>> are we ready >> it's 5:39 p.m. it's wednesday, february -- i mean, march 3rd. wednesday, march 3rd. welcome to the regularly scheduled police commission meeting. my name commissioner cohen. we have a full day today. we'll get started. could you please call the roll. yes commissioner.

>> present. >> >> commissioner brookter: er is present. >> commissioner cohen you have chief scott from the san francisco police department. >> all right. thank you for joining us. thank you for joining us director henderson. ladies and gentlemen would you join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag to the republic for which it stands. one nation, under god with liberty and justice for all. >> commissioner cohen: all right. sergeant youngblood call the first item. >> line item one, general comment. at this point, the public is

able to address the commission within the subject jurisdiction of the police commission. under police commission rules of order , personnel. commissioners are required to respond to the questions by the public. comments or opportunities to speak during the public comment are available via phone by calling 415-655-0001. press pound and then pound again. dial star 3 if you wish to make a comment. this will advise the moderator that you wish to speak and add you to the queue. you may submit public comment in either of the following ways or written comments may be sent to the u.s. postal building located at 1235. san francisco, california.

94518. >> commissioner cohen: thank you. let's go ahead and get started and start with the first caller. >> okay. thank you. my name is ben palm in district 5. i'm a team member in the black community. i want to thank president cohen. we noted last time there's a need for the community to understand all the roles and responsibilities, all the different officials and departments overseeing and policing for san francisco. when the dpa made official recommendations to the san francisco police department in may 2020 about how and when officers' statements should be collected when there's an officer-involved shooting and how the dpa plays an advisory role when there's an advisory

sf p.d. scott said no. we need more community visibility into this process. dpa told us now the ownous for oversight is on the dea and the police commission. the dea needs to understand all these roles. the board of supervisors, etc. it's really opaque right now with so many different bodies and very confusing. so we hope that the willingness of sf p.d. will enact the best practices recommended by dpa and the fact that they're not should be taken into account as we consider sfpd's budget. and when we consider whether sfpd has made progress in terms of its willingness to partner with community officials and truly reform its work, we need to consider that they had said

"no" to many of these recommendations from the dpa . thank you. >> thank you, caller. >> good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> hello, my name is kit hodge. officials have not addressed it as a top priority. it's a double tragedy. at the same time, over policing in terms of arrests, traffic stops enforced by police. using recent mapping police violence data, we've been called the third worst major cities of all u.s. cities. meanwhile, the very real need the community has during this crisis are not being met.

employment opportunities and training. other community services. unemployment. mental health needs, education needs. >> the police department's plan, a written plan for reduction of racial disparities. city officials make safety during this crisis. in community quality life program. $60 million is not really enough given the scope of the issues and the fact that the black community for 55 years yet there's been no significant investment for the community's well being. thank you. >> thank you, caller. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> hi , my name is cheryl

barton and i work for the city and county of san francisco, but i wanted to call in because i worked at the san francisco health department and the officer, there was a resolution passed on corona, the vaccination for police officers, and i was recently working in the bay view at the southeast health center site and talking about community. the officers from that station there attempted to come in to get vaccinated and some of them were turned away. not because we didn't have the vaccine but because they said that they didn't live in that particular district. so they could not receive the vaccine so i just wanted to follow up even though a resolution was passed and the police officers of san francisco, the resident lugsz stated that they would be able to have access to the vaccine,

there would need to be a little more follow-up because no matter how people feel about the police right now, they keep the city safe and so we need to make sure that they stay healthy so that they can do that. so thank you. >> thank you, caller. good evening , caller, you have two minutes. >> hello, my name is david aaronson. i'm a resident of district one and i'm a volunteer with felicia jones and the black community. i would like to thank president cohen for the work of our group and felicia jones in the police community meetings. i like to point out there's been a high rate of violent crimes including the fatal shootings referred to by another caller in san francisco's bay view recently. there's also been a lack of partnership between the city officials, the environment, and the community.

to this end, in 2016, the federal department of justice reviewed the san francisco police department and identified several areas in need of reform. this included racial advice policing and lack of community policing. to this day, sfpd does not conduct community policing. rather than partnering with the community to keep the bay view safe during this recent spit of shootings, the sfpd's answer was to place a trailer on 3rd and catal a. it's almost as if sfpd was an active outside military force instead of a local force to protect and serve that community. we find it unacceptable that the sf community continues to exhibit a lack of competency or even to work alongside the community to help people and that's all people in the community safe. this is particularly certain given that sfpd was called out

in 2016 and was supposed to be working on this ever since. we'd like to hear from sfpd as to what other as was recently placed at 3rd and we'd also like to know if it was done in the past specifically when and in which community this has occurred. we also hope that sfpd and community policing will be -- >> reporter: thank you, caller. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> hello, police commissioners. my name is paul. i want to pass for the sfpd to no longer respond to we have

these private gather ergs where everyone else is being forced not to gather and this is being exacerbated by the coronavirus and so what i'm asking for is the safety that was embraced previously in many generations of pandemic and musical gatherings and gatherings of people outside. beyond that, i'm calling to defund, disarm, and disban the sfpd. they kill a greater portion of our populus than any other first world country. and, in doing so, demonstrate themselves excessively violent and a danger to society especially. >> thank you, caller. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> hi, my name is adam and i

wanted to call in actually in support of commissioner hamasaki. i've seen yesterday and today at least three san francisco supervisors have started calling for his resignation simply because he had the guts to speak up on the realities of gun violence that many people who are not of means are facing. as someone who lived in the south side of chicago for a few years and saw that kind of thing firsthand, it's a reality. nobody wants guns on the street. nobody wants guns in the hands of teens, but people need to face the reality. and, him speaking on that is not a bad thing. i think the police commissioners should always speak to the truth and it's important to be upfront and honest and i would encourage the entire commission to show a

level of support for commissioner hamasaki in the face of the unwarranted attacks of the san francisco supervisors. thank you. >> thank you, caller. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. caller, you have two minutes. and president cohen, that is the end of public comment. >> commissioner cohen: please call item 2, the adoption of minute. >> adoption of minute action for the meeting of february 3rd, 10th, and 17th of 2021.

>> commissioner cohen: all right. so i've had a chance to review the minutes. are there any discussions or revisions or additions or subtractions that need to happen? all right. seeing none. may i have a motion to approve the minutes? thank you. motion made by commissioner dejesus seconded by commissioner brookter. we can take a roll call vote please, sergeant. >> yes, commissioner. did you want to do public comment first? >> commissioner cohen: yes. i would thank you. >> adoption of the minutes, please press star three now to raise your hand.

and there are no, there's no public comment commissioner. >> all right. so motion has been made by commissioner dejesus and seconded by commissioner brookter. i believe we need to do a roll call vote. i'd appreciate it. >> all right. on the motion to adopt the minutes dejesus yes. commissioner, hamasaki. >> commissioner hamasaki: yes. >> commissioner brookter. >> commissioner brookter: yes. >> vice president elice. >> you have five yeses. >> commissioner cohen: thank you very much. next item. >> item 3 information discussion. provide an overview of offenses

occurring in san francisco. major significant incidents. provide a summary of planned activities and events. this will complete a brief overview of any events occurring in san francisco having an impact on public safety. limited to determining whether to calendar for a future meeting. >> commissioner cohen: chief, are you there? >> yes. thank you, president. >> commissioner cohen: cohen may i ask a question before you get started? what's the status of the vaccination for your officers? i want to make sure they are having access. are they? >> yes. our officers are being vaccinated here in the city. there was a shortage last week that caused msaconi to shut down. thursday, that was ramped back up and vaccinations are again being administered at masconi

and other sites. police officers can be vaccinated. so that is happening. it's just a matter of what in terms of the vaccinations. but they're all signing up here in the county and in their own city and counties and they are getting vaccinated. people that have not been able to get appointments, but we encourage them to just continue to try to get appointments and, from time to time, we get notification that there are either vaccinations that are over, if you will, and officers are also able to take advantage of that. so definitely not as quickly as we would hope, but it's happening and we're limited by what the city and county is there. they are working hard to get vaccinated. >> commissioner cohen: thank

you for the quick update. appreciate it. >> thank you, president cohen and vice president elias. just a quick overview of the crimes that i'll talk about about what we're seeing this year. we are up 75% which is an increase of 3 over this time last year. just recently, the rest of our part one violent crime categories, we are down almost double digits across the board, so that's a good thing. even though we're down overall in the south, our shooting victims are almost four times what they were this time last year and we had 14 this time last year. we've had 52 year to date. so that is significant. i mean, it's not a huge number, but that's a significant increase and that is something we definitely want to turn around. which i'll talk about some of

the strategies in getting there in a second. the property crime side of this issue, burglaries continue to lead in terms of the increase this year. we're up over 500 burglaries from this time last year. we're just below a thousand. we have just above 1,400 this time this year. our motor vehicle thefts are up as well as arson. although, the arson. and where we are down significantly is larceny and theft and which includes auto break-ins which are down almost 48%. so as we get into re-opening, some of what we expect is for more people to be out. more people to be driving around and what we're seeing this year also too is more car break-ins in the residential neighborhoods rather than in the commercial corridors and stuff like that.

that's something that we're definitely on patrol and visible and one of the strategies to help drive it down. we've had patrols all over the city where their job is to patrol the neighborhood in their free time to make sure that they're seen. you'll see officers with their lights on so they're visible and people know that they're there and that is a strategy that we want people to see us out there because that does make a difference. in terms of the gun violence, four or five cases are up. being almost double what they were this time last year in terms of shooting. this time last year, they had five. this year northern 1 to 3 and tenderloin from three to seven. we did our employment in the bay view. seven additional employed officers. we have put resources from across the city to bay view and

mainly up and down 3rd street. the command post vehicle is there. we believe it has made a difference and one of the reasons just for context on command post vehicles that we do that. again, we want people to see that we're there. that command post vehicle really serves as a hub, if you will, sort of a mobile substation where officers can check in and get their assignments and it's a place for them if they need to go with the computers that are there. so it gives the ability to have a presence, a much needed and much presence where we're having problems and where we're seeing that strategy employed was a downtick significantly from what we had three weeks ago. so part of the community engagement piece, so that's the pleasure to be on a community

meeting last night with the new captain of bay view, captain moran. and captain david who was transitioning on that meeting as well. about 40 members on that call and part of the investigation was speaking for the community. they know about the command post vehicle. they know about what we're doing on 3rd street. we talked about other issues. but the bottom line is this. when we're engaging with the community, we almost ask, what can we do better? we need to see them out there engaging. we definitely understand the other side of that angle with the disparities we're trying to fix in the city and county. but the notion we're not engaging with the community, i just want to put that to rest.

we are vigorously and i do it on a regular basis. another strategy i want to mention is the community liaison officers will be engaged in community safety walks. it's going to kick off in the tenderloin or kicked off in the tenderloin last week, but this is really another effort to work with the community. we have cadets. we have some of our community volunteers walking with these officers and really what we want to do number one is engage. people see us out there. that helps with some of the inspections but also more police in the community to solve these problems and there is a lot of challenges in this city and the only way we're going to move this forward is to work with the community and so that is happening. there were a couple shootings, three shootings this past week.

one in the southern district. it's in the print out which you all had a chance to read and the public had a chance to read. one of the strategies was there again. and the immediate up tick in that area. it happened in harrison where a person was minding their own business and was shot after an attempted robbery and we also put our plain clothed unit in that area. we have recovered evidence in that area. one case one person was detained. putting officers out when we have these spikes in violence is really important. i will say this clearly, it's not the final answer or the sole answer but it helps because our job and part of our challenge when we're having people shot and robbed and assaulted in our city is to do everything we can to stop that from happening immediately. the long term strategies take more time and we know we're going to have a presentation

before this commission next week with what those strategies are and the california partnership and also day view and more in depth what we're doing. i will stop there. if there's any questions -- oh, one other thing just on domestic terrorism. i know commissioner cohen has brought that to light. what's happening now is there is a joint intelligence bulletin that went out from the fbi, dhs, department of homeland security yesterday that's got quite a bit of national news and basically, the issue is the possibility of more violence in our nation's capital. everybody in the law enforcement community is keeping an eye on that because we're doing everything collectively to keep an eye on that. we definitely are plugged in to what's happening there. hopefully, nothing will happen, but that bulletin did go out and it's getting a lot of press. so that will conclude my

report. >> commissioner cohen: are there any other details that you can share with us that were in that bulletin? >> violent extremism is really what the concern is. there's a lot of chatter on the internet that march 4th is supposed to be a second insurrection if you will. march 4th or somewhere around that date. march 4th is tomorrow. these postings are being taken seriously and, law enforcement communities are getting information as it becomes available. i know on federal partners who are anchored in d c are working hard to make sure that does not happen. again, we're keeping an eye on that because these things can spread because that can cause

people to do things. >> commissioner cohen: what about security for the state -- for the city hall and federal building. are you just on call or dispatch folks prior? >> yeah. we definitely work with our sheriff it's in the northern district on the border of the tender loin and so we work with the district. number one continue to have con tin generalizy plans, staffing plans. the fact that city hall is closed for covid, but we definitely are always planning to be prepared with something like that. as far as the state building, a lot of that falls on our shoulders because the

deployment with our stay law enforcement department it's not every deployment. so we definitely communicate with our state partners. a lot of it falls on us in and around the state building and communicating with what we're doing with the state. >> commissioner cohen: so i assume you're coordinating with highway patrol as well as the fbi? >> yes. >> commissioner cohen: thank you, chief, is there anything else in your report? >> that's it, president. >> commissioner cohen: cohen all right. i am looking forward to the bay view strategy. i have not had the pleasure of meeting with the captain. is he in place already? >> he is in place already. he was on the meeting. he's had one week in the position there. so we're doing everything we

can to support him. >> commissioner cohen: well, good, i look forward to meeting him next week. four way into the discussion and i appreciate the diligence that your staff is taking in order to make this a robust conversation. i've reached out to president shemon walton's office to incorporate him in our conversation and i think he's going to at least have a representative on the call and that person will be able to speak to the bay view strategy that they have put together. so hopefully, this will be a nice conversation. i want to turn to my colleagues at this time to see if you have any questions for the chief. commissioner hamasaki.

>> commissioner hamasaki: >> commissioner. >> commissioner hamasaki: so i appreciate the bay view is being subjected to really unconscionable violence right now. i believe you said two individuals had been shot in the city, in the bay view. >> the bay view has had 13 of those shootings. >> commissioner hamasaki: 13. >> mission has had five and tenderloin has had -- i'm sorry. one second. tenderloin has had seven. >> commissioner hamasaki: is there another district where there's a large number of shootings? >> eagle side has gone from last year to five -- i mean,

five year to date as of this reporting date. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. so i wanted to ask a little bit more about when you said, you know, enforcement in the bay view and, you know, being present. i think that's all fine. my question though and this is probably maybe i'm jumping on commissioner elias' questions are these internal officers engaging in basically noncriminal or citation level traffic stops? are they stopping people for broken taillights? broken headlights? fail to come to a complete stop at a stop sign? >> no. that's not what the direction is. a couple things that we have directed officers to do -- so for the officers who were brought in from outside the bay view, we brought in officers

from around the city and a couple weeks ago, they actually were assigned to handle calls for service. so the bay view officers could spend their time engaging. the officers know the community. the members of the community, the lay of the land, if you will, the players, and so, they were able to be pulled off of handling calls for service to do more of the community engagement, the foot patrols and the like. we're not asking officers to go in and do citations for broken taillights and that type of thing. that's not what this is about. this is about presence. now, mind you, we are investigating and trying to pursue those individuals that are involved in these shootings. but that's a very focused effort. it's not throw a dragnet on the community and see what we find. that's not what we're doing at all. >> commissioner hamasaki: that's good. >> i hope i answered your question. >> commissioner hamasaki: it

sounds like there is a concern from here when there's an up tick in a particular neighborhood and the dragnet was shaking down, look for guns and then, you know we have all the complaints and 4th amendment issues that come out of that. you're assuring me that's not what's going on. i'm glad to hear that. that's always something in my view and creates a lot of division between law enforcement and the community. >> right. >> commissioner hamasaki: is gang task force out there working? >> gang task force, their role is primarily to help with the investigations of these shootings. so they're not out there working the streets, writing tickets, stopping people for enforcement. they're out there following up on leads. this week, we actually had the newest members, some of the newest members of our

investigation drills that's assisting with the investigations that are gang related. this was another community meeting that i attended. the community from ventura hills and we actually had those officers present at that community meeting. they introduced themselves and explained what it is they're doing and i doubt that it was a very productive meeting, a very good dialog. there was a mixture of people from the community. young and different age ranges. most of them live in ventura. they got a chance to meet the three officers who were on that particular zoom call and got a chance to ask questions and talk to them. so most of what we're doing and i mentioned this to the commission with how we want to evolve with this work is there's a job to do. somebody shoots somebody, we have to investigate, hope we

can make an arrest and let that run its course. there has to be a balance for that with engagement piece particularly for officers that do this kind of work. we needed to do more of it and that's a part of this transition. and, this is a part of what we're working with the california partnership to get their expertise to help us build that out as well. >> commissioner hamasaki: you know i guess my interest is that the communities and the people in the community where some of the violence is arising out of or people are being targeted, you know, i've attended community meetings. people are generally around

individual basis, you know, the violence and the shootings. is there outreach efforts to ensure that relationships are being developed there? >> yeah. absolutely. so the ventura meeting is a good example of that. so working with -- i've been having these meetings for going on four years now and they started out with really one or two people sometimes, a few more, but over the four years they've grown and there have been meetings where actually some of the people that are in the mix, if you will, in terms of just violence that you're talking about had been at those meetings and we've had discussions. so that's what we're after. we don't always get everybody we'd like to see at the meeting in the meeting. the other part of that is some of these people attending these meetings, last night was a good example, there were 40 people in that community are people

just living in the community. that are impacted by this. that are hearing the gunshots. that have to go do what they need to do daily. so we need to hear from them as well. >> commissioner hamasaki: do you have resources to connect them with? public health? people that are surviving the ptsd and the trauma that's going on arising out of these shootings and violence? >> yes. i do. public health wasn't at that meeting last night, but we have had many meetings where public health was at those meetings. we talk about the violence in some of our communities and definitely, we do use public health as a resource. especially when we had funding two years ago to bring public health closer to the police department. they're funding that because of covid and the impact of covid. so we never really got that off the ground.

i hope they do everything possible to get that back on the table, but they're very involved in this conversation. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. i'll pass the microphone to commissioner elias. president cohen might be attending. >> commissioner cohen: thank you. i'll just jump in. chief, is there a long term i know you indicated after incidents happen, you put a greater police presence there in that community and have the officers start engaging in patrols and going out and meeting the community, but it's not sustainable long term. so do we have a long term solution for this issue? you know, and, also, is it a

situation where could one of the solutions be gang task force in the bay view or housed in the bay view from what i understand. could they start going to the calls so the officers in the bay view can actually start patrolling and walking the 3rd street corridor and engaging with the community rather than just being there and driving around and being stuck at the station so that we have more of a community policing based model with engagement? >> well, i'll start with the first question, if i may. more of the long-term solution. so the enforcement piece is not a long-term spread. really, that's about trying to identify people that are actively out -- we're talking about gun violence here. actively engaged in that type of violence to try to get them off the streets.

that's really the crux of what the immediate hearing out enforcement is. the long-term, there are things at play and other things that we are hoping to fix. you'll hear some of it with the california partnership's presentation. and our plan is to actually do that in phases, because we want to talk about the analysis and then we want to talk about what we're trying to build in terms of the long-term. a lot of things that i will say is just to introduce you to this presentation, part of our analysis is geared toward identifying the people or the groups of people that are the most likely based on the data to be either a victim of gun violence or involved, an offender or somebody engaging in gun violence. so our focus long term has to be on those individuals in those groups and part of what we want to bring to this work if we feel that we can do more

of and better is working with intervention and building that out. so to identify these individuals are identified. again, this is based on data. is what services can be brought to bear to actually wrap around them and their families to lessen the possibility of them being either a victim of gun violence or committing gun violence. that's the model that we are working toward. the good thing in this city is that we have somewhat of a successful track record and doing that type of work with some of the strategies that we've put in place over the last decade and probably the last 15 years and we have seen a significant drop in homicides and those types of incidents. but as they start to tick back

up, we want to take the best of what we've already done and then implement new strategies. i know commissioner hamasaki talked about that kind of model. that's something we are looking at doing maybe not the way the other cities have done it. we want to do what is good for our city. but part of that model, really the crux of that model is identifying various groups of people that i'm talking about who are most proned to violence or committing violence like that and get to them before that event occurs. so that's what the cal grant is designed to help us enhance and build out better. that's the direction we're growing and to get to your second question of how our investigators and officers working these type of incidents and crime come to play is, they

have a responsibility to investigate and identify who these individuals are, but, also, we can play more of a role in bringing the pieces together. and that's something that we work with our partners who are also involved in this work that we hope to build out in a more vigorous way and more collaborative and more comprehensive way. so there's a lot on the table right now. if not, we don't have the plan totally done and that's why we want to update the commission on this, but the analysis is really important because the first part of this is really identifying what that population is and some people we talked to they think it's a certain demographic and it's really not what people think it might be and this is based on the data that we've pulled. there's a short term, there's a long-term and some of these things we're already doing,

commissioner. spip. we want to bring those type of partners to the table. the bottom line is this, we're going to find somebody who we believe is involved in that type of activity, what can we do to help them? you know. if we investigate them, we make an arrest. that's just one part of their strategy and that's a part that i believe is very necessary, but what can we do to help them? what can we do to help the families to try to prevent down the road the next one from occurring. to prevent retaliation provided by the information we have. they there are long-term things on the table. there are long-term things that the city's very versed at and we don't want to throw that out, but we believe there's a lot more work to be done. >> so, what i hear you saying is that the california partnership is going to be a great presentation and address

some of these presentations and provide solutions? >> i think that's what it's going to be. it's going to be a road map as to how we can get there and some of these things are being built out as we speak, you know, gang task force and how we approach this work. hopefully with the progress and hopefully the commission and the public is as well. >> commissioner elias: well, i look forward to it. thank you. >> commissioner cohen: chief, when was this community meeting? it was yesterday, you said? >> it was last night. >> commissioner cohen: and, how do you notify people of these meetings? >> the captain -- they have communication letter for quite some time. so we put that information out. also, we work with sf safe with

the executive director. so we put this information out in a number of words. and then, of course, there's word of mouth in the community. so in terms of the turn-out in these meetings. >> commissioner cohen: was this meeting in person or was it online? >> it was online. >> commissioner cohen: okay. i need to do a better job getting myself connected to the social media network. this is news to me, but i'm glad that you're continuing with it. so, if i'm not mistaken, this is just a regular practice? >> yes. it absolutely is. >> commissioner cohen: okay. and, let me see if there are any other folks. looks like commissioner elias has a question for you. do you want to go ahead and

read it, cindy. >> commissioner elias: sure, if you can please provide that information to the commission. it's a great job of deseminating it to us and putting it on our calendars so we're aware ahead of time so we can participate in these events and be more engaged with the community? >> yes, i can do that, vice president elias. >> commissioner elias: perfect. thank you. >> commissioner cohen: i don't have any other questions for you, chief. i don't have anything else. doesn't look like any other colleagues have anything else. i assume that concludes your report. >> yes, president. that concludes my report. thank you. . >> commissioner cohen: all right. thank you very much. let's move on to the director of the police accountabilities report. >> continuing with line item. recent dpa activities and

announcement. it will be limited to a brief description of the dpa announcement. determining whether the calendar any of these for future meetings. >> commissioner cohen: before we get started, director henderson -- prior to this meeting for members of the public? >> i'm sorry. you went out. >> commissioner cohen: i'm sorry. so what i'm saying is i was asking if your report was made public? i'm particularly thinking about the wealth and disparities concern that the reports are not made available. >> yeah. >> commissioner cohen: working through administratively. >> i just posted those on the website. so all of my reports should have been posted. they were turned in as they always are. in addition to that, i met with wealth and disparities this week and i'll talk about that and outreach stuff as well. >> commissioner cohen: all right. you can continue. the floor is yours. >> okay. we are up to 131 cases open so

far this year. this time last year, we had opened up 138 cases. in terms of cases that are pending on our dockets, we have a total of 351 open cases that are pending. this time last year, we had 353. and cases we have open investigations that have gone beyond the 9 month mark. there are thirty cases that continued past nine months. this time last year we had 34 cases. again, as a reminder of those cases, 17 of the cases are told meaning they are criminal or civil charges that are going on concurrently. there are two cases that have

been mediated so far this year. we've mediated no cases at this point at the same time last year. in terms of the outreach, a number of events, a lot of them can be virtual. as a reminder students to more information about these events, they can be found online at our community calendar on our dpa website and they're posted there. on the 18th, we made a presentation with the mayor's office staff for transgender initiative. studying awareness about dc admission requests from that office. on the 18th, we also posted a panel with a variety of community youth groups and organizations and schools mostly focused on the operations of dpa, involvement in the youth, as well as our internship program. the reason i wanted to highlight this though is

because our internship program continues even through coronavirus. we shifted when many of the offices were cancelling the programs and we continued our paid program through the support of the city and the opportunity for all programs and that program has been continued through the fall and this semester as well. so we just had a presentation on that to make sure that program continues and we continue to bring it young people especially those student that is are in school to work with our agency and that have internship experiences. we also continued this week with our engagement with meeting with a variety of outside agencies about concerns with the city specifically addressing public safety and service this week. the district attorney participating in some of those meetings as well. on the 19th dpa hosted black

history month virtual panel with secretary of human services addressing black history. there were a number of black history month events we participated in. we also collaborated with the racial enforcement law enforcement team. and, we had a black history month celebration as well in the office where our own commissioner dj brookter attended. and, on the 26th the university of san francisco black history month resource fail along with the mayor's office and the san francisco housing authority. in addition to that, i met with

felicia jones and wealth and disparity. they addressed concerns at this meeting and a previous meeting but also to talk about proactive partnerships we can have with that agency to highlight their own initiatives and ideas that they will be presenting to the police commission. so that's something to look forward to over the next few weeks and months. we're on this evening, we have several presentations. so this will be all of my presentation. dpa has several other presentations, they're on the calendar already. that's a reminder of the sparks report policy and recommendation. on the line is one of my lead investigators steve ball on the issues that come up he can be helpful with and if folks would like to get in contact with

dpa, they can contact us at our website or call the phone line 4152417711 tell parentheses. also we have an item on the calendar as well and my staff is waiting for that to be called as well. that concludes my report. >> commissioner cohen: thank you for the report. let's go ahead and see if there are questions. okay. seeing none. director, i'm going to ask a few. so i hear the view of the dpa that recommendation is to reduce the bias by for it to be data driven, right? i also serve flinders aluminum's view that the

strategic plan be reviewed by an expert. that's a novel concept. and, i also want to share that the u.s. department of justice and the california department of justice supports all of this . so the critical element of our reform as you know about three weeks ago, i laid it out. so understanding how important reduction of bias is is in good public policy to have as many eyes of experts on the final strategic plans when we're trying to bring about this bubble of shame? >> i think so because even if you have the right answer. if you don't have buy-in from all of the community, you marginalize the impact and you don't hurt yourself by sharing those answers with as many people as possible if for no other reason to have their buy-ins so they understand what

the plan is. part of the dhaj that we've had specifically with policing is expanding the transparency so then more people understand what we're trying to do especially when we're coming up with specific presentations and specific solutions that we're going to try or we're going to commit to. from my opinion and from my perspective, the broader the audience, the bigger the table, the more effective those solutions can be and the higher the level of accountability beyond just the police commission or beyond just the dpa the department can be. i think that's really important. >> commissioner cohen: all right. i have no other questions. i don't see anyone else in the chat. director henderson, you are off the hook. >> i'm not going anywhere. >> all right. thank you. >> commissioner elias: director henderson, perhaps the next time when you present, i think perhaps you can address

the question or how do we get bias whether it be from the officers, the community, the stake holders, the audience that you're speaking of. i think that's maybe a good top ic for you to address next time. >> i will say, i'm looking forward to addressing those answers but you'll see some of those in the presentations you're about to hear from. the recommendations of the district review and the recommendations from the sparks report tonight are specifically going to address expanding the opportunity for buy-ins specifically as it relates to the community. i will start highlighting it more and i'm happy to start speaking to it directly but there are some nuggets in there that are coming out. >> commissioner cohen: thank you. seeing that there are no further questions, we're going

to continue moving forward. sergeant youngblood. >> next line item. commission reports. commission reports limited to a brief activity aand nounsmentes. commission president's report, commissioner's report and commission announcements scheduled items identified for future commission meetings action. >> commissioner cohen: so, very quickly check in on the work that i've been working on just been building formally robust strategy. that's all i have. let me turn to my colleagues see if anyone else has anything else they'd like to share. okay. seeing that there are no names. >> commissioner elias: i do. i want to put something on the agenda but i have to find it. just give me a moment. >> commissioner cohen: no problem at all.

what we can do, we can come back to you so i don't want you to feel. >> commissioner dejesus: thank you. >> commissioner cohen: we're going to move on. >> i forgot to raise my hand. i wanted to let the commissioner, several commissioners know that commissioner hamasaki and i attended the disciplinary equity working group and it is a working group that addresses some of the doj recommendations relating to procedural justice within the disciplinary process for officers and looking at bias and/or any treatment with respect to discipline outcomes. so i think it's going to be a great addition to the disciplinary review board that you and i currently sit on and i think this is the other missing piece with respect to

how we are treating officers with respect to procedural justice whether it's to discipline and how officers of color are being treated in this process as well. so it was a very introductory meeting and i am looking forward to being apart of the working group and how it proceeds. i also told internal affairs presentations will be on the agenda as of next meeting or the following meeting, but it will be in march. so i'm looking forward to that as well. >> commissioner dejesus: and i found it. >> commissioner cohen: thank you. commissioner petra. >> commissioner dejesus: yeah. so we've had people call in with regard to alternative and i think they talked to commissioner hamasaki as well and they would like to make a presentation on their plan and, you know, it's a direct

response to our police commission's unanimous resolution in january calling for more effective response to homelessness from the police department. >> commissioner cohen: i'm sorry, you said this was the cart report? >> commissioner dejesus: no. what i'd like to do is the community has been talking to us about having a plan for con r alternative response to homelessness and they have addressed us in the last few months regarding coming up with a resolution that we passed in january a unanimous resolution for a more effective response with the police in regards to homelessness. so they would like to make a presentation to us. a community plan with alternative response to homelessness. we've heard them the last couple of months and i would

like to see if we can put them in a place on the agenda. >> commissioner cohen: great. thank you. do you have an idea how long that presentation would be? >> commissioner dejesus: i think that's something we can work out with them. i think we'd give them a set amount of time. i'll work offline with you. i just wanted to tell everybody i wanted it on the agenda. >> commissioner cohen: i don't want to put it on an agenda that's tight already and people feel pressured and rushed. i want to make sure we give them enough time. do you know what lead agency your organization will be making this presentation? >> commissioner dejesus: you know, i'm sorry. i have a contact person, so i can fill you in with that information. i will get that to you and i will text it to you. >> commissioner cohen: thank you.

all right. we'll work to get this scheduled. any other items that you'd like to see on the agenda, colleagues? okay. all right. seeing none. let's continue to move forward. please call the next item. >> next line item is public comment regarding line item 3. members of the public, that would like to make a public comment regarding reports to the commission and please press "star 3" now. president cohen, it looks like we have a couple of callers. >> commissioner cohen: great. let's hear from them. >> good evening, ms. brown. you have two minutes. >> yes. i got cut off before. i'm calling to talk about my son who was murdered. my son that was murdered august 14th, 2006. i am still seeking justice for him. i'm listening to everybody

saying there's been many killings, you know, and i heard chief scott say about bring up the families. don't disrespect us, we're just talking about gun violence, but it's more than gun violence. it's affecting our families, our children, our loved ones and mothers and fathers. gun violence, yes, it's what's killing our children and i'm bringing that up because i'm one of those mothers. and, my son had a family and we're still suffering and there's still no. i don't ever hear anything put anything about unsolved homicides ever since i've been coming. i've heard a little bit but not enough about unsolved homicide. the families are still suffering. when it's all offer, the families are still suffering because the perpetrators haven't been found yet. so i just wanted to bring that up too, that maybe that should be on the agenda about solving unsolved homicides so mothers

and fathers like myself can heal. so and i wanted to bring up my son's case number which is 060862038 if anybody sfpd that knows anything about my son's story would come forth so that his case can be solved and so that i can have some closure. i'm done. >> thank you. >> commissioner cohen: next speaker. >> good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> as we discussed the department of public health recommendations for the police department, i ask whether we might take into account peoples' normal behavior and

note that people are again gathering indoors in absence of a good or acceptful method to be able to gather outdoors. but i ask whether or not the safer answer as we continue to approach this as to the intelligence and instead of prohibiting people to gather allow them to gather in a more circumstance. thank you very much. >> commissioner cohen: thank you, caller. >> president cohen, that's the end of public comment. >> commissioner cohen: all right. thank you very much. let's keep moving and go to item 4. >> line item 4, presentation of the early intervention system 2020 report discussion. >> can you hear me? >> yes. >> hopefully my video's on. i just can't see.

okay. everyone good evening. good evening, president cohen. members of the public. i'm the commander of science and risk management office and as you mentioned, i'm here to present all four quarters of dps report for the calendar year 2020. before i begin, just a little bit of background, i do have as the presentation comes up on the screen, i have a number of slides. this will be a quick presentation in keeping with our time parameters. just start off on february the 17th, dpis board met with in compliance. several members of the department along with commissioners cohen and commissioner dejesus joined us on that particular presentation, so thank you for that. and sharon lou from the dpa also was present for the call.

so we have produced four quarterly reports. each of those reports are accessible on the commission's website under the meeting heading, on supporting documents. each of those four reports are about 45 to 50 pages long. this presentation will be the same presentation that was provided to the eis board in the middle of february and all the information that goes within those larger reports. joining me this evening is sergeant darwin nuvall. carwin had an opportunity to introduce himself to the commissioners on the 17th. he's been the heads up eis unit for about a year and a half now. so he and i will endeavor to answer any of your questions as we go through this. sergeant youngblood, if you would advance the next slide .

i'm not going to read this preface here, but it does lay out what exactly eis and what it is not and i'm going to get into that in the next slide. so please move forward. okay. as mentioned darwin nuvall is the sergeant in charge of the unit. he reports to sergeant andy cox who is the lieutenant in charge of the legal division and darwin partners with and works with two analysts here within eis both eis. the question is what is -- did i mention i wanted to start with a little bit of background before we get into the numbers. so what exactly is the intervention system. and i believe. you can just put all the information up. intervention systems are used by a number of american law enforcement agencies to identify and manager behaviors.

most early intervention systems are considered threshold systems. once the members have engaged and proceeded a number of performance an alert is generated which issues a nonpunitive and it's to me very important to underline this. this is noncommunetive in nature. next slide. so i mentioned alerts. and they're really for us to notify supervisors and members eis alert is generated when a member reaches a specific number of performance indicators in a predetermined time period. we use a system called aim which stands for the administrations investment management system.

and after the alerts are reviewed by wendy and dave for errors and duplicate incidents, they're then forwarded to sergeant naval and he reviews these alerts on a monthly basis. next slide. so on this slide, i want to talk about those indicators and the associated factors and i know so the indicators you can see on the slide here, i'll just mention a few. the use of force is a significant part of this report. what's important to note is use of force although it is a significant representation of alerts, it's not -- this is not a use of force report. and we have the 96a report that goes more in depth in terms of the type of force used. we track dpa complaints, eeo.

complaints, tort claims, on-duty collision and vehicle pursuits. sergeant naval and his team when an alert is generated, you can see they're both kind of generalized and put in buckets. that have the propensity or have the potential to be something negative that might be indicative of something that's going on in an officer's work professional life as well as their personal life. next slide. so how do we get to an alert? well, alerts are activated once we hit a threshold and the vast

majority of early intervention systems in the united states as of now, all our threshold systems, there have been a handful of departments that are moving towards what's commonly referred to as a data driven algorithm based system. but for our purposes, for the here and the now, we have an alert, the threshold system and as enumerated on this slide here, a number of different types of incidents can trigger an alert. i'll note that an officer-involved shooting or officer-involved discharge, that one incident in and of itself will be cause for an alert and, in those circumstances, a commanding officer will be notified. they certainly will know this given the gravity of this type of situation.

the people that work with this type of an alert is not for purposes looking at whether the use of force is appropriate. but to make sure that the officer has -- he or she has the appropriate services. three or more use of force incidents in. cause for dpa complaints in a 6-month period. or dpa complaints in a 12-month period and any 6 indicators in a 12-month period. i want to know here and i think it's going to become significant as we get into or have already adopted our use of force policy. these thresholds to my knowledge have not been changed in a number of years and i think that's something moving forward is going to be worth our while to entertain. next slide. so this particular flowchart is every time i look at it, it's a

little bit crazy. it is -- it does -- it's illustrative. i see commissioner elias smiling. it is illustrative of the process. we understand it very well here within the risk management office, but it does just by its busyness and the arrows going different directions, it is emblemattic of why we need to make some changes process wise. i won't spend a whole lot of time on this. based on what we knew with prior discussions with this commission, we have inserted a second layer of review with sergeant naval's work. we do appreciate the multiple layers of supervision and checks and balances are important.

specific types of decisions that the sergeant makes in the unit, he confers with the lieutenant on a regular basis. next slide. so here's where i'll get into the some of the data. i won't spend a whole lot of time on it. i know data can be dry. i will preface some of the next several slides with the overall report that many of our indicators are in the negative and in this particular circumstances when you're talking about eis alerts. negatives aren't actually positives. so, as indicated here, there was an overall, you know, over twenty% decrease in the total number of indicator points compared to the last two calendar years. nearly 37% in the number of decreases and the number of use of force indicators. next slide. so the alerts by type. can you can see these are numbers of the total number of

alerts for the four quarters of 20. which there were 379. the vast majority of them i would say just ball park, it looks like 40% of the alerts are generated where an officer has had use of force or has used use of force three or more times within a three month period. next slide. so members receiving alerts and total number of alerts, we, sergeant naval in conjunction with lieutenant cox. we send out our alerts every two months. however, the alerts are generated every month. we don't bombard the station captains or the commanding officers on a monthly basis, but that occurs every two

months. so what you're looking at here is the total number of members and their respective alerts. as you can see the vast majority of members during a calendar year for two thousand twenty received one alert and that number's 73. next slide. alerts by station. this particular incident, we are reading from left to right. you can see that mission station has the total highest number of alerts in tara belle park had the lowest number of alerts. next slide. this is the second quarter. so forgive me. a lot of these slides look the same. but now we're looking at each

of the quarter reports. what's significant here as we get into the quarterly information, we -- let me pull it up here. the quarter 2 southern station had a 55% decrease in alerts compared to the previous quarter. and mission had a 18% decrease in alerts also compared to the previous quarter. next slide. 3rd quarter, the overall total number of alerts decreased nearly 40% compared to the previous quarter. so quarter 3-2020 compared to quarter 3-2019. next slide. and, finally, the 4th quarter, bay view recognized a nearly 56% decrease in alerts compared to quarter number 3 and mission

had a 34% decrease. next slide. so what are the dispositions of the alerts? you can see the total number of alerts broken by category for the calendar year 2020. 222 of those alerts were sent out to members commanding officer. ninety-three of the alerts were administratably closed. sixty-two and two of the alerts were with the department. i'd like to. i know there's been some discussion on previous presentation with regards to some of the language around merge with the paired month administratively closed by eis,

and, just to speak to that momentarily, as i mentioned, we're running these reports monthly, but they're sent out every two months. so for purposes of merging a paired month. robert sullivan may have an alert in january. i also have an alert in february. rather than sending both the january and february alert, there's simply no difference in the data, but i hit a threshold. we merged those two alerts into one and there's no loss in the data tha

okay. and finally we'll conclude and total number of interventions for the calendar year is going to come up here shortly. you'll see that we had as many as four and as low as two and that's in the aggregate is a very low number compared to the total number of alerts. something we have discussed at length. the engagements listed here, the department back at the beginning of 2019 began to track

engagements and the department mandated the formal tracking of engagements outside of the early intervention center and officers are required to report the number of informal and formal counseling sessions done by supervisors and number of performance improvement plans to correct less than acceptable behavior and we feel it is a measurement of which supervisors are pro-active in training and leading in the performance of duties. that concludes my presentation. i'm happy to get your questions and have discussion. >> supervisor ronen: yes, we have questions. >> commissioner brookter: thank you for that. always a pleasure when you present. i had one question. i shared similar nonverbal communication when we looked at the early intervention phone chart that commissioner elias

shared. i wanted you to touch on, you feel there could be changes in the processing of systems and i wanted to hear what are your thoughts on what could help with that. one of the things you brought up, more checks and balances. is it the latest technology, do we have that to help out with eis. i wanted to get a little bit more about that and in your area of expertise, what do you think can help with the systems and processes. >> sure. thank you for the question. it gets back to i think a fruitful conversation we had six or nine months ago and forgive me if you were not on that particular meeting. it does come back to technology and the department recognizes we're at a deficit with the current technology capacity that we have. and really, i can respond a lot

of ways but i'll choose to go this way, we have a number of record management systems that captures various types of data as was if we look at the use of force, if we look at the pursuits and dpa complaints. what we're lacking, we don't have a central repository. in order to get there, what we are endeavoring to do and there's been some progress made on this, bring in a system, a new system that in part -- it will do a lot for the department but in part, it will increase laymen's technology terms here, at risk of using the wrong term, it will import the data from the various systems into a central repository and in terms of the human capital, we're at a deficit there.

the overarching need is the technology. i'm going to oversimplify this. but to be able to have reports that already are reports and push buttons to make request functions and have that data appear so we have the outputs that we want. that's really in terms of referencing back to the flow chart you have there, that's where we start to simplify things. >> commissioner brookter: thank you for that. i think you hit the nail on the head. since president cohen has come on, we have been talking about what does the department need and technology is one of them. i want to make sure we continue to have the conversation. thank you for that. >> supervisor ronen: all right.

commissioner hamasaki. >> commissioner hamasaki: good evening. so, we had a big discussion about this last time you presented, when was that? >> i'm going to take a stab at it, six months ago maybe. >> commissioner hamasaki: it's been a long time discussing the short-comings of the current system and discussed kind of that -- i remember it was last time the only intervention was for showing up late. can you tell us about the interventions this time? >> so the interventions this time are with regards the supports. we actually, sergeant laval to

be somewhat selective with the information i provide but in generalities. working with a district sergeant based on observations of use of force to have a fruitful discussion and now these officers have been referred for training within the department. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. is it four interventions -- >> i'm going to jump to my slide here to get it right. we had as we began quarter one, we had three that were open. there's a time period with this. it's at a minimum sergeant is working with the officer has to sit down and have check ins at

intervals. when we start some of these things will carry over through the year. if it technically started in january of a calendar year. we started quarter one of this year with three. we opened one. we finished with four. those carried into quarter three. two of the four were closed out in quarter three. and this is slide 21. you don't need to bring it back up. started and ended quarter four with two. the two still open that i can speak to that i was referencing the subject matter or issue, with regards of use of force. >> commissioner hamasaki: so all the ones opened in the quarters

you discussed tonight were use of force? >> i don't want to misspeak. the ones currently open now are use of force. darwin, if you know, you can chime in. >> hi. the ones that were closed were involving time management and incompletion of work duties such as incompletion of completing reports on time, completing other administrative duties on time. those were closed. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. so basically intervention, put together a plan and worked on putting -- as you said, this is

not a disciplinary function, the function is issues that rise to a level that discipline would be imposed but we want to get ahead of it, early intervention so that a potential problematic issue doesn't evolve into something worse. is that accurate? >> yes. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. and since the last time you presented, there was displeasure with the way it was being used or implemented, were there changes made to it? >> so it is the same system. what has occurred since i last presented was the officer in

charge of the legal decision as the subject matter expert to lead the rewrite of this particular general order. there was a working group that was convened, including the commissioners and dpa. we had external stakeholder and internal members.

are we going to move forward with the technology we have or are we going to make the pitch to get new technology and with that technology endeavor to switch over to a data driven system that is reliant on machine learning and algorithms. so the decision was and i'll wrap this up, the decision amongst the group after meeting three times and particularly in light of the conversations that we had at length those six months ago, let's call a time out on this to see where we are going to be in the budget process because in terms of what is the best return on our investment, which is sitting down and rewriting a general order, do we want to rewrite the

general order under we still have the technology we have or take a stab with it at the new technology we might get. to that end, there's been many conversations internally here as to how we get over the hump of actually getting hands on the technology. >> commissioner hamasaki: i remember that was our data driven system. >> yes. >> commissioner hamasaki: so that's a budget issue at this point. >> that's correct. and i think commissioner, just in anticipation of this part of the conversation, i see director mcguire and we'll call that a clue, maybe that you want to chime in with regards to where we're at with that --

>> yes. good evening commissioners. yes, we have identified funding for a pilot program and we are working on just trying to get that through sort of the city's procurement process. we should be finalizing the last steps for submission on the procurement process this week. and then hopefully we can get approval for the program. >> what is the total cost? >> for -- it's an annual cost. i don't want to quote it just yet because we do have to go through negotiations with a

vender. >> president cohen: commission does that conclude your questioning? >> commissioner hamasaki: yes. rowe commissioner elias, you're next. >> vice president elias: there's a lot of boxes. >> i don't think anyone is going to want to entertain having a discussion for 45 minutes to talk you through that.

it seems the numbers have decreased essentially by half. what do we contribute that to, the pandemic or any other factors we are attributing to the significant decrease? >> thank you for the question. we don't have the analytics. it really is a drop. and the short answer i can't give you a hard reason why. i think the common sense answer is given that there are less people out and about during a pandemic. if we play that out, there are less people for officers the

engage in and therefore less opportunity for one of these particular types of behaviors that we monitor to occur. i think whatever the time frame is going to be to get the new system, we'll learn more about that, hopefully in the near future. i think we need as we have moved out of the purple tier and into more positive tiers if you will. i'm interested to see where the data for 2021, how it compares to 2020.

by definition certain actions are reportable and that gets back to the threshold. the current -- obviously when the parties that put the dgo together, they didn't envision necessarily this particular cause and effect. that is our reality. so, you know, we need to have a conversation and have a start of the conversations to say is for example as i bring it up here in terms of where we say for example -- there we go. three or more use of force incidents in the three month period. with that threshold is going to trigger an alert. with the new use of force policy, you know, just common sense says we're going to have

more alerts because now any force i use as you know and officer uses to overcomrie cystence is going to be use of force. it's good to bring that up. for me it brings home all the more reason to get out of this type of system and into a system that it's not a one size fits all. right? and to bring back some of our conversation from months ago, there's a difference between the officer working in one district on the swing shift and working in another district during the day shift. some of the factors look at the make-up of the district, the types of calls for service. they look at for example both you and i are officers and work on the swing shift in the mission district. how do i compare to the 18 or 22

other officers on the walk. that is as i get into this and i think it's a very exciting project that a lot of us have the opportunity to get involved with, how do we start to identify what the measurements and the parameters are. this is simply -- just for this time in space where we are now and maybe in 2007 before this was really spot on. but for now this just isn't -- it doesn't give us the results we're all looking for. ultimately it is the outcome of the intervention. as we move forward, i would like us all to really pay attention to how we define what an intervention is. i know it's a bit of a broken record but this is a non

punitive system. this is supposed to be before involved in at-risk behavior or adverse event. so use of force could be adverse event. it doesn't necessarily mean my use of force is wrong, but for the purposes of those are the behaviors we don't want to see. you have to define what the intervention is. and under my own mind, it's you sit down and if your alert is triggered for example sticking with the use of force. i had x number of use of force incidents, then what we do as an agency, we need to provide better guidance to supervisors in the sense that okay, this is how you do it from start to

finish. you have to set it up so you get back what you need. >> vice president elias: will it be able to track race and gender with respect to the alerts,

interventions and engagements of the officers outside of eis. the reason i ask this, in attending the discipline equity meeting, there was a great suggestion made in terms of are we going to look at this process and see if there's disparities or biases that exist in the process. will the new system be able to collect and keep track of the data for us to later analyze? >> absolutely. one of those things, too, it will be gender and ethnicity and include how many years of service the officer has. that's a really big deal when you talk about intervention. certain types of behaviors with somebody with x amount of years compared to x amount of years of experience. we could look at that differently in terms of what that indicates to us.

but, again, that's also as relying on the machine learning and algorithms. that type of data-driven system will take the factors into consideration. >> vice president elias: great. i'm glad to hear it. i have one question. this has been an issue for me in the past and i'm still not understanding the reasoning or explanation, which is why mission station has a substantially higher number of alerts. i know some of the reasoning has been the demographics, the make-up, the type of calls for service. but when you look at slide 20 and it shows violent crimes and then the alerts and indicator points, it appears that in terms of violent crimes, mission station is not the leader on the board and that yet, it is the leader when it comes to alerts. where the tenderloin, which it appears to be the leader on the

board has half of the alerts. the reasoning i have been given in the past is not making sense, especially when you look at the slide. >> yeah. >> vice president elias: i'm trying to figure out, have we figured out why mission station is higher? >> we haven't commissioner. that's part of the analytics function of things. i do want to say that, you know, if i said it in the past, i should correct myself. you made the statement it's been explained because of the higher crimes or demographics or things of that nature. just to be clear, and that's kind of in the preference at the beginning of the power point presentation and each of the quarterly reports, we do say we're not drawing conclusions on correlation and causezation. that's the question here.

what we can do in the interim. meaning with the interim before we get the system and how we want to design that and what is going to be made available to us is to look into the incidents themselves. as you try to reason around these things, if there's more calls for service than any other station, you have more potential of interactions to engage in

certain behaviors. that's something we want to get at. >> vice president elias: it seems to me they are guesses. i'm hoping when we move to a more data driven system, we'll have more concrete direction as to why these are appearing. thank you. >> president cohen: all right. i have a couple of questions for you lieutenant. i would appreciate a thoughtful answer. back on slide 6 indicators and associated factors. as you continue to have conversations about how to refine the system, are there any other factors you would consider including here that are not included? things you would include. this is on slide 6. >> yes.

there are. and one of the factors in looking at the literature that's been written about data driven systems and there's a couple -- a couple of agencies uses a data driven system and one of the factors they look at are the types of calls for service that officers respond to. you know, included in those types of calls are domestic violence related calls for service, calls for service that include children, sexual assaults. anything of that nature that obviously has -- it can be very severe consequences around that. really the whole point of that and the connection is that responding to those types of service, calls for service can have a profound impact on an officer. the things they engage with and

see. the literature supports that that can have and does have a consequence on an officer. what we want to do as we move forward with that, track that type of information. >> supervisor ronen: the second question i have still relates to slide six. the threshold system is on associated factors triggering an alert. i wonder if you could provide more information on the threshold for vehicle or pedestrian stops would look like? >> as i move to threshold -- let me go to slide -- i'm going to forward myself to slide 7 because they would be -- every indicator is assigned one point.

so we looked at any five indicators in a six month period or six indicators in a 12 month period. that type of factor would come in in those circumstances as you can see with the thresholds, there's carve outs for specific types of behavior. those being the use of force, complaints and then officer involved shooting. pedestrian stop in and of itself being one point is not going to trigger an alert. but that being said, that doesn't mean -- we're not going to entertain the threshold system moving forward, but the way it is set up now, the number of pedestrian stops are not going to -- that's actually an associated factor. that's not going to trigger an

alert. >> supervisor ronen: just as a follow-up, some locations and beats would require more activity than others. how do united states control for that? how do you control for that? >> how we control for that, you look peer to peer. that is -- you know, let's say really getting into the nitty gritty, the officers assigned to the mission, compared to beat officers in the richmond district and officers assigned to third street. that's where it is important to compare apples to apples. so in order to get there, you have to look at our peer group, you myself, there's six of us assigned to 6th street foot beat. how do we compare amongst each other to a foot beat with less violent crime for example.

coyne slide 17 indicator points by station. so the mission station is an outlier maybe a bit to cindy's point. followed by the tenderloin. what does the department do with this information to help with threshold crossing among officers working at the two stations? >> well, it's -- to use an example like i used earlier, where sergeant deval works, he's had contact with mission station to get into the behavior of the officers and come to a decision if it's at risk behavior or more a consequence of the fact that given an officer's assignment,

he or she is involved in more types of incidents. either way, the referral is going to be made to go to some sort of training. >> president cohen: okay. slide 21 is my final question. engagements outside eis. thank you for including this. i was wondering if you could tell me a little more information about the informal counseling, how that works, what it looks like. are supervisors provided guidance for how to conduct the counseling and most importantly, are the results of the counseling sessions tracked? >> so they're tracked -- there's a few questions in there. first one is yes, they are provided guidance, how to conduct informal and formal counseling --

>> president cohen: who provides them the guidance? >> we have a multitude of documents. one we have a performance improvement plan manual. as i'm looking around here, darwin created a sheet or maybe his predecessor with regards to tracking the information within that and in the department notice, it provides a definition of what informal and formal counseling is. there's a multitude of places within the department where that particular information, that guidance is available. to your question of what is informal counseling. let's say that myself as a sergeant responds to a scene and observe an officer handling the situation and it's my opinion that that officer could have used a different tone of voice. he or she could have been maybe

more empathetic let's say. informally, i may when we clear the call for service, whether we're out on the street and by ourselves or back at the station, informal counseling session would be just to point that out and have the conversation and say here's my observation, i want you to be mindful of this and engage the officer to see if they see that within themselves. the learning point is that you brought it to their attention. formal counseling is just that. it involves documentation. maybe now i haven't just once but i'm on my third time of bringing up this particular -- addressing this, now i want to formalize it in terms of a document that is going to go into your binder.

>> president cohen: this level of detail and explanation is incredibly helpful, very insightful for the entire process. i'm very grateful you have taken your time to dive in and articulate the answers as well as articulate the process and please let sergeant darwin know also that i'm really, really impressed. that's all the questions i have at this time. i see no other names on the roster, so we are going to say thank you to you -- >> may i ask a follow-up? following up on president cohen's point about the types of cases that are brought to the various stages of early warning that president cohen was just

talking about, how are these violations classified and recorded so we know the department tracks what types of violation -- i'm assuming they must be policy violations, correct? >> no. that's just it. just to draw you back into the mind set of it's non punitive. >> so punitive is the punishment. the underlining question is the act. what act was committed to bring you into the system. it's not about what ultimately happens as a result of the act, my question is, are the acts being brought into the early warning system, are these violations of policy? >> they could be. but the short answer is no and

very infrequently. the threshold system simply -- the alert is blind to an opinion as to whether or not -- i'll stick with the use of force. whether my three uses of force in three months was appropriate. there's a program that is run through aim, i referenced the system and says in the last three months, three uses of force alerts. the documentation, the paperwork gets routed from this office to the commander officer of the station and gives it to the supervisor who supervises me and we look at it. if within the review, a supervisor was of the opinion, red alert, i think there's potentially misconduct here, that would come back up to go to the internal affairs division or

on duty conduct, making a referral over to the dpa. that's not this. and i think you know that. it's just that the mechanism for doing an administrative investigation, under these circumstances outside of that one off where someone looks at this and goes, this is cause for concern, the only time it's going to come back, if i sit down with you and you don't want to participate in this conversation, you can say that, but it's not without consequences. it may be a referral to internal affairs. i'm not aware of that happening. >> i guess what i'm wondering, if this isn't -- the conduct is not a violation of policy, what

is it? >> it's because when this was set up -- >> commissioner brookter: i'm asking what are the actual cases or notifications. i understand it's separate but what is the standard that triggers it? the way the general orders are written, it's the violations of those and department notices that would trigger a particular action, being rude to a civilian, victim of a crime. i guess my question is, why do the violations go to ia instead

of disappearing and we never know about them. >> no, because -- i'll there's an alert triggered because i had the requisite number of dpa complaints. dpa as we know, is going to investigate those complaints from the community member. >> correct. >> the complaint is going to go through this process that we're talking about, not for purposes of sustaining that that allegation occurred and recommending any sort of discipline. that's not the role of a street supervisor. it's for that supervisor to look at it and i'll kind of stick with -- as an example, i get these three complaints and i look at, i'm observing there's a theme here. me, the sergeant. and i think that, you know, a little bit of a theme in here is

that your tone of voice. whether that phrase is used or basically similar language is used in the complaints, that's an opportunity for me as a supervisor to talk about that with the member. to see how we can improve upon that behavior. dpa is going to complete the investigation. if it has a finding and comes through and we review that. >> but these are not just dpa referrals. what percentage are? >> let me get back to the slides. as we -- just for example i'm on slide 17 indicator points by station, you can see with regards to the indicator points, the highest number of points are around use of force and complaints that come through dpa. >> has there ever been an audit

of the eis system? i don't remember. in recent history. >> well, i guess it depends on how you define or what you're looking for -- >> external audit by a neutral agency. >> to my knowledge, no. and maybe i'll ask stacy to chime in on that. sergeant youngblood do you have anything to offer there? >> there has not been external audit of eis. let me add in, there's been a review, external review from the university of chicago that did not yield -- we didn't get what we were expect together get from that. what they were really looking at

was a top to bottom look at the system and it was supposed to come with recommendations on how to improve the system or what to do to get us where we want to be in our eis and this type -- we didn't get what we hoped to get and you know the story of that. >> i guess it's just a system that we need to work on and we'll get there. >> president cohen: okay. stacy, let's go ahead and go to public comment and after public comment, we're going to take a five minute break. thank you. >> members of the public who want to make public comment online item 4, press star 3 now

to raise your hand. so far we have one caller. >> president cohen: good let's hear from them. >> clerk: good evening caller, you have two minutes. >> good evening. i am deputy public defender cox and would like to comment on the public system. i am encouraged to hear that sfpd is moving to data driven based system. it comes in a moment in our country we need more data to end police misconduct. hopefully this is a first step in a larger move to use data like that. thank you for having the conversation honestly and in public. the details of the new system are important though. i think it's important for the chief or others to report to the

commission which type of system it chooses to give the commission the chance to provide some measure of oversight. it is a great step forward and thank you commissioners and chief scott and others involved for making it happen. thank you. >> president cohen: thank you. sergeant, i'd like to take a five minute break please. >> clerk: yes >> clerk: line item 5, presentation of the report on general orders policy proposals. fourth quarter 2020 discussion. >> president cohen: thank you. who is making the presentation?

>> i am for sfpd. if you can bring up the presentation please. good evening president cohen, vice president cohen and commissioners. i'll be reporting on the fourth quarter activities related to department policy, general orders in particular and giving an update on our work under the spark resolution. next slide please. so i changed things up for the presentation. we'll provide an update by sort of the process. these are the high level steps we take to get through the

process and to you all. so, i have reformatted the presentation in this order and then will present the work we have done with dpa in that quarter as well. next slide please. so i'm going to probably scroll through these pretty quickly. the working groups that have been in progress during quarter 4 are represented there on the slide and as we have talked about, the early intervention system as you all know, the working group has met, however, the dgo itself and working group are on hold until we have a better sense of what the procurement results are and then what the system will look like going forward. other working groups are represented there on the slide

and include juvenile policy, personal use of social media and media relations and investigations of officer involved shootings. and that dgo is en route to written directives. next slide. we have many dgo's in the drafting stage, including brand new ones you'll be seeing at some point. a couple of these are in pretty early stages, both the glossary of terms, we have felt and command staff felt might be necessary to have common language throughout the dgo's so as definitions change, say as a universal definition changes from the perspective of the commission or the department, we can change this dgo and it applies to all others that make

mention of that term. another dgo that is brand new to the department en route to written directives is disengagement dgo. i'm sure we'll be talking about that pretty soon. next slide please. so this is the next set of dgo's in the drafting stage. these are sitting with sme, department of sme, to draft. we have gotten initial kind of policy recommendations from dpa and our sme's are incorporating those. next slide please. and we have this slide and then one more of a list of the dgo's in the drafting stage. property processing and evaluation of juveniles are both on hold. the property processing on hold because there is some new

technology being implemented and rolled out very soon, this month i believe. and we want to make sure that the dgo reflects that new technology. and then 7.02, evaluation of juveniles is on hold because of the conversations related to service call shifts as appropriate. next slide. and then this is the final slide that shows those dgo's in the drafting stage, including computer management committee. this is a very old dgo that reflects a time when we did not all have computers. and so we're in the process of updating that and making it reflect a more modern approach to technology decisions. next slide please. then we move into the first stage of sparks, the dpa input.

we have the sme completes a draft and we send it to dpa to give additional thoughts they may have. the psychological evaluation of adults is also on hold pending the city-wide look at calls for service and where things need to shift. next slide please. then the next stage is cocurrents. we have about five dgo's currently in concurrence or worked on in cooccurrence in quarter four. next slide. (please stand by...)

>> next slide. and, as you can see three general orders so we did put the dates adopted by the issued

and then adopted. so that's a summary of all these issues in quarter 4 and as i mentioned in the slide before and 44 bulletins and department notices issued in quarter 4 of 2020. next slide. now, we'll talk a little bit about the recommendations we worked in quarter four that dpa made including two recommendations by dpa that related to arrests by private person according to language by a prior department bulletin. so this was really doing the work that was recommended by the u.s. doj and memorialized in 3.01 and sort of required us to go ahead and implement and incorporate department

bulletins in dgos. next slide. and that's by private persons. really this is consistent with 5.03, a recommendation that we incorporated with 5.04 as well. next slide. and, then we moved into the victim and violent crime notification. all of these recommendations by dpa were incorporated but for a couple -- if we can go to the next slide. i will talk about a notifying victims service division when victim information changes. the reason we didn't include this recommendation was simply that not all victims are assigned to the victims services division and therefore we may not notify them accordingly. however, we did incorporate this recommendation into investigation operations.

next slide, please. and, then the social media platform is being updated with the victim service information. we totally agree with the recommendation, we just didn't feel in this particular dgo and so i think we wound up closing this item in the end. and i believe that's all the slides. and, i'm happy to take any questions. >> president cohen: all right. thank you. do you have any questions for ms. mcgire. >> we'll go ahead and start with mine. on slide three -- let me see here. hold on a minute. on slide three regarding working groups, how do you determine who sits on each of these working groups?

>> so chief's got guidance from his office from about a year and a half ago i believe that provided an outline of sort of the optimal number of members and appropriateness of the appropriate people and really try to keep those working groups lean and also informed and robust with respect to perspective and expertise. i believe the chief's office

has input on some of the membership, but the subject maerlt experts know the people in the field and know the folks who have the expertise so we really rely on them for their expertise. >> are all these working groups public if. >> if i can chime in. what we try expertise. some of it is by expertise and outrage. some come to us that want to be involved. we're fortunate to have several people in groups who always are involved in this work. so they have developed an

expertise of working with us and on the subject matter like the bar association and groups like that. >> got it. >> a combination of all of that. >> so what you're describing is describing working groups that are open to the public. i'm wondering are there internal working -- are there internal groups as well? >> in some cases. >> are or is it by invitation only? >> no. in some cases it's internal. if there's a policy that only sfpd personnel are involved in, that is sometimes the case rarely on most of the dgos is that the case. but that is sometimes the case. for instance if they're in the dive unit of dgo, there's a significant amount of expertise. it wasn't something that we did outreach to the public and it

was subject matter that with the tuition a year ago that was the internal working group who had the expertise for what was needed. the expectation is those are like that, but a lot of them are public and, of course, the commission definitely weighs in on which ones are public and which ones aren't. >> president cohen: so which ones will dpa be apart of? >> hopefully dpa is apart of everything we do because all of our policies offer reviews. in terms of the working groups, there are i would say and kathryn would be closer to this than me, the dpa is involved in a significant amount of policies. >> yeah. dpa reviews every one of our policies. they review them a couple of times and we'll send draft form

before and after concurrence and they provide input before we even draft them. so as per kind of the per the guidance. >> president cohen: all right. okay. i'm wonder if you can provide a little more information on this disengagement of dgos. so was there a working group for this dgo? which department is taking a lead on it? do you have any opinions about it such as the district attorney's office on this? go ahead, chief. >> i'll take this. the lead on this as far as the department is concerned is the team led by lieutenant molina our tactical team has weighed in on this as well.

dpa has been involved in this conversation. we just had one two days ago on a meeting on a related dgo that's coming to the commission hopefully soon. there has been outside policies outside the city and county that we have examined and communication with those cities and those police departments as well there's no type of incident where the prudent and best thing to do is just discontinue to engage with that individual. if they say i'm going to hurt myself and there's no harm to the public. their are times where the best strategy is to disengage and we definitely want to do everything possible to perpetuate that situation that i just described, but there are times where that strategy where

police presence might aggravate that situation. and have some rules around that, some guidance around that some dgos, so that's in the works right know. >> president cohen: that's a strategy when i argue with my sisters, which is disengage, and it works. [laughter] >> it's a thing that's evolved particularly over the last few years and many departments are adopting those strategies and it has to be the right situation. >> president cohen: right. we can't afford to disengage. i get it. so with no working group for the dgo? i don't know the answer. >> it's in the process. >> president cohen: i think you read it. >> i'm sorry.

yeah. it's still a process. there are many hands that are in this. i believe with cit the work group is also getting in on this policy and this subject matter which as you all know is robust individuals. we have a lot of expertise in terms of cipwork and disengagement. >> president cohen: so one of the things that i want to figure out a way to do with you is how do we institutionalize the working and the department of police accountability. i want to make sure we're formally approving it. i want to make sure that we are moving forward because i see the department of accountability being a constant and constantly in there

so perhaps you and i can figure out a way what that would look like. i don't know off the top of my head , but if it's language or an mou, i don't know the answer. >> definitely. definitely. you're welcome to have the v. >> president cohen: i'm sure they'll have ideas on how we can formalize that relationship. my final question is do you consider the outside energy of the district attorney's office when dealing with department general orders? >> yeah. sometimes we do. it's generated by the subject in the topic, but they have weighed in on some of our policies and so we do.

we consider public defenders as well. i have monthly meetings with our public defenders and we just had a really good meeting with the public defender and key members of his team on all discussions. so all of it helps us get to where we want to get. that input is in my opinion valuable and that's when we take that into consideration where we're working on these policies. >> president cohen: next speaker is mr. hamasaki. >> commissioner hamasaki: thank you president cohen. chief i do want to follow up and i ask you i didn't think of this until i heard president cohen 's question. but last year, there was a lot of the protocol or some sort of

structure was put on the department side of working groups because the line of concernation or community working with members and, chief, were you the community groups service with you? >> i believe i know what you're talking about, yes. there were some discussions with the community and i believe what you're referring to and what mcgire referred to. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. so the issue for me was for whatever reason community -- i mean, i am available and always happy to talk to people and engage, but, you know, a few different long standing community groups reached out and said, you know, we were

thinking about withdrawing our participation because we don't feel like the way they're being run is good. that's important to me because these are community groups that volunteer their working time, their free time to try to come help make this department a better place. offering their advice, their input as members of the community. that is recently, i believe it was a juvenile working group. she was asked she would give up her seat in a certain number. she's a real integral part for police reform in the city for ten years, seven years. and so, i don't know if

president cohen said, i don't know what the exact model is, but i think that model has to be developed between the police commission and the department because right now, i will tell you my instincts last year and i think i shared this is the department is not giving all these numbers to the working groups and the police commission can just have working groups and we can invite the police department to participate because ultimately, the issue with policy, that is our decision. so we can put together a working group with the right policy because when it comes to the commission, we're just going to crush it because policy is our duty and obligation. so, you know, it's not for us to criticize. i think people were trying different tactics and different strategies, but i think what we found at this point at least from everything that i've heard is that there's got to be a

better way. there's got to be a way where the community buy in and inclusion and the policies with not just the best practices of the police but for the community. so, you know, i think president cohen is suggesting that a dialog between the department and the police commission, i think that's a wonderful idea and i'd love to be apart of that because i'm fortunate enough to get to hear about it. you know, at the end of the day, we all want the right thing. we want the best policy possible. if i can speak tonight. -- in the most efficient manner and getting through the police commission and the training is possible. so, you know, my thoughts piggyback off of president cohen's saying let's work together. not cross purposes where

community members are upset, commissioners are upset. the department's upset. we can do this all together i think a lot better than we can inside communities. >> yeah. commissioner, i agree with you. here's the good news. as far as i know, those partners that have been working with us for years are still there and some of this is give and take. you know this, i think we've had this discussion and we've definitely had it in public. the balance that we're trying to create is efficiency in terms of we have to have a sense of urgency on policies. look, i'm not taking anything away from some really good policies in my opinion that were approved after two, three, four years of work, but, as you all know, you all hold me and this department accountable to get these recommendations done with some urgency and that's what we're trying to strike the balance and part of this is

about having a manageable working group where we're not taking three years to develop a policy and that's give and take. i'm definitely with you on that. we don't want to offend or make anybody upset that's trying to work with us. there's people doing this on their own time. and we understand that and i definitely understand that as well. the other side of that balance is this commission, this public that we serve has been very clear that they want to see the recommendations done and they want to see them done in a timely manner and i can't come in front of this commission and offer an excuse and say well, we can't get it done. so we try to be efficient on making sure our working groups are still manageable and as far as i know, we haven't lost anybody and i know there's been some discussions back and forth, but we are open and none of this is written in stone where we can't adjust when we need to make adjustments.

so the bottom line is i definitely want to work with the commission on this and i also want to get the job done with a sense of urgency that the commission has demanded upon me and the department. >> commissioner hamasaki: we're not asking or at least i'm not asking for urgency at the extent of the community input. >> commissioner, i get it. nobody's accepting excuses when we don't get these recommendations done. so my job is to try to do this as efficiently as possible and still be inclusive and get people involved with the spirit of what we're trying to do. definitely i'm willing to work with the commission and you and everyone else trying to get that done. >> let's work together at an early point. not to the point after you put together a group and said this is the structure of the group which always happens between

you and i before and we have to fight to get people on. that's not how it should happen. that's our decision. we each have policies. you're not alone here. so if we're not alone we're working on purposes. >> i think we're saying the same thing, commissioner. we do want to work together. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. thank you. >> president cohen: all right. thank you very much. let's keep moving forward. i don't see any other names. so. >> president cohen, sorry, my name is in the queue. >> is it? please do, cindy. go ahead. >> vice president elias: thank you. i'll be very quick. i think commissioner hamasaki has covered a majority of what i wanted to ask. chief, i do want to let you know that i have also been

approached by community members regarding the working groups and how they feel that it's very -- there's a sense of exclusion with respect to various community groups and i know after you put out the policy with respect to the new guidelines and working groups, it seems contrary as to how the working groups in the community and that working group i think what commander lizard told us before it was 53 different types of individuals who participated in the group and you can really see the end product in what you get because i think that that's one of the best dgos that we've passed. it's very inclusive from the very vantage point from the members who participated. and so i'll i understand there's a balance between

efficiency and exclusion, i agree with commissioner hamasaki in terms of the balance is to be there rather than focus on being efficient to the detriment of excludeing people and i really do think that some of the executive sponsors that you assign to these working groups really does set the tone for how these working groups are conducted and who's invited. so i would just ask for you to keep those things in mind. and, two other things i wanted to ask you. one, is how is the public made aware of these working groups and invited to these working groups? and, secondly, who on your staff should they be reaching out to or contact when they feed excluded? these are some of the complaints that commissioners

received. >> sure. let me answer the last question. because some members do reach out directly to my office on those issues in the course of responsive and address. so i would ask that reach my office and it will definitely get to me in terms of anybody that's not feeling included. we put out invitations to these working groups in a number of ways. for instance, like last night, there was a call to participate in working groups. in the meeting i had on monday night, there was the same call. please, be engaged. we have opportunities to be involved with our policy making. and, we're trying to achieve a combination of people that provide a lot of -- they bring a lot to the table with research and i'm talking about associations like the bar association and others like that and they've been involved

and they know how to work with the department. but also having people from the community who are impacted by what we do in the policy have an opportunity to weigh in on those as well. the other thing is trying to achieve some balance. i've also been told by some people and we just talked about regular everyday people who tried to get involved in these conversations. they feel like they grounded out by sometimes people who do this all the time and they feel dismissed by that segment of this work. so we want to have a balance on both sides of that and that's why we try very hard to have balance in these working groups and we don't want people to exclude people. that's not the idea. not chasing away the people who don't do this regularly and they don't get involved regularly, but i've been told that by quite a few people that sometimes they feel like they don't have voices and they get drowned out. not me personally, but this is

one of the quotes. if i say something that people aren't agreeable about, i feel like, you know, i'm ostracized for that. so we try to manage these so that's not happening to anybody and definitely we don't want to do that as well. the police department members want to hear people and not feel like we are pushing people away in that regard and we had that comment before particularly when this work first started on the reform, when i first got here. so we're trying to have that balance. they can e-mail me or call my office. >> vice president elias: can you provide that information so we can post that on the information website so people know where to contact and also too perhaps another guideline or where we can direct the community to go to start participating in some of these working groups because i think

you're right. we need to get people who haven't been here before and one of the interesting things that was brought up at the bias working group that i attended was, you know, most people don't feel comfortable coming to the police station and we want to ask community members to come and be involved when we're asking them to come to the police station where for whatever reason they may have -- they may not be able to do so. so perhaps another area we can look at is trying to find maybe other locations or other solutions to having meetings held so that we can get a more diverse and more of a cross section in the community. >> you're so right, commissioner. and, we're willing to go out into the community and so that should not be an issue and is not an issue. even when things open back up, we can do more of that. right now, everything's pretty much virtual, but we are willing to do that and i agree

and that's a good point. but sfpd chief and all ask sergeant youngblood to put that out as well. >> vice president elias: thank you, chief i appreciate it. >> president cohen: all right. seeing there are no other questions. let's continue with the agenda. i believe, sergeant, next is the presentation of dpa and findings. could you call it please. item 6. >> if i may, i think you missed the dpa part of the presentation. >> president cohen: my apologies. >> we were going to talk a little bit about some of the subject. >> vice president elias: you're the working groups. you've got to give some.

>> president cohen, smiez. we've already talked about many of the things that we wanted to raise. i will do a pitch for lack of a better word that dpa should be involved in every working group and that is for efficiency purposes. sometimes dpa may make the recommendation following the working group where we're making a recommendation that's already been discussed within the working group and there are reasons that it may or may not be in there and so i would make the pitch that we should be in every working group because we have so many opportunities to provide feedback and provide recommendations. so in the meeting, president cohen, that you have with the chief, i would advocate for

dpa's inclusion in all of the working groups that they have. so that would be my pitch and i'll be very quick. i only have two slides in my presentation as opposed to the mr. president's presentation. and so, sergeant youngblood if you can start the dpa presentation. thank you. one thing i will mention in our presentation is that the scope of work has changed in q4. i think if you remember was here she provides where dpa would provide recommendations before any dgos were presented to the department to dpa. and that work was all done q1, q2, and a little bit of q42020. and now the dgos which have gone through and have been

presented to dpa for recommendation. so the scope of work has changed a little bit. the first slide is sort of my understanding of the dgo revision process in terms of a flowchart and i'm hoping that i know like president cohen if you would propose many changes, i'm looking at them. i think a lot of them have a lot of efficiencies in them. because i think the current process is quantity and there are lots of efficiencies that we can garner and time lines that should be placed on everybody through the process. and so i think dpa is really supportive of many of the revisions that you are suggesting in 3.01. next slide, please. so the sparks meeting this year, we've covered a lot of ground. there are 15 dgos that we've

reviewed through the sparks meeting. there's only three sparks meetings in the fourth quarter so we've been busy and we've sent many of the dgos to concurrence already and director mcgire talked about those in depth. next slide, sergeant youngblood. i just wanted to note a couple of highlights for the fourth quarter. we finally finished the dgo and manual that was for the commission. four years of work. i would say to the chief that the working group really wasn't the issue in breeding that work. the working group was diligent and efficient. i think there was some hit and misses in the process but we were able to come together at the very end in the last couple of months over a number of different meetings to reconcile

any differences and the commission passed that dgo january 2021 and the first manual from the department. so i think that was a big win. and also dpa was integral in sort of coming together with some language in 5.03 in terms of investigative detentions and the standards for a pat search. we also were involved in the bias strategic plan and thank you, president cohen, for noting too the recommendations that dpd did have for bias in the work place which that it should be data driven and that there should be analysis by outside educators to determine whether or not the bias strategic plan really is strategic in its use. and, then, the last thing when i think would be is great for all of us which is the department created a dgo tracking share point so that we

can all easily understand where the dgos are in the process and where dpa is in the revision process and when it's in concurrence. and then we have on all of the post concurrent documents that everything can be redlined and versioned so we can understand what is changed preand post concurrent and we aren't reinventing the wheel. i guess that's it. how was that for quickness? if there's any questions, i'll be more than happy to answer them. >> president cohen: thank you. that was quick. i don't have any questions. colleagues, are there any questions? i think in the last slide not your presentation but of the chief's presentation, there was a note about dpa's recommendation for the bias

strategic plan which are under consideration. do you want to speak a little bit about that? the recommendation. >> so we made a number of recommendations. there were four different subgroups in that strategic plan. i've highlighted a couple of the areas that we emphasized in the discussions and i put that in the letter to the commission. one is that we thought there needed to be more of a voice from some of the affinity law enforcement groups. they feel like they haven't been involved and that just can't happen. it is for them and for the workforce that the strategic plan is in place. and so input from groups like officers protective, the police officer's association, all of

the affinity groups to make sure the strategic plan is successful. we also think there should be some monitoring and review of input of the strategic plan. so we in our audit capacity have suggested some auditing efforts. i'm sorry, president, i think you're on mute. >> president cohen: i'm sorry, go ahead. >> and you mentioned earlier and thank you for mentioning that that there should be review of someone like dr. everhart that these are strategic and would be effective and that the strategic bias plan should be data driven and so we should understand what the analysis of what that data is to make sure we're moving in the right direction. >> president cohen: thank you. okay. colleagues, any questions for

ms. woo? none. perfect. director henderson, is there any last remarks? none. perfect thank you. thank you to you both. we're going to keep moving. all right. sergeant youngblood, what's next? >> public comment. >> at this time members of the public would like to make comments regarding item five press star three now. president cohen, it appears there's no public comment. >> president cohen: thank you. let's keep moving. >> line item 6, presentations of the sfpd dpa district reviews findings, and recommendations. 2020 discussion. >> all right. good evening president cohen, vice president elias, director

henderson, chief scott, and members of the public. i am chief robert mozur and we'll be doing a joint presentation tonight. i am joined by chief of staff sarah hawkins from dpa and we're here to present to you the disciplinary review board for quarters one, two, and three of 2020. and, stacy, if you can bring up the presentation, please. and, next slide. and, next slide. okay. a little bit of explanation about what the disciplinary review board is. the disciplinary review board is set forth under department general or 2.04. and it's comprised of members of the san francisco police department along with the san francisco -- excuse me. the san francisco police department of accountability. and there's really four main objectives of the board. it looks at trends related to

ied complaints both alleged and sustained. we look at policy failure or training failure in cases that are closed in the prior quarter. we look at sustained cases from previous quarter for review to determine if there's any training or policy needs. and, we also discuss general recommendations by sfpd and dpa. next slide, please, stacy. and, this is just a composition of the board which is defined by dgo 2.04. and, with that, i'll turn the slide over to sarah hawkins to talk about trends identified by the dpa. >> good evening president

cohen, economize, director henderson . so the fourth quarter of 2020 were first of all body warn camera. that was the most violation that we saw. the second trend was fourth amendment violations. officers conducting searches and seizures in violation of current policies related to the fourth amendment and what i would call an addictive surge in trends related to discrimination cases which include use of family members for interpreters and not handling a case involving a hearing appropriately. sergeant youngblood. >> thanks, stacy. so i'm going to go over our aggregate trends identified on

our side. similar to dpa what we saw was body warn camera violations which is typically an officer failing to activate a body warn camera or a late activation of a body warn camera. we also saw trends in failures to appear. failures to appear really run the gambit. a fitness test, court appearances, dpa interview. so on and so forth. now the third trend that we saw were a failure to investigate or failure to report. officers didn't properly investigate an incident or should have taken a report and they did not. next slide please, stacy. policy failures.

iad identified one policy failure and that case was regarding the process for the use and return of firearms at the sfpd range for training courses. this particular incident involved really making sure that firearms are returned in a clean and operating condition. the issue was addressed by the chief and the training division has updated their policy and curriculum to delineate the process for the return and proper checking of equipment post training. and, i'll turn it over to sarah for dpa. >> thank you. it says that dpa identified two policy failure cases. in total, we actually identified ten policy failure cases. however, the structure of the disciplinary review board is that we fix among those the kind of necessary cases for broader discussion. so in that regard, we

identified and discussed two particular policy failure cases. the first was a situation where a search warrant was being conducted at a residence where only a juvenile was present within the home and so we recommended that that policy be updated. i am currently a member of the 7.01 working group which might be an appropriate place, another place that that might be appropriate is in the new one related to the 5.06 manual. the second policy failure we identified was an officer told a bystander they could not photograph the officer while the officer conducted a traffic stop. and, with regard to that, we recommended updating dgo 5.07 to include specific language on when officers can and cannot prevent the taking of photographs. that is updated on that. i believe it may have been covered in the presentation by director mcgire and by ms. woo

that was included in recommendation that dpa made and was included in the revision of 5.07. sergeant youngblood, if you can advance the slide, please. >> okay. training identified. iad identified one training measure and that had to do with a recently graduated officer that failed to attend their physical fitness test. in that case, it appears there was a misunderstanding by the recruit who felt or was under the impression that they did not have to attend coming straight out of the academy. so we have reconciled that by including information upon graduation that reiterates the recruit's obligations to attend

both biannual fitness and the range no matter when they're called upon the graduation. and i'll turn it over to sarah for dpa. >> thank you. similarly to what i mentioned in the previous slide with regard to policy failures, we identified training failures in seven cases. but the two we elaborated on during this particular review board meeting was the first in which an officer advised a civilian that they could not film inside a police station. dpa recommended implementing a training on first amendment audit. the second situation we discussed was one where officers failed to properly address a group of protesters or behind police barricades and the police districts did not communicate regarding this particular protest.

dpa recommending that dgo 8.03 be updated in its practices. i believe that that recommendation will be addressed when the dgo revision process addresses dgo 8.0 first. >> okay. the disciplinary review board. the board came up with nine total recommendations for the department and dpa. recommendation one was that the dpa and iad provide more specific numbers relevant to the ago get trends. so that information will be put out for the officer's training purposes and to the public. iad has currently addressed this as we speak. sarah, do you want to cover

that. >> sure. with the second recommendation with regard to failure to supervise, dpa will detail how supervisors failed in their duties so it will be more appropriately addressed by the department. and as we're having this discussion commissioner elias and commissioner cohen you were both present. there was a discussion about all of the topics that were brought up. so some of these recommendations came from members of the group. and this is one of those examples. i can't remember which dc this was. i think it's a very good recommendation which is something that dpa has been finding while making findings about this issue of supervisory rules. so dpa will be able to detail the specifics about that so they can be trained as well as

discussed. the commitments who articulating these details and also working with sfpd to create a report on these specific cases which can then be provided to the officer trainee. >> thanks. so it's really in line with the first two and that was regarding statistics and body warn camera violations and the recommendation was to communicate to officers more frequently about the number of cases that we have in order to reinforce the importance of compliance. iad is also dropping the unit order that's going to address the distribution of the body warn camera so we can use that for training purposes and hopefully mitigate some of these complaints that we're

seeing on iad as well as the dpa side. next slide, please. recommendations for sfpd. requires officers. so when we do find discourtesy complaints, quite often as a recommendation during the finding, officers are required to go to specific training. we don't have that codified in a unit order, however. iad is in the process of drafting an order so that we can refer officers to attend. should emphasize with

individuals claiming hearing impaired or from a specific case that had to do with officers' interactions in the field and, as a result of that, we've spoken to the academy and league instructors at the academy will be leading the process in that training and that officers are presented with some of the claims that they have or any other issue to take that on face value. recommendation number six. to ensure they're still in effect and have not changed. this came from a case that involved an incident where the officers were unsure of a law that had changed. the department recently has hired a new attorney who will

be working on these issues. we're working on a regular legal update and there's a couple of examples. recommendation number seven. >> president cohen: i'm sorry. can everyone mute themselves. go ahead. i'm sorry. i was having a hard time hearing. >> thank you. >> recommendation number seven, when relevant, sfpd training courses so emphasize and reduce officers maintain compliance with the policy and this really came out of again, the numbers that we were seeing both on the iad side and the dpa side for body camera violations and sometimes it's just officers forgetting to turn on the cameras. so the bwc policy is going to

be reiterated both in practical application as well as policy applications and really the idea of this was to really make sure we're incorporating it in all of our trainings. when we do cmcr where officers are retraining that motor skill of turning on that camera as soon as the incident begins. recommendation eight. chp which are policy compliant. really, this is a suggestion about putting language in dgo 10.11 that specifically allows continuous training and improvement. it speaks to review of body warn cameras, but it doesn't exmrift talk about that footage to allow us to train and improve and that was the nature of that recommendation. and, finally, the nineth

recommendation was both dpa and iad training to illustrate aggregate trends of dpa and iad investigations. to make sure supervisors are aware of present and ongoing issues. dpa will be included as part of the promotional training to discuss aggregate trends. the section of promotional training and chief of staff hawkins and i alluded to earlier about having those aggregate trainings really boiled down to the available during those trainings as well. so officers and sergeants are aware. next slide, please. and, next disciplinary review

board is scheduled for march 19th. and, that will be covered q4 of 2020 and that concludes our presentation. any questions? >> president cohen: thank you. colleagues? >> i had a few quick questions. >> president cohen: president cohen yeah. >> first, i really want to commend them on this board. i think this is a great group and i think that the conversations and the stuff that we're getting out of this review board are really going to help i think push the needle forward in terms of how we're viewing discipline and holding people accountable and changing

culture within the san francisco police department so i'm really excited about that. there are two issues that i wanted to ask you about. i noticed that with respect to the aggregate trends, it appears that dpa, the three trends that dpa identifies appears to be more substancive like failing to appear or failing to investigate body warn cameras. and, i'm wondering if it makes sense that the -- that both the dpa and department coordinate that the trends are different meaning the dpa has certain trends and the department has different trends, perhaps the department can look into some of the trends that have been identified by dpa and also report on those and vice versa

if dpa can also look at the trends that the department sees and reports in terms of what their own complaints are or have they received with respect to those subject areas. and i think that would be helpful. i think that would be more helpful. >> i agree completely and i'm open to doing that. i will say in terms of the procedural violations, dpa doesn't get all those types of cases. so the failures to appear is not a category that we're going to receive complaints about. and i think, potentially one of the reasons why for example we have the fourth amendment complaint and sfpd night not is just when come in and what that jurisdiction looks like i think that's something we can drill down on. we can look at that and kind of make that cross reference. >> and, i think chief of staff

hawkins, you're absolutely right. >> i'm so sorry. i'm having a hard time hearing you. >> i'm sorry. how is this? i was just saying chief of staff hawkins is absolutely correct on how we get those complaints, but the good thing is that it really provides us with an avenue to look at those trends from both sides and we look at them with the lens of recommendations, how we can improve. is there an opportunity to improve policy. is there an opportunity to improve training and it really brings that fresh set of eyes to look at what we're seeing on both sides of the house and really with the lens of really trying to improve the system and trying to really, i mean, the ultimate goal is to reduce the number on both sides of the

house. >> vice president elias: i agree and i think this avenue would be the right one. i would like to next time see a recommendation with respect to the fourth amendment violations with the trends that dpa is seeing. you addressed the recommendations, the body warn cameras and the access issues but i think that's something we can definitely add to the list. and, then, i wanted to maybe perhaps just a little bit moser how do you feel that's really going to impact them to change or provide buy-in to get a change with respect to those type of violations that are happening. >> well, i think for a couple of reasons. i think for supervisors, certainly, it makes them aware of what's going on on a bigger scale. it really kind of opens their eyes to what's happening

department wide and it provides them information on what to look out for to be able to guide the officers in the right direction and, for officers, it serves as a reminder of what type of complaints that fellow officers are getting so they can also help avoid those pitfalls and be mindful that, hey, you know, we're out of complaints regarding body warn cameras. i have to be more mindful about making sure i'm turning on my cameras. so it's really a matter of using that data as a training tool to really get better and we haven't done that. you know, collectively before this. so i think this is really an opportunity for both of the department and the dpa really to use those stats in a beneficial way to hopefully change some behavior. >> vice president elias:

great. and i'm really hopeful that once the internal affairs presentation appears before the commission to the public is really going to shed some light on the process and provide more transparency to the public with respect to the types of cases ia is receiving, not just the category. i know i raised this concern earlier and i think the chief is going to be working really hard. not just the categories because the categories don't tell us much. it's really the information that the dpa provides us and i think ia will follow suit so that this will be more meaningful to the public and to us. thank you again, i really appreciate you and your team as well as dpa on this. >> thanks, commissioner. >> vice president elias: colleagues, are there any other

questions? okay. i have a quick one. slide five talks about the aggregate trends of department of accountability. and so regarding the fourth amendment finding, how will training at the department be adapted to account for the ongoing evolution of its issue in the law? of the evolution of this issue in the law? so let me expand a little bit. department notices are sent out regarding legal changes, but how does the academy report such changes into its curriculum. i'm not sure who to address it to. >> i can start. as you mentioned, so we do send out legal updates. those would include any updates regarding the fourth amendment. but we are also working on

developing an actual curriculum to address specifically fourth amendment training that's been worked on via the academy and with carol lacey who i mentioned, our attorney. she will be working on that as well. >> president cohen: okay. thank you. so regarding policy for failures. in your next report, will you report back to the commission about progress in changing the policies identified in the presentation as needing attention? >> yes. we will. and, as a matter of fact, that's one of the things we will follow up on in our next brb meeting scheduled for march the 19th.

>> president cohen: okay. all right. thank you. that's all i have for now. are there any other members that would like to speak? okay. we're going to go to public comment at this time. thank you. all right. sergeant youngblood why don't you check public comment. >> at this time, the members of the public would like to make a public comment regarding line item six. for disciplinary review board, please press star three now. president cohen, it looks like there's no public comment. >> president cohen: . thank you. i actually just thought about one more question. the presentation talked a little bit about, well, the presentation presented that the most frequent violation is a failure to activate body warn cameras and, i believe if i'm interpreting this correctly,

the data is informing us that additional work is necessary to reinforce the importance of having your body warn camera on and activated during the appropriate time. the activation of body warn cameras, it protects the residents as well as the officer and my question is what are the plans to reinforce our officers that body warn cameras must be activated? >> sure. i can start and certainly give the opportunity to chief of staff hawkins as well. through several ways i think in several of the recommendations that came out of the drb really speak to this. we're talking about number one those aggregate trends that are speaking to the officers and the supervisors reiterating the importance of turning the

cameras on and proper adherence to 10.11 were also really reenforcing during training and all specific training when they come back be it advanced officer training. be it cmcr training really incorporating those motor skills of turning that camera on so we're reenforcing at all levels. certainly, it really hit home in the academy in the basic academy. we have officers, the new officers that are coming in. it's really a challenge with some of the officers that have been around a little bit longer. the body warn cameras have been around for quite a bit of time. when you're coming in as a new officer, that's all you know and that's really drilled into your motor skills and muscle memory. so we really want to reiterate as much as we can both in policy and in practical

applications, the importance of turning those cameras on and i don't know if chief of staff hawkins has anything else she would like to add on. >> thanks. i just want to keep moving on with the agenda. appreciate it. >> president cohen: okay. so we have reached out for public comment already. there is none. let's go to the next item, sergeant. >> line item seven. discussion and possible action to improve draft department bulletin 20-166. conferring with the san francisco police officer's association as required by law. discussion and possible action. >> president cohen: all right. thank you. discussion possible action. who's presenting? is our presenter ready?

item seven? >> commissioner, this is commander ford. how are you. >> president cohen: wonderful. >> i apologize. i'm actually at home this evening so my laptop is a little less than functional, but hopefully you guys can hear me clearly. >> president cohen: . we can hear you. we don't need to see you. i understand. >> i'm working on it. bear with me. just in general terms on the secondary firearms draft i believe is on the table for review. of course, there's a conversion which was adopted in 2007. and, at this time, basically this particular 10.02 is pending dgo revisions. but in the interim we're trying to redefine the secondary firearms bulletin and with specific respect to the approval firearms types, the approval process, and with

respect to the range specifically for accountability and reporting services. so it's drafted with four main points. basically, first points the secondary firearms that are authorized. >> president cohen: commander ford, let me interject. because we heard this item two weeks ago. >> oh, i'm sorry. >> president cohen: no problem. so there's no need to kind of go through the item again. >> okay. >> president cohen: what i wanted to do was have enough time to get some questions entered. so i believe that this body, we're ready to take action on this item. my apologies. >> my apology as well. >> vice president elias: we just needed to hear from you, dr. ford. >> that's always a good

indication when the boxes have smiles on your face. >> i'm glad you make them smile. because i can't do this. >> president cohen: let's keep this agenda moving forward so we can keep on smiling. so thank you. what we're going to do is, sergeant youngblood, do we need to take public comment on this item? >> yes, ma'am. >> president cohen: all right. let's take comment on it. >> at this time, the public is welcome to make public comment on this item. secondary firearms. if you would like to make public comment, please press star three now. president cohen, it appears there's no public comment. >> president cohen: excellent. thank you for allowing me two weeks to dive into this a little bit more. this item is to authorize and meet and confer process and i'm going to recommend that we continue to move forward and that we approve this, send this

item to meet and confer. if i could, that's my motion. if i can have a second on that motion. >> vice president elias: second. >> president cohen: seconded by commissioner elias. >> commissioner dejesus, how do you vote. >> commissioner dejesus: yes. >> and president cohen? >> president cohen: yes thank you very much. let's go to the next line item. >> including public comment on item nine vote whether to hold item ten in closed session. if the public would like to make public comment please press star three.

president cohen, it appears we have no public comment. >> president cohen: all right. thank you very much. no public comment. let's call the next item. >> line item nine. vote on whether the whole item can in closed session. san francisco administrative 67.10 action. >> motion. >> i've got it. >> president cohen: motion made by commissioner hamasaki. please call the roll.

>> . >> president cohen: thank you very much. please call the next line item. >> san francisco administrative code 67.12a. >> president cohen: let's take public comment on this. >> if members 0 the public would like to make a public comment, please press star three now. president cohen, it appears we have no public comment. >> president cohen: thank you very much. is there a motion. >> motion to adjourn. >> seconded by cindy elias. roll call vote. >> i'm sorry, we haven't taken

a vote on motion not to disclose. >> i'm sorry. motion not to disclose. >> commissioner deshgsjesus, how do you vote. >> commissioner dejesus: yes. >> xhamz. >> commissioner hamasaki was excused. vice president elias. >> president cohen: appreciate that. next line item. >> line item 12. motion to adjournment. action item. >> motion to adjourn. >> we are adjourned. thank you so much. >> thank you .

>> he is a real leader that listens and knows how to bring people together. brought this department together like never before. i am so excited to be swearing in the next chief of the san francisco fire department, ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome, jeanine nicholson. (applause).

>> i grew up total tomboy, athlete. i loved a good crisis, a good challenge. i grew up across the street from the fire station. my dad used to take me there to vote. i never saw any female firefighters because there weren't any in the 1970s. i didn't know i could be a fire fighter. when i moved to san francisco in 1990, some things opened up. i saw women doing things they hadn't been doing when i was growing up. one thing was firefighting. a woman recruited me at the gay-pride parade in 1991. it was a perfect fit. i liked using my brain, body, working as a team, figuring things out, troubleshooting and coming up with different ways to solve a problem. in terms of coming in after another female chief, i don't think anybody says that about

men. you are coming in after another man, chief, what is that like. i understand why it is asked. it is unusual to have a woman in this position. i think san francisco is a trailblazer in that way in terms of showing the world what can happen and what other people who may not look like what you think the fire chief should look like how they can be successful. be asked me about being the first lbgq i have an understands because there are little queer kids that see me. i worked my way up. i came in january of 1994. i built relationships over the years, and i spent 24 years in the field, as we call it. working out of firehouses. the fire department is a family. we live together, eat together,

sleep in the same dorm together, go to crazy calls together, dangerous calls and we have to look out for one another. when i was burned in a fire years ago and i felt responsible, i felt awful. i didn't want to talk to any of my civilian friends. they couldn't understand what i was going through. the firefighters knew, they understood. they had been there. it is a different relationship. we have to rely on one another. in terms of me being the chief of the department, i am really trying to maintain an open relationship with all of our members in the field so myself and my deputy chiefs, one of the priorities i had was for each of us to go around to different fire stations to make sure we hit all within the first three or four months to start a conversation. that hasn't been there for a

while. part of the reason that i am getting along well with the field now is because i was there. i worked there. people know me and because i know what we need. i know what they need to be successful. >> i have known jeanine nicholson since we worked together at station 15. i have always held her in the highest regard. since she is the chief she has infused the department with optimism. she is easy to approach and is concerned with the firefighters and paramedics. i appreciate that she is concerned with the issues relevant to the fire department today. >> there is a retired captain who started the cancer prevention foundation 10 years ago because he had cancer and he noticed fellow firefighters were

getting cancer. he started looking into it. in 2012 i was diagnosed with breast canner, and some of my fellow firefighters noticed there are a lot of women in the san francisco fire department, premenopausal in their 40s getting breast cancer. it was a higher rate than the general population. we were working with workers comp to make it flow more easily for our members so they didn't have to worry about the paper work when they go through chemo. the turnout gear was covered with suit. it was a badge to have that all over your coat and face and helmet. the dirtier you were the harder you worked. that is a cancer causeser.

it -- casser. it is not -- cancer causer. there islassic everywhere. we had to reduce our exposure. we washed our gear more often, we didn't take gear where we were eating or sleeping. we started decontaminating ourselves at the fire scene after the fire was out. going back to the fire station and then taking a shower. i have taught, worked on the decontamination policy to be sure that gets through. it is not if or when. it is who is the next person. it is like a cancer sniper out there. who is going to get it next. one of the things i love about the fire department. it is always a team effort. you are my family. i love the city and department and i love being of service.

i vow to work hard -- to work hard to carry out the vision of the san francisco fire department and to move us forward in a positive way. if i were to give a little advice to women and queer kids, find people to support you. keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep trying. you never know what door is going to open next. you really don't. [cheers and >> there's a new holiday shopping tradition, and shop and dine in the 49 is inviting everyone to join and buy black friday. now more than ever, ever dollar

that you spend locally supports small businesses and helps entrepreneurs and the community to thrive. this holiday season and year-round, make your dollar matter and buy black.