. >> president cohen: good evening, ladies and gentlemen. i am malia cohen, president of the san francisco police commission. it is 5:42 p.m., and we are calling the meeting to order. sergeant youngblood, could you please call the roll. >> clerk: yes. [roll call] >> clerk: president cohen, you have a quorum. also here tonight, we have chief william scott and director paul henderson. >> president cohen: all right. let's go ahead and get started.

ladies and gentlemen, please join me by saying the pledge of allegiance. [pledge of allegiance] >> president cohen: thank you. thank you very much. all right. sergeant youngblood, please call the first item. >> clerk: item 1, general public comment. at this time, members of the public are welcome to address the commission regarding items that do not appear on tonight's agenda but that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission. speakers shall address their remarks to the commission as a whole and not to individual commissioners. members of the public may call

in 415-655-000 is and enter meeting i.d. 187-188-8899, then press pound and pound again. press star, three to be entered into the queue and wait until until -- until you are prompted to speak. all right, commissioner, we have a number of callers. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> commissioners, my name is francisco dacosta, and in district 10, there's utter pandemonium. today, i addressed an e-mail to

the chief of police. for the last two years, on ingall between [inaudible] and jennings, gambling, loud music, and disregard for human citizens. and those who should protect us, fast asleep in the cockpit. wake up. stop the machinations at the police commission. i see the questioning on this, that, and the other, and address quality of life issues. we pay our taxes. our seniors are suffering,

women, single parents are suffering, children are suffering, business people are suffering while paying their taxes. they cannot enter their offices. miscreants are behaving like -- i will not use the word. i am talking to you now, but in the future, i will stop talking, and i will write about your ethics. thank you very much. >> clerk: good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> hi. my name is kate hodge. i'm a core member of wealth and disparities in the black community founded by the wonderful [inaudible] jones. i'm calling to follow up on the comment that chief scott made in the last meeting where he's in the process of holding

community meetings about the trial of derek chauvin and the murder of george floyd, and we're wondering when those community meetings will be happening, what the deal is with that because it's a big claim that we haven't seen substantiated in terms of action, so we'd like to hear more details on that asap. thank you. >> clerk: good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> good evening, chief scott, president cohen, and commissioners. [inaudible] issues can be handled by unarmed traffic enforcement where safety requires it. across the country, traffic

stops have a disproportionate effect on communities of color, and as sfpd and the center for policing equity showed, san francisco is no exception. stopping black and brown drivers 2.5 times as much as white drivers. when new zealand put traffic stops in the nonpolice agency, surveys showed the residents had greater respect towards the police. the commission can lead on an issue that would be a major sea change in policing. thank you. >> clerk: good evening, caller. you have two minutes.

>> good evening, police commissioners, my name is yolanda scott, and i'm the president of the citizens for justice. after witnessing the death of george floyd and -- we see that our training process must continuously revised based upon our police interactions with civilians. we must reevaluate our usage of physical controls, especially by support officers on the scene. we must continue to develop the reflex and constraint and control and the immediacy of the moment and ensure our best

choice is our first choice, ensuring public safety from society as well as officers. those who are called to protect and serve do not -- we have to make sure that those who are called to protect and serve do not create further harm to the community. let's continue to encourage our officers to slow down, focus on less lethal options and focusing on options to deescalate a situation provide resources. training must continue to ensure our officers are not engaging in socio logical training of continuous fire and excessive force. let's continue to review and evaluate existing policies and procedures. this is an excellent opportunity for us to learn from the mistakes of others and to enhance our future relationships with our civilians and our stakeholders.

i thank you very much for your time. >> clerk: good evening, miss brown. you have two minutes. >> can you hear me? >> clerk: yes. >> oh, okay. good evening. i was just here to talk about my son that was murdered august 14, 2006. still, his case isn't solved. his birthday was just april 6, april 6, last week, and i didn't get to get on here because i was busy criming on my car, putting on the poles, where people still snatching down the signs with my son's picture of the $250,000 reward. it makes me so upset that during this time that young men and people are dieing, and people just don't care.

i've been asking for a venue for the last 15 years, you know, concerning my son and other mothers and fathers where i have to come up on a pole and put a balloon and another balloon, saying it's a boy, and flowers and stuff, that i'm still having to do, you know, and with the case still being unsolved as a cold case, what do we do? we need a place, a venue for our children's pictures to stay up so that i won't have to climb up on a pole. i'm too old to be climbing on top of a car to keep my son's picture up. this little african american boy's face on a pole, they're snatching them down. i pretty much know who is doing it. it's people where i live, and they don't want to see his face up there. i'm sad that i have to keep

fighting with neighbors and stuff like that. some of them say it's okay, but i know deep down inside, they don't want it up, and i hate -- i got involved with the traffic crosser named doug because he snatched it down, and bare land almost fired him over that, and i know he did it again today. >> clerk: thank you, miss brown. for members of the public that have information of the murder of aubrey abicassa, please call the tip line at 554-4444. thank you. hello, caller, you have two minutes. >> you know, person talking about the issues going on, we have murders still going on. these involve black and brown individuals. i myself as a brown individual

understand there's inequities. you stand on the corner at third and oakdale, you're going to see people driving at high speeds and recklessly. our lives are at risk because p.d., there's equity concerns and other concerns that are priorities while we watch more men than women get assaulted and die out here, so please, get some enforcement out here. >> clerk: thank you, caller. and president cohen, that is the end of public comment. >> president cohen: thank you very much. thank you to the callers for

calling in, particularly about concerns about the bayview, concerns that i share and at least two thirds of members of this body that live in bayview share, as well. all right. sergeant, next on the agenda is the consent calendar, is that right? >> clerk: yes. >> president cohen: would you please call it? >> clerk: item 2, consent calendar, receive and file, action. family code section 6228 incident report release quarterly report. >> president cohen: all right. so this is a report on section 6228. 93 were requested filed pursuant to the family code, and then all the other requests were filled within five days,

and 91 requests were made in english, two were made in spanish. my recommendation is we receive and file the report. i want to open it up for public comment and also open it up for comment from my colleagues, see if there's any thoughts. let me get my chat function open. all right. colleagues, seeing that there is no comment on this, let's take public comment on this, mr. youngblood. >> clerk: members of the public that would like to make public comment on-line item 2, consent calendar, please press star, three now. >> president cohen: okay. sounds like there isn't. >> clerk: none. >> president cohen: perfect. okay. may i have a motion to receive and file? >> commissioner brookter: so moved. >> president cohen: thank you. i have a motion by commissioner

brookter and second by commissioner elias. may i have a roll vote on-line item 2. >> clerk: on the motion to receive and file the family code section 6228 incident report -- [roll call] >> clerk: you have six yeses. >> president cohen: all right. that sounds unanimous. let's go with the next item, item 3. >> clerk: line item 3, reports to the commission, discussion. chief's report. weekly crime trends. provide an overview of offenses occurring in san francisco. major, significant incidents. provide a summary of planned activities and events. this will include a brief overview of any unplanned events or activities occurring in san francisco having an impact on public safety.

commission discussion on unplanned events and activities the chief describes will be limited to determining whether to calendar for a future meeting. >> president cohen: thank you. chief scott, are you there? >> yes. tonight, i'll start with current trends and give some updates on what's going on around the country that may impact the city of san francisco. so with crime trends, the good news on our crime trend side is we are finally negative for the year. we have one less homicide than we were in the last year. we are where we are in 2019 with about a 50-year low in homicides, so we hope we can keep this trend going.

the bad news is we are up on gun related homicides and gun-related violence across the board, although we are starting to see a slight reduction on that, we still have a lot to do on gun-related violence, and i'll get to that in a second. we're up slightly up in human trafficking. we had seven this year as opposed to six last time this year. property crime, the good news is that although we are significantly still up in burglaries, we are seeing a downed trend. this week over last, there was a 26% decrease in burglaries, and we're now down to a 40% decrease, which is still alarmingly high, but it's better than it was a month ago, much better than it was a month ago, when we were up in the 50% rate. motor vehicle thefts are up. we're seeing a 14% increase.

arson, we're still up with 14 -- actually, 24 crimes above where we were this time last year, and overall larcenies are down significantly, including car burglaries. larcenies down 37%, which is a drop of over 3400 crimes, and auto burglaries, we are down 31%. as the economy reopens and more people start back to visit our city, we expect more people to be out and about, and we are employing strategies of high visibility. we have our plain clothes units apprehending and creating community visibility. in terms of shootings, the bayview is the highest in terms of shooting, with 18, and

that's double last year. we still have our enhanced deployment in the bayview. we have our foot beats in the bayview. they're not 24-7, but they're still deployed along with the command vehicle in the bayview. in addition, commander marron is doing a lot of community engagement as we work on solving cases, and we just solved another homicide from the bayview just yesterday. unfortunately, when thee crimes occur, we will do our best to solve them to bring closure and relief to the families. we have moved and shifts the hours of some of our plainclothes units that are addressing burglaries by surgicaling neighborhoods and hotspots, and we have made some arrests of burglaries in

progress, so there's some success there. some of the arrests that we have made involve numerous raps, and we will continue to work with the district attorney's office on those repeat offenders. i want to go back to the shootings just for a second. [inaudible] 12 this year. northern, they're four this one, one this time last year. ingleside has six. taraval has two this year and zero last year. tenderloin, southern, richmond are even, and central had one last year and one this year, so we'll continue to work on that. in terms of other significant incidents, we have fatal traffic collisions at 18 and church in the mission district. our deceased was 85 years old.

we believe this traffic collision was the result of a medical emergency that occurred with the deceased individual who was driving, struck a delivery truck. when people tried to render aid, they noticed that he had foam coming from his mouth and appeared to be in medical distressed. he was transported and later pronounced, so we do believe that was a medical emergency that was the cause of that particular tragic collision. other significant incidents, we had a robbery of a [inaudible] back in the stowe lake area in the richmond area. [inaudible] they saw a suspicious vehicle driving around the area and parking. when they walked back to the news van, the vehicle pulled next to them. one suspect exited, pepper sprayed the victim, and took the camera. there was an armed security

guard that was with this news crew, so he actually pointed his handgun, intervened. the subject ended up dropping the camera, jumped into the vehicle, and fled. we did -- the camera was recovered, rather, and they did get images of the suspect, which we are following up on those leads. the vehicle was located, and we believe the suspects are part of a crew that has committed prior robberies in and around the stowe lake area, so we will definitely put our resources into that. a stabbing occurred in the bayview at the exeter. victim was a 53-year-old asian male who was walking home after getting off of work. the suspect followed him, attempted to rob him of his property, which was a cell phone, and in the process,

stabbed him multiple times. there is a video of the incident as well as other forensic evidence were recovered, so we are vigorously investigating that, and are trying to make a suspect identification and arrest so that person can also be held accountable. we also have graffiti and hate crime incidents in japantown. there was a series of vandalisms where graffiti was sprayed on businesses in japantown community benefits district. it included racially derogatory remarks such as the term f.o.b., which stands for fresh off the boat, which is asian

derogatory. we did get evidence of the suspects on video camera that was given to the police department for follow up, and we will be following up, and hopefully, we can make an arrest in that case. we will vigorously investigate this crime or series of crimes. our investigation division is in charge of that incident, and we'll keep you all posted if there's an arrest there. last thing i would like to report is there were several student driving events, a.k.a. side shows in the city. our recently created stunt driving response level was assembled when we learned earlier in the day that these things were occurring in other cities in the east bay, and those departments communicated with us, so we were ready when they came across the bridge, and we broke up three events. we did get evidence, we did make citations, and we do hope

with the evidence that we obtained, we'll be doing follow-up and impounding cars from that evidence. the unit is doing well, and our response to this is much more efficient, quicker, and much better coordinated since we've put that unit together, so i'd really like to congratulate or give thanks to that -- the leader of that unit, which is lieutenant homer, and hopefully we can continue to make progress in that area. there were no homicides this week and no shootings this week that resulted in injuries. i'm happy to report that, and i will give an update on our progress on what's going on with what's happening in minnesota and the chauvin trial, and then, we had another incident in minnesota with the shooting of the african american male over the weekend, so that's caused a lot of

unrest across the country, protests. we will have a community meeting tomorrow, and the invites have gone out. we are reaching out to leaders in the african american culture, the african american clergy, aapi leaders as well as people we believe have influence in the community, so we'll be working together with the respective communities that may be impacted by this, and with that conversation, we hope and plan that it'll be on going as we go through this ordeal that we're going through. as far as the trial itself, the defense is on -- we're hearing that it's moving quicker than anticipated, so we don't know

if the case will be wrapped up this weekend or not. but we will be deployed to the fullest and be prepared for whatever comes our way. so far, there have not been any incidents in the city, and we are working with our city leaders to make sure we're prepared as possible on that, and that concludes my report. >> president cohen: thank you. colleagues, do you have any questions for the chief? >> commissioner brookter: i do, madam chair. >> president cohen: okay. go ahead, commissioner brookter. >> commissioner brookter: thank you, chief, and i'm glad to hear that the police department is reaching out to the african american community. i think it goes back being to having those black lives matter

posters put in each department to ensure that it wasn't just a symbol, to be sure we were going to have conversations as things arise, not just here in the city but in the country, so i'm glad to hear that we are taking those steps. my question, chief, was just -- you know, we always like to talk strategy, so i just always like to know, but i'd like to ask, what's the strategy now that things are opening up? we also know we were unable to have an academy class or two, you know, during covid, so kwhas akind of the department's response to things beginning to open back up? we've got -- gun violence is up, so what's kind of our overall san francisco police department strategy in response to having more folks, you know, out and about and ensuring the public safety? >> thank you, commissioner, for that, and really, it goes back to what we've talked about over

the last couple of months. we had to be out, we had to be engaged, so there was more demand for more foot beats in the city, especially in areas impacted by gun violence. we need to sustain that. in terms of the other piece of the strategy, i think we'll have another academy class at the end of may. we're trying to wrap that up. we did get approval at d.h.r. and the mayor's office to add some testing components around bias and try to root out bias with our entry level applicant pool, and we have gotten permission for that, so we have opened back up that process. we hope to have our class ready to go in six months or actually a little bit more than six

months, but it'll lead to a situation where we're bringing officers into the department. as you know, the situation the last four or five years has been greater than it's ever been in the department. that definitely helps with our objectives overall, the objectives over the long run, but we need to bring fresh officers in. i think the recruiting got harder with what we saw with mr. wright in minnesota and the army lieutenant. we have to keep doing what we're doing in terms of community policing, c.r.i., treating people with dignity and respect. those basic things have to be -- you have to walk the talk, and that goes a long way. our clearance rate in homicides, we can relate to people, we tend to get better

cooperation, so those basic things have to be drilled in and as part of our d.n.a., but we've got to have the personnel power, too, so we've got to get those academy classes going. in the meanwhile, we're going to do whatever we can to move around the pieces that we need to just to make sure we have adequate deployment. >> commissioner brookter: thanks, chief. >> thank you. >> president cohen: chief, one of the things that, several weeks ago, when we had the bayview strategy presentation, we had talked about taking it a step further and stated -- i stated that i was considering a community forum that we could possibly agendize into the future, and i wanted to get your take on that, if this is something that we can begin to do to begin to call attention -- there's been rallies, there's been lots of

calls for dropping the violence. i'm looking for thoughtful ways to really take the next level a step further. the data says one thing, but how do we begin to implement the strategy? my other part of this question is with a new captain in place, i imagine new strategies are already in place. could you have your staff double-check when the bayview captain meetings are so that i can report it back into this venue so that people can send out the tweets and people can send out the notifications for those that are listening and get in tune and begin to develop a rapport with the bayview captain? >> yes, president cohen, and i believe that is the way to go with community forums. the police department has worked to impact the

challenges, violence policing. i think the way people expect us to police, that has to be a partnership, so the forums are very valuable in my opinion, particularly when they're thoughtful, and we have set agendas where we're trying to accomplish forward and move our police department agendas forward, and we need to be a part of that, so definitely, i will get that scheduled. if we haven't already -- i think we promised that last time, so i'll check to see if we have it. >> president cohen: i don't know if i have it. if i have, i just overlooked it in my inbox. just a note to the people that are listening, send me a tweet or an e-mail, and send me ideas of strategies that we can begin to implement working with our community leaders, working with our nonprofits to ensure that

we are taking this thoughtful approach. i'm open to the new ideas. commissioners, do you have anything else for the chief? you said in your report that some of the crime trends were decreasing, but you didn't cake to me why or your thoughts around them. add some context to these decreases, please. thank you. >> well, no, so with the burglaries, one of the things that i mentioned -- i'll add some detail to that. i think we have made some impactful arrests, but when i say impactful, we do have a running kind of a list of people who have been arrested for burglaries, and we believe, just based on our investigations, they're still active, and some of those folks have been apprehended and arrested, and we are working, and we have worked with our district attorney and his team to make sure that we are all

communicating the same information about those people who we believe will be active, and what we've been able to accomplish with that with the help from our district attorney partnership is some of those people remain in custody after the arrest. with covid and all that, there was a lot of released, and we arrested people multiple times. we all believe that people deserve a second chance at some point, but we also believe that we've got to figure out a way to slow that down. working with the district attorney, we've made some high impact arrests. we also have shifted our resources to areas that have been getting plagued with burglaries and garage burglaries. we're having people come in overnight when a lot of these burglaries have been happening, prevent some in my opinion, and that word gets out real quickly, so that's been an

effective strategy, as well. and then, the work that we've been doing, upgrading locks on garage doors and stuff like that and things in the community -- and inspections. if the people are interested, we can do s.f. safe. they can call the department, so all those things add up, and we are doing those things, and i hope that's the reason for some of the things that we're doing, and we'll change them to address some of the trends that they've been doing, but they have been going down, so that's a good thing. >> president cohen: all right. just wanted to appreciate the good work and the commitment. and two, i wanted to recognize that so we understand it and duplicate it. let's not take our foot off the gases.

let's continue what we're doing so we can continue to see downward trends and see a baseline of zero. okay. we're going to move forward. i don't see any other names -- >> commissioner hamasaki: commissioner -- >> president cohen: oh, commissioner hamasaki, i didn't see your name out there. >> commissioner hamasaki: i've had my hand up for quite a while. michael connolly, one of the highest ranking members of the san mateo police department who is currently under investigation by the district attorney's office as well as two former troubled former sfpd officers as well for their conduct in broadmoor, and, you know, my issue has always been, one of the issues that i always

thought that we need to pay for focus on is the culture of the department, and, to me, reading that article just we emphasized some of the things that we've heard about the bad old days of sfpd. we just had a high member retire last year, supervising this department, just hearing possibly engaging in thuggish behavior to other officers. chief, were you aware of this article? >> no, i have not seen this article, commissioner hamasaki. there was an article a couple of months ago with some of what

you just said in it, and i don't remember what publication, but i have not seen any recent articles, no. >> commissioner hamasaki: well, then, i don't think my questions of you would be very productive. but what i'll do, i'll send you the article chief, and i just want to understand, you know, when we're seeing these examples come up from the department, you know, what we're doing to address the impact these individuals have had on the culture, what measures are we putting in place to make sure others who happen to share similar viewpoints about what policing looks like in san francisco, that we're addressing that in a way -- you know, when you talk about recruiting and policing problems, like the daunte

wright shooting and derek chauvin trial, we need to make sure our house is in order. i'll send it to you. >> great. we can talk about it offline. >> commissioner hamasaki: thanks. >> president cohen: all right. let's continue moving forward with the next jaent item. -- agenda item. >> clerk: item 3-b, d.p.a. director's report. report on recent d.p.a. activities and announcements. d.p.a.s report will be limited to a brief description of d.p.a. activities and announcements. commission discussion will be limited to determining whether to calendar any of the issues raised for a future commission meeting. >> okay. can you see me? >> commissioner hamasaki: we can see you. >> in the statistics, we are at

222 cases that have been opened so far. this time last year, we are at 233. this year so far, we had closed 286. this time last year, we closed 273. we currently have 301 cases that were pending. last year this time, we had 391. we had sustained 17 cases so far this year. this time last year, we were at 11. for cases that are past the 270-day investigation mark, we are at 35. this time last year, we were at 41. again, our numbers are going down. again, i'm not going to do this every week, but again, i went through every single one of the daises to see what the delays are just to make sure i'm keeping a more thorough watch on everything. several of the cases were

pending criminal and/or civil investigations, tools that are involved, on going officer involved shooting cases, they're still being worked up. two of them were delayed, several are body-worn camera footage, and others are where officers are either out on disability and receiving disability pay or on vacation or awaiting scheduling for interviews, so again, i will continue to watch those numbers, but i wanted to, over the next few weeks, give you some of the details that have come up in the past so you guys know that i'm watching them. since we've taken over the agency, we have had no cases get to the 3304 mark, and i will remain vigilant about losing jurisdiction with relation to my office. at this point in time, we have

mediated seven cases this year. last time this year, we had mediated nine cases. we've continued a number of outreach events. again, with the coronavirus and the pandemic, most of our outreach efforts are virtual. a list of our community outreach events can be found on the community calendar on our website. on the 8th, we hosted a session for our department and how it works. on the same day, we also participated in the megablack meeting, coordinating various topics related to african americans in san francisco. i think this will not also included a whole section with board of supervisors member shamann walton, our board

president, talking about d.p.a. on the 9th, we hosted a panel of outreach strategies in partnership with the oakland community police review agency and san diego county's citizens law enforcement review board. we want to make sure that we are connected to the other civilian oversight agencies, and we borrow and share ideas on outreach and staying connected, specifically with disenfranchised communities and communities of color. on the 12th, we had a workshop for interns of color to work with d.p.a., and we brought back all of our interns and law clerks to participate in that, as well. there are three cases that are in closed session on this

evening. present on the call to follow up on my issues that may come up with d.p.a. is senior investigator steve ball. again, the website to contact d.p.a., and people can contact our office through the website or contact us directly at 415-241-7711, and the website is sfgov.org/dpa. the other thing that i just wanted to mention and bring up, because we were talking about it earlier, president cohen, was that we have an on going project identifying race disparities in various groups and in combination with the directions from commissioner elias in collecting some of the

recommendations from community members. in those recommendations, people will now be able to make those recommendations on our website, as well, and then, i will appropriate all of those and make presentations to this commission, as well. obviously, this will follow when we have our broader presentation when this gets put on the agenda, but that will address some of the race disparities and give more folks some of the folks an idea to address potential concerns and potential solutions, as well. i think that's it. there are a number of things that i will have input and comments on in the agenda, but that concludes my report, and sorry, i know i'm still talking funny. >> president cohen: that's okay. it's much improved have last week. we wish you speedy healing, director henderson.

okay. colleagues, do we have any questions for the director? i don't see anything in the chat. all right. thank you, director. we're going to continue to move forward. >> commissioner hamasaki: sorry. >> president cohen: yes, commissioner hamasaki, please, go ahead. >> commissioner hamasaki: sorry. i didn't put my hand up. director henderson, i wanted to raise with you, since it does seem to be on a lot of people's minds this week with the killing of daunte wright, and i understand that your office is working on a policy. i was wondering if you could give a brief overview because i've been working with your office several years on some of these issues, and right now, i

think just kind of looking at what's going on in the world, it might be a good time to light a fire on getting that out. >> so thank you for raising that issue, and i will address it, and i'll address it in the context of what we're seeing with daunte wright now because it makes it easier to have broader understanding and, i guess, vision of what we're seeing right now.

>> -- used to stop him specifically as, again, another unarmed young black man is part of the problem, especially when that engagement escalated into the lethal use of force, which, as you know, they use five times the national average when it's a black man, so that's the backdrop of it. but locally, we're trying to look at some of the pretextual areas in those stops. by logical extension, it also

expands into stops, searches, and seizures, as well, so you can't really fix one corner of anything without addressing some of the larger policies, and that's what makes it somewhat complicated but all the more necessary because it just shifts, so if you fix one part of it, it just shines the light on the part that has another problem, as well. for most people that don't understand how to frame the problem, you can always begin the conversation by looking at the race disparities. the data will tell you that you want to have evidence-based solutions, and it will tell you where disparities are. i know that's a long answer to what you're asking. >> commissioner hamasaki: yeah, and i think commission vice president elias can certainly remind us all of the data, but it's been an on going problem

for this department, for departments everywhere. we're not unique here, but i do want to talk more about this in commission reports, but i did want people to understand that this is something that your office has been working on and that you're going to have some solutions to offer soon. >> in the next few weeks, if not months. >> commissioner hamasaki: weeks are better. >> yes. we're ready, but like i said, i'm trying to expand some of the voices and role so that other people can work on the problem. a lot of recommendations have been made in a lot of the audits that have come before, especially in the sparks report, but having new eyes and new voices on this commission in particular i think might be outcome determinant and make a real difference literally right now. >> commissioner hamasaki: great. thank you very much, director henderson.

>> president cohen: thank you, director hamasaki. i appreciate that line of questioning. it was very thoughtful, very vivid. okay. let's move forward with the youth commission report. >> clerk: line item 3-c, youth commission report, and i believe that commissioner rome jones is here. >> i am. hello. >> president cohen: hi, rome. thank you for joining us. >> i'm just pulling up the notes. there's a lot to say. okay. well, what has the youth commission done since -- i think we presented last month, but it wasn't me because i was, like, taking time off. so the youth commission has done a consent calendar and wrote letters of support for a.c.a. 1, a.b. 503, a.b. 655,

a.b. 937, a.b. 4, s.b. 56, a.b. 829, s.b. 646, s.b. 49 the 3, s.b. 793, a.b. 1140, and a.b. 6 of 00. see, i'm glad i didn't have to remember all of that. i'm glad i wrote it down, and the reason we did that is, like, some of those key things in all of these are, like, aligned with values of primarily the transformative justice committee and the alternatives to prison industry. okay. and that's a bunch of extra information. i could explain all of those other bills, but i'm not going to do that. other things to report. we also toured the normal

hotel, which is adult probation's t.a.y. housing site, and one of our main concerns was that there's only one t.a.y. housing site for adult probation, and that there's, like, a fear that it might close. other than that, y.c. applications are going to open next month, have some info sessions this month, so any of you are with youth connections, encourage them to apply. i think, last month, a different commissioner pointed out the partnership with d.p.h., so we wanted to remind you all that we are partnering with them, and then lastly, we are going to have a presentation from cart, the community alternative to

homelessness -- cahr, the community alternative to homelessness response. other than that, hello to everyone we haven't seen in a while. >> president cohen: all right. commissioner jones, thank you so much for the presentation. i wanted to see your response to the shootings that happened in the bayview? have you come up with some strategies that we should be paying attention to, any suggestions? >> directly on shootings in the bayview, no, we have not. i think in general, our stance is that the city focused on the response to thing and not the prevention, but next time i report to you, i can definitely better answer that question, because now, i will go back to the transformative justice

committee and be, like, hey, how do we think we should directly address these things? >> president cohen: yeah. so moving forward, you know, the brief summary of what you're covering in the commission is very helpful. i think you guys, the youth commission, is uniquely qualified to give us input from the youth perspective, thinking about side shows, thinking about gun violence, thinking that you're hearing of what we're concerned about. youth commission is uniquely squarely focused, almost a peer to peer, and you are able to tell us what you're see and go what you're hearing. now -- seeing and what you're hearing. now, i'm not talking about snitching. i'll pose the question that i posed to the chief. how do we get attention to these rallies? we talk to the same people, and

we say the same things, and then, we go home, and there's a shooting or a homicide, and i want to spend our collective energy in a productive way. i want to hear some solutions. i want to hear something out of the box that we haven't considered, and so i'm looking to the youth commissioners to provide that level of insight so that we can begin to use the needle and address things. it's the youth that's going to a side show. i'm not going to a side show, hamasaki is not going to a side show. the chief is not going to a side show. what is so interesting about a side show that we can begin to address? nobody is talking about it from a different lens, so that is my charge to you as a commissioner, to go back ask to think about this -- go back and think about this critically. maybe you need to go to some

side show and figure out some information -- be careful. i don't want you to get arrested, but my point is that's the kind of level, right? we need to be 360, we need to be in people's shoes. we need to be thinking about how we can provide, like you said, a response to the symptoms and not the cause, not the end result. so there -- there you go, mr. jones. you don't have to respond. i'm not looking for a response, but i'm just placing that response at your feet. there's a lot of things going on here, and i think the youth commission has a different -- plays a different position than we as police commissioners do. one position is not greater or better than the other, but just

like on a basketball team, a football team, you've got offense and defense. both teams need to play their positions in order to win the game. so. >> commissioner hamasaki: president cohen? >> president cohen: yes. >> commissioner hamasaki: thank you for the presentation. i think it provides some great insight that some of us don't see from our perspectives in life. commissioner cohen raised some problems that we're having in the community. i'm wondering if -- and, you know, i've certainly heard that the youth commission, they did

a presentation about antiasian violence, and, you know, i think we really all appreciated that, and that's another issue that we're trying to figure out, and issues that arise coming out of that, and so i would add that i would like to continue to hear more from the youth commission. >> president cohen: thank you. commissioner hamasaki. does anyone have any thoughts or comments? >> commissioner brookter: if i may. >> president cohen: go ahead, commissioner brookter. >> commissioner brookter: just piggybacking on what was said by commissioner jones, thinking about so many of the things that we're facing and what's going on. we know we're having side shows.

what are some alternatives that the youth commission can work on alongside the police commission to keep folks from those, like basketball workshops and things. and also, rome, i wanted to clarify for members of the public, we use a lot of acronyms. so for folks that don't know, t.a.y. is transitional age youth, and it's youth between the ages of 18 and 25. there's opportunity for us to be more proactive, but yeah, thank you for the concise presentation, and thank you for that this evening, and looking forward to more in the future. >> president cohen: appreciate the comment. any other questions for

commissioner jones? >> commissioner yee: i have one. >> president cohen: oh, commissioner yee? >> commissioner yee: [inaudible] i guess i'm looking at economic justice and seeing whether the needs for outreach for employment in your community and throughout the whole city where labor can play a part for you, putting a pathway for those youth and young adults, you know, that do run into trouble and see if labor maybe can help in that sense in putting financial opportunities in front of you, and whether you have approached some of the labors in the city, so that -- that would be my question to you on the labor

side. >> president cohen: all right. thank you. anyone else? okay. perfect. let's keep moving forward. sergeant youngblood, please call the next item. >> clerk: commission reports. commission reports will be limited to a brief description of activities and announcements. commission discussion will be limited to determining whether to calendar any of the issues raised for a future commission meeting. commission president's report, commissioners' reports, and commissioner announcements and scheduling of items identified for consideration at a future commission meeting, action. >> president cohen: all right. colleagues, we'll start with -- we'll start with the vice president today. commission elias, i know you've got a lot of slots. you've been kind of quiet today, but tell us what's percolating in that mind of yours. >> vice president elias: well, i'm actually excited about the 96-a presentation that's coming forward. my understanding is the way that it's going to be presented and the way that we're going to

look at it is going to be from a different lens in terms of solutions and ideas. i want to thank director henderson for all of his hard work and effort in really changing the way that we view this. i know that people are probably tired of me talking about these numbers, so i really want to change the conversation to how do we talk about this and be more solution oriented? so i can't wait to hear from the community, can't wait to hear from director henderson about all of his efforts as well as my fellow colleagues at the department, so i'm really excited about that. >> president cohen: any other colleagues would like to comment on an update? commissioner hamasaki, perhaps you can talk a little bit about the gang task force? >> commissioner hamasaki: i'm not ready on that.

i will have my notes over. stacey's e-mailed me, bill's e-mailed me. i've got to call. i'm working on them, president cohen. i did want to add, on another subject, if it would be appropriate -- thank you. so on the -- i think that traffic stops, pedestrian stops, searches and seizures, these really have to be a priority for this commission. we've been talking about it for years. we've talked about the data. the data has -- you know there's been good reports and less good reports, but generally, the problems remain that we have disparate reports

for policing in the city, people who are walking down the streets, who are searched. arising out of these encounters is a negative perception that extends to law enforcement as a whole. if you're walking to the store, and it's the third time you've been stopped walking to the store this year, you're going to stop feeling positive towards the law enforcement in your community. if you're always getting pulled over, you know, for a broken taillight, something that might be economic related, these low level issues where there's not a source of danger or violence that don't require an immediate police presence, you know, we need to find a way to stop these. i know that we talk, and we've been talking, and i'm working with some folks on

transitioning traffic enforcements to nonarmed nonpolice, and i know this is a long-term project. but in the short-term, there's some easy, relatively easy itemed that we can tackle. we can tackle whether or not police need to be making these low level stops that director henderson was referring to. jaywalking, riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. you know, there could be just a warning. it doesn't need to be a detention, and you certainly don't need to get searched, right? because that's what happens every time, and i understand from the law enforcement perspective, they might think that this person looks like they're a bad guy, and maybe if they stop them and search them, they'll find something. and, you know, maybe they'll get it right sometimes. there's data that if you do x number of searches, you may

find something, right? so you search 20 people, and you find some fentanyl. great. but what about those other 19 people that didn't have anything, you know? what are they left with? what are they walking around the streets with, and what is their impression about law enforcement as a result of that? so i think this is going to be a priority for this commission, d.p.a., the department. i'd like us all to work together to identify priorities around traffic stops, pedestrian stops, and searches that we can adopt in short order. these don't have to be long, drawn-out complete revisions of policies, but there are easy items. stopping consent searches. there's no such thing as a consent search, but if you're a 17-year-old black kid, driving,

go to bayview, and you have six cars behind you, and there's officers with guns, we know what happens. there's no consent. so there's some easy things we can do i'd like to do collaboratively with everybody, but this, commission president cohen, has been on top of us to lineup some priorities for each of us commissioners, and i think this has to be one of them, and this is something that i'd like to work on moving forward. >> president cohen: well said. i'd love for you to roll up your sleeves and work on it. that's a good idea. very good suggestion. commissioner brookter, are you interested in making a presentation tonight? >> commissioner brookter: i am. just in terms of -- and i'll be very brief. i'm just looking forward to our discussion that we're going to have here, actually this evening, around department general or the 3.0 # the.

so for members of the public, that's the deputy awards, and i also want to make sure i've thanked commissioner -- 3.09. so for members of the public, that's the deputy awards, and i also want to make sure i've thanked commissioner dejesus and stacey for working with us on these awards. as chief scott was talking about trying to get more folks onto the force and into the academy, and as we look at the culture of the department, i think being able to acknowledge officers who are actually doing did he nominal work with these awards, it just -- it breaths into the culture of the department. i think within any job or any city agency to highlight when individuals are doing well is a boost of morale for a job

that's extremely tough that gets tougher when what transpired in minneapolis happens across the nation. so i'm looking forward to that discussion. i hope it's not a long discuss discussion that we have on 3.09, but just thank you to petra, stacey, and everyone so we can have this discussion and honor some of the men and women that are on our force and doing phenomenal work here in the city and county of san francisco. >> president cohen: thank you, commissioner, for bringing that up. it's important to have a balanced perspective. sometimes we can get bogged down in the work, but it's important we do keep morale up, and it's important we acknowledge outstanding members of the department, and there are many of them. so i'm glad that sergeant kilshaw's efforts to begin to

look at awarding valor moving forward. also wanted to recognize tippy mazzucco who was instrumental in developing this. commissioner yee, do you have anything you want to report? >> commissioner yee: for this commission meeting, you have a cutie there right in front of you. i just want to say wow, she is cute. at this time, i have nothing to report, but get ready for next month -- or next week. >> president cohen: that's awesome. we will be ready. i think i've gotten all the commissioners. i just want to report that -- you've heard me say this earlier in the meeting, after the bayview strategy presentation, been looking for ways to engage this commission

to take a step further and consider community forum as a possible way to continue to build a rapport, information, and finding ways to find solutions. so also wanted to look at ways to streamline some of our processes and how d.g.o.s get addressed, selected, which ones we're going to work on and then how the process is going to unfold. and i think that's primarily it. and sergeant youngblood, we can continue with the next item. thank you. >> clerk: so the next item would be public comment. at this time, the public is now welcome to make public comment

regarding line item 3, reports to the commission. at this time, if you would like to make public comment, press star, three now. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> again, my name is francisco da costa, and i think if you're educated on issues, and you have your heart in the right place, that there's not going to be rambling and rambling and rambling. so i would like you all, the commissioners, to find out how many, what segment of the population are incarcerated in our jails and what portion of our population are released from incarceration facilities. i also would like you to find

about white [inaudible] community benefits, millions of dollars that have gone into our community, but not to the people who really need them, our seniors, our children, and so on and so forth. i'd also like to find out about the missing $3.5 million from the opera house. the opera house always played a role in supporting our community, and i think you all should invite danny glover. he'll tell you a lot about that. also, you all like to talk about some trivial stuff. now, there is talk about racial equity, and i'm confounded by

that because i want to know how is that linked to title 6? and i think we have other minorities that have to be -- and their issues have to be addressed -- >> clerk: good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> yes, hi. this is yolanda williams again with the officers for justice. i want to say that i agree with commissioner hamasaki and others, that it's time for us to review the relevancy of our traffic stops, particularly those that involve traffic infractions and misdemeanors. the optics only cause trauma to the public, and at the same time, it leads the public to question the legitimacy of policing. we also need to understand that when we are electing locations to conduct traffic stops, we

should always consider doing so in well-lit areas. in the upcoming months, the officers for justice will be presenting something to the police commission [inaudible] so that when there are traffic stops, perhaps it will put them a little bit more at ease, and we'll be presenting that to the commission, so thank you very much for your time. >> clerk: good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> hello. this is chuck [inaudible] for bayview-hunters point. for those of us who live in bayview-hunters point who have been on both sides of the law, it's not always easy to do what they do. i've complied, i've given a little bit of a fight back. but at the end of the day, we've got folks in the

bayview-hunters point that are driving recklessly every day through multiple stop signs. when you get hit, and your lives get taken, it's fine if you want to dedicate it to that, but those of us that are trying to do right in our lifetime now, we do not want to get taken out. 16-year-old got pulled over with an assault rifle in the car. that's not going to stop with just pulling them over, are you okay, are you all right?

[inaudible]

>> clerk: president cohen,

that is the end of public comment. president cohen? >> president cohen: thank you. can you please call the next item? >> clerk: item 4, presentation of the firearm discharge review board and in-custody death review board first quarter 2021 report, discussion. >> good evening, president cohen. greg yee [inaudible] general order 3.10 charges the department to hold a firearm discharge review board, and the purpose of the board is to review the process to ensure the department is reviewing its training, policies, and procedures in light of circumstances that led to a firearms discharge by members

and to determine if the discharge was in policy. likewise, in policy 812, policy deaths, a process is held to determine if the san francisco police department members acted reasonably within policy at the time of the in-custody death and evaluate the department's training policies and procedures at the time of the death. as i proceed in this first quarter of 2021, the kwierm discharge review and in-custody death review board [inaudible] at central station in the men's locker room. so on december 3, at about 8:45 in the locker room after his

shift. he was performing a personal shift of his handgun. the officer removed the magazine from the handgun and he thought he cleared the chamber. he pulled the trigger and immediately checked and found that he nobody nobody else was injured. the officer notified his supervisor of the discharge that was made. based on the presentation of this case, the recommendation was made to the chief of police that this o.i.d., officer-involved discharge, was out of policy. moving onto the in-custody death review board, the board, in the first quarter of 2021, reviewed two cases.

in-custody death 20001 and 2021. officers responded to scene and observed web traffic had -- westbound traffic had stopped in fulton street. the individual was making animal noises and waving his arms and appeared to be in an altered mental state. the individual was ordered to walk to the northeast corner of fulton and 14 avenue but stopped a few feet from the corner. the individual was ordered to get on the ground and complied. the officers requested an ambulance due to the individual's behavior. as the officers approached the individual, they ordered him to place his hands behind his

back, and he complied. the individual was handcuffed and secured to present him from standing up and running into the street. the individual was placed on his right side, in the position of recovery, while still making animal noises. the san francisco fire department removed on seen and requested the handcuffs be removed to be allowed to be placed on a back board. on january 21, approximately eight days later, the individual was pronounced deceased. after reviewing this case, the recommendation to the chief of police was that the -- that it was in policy as relates to the officer's actions addressing psychological evaluation of adults and in-custody deaths. however, they did find insufficient evidence on a

booking detention area where officers at the scene stated they placed the individual in a position of recovery while paramedics observed and reported that the individual was placed on his stomach, so this was a time -- this occurred in january 2016. this was prior to our implementation of body-worn cameras in june 2016, so there was insufficient evidence to determine which way the individual was placed. the cause of death was lethal cardiac arrythmia due to methamphetamine intoxication, and the medical examiner determined that the cause of death was an accident. moving onto in-custody death 20001. this occurred january 20, 5:40

in the morning. officers driving southbound on sunnydale avenue, they heard what they believed to be gunshots coming from the housing units. officers observed an individual in front of 1851 sunnydale face down with a gun with his finger on the trigger. the subject was given multiple commands to drop the gun, but he did not comply with the orders. officers from ingleside and bayview stations arrived on scene and assisted with a large crowd gathering to ensure the officers could safely deal with the subject holding the gun.

a plan was formulated amongst the officers who were attempting to communicate with the subject involving their crisis intervention team training. sergeants responded to the scene, taking control and providing further directions to the subject on the scene. the subject eventually dropped the gun and the officers approached the subject and placed handcuffs on him. officers confiscated the handgun and searched the subject for wounds. officers asked the subject if he was shot, and he said no, he was intoxicated. subject was transported to the san francisco general. once at san francisco general, the subject was rushed into surgery but later succumbed to his injuries. the recommendation, based on the information and the case

presented, was that this in-custody death was in policy, however, there was an administrative finding that one officer was out of policy for not having his body-worn camera with him while on scene, and the medical examiner's report on this one, the cause of death was multiple gun shot wounds, and the manner was homicide. as we go forward, the open -- there are open officer involved shootings and in-custody death investigations. you see on this list, you will note that 18-005, that was presented during the first quarter of 2021, however, it was returned for return review, so that is still pending, and we still have three in-custody deaths that need to be reviewed once the active criminal investigations are completed, and that is the completion of

my report. >> commissioner hamasaki: i'm not sure she's on -- >> vice president elias: i am here. . >> commissioner hamasaki: thank you, commissioner -- >> vice president elias: it's okay. does anybody have any questions? >> president cohen: i have a question. i can't find it. i'll have to look at my notes. >> i have a question that i just wanted to address because d.p.a. plays a role in the firearm discharge review, but in these cases, none of the cases that were on for this

quarterly report were d.p.a. cases or cases that d.p.a. would have jurisdiction over, in case people were wondering what our role in this quarter's report was. >> commissioner dejesus: and i'm on the list, if you look -- >> vice president elias: i'm sorry. commissioner dejesus, go ahead. >> commissioner dejesus: president cohen, unless you want to go. >> president cohen: thank you. i just wanted to know, what is -- the officer involved discharge report is a helpful report. it helps summarize and capture what's going on. what's the status of the individuals who were found in the car with the shattered window?

>> i don't have that answer -- i don't believe that was covered in -- you're talking about the in-custody death in the sunnydale? >> president cohen: yes, correct. >> sorry, i don't have that. that wasn't part of our discussion during the review. >> president cohen: okay. i was wondering, is there any evidence that it was involved or may have been involved in the shooting of the subject at s.f. general? >> i'd have to pull the report and review that. >> i'm sorry. what was the question, chief cohen? >> president cohen: my question was the status of the individuals found in the car with the shattered window? >> yes, the evidence indicates that this was -- basically, they were shooting at each other. >> president cohen: okay. did they survive? are they in custody? are they -- you know, like what's happening to them? >> they survived. i don't think there was an

arrest made on that particular case, or no suspect due to the fact that they were shooting or no charges filed, any way. i don't have that report, but my memory is they were shooting at each other, and there was a real self-defense type of issue there. i don't know from memory who shot first, our decedent or the other party. >> president cohen: okay. here's eye general question that doesn't get into the gran -- a general question that doesn't get into the granular investigation of each case. as investigative bodies, we receive the policy, we receive the data, and it's our job to translate that into policy, and

i wonder if you have any ideas around how we take this number and put it into a policy? >> yeah. there are some distinct recommendations of training policy and d.r.p. particularly one that helped this department is our cmdr coordinated critical response training. we had a couple of shootings where we had a large number of officers require shots, and we saw some shortages and some gaps in man and control coordinations, those type of things, which resulted in the development of our critical coordinated mindset response training, which some of our officered have received that block of training. we have helped the department tremendously while preventing

those types of incidents to occur. other policy improvements on use of forces, now particularly with d.p.a., as director henderson -- executive director henderson mentioned, a more active role. there are some recommendations coming your way on active cases, so they do have an impact. i think our processes have improved over the last several years. there's collaboration on the

[inaudible]. >> president cohen: when did that happen? do you recall? >> the incident happened in 2018, and by 2019, we had the training, and we put a large number of officers through that training, and the feedback from that officers is it's outstanding because they appreciate the training and how it helped them do their job. >> president cohen: so what about any -- any policy movement from 2019, 2020? we're just creeping into 2021, again, given the data that's been reflected and what has been presented? do you see any new ideas for policy coming through the pipeline? >> yeah. there was some --

[overlapping speakers] >> there are other things that i think will come either the commission's way or the department's way either by notices or training from incidents as we dig into these incidents. so i think the processes have been improved, and that one on body-worn cameras and responsibilities at the scene is something that occurred about two years ago, but that case has just resolved and that process right now is making some of those recommended changes. >> president cohen: and when you say they're in the process

right now, what are -- >> they'll be bulletins, policy reminders of when cameras should be turned off. there are instances where officers are told to turn the cameras off, when there's administrative and other things going on, public safety statement. what we found was there was some confusion going on, and upon our review, we are making those changes and adjustments. >> president cohen: all right. another question. again, this one is general. it's regarding the timeline. some investigations have been open for quite sometime, and in general terms, what holds the

investigations up from being completed? >> for many years, the criminal investigation, the decision to be made took years, sometimes, two or three years or more. that process has been shortened. the issue that we have now, and this is something that we have to try to work through with our district attorney and their staff. now that the district attorney's office has the lead on the criminal investigation, the department is not privy to the investigation. in the past, before the m.o.u., the department had to lean on the investigation. so i and your decision maker in the department had all the information a lot quicker. now, per the agreement, and rightfully so, the district attorney's office is the lead, so we may not get all the information. witness interviews, the results of those interviews, and we

really have to wait for that information before we make a decision on the policy side, and we understand why that is. we're working through that at least doing what we can do to get the information as quickly as possible. typically, the way that criminal investigations work, the criminal investigations happens first. was the officer's conduct legally justifiable? once that decision is made, then, the administrative investigation can proceed and conclude. the state law allows for tolling or that administrative case to be put on hold until that criminal investigation was come to the conclusion, so depending on how long that takes, we typically cannot finish our administrative investigation until that investigation is complete. now previously, we had all of that information, but now, we don't.

>> president cohen: okay. do we need to go back to the old way of doing business? is this new way more efficient? >> well, i think the criminal investigation by the d.a. is what people demanded. i think it should stay the way it is right now. >> president cohen: thank you, chief, for answering my questions. i'm going to yield the floor to commissioner dejesus. [inaudible] >> i know we've had internal conversations on whatever parts

of this that we have ownership of. typically, we have to wait until there's a medical examiner finding -- not typically, we do have to wait until there's a medical examiner finding, and sometimes it takes time. on top of that, we have to look at criminal culpability, as well, so it's virtually a similar process with an in-custody death. the district attorney is involved, and they make their findings, as well, so that same process is there. it's not an internal process anymore, it's an independent process, so some of it plays out depending on how long the things. >> commissioner dejesus: it takes six years for a medical examiner's report? >> no, it doesn't take six

years for a medical [inaudible]. >> commissioner dejesus: so okay. so that would have been helpful. i think it's important for us to know why there's major delays in a case. even that little bit is helpful, but the question is what are you doing about that? as the liaison, are you working with the district attorney's office and seeing what the delay is? >> yes, commissioner, we are, and the district attorney has made an offer. he's actually moving these cases quicker, and i know there's some that he's waiting on reports. we just had that discussion this week with the district attorney myself. >> commissioner dejesus: so when you present on this, when you have cases that are old like this, you should give some

semblance, some understanding as to why they're so old, why they're still open, and when's the last time it was checked on by the district attorney's office so we have a better understanding where the hiccup is. and i do want to go back to page 6, the in-custody death of the man who was making the animal sounds and was handcuffed and put on his stomach and then put on his right side. and i think the public should know, when we get these report, this is the first time we're seeing them, too. so we're asking questions, too, for the first time. but on this one, i'm wondering, did the coroner's report [inaudible] on his stomach or his side while being handcuffed, you know,

asphyxiated, did that contribute to his demise? >> the cause of death -- in the conversation -- the coroner's report said lethal cardiac arrythmia following restrain due to methamphetamine intoxication. >> and this is the policy, and i think we recently changed it after mr. floyd's death. we changed it in terms of try not to keep them handcuffed on the -- on their stomach or on their face on the ground. is that right, chief? [inaudible] >> -- placing people in positions of recovery, i.e., rolling them on their side. what we changed this past center was inadvertent body

weight on the ground was not appropriate. we've made a policy not to have people on the ground unless it's appropriate and articulate and documented and as soon as possible, you get that person off the ground, so that -- that were the changes that were -- that are in 5.01. >> commissioner dejesus: okay. okay. and then, the last thing is i can't remember the d.o.j. recommendations, but i think they had talked about -- we've talked about this before, having community transparency, maybe having community members sitting in on it, and those people can have confidentiality orders, but just have more transparency. i think in l.a. or somewhere, one of the d.o.j. officers told us whenever these officers in one particular community uses a taser, they have to come in

front of the police review board as well as a community review board, and i just want to know if we can review that and maybe have oversight on that, as well. those are my comments. >> president cohen: thank you, commissioner dejesus. i appreciate your line of questioning, and you will be missed. it's definitely got me thinking, what we need to do is extend an invitation to the district attorney to be part of this conversation or have a representative so we can add some more context around these numbers as well as a presentation. thank you. >> commissioner dejesus: great point. thank you. >> president cohen: okay. thank you. anyone else have any -- >> commissioner hamasaki: yes. sorry. i think i share a lot of the

concerns with commissioner dejesus, especially about in-custody deaths, 16-001. and remind me -- fdrb as currently situated is the command staff, somebody from d.p.a., and somebody from the commission. is that accurate? >> that's true. commissioner, the composition of the discharge review board

[inaudible] and a medical examiner. >> okay. and so, you know, i think we spoke generally about the delays in these cases. obviously, this one is from 2016, so we're over five years now on this. what was the specifically delay that caused this case to take five years to get to this point? >> commissioner, i don't have that. i will find out that one and get back to you. >> commissioner hamasaki: does no one have ownership of a particular case? >> these cases are assigned to

individual internal investigators, so they are assigned. >> commissioner hamasaki: and then, my next question is it sounded like the fighters and e.m.t. -- or i don't know if it was an individual or multiple that said the individual was placed on his stomach, and then, there was the officer or officers involved that said no, he wasn't. and was there not -- i mean, i guess, to me what was the basis for believing the police -- i'm sorry, the fire department and the e.m.t. were not telling the truth about the position of the individual? >> let me pause for a second. i'm not sure if we have the i.a. team on the line. let me check. i didn't investigate this case,

commissioner, so i don't have the details of the case. >> while deputy chief yee is trying to find out the answers, commissioner hamasaki, just a question on your question. i'm not seeing in the write up

where there was -- that allegation that you said. i think what you read, what i'm reading, individual was placed on his right side position of recovery while still making animal noises. san francisco fire department arrived at the scene and began to evaluate the individual. and medics requested that handcuffs be removed, allowing him to be placed on the back board. the fire department says that the individual was on his stomach, and i don't know if greg said that. i don't know if he said that, but that's not what the write up says. >> commissioner yee: yeah, chief, when i asked the question, my insufficient evidence was that they placed the subject into a position of recovery, and the reason why there's insufficient evidence to determine whether they were in or out of position on this topic is that the medical staff

on scene made statements to the investigators that they observed this individual on his excuse me. >> oh, okay. >> commissioner hamasaki: and so obviously, my concern -- there has been concerns raised about the fdrb and in-custody death review a different way. i thought we were forming a serious incident review board. director henderson, can you update us on that? >> well, commissioner, i can update you on that. commissioner, it is going on, and there is a draft. i believe commissioner elias is moving that forward, as well, so there's a draft policy and document to be flushed out, and that should be take a very long

time, so that's where we are on that. >> commissioner hamasaki: i'm glad to hear that because i know this was something that i had heard good things about the process, and it -- i've never been part of the fdrb or in-custody death board, and i think, you know, from the outside, when we're having these hearings in public, there has been questions about the -- how the decisions are come to and whether or not the decisions are something that the public should have faith in, should question, and oerth, and i guess that was the point of my follow ups from deputy chief yee. you know, when we're saying, well, here, we have the medical personnel saying one thing, and the officers saying another. is there a reason not to believe the medical personnel because the one way, the other way it could be looked at is, you know, why aren't we challenging the officers in this case because if there's

neutral -- i don't know what the bias of the medical personnel would be, but maybe you have a little more information, deputy chief yee? >> yeah. i know we had a discussion with the fdrb, and i know it had to do with the medical examiner on the line and the police physician. reviewing the cause of death, my opinion that the position of death on the scene was not contributing to the individual's death. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. so the restraint was referring to something else. >> yeah. the restraint was if they had handcuffs on them because i asked that same question. the medical examiner has to put in that. the conditions were that the

individual was in police custody under restraint, but under further discussion with them is, well, did the officer's action contribute to the death of this individual, and the determination was the individual's death was ruled an accident due to an acute methamphetamine intoxication, not the actions of the officers, and that's how the board came to the conclusion that the officers acted in policy. >> commissioner hamasaki: right. i think how it was phrased when you readout from the medical examiner using the term "restraint" and then qualifying or clarifying that it was a dispute as to whether the individual was on their side or on their back, and i drew a conclusion from that. >> my apologies for not being

clear. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. so i don't have any further questions. >> okay. and commissioner cohen and commissioner hamasaki, we will note that and work on fixing the delays that at least the police department owns, any way. >> vice president elias: thank you, chief. i am actually on the fdrb, and when i first got on there, the delays were longer, and i believe one of the reasons you had given back in 2018was the medical examiner taking more time on these cases. but when i look on these cases, i see a date of 2018 and it

shows that there is an active investigation, which is confusing to me, because under 3304, there's only one year for an investigation unless it's tolled due to criminal investigation or matter.

>> 18-002, i don't know, off the top of my head -- i don't know that one, but 17 -- both of the 17 cases, we have not gotten a final decision on the criminal yet. >> vice president elias: right, and you indicate that, which is why it would explain why it's tolled, but you don't explain that on the 2018 and the 2019 case, and i think that would be

helpful, as well as having perhaps the fdrb meet more frequently. >> yeah, that's another consideration. >> vice president elias: how many cases that are not even on the queue that are backlogged? >> yeah. the good news is we have a whole lot more less, in-custodies and officer-involved shootings, but the board will be meeting sometimes -- or at least be flexible when we need to increase the frequency of the meetings. so what we can do, in moving forward, in addition to the information being requested, we can put the 3304 on there so the commission knows where we stand. i don't know, as we sit, what the criminal investigation date

that stopped the tolling on these cases, but we can include that, as well. >> vice president elias: that would be helpful. thank you, chief. >> thank you. >> president cohen: all right. i don't see anymore names on the roster. i appreciate this. this is an important conversation, one of the heavier parts of our agenda. it's important that we ask these questions about in-cut deaths, and so i want to go back to the shooting that was -- i think it was in sunnydale. just for clarification, it's someone in custody. i know -- is someone in custody? i know you said people were shooting at each other, but is someone in custody? >> i don't believe there is. i know there was some shooting that night, but i will follow up with you and the commission on that. >> president cohen: okay. no problem. so here's another question: what's the potential changes to

department general order 8.12 that's being contemplated in response to this incident? are you familiar with general order 8.12, 8.12? >> is that the -- hang on a second. let me pull it up.

>> president cohen: it was noted that this d.g.o. is under revision, and there may be updates to the language contained herein. i'm just following up to see what those potential changes may be. it was in the presentation, so

maybe the gentleman that made the presentation can speak to it. >> sorry about that. i'm trying to look up when 8.12 is being scheduled for review. >> president cohen: okay. >> so i don't know that there are changes on the definition of in-custody deaths. what i do know is that definitely there's some changes on things that need to be updated on that particular d.g.o. units have changed and the structure has changed. now that we have the i.a.b. and independent investigation and the d.a.s m.o.u. that we are assigned, there's some things that have changed as far as the processes on these investigations, but i don't recall any conversation about the change of notification. >> president cohen: okay. perhaps i misread it. i saw that in the presentation that was made. it's my understanding that 8.12

is not on the review docket right now, so you and i can circle back up, and we can discuss whether we need to move it up and put it into the docket so that it can be considered for a refresh. >> thank you. >> president cohen: all right. let's continue to move on. wen of the things that i'm thinking about as i look into these presentations is extending an invitation to the district attorney and the attorney that runs the i.a.b. updating us on what they're doing and how their movement and their effort is complementary to what the department is doing, so just -- there's a lot of moving part that's independent at the police department, and i think we need to kind of bring it all in-house and touch base.

here's a question for you, chief, or mr. yee. i'm sorry. i don't know your rank. >> deputy chief yee. >> president cohen: deputy chief yee. i want to get it right for the record. so can you tell me the reasons there was an active criminal and administrative investigation of an officer involved shooting going back over four years to january 2017, and other cases that are over three years old? and if i'm not mistaken, i think commissioner elias and

petra dejesus have commented on this question. i don't recall getting a strong succinct answer. >> greg, i can answer that one from the 2017 o.i.s. that case, the district attorney is still reviewing. that case had a few things that were part of the whole court process. the person, the individual that was shot later passed away while he was in prison, and it was determined that the injuries from the gunshots, i believe, were part of the reason for his death, so the district attorney, i know, still has that case open and still reviewing that, and i know there's been some delays because of the court proceedings that have occurred in conjunction to that case, and so that one is actually

still open. i don't know if the district attorney will have an answer. >> president cohen: okay. just another example of we need to pull in the district attorney to be a part of this conversation. >> sure. >> president cohen: here's another one. why are the active criminal investigations of in-custody deaths going back almost six years, to june and july of 2015, and other cases going back to 2019? i'm just trying to get a better understanding of the time law. i will say i understand we've had a turnover in leadership, both in the district attorney's office and even in the police chief's office. i don't know if that is an underlying cause. i'm not trying to offer excuses, but i am trying to understand more of the backlog where the congestion is happening. >> president cohen, i will have to make that inquiry. it requires my preparation for this.

my focus was on the presentation. i didn't really go deep into the why of the case, and you do raise some legitimate questions why these are taking so long, so it's going to take me going back into the risk management offices to get an update on each of these cases to find out what's taking so long. >> president cohen: i appreciate that, deputy chief yee, and just as a mantra in moving forward, we need to be asking the questions why, for what reason are we seeing these numbers? i'd like to schedule you to come back in a few weeks with some answers. i'd like to understand what the hang-up is, and perhaps we need to have you guys start reporting on a weekly basis, much in the way that the department of police accountability is reporting. this, i feel, gets to the crux

of were the police commission exists. here's a larger, more global question. is six weeks an acceptable range for this -- you know what? before you answer that, how long have you been in this role? are you new at this? >> i've been a deputy chief in administration since 2019. >> president cohen: okay. so we've got cases that predate you. >> yes. >> president cohen: okay. all right.

we've got cases that predate you, so in your -- in your -- you know, in the last three years that you've been working in this role, what's the start role? how much time should we be allotting? >> right. i'm looking through d.g.o. 3.10 and 8.12, and i'm trying to pull it up for you. >> and while deputy chief yee is looking that up, i will reiterate what director henderson said a little bit ago. whenever there are criminal investigations, we have a year before that administrative investigation -- a year from the -- the conclusion of the criminal investigation, when that administrative investigation will run statute. in other words, we have a year to complete it, so that's -- legally, we strive to do that

well within the year. typically, six to nine months is about average on the time that it takes to do that type of situation. that's what we strive for. >> president cohen: okay. here's a point i wanted to make to the public but also to address in-house. looks like the d.g.o. 8.12 hasn't been updated since 2009, and that's a pretty long time. perhaps we need to revisit that, and to the extent possible, we should be publicly discussing and informing people the reasons for delay, the reasons for these cases of being delayed, and then, we should be receiving, discussing, and analyzing

recommendations, and then ultimately approving recommendations to minimize these types of delays. as of right now, i have no idea why -- why this -- a few of these cases are so delayed, and it doesn't sound like anyone on this call is able to answer that question. please come back with the answers to this question. it's important. i want to go beyond the statute that -- that should be reported to -- to this commission. one other thing that i want to highlight is that d.g.o. 3.10, which we all know is currently under review, that should create a serious incident review board that will hopefully fold both of these into one, which might help alleviate some of the backlog problem. but the district attorney, we need to ask these types of

questions of the district attorney so we can get further information as to where the backlog is. these are all questions that i think people would like to know. inquiring minds would like to know, like the old commercial. i'm going to -- i'm going to move on. i don't want to harp on this if there's no one questions. i don't see anyone else in the chat. sergeant youngblood, could you please call the next item. thank you, deputy chief yee, and chief. i appreciate your responses. >> clerk: public comment. the public is now welcome to make public comment on-line item 4, presentation of the firearms discharge review board. members of the public that would like to make a public comment, please press star, three now. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> hello, chief scott, director

henderson. this is zach long from the public defender's office, and thank you for discussing the cases. it's possible that none of these cases under review will warrant discipline, but the lengthy discussion is the culmination of officers' sometimes deadly actions. these investigations take years, the appeals take years, yet the return to duty decisions occurs within weeks. the disparity is huge. thank you. >> president cohen: speaker, what's your name? >> i'm zach dillon from the public defender's office. >> president cohen: okay. may i follow up with you tomorrow? >> yes. >> president cohen: okay. thank you. next caller? >> clerk: president cohen, that is the end of public comment. >> president cohen: okay. i appreciate that. can we call the next line item?

>> clerk: line item 5, presentation regarding mental health awareness month and discussion and possible action to issue department bulletin, green pin campaign in support of mental health awareness month, may 2021, which temporarily modified department general or the 10.01, uniform and equipment classes, discussion and possible action. >> president cohen: before we go into the presentation, i just want to thank the people that are getting ready to make this presentation. we all recognize the link between investigation and mental health, and i believe it makes the job increasingly more difficult. it's important that all public officials, especially those who are the first responders, emphasize that help is available to persons with mental health challenges. i'm glad we are acknowledging

this, i'm glad that we're here discussing this, and it shows that police officials commitment to mental health, and it releases the taboo that exists in many cultures around mental health illness. so i'm excited to hear this presentation, and i will yield the floor to the presenter. thank you for joining us today. i think we have carrie here. >> president cohen, this is commander o'sullivan. >> president cohen: commander o'sullivan. >> great to see you, as well. i am rob o'sullivan. i am the commander assigned to the risk management office, and i am here in my capacity tonight as a member of the san francisco police department's wellness team. with me this evening is mrs.

carrie beshears. carrie is the manager of the health management system for the city and county of san francisco, and also is christine demakalis, who is also a member of the wellness team, as is carrie. christine is really the blue that has held our team together. commissioner, as you mentioned, today, we're here tonight to ask you approval to wear a ribbon and for our members to wear a ribbon the month of may on their top and that is in support of mental health awareness. [please stand by]

>> thank you commander o'sullivan and good evening commissioners. you can advance to one more slide. this past year has been the most resilient among us. and experience mental health disorder. naturally, the pandemic has always changed that. so we're seeing.

in addition to the stress, you add a lot of other unprecedented events that have happened in the past years. the wild fires, the contested election. the insurrection on capitol hill. those are just a few. add the work plus all of these other elements in the past year, you can only imagine the stress that it's put on all of us, particularly on our mental health and emotional well being. go ahead and advance the next slide. and, so each year, may is a focus for mental health awareness month. naturally, it's an opportunity to join the national movement. this is actually our second year doing this. we're looking to enhance how we

are elevating mental awareness. so the san francisco mental health service system is looking to bring resources to our entire employee base, but to drive team to those resources. so i won't go through all of them just for the essence of time, but we are looking at increasing to call volume particularly to e.a.p. services. we also will be doing some increase pushes to the cortico app which is for our first responders groups to elevate resources specifically to mental health. and our mind resources that we have. some of the things that i necessarily haven't mentioned, but you can go ahead and advance the next slide, we also will be looking at some training. we currently are offering mental health first aid training as well through our department and we'll be looking at our uptick in departments taking advantage of those

trainings. so we're, as i mentioned, we're doing a lot of other webinars to elevate for our topics to be engaged. worry, anxiety. burn-out and depression. and so, with that, that's just a really high level overview. i'm going to turn it back over to commander o'sullivan to talk about the other training opportunities. >> thank you. so specific to the sfpd, the wellness team in concert with our behavioral science unit, we have been in contact with representatives of california p.o.s.t. which is an acronym for peace officer standard training. they have made available grants funded training, which is titled "navigating adversity"

and it will explore eight dimensions of wellness and our members both sworn and professional staff will be afforded the opportunity to take this self-guided training. it will be in two-hour blocks over eight consecutive weeks. we first learned about this training through our contact with the san francisco sheriff's department. our sheriff's department behavioral science units speak on a regular basis and leadership of that department sheriff miamoto saw fit to see his deputies go through the training and his recommendation comes highly to us.

we are asking for a temporary modification which governs our uniform standards. we're asking sworn members to wear the pin, the medal pin above the name plate on officer uniform and then again on the right breast of a shirt or blouse or sweater or professional staff members. next slide. here's a picture of the pin. i've spoke to the training that we're going to offer. carry has spoken to h.s.f. efforts will be during the course of the month. and, this is a photograph, the pin here is photoshoppe onto this picture so you can see the green pin above the name plate and this is actually christine danopolis who is on the call with us and one of our

captain's captain nick. and with that, we're happy to take your questions. >> thank you for the presentation, both of you. appreciate it. let me see if my colleagues have any questions. i see hands in the chat. i don't think we have any questions. i think this is just self-explanatory. >> commissioner yee: i have a question. >> president cohen: commissioner yee. thank you. >> commissioner yee: i just want to know how many officers or staff are trained on this mental health department because i know this covid-19 has hit the department and your membership hard so are there enough staff there to recognize that and to bring it out to meet the officers one on one, number one.

and, number two, if they see it, they should report it and bring it in. that's more important for us and the public too as well as the officers in the department. so looking forward, is there any additional training that the officers may need too regards to substance abuse and looking to see how we can stem it going forward. >> thank you, commissioners. so to answer those questions, we have a very highly regarded behavioral science unit. in fact, the unit which is staffed by sworn members, our unit dates back to i believe the late 70s or early 80s and it's been recognized around the country as a national model. and, to that end, it's well-known throughout the department that for any member whether professional staff are

sworn that, number one, anybody that feels that they're in need of help can reach out to the payroll science unit and similarly, members can confidentially reach out to express their concerns about a member. so as to with regards to this particular training, we are tentatively scheduled to start on wednesday, may the 12th. so it will be the middle of may. obviously, we see the significance of offering this training during mental health awareness month. we hope to have several hundreds of our members go through the training and as each of the modules are completed, the california post representatives which includes mentors both sworn and nonsworn individuals, we will be soliciting feedback from the participants so that adjustments if needed can be

made. and, i think finally, you raise a question or a comment about what other training is out there and our behavioral science unit on a regular presents at the academy with regards to services, the mental health services that are available to the membership. we've also for the training division, captain jack heart's done a wonderful job of bringing forth blue courage training, inclusive leadership training and more recently a leadership development institute that began in fall of 2019 and has significant amount of discourse within that ten-month program has to do with mental, physical, and emotional health. so it's something we feel very proudly of that we're addressing and as we move forward in the future, we endeavor to do more mental health related training.

>> thank you. >> commissioner yee: you know. i think this is great. this is wonderful. always glad to see the department making sure that the members are provided the resources that they need, you know. i think regardless, it can be a very intense and high pressure job that can have real impacts and we certainly see that on the backside, on the discipline side with people that end up in drugs or alcohol issues and so i guess my question is, you know, do we get the sense or the feeling that, you know, people are reaching out before it gets to that point? are we having success in, you

know, this because, you know, my work involves seeing a lot of death and violence, but i'm not right up there and personal with it. you know, it impacts me and so i can't imagine the intensity of it and the impact on people and, you know, just wanting to -- i'm hopeful that people are, you know, getting through whatever, you know, a lot of people have bias against seeking mental health help. what's your sense of that within the department now? are we making improvements and strides in that sense? >> first, thank you for recognizing just how the demands of the job can result in having adverse effects on our mental health.

our behavioral science unit is staffed by four sworn members right now and it is a 24/7 hour job they are busy seven days a week and i say that to your question in to being utilized. with regards to the reception of the department, i we have a department that in terms of 10 year is on the younger side and that's very cyclical. that's not unique to the san francisco police department. that happens throughout municipal law enforcement agencies throughout the united states and my sense is that with this generation, they're much more receptive to being outspoken about their concerns

and their need to access services and that is really significant because there was a time that, you know, for the more senior folks in this department having those discussions and then commissioner. >> president cohen: commissioner. >> president cohen: >> president cohen: alluded to it. we do have a membership that i get to generalize i think is very receptive. they're very hungry for these types of resources and it gets back to what mrs. biershear said earlier. the city and county correct me if i'm wrong, every monday in the month of may is going to send out an e-mail to approximately 25,000 of us

employees to talk about these webinars and make these issues available. so there's a response regarding the san francisco police department, but i think it extends to, you know, the full family and city and county of san francisco that people are much more open than just five, ten years ago just to kind of put round numbers on it to access these services. >> commissioner hamasaki: that's incredibly clear. that's important work. we'd much rather see people getting help in early stages rather than ending up with discipline and problems on the job. i think we all support this work. >> commissioner hamasaki, if i could just add, we have an app that's been implemented for over a year. from what i'm told, officers

are taking advantage of that as well. they have 24/7 access through that app with licensed clinicians. so that's also available for officers as well and i'm told that they are putting that to good use as well. >> commissioner hamasaki: good to know. thanks, chief. >> president cohen: any other questions, colleagues? so it is informative to know that this is a procedural question and that you can temporarily modify d.g.o.s i was unaware of this that you can temporarily modify d.g.o.s. how do you do this? what's the procedure? >> yeah. so sorry, chief. >> go ahead. >> okay. so, yeah, we have a course. i don't know. it should have been sent to you in the materials ahead of the

meeting and commissioner cohen, that's how we do it. we notice the department through a department notice. we went through a similar process with breast cancer awareness with the patches. that is during the month of october and similarly during the month of june for pride. so i believe, you know, after this discussion, sergeant youngblood will ask to take a vote which i don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, but i think you'll be voting on the modification just for the month of may for us to wear the pin and then, once may concludes, then we're no longer authorized to wear the pin. >> president cohen: thank you. if there are no other questions, we can keep moving.

thank you. >> and i think with that commissioner cohen i'll make an attempt to modify d.g.o.1 so we can support the campaign: >> commissioner: i'll second. >> president cohen: i lost track of the conversation. where are we? >> we're about to take public comment. >> clerk: all right. so members of the public who would like to make public comment. please press star 3 now. and president cohen we have no

public comment. >> vice president elias: there was a motion so can we do the vote. >> clerk: on the motion to approve department bulletin to allow the green pin for mental health awareness month. [roll call] you have six yeses. >> president cohen: great. motion passes. let's celebrate. congratulations. good job. next item, please. >> line item six. discussion and possible action to approve revised draft department general order 3.09

"department awards," for meeting with the conferring san francisco police officer's association as required by law. this is a discussion and possible action item. >> thank you. first of all, i just want to start by thanking -- commissioner cohen you mentioned this as well. and also executive director paul henderson and the team at the department of speech accountability who also helped us. this is several years in the making. but i just want to point out outline what the changes are for the commission in the public and what i think are improvements in the process in terms of initiative and incentives for the type of behavior and activity that, you

know, the department and i think our community wants to reward, in addition to valor. so i'll go through this. and i'll try to do it quickly. october 2016, the u.s. department of justice published this report on sfpd. the report found among others things that the sfpd does not have multilevel recognition such as community engagement, recognition, expression under duress and problem solving. the version 3.nine addresses the two u.s. d.o.j. based on the above finding. sfpd recognizes power and authority with good community outcomes to traditionally recognize acts and bravery and the sfpd should implement departmentwide for officer of the month as one way to begin

to advance a code to guardianship. the revisions to 3.nine are broken down into four categories. first, addressing the u.s. d.o.j. recommendation. second, adding additional types of awards for recognition. third -- i can't say the word sorry. remedying the award and process for the outlining prior to the police commission for approval. so in the first category, the u.s. d.o.j. recommended that we add a crisis intervention team award to d.g.o.3.09 and that was done in this upgrade. while this award is mentioned in d.g.o.5.201. placing the award in dgo309. the award is listed right after

medal of valor, the notorious conduct award and the life-saving award and above all other department awards to demonstrate the importance in sfpd's commitment to the c.i.t. program. the award now with the passage, hopefully the passage and approval of the d.g.o. hopefully will come with a monetary award. second thing is expanding the award. for employing deescalation techniques. exhibiting violent behavior or making credible threats of violence and also when a member resolves an incident with minimal or no use of force, that member should be rewarded. and, lastly, on this category, contributing on the development program, policies, and procedures that support the department commission and

goals. the next category created the community policing problem solving award and there are two types of this award that's being proposed in this d.g.o. revision. the first is the strategic problem solving award which will be granted to a member for an original approach to solving an ongoing problem and the second time type is the community engagement award in creative and innovative community projects. the next category is the officer of the month last year. this award recognizes one member each month who uses community policing practices and advances the police officer as a guardian culture. in january of each year, the officer of the year is selected from the group of twelve officers of the month. all sworn members are eligible for this award regardless of this assignment. and i'd like to point out we had our first officer of the month ceremony this past month

because of covid, we had to limit the attendance, but it was very well received and the officers that received the award, it was hard selection. we had a lot of officers that qualified, but the officers that were selected really epitomized this guardian mentality and thought process that we want in our police department and they were very well deserved. additional types of awards and recognition includes leadership, development, graduate award which is awarded to the department members who graduated from sfpd's leadership development institute which we implemented last year to really promote, develop leaders throughout the organization of all ranked schools professional staff and nonmembers. next category of awards says outside nomination which encouraged this member to

nominate fellow member awards for outside nomination. any member nominated is not procolluded from being nominated for an sfpd award and the final category is the u.s. armed forces service ribbon. members who served in the military prior to joined sfpd or currently serving authorized where the u.s. armed services ribbon in recognition and appreciation of their service. next, feature i'd like to point out in this policy revision, we are attempting to remedy inequities in the awards process. the d.g.o. defines the member to include all department members. this change allows all members including professional staff or nonmembers of our department to be eligible for most of the award. the composition of the award screening committee was increased from three to five to allow for increase in policing

and policing experience, increase in diversity and opinions. the chief of police has required to ensure the composition of the award screening committee reflects the diversity of the department as i just noted. also, all nominated members identifying information on documents submitted to the award screening committee will be redacted. so, in other words, the nominated member, that information will be redacted. so that doesn't impact the awards. it's the acts, not the people nominating. also, we've removed the provision that allowed for waiving of voting by secret ballots. the next category that is touched upon with this revision is certifying nominations prior to sending member's names to the police commission for approval. with this d.g.o. now the police and two commissioners convene

in sending the nomination and names of the nominees to the commission for full approval. if a nomination cannot be certified, the chief of police and two commissioners shall reconvene every 60 days until such time as this panel with the chief and the two commissioners either certify or deny the member's nomination. that was something i wanted to thank dpa for raising and commissioner de jesus as well. before the commission perceives those member nominees and members of the department. so, again, those are the highlights. i do think it is a tremendous upgrade. that really has gotten us over the hurdle in terms of this d.o.j. recommendation, this reform recommendation. i think it rewards the type of

behavior we had not rewarded before and i think it's going to be transformative in terms of our department moving forward. thank you to commissioner dejesus, former commissioner taylor and i ask that the commission approve this d.g.o. and move it forward to meet and confer. thank you and i'm available for any questions. >> president cohen: thank you for that overview, chief. there is one person that i also want to recognize and that is rachel killshaw who's been instrumental in helping to get this over the finish line. >> you're absolutely right and, rachel, if you're on the line, i apologize because rachel was really the glue that held us together and thank you for mentioning that because i forgot to mention it. but, rachel did a tremendous amount of work on this. thank you for mentioning that.

>> president cohen: absolutely. so everything that you've said, i want to associate myself with your comments. it's totally, this award is totally consistent with all of our reform initiatives that we include rewards for crisis intervention and community oriented policing problem solving valor is an important. not everyone has valor and integrity so we want to celebrate those officers that are demonstrating it and applying it to their everyday work and i will see if colleagues have any questions or comments that they'd like to add. i particularly want to acknowledge commissioner dejesus if there's anything she wanted to. >> i'm sorry. my name's in the chat. i did want to speak to it. >> president cohen: please do.

ment >> [inaudible] and rachel. it can change so dramatically. i've been with the commission for a long time. my impression of these boards were people got the medals who were involved in officer-involved shootings and sometimes those clash because they would get a gold medal but the investigations would be open or they'd be in civil court in violation with civil rights so we have been trying to find a balance where we understand the whole picture before an award is given. but one of the things this award did take into consideration with the d.o.j. requesting it and it's so much broader now community oriented

problem solving. you know the officer of the month, i mean, the officer of the year. so it's really broadened not just [inaudible] and so i mean like women, you know, women can qualify in here as well. so with all that being said, some of the concerns that we had that was holding us back, before i go there, i want to say we have awarded the [inaudible] it's been held up for a long time and the d.o.j. and it's really important to keep this department moving forward. [inaudible] unfortunately some have had incidences and we've had to go

through them. the 2% of d.p.a. was we wanted to know about any criminal investigations. so that's [inaudible] and then the second thing the dpa points out is they'll look at anything that might be in their record except for if it's 18 months pass. as you can see now, some of these investigations go on longer than 18 months and that was a concern that d.p.a. pointed and some of the ways that the chief has tried to remedy that is we have two commissioners now who sit through the application process and i think it did work really well with us and i think the chief was really open to some of our concerns and he made decisions based on concerns and

trying to move forward. those were the two issues that were raised. then we came back in 60 days. i think it worked a little with the chief. those are the concerns going forward because we waited too long, we really tried to go through to see where people were in their job right now and in the record right now. once we reach that census, i think we need to move forward, but i just wanted to raise the concern that one [inaudible] and the other one [inaudible] is raised. other than that, i think this could work. >> thank you for raising those

issues, those were issues that the dd.p.a. has raised in the past. one of the things has been the actual use of the court. and so there's no from the because those reports are turned over from the d.p.a.. those are some of the concerns that we had voiced before. i won't go over what they were. again, it was just making sure that the department has notice or was put on notice as to officers that were being investigated or d.p.a. was in the process of continuing an investigation. and so -- that's my only comment. thank you for following up and having our recommendation as

part of the consideration. >> commissioner hamasaki: so if i can jump in, i think one of the lines and this line has been an issue for years now which is at page 6, i'm sorry, on page 7 of the document and that would be the certification of nominations and there's a last line on section 1d which states "or 18 months that passed from the date of the oi.s. whichever is sooner" and so that is the line that i think is still a problem and i would suggest that we strike that line because, you know, what it creates is a situation

that petro was explaining which is where if the investigation hasn't been concluded and we're issuing somebody an award and it comes back that it's not in policy, i think that would be a terrible look for the department. so i do understand there's interest in moving these along. the issue has to be in the investigation sooner and not issuing the award before the investigation is complete. and i don't know of any other way to fix this because i know we've debated this for literally years now. this debate predated my arrival on the commission which is

2018. >> commissioner hamasaki, can i be heard on that issue. i believe the checks and balances on that issue. the commissioners who sit on that committee, if i'm not the seat, as this moves forward. so that's the first opportunity if the commissioners do not feel comfortable moving forward with an award because it's an open investigation which probably won't be likely anyway when we get to that stage, but i hear you. that's the first stage. it wouldn't go through. because if that's the will of the commission, the commission has two votes and it's a democratic process and it wouldn't go through. but the other catch is the final approval on the award with the full board of the commission. so if the full board is not

comfortable with what's presented to the commission regardless of whether that issue or any other issue can be caught at that level too. i think one of the things with the 18 months with where we are now, i know we just had an serb with some older cases on it. e.t.a. is moving much faster and the d.a. is moving much faster. i hope that those checks and balances were put in place to catch those types of issues if the two commissioners like were not comfortable moving this forward, the case is not done yet it could be called by the full commission. so i hope that satisfies. >> you know, i do appreciate that, you know, the idea of

trying to remedy in that way. you know, like we've always discussed with any individual like commissioner or even the chief, we're not always going to be in these seats, the chief's not always going to be in his seat and we should draft policies regardless of the confidence that we have in ourselves and the chief. to me, i think setting a bright line allows for more confidence in that we will not get it wrong because, you know, it's just not something that would reflect well on the commission for the department if we got it wrong. >> president cohen: thank you, commissioner. are there any other folks on the commission that would like to speak to this? all right. seeing none. i just want to indicate that i am actually in full support of

the award and i do believe that the needed checks and balances are in place. i agree with the chief that the commissioners are part of the certification process and there's been a lot of deliberation back and forth on this and now we are at a point where we've got the chief of the executive director of d.p.a. on board so i guess this is just a commission matter and i just want this to go on record that i'm voting aye for this. i don't see anyone in the chat. so why don't we go to public comment on this item. >> clerk: members of the public that would like to make public comment online item 6

regarding d.g.o.3.09, department awards, please press star 3 now. and, president cohen, there are no public comments. >> president cohen: let's go ahead and put this item to a vote or let me see, motion to approve. is there a motion? >> commissioner: motion to approve d.g.o.3.09. >> president: perfect. all right. i will second that motion. please call the vote. >> clerk: on the motion to approve dgo3.0904 [roll call]

commissioner cohen, you have five yeses. >> president cohen: thank you very much. let's call the next line item. >> clerk: item 7 public comment on all matters pertaining to item 9 below, closed session. the public is welcome to make public comment by pressing star 3. there is no public comment. >> president cohen: okay. >> line item 8 is a vote on whether to hold item 9 in closed session including vote on whether to assert the

attorney client privilege. >> commissioner: motion to go in closed session. >> president cohen: second. motion made by brookter, seconded by -- >> can we invoke the attorney client privilege, please. >> president cohen: of course. motion to hold item 9 in closed session including the invocation or the assertion of attorney client privilege in regards to item 9. in section 67.10. motioned by president cohen, seconded by commissioner brookter. >> clerk: [roll call]

you have six yeses. all right. i will bring us into closed session. >> president cohen: thank you. [please stand by]