couldn't have had this discussion in the previous quarter because the information wasn't very clear. >> i was about to jump in and say, now that you have this accessible report, you will get a lot more questions. we appreciate that. thank you very much. please call the next item. >> item three c. is commission reports. reports will be limited to a brief description of activities and announcements. commission discussion will be limited to determining whether to counter any of the issues raised for a future commission meeting. commission president's report, commissioners reports. >> i have nothing to report other than doing a disciplinary hearing and working on the orders and other issues. anything you would like to add, commissioners? >> thank you. so last week i had the opportunity to take a tour and get an explanation of how things are going first hand from the commander, and a few of the

captains that were working there it was quite impressive. i think as we have discussed a number of times, this city is struggling with a homeless challenge. it has been reflected by the past -- the passage of prop c. recently. how dedicated our community, our city is to addressing this problem. and i was really impressed by what i saw. i think it was described by the commander at a hearing here a few months ago but to see it in action was actually reassuring to me that, in fact,, the departments, because as the departments, the chief, everybody will explain, homelessness will not be solved by law enforcement alone. it is part of the solution, but really, it a social services,

public health, mental health, drug treatment and so forth and what i saw when i was there were all of the agencies, d.p.w., d.b.h., health, homelessness, 311, working together to try and address the calls they were getting in a way that wasn't just law enforcement dominance. meaning it is not just officers going out because there's a homeless person on the street. so having these services available and being sent out to the locations back i think it's going to be a change for how we deal with the situation. in the short term. obviously the long-term solution is going to require a lot more, but i think we are seeing that from city government and the departments. i was also able to go out on a

ride along with officers and i wanted to say i was very impressed by the conduct of these officers and dealing with some homeless encampment and individuals that were in a mental health, and substance abuse crisis. i thought they showed compassion , heart, integrity, determination, with each of the contacts. and i think when you drive by and you see the police engaging with homeless people, you don't always, it does not always look quite right because you don't know why the police are talking to these people? i saw some real outreach and rapport building and not an enforcement approach. how can we help you, what is going on and what are the challenges i am really impressed

i know the chief is really dedicated to this approach and this model. i look forward to following these successes. >> thank you very much. >> please call next line item. >> item three d. consideration of commission -- future commission meetings. >> any announcements? >> our next meeting will be next wednesday, december 12, 2018 at 5:30 pm at city hall room 400. >> i am asking to agenda eyes or a status on the sb 1421. it is the new law that has been passed that will take effect in january. we need to know what the statuses with respect to the records that will be released and what can be released. i think it will be very important for us, especially as we are working with the chief and the department on a serious incident review board and trying

to be more transparent as an agency. we need to be advised as to what we can release and what can be posted or made available to the public under the new law and we don't have any guidance thus far i think it will be very important for the work we would be doing. >> i was in touch with the city attorney his office today asking them again for their memo on that. i was promised it would be coming soon. until they are ready to discuss that with us, i don't know what discussion we can have. but they promised me that there is a memo written which has gone up for review and come back down and come to us. i have been asking for that for close to six months now. >> may be if we added to the agenda, we can have someone from the attorney's office to answer why it is taking six month -- six months. >> the laws changed. i started asking that six months ago. i got that but it's time.

i need to put it on the agenda and have the city attorney make a presentation. >> let's put it on next week for a report from the city attorney 's office about what they are doing and how much longer we need to. just a status report. everyone is very curious -- there are major changes. i think that's important. we can put it on next week. >> thank you. i would like to agenda eyes for discussion and possible action a new order on the deaf and hard of hearing. this has been an ongoing process that i have been involved with with the deaf and hard of hearing working group that have been working on this from before -- or around or before when i joined the commission. and the d.g.o. has gone through the department. there was a meeting today. the chief was nice enough to set up myself, the mayor's office,

d.p.a., and members -- and another representative of the deaf and hard of hearing community. i unfortunately got stuck in courts i miss the meeting. i think in january will be will ready to put this on as a discussion item. >> it is perfect so long as all the parties are ready. we should probably calendar that either next week for early january or may be our first meeting in january. it sounds like it is progressing and we are getting very close. when we are there we will do it. >> so this is an issue i brought up when we didn't have a full complement of commissioners. we may have had been missing four and then we were missing two. as most of you know, there was a unanimous decision in the sunshine task force that our taser vote was not in accordance with the brown act and they did ask this commission to reconsider that vote. i brought it up we should at least discuss that. it is an important aspect of our

city governments. it is a letter that has been pending for a wild. i think we should put it on. we should discuss it and take possible action on it. i think we need to address it rather than let it sit there. >> madame city attorney? >> i'm sorry. is there a question? >> with reference to this request, there was a vote and then there was a finding by the sunshine ordinance task force. is that finding, is that binding >> no, it does not. >> i didn't say it was binding. i said they asked us to reconsider its. they found that we violated the sunshine task force or the brown act. we should at least review the letter and have a discussion on the letter and possible action so we can decide to do whatever we want. i think we wanted to --dash we can't let it just sit there. it is a very serious committee.

>> i ask it be calendared. >> let's take a look at that, probably in january it like everything else. okay? anything further? hearing none, please call for public comment. >> public comment on items three a through three d. >> good evening. >> i have been absent for quite a while but i will be attending on a fairly regular basis starting tonight. i would first like to get a complement to the executive director, because up until this meeting, every director report i have ever seen was a meaningless series of charts and graphs and numbers which the commissioners within -- would then say thank you for your report and i find it very enlightening and i don't know if you are looking at the same chart i am looking at.

i can't tell heads or tails. this one gives information that resulted in a substantive conversation by almost all members of the commission, asking questions about what does this mean, what does this mean, what is the response? and i think that's the whole purpose of these reports, is to give you information so you can ask intelligent questions so that you are able to understand what is being presented to you and what it means. that being said, i would have to say that one of the things that jumped out at me is that it seems like the officers in the city and county of san francisco don't like their body cameras. i will use an analogy that i used to use in retail. if you are in retail, you know that for every customer who complains, there are nine who walked out the door silently and never return. so you learn to appreciate the complaints because it is

probably thing as other people have experienced, and yet just didn't think the company or the cared. and, you know, i have to say, if this many cases involving officers not properly using their body camera are here, how many of them are out there where they are not brought to your attention because the persons involved didn't file a complaint and i have to say that that to really, in my mind, is a violation of due process rights. >> thank you. >> welcome back. >> before i get started, can the camera person focused -- >> there you go. >> thank you. i'm ready to go. hello. i am a public sunshine advocate. regarding the letter from paul henderson that is up on the screen, i am going to point to a

figure here. this is talking about the caseload. it is 40% higher than previous years. and then looking down at this half, you will see that on the left, the darker bar, are the cases from a year ago for every month, and then on the right, the slightly greyer area are showing a big increase for a number of months this year. that is it for the overhead to. back to me, please. i am greatly concerned that there is a 40 1% higher number of cases, and i think it is indicative of more people coming forward about more complaints with the cops and i hope the chief is paying attention to these complaints. forty 1% increase from the

previous year in terms of complaints to the d.b.a. regarding commissioner's pushing for this body to take the sunshine ordinance task force seriously as a sentient advocate , i have to say thank you very much for doing that. i hope that your colleagues will take up this matter. i have had my own complaints with the sunshine task force before this body. and most cases you take it seriously and i hope you will, again take what the task force force is saying to you seriously in the last few seconds, i want to thank you for the intelligent questions you asked paul. thank you. >> thank you. any further public comment on these line items? good evening, sir,. any further comment?

hearing none, public comment is closed. please call the next item. >> item four is discussion of public -- possible action to recommend the board of supervisors adopt a resolution authorizing the chief of police to accept and expand a grant in the amount of $800,000 from the u.s. department of justice, office of justice programs, bureau of justice assistance, to help improve the collection, management, at analysis of crime , gun evidence for the project period of october first 2018 through september 30th, 2021. action. >> good evening. >> good evening, commissioners. i am the commander of the police department's investigations bureau. as mentioned by the sergeant, we are here tonight for the police commission to hear a resolution authorizing the chief of police to accept a grant in the amount

of $800,000 from the u.s. department of justice office of justice programs bureau of justice assistance to help us in the collection, management and analysis of crime gun evidence. in just a minute, i am going to ask patrick from our fiscal unit to talk a little bit about the grant, but i want to briefly explain how we came about this grant that we are asking for. about a year and a half ago, discussions with the chief about how we can reduce the gun violence here in the city, what would be best practices, we spent a large amount of time visiting other law enforcement jurisdictions and looking at how other agencies respond to governments. many of them had specific units that addressed gun violence, commonly known as -- it is a crime gun investigations centre. we came back and presented to the chief the possibility of us

standing up a unit within our department. after some discussions, we agreed to it and the role at the time was for us to disrupt the gun violence that we are having in the city through timely, accurate and actionable collection of firearms evidence. we had three main goals. three main goals that we are looking to dubai stand in the unit up. the first one was to reduce the gun violence and homicides in the city and how we could best approach that. the second one was how we could improve our investigations and prosecutions of gun -related crimes, and the third and one of the most vital ones was how we could increase the public trust and confidence in law enforcement and how we respond to gun violence. we start this unit up. i am happy to answer any questions after about the unit and what they have been doing. so the successes that you may have, after we start the unit up , we apply for this grant in the amount of $800,000, which we were awarded a few months back.

we are here tonight to ask for you to accept that award. i will turn it now over to patrick who works for our fiscal units. we talk a little bit about the grant and then i am happy to return and answer questions you may have regarding the grant or the unit. >> thank you. good evening. >> good evening. my name is patrick lyons and i am the grants manager for the police department. i do have several slides that will go over the grant. as command -- as the commander described, the grant is for $800,000, and the award period is from october 1st, 2018, and runs through september 30th, 2021. this is a collaborative grant. the grant partners for this include the san francisco police department, the san francisco

district attorney's office, to bureau of justice assistance, and the bureau of alcohol and tobacco, firearms and explosives the overall purpose of this grant, it is a collaboration between local agencies and atf, and the goal is to leverage resources to swiftly identify firearms used unlawfully, and their sources and to effectively prosecute perpetrators engaged in violent crime. just a little chart that shows the gun violence within the city of san francisco, the day that we have rounds from 2014 to 2017 , as you can see, the homicides have averaged roughly about 40 homicides by firearm per year. it was at 30 in 2014, but it has

increased since then. we don't have the full figures for 2018 because it is still ongoing, but for last year, there are 38 homicides due to firearms. the total shooting victims has averaged about 200 per year. with this program, our go -- goal is to try and reduce these incidents. system of the key phases of this grant, the first phase is a comprehensive collection of evidence. currently, we aren't able to process all of the evidence that we would be able to, partly, some of this is due to capacity. depending upon the case, we might have to prioritize the

processing of gun evidence for, let's say, a homicide that has put higher priority than just a gun casing that you might find on the street. and depending upon the availability of resources, we might have to delay processing on some of those incidents. with this grant, it will help pay for some equipment that will help expand our capacity to process ballistics evidence, and our goal is to have a quicker turnaround times and that will also lead to better and more timely investigations. the second phase of the program is timeliness of entry and correlation. and iban -- it is a system that is managed by a.t.f., and it is

a system that captures the ballistic imaging that is used for comparison and it helps investigators determine whether or not a gun was used during a crime. with more timely entry and correlation, that will lead to increased investigations -- investigative leads, and i will also help our investigators and prosecutors

i would like to know if the police department is committed to sharing the findings and statistics on the web. without members of the public having to file a public records request. you are probably going to get this money. let's assume they do. where are we going to find the statistics. i want more information. i want the full documentation

that sfpd will be turning over to the feds, made available for public inspection on the d.p.h. -- excuse me, on the police department website. i have separate issues with the d.p.h. lastly, i would like to call attention to slide 4, san francisco shootings and firearms. if i'm reading this correctly, totaling up the 2017 statistics for number of victims and incidents that it comes to about 287. i would like to see a combined number for total number of victims and total number combined with the incident numbers, please. >> thank you, charles. mr. hart.

>> i will support mr. petrelis's comment. if the public is going to come to these meetings and participate meaningfully, they have to have the ability to understand what it is they are looking at. this chart, while nice, is pretty pictures. i would have liked to, as mr. petrelis said seen the actual grant motion you are going to approve so i could research it and see if i have any questions on it. obviously, this is a grant worth accepting. it's free money. and i guess the best analogy i can think of is the big brouhaha we had several years ago over untested rape kits. city after city, after city. year after year after year had hundreds, if not thousands, of rape kits they never even bothered to process. and of them were stored inappropriately and were damaged. and as chair mazzucco said,

many of those crimes were serial rapists. we catch one person on one crime and we find out he is involved in 3-5 others. i think that's probably something close to what happened with the golden gate killer. all those decades went by and because of the genealogical testing they were able to figure out this guy was going around doing all these different rapes and convict him. any of this money will go to help the department do what it is required to do. i don't think officers should have to be in the position of triaging which gun crime they are going to handle first as opposed to others. i think they all should be handled on a systematic basis. and i don't think it is justification to simply say, well we don't have the resources to do them all. and then not have any information as to, okay, exactly how is that being done? and what cases are being left,

and for how long? >> thank you. any further public comment on this grant? hearing none -- >> can i ask? i would also, i think it's a good practice, where available, if there is a grant that we are able to provide publicly, we should do so and it should be included in our materials as well, because i think it would benefit the commission to review it as well. so i would join in our public's request. >> chief? >> yes, that is not a problem. patrick, do you have a copy? >> as part of the resolution, we can make that available. >> also, this resolution will be going before the board of supervisors after we approve it, so if there's any further question maybe we could go to the board of supervisors with that. after hearing this, i have a

motion and a second? do i have a vote, all in favor? aye. thank you very much. the resolution passes. please call next line item. >> item 5 was taken off the calendar, put on at a later date. item 6, general public comment. the public is now welcome to address the commission regarding items that do not appear on tonight's agenda but within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission. speakers shall address the remarks to the commission as a whole and not individual commissioners, department or d.p.a. personnel. under rules of order under public comment neither police nor d.p.a. nor commissioners are required to respond to questions provided by the public but may provide a brief response. should refrain from entering into any debates or discussion with speakers during public comment. please limit your comments to two minutes. >> good evening, mr. harts. >> good evening. i am a holder of 36 orders of

determination for violation of the sunshine ordinance by various individuals, elected officials, boards and commissions. and when i entered the building i had 36 and tonight as i leave the building i have 37. i believe that all meetings should be public, should be open and they should be done in a way the public can participate fully. my comment, previously. what i would like you to notice, your meeting started at 5:30, it's now 7:30. so if a member of the public wants to talk to you about something that is not on the agenda, they have to come in and spend the whole evening sitting here waiting for some indeterminant time period to address you. that is going to discourage a lot of the members of the public from even bothering to come. i have myself sat here for five and a half hours before public comment came up. so my real question to you, and something i would like you to seriously consider, who are

these meetings for? are they simply for the commission and the department? or are they really intended for the public? if i were on the commission, and i really wanted the public to attend and participate in a meaningful fashion, i would want to have a time determinant where general public comment is taken. i will give you the best example i can think of is the ethics commission. when they open their first agenda item is general public comment. that way any individual doesn't have to make arrangements to take care of their kid for five hours. they can come in at the beginning of the meeting, make their public comment and leave. they also take public comment at the end of the meeting. so that's one thing i could say about the ethics commission, they are very, very open. and to be honest with you, i think the reason a lot of these public meetings are not attended to is because the public feels they are only

there for sufferance. >> michael petrelis begin. picking up on what ray just said. i wish to express displeasure you bunched together the chief's report, the d.p.a. director's report and the commission report. and then you give members of the public two minutes to talk about some very complex items. that is not respectful public engagement. in terms of putting the public comment higher on the agenda, another commission you should look toward to emulate is across the street. the health commission. they take public comment at the beginning. they also take public comment on individual items, including reports from the commissioners and reports from now the acting

head of the d.p.h. i think you should be doing that. and you would get more public engagement. more and better public engagement here is eventually going to transfer, i believe, to fewer complaints about the police department, with the d.p.a. i just lost my train of thought, i'm sorry. i would just like to say, i would like to see the police chief and the d.p.a. representative, not on the commission. you are supposed to be separate from the commission. the commission is supposed to be providing oversight to the department. okay, and i think the chief needs to be in the audience. not sitting on the panel with the commissioners. the same thing with paul henderson. he should be out here in the audience. he is not a commissioner.

it is very important, and it's not just for show that you guys are not sitting up there with the commissioners. thank you. >> thank you, mr. petrelis. sir? >> my name is norman sable. i was last here, i believe july of 2017. i discussed an issue with a d.p.a. report. i got no results then. i've got results now, i've written letters, i've written emails. the problem was then i discovered to open the report. to open the report for my case had no resemblance, it had some resemblance but it neglected a very serious issue. i presented a video that clearly showed what happened. and there was zero mention of this video in the openness report. there were five pages presented. zero mention of the video. what's going on?

video was viewed by the investigators. i asked questions about it. i got no responses, other than the fact they viewed the video. the video was not mentioned in the report. what can we do? how does the report mean anything if it doesn't have all the information? >> thank you, sir. you aren't allowed to ask questions of the commission. but there are folks in the audience, if you could sit down maybe we can designate someone to follow-up on your request. ms. brown? good evening. >> good evening. sfgtv i would like to use the overhead.

i'm here to talk about my son audry who was murdered. you were talking about more money for investigations and homicide. i'm also asking about the unsolved homicides. where is that money going to go? i got a call from my investigator saying he was going to get back with me and i have not heard from him. i don't want to do his job. i want him to do his job. i don't need to go and talk to the perpetrators in jail and ask them, you know, this is something i would love to do, go there and ask do you know

who killed my son? the person, i forget his name. the person my son died for, 850 bryant. i have spoke with my investigator and he was saying something, maybe i should go in there and speak with him. if i do that, am i going to mess up my son's case? i don't know. but i don't think i should be doing his job. he should be doing his job himself. so with that, my son's case is still not solved. and i think some of that money should go to solving my son's case. here it is, it's going to be another year. january next year, it will be 13 years. and i'm still coming here. still asking for justice for my child. i don't know what else to say and i think i will keep doing that. thank you.

>> thank you, ms. brown. if anyone has any information regarding the murder of aubrey abrakasa, please call the hotline. i would advise you not to go talk to that person. i will talk to you offline. any further public comment? hearing none, public comment is closed. next line item. >> item 7, all public comments on item 8, closed session. vote whether to hold item 9 in closed session. >> public comment regarding our closed session. mr. petrelis, why am i not surprised. >> i would like to object to you going in closed session about these personnel matters. we don't get accountability when you go into closed session. i know you take a vote afterward. i checked your minutes. you are taking votes afterwards

if you are going to release the information, the minutes about what you have discussed and you aren't voting to release that information. because there is no transparency in terms of what you are discussing against these officers, it strengthens the distrust in the community of the commission and the work that you are trying to do. please don't go into closed session. and if you do, when you come out of closed session and take a vote whether you are going to release the minutes and all that, please vote yes to release the information. i don't expect that you'll unanimously, or even close to a majority vote the way i'm asking you to. but maybe one or two of you occasionally voting not to go into closed session, or to have

the notes released afterward, the symbolic importance of you saying no to how these cases are now handled behind closed doors, when you are in closed session, that would go a long way. thank you. >> thank you. any further public comment? hearing none, do i have a motion to go into closed session. >> so moved. >> second. >> all in favor? >> thank you very much. we will now go into closed session. [ closed session ]

[ closed session ]

okay, thank you. this meeting will come to order. welcome to the december 5, 2018 meeting of the rules committee. my name is supervisor safai,