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tv   Government Access Programming  SFGTV  December 8, 2019 3:00pm-4:01pm PST

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we receive them by mail, fax, through our portal, e-mail. and that is one of our challenges as well is identifying if it's a 1421 request. the categories will be for like a specific category, a specific officer, a specific time period, for all officers who have ever been employed. and they vary greatly. so that creates a challenge as we are inputting them. and sometimes you can't tell exactly what people are asking for. so what we are required to produce are all the investigative reports, photographs, audio, video evidence, transcripts of interviews, autopsy reports, documents that are reviewed by the disciplinary board and disciplinary records related to the incident. so an example of what a dataset looks like for us. our records are similar. we don't have records identified by dishonesty or sexual assault.
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the only identifiable category we have is officer-involved shootings. so if we get a request for 2300 officers, that constitutes 9,000 line items request for each category that has to be cleared. so we get multiple requests, which we have gotten for different time periods, of 2200 officers, that turns into 20,000 requests. so a total of 114 requests that we have received, that is equal to 111,000 line item categories that have been to be cleared, because we have to tie the request to the requester to the officer, to the time period, to the particular thing the requester is requesting. we have requests for officer-involved shootings that resulted in injury but not death, we have just a variety of requests that we have to respond to individually to what that person asked for.
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so in the prioritization, we have been looking at the order that we received them, the ability to search for the records, the number of requests received for the same officer or event and the ability of the requester to narrow. so if someone is able to ask for a specific event, we can go to that event. it's much harder for us to approve a negative. it's -- prove a negative. it's much harder to determine we have to do the same thing as the d.p.a., go to the various places where data is kept, they are not all kept in the same place. the physical files, go through them, make a determination. once we do that, then we can make an electronic finding that it was yes or no or if we need to go to the city attorney, we can mark it as pending, and we know that record has been accessed and reviewed. we don't have to re-review it. so how is the process working for the unit?
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it's very labor-intensive. one of our biggest challenges is the tracking of the request. we have been working with our vendor to come up with a better system that allows us to attach multiple requesters to single officers. what we have to do is have a request with 2300 officers and that one request and another request that would be all, and another request that has 60 officers. and it's not an efficient process. and we are getting ready to release records, we have to go through and review each request to see which requesters have requested those files and then provide them to the requester. so we have identified additional employees. and we have them in the background process. that will take several months. but we anticipate that once they come on board, we'll be able to speed up the process. we are working with different vendors with regards to
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technology to speed up some of those challenges as well. once, as was mentioned earlier, we are able to have one clearinghouse for these files, and we are able to post them instead of uploading to each individual requester, that of course will save time as well. and it will make it so individual requesters don't have to get into this queue. the requests will be more easily accessible. and as far as the requests that we've received so far, which we have similar requests here to the sfpd and d.p.a. we have had 113 or 114 requests total. we've closed 36 of them. we've released 32 incidents that were responsive to 220 times. because requesters may request
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multiple officers multiple times. so 32 incidents went out 220 times. we had release records regarding 98 members that were responsive records for 202 of them or determination letters that are category-specific that went out to 220 people for a total of 422. >> can you slow down a little bit? >> yeah >> i'm getting lost. the 32, can you say that part again. 36 closed. go. >> the numbers on the paper. >> the hardest part about this is the data collection. so getting these numbers, like when you say come back quarterly to us, until we have the technology in place to -- >> you have that right now. >> yes.
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these are just notes i've made. it's not an official printout. >> can you answer vice president taylor? >> yes >> can you explain what that represents? >> we've released 32 incidents. i believe 29 officer-involved shootings and 40 g.b.i. events. >> those were involved in 220 different requests? is that what you said? >> they were responses -- responses, documents with that 220 times for the various requests. because they could be requests for officers. so if they requested -- we do officer, an officer-involved shooting. we consider that to be two different categories. >> how many times would those 32 incidents? >> what's that? >> went out 229 times for the 32 incidents? >> yes. 220 times, approximately.
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and the numbers change every week, obviously. one thing we do try to do is we do try to release documents every week on a schedule so we know that we have items in the queue, and we are on a schedule and we try to release them every week. so we have released documents regarding 98 members. as of last week. it's probably more this week. the responsive documents were 202 responses were sent out over the 32 incidents so that 94 members and determination negotiation letters for category categories of clearance categories were 220. so we may be able to clear that someone did not have an officer-involved shooting. that's the category they were able to search. or they were able to clear they had not had a sexual assault or dishonesty. but we are not able to determine
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whether or not they've had a use of force that resulted in great bodily injury easily. so we have over 12,000 injuries regarding use of force in this system that don't differentiate the type of force or the type of injury. so each one of those, we have to go into, pull up the report, read the report, they have to drive to the hall of justice, check the photographs, see what we can do to determine if it did fall under great bodily injury or not. so it's pretty labor-intensive to make a determination. and we don't have medical records associated with it. so we may not know the extent of the injuries. we don't know what happened that night. >> we interrupted you. you have more to present? your time -- >> you have more questions?
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>> i feel like it's better if you ask me questions and i'll try to answer them. >> let me put you on the spot, since your name is on the letter that the public defender's office submitted to us. and you may have answered this already. there's this production of 23rd letter extense. and i really don't know what to make of that. can you help us understand what's going on there? >> it's to comply with public records act, we try to maintain contact with our requesters. so we do a production every week of the productions that we have done for the 98 officers, i think the public defender has gotten at least 73 of them. but in addition, because they have the 2300 officers, we just send out a letter saying we are still working on your request. we haven't forgotten about you. we'll be sending them records every week. we have this same issue of
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multiple attorneys asking for multiple officers. and we have asked them to narrow or prioritize. and they have not. so to your earlier question of what would make it easier for us to actually attempt to provide records related to cases that were current, if the attorneys could coordinate so only one person is asking, making a request and then not making multiple requests for the same officers, because we have to create a line item in our system, a tracking number, send a letter that's specific to that specific request, and just creates more work. >> there's a redundancy there >> yes. >> which doesn't make sense. >> the 23rd extension, that was for the 2300 officers. that's for the big request for all the officers? >> i don't know which number that relates to. but i imagine they have gotten one to send every two weeks to
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let people know we are working on it. but we also release records every wednesday or thursday. >> so this covers all 2300. but you are constantly releasing information, but you are sending this letter out every two weeks because that's what you feel you are responsible to do? >> yes. >> all right. i have a question about the public defender. and i encourage the public defender to sit down and work with the department. to me, when a request comes from the public defender, it comes from the p.d.'s office. and they second request from a different person in that office is now redundant if it covers the same individual. how many times can we get a request for one individual from the same entity? that's the question i would have. >> yeah. individually responsibilities to each of our clients so they have to be -- >> they need to coordinate that. because the production is just one time. the documents will be the same,
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right? >> right. >> it goes up on appeal and you didn't make that request as part of your case, it turns out late- >> i see. >> you have to make the request. >> there's a case that holds criminal defense attorneys personally liable if you don't ask for pictures or related information. so that's probably why each individual public defender is asking for that, because there's a horrible case -- >> [off mic] >> that helps explain this letter. >> we also have requests from private attorneys as well, which we are working on. >> okay. commissioner elias. >> i want to talk to you about the staffing. i know that -- i'm assuming there's two different staffing situations, one which is before you receive the money that was allocated to your department for 1421, because it's my understanding that the police department receives more money than d.p.a. did with respect to the 1421 budget. so i want to talk about how many
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staffing individuals you have in this department, because d.p.a. has four attorneys, and they have full-time jobs, so they are doing this on the side. it's my understanding the police department has certain staff that have, this is their full-time job. so i want to know what those numbers are. >> we have two employees that are dedicated to this, but they also have other responsibilities. eight are in the hiring process, and we are in the process of hiring an attorney. we are conducting interviews. so within six months we should have adequate staffing. >> right now you have two civilians. >> yes. >> that are processing the requests. you have the process of hiring eight more civilians? >> yes >> and one attorney. so that's nine, in addition to the two? >> yes. >> okay. and then the other thing i'm going to ask is i'm going to ask
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also that you report quarterly as to the process or how many cases you've released with respect to the 1421. and i'm going to ask the next time you present that you present data so that we have numbers, because both the commission office and d.p.a. indicate they have a master spreadsheet that allows them to track this data in terms all the requests that are coming in and what they are producing. i've seen the commission office when, and it's phenomenal. it really does track everything. and i think you should have something to that effect, because it's very important to know all the requests that are coming in, because when i look at the public defender's presentation, and you have five percent sort of return on the requests that have been made, that's lower than d.p.a., and i think you need to do better in terms of processing these requests and getting these requests out. so i'm going to ask that you go ahead and include those numbers. i did see the list of sort of
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logistical procedures that the s. f. p.d. does in terms of once it gets the 1421 request all the way until the end in terms of when it's released, and there's a lot of steps that sfpd has in there. i'm not sure if they're sort of beneficial or even required. and maybe you can look into that sort of list of procedures and try and see if you can streamline some of that, because some of it does seem to attribute to this delay that you are having. >> okay, commissioner hamasaki >> thank you. so that was a little shocking. so you only had two civilian employees since the law was enacted to work on this? >> yes. we released 32 incidents. >> i mean, considering you only had two people, that seems like a fair amount.
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but i'm just shocked at -- i didn't realize how underresourced the department was as well, in regards to s.b.1421 resourcing. so i'm going to -- i was trying to understand this with commissioner taylor too. when you say you closed 36, does that mean that you've produced files in response to requests for 36 incidents? >> we don't have that necessarily specific to that. but one of our data collection problems is we are working with our vendor to create the system that we need to be able to push a button and spit out these numbers. we thought that it had taken place. we thought that we were moving forward with that system. and it's held up somewhere in the budget process, because the way that money is allocated,
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that funding wasn't allocated, is my understanding. >> oh, no, no, i understand. >> so that is one of the problems with our dataset. so the ones that was closed, some were duplicate requests. some have been fulfilled. some of them, they have been requests that for 1421 but didn't actually cover materials that we have requests for bias for instance, under 1421, which is not one of the categories. but overall, we have closed 36. >> okay. and so you said the other number you gave was there was 32 incidents, 29 of them being officer-involved shootings, and three of them being incidents involving great bodily injury, is that accurate? >> yes. >> is there -- i guess -- is it
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that you've just come across o. i.s. and g.b.i.? why hasn't there been categories involving sex and dishonesty that have been produced? >> well, i don't believe that we have many currently-employed officers that would likely have those categories, so we haven't come across them in the records that we have been searching. so o. i.s., we are look for o. i.s., and we had a request for 42 specific o. i.s. with the date, the case number, everything, so i can look and look for those. i haven't had any requests for anything specific to those, but i can go look for. and i haven't come across any that are responsive under 1421 to produce yet. >> okay. so you actually, in your review of folders based on the requests you've received, none of them
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have actually contained sustained findings for sexual misconduct or dishonesty? >> correct. >> okay. so it's not that you -- because i mean -- and i -- there's kind of a conspiracy theory going around, people are like oh, they are only releasing the ois and keeping out the juicy stuff, and i wanted you to clarify that you haven't actually come across that as part of the files that you've reviewed? >> correct. >> okay. and then you said 12,000 use of force cases? >> so we have -- >> or allegations? >> no, that's knotts allegations. so we don't -- that's not allegations. we don't handle the excessive use force complaints. they go to d.p.a. what we have is our tenures of
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actually i think it's 13 years of use of force records in our electronic system, which could be many things that don't result in even injury such as pointing of a firearm, but we have to go through each line item and determine whether or not injury resulted and if that injury actually met g.b.i. >> okay. the other question is how long are you going back -- or how long do files exist for you to go back to response to these requests? >> they probably go back quite some time. so what i'm able to search in our electronic system, starts about 2006, there are some records that have been entered in there that are pre-2006. they are just line items or what we call multiple code.
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but we also have typed-up index cards, which is what we used prior to the electronic system, and those still exist in binders, so we check those, and we check the electronic system. and any place we can think of the information might be. so we've been focusing on the requests that we have gotten. but i really couldn't say how far back we go. >> you don't -- i mean -- you don't know how far back the department maintains these files? >> correct. >> 1950? 1990? anywhere in between? you don't know? >> i don't know. what i can actually put my hands on and go through, don't have anybody employed but we'll keep going back as far as we discover records. >> okay. thank you. >> commissioner brookter. >> i had one statement and really just one question.
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i think one of the things, at least for me, that i'm hearing that seems to be consistent across the presentations, while i'm not a lawyer, also not an exist, i'm hearing there's an issue of supply and demand. there's a demand coming in for requests. we don't have the resources or human capital to supply. that makes sense to me. and also conversations i've had with members of the public. so it understands, and it seems we are moving in the right direction. one of the questions that i had was for the folks from the public defender's office. and you all didn't get to share your achieving goals as your last slide, but what i wanted to ask from the public defender's office was while we know that there is that lack of resources and human capital to supply requests, and outside of the achieving of requests, is there a conversation around the process is what i want to hear. as the commissioner working with
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d.p.a. on s.b.1421, i wanted to hear if there was a conversation around the actual process that you are utilizing and will be utilizing moving forward that you all have a nuance or a conversation or thoughts on? >> you have to come to the mic otherwise we are not getting you. >> so the question is you all have stated that the resources and the fact that we don't have individuals from d.p.a. to be able to magnetic resonance imaging you with the demand that you are asking for, and you are not receiveing requests quick enough, i'm asking, based off the presentations that you've seen, what's in the process, is there something that can be done? i'm trying to get to a solution versus i think to commissioner taylor's conversation that there's been the complaint i'm trying to figure out, is there solutions and conversations that we could have on the process currently, given the fact we know we are going to have, stated the facts -- >> i'm certainly open to any
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discussion or any suggestion that would come our way about how we could help speed up this process. i mean, if we look through our bulk requests and started making requests on every single case, we would quickly be in the very same position we are in. i get why superficially that is an appealing way to go, but the volume of cases, we represent over 20,000 people a year. so we would very quickly be in the same position, i think. what i think my suggestion would be that there be some soul-searching in each department be reallocateing staf until they get -- until and unless they get new staff. so these are -- we have an
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$11 million budget plus, and i can't remember how many hundreds of millions for the police department, and a lot of staff. so the question is what should be prioritized? and the public has a right to these records. and so what priority does that public right have? in my view, in 2020, year two after this law came into effect, we should have a plan for fulfilling the mandate. and i don't hear any solid plan. i don't hear goals, internal goals, that are set. i hear a lot of, you know, there's nothing we can do. and i don't accept that in my own work when i push up against a wall, i try looking for other avenues to try. and so to me, and we come to the
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commission, because we understand that accountability is here, right? and so the questions i would have is what can be reallocated over the next year so that we are not having this conversation year after year after year, but that in 2020, the public can have the records they have a right to. >> the allocation, i appreciate your thoughts on this, but reallocation is a dangerous proposition. you are talking about not only your request for 2300 officers but the examiner's request for every officer ever since the beginning of time. and the business of d.p.a. is bringing complaints before us so that we can appropriately admonish, discipline, terminate officers who shouldn't be on the streets. if you are saying that should be delayed and we should have officers on the streets who
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shouldn't be so that d.p.a. can respond to 1421 requests full time, that's a dangerous proposition too. so i completely understand your frustration, but it's not simple. and the more we unpack this, the less simple it seems to me, because choices have to be made when you're talking about four attorneys, right? so -- at d.p.a. so the more i hear about this, the more frustrated i become, because it seems impossible, because yes, there is a mandate, but there is a mandate from the examiner, from you, from p. o. a., and they all have to be responded to, and we have a business of the commission of making sure that the officers, the sworn members who are on the streets to protect you should be there. >> right >> but that's a little unfair for d.p.a., because d.p.a. has records -- the only records they have are based on when someone
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complains. right? so they're presumably the san francisco police department would have even more records, right? because the sfpd has records that include people who have complained and people who have not complained. so i feel like the target has been d.p.a. and why they aren't producing records but there needs to be accountability on the sfpd's side as to why they aren't producing records. >> i am speaking to both agencies. i don't mean to be focusing on d.p.a. here tonight. i mean, what i said is that the five percent is even a more dismal figure. and while there is an issue with dishonesty based on the legal advice d.p.a. is getting, that issue doesn't apply to sfpd and we still have not one single dishonesty finding, which seems unconceiveable to me. >> i had a question for sfpd. i realize you were called up
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here, but you are still waiting in the wings. >> i think my fellow colleagues, just to kind of wrap up, i do actually, i enjoy the proposition, because it was one that you've given. so i do appreciate that. however, also what i'm kind of hearing too is do you feel that the public defender's office should get priority over these other requests that are coming in to both sides? >> we do feel when our clients are incarcerated, that gives them -- should give them a certain level of priority over folks who are at liberty to move around. so in that instance, yes, we do. we do. and i just want to say, i'm not saying this is easy. i'm not coming in here saying, why is this a problem? why are we talking about this? i'm saying if we don't -- if we only say there's nothing we can
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do, instead of asking what can we do today to make this better -- >> i'm hearing you. saying there's nothing they can do, that's not what i've heard. i've heard about process challenges, work being done. it's not the speed that's ideal but that's not what i've heard today and that's not what i heard on this issue. >> i was responding, i thought you said it seems impossible. >> yes. >> that's what i was responding to. i see more from d.p.a. about what they are doing. i'm more confused about what sfpd is doing and how there's only been 32 records disclosed in almost a year and why there's no thought to increasing staffing in this area. >> we already -- >> but i haven't heard it.
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>> let's go back to the department >> you are answering my question to the department. >> commissioner taylor. >> thank you. i have a couple of questions for you. the first is, can you talk about why there are only two people workingthon and talk about the things you are doing in terms of resources? and much less what d.p.a. is, give us some clarity on that. and i have a question about the numbers. you said there were 113 requests, about 32 percent of the requests you received, you've gone through. i think the numbers from the p.d.'s office was like five percent so i'm trying to figure out where the disconnect is here in what they are saying they have gotten which is five percent and the number you've presented which is much higher. >> i don't know what records -- we are responding to nonjust the public defender's office with our productions. so -- >> got it.
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>> but we've released over 30 records and d.p.a. said they've released 14. and they say there are 1414 percent and we are at 15 percent so i don't know where they got their math from or if it's because we are releasing more than just them. but the closure rate and the volume of what each request encompasses. that's the thing is one request from the public defender's office is basically 9,000 requests, because it's different records that are stored in different places that have to be evaluated differently. so it seems, the one request could be closed out because it was one person or the attorney said could you look and see -- if i say i'm not able to provide the use of force determination as quickly, because i have to go through all these records, but i may be able to look and see they have no complaint history and provide a record of the
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termination regarding the sexual misconduct or dishonesty, because i have no record of any complaint. i can't do that. >> talk about two people working on this. d.p.a. said they only have four attorneys. tell me about your resources. why there are only two people working on these requests. >> chief, you want to direct that? >> i can take that. there's more demand than we have people. we have civilians, and this budget process, we are hiring 25 more civilians in addition to the eight for the -- actually it's more than eight, it's 11 in all. there's eight in the process right now with the backgrounds being completed. there's one attorney plus two additional civilians. so that's adding 11 people. we also have body camera unit that has been civilianized with
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civilians. we have records unit. we have property division. there's been a call to civilianize positions and put the sworn officers where they belong in the field, and that's perfectly appropriate. but the reality is we have more to do than we have people to do the work. and we have to prioritize and try to divvy up the work as best we can. we are behind in the body-worn cameras. before this commission, the issue with the 6228 issue, and that was a personnel issue as well. so it's coming. we are hiring new people. we got the budget for it. we didn't get what we asked for, but we got help, so you'll see some improvement, i think drastic improvement when we get these level people online, which eight of them are in the pipeline, we just have to complete the background. >> okay. commissioner elias. >> in your presentation you said
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you look at the use of force when those requests come in. do you look at the use of force logs and tag them and go get the police reports and review them them and then din close those records? i'm trying to understand the criteria or how you determine which of your records is responsive to this? because i assume, like for example dishonesty, if you have a police report, you don't know whether the officer was dishonest until someone investigates it, right? because they are just -- >> the dishonesty is a sustained finding so there would have to be a complaint associated with it. so use of force, that doesn't have to be a complaint associated with it. and we may not have the complaint or a record of the complaint if it went to d.p.a. so for use of force, we have to get the physical police report, whenever it is stored, if it's laser, our crime data warehouse
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system, access photographs or other records and we can access those records and the person may go to d.p.a. later and present medical records they did have a broken bone, but i will not have any record that that occurred in my file. so it is hard to make the determination. but if we have -- if we try to determine -- look at the use of force log, look at the police report, look at the photographs or other evidence so we can try to determine the level-of-injury that resulted from the use of force. >> commissioner mazzucco. >> quick question for maybe the chief. how intensive this is, we live by silicon valley. we have sales force in our backyard. is there any way we can take everything the d.p.a., police commission and police department has, have the service go out and put that into the cloud and have it searchable so that when the
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request comes in, it's a matter of going in and using key phrases like we do as attorneys, with major cases, with huge document productions and millions of documents, using relativity and other databases, is there any way we could do that? maybe it's very simplistic of me to say that but i do that with the cases i have in our office, and commissioner elias does it and commissioner hamasaki and commissioner dejesus. is there a way we could do that? is that a concept that's reasonable? >> yes. i have a meeting set up tomorrow and next week with vendors regarding this issue of the case management systems. something we are exploring in our budget cycle. we do have some issues with having outside people come in to see our records. a lot of our records contain criminal history records that
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people don't have clearance. but once the records have been redacted to a certain level, they can go into that. and we are hopeful these case management systems could help us with the way the requests come in. because we can't control how people make requests. it's how the public request law works. they can make it any way they want. but for us to sort those and prioritize those and have them make sense, we need to be able to put them in a database that does what we need. our current system does not immediate mete that need. but we are looking at ways to do that. >> i will also just say -- >> so if i can -- >> go ahead. >> to answer your question, that is the vision. we've also talked to other departments that are doing maybe not to the degree that you've suggested, but doing some of that. and so we are reaching out to the other departments in southern california, some of the larger departments, and also we can come up with a system.
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we've been talking to vendors to see what they can do in terms of what's out there to do that. i mean, this is new for everybody. there's one in particular that is reportedly saying they think they can come up with a system to help us. i have a call scheduled with them tomorrow. >> okay. >> is that going to be something that's tied into what we are working on with d.p.a. about putting everything online? is it going to be the same system? i don't want to have to -- >> that is. d.p.a. has the finding. but we are working together as much as we can have a database, a system we can all benefit from. >> obviously part of the contemplation of that issue, i don't want to forget, it's not just the system itself which is forward-thinking and great for what's coming up in the future, but it's also the data migration of getting that information into that system in a format that has
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to be digitized first. so with records that go back to 1982, all the records from back then were and are maintained on cassette tapes which have to be listened to, transcribed, redacted, part of this process on sometimes hand-written documents as well. i don't want to forget that is a big part of even if we had a perfect system that would be able to digitalize that information and make those short sets in the moment, a big part of that is transitioning a lot of the records, which already exist or currently exist today into a format that can proliferate throughout that system and figure out how to use it collectively and individually amongst the agencies. >> i was going to state for the record, those of us in the nonprofit sector, customer management system. we do a lot of data sharing as
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well too. >> did you have something else you wanted to add? all right. thank you all. >> thanks. >> so i wanted to make a few comments to add context to just kind of the magnitude of this and d.p.a. had a slide they included. they looked at basically 15,000 pieces of paper. and for us, it's that exponentially. and as was mentioned, for d.p.a., they have quite the challenge like we do. we are looking at the case files that are brought to their attention. we have that, and we have a whole lot of other documents. and the question i think commissioner hamasaki had asked, how far back we go. and we are going to go back as far as the records exist. and i can use myself as an example. lieutenant spoke with use of force. so in 2006 we began to capture use of force data in what's called the aim system.
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so that's readily accessible in a record management system, but for anybody still with the department, and there are many of us, we have to do a hand check. and the starting point for that is to look at use of force logs and go through those logs, those actual pieces of paper to see, using myself as an example, did sullivan use force in 1995, 1998? there are going to be case numbers associated with that. that entails that the staff actually look at those reports, they have to find the reports and then have to read through the reports to make it come to a determination of whether or not the force that was used falls within the category that we are talking about great bodily injury. so there can be associated photographs with that. sometimes making a g.b.i. determination isn't as readily apparent as one might think. to come to that decision, there are other pieces of evidence, if
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you will, that need to be looked at. any one case, i'll use officer-involved shootings as an example. those case files can contain, i know many of you know this, but those case files can contain thousands of pieces of paper. so to be responsive to just one officer-involved shooting, that requires a staff member or staff members to read through those thousands of pieces of paper and make the appropriate redactions. and lastly, when we issue a request, the entirety of the department, and to use round numbers, 2300 sworn members across four categories, which are included in this particular section, this penal code section, that's roughly 9,000 searches we need to do. any time that same request is made six months later, and i think the comment was made commissioner hamasaki in terms of the work that you do, you
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need the most current information, correct? we have to be responsive to not only that first request that covers a defined parameter of time, but now we need to go back and look at those same 2300 officers in that second time frame. there's a lot of different components to this. it's not been for a lack of effort. it's not impossible. we recognize it's not impossible. it's a matter of, in my opinion, it's a matter of getting the right systems and having the requisite staff to address the issue. and in a more perfect world, this would have been come gone into effect in january of 2019 and there would have been plenty of lead time to afford the representative agencies here today to put those systems and those people in place. but that's it don't tell the reality that we have. and there's complaining about
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that. but we are reacting in a very proactive and aggressive way to address these issues. and i think that just kind of in closing, i think the conversation the dialogue that has been mentioned, the ask of the respective agencies, i do feel will go a long way, because certainly the police department, and i think i can speak for d.p.a., we don't want to chase your tail around this issue. we want to get out the information and respond in the most expeditious way but also be able to prioritize those particular requests and be responsive to it. >> thank you. thank you, commander. thank you, lieutenant. we are ready for the commission presentation. you have 12 minutes, but don't feel the need to take all 12. >> exactly. that's why i have no powerpoint. i am so sorry, commissioner elias. >> don't worry >> commissioner, chief scott, director henderson, members of
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the public, i'm rachael here to present on behalf of the commission office regarding the questions you all had about the production of public records related to penal code section 832.7 also known as s.b.1421. tonight both the department and d.p.a. have discussed and described their processes and challenges for the intake and production of s.b. 1421 records. the commission office has many of the same processes and challenges. and while i may be repeating myself, i feel it's important to underscore the fact that compiling these records is complex and lengthy, although i will keep it short, commissioners. the commission office receives 1421 records in the same manner as explained by the sfpd and d.p.a., through gov qa, e-mail phone or fax. the request is entered into the
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case management section of gov qa where it's given a unique tracking number. it's also entered into the commission's internal tracking system that you mentioned, commissioner elias. but i do have to say that that spreadsheet that you commended, we stole from the sfpd. so they do have that. and it's as robust as ours. as the requests are fulfilled, both gov qa and the database are updated. then a confirmation the request has been received is sent to the requester using the unique tracking number. once opened, the request is reviewed to determine which of the four categoryies under s.b. 1421 is being asked for. and then the search for the records begins. once records have been identified for disclosure, we have to determine which parts of the record are authorized to be released and which parts, if any, need to be redacted.
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the search for the documents and review is the area the commission has had the most challenges. i'll go into that later. one a record is completed, we send a letter to the officer notifying them their record is subject to release. the record is sent to the requester through gov qa using the unique identifier along with notifying other agencies. throughout the process, commission staff works closely with the city attorney's office for advice on specific files. to date, the commission office received a total of 12 requests for s.b. s.b. 1421 records. while that is not as many as the sfpd and d.p.a. received, the number of requests itself does not tell the whole story. the 12 requests fall into two categories, those for specific officers by name and those asking for any of the four categories within s.b. 1421. those requests asking for specific officers range from naming one officer to naming
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approximately 2300, which means we have to search for each officer's record individually to determine whether there are potentially responsive records. for requests asking for records related to the four categories, the date range is from 2014 through 2018, which means searching for the types of records for over 2300 officers who were employed although any time during that time frame. if an officer or incident is identified, the file must be pulled and reviewed to determine whether the records are releaseable under s.b. 1421. the research can take from 15 minutes to many hours depending on the length and complexity of the record. of the 12 -- sorry. of the 12 received requests, the commission office closed eight and is currently working to fulfill the remaining four. the four remaining requests include a request for any s.b. 1421 record for the
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approximately 2300 named officers employed on may 30th, 2018. a request for any 1421 record related to any employee during the period of january 1, 2014 through december 31, 2018. a request for s.b. 1421 records for an officer who is no longer an sfpd employee. and lastly a request for s.b. 1421 records for 48 named officers. the commission has released responses for nine officers, two with records related to the great bodily injury category and seven with records related to the discharge of a firearm at a person category. in addition to the release of responsive record, the commission officer has determined that there are no responsive records for approximately 1,000 of the 2,300 officers named. and that information has been provided to the requesters on a
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rolling basis. the research and determination done for the no responsive record notification does take a significant amount of time to make that determination. we still go through the same process and spend the same amount of time, to determine that there are no records to produce. so while it seems like there is nothing to show for the 1,000 responses of no responsive records, that is not the case. a lot of work goes into making that determination. the commission office continues to use the order of priority it used from the out set, which is the consistent with the priority of release included in the current commission's protocol for release, s.b. 1421 that you discussed earlier tonight. and finally, the challenges the commission officer has encountered are similar to those of sf p.d. and the d.p.a. commission records were not stored in any anticipation of having them to be released in the future. so to mention our challenges,
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the commission has in the past only had a basic internal tracking system, with rudimentary information for each case, meaning for every potential case we have to pull the paper file, which is oftentimes in the long-term storage facility and then read the file to determine whether documents are releaseable under the statute and whether redactions need to be made. this is a time-consuming process for each file. the commission office doesn't have the technology to reproduce many of the requests records, specifically the audio cassette tapes. and it must send those records to a third party vendor for reproduction and redaction. our third challenge is ensuring coordination between the requests when responsive record has been identified and produced, similar to what the sfpd has. there are numerous requesters asking for the same records. and when we release something, we need to make sure it goes out in the same time for all
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requesters. we need to work with the sfpd for some cases to determine if a case has a sustained finding. many of your cases are returned back down to the chief's level. so while we may have records, we actually need to coordinate with the commission -- or the department to see if in fact they were sustained. and then lastly, the amount of time it takes to conduct the research on named officer and the incident is time-consuming. moving forward, there are some internal processes that should assist us in fulfilling these requests. first as alluded to by lieutenant warren, we are waiting on a new feature in gov qa that will help staff prioritize and assist in the store anage and release of records, making them easier to produce for subsequent requests. second, the sfpd and commission are working with the d.p.a. as we mentioned tonight, for their project, the d.p.a. received funding to develop more
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sophisticated software. we are happy to partner with them. lastly, someone will begin assisting when available. >> what form is the release? is it electronic? how do we get it out? >> yeah, unless requested otherwise, under the public records act, you can request it how you want. but most of them, rerequest through gov qa, their unique identifier. >> okay. then it can be accessible by thery quester? >> that can be what? >> they can access that? >> correct, yes. >> do we have any times we send paper out? >> we have not had any of that for s.b. 1421, no >> i don't see any questions.
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i thank you very much. count on doing this again in march and giving us on update then. next line item. >> public comment online item 4. >> any public comment on the presentations we just heard? thank god. [laughter] thank you. public comment is closed. next item. >> line item 5, general public comment. the general public is welcome to address the commission that are within the jurisdiction of the commission. under rules of order, during public comment neither police or d.p.a. personnel nor commissioners are required to respond to questions presented by the public but may provide a brief response. individual commissioners and police and d.p.a. personnel should refrain from any debates or discussion with speakers during public comment. >> okay. we are ready for general public
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comment. good evening. >> good evening. good evening, everyone. as usual, i like to use the overhead. i'm here again concerning my son. he was murdered august 14, 2006. as thanksgiving and christmas, thanksgiving has passed and christmas is coming. and my feelings are just coming up again concerning my family and my son. i am still asking and worried about when are -- we talked about all the homicides this year, 33 or however many was this year. one is too many.
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we are not talking about all the unsolved homicides that have been happening from when my son was murdered. i am still asking for justice for my son. as i come here, i just don't talk about my son, i talk about other homicide victims too. i'm saying that because none of these homicides have been solved. and these are before my son. and it doesn't matter whether it's police killing or community violence. i bring this picture because when i say it doesn't matter whether the police kill you or community violence, the grief is still the same. it's there. we make a big ruckus about
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police killing but we don't make it about community violence. i'm saying this because, again, i'm happy to come here every year, but i still need -- not every year, but every weekend, to get justice for my son. i'm tired. i'm going to go home. thank you. >> thank you. do we have the hotline number. i don't have the tip number in front of me? the tipline is (415)575-4444. i think there's still a $250,000 reward out there. thank you. any other public comment? public comment is closed. next item, please. >> line item 6, adjournment. action item. >> is there a motion? >> so moved >> second. >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. >> aye. we don't need public comment?
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>> no >> okay. we are adjourned. ...
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. >> good morning, everyone. the meeting will come to order. this is the december 6, 2019, special meeting of the budget