if they are able to articulate that someone is in danger, if you have someone who is in their 80s and they haven't been seen in a week, reasonable person may believe that because you haven't seen that person for five days that there could be something that is happening and that individual may have passed away or they may have fallen down. those are the things we ask the officers when they use their reasonableness, this is like that, make entry into a house. >> thank you. i appreciate that. >> thank you. >> mr. hamasaki. >> hopefully just a couple of brief follow-up questions.

so, when the department receives a call that so and so is missing. mayor it's their mother calling about their adult child. generally you will send an officer out there and focusing on the language suspecting foul play or beliefs exceptional facts exist, that is -- is that decision at that level s when the patrol officer was sent out to do a initial check in or i don't know what you call it. is that the patrol officer or is that something that is reviewed by, i don't know, whether it's s. i.t. or s.v.u. or supervisor, sergeant, how is that how do we

make sure whoever makes that initial step -- we have officers at all levels, especially in this department, a significant number younger officers. how do we make sure that decision is either being made correctly or being reviewed by a supervisor? >> so, to answer the first part of your question, there does not need to be a missing persons report. someone can say that they haven't seen a family member and are reporting them missing. but they're not actually making a missing persons report. they want us to do a well-being check to look at the individual to see if they're there. an officer's role, when he or she goes out there, is to take all of the information that they have in front of them. because there are so many things they can do, you can't just have a checklist of you do these five

things, you have checked off it's going to be fine. so as the officers go through training and they start to get experience and often times they have conversations with their supervisors, they have conversations about, if you were to respond to someone on a well-being check, what are the things that you could do as you respond out that a reasonable person would do to try and identify whether you can locate that person? and so we asked them to do those things. whether it's look for mail, talk to neighbors to see if they've talked to the individual. to see whether anyone answers the door. are they able to get into a backyard and look for windows. we asked them to do those things. if they do those things and there's other information that make a reasonable person think that -- i don't see this as just a missing persons. there's something amiss in this, they make a decision to go into

that house to see whether or not someone is there. there are all kinds of things we asked the officer to do and overtime, you are able to add things to your tool belt, so to speak, that gives you ideas of things to try to figure out whether that person is there. >> i guess, i'll take responsibility. i don't think my question was asked as clear as possible. so, in the situation with the officer goes out there and makes the determination that oh, this look like everything is ok here. is there someone, a supervisor, that reviews that decision, someone with more experience to determine hey, maybe we should take a double check here. maybe we should send someone out again? >> not necessarily. sergeant may be there and a officer may have a conversation, but they're not required to have that conversation