you can call my office. i'm open to the public. that's something i actually like to do. and i would be proud to hear from you. now, jeff had mentioned they had not heard anything from the sheriff's department. on january 31st i sent a letter to jeff about the course of the investigation. and i have a copy and you have a copy there. i won't go into it. but i will say that at that time i told them what i could tell them. and i will also tell you, supervisors, that we moved many of the deputies and replacer dome the replaced many of the supervisors at that location when those charges were brought. and i ask you to remember all of these charges are still allegations. we can't talk about -- i can't talk about the charges at this point. i'm not allowed to talk about the charges at this point. these are allegations, and we have to see where the facts take us. i also want to let you know i did check with the

city attorney, and the sheriff does have the authority to direct the investigations and direct who will do the investigations. and i also have the authority to order my staff to comply with the investigations. so that's not an issue that i see. i also am a little concerned that on one hand i'm hearing that i'm moving too fast, and on the other hand, i'm hearing, wait, these investigations really need to get done within the year allotted them. i believe this is the best way to get these investigations done, with integrity, with somebody who is an independent investigator, who knows what they're doing, and i believe they will have no problem, but i believe you should probably talk to paul henderson about their ability to actually take on these cases and do it. i'm just looking at my notes from what other people said so i have it. the use of force policy was brought up here. yes, the use of force policy is an issue,

perhaps, but, as i said, we are already doing c.i.t. training when we have the funds to do it, but we do regular deescalation along with our other training on a regular basis. i will say that that is something that i feel very confident about and very strongly. i have even gone to watch them do that training because i want to make sure they're doing the proper deescalation. i think i'll wait for your questions, then. thank you. >> chairman: thank you, sheriff hennessey. i appreciate you coming out and reporting today. questions from any of my colleagues? supervisor brown? >> thank you, sheriff hennessey. and, believe me, i think we all really appreciate your openness. and it's true, any time we call, you pick up, or our staff calls, you pick up, you answer our questions. and the department has

amazing programs, and it is very progressive, and we really appreciate you leading that. i guess the question i have is once they allegations came up, why didn't you turn it over to district attorney? >> because it wasn't clear there were criminal allegations, and until it is clear they are criminal allegations, there was no need for a criminal investigation. >> okay. >> and if that does come out in the course of the investigation, once the evidence is there, they will be turned over to law enforcement. and in san francisco, that would most likely be the district attorney. if it is from anything that arrow arose in san bruno, it would be the county. >> chairman: thank you, supervisor.

sheriff hennessey, i would like supervisor brown's comments appreciating all of the work that you and the sheriff's department's staff have been doing on so many fronts. the focus today is on the allegations of abuse on the male inmates at the end of last year, and the inappropriate strip search of the female inmates or the allegations of that, and how to best handle those complaints. so i really think it was a good step to take to turn those over to the department of police accountability, to take over the investigation. i just wanted to ask if you could just describe what the scope of similar types of complaints are that might have come up in the last year or two within the sheriff's department around misconduct, and whether you feel like the internal investigations -- that protocol that you guys have had have been an

affective way to investigate this. >> i think it's important we have community investigations and the inmate investigations in. there are a number of types of complaints. i wasn't prepared to talk about those, but we certainly have some unnecessary use of force complaints, we have some complaints about not getting their medication. i mean, we have all different kinds of of complaints that happen, if you can imagine within a jail that generally holds about 1300 people. and i do have a list, though, of all of the complaints and everything that we've had in terms of numbers, raw numbers. and i can share that. and i did give that to you in your packet, i think. overhead. >> lights on, please. >> so let me make sure i have another copy. so this is kind of an overview of the last three

years of internal affairs case summary for the sworn members of the san francisco sheriff's department. and you can see that we've had a total of 62 cases, investigations, in 2016, and a total of 58 in 2017, and supervisor walton, this answers many of the questions you asked me. we have 119, and that is because of the spike in the 21 investigations that we got this year. this is genuinely a unique occurrence for something of this magnitude to have taken place. and we also have 19 whistle-blowers. our whistle-blower complaints are up quite a bit, and we're also teaching our staff to do whistle-blower complaints and e.e.o. complaints. so we're finding that that is paying off in benefits as well. so you can see what is sustained here. there is 19 cases sustained in 2016. 15 in 2017, and 16 in

2018. this is actually much higher than the national average, but i'm just saying that. and you can see down at the bottom what kind of discipline was given. we have reprimands, suspensions, determinations, corrective action, and some are resignations and retirement. supervisor walton, you specifically asked me how many cases are still left open, and we have three left open from 2017. when it says "told," that means they are -- likely two of them are criminal investigations that we're waiting for response to, and another is another investigation where somebody is off work and we have to wait until they come back to work. if you look over at the right-hand side at 2018, we have 52 completed, and of those 52 completed, 16 cases have been sustained. in addition to that, we have a number of cases down here where we have one reprimand, two suspensions, two terminations, and we also have cases that are

pending legal review. and we get cases from investigations -- first of all, i don't have anything to do with the investigations until they get back to my office and we take a look at them and then we forward them to legal review with a recommendation, and then the legal review takes a look at it. and then we do a scully hearing. a scully hearing is a disciplinary hearing, giving due process to the people who are accused. and we have seven people now that are noticed and that we're waiting for, and seven cases that have been sustained that are pending legal review. so these are the cases that we have. did that answer your question a little bit? >> yes. thank you. >> okay. >> chairman: thank you so much again, sheriff hennessey. go hey, supervisor brown. >> [inaudible] >> so the d.p.a., they

investigate, right? and some of these charges are criminal, the allegations. so i assume -- i mean, how does the d.p.a. work with the d.a. because it seems like the d.a. should be taking the criminal investigations and moving them forward. and how does that -- using both of those, does that have a potential outcome, what is the potential outcome? >> i think paul henderson can probably answer that question better than i can, but what i can tell you from my point of view is that the allegations -- until you -- the d.a. is not going to be able to charge any allegations until there is a preliminary investigation anyway that shows what happened. they're going to need the -- they're going to need the evidence. and the evidence is in what is being gathered. and that is also the video

evidence. >> so are we -- is paul coming up? >> chairman: he is one of the people. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> chairman: thank you. thanks again, sheriff hennessey. >> i do have a few questions. so you talked a little bit about the initial investigation, and how it doesn't come to you at first. so the people involved at the initial investigation, who do they work for? >> they work for lieutenant sue ellen, who is here, by the way. >> they work for the sheriff's department? >> yes. everybody works for the sheriff's department. >> and the people who do legal review, who do they work for? >> they work for me. >> what about p.d.a.? >> they're an independent organization. >> so out of that structure, the only independent organization is p.d.a. let me ask you -- this is subject to your own

opinion, but do you think it is problematic for law enforcement to conduct their own investigations of misconduct? >> i think that it is no longer a model that the public will support. and i think what the public wants is an important, as an elected official, obviously. and while the other investigators from my department have done outstanding work with limited resources, i think policies that build community trust and inmate investigations will ensure public accountability and trust. i like the fact -- i'll be honest, i like the fact that d.p.a. has a robust organization and puts out regular reports. that's something that i wanted to do and i can never get to because i didn't have the resources. i think that will be excellent. >> and how do you respond to a claim, like when the d.a.'s office states they can't prosecute deputy sheriffs because the

sheriff's department destroyed evidence? >> number one, it is not clear any evidence was ever destroyed. this is a claim made by the defense, not by us and not corroborated by the sheriff's department. this is something -- this is something that kind of got legs in the press and took off, and i would say that this is something that the defense attorney said. and i am in the process of determining the status of the hard drive. i'm still looking for it because i don't believe it was destroyed. i believe that that's an allegation that is not correct. and i'm looking forward to continuing to work with the district attorney and keep them informed, and if the investigation goes well, then the case will be refiled. >> so you are saying that the d.a.'s office didn't say that evidence was destroyed by the sheriff's department? >> no. i'm saying that the defendant said that. >> and so did the d.a.'s office? >> the d.a.'s office said

they couldn't proceed because they believe that it was. i believe christine de barry is here today, and i think she can answer that question better than i can. but i would say there is some misunderstanding about whether or not that -- whether or not the evidence was destroyed. >> it was reported that the d.a. said they couldn't prosecute because evidence was destroyed. >> right. i know how it was reported. >> it didn't say it was because the defense said that. >> it was in the defense motion. i will say that i can't speak for the d.a. i just believe that that was not accurately reported. >> and you showed a table that showed a spike in allegations for last year. >> yes. >> and so in your honest opinion, do you think that the sheriff's department even has the capacity, or you as the sheriff, as the head of the body, should be making those decisions and conducting those investigations? particularly with the increases. >> now, are you talking

about the citizen complaints or the administrative investigations? >> i would put everything -- >> no, the administrative investigations need to stay with us. those are not allegations. similar to the police department, what they do, they do their internal investigations in this way. and the citizen complaints, i'm happy to have that discussion, but i think that's what we're here to talk about, is future discussions and future collaboration regarding any transitions that we may want to see happen. >> and decisions of administrative investigations only go forward if you decide that they rise to a higher level, correct? >> no. i have other people that look at them. the undersheriff generally looks at them, and we have our legal look at them at some point. but they don't make the determination on whether or not it goes forward. the law enforcement side does that. >> and who is over all of that? who has the final decision and the final say?

>> i have the final say. >> thank you, sheriff. >> uh-huh. >> any other questions, colleagues? thank you so much. >> okay, thank you. >> chairman: and now we do have a representative from the district attorney's office, i believe, ms. christine de barry is here to speak on behalf of the d.a.'s office. thank you. >> thank you all, and thank you supervisor walton for calling this hearing. i would like to direct my comments to the portion of these investigations that are relevant to our office, which is a criminal investigation. some of the questions that have been asked by supervisor brown and others may be facilitated by me explaining that the challenges we had in the current case where we took a dismissal was because there was not a clear separation between the investigation and the criminal investigation. from our point of view, it is critical improvement that needs to be made. i know the sheriff indicates some improvements they have

made internally, but we continue to have to take a dismissal on a very serious case, to have concerns about the lines of separation between those two types of investigations. it sounds as if there are movement afoot to make some improvements over the administrative investigations by referring those to the department of police accountability, that is outside of my purview, so i won't speak to that. but i think independence is always a helpful improvement. what i will say is d.p.a. is not invested with the authority to conduct a criminal investigation, and that would need to be handled either by the sheriff's department, as it is currently, or potentially by a law enforcement enttit entity or an entity that has sworn law enforcement officials. we created the independent investigations bureau several years ago to assist us in cases of officer-volvinvolved shootings, and it also

includes cases of excessive use of force, and also things that occur in the custody of either the police department or the sheriff's department. and that is only with the police department, and not with the sheriff's department, therefore we are not involved in the inception of criminal investigations allegations within the sheriff's department or by their deputies. those investigations are currently handled internally by their internal affairs division. and when they determine that those allegations rise to something that has potential criminal conduct that requires our involvement, then it is referred to us. we're not involved in the investigation. we're not involved in the collection of the evidence. and we have learned from our involvement in the san francisco police department cases that is a critical juncture, where we are able to as assure that the investigation is conducted independently and thoroughly. as attorneys, we understand what is required of us in the courtroom. we go against public defender's office and

private counsel all of the time, and we understand the threshold of evidence that will required of us to succeed in the prosecution, and therefore we often have much higher standards and expectations for the amount of evidence we want to see before bringing criminal charges. this has resulted in much more thorough investigations at officer-involved shootings and custody, and it is something you all and the sheriff may want to consider moving forward on the criminal investigations. without that, we find ourselves often in the situation that we are. unfortunately, a very serious case of jail fighting from several years ago, and the day we learned of it, we opened an investigation, and we worked with the f.b.i. to help us conduct that investigation. we asked the sheriff's department to stand down under the criminal investigation, and under another elected sheriff, that did not happen and three years later we ended up where we ended up. regarding the destruction

of evidence, if i could just briefly, i believe that employees of the sheriff's department relayed to our office, as well as in court, that a hard drive has been smashed with a hammer. and now there is information that perhaps that didn't happen. i cannot tell you the outcome of that. whether that hard drive does or not exist, and we're continuing to wait for the sheriff's department to confirm one way or another. what i can tell you is it made a mess of our criminal prosecution. it is very difficult for us to proceed with a clean investigation and prosecution. we fought very hard for that case. we were disappointed to have to take a dismissal. fortunately, we do have an opportunity to refile that case. we have since referred that to our independent investigations bureau, and they are starting from scratch to conduct a thorough investigation and see if we can put that case back together, even with the infirmities that have happened through the

first prosecution. there continues to be effort to be made on criminal investigations and where and how they are handled. i would also encourage you to think about if there are adequate stationary cameras in jail that can capture images such as these, and there are issues of abuse of force policies, and separations between the various investigations that i think would improve our ability to get to the truth in these accusations. >> thank you. >> i'd be happy to answer any question. questions. >> than thank you so much. supervisor brown? >> thank you, christine for being here. it is really helpful. so since the sheriff's department doesn't have the same structure as the police department, and that was created -- was that, like, four years ago? >> three. >> that was created because there was an

outcry of what was happening and how things were handled inside. can you just talk about the success that you've had, now that your department has taken on these cases. and when does the d.a. get involved? i mean, do you jump in right away and take care of it instead of waiting? can you kind of just describe that process and then just how the success of it has played out in the last four years? >> sure. i'd be happy to. in cases of officer-involved shootings, we respond to the scene, along with the police department. the police department conducts the crime scene management because they have a staff of 2,000, and we have within that unit a staff of 12 that can be deployed. they collect the evidence. we oversee that collection of evidence and consult with them on how that evidence should be gathered and catalogued. i would say our most

important role at the scene of officer-involved shootings is the gathering of witness statements and cataloging of those, and determining the order in which witnesses should be interviewed and by whom. and we now, as a result, are able to lead the inquiry with the involved deputy, rather than having a member of their own department conduct that questioning. it used to be handled by homicide within the department, and now that is handled by our attorneys and investigators. that has resulted in much more thorough investigations. we're able to ask questions that really allow us to pin down the details of what happens in one of these incidences, in ways that make it much clearer to us, whether there is or is not a criminal violation involved in that. oftentimes in the past we had problems of a lack of thorough questioning, and sometimes leading questioning, and it made

it quite difficult for us to ferret out the truth as to what happened in one of these encounters. so we feel much more confident in our review of those incidents, the details of what happened, and the decision-making that went into the officer's decisions in those incidences. we also, as a result of that, now receive more referrals from the san francisco police department for force cases, and we have several of those filed. some you have read about in the paper, and others maybe not quite yet. that has allowed us us to bring forward questions where officers in the san francisco police department have used excessive force on members of our community. those were cases that we very rarely saw in the past. so we're pleased to know that that relationship has allowed us to take over those investigations and bring them forward. it has always become a ferral place for other members of law enforcement, and members of the fire department and others have made referrals to us, as well as the general public. so i think primary to all of this, the conversation

you all are having is about the independence and the ability to be sure you have an im partial referee as to whether there is or is not a crime. and the thoroughness and the transparency, we make those available to the public, which i think is important. >> so you start right away? you jump in right away. >> right away. >> so if there is any evidence, you're able to get that right away? >> yes. >> you're not waiting for evidence, waiting for something to come in. as you said, you're able to question witnesses right away because we all know that after time passes, memories fade or things change, and so you're able to get in there right away. >> right. >> and so you feel that has been very successful as you're moving forward in these cases? >> dramatic improvement for us. you will recall something

several years that happened in the mission district, in a residential area, and very few of the residents were contacted and interviewed. and this is prior to us forming i.i.b., and we had to spend almost a year trying to reconstruct which individuals lived in that neighborhood at that time and what they may have seen, and try to gather their statements. it was very time-con tooconsumig and less efficient to do it retrospectively. and it is much better to do it as the individuals are there. >> and it is probably much more costly to do it that way, too, when you're waiting, because of all of the time you have to put in there. it is not time-efficient, so that means you're spending lots of hours, which means lots of public hours, trying to do something that is not very efficient and sometimes just doesn't work out, correct? >> agreed. >> thank you. >> chairman: supervisor mar. >> thank you. just a followup on

supervisor brown's questions. i was wondering if you might be able to share your thoughts on how we might be able to apply some of the positive and affective changes that have been made in the criminal investigation of police department misconduct complaints to the sheriff's department's criminal investigations to avoid, you know, hopefully what in the future had to happen and dismissal of the charges recently on the allegations of the sheriff's deputies staging the fights in the jails. >> sure. our preference would be to be involved at the earliest stages of an investigation of this type. rather, i think, than sending potential criminal allegations to d.p.a., it would make sense to send those directly to us. we're not entitled to look at the administrative investigation.

that is held completely separate. that is the problem we had in the case we were prosecuting, was that there was a co-mingling of interviews, and that can cause a taint in a criminal case and is not allowable under the law. so keeping those two streams has to be a starting point for any recommendations we make moving forward. so we can receive referrals from d.p.a., but we cannot receive their work product because they are -- i don't know in this situation how this will work with the sheriff's department, but they are part of the san francisco police department. so any of the work that they do as an administrative body is not appropriate for us in the criminal context. so the preference for our office would be to be involved in the very early stages of the criminal investigation. we attempted to do that in the jail fight case. we brought in the f.b.i. because we were concerned how large of a scale it might be.

you will recall this was about setting up gladiator-type fights for people held in the jail. and the f.b.i. was immediately available and willing to help us. we opened our investigation the day that the public defender held a press conference and indicated this was happening. and we sent a letter to the sheriff asking that they stand down and preserve ac any evidence they had. if we were able to pick up that evidence and know that nobody else was conducting a similar investigation, and that could cause problems for us when the case comes to criminal prosecution. >> thank you again. i do have a few questions. how do we guarantee sheriff's compliance? so if they don't want to turn over evidence to your office or accommodate a request, how do you guarantee you get that information or evidence? >> we have a couple of

tools available to us as prosecutors. so we can call a grand jury. we can call an investigative grand jury or an indicting grand jury, but we have to have some basis to believe that there is a crime. we can subpoena documents, obviously, and we can issue search warrants and arrest warrants. those are our legal tools that we can use to get that information. oftentimes, depending on the facts at hand, they may not be appropriate to use. and we obviously try to be diplomatic and collaborative in our interactions with another agency. so i don't generally resort to those tools unless necessary. the problems that we had in the current case unfolded slowly over time in an unusual way. it wasn't immediately obvious to us, all of the problems that were underneath the investigation. so once that happens, it is very hard for us, which is why we had to take a dismissal and start over with a team that had not been exposed to the administrative investigation.

and we have to have them completely walled off and have no interaction with the first team within special prosecutions that started that prosecution. so it is quite difficult to unravel, unfortunately. >> would you say it is harder for your office to use some of the tools available to you when there is not cooperation because of your collegial relationship with the sheriff's department? >> i don't think that -- collegiality doesn't keep us from doing our job. what is harder is we don't have a lot of visibility into where the problems may be. it was not clear to the prosecutor in our office that was handling that prosecution that the two had been c co-mingled. when we asked the sheriff to step down from the criminal investigation, they indicated they were not conducting one. it was in a written form,

so we took that to be a the truth, not a karbala casual statement, and we relied on that statement they that were not conducting a criminal investigation. it did not come out until much later tha the that that hay in fact conducted a criminal investigation. and we filed a case against the deputies, and the defense lawyers for those deputies honed in on the potential merging of those two investigations, and started to request the hard drives and cells phones to establish those investigations had been blurred. but that was outside of our accessability. we don't have any authority over it, or any ability to tell them, over a professional request that they stand down, but we don't have any ability to enforce that. >> do you think that is problematic? >> it was in this case. we don't know what caused all of that. i won't speculate. we prefer to handle it

ourselves. because if we can handle it from beginning to end, as we do in many other kinds of cases, the cases brought again uber and lyft, and then we understand where our evidence is, what our weaknesses -- what we can compecompensate for that. >> ho do you get cases of alleged misconduct of your office? is it always from the sheriff's department? >> traditionally it would be the sheriff's internal affairs referring a case to us. in the instance of the jail site case, that came because the public defender held a press conference, indicating there was fighting in the jails, and we opened an investigation of our own. an individual can come directly to us -- that's very rare, but they have the ability to come to i.i.b. or any other part of our office and say they have been the victim of a

crime in the jail, and ask us to investigate. i'm not familiar with that happening. most would come directly from the agency itself. >> you may not have this answer, but if you look at the table that was shown for 2016, 2017, 2018, do you know what percentage of those cases actually get charged or how many have been charged? >> so i don't believe -- we don't currently have any cases, other than the jail site case from the sheriff's department that we have open prosecutions on. i don't believe we have been referred any other investigations as of yet from them. >> and then just my last question, and you can tell me if my information is wrong, but i believe you have about $3 million in a unit that is dedicated to conducting alleged misconduct of law

enforcement, at least for the past three years. have you ever charged a case in this area, and what is the current case load? >> so, the only case we have involving the sheriff's department is the jail site case. which we are now starting over again as an investigation within that unit. so we're starting from scratch to see if we can pull that back together. as i mentioned, we don't have any other referrals from the sheriff's department or individuals alleging abuse at the hands of the sheriff's department. we have a case that is proceeding to trial with alameda county sheriff's deputies who conducted a high-speed chase into san francisco that resulted in somebody being beaten in an alley. and we have multiple others that involve the san francisco police department that are moving towards filing or are already filed. and then we also conduct the investigations of all of those incidents, as you

know. and most of those do not result in prosecutions, and most in-custody deaths do not result in prosecutions, and most have an drug overdose component. very few rise to the criminal violation. but we do an investigation to see if the california law allows us to bring criminal charges in those incidences. there is an average of six shootings a year in san francisco, and two to four in-custody deaths, and the use of force allegations varies. >> you opened a can of worms. i won't take time to address that -- >> i'm happy to. >> we can talk about that later. thank you, ms. de barry. >> thank you. my pleasure. >> and we have a representative from the

department of police accountability. i believe director henderson is here to let us know how they conduct investigations. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> thank you guys for calling the hearing. i'm paul henderson. i'm the director at the department of police accountability. i'm not going to presume that everyone knows how my agency works and what it does. i'm just going to give you a brief overview of some of the work that we do, and then i'll talk a little bit about the conversations and thoughts that i had with the subject that we're here today for. so the organization investigates d.p.a., the

department of police accountability, investigates complaints. we make findings about misconduct. we write and produce policy. and most recently we also do extensive and indepth audits. the agency has been around since 1982. the voters have -- the issue of oversight and accountability has gone to the ballot two or three times with two prop "g"s and one prop "h," and all of them collectively vote expanded and define what the authority is and the work that we do at the department of police accountability. i've been, as i said -- the agency has been around since 1982. i've been the executive director for a little over 18 months, really working hard to professionalize the office and

institutionalize standards about what we do, while trying to make that work more clear for the broader public. i will say some of the things that have changed recently with the agency has been stopping some of the long investigations that were taking place. so there has been like 16% of the case load at the office would drift into inaction because they had gone beyond the statute of limitations for how long the investigations were taking. and we've stopped that. we've had none -- no cases since i've been the executive director there. and i'm just talking a little about some of the work that we do and how we do it, and what has been happening recently at the agency because i think it is relevant, specifically, to this conversation. i was really concerned about having broader transparency and clarity about the work that we do, not just with the public,

but with the agencies that we work with. and i'm deeply integrated with the police commission, and i work obviously closely with the police department in terps of how i conduct my investigations. but in terms of those operations, some of the things that you can see clearly about what that work is and how it works is both on my website, but on the police commission's website as well because things are published, and we have police commissions weekly where people are informed as to what the work that is being done in my agency is on a regular basis. i would say that one of the things that i think you can measure are the spike in complaints that have come in over the past 18 months, that has been as high as 61% increase in complaints that have come in to my office. but i believe that that's because people now know there is a place where they can go.

many of these are from the public, to address some of their concerns that are followed up with investigations from my office. i think the outreach there is important. the information about my agency can be found in any police station. and we get referrals from a number of different ways. and i have an overview of this, if this is helpful, to explain what and how complaints come in. and this is a flow chart so people can understand how the process works. it is really similar to the work that is already being done at the department of police accountability. and one of the ways that you can see where it can go in, so we can continue doing the investigations in a way that has already been established for

professionals. professionalism. i think it is only clear if you have very clear understandings with agencies that you're working with, what that can look like, and we've done that at the d.p.a. with the police department, with a series of department general orders that we were a at the table drafting, and m.o. u.s as well, and all of those clarify exactly what each step will be so there is no ambiguity as to whether or not information can be turned over, what information is turned over, what the jurisdictional issues are and what the agreements are between all of the agencies at the table. and i would imagine that something similar would have to be done in the current situation, given the conversations that we've been having. i will say what the intention is on my behalf, was to have these cases go into our recently created special investigative

unit, which we put together with some of our most senior investigators, and some of our more senior lawyers working with our high-profile and serious cases. and so that is the unit that i've assigned to be working with the sheriff in these cases and taking over these investigations. i will say that this came about with conversations both with the sheriff who reached out to us initially, and with the late jeff adochi, who had reached out to me as well, to discuss and address his concerns about independence and asking if i would come to the table to work in creating the possibility or this option that we're talking about right now. i think as we've been talking about these things, we've been con flating some of the different things about

citizen complaints and grievances, and maybe i can clarify some of these things about the separate tracks of criminal investigations, administrative investigations and civil investigations that go on. many times they are concurrent things, and i think that has led to some of the confusion of what we're talking about. but it is not an uncommon thing in any transgression, not just law enforcement agencies, but let's focus on law enforcement, to have several tracks moving forward concurrently. it is when the tracks are blurred that is problematic. many of the charter amendments and policies internally were designed specifically to make sure there are not the kind of transgressions that have taken place in the past, where there has been a mix up of what information goes to whom and how it

gets there, and blurring the lines between the administrative processes, the criminal processes, and the personal processes all at the same time. i would point to the clarity in those lanes with the m.o.u., with the district attorney's office, which defines how it is investigated and turned over to the district attorney's office when there is a possibility of criminal charges. and on the back end, when grievances or transgressions come up from the district attorney's office, for that to be turned over to my office for investigation as well. i think that is a really important thing. what i presume in this case, which is a little bit unique, is that some of the properties from the sheriff involve another district attorney's office, but there is no need to guess what that relationship would look like because we already

have an m.o.u. that could be adopted or clarified. and if it involved criminal behavior or criminal conduct, that would be turned over with notification to both the sheriff and the district attorney's office as well. i wanted to clarify that. but i'm happy to answer your questions about your thoughts with the process. and just to say that i think the goal here is two-fold, for us to be working in partnership with the sheriff, and that is both broader transparency and independent investigations, which is exactly what i think the d.p.a. has been doing and has been its mandate from its inception, and currently what we've been doing, i would argue, very well. >> thank you, director henderson. supervisor brown? >> yes. thank you, paul henderson,

for being here today. i appreciate that. >> my please stay wit pleasure. >> so for a novice like me, and maybe many others in san francisco, when we're talking about this, and i used to be with the d.a.'s office, so you understand that process. >> yes. >> how many employees do you have right now? >> i heard, i think someone said 49. i thought it was 52. >> the reason i ask, do you have a complete separate, like, structure of your department that only deals with the criminal cases? because -- and have that kind of staff? and as you know, working with the d.a.'s office, you have a certain mindset when you know it is criminal or excessive force, anything like that that you have to deal with. so do you have separate staff that when something like that comes in, that you can jump right away? because when i was talking

to the d.a.'s office, mr. barry, when they hear about it, they're on the case right away. and they're at the scene. how long does it take to normally get to you? >> you're raging som raising sof the things i wanted to clarify. let's say there is an officer-involved shooting. it is not uncommon for there to be up to four concurrent investigations going on at the same time. so within 20 minutes or so at the scene of a shooting, you will have representatives from the d.p.a., you will have representatives from internal affairs, you will have representatives from even the medical examiner's office and investigators from the direcdistrict attorney's office. so it is not an uncommon thing for an individual or a specific transgression to involve multiple agencies at the same time. the issue, and i think where the wheelt wheels have fallen off in the past, is

how those agencies have corresponded with each other and how they have shared or not shared evidence back and back and backh with each other. or when it goes to statute of limitations, and different policies of how information and evidence is collected or not shared has been the problem in the past. which is why i have such strong feelings about these m.o.u.s, and why they've been a big priority for me with the agencies i been involved with. i think they've made not just my agency more efficient, but the agencies i'm working with more efficient as well. so they know when they come across transgressions, what do they do with it? and, more importantly, when do they do it. so as you discover it, you share that information. so my office's role would not be prosecuting the case in the criminal lane, but my office will be

involved in turning the information over as it is discovered and on a regular basis with the district attorney's office. >> but that's for the police department, not for the sheriff's department? >> correct. >> that's what i'm saying. with the sheriff's department, how long before you -- from when the incident happened to when it is turned over normally -- i mean, it might be a little different, but average, that you receive that allegation and that you jump in for the criminals, not the administrative. >> i would anticipate it wouldn't be any different at all, and i would turn the information over immediately. so as i discovered it, i would turn it over many. >> how long does it take to get to you from the sheriff's department? >> well, we haven't done it yet, so -- >> oh, well -- >> but since you're talking about these specific cases that have been in the press, and i think the sheriff alluded to this and some of the other commentators alluded to this as well, they have already started giving us

the information this week. so we have already started looking at those documents. and i will say, since i'm talking about it, just so we're clear, we already have the permits of authority from the employee -- employer, the sheriff, hennessey, to start reviewing those documents. >> usually when the incident happens, it goes through a couple of different people from the sheriff's department -- >> or not. it doesn't have to. >> and sheriff hennessey gives it to the d.p.a. -- am i correct? >> yes. but it doesn't nes recall necesy have to come from the sheriff. we can take complaints directly to us -- >> so it would have to come through the public defender's office, if someone complained, or a family member? >> yes, and more. it can come from a friend. it can come from the public defender. it can come from the d.a.'s office. it can come from the

sheriff. that's the whole point, we have to institutionalize the process so people and agencies and agents know they can share the information. and then it is those agencies' obligations to make sure that the complaints are handled appropriately, both internally and externally. i think where we've had problems in the past is that externally the information wasn't shared properly. it wasn't shared expeditiously, and it wasn't shared efficiently. and all three of those things have led to a number of the problems that we're addressing now. >> and i think that's why a lot of people get confused. >> yes. >> and that's why family members will come to us with complaints. >> correct. >> and i'm really happy that your office is open to say, come in with complaints, with whomever it is, family members, friends, whomever -- >> otherwise you marginalize -- >> yes. so when someone comes with

a complaint, you have to go to the sheriff's department and say, we have this complaint, give us what we need, right? >> correct. >> so then it really depends on, you know, how fast the family can move or a friend can move, or whomever, to actually get you to jump on it, right? >> which is why we want to make the process as easy as possible for people to contact us and let us know. i will say that oftentimes the evidence that they have independently is some of the evidence that we rely on to make our findings and present our cases. so that it's not just someone tells us something and the only way we can get evidence that is corroborative is from the sheriff's department or whatever the agency is. there are often sometimes extrensic ways. and i would remind everyone that many of our complaints come in

anonymously. sometimes people don't even identify who they are or what the real problem is, but just tell us about incidences. i think this is a good thing, beyond the individual complaints we sustain against individuals, having the umbrella of policy recommendations and audit functions, allows us to look at patterns and practices independent of an individual transgression, to address bad behavior, trends, inappropriateness from the agencies we work with as well. i'll give you a specific example. oftentimes you may have permissive authority to do something, like put someone in solitary confinement, but there is a trend or indication that you tend to put trans latino women in solitary confinement more than anyone else, and here is what we've discovered, and here is a recommendation about what you need to do to stop that behavior. you know what i mean?

it's a bigger picture. it goes beyond, i think, just an individual analysis that a complaint is made and then you get the information from that direct agency to help you conclude what has gone wrong and what recommendations you can make, and what an appropriate sentence, punishment, or response will be for the agency. >> so my last question is -- i mean, do you really -- i feel like we need out reach. if this is going to be -- because i don't think people understand this. they understand how to maneuver for a police department complaint. we have a commission, and offices of complaints, and we have these things and people know about them. but i just don't feel like the public knows about what you're office does and how you can help them. and i just feel like the outreach has to be much more -- >> rob robust. >> -- robust and in areas

that would need that help. there are areas in my community, and i think others, that have members of their family that are incarcerated or are waiting for a trial, and they just don't know. >> i would agree with that 100%. i would say, which is why i talked about the spike in complaints to my office, nationwide, the trend is down for complaints to law enforcement agencies. state-wide, the trend is down with complaints to law enforcement agencies for oversight. in san francisco, i believe the spike we're having with the 61% increase is directly and specifically correlated to the outreach that my office is doing by appearing and specifically targeting disenfranchised communities and formalizing the process with the police department so our information about how to make a complaint is in every single station. >> are you going into the communities? >> absolutely, absolutely. we coordinated both with board members, when you guys have community events, and with the

mayor's office and with different community groups that we partner with, the aclu, the bar association, just different groups all throughout the city to make sure that we have a presence and people have understanding with fliers and information. if you have a complaint, if you see something wrong, if something is bothering you, you can call us, give us your name, give us the facts, and it can even be anonymous. and that coupled with our language access, which i think is really important here in san francisco, and these were areas that had not been given as much robust attention with my agency -- >> not at all, actually. >> that's the past. this is what we're doing know. i'm looking forward to and being optmistic about the value that i think that my agency provides to the broader public, and the value i think my agency provides to law enforcement agencies of being able to give them feedback and direct information and transparent information

about what is actually happening. and these are concerns that i think have plagued law enforcement agencies for a long time, with people not being clear or having obscured information and access to what the accountability looks like. we're trying to expand that. >> one last question -- i'm sorry for all of the questions. >> yes. >> i know you have attorneys and also investigators, right? >> correct. >> do you have social workers? >> it's -- that's funny you mention that. we don't have social workers on staff, but we've had social workers come and train and present to our staff specifically because we do so much public contact and public interaction. >> exactly. >> so much of my frontline staff is trained in terms of resources that are available -- it is not uncommon for people to reach out to us with ancillary problems. they want to make a complaint about the police, but they're also homeless. they want to make a complaint about the police, but they are also

being evicted or have a substance abuse problem, or they made medical care or aids services, and that is not an uncommon thing at all. and because my agency is such a public entity, and part of its mission and objective is to maintain clear visibility and a service provider and referral for folks that come in -- those principles are integrated into the work that we do. you can't solve one thing without addressing the other. >> exactly. >> i would love to get a social worker on staff. >> okay. >> because i think that would be really helpful. but those principles are incorporated into how we address and work with the broad public that we interact with on a daily basis. >> all right, thank you. >> thank you, mr. henderson, and thank you for all of the good work since you've stepped into the d.p.a.'s office.

i just had a few questions about your -- about the capacity of your office and your resources to take on more of perhaps even all of the future citizen complaints. >> yes. >> around the sheriff's department. especially given the fact that you said there has been a significant increase in complaints that you've been taking on -- or started to receive for the police department misconduct allegations. >> yes. >> and from sheriff hennessey's presentation, just on citizen complaints for the sheriff's department, the data that we see shows that it has been increasing as well from 2016. there were 27, in 2017, 33, and in 2018, the big jump to 80 with the -- >> let me speak to that just to put it all in context, in terms of the work my agency is currently doing. much of the capacity is

defined in the charter. when prop "g" came along, it tied our mandate to the number of investigators in staff and law enforcement with the police department. so it is one per 1050. 150. so that defines what my agency looks like to make sure capacity is always addressed by definition with the agency i'm working with. and i would say, too, just in terms of the bigger numbers, and these are numbers i publish regularly in my annual report and on line and within the police commission as well, on s.f. gov. tv, which i'm sure you watch every wednesday, but we do a little over 2,000 -- we did a little over 2,000 complaints a year, and we conduct over -- currently we conduct over 700 investigations a year. i'm working on the numbers now for 2018. those are our numbers