controlled weapon. electronic controlled weapon. ultimately, yes. the serious incident review board, once we get to that point, will do exactly what you just described. we are not at the point where we have a civilian, have not worked in that yet. we have discussed that, and we have consulted with the city attorney on what the requirements to actually have that type of involvement, but we are not there yet. but this board is the first phase of what the longer process that will roll into the serious incident review board to do all the things you just described, but we are not there yet. >> and the last thing, you are talking about two members of the s.f.p.d. attending the master training and then trained and additional ten. you are talking, it's a very small compared to the force, 1200, 1300. is everybody getting a taser, is it going to be the whole force, is that enough for the whole

force? >> as it stands right now, and the way the policy is written, only those that have been trained with both the 40 hour c.i.t. and the 20 hour, use of force and the field tactics training will even be eligible. that's about half the department. of that half, not all of those individuals were in patrol, so under the best scenario, if we were to roll it out to everybody that's in training would be half the department. don't plan to it all at once. it will be phased in. the plan is phase it in, and funding has a lot to do with that as well. >> i understand you finalizing the policy. next time we can have something in writing, but you were going too fast for me to take notes. >> no worries. and intended to be a status update. you asked for a status update. a lot is still in process so it's hard to give you a final project when it's still in process. >> appreciate that.

i want to talk about the o.i.s., m.o.u., officer-involved shooting with the district attorney. when we first got word that was going to happen, we asked a lot of questions. i'm just, and we were told we were in process and i have seen the interview where he said it was dragging on and a long time. so, i guess -- i didn't realize it was signed. i was hoping we would be able to see the m.o.u. before it was signed, since it was something we were all interested in and something like two years, if not longer. so i'm, i'm disappointed we were not able to see it before it was signed. i would like to see a signed cop and maybe put it on the agenda to at least look at it to see what's going on there. and especially since the confer process, maybe some dialogue whether you anticipate. >> it's already gone to be conferred. >> maybe as a commission we should at least see it and get an understanding from what you or the city attorney whether we

anticipate any difficulty or problems in the meet and confer process. i think something like that is so important, it should have been on the agenda for the commission, at least a head's up it was about to be signed. i'm disappointed we didn't see it, i think we should see it, it's our duty and i'm very interested to see what the d.p.a. roll is in that. i think they are supposed to participate as well. it's not separate because the police -- the problem we need the m.o.u. police does the investigation but the d.p.a. and the d.a. will be there, i'm not sure who is leading it, but my understanding, still the police department cordoning off the area, tracking down witness reports, photographs, still the department. you have to believe the other two didn't have the resources.

>> all the responsibilities are laid out in the m.o.u. in terms of the lead -- district will lead the criminal investigation. administrative investigation of the department will still have administrative investigation, and the department of police accountability will do their independent investigation. >> man power for the administrative investigation, my understanding, heavily with the department. i guess i don't know -- >> still rest with the department. we have to do our own administrative investigation. criminal investigation, district attorney lee. >> he criticized that. he thought the police should not be investigating the police and he feels, he felt, in the interview he felt sorry he took it over, he didn't have the resources to do the full independent investigation. still basically the department in the investigation. >> district attorney for two years sat in every one of these negotiations or somebody from

the district attorney's office, so this is a joint collaborative agreement between the district attorney and the san francisco police department. >> point out where the deficit still is, still an issue about whether it's truly independent. that's all i'm saying, and we would have had more information if we could have seen it. i want to put it on the agenda as soon as i can. >> i think, chief, we have a standing request to see all the major m.o.u.s. the request had been made a while ago. and we have not gotten those yet, and i think we still have tho request down there. >> part of the d.g.o., 2.04, a list of all the m.o.u.s we had to go through over 300 documents to determine what was still active and whatnot. so we do have that narrowed down to all the active m.o.u.s and will shortly be prepared to give that to the commission.

>> i think we want to focus on the key ones, and that's probably up to your discretion in part, but this certainly would fall in that category. >> the f.b.i. wanted the key one -- >> may be hundreds. let's not have a back and forth. commissioner hamasaki. >> thank you. so, i'm going to follow up on a few questions asked by other commissioners. the e.c.w. review board, is that something where we are going to have an opportunity to have a commissioner sit on the board? >> the review board -- >> serious incident, that's in place, but i know that even well before my time and for many years tasers have been a very big issue and important issue, and heard from the commissioners who have been on during the

taser meetings that there's been a lot of concern, and so i think in the oversight capacity we should have a rotating member of the commission on the review board. since it only meets quarterly, seems like a manageable load for seven of us. >> i'm reading the d.g.o., and it provides for two members of the police commission to be on an advisory capacity. e.c.w. review board composed of, just reading, two members of the police commission advisory, deputy chief of the administration bureau, deputy chief of the airport bureau, deputy chief of the field operations bureau, and professional standards bureau, deputy chief of the special operations, commanding officer of the training division, commanding officer of risk management. director of police accountability and others. >> and also -- ok.

well, it's wonderful when we actually read our own d.g.o.s. thank you, commissioner taylor. so it sounds like in place a capacity for this. is that accurate? >> yes, sir. and so go back to what i said earlier, this was a lot of work went into this, and a lot of input went into this, and it's spelled out in the d.g.o. in terms of the structure. we were tasked with building it out and putting it on paper from this point forward. >> and may be in the d.g.o. as well, apologize for not reading it, i did previously but a long time ago. is there a structure in place for quarterly reporting on, from the e.c.w. review board? >> so, that -- there was a question asked about the committee. one of the things that we have put forth is the commission will be able to look at these on a monthly basis.

i mean, you have to manage the work. we don't know what is anticipated, i don't anticipate, you know, thousands of these discharges or anything like that. but the committee basically will be a subset of the review board. the committee will do it on a monthly basis. >> i'm sorry, i don't think i made my question clear. i meant, are they going to be reporting to the commission? >> as far as the reports? >> yes, coming out of -- i saw, my understanding, it will go through the committee, go to the board and come to the commission, quarterly basis? >> ultimately reports to the commission, yes. >> and the third issue was the one that commissioner taylor raised, which is you know, i think with tasers, i guess i would have questions classifying to serious injuries and

nonserious injuries. because you know, and again, i'll say i'm not as well versed as some of the other commissioners on the commission for many years maybe about the use of tasers. to my understanding, every use of a taser can be lethal. so, as a lethal weapon, say somebody uses it and they miss and using it in a wreckless or dangerous fashion that could cause loss of life. i don't want to see just because they happen to have bad aim, the problematic uses of tasers not being given the proper focus. how do we address that? and separating them like that, that is focussed on the end, focussed on the result as opposed to the action itself. >> they all will be reviewed. all will be reviewed.

i'll use this analogy. think of it, let's say we have a shots fired incident where somebody is shot at, it's a very serious crime. but if a person shot and now you have a homicide, you are going to commit a separate, a different level, a higher level of resources to the homicide. it's really the same line of thinking. they all will be reviewed, all investigated, but if you have a serious injury or death, it rises to a different level. >> like attempted murder versus murder. >> priority of work. >> somebody being hurt or killed, it will take that to a different level of review. like the example i gave with the shooting. we investigate all shootings but

when you have the homicide, different protocol. it brings it to a different level of urgency. >> ok. i just -- i don't want us to be missing where potentially there is opportunities to learn and training and use, if devices are going to be used. >> understood. we don't intend to. we are looking at all of them. but again, prioritizing the work and really you do have to set priorities, particularly somebody is injured, somebody is hurt, rises to a different level. >> and d.g.o. it was laid out in pretty great detail the various things they consider. it's a long list. >> so we all know, 5.02, and a, appendix a, it's on the website, it's available to the public, available to the commissioners. >> when we put things on the agenda, it's great, that's what

i read in preparation for the meeting. >> commissioner elias. >> thank you. so my question, chief, is why we weren't given a copy of the m.o.u. before it was signed, especially when the m.o.u. is going to affect 1, 2, 3, 4 different d.g.o.s and one of our tasks is to redo the d.g.o.s and make sure the policies and procedures of the police department are sort of followed and so i guess my concern is along the lines of commissioner dejesus, why we were not given a head's up on the m.o.u., which is very important. >> commissioner, respectfully, the day-to-day operations of the police department which, right now m.o.u.s, the chief of police or the department head is given the authority to execute m.o.u.s, it's in the day-to-day

authority of the chief of police. this m.o.u. has been asked about, discussed with this commission for almost two and a half years i've been here. so, there is nothing hidden, secret or anything like that. we were asked for a status update. we have been going through the process now for two and a half years. i'm not saying that, commissioner. what i'm saying is as the chief of police, i have to be given the authority to run the operations of the department and if the commission wishes to run the day-to-day operations of the department, you know, i think that's -- you know -- no, commissioner, i have to be given the authority to run the department. and this m.o.u., have no problem bringing it to the commission, making it public, it's not an

issue. but in terms of the authority to sign m.o.u.s, we have a lot of m.o.u.s, a lot of agreements, and it has not been a requirement to bring each of those m.o.u.s before the commission to get approval before i sign and now that changes -- >> and i understand that part, chief. i agree with you. there's a lot on your plate and there's a lot of decisions you have to make on a daily basis to keep this department running and i think you are doing a great job. my concern is that this m.o.u. is a little different than sort of any regular day-to-day m.o.u. this involves four different d.g.os and you know, we are in the process of redoing a lot of the d.g.o.s for the department that have not been done since the 1990s, and we are trying to adhere to the d.o.j. recommendations that says our policies and procedures are outdated. with this m.o.u. i think it's a little different and should have been treated a little different, it's not an m.o.u. that does not affect the whole purpose of why

we are here and one of the things we are trying to accomplish. i guess that's my issue. it's not, and i don't -- i think, i agree with you, the day-to-day m.o.u.s or the operations of the police department does fall on your lap and there's no issue there. our concern is the fact that this, you know, again, relates to various d.g.o.s and they are not sort of like what does the officer wear to work or uniform requirement. these are d.g.o.s that affect the public in a very serious way as well as the officers. >> yes. and so d.g.o.s, for instance, 3.10, firearm discharge, or 8.11 investigations of officers-involved shootings, 8.11 currently spells out that the district attorney and the san francisco police department will investigate officer-involved shootings. that has not changed.

what's changed is the delineation of the duties. it spells out who does what. >> and as a result, the d.g.o.s will change because of the m.o.u. >> some will change in terms of the names of, because we had to make some internal changes in terms of who gets called out and on what. but fundamentally what i'm saying, none of this, commissioner, is a surprise or shouldn't be. two and a half years in the making and a very public topic. so, i understand the commission wishes to direct the department to bring m.o.u.s before signature and that's what the commission votes to do, we'll do it. but as of now, the protocol has

been that the day-to-day operations of the police department, the chief of police has the authority to make those decisions. >> i think what i'm hearing, though, there is an issue about policy and issue about operations. and if it bleeds over into policy, i think the commission is entitled to weigh in and should. if it's operations, then we are really not involved in your operations but until we actually see what was done, we won't know. i think we need to look at it and then we need to think about whether we feel it affected enough policy we should be involved. that's our role. policy is our role, operations is your job. >> and i want to be clear. i did ask for the m.o.u. several months ago and was told by your command staff that i couldn't have it or it was not available. so, you know, i don't -- i have not seen it. so, i have asked before. >> we just finished the meet and

confer process about a month ago. yeah. signed it, but it was going through the meet and confer process with the p.o.a. and through d.h.r. >> okay. i would like to move on to the next commissioner. thank you. commissioner brookter. >> two clarifying questions to close the loop around e.c.w., the first being, none of what was stated is set in stone. so this is a work in progress and update on the status. >> yes. >> lastly, so, with that, i wanted to also go back to commissioner dejesus's point there was previously a working group that was active so currently is not an active working group now. >> there has not been a working group to do the internal things that we have done, no. all the work that we have done, let me ask you a question first.

no, there was not a working group that sat down with us to get things that i just described for the commission. the direction on what was done was based on that work from the working group. everything that was laid out about how the serious incident review board would be constructed, what the intent of it was, that was the product of a working group. the department then took that and came up with what i just described, all the things i just described. >> in the future, we will reconvene the working group. >> before this is finalized, yes. >> commissioner dejesus. >> so i don't want to beat a dead horse but have to say, department of justice talked about independent of investigation and the blue ribbon panel did and other commissions and the d.a. said he would offer a whole separate committee and get funding. i asked over and over where we are with the m.o.u. for numerous

times and as a matter of fact i recall this commission insisting the d.p.a. be at the table initially they were not at the table when you were doing the m.o.u. and they also play a role in this investigation. and also hearing that is even alter d.g.o. when it affects policy it should be brought to our attention. it's something we were interested in, and yeah, the last six months we might not have brought it to the table but it's as important as the f.b.i. m. o.u., certain ones when they affect policy they should be here. i just wanted -- >> vice president taylor. >> hi, chief. i don't want to belabor the past anymore, but would, if the commission could get a copy of the m.o.u., that would be helpful. >> yes. >> ok. thank you. moving on to the next agenda item.

>> good evening, chief. >> good morning. president hirsch, vice president taylor, members of the commission. director henderson, chief scott, members of the public. deputy chief bob mowser and i'm here to introduce our next presentation on our behavioral science unit programs and resources. tonight you are going to hear about some of the functions of the behavioral science unit. much of what they do on a daily basis really goes unnoticed because they are working directly with the men and women of the san francisco police department and their families. i believe you are going to find that after tonight's presentation you are going to see that what the b.s.u. does on a daily basis for members of the

department is a crucial function and often goes unnoticed. i would like to take this moment to publicly acknowledge that. with that, i would like to introduce the members of our team that are here tonight. i'm joined by sergeant mara pengal, sergeant art howard, and in the audience, officer dennis ro rodalis and chaplain megan roar. sergeant howard and pengal for tonight's presentation. >> good evening to you two. >> good evening. >> we'll put the presentation up. i want to give history about b.s.u. and how it started. we are a unit that provides and coordinates psychological support and education to all sworn and civilian members of the department. we provide crisis intervention,

peer training, and we have referrals to licensed psychologists. this unit was created in the 1970s by one of our lieutenants, al benner, and for the use of crisis and trauma on the job and personal stressors. so, with all that we are presenting to you today, they provide and support education to our members throughout the law enforcement career. we follow the officers from entrance into the department -- into the department, beginning with the recruitment orientation and family nights and resiliency training. we do continuous professional training and addressing post traumatic stress, suicide, substance abuse and addiction, briefings, psychologists and emotional well-being, and continuing support even with our retirees. our b.s.u. model is based on

peers and it was in 2007 it was the national model by the perf, and it was noticed as a best practice. we work closely as you will see with our command staff and our chain in command to make sure our officers get as much help as they can through their trauma and crisis. as you can see, this is the confidential assistance program. broken down in a few services that we have. we have our peer support team, critical incident response team, the catastrophic illness program, the psychologists professionals, m.h.n. police and community chaplains, stress unit and the west coast post trauma retreat, run by the first responders support network. and as you can see, our records and all units, we do not keep notes, everything that is presented to us at b.s.u. is

confidential. and as i said before, it's with our chain of command is very supportive and we can go to them regarding any issues. so our peer support, they are trained, 24-hour class postman dated, and we have about 300 peer support members right now, and they are trained inactive listening, problem solving assessments, and peer mentoring. and we provide three classes three times a year. up to 42 members on four different teams that are on call for all critical incidents in the city. we have up to 7 to 10 members that can be called to help out members in crisis regarding officer-involved shootings, sids deaths, and any calls supervisors feel has impacted the officers.

catastrophic illness program, i don't know if you are familiar with, is run by the city and county of san francisco through the department of public health. we have numerous officers that are in the catastrophic illness program. they apply for that through the city, and all officers then donate time to them so they can stay home and deal with issues that they have. there is also a component to the catastrophic illness to family members also, and we facilitate that. >> good evening, i'm going to talk about our psych pros. we have a contract that is outside of our blue shield. our officers have access to e.a.p. mental health. we have had it for a long time, it's quite successful. and really, the meat and potatoes of what we do as a unit. every two years our officers come up to the academy to get their, part of their a.o. training, 40 hours. we get them for two hours to

remind them the unit exists, we talk about the different themes of ptsd, suicide, and the theme right now is resiliency. but we are trying to pitch the mental health check, our core message, to tell our officers to get a mental health professional in their corner before they need one. see one when they are normal so whether they are abnormal they can tell the difference. and our officers are peace officers, crisis therapists and our job is solve something, so we have a lot of trouble asking for help and the unit is available 24/7 to take questions from officers when they start in mid career and say i need help, and so our job is to sort of triage them and the right level of care and the big part is using this mental health benefit. eight visits per critical incident and each of the family members do, and we work with the family to get them, our

attitude, we are helping an officer with a family member, helping them get back to work, so they are not worrying about the family members. and also a 24-hour crisis line. if the officers don't want to call the unit, they can call directly and talk to a therapist, unlimited web counseling. so, officers in the hospital or family member in the hospital, access to counseling and childcare and financial and legal advice. so, it's a great benefit. we had a utilization rate when i came to the unit, nine years ago, like a 4 to 6% utilization rate, about average for most agencies. [please stand by]

you know, if there is a death, a traffic accident death, an officer on scene can say this is a heavy situation, i would like to get a resource. covertly for the officers so they can detach, they can go to the next one knowing there is a resource left for the family. with ubs homicide occurred -- when the ups homicide occurred, there were 200 sequestered witnesses. heaven forbid we have a warehouse fire or something like

that. the idea of having folks trained up to liaison between the community and the police department, there is just -- helping community members on the worst day of their life, for us, we had a soft rollout, there were a couple of suicides over the holidays that we were called out for. we're able to find out about the events that are impacting officers that i might not normally hear about. so i know the suicide was pretty heavy for the family, but the officers, too. it gives us a chance to go out and follow up with the officers and make sure they are doing okay. we are doing it with the me's office, and doing a training with them. they will get signed up before they come out on the street. they're doing 88 hours of certification, and we are doing post and d.o.j. best practices for the program. so another component of the unit is called the stress unit. it predates the behavioural science unit. it was really -- the idea of

dealing with the alcohol culture of the sixties and seventies that was going on in the up department and having at the idea of officers in recovery to help fellow officers and family members. so we were the first on the west coast to have this with us and l.a. to have a program like this , and our job, as myself and the sergeant are both certified as alcohol councilors, and we want to help up -- help officers in crisis and the family members in 2004 they did a survey of the u.s., 95% of the police suicides were alcohol-related. i would say, if you have an officer with a drinking problem going through a breakup, you have a potential suicide on your hand. our job is to be there for 24/7 for the officer and families and coordinate their care. we really do mean 24/7. we don't want them to crash and burn. we also have the 1111 program, so as part of an officer's

disciplined, they will be mandated to our unit. we are seen as a resource, you're given a second chance. our job is to meet them where they are at to get them to a level of care that they deserve. we do also a lot of work with insurances and we have really high level of courage -- coverage with insurance. we get officers into treatment right away. you know, there's a whole first responder support network that we can talk about, but they have recovery meetings all up and down the state that we can access and have our officers plugged into. in terms of our training, we have a two day resiliency training that we are doing with the recruits. before they start the academy, they are given two days of resiliency training. the dr. who was one of the -- the doctor was one of the first responders is leading that. we have been using this training for five years now. we started doing it with our

last two academy classes. the idea is suicide prevention. it is getting them, before they even start the academy, teaching them about stress management, resiliency, teambuilding, so before they are studying for tests, to know that there are resources available in that they can keep an eye on each other as they move through their career. as i mentioned, we get the officers every two years in the advanced officers training, and remind them about the resources. we will have officers say, i heard you two years ago, this time i can't get enough of it. this message hits them at different points in their lives and their career, so our job is to keep putting the message out there for them to pay attention to it. the officer involved training for supervisors. we are involved with that in terms of our service response. we have pierce support and search training to conduct to keep our officer. teams. i like to think our 300 pierce support members are 300 confidential informants. we have 300 officers out in the

field keeping an eye on each other and knowing where the resources are, knowing how to ask the tough questions, and then we have a retirement seminar. we had a lot of officers passed away early in retirement either around drinking or suicide, so our idea is to get in with their families to let them know about the resources that are available so they can take care of themselves. we do a lot of work with retirees, a lot of work with outside agencies because no agency really has this kind of resource. and then we partnered up with cop line out of l.a. and new jersey, and it is a 24-hour international crisis line for first responders, for law enforcement, and they want retirees to be part of the program, so we are recruiting our retirees to join this program, and staff this line to do an all-expenses-paid trip to

l.a., 40 hour training to get retirees trained up to take care of each other. we are really excited about that in terms of the next generation of support. i will turn this back over to the sergeant. >> as i said, the west coast trauma retreat is a six-day residential program for first responders suffering from ptsd. it is in a confidential location at this point, they started in 2001. at that point, they had three retreats a year. they're now running up to 19 retreats a year for first responders, and three retreats for spouses and significant others. at this point, we have saved 1,301st responders. -- 1300 first responders and then they leave, law enforcement assistance fund, this was funded by a group of law enforcement suicide survivors. they provides financial support

to family members in need and all law enforcement throughout the agency and they do all types of fundraising. you will see them at the giants game, and they provide money for anyone that is in need. that is us. >> thank you. questions from the commission? vice president taylor? >> i want to thank you so much for coming. this was at my request because i think this is incredibly important. this might be the most important thing the department does on every level, not only for officers, but for members of the community. i know i certainly have -- my life has been touched by suicide , and i'm sure many of the people in this room. and especially in dealing with law enforcement. you are talking about of group of people who see the worst that human beings can do to each other on a regular basis, and what that does to your psyche, and what that does to, you know, your ability to cope on a day-to-day basis, interacting with the community emotionally

and mentally. there are a few things that were really heartening to me to hear. one of the main questions i had was, you know, how often are cops seeking help? you're in a profession where you take it on the chin and you keep going, but that has detrimental effects for everyone. yourself, the community, and your family. so i think 33% was a number you gave which was fantastic, and i want to know if there's anything that the commission can do, the chief can do can't get -- to get that number even higher. if, you know, there are members of the community that think mental health issues for officers -- if you think it doesn't have anything to do with you, absolutely does. it has everything to do with how we police, how we interact in this world, and whether or not we are able to live productive lives, and so whatever we can do , i would like to hear more about that to get that number even higher. thirty-three% is wonderful, but this is a big deal.

so, for example, i would think that if you are an officer who is in the homicide unit, or the child sex, or gangs, you will have ptsd just walking around every day, just by virtue of what you do, so i don't know if there's anything we can do -- i don't know if you can mandate, but really make this more of an integral part of what you do as an officer so that we don't lose more people to suicide, or you don't have more volatile encounters with the community, or you don't have these incidences of alcoholism or dependency. i honestly believe it is the most important thing that we can do, the most important thing the department can do for its members and for the community. i don't know if you have thoughts on that. >> i can comment on the fact that within the last two years, we have done 45 critical

incident stress debriefing his, and that is with our team and a licensed psychologist. part of that number, why it has risen so much is because we have a psychologist there to help them with any questions. back in the day, it was the critical incidents for officer involved shootings. now we have opened it up to that at any point officers or supervisors feel that that situation is stressful to one of our officers and it causes them trauma, we have a debriefing for them. because there is a huge thing. all of a sudden affected by suicide, alcoholism, whatever it maybe, and we never know what call is going to affect our officers. in may not affect ten of our officers, but it will affect the 11th, and that is the one we want to try to hit. i think the debriefings is what is what bringing -- what is what is really bringing that out. >> thank you. >> thank you for what you do.

i have worked with a couple of officers here that had committed suicide, again, i also have been touched by it. i appreciate that and the stressful work environment. and 1421 is being discussed, and i noticed here that you say much of what you do is protected so i do see that there, but you can correct me if i am wrong, but my understanding is when there is an officer involved shooting, that officer interviews with your department, with the behavioural sciences department in order -- and it is a process to return to work or not. and just looking at this 1421, i think it is something we should be looking at to see whether or not those assessments, or those reviews will be part of the 1421 disclosure. i only bring that up because it says you do not maintain records

of this context of the unit. i would imagine though that you would have documentation of individuals that are interviewed and presented to the command staff, and then presented to the chief whether or not return people back to duty. it is something you may want to talk to the city attorney about, or the chief about that. >> we do have certain debriefings for officer involved shootings. the debriefs help with the protection of confidentiality there. there are no notes. the only thing is that they attended. when it comes to the officer return panel, we just say they have attended and it is a check box. there's no therapist review or doing a screening of them other than attending a debrief. they don't even have to say anything, they just have to come to the debrief. >> that's fine. i'm not talking about the process, i'm talking about the new law. when you talk to the city attorney, we should see whether or not this is something that is recorded or not recorded, part

of the process and part of the investigation and it is something that has to be disclosed under 1421. that's all. >> i follow up on what commissioner taylor said. i think, you know, the work you do is so important. i don't need to repeat what she said, but i do want to thank you , and for the 33% number sounds pretty good to me. it sounds a lot higher than i had expected to here, so it sounds like, you know, reaching to the people who, i think, by the nature of the work, are probably not the first ones to reach out for help. i think that's commendable. you said there was some sort of commendation back in 2007 for being the best practices or the leader in this area?

>> it was two paragraphs long saying it was a national policing best practice. >> great. thank you. >> i wanted, again, thank you for the work you do. our bsu unit has come a long way i have seen you in action after two officer involved shootings where an officer was shot, two officers were shot, and one where an officer was run over. we were told it was catastrophic for members of the community, what they do helps the community because they recognize when the officers will have problems. those problems manifest themselves in problems with the community. i see you quietly work the room with the officers after these tragic events, and you do great work. i know the department has been doing this a long time. my father and the sergeant's father worked together. and they did not treated that way back then.

they'll be very proud of you and the work that you have done. when i first got on the commission, we have a lot -- we had a lot of suicides involving our officers. fortunately that has slowed down a bit. one of the things we have done as a commission was after these critical incidents, we were told that the officers were not help seekers, and then i actually learned from my dad's last partner, dr. morgan peterson he was a psychologist, he said, you need to get them back in at a certain point because that is when ptsd kicks in, and that is when they get in trouble. we have had a lot of input, and a lot of change, so want to thank you for your hard work and the work you do quietly. i have seen you, and having the chaplain meghan, she is here, she's incredible. i watched her work with the families of all different faiths is important because it benefits the community, not just the officers. the officers work four days a week, ten hours a day, and they see things that most people have

never seen. it is not human to see that without having an effect. thank you for keeping an eye on that. >> vice president taylor? >> i want to make one comment. i think it so important that officers are encouraged to seek treatment, and to me, it is somewhat of a dangerous proposition what happens with anyone in their psychologist happens in a privileged setting. and it would be really dangerous , i think and would have a chilling effect on officers getting help when they need it. so that terrible things don't happen in the community for their discussions with their psychologist. that to me would be dangerous and result in unforeseen, horrible things, and so that's my opinion, and i just wanted to share that. >> just to add to that, with the mh and benefit, everything is confidential. we don't know who uses a benefit , we just get numbers. we don't know who is seeing who or what is being talked about. that is the one thing about having a separate benefit from

the department department so these are not department clinicians that are seen by their own providers, so it keeps the confidentiality. >> really quick, i wanted to echo my fellow commissioners in saying thank you, thank you for the work you do. this is something that came up and was heavy on community's hearts as we going through our appointment process. one question that i had, just looking at the 33%, are there conversations or talks about actually enhancing the program to have more officers and chaplains involved to be able to provide these services? >> certainly that's why the community -- the model of the dod -- d.o.j. best practice model is to have chaplains for the community and chaplains from -- for law enforcement. the idea is to grow that so we can have more of these folks keeping an eye on officers and reporting back to us. we are seeing an officer that

you should follow up on. that is part of having the eyes and the ears in the field. i think, you know, we know it has grown, and i think it's just because we are getting the message over and over again. and with the resiliency training now, the recruits -- we are getting them right at day zero letting them know it is okay to ask for help and take care of yourself. >> as far as the staffing levels , we do use the peer support team and the critical response team. the department is really good at getting us working on those levels. as far as the clinicians, we are always looking for better clinicians. right now we have 30. we have another six or eight that are in the process of mh and. it is a revolving door, the more help we can get. >> i want to thank you all. i do have one question for you. is that -- if there's one thing you could improve, or change, or

enhance your program, what would you recommend? you don't have to agree on it either. >> honestly, right now i think the model works great, and we are just doing more of our training and just keep our training going with more support there. after we get all the support, we just need to increase our training and keep the message in the faces so they know they can ask for help. >> to the extent of anyone looking to commissioners, i do want to encourage officers to get help and not be shy, and to talk about these things. it is so important. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> okay. , we are ready for our next calendar item. >> line item three b., report to the commission continued. d.p.a. director's report, report on recent activities and announcements. the report will be limited to a

brief description of activities and announcements. commission discussion mission discussion will be limited to determining whether to calendar any of the issues raised we feature commission meeting. >> director henderson, that evening. >> thank you. we have a long evening. i am just giving a modified report so we can continue with our work. we are at 247 cases that have been opened this year compared to 194 at this time last year. i will say just as a highlight, we are at 311 open cases, which is pretty high in terms of the agency. we have more staff than we have had the past, but those numbers are high in terms of cases. we are still closing cases at a high rate. we closed 220 cases this year. we are at 30 -- 31 cases that are past the 270 date tolling, 18 of those cases are tolled for

criminal cases. the mediation are also at an increased level. we are at nine cases this year as opposed to five last year. in terms of stuff going on in the office recently, our c.m.s. case management systems are continuing to work to taylor our program with the agency that we are working with for the specific needs of our specific divisions inside the office. that is investigations, legal, mediation, outreach, and our executive team. work will be going on for several more weeks. i will give you updates as they come up and as we hit some milestones, but the new c.m.s. system will enable us to allow broader collaboration between the investigation unit and our lawyers, increasing communication with the complainant that is interacting

with the office, and improve a lot of our reporting abilities for some of the low hanging through -- fruit. i want to address the new c.m.s. system that allows us to interact with complainants online, both by accepting evidence, and tracking complaints from them, and then internally, instead of handling paper files back and forth, a lot of that stuff will be automatic and be electronic. tied to that project that we are working on this week, we have been working with an ongoing project with the goldman policy school here, locally, that project is wrapping up, but the project was with one of the students crafting an m.o.u. for us on technology and data sharing. we want to try and leverage those projects and merge them together to make sure that as we build a system, we are evaluating what information we

share with other agencies, and the information that comes into our office to make those deficiencies institutionalize so we are not re-creating the wheel every time new things come up, either with the department or any other agencies that we interact with. i will say in terms of the outreach, we have done outreach with a school on may 2nd on an annual wellness fairs, and i think that's it in terms of the overview of some of the stuff here. in the audience with me today is my chief of staff, sara hawkins, the senior investigator christine, sam, and an attorney. if you would come up throughout the rest of the evening, or if there any questions you can answer for the public, who are here in the audience tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. director henderson, it was raised during public comment, a statistic that i think was

probably inaccurate that d.d.a. has released reports under 1421. would you like to clarify that? >> i certainly can clarify that. i was not responding in public comment, but that is not correct there have been -- >> co. reports have been released? >> simo talk -- [simultaneous talking] >> one report has been released so far. i'm glad you are asking that. >> what is the hold up? i think they have identified some serious concerns. what is going on? >> i think the measurement isn't in what is being released, it is what is being put together to be released. there has been a lot of -- keep in mind there was no protocol or personnel prepared for any of these ongoing requests, a lot of what has been going on with the

request that came in is figuring out who is going to release what , how it will be released, and this is all before any of us , and i can only speak for d.p.a., but i'm telling you the general of why it has been rolling, and why it hasn't been up. each individual department is prioritizing for themselves. >> i'm just asking about d.p.a. let me ask you this. county files have been reviewed and are ready to be released? >> why don't you present on this one when you are ready? >> it is hard to answer because it is not black or white question that is objective. they are all in different stages of being prepared as a priority in terms of how we approach which request, in terms of what is available to us. part of the problem in most of their quest, and many of the larger requests encompass all

documents, all documents, specifically for d.p.a. including documents to go back to 1982 that are handwritten, can't be digitalized, have to be individually reviewed, redacted, and prepared, and many of them still have some subjective areas that have to be handled by hand, and many of those records are individual documents that have to be retrieved and reviewed on a case by case basis because they are paper documents. and, digital records as well. for instance, if someone is all over cases for any request that request any fill in the blank, that includes evidence like tapes that have to be listened to, transcribed, and redacted. that has been the process. is not that they are just being stacked up and we are holding onto them to be reviewed, they will be reviewed on a rolling basis and we just started

rolling them out. we just released the first one next week. that number will increase -- increase every week. but generally, with the process has been, in their boxes everywhere because we had to retrieve every box of all records to start going through them to evaluate what qualified and what could be released. >> so basically the take away is that the process, you're doing a lot of the groundwork to prepare , now you are deep into that process and we should expect the numbers to increase that are responses specifically to 1421, and obviously to start rolling out dramatically. >> correct. >> we will get those numbers next week. >> absolutely. >> maybe you can tell us what stage they are in as well. >> generally, or specifically, or both? >> how about both? >> great. >> thank you, i would like you to also include how many request the d.p.a. has received thus far in terms of 1421 requests when

you prepare your report next week. also, too, i guess what you're telling me is one file has been released and it has taking your department 128 days to do that? isn't the law that it is supposed to be on a rolling basis, so you don't hold it, it is ready to go. you don't hold it and wait until the file is done. i'm supposed to be releasing it on an ongoing basis, and as you say, you had materials that are ready to go, why aren't those being rolled out? >> we didn't just pick the easy one. they all came in and we had to evaluate all of them. we tried to prioritize in terms of officer involved shootings, or the ones that we knew had extensive or broad reaching things so that the subsequent request that came in would be easier because we already evaluated the documents that we already had. some of the documents that we had hadn't been evaluated for 1421, because we never had a process for 1421 to release this

before. we had to look at everything to respond to almost anything, and we didn't want to parcel out this. very few of the request came to say, we just want the request for information from two weeks though or two months ago that we know you have on hand and can be analysed easily and quickly and effectively. so we had to just prepare our own approach to how we are going to do that in a reasonable manner that involves that process, which is why wanted to explain all of it to say and articulate the numbers that you get. i don't know what the role of numbers from the other departments have been. i would imagine they would be small numbers for the same reason because we have been talking about collaboratively of what you were doing. we are not unique in that, that is why. >> i guess my concern is you had a said there was no protocol to release the records, but in discussions with a