any other additional callers on the line for item number 15? >> you have zero questions remaining. >> chair borden: seeing none we will close public comment. that puts us to the end of our agenda and we are now officially adjourned. >> well done, chair borden. >> you're a champ, madam chair. >> thank you, chair borden. >> thank you all.

>> president cohen: it is may 5, and want to recognize any special birthdays that we have today? want to give those may 5 babies a happy birthday shoutout. all right. ladies and gentlemen, my name is malia cohen. i'm the president of the police commission, and i am calling this meeting to order. it is 5:40 p.m. sergeant youngblood, please call the roll. >> clerk: yes. [roll call]

>> clerk: president cohen, you have a quorum. also here tonight is chief william scott and director paul henderson with the department of police accountability. >> president cohen: all right. let's begin with the pledge of allegiance. if you would place your right hand over your heart and say with me. [pledge of allegiance] >> president cohen: all right. thank you very much. sergeant youngblood, please call the first item. >> clerk: line item 1, general public comment. at this time, the public is now 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 or d.p.s. personnel. under police commission rules of order, during public comment, neither police or d.p.a. personnel nor commissioners are required to responsibility to questions presented by the public. if you wish to present public comment, call 415-655-0001, meeting code 187-895-4967. press pound and pound again. at this time, if you would like to make general public comment, please press star, three now, and president, we have a number of callers. >> president cohen: excellent.

welcome, caller. >> clerk: good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> hi. my name is david aaronson, and i am with the core team of wealth and equity disparity founded by felicia jones. last week, the san francisco police department agreed to complete in writing all of the 272 department of justice reforms. as of april 28, only 64% were marked as substantially compliant on their website. furthermore, we do not have assurances that what sfpd said are substantially compliant truly are as per d.o.j. -- as per cal d.o.j.

>> -- on april 30, in other words, last week, where 94% of them, as chief scott stated in meetings earlier this year. april 30 was the date that chief scott and the cal d.o.j. office agreed to meet the recommendations in the 2020 letter. yet as of two days before the deadlines, sfpds own website only shows 64% of the guidelines substantially compliant. [inaudible] and on going complaints of extreme racial disparities. indeed, the policing in san francisco continues unchanged to this day. [inaudible] black subjects are

more than ten times as likely to be stopped or arrested and more than four times as hispanics. that's sfpds own terms. black san franciscans are paying the price for chief scott's lack of progress, owing to san francisco's on going racist policing. thank you. >> clerk: thank you, caller. good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> president cohen, chief scott, director henderson, and commissioners, this is zach [inaudible] from the public defender's office.

[inaudible] the same item was on the closed agenda -- closed session agenda the following week. i hope the public will be told the decision on the matter, what caused the delay, and how we can help in the future. i also we will be told about the three cases of retired or separated from the department. >> president cohen: excuse me.

sergeant youngblood, i'm getting a message that people are not able to see the sfgov police commission meeting, they're only able to hear audio. when they click on the link, they're taken to the small business link. >> clerk: sfgov just advised me it's not on the channel, it's live stream only. >> president cohen: okay. is it possible they're live streaming the budget and finance committee because it's budget season? apologies, folks. >> clerk: yes, it is because the budget is still on. >> president cohen: okay. budget is still on. just want the public to be publicly noticed and made aware that we did not know about this

beforehand, that the budget and finance committee, that when they go over, it goes into our slot time on the internet, so right now, people have to access this hearing or access our meeting via the audio function. >> clerk: and president cohen just advised me if people do want to watch, they can go to sfgovtv.org/watch, w-a-t-c-h. >> president cohen: all right. >> sergeant, can you ask sfgov to run a tickler on the bottom so that people know where to go? >> clerk: yes. it is there. >> vice president elias: can you repeat it, please? >> clerk: yes. it is sfgovtv.org/watch,

w-a-t-c-h. >> president cohen: all right. great. i hope folks on-line can continue to watch that, as well. let's continue. >> clerk: good evening, caller. you have two minutes. >> hi. my name is [inaudible] and i am with the wealth and disparities in the black community. [inaudible] there's some that are very clearly important ones that are not being addressed,

such as the first one, specifically the one dealing with deadly force, which is still being [inaudible] chief scott has shown a willingness

to reach out to the california a.g. to track [inaudible] cops, which is a great idea, especially given that the april 30 deadline has come and gone and some of these recommendations are still not complete. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. good evening, miss brown. you have two minutes. >> can you hear me? >> okay. i'm calling in regards to my son who was murdered in 2006, and his case have not been solved. the uproar that we're making

about the [inaudible], i'm wondering if we can make the same uproar to murdered children. i was wondering if anything -- the police commission can do about getting that implemented faster than what i'm trying to do already to put the homicide posters back out there permanently, having them rolling digitally, continuously, at certain places, so that maybe some of the cases can get solved, including my son's case, and to talk about how the feds and everyone -- not everyone -- that is using our sons and children and loved ones of being gang members, and what can we do about that, and i was

wondering if that can be an item on the police commission agenda someday and we can talk about that. i've been coming here for years, and still no solving of the case of my son, you know? i'm going through it. his anniversary is going to be coming up this year. he just had a birthday april 6. august 14 will be the anniversary. it'll be another year, so i'm saying what else can we do with no witnesses? what else can we do? >> clerk: thank you, miss brown. that is the end of your public. >> president cohen: all right. thank you very much. all right. if you could please call the next item, sergeant youngblood,

i'd appreciate it. >> clerk: line item 2, consent calendar, receive and file, action. police commission disciplinary action record, first quarter 2021. >> president cohen: all right. i'd like to make a couple of comments on this report. so as we receive this report, i'd like the chief to clarify what is meant by these cases being remanned to the chief for further violations, end quote. chief, i hope your sound is working better. is it working better? >> yes, it is. thank you, president cohen. >> president cohen: thank you. so can you tell me what's meant by the term, "final proceedings to reach a determination"? what does that mean? >> what that means is when the

member resigns or retires, the department has no jurisdiction, but they can refer the case back to the chief to make a determination, in other words, if there's improper conduct or sustained. once they do, a letter still goes to the employee. of course, we no longer have the jurisdiction to impose anything, but they do have the right to appeal. they have a certain amount of days to appeal, and if they do not respond within a certain amount of days, they forfeit the right to appeal, or if they appeal, then, it goes through an appeal process. >> president cohen: all right. what is the process that will be followed in determining

whether or not relative officers' personnel files will be released to the public? >> it's the same under s.b. 1421. if the sustain allegations -- s.d. 1421. if the sustained allegations meet the criteria, we release that information to the public if the officer is still with the department. >> president cohen: okay. colleagues, are there any other questions from the 2021 first quarter disciplinary action report? >> vice president elias: just to let you know, president cohen, there will be a resolution coming before the department that will explain more on that. >> president cohen: all right. let me go to the chat and see what wants to speak.

all right. seeing there are no colleagues on the list, we will keep moving. please call the next item. >> clerk: we just need a motion and a second. >> president cohen: thank you. is there a motion? >> vice president elias: motion. >> president cohen: motion made by vice chair elias. is there a second? >> commissioner brookter: second. >> president cohen: second made by commissioner brookter, and then please call the roll. >> clerk: president cohen, we have public comment. >> president cohen: oh, my gosh. thank you, sergeant youngblood. >> clerk: for members of the public who wish to make public comment, press star, three now, and there is no public comment. >> president cohen: there is no public comment. okay. motion has been made by vice president elias, seconded by commissioner brookter. please call the roll. >> clerk: on the motion -- [roll call]

>> clerk: you have six yeses. >> president cohen: excellent. motion passes unanimously. sergeant, next item. >> clerk: line item three, 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 plans 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. >> okay. good evening, president cohen, director henderson, commission, and the public. i will start off with this week's crime trends starting with violent crimes, and i'll go into some of our strategies with property and violent crimes. so starting off with violent crimes, i'll start off with the good news. the good news is we are actually on a downward trend on our homicides in terms of percentage points decrease. we're 20% lower than we were this time last year in homicides. that number equates to three fewer homicides. our rates are also down, double digit percentage decreases. our violent crimes were down,

double digit decreases, and our robberies were down. 18 fewer assaults than last year, and where we're up is human trafficking, which equates to a 22% increase, nine last year at this time and 11 currently. we are continuing to see a decline in the percentage percentage increase in burglaries, so that's good news. on the flip side of that, as we reopen our city, we are starting to see an uptick in car break-ins. we are still down year-to-date by 26%, which is a significant number, but we are starting to

see the decrease decline, so we are trying to put in measures to stop that. car thefts, we are seeing the gap close from where we were a couple of months ago. we're up a total percentage increase 157% in gun violence, and the biggest increase is our shooting victims -- nonfatal shooting victims. we have 71 year-to-date compared to 21 last year. homicides are down, three below where they were last year. as far as the stations, individual stations, seven of our ten stations have some type of increase in our gun violence -- our shooting. bayview is up from 12 to 18, mission from five to 13, northern from one to four, park from zero to one, ingleside

from zero to two, and tenderloin from seven to nine. richmond, southern, and central are equal with where they were from this time last year, and richmond has actually not had a shooting year-to-date. in terms of strategies and gun violence strategies, we're still continuing in the bayview with the presence on third street. it's not a 24-7 deployment, but we are deploying in the waking hours. those are the daytime hours and early evening. we also have and continued to have an increased foot patrol in the area. we're doing what we call passing calls in the areas where we see spikes in any time of violent crimes, and that seems to have calmed things down somewhat. we are also working on some of our narcotics issues and drug

issues in the bayview, as well. we've gotten complaints on drug dealing and street dealing, a few of them have been high profile. we're using our advisability and plain clothes resources to deal with that issue. in terms of our hot [inaudible], it's really an issue of putting officers in areas where we're seeing spikes. where the garage burglaries are happening, we've redeployed our resources, including our plain clothes teams who do some surveillance, and we've had some success there. as i mentioned the last couple of months in the police commission, working with the district attorney's office to

identify the prolific burglaries. that is a strategy on going, and we've had some success there. one thing with the gun violence that i want to talk about, and it's in the report that we gave to the commission and the public, it's on ghost guns. i know that commissioner hamasaki had many good questions last year. our ghost guns are listed in the report. in the 2016, we recovered 80 ghost guns. 2020, we're up to 164. year-to-date, which is double over where we were last time year-to-date. many of these guns are used in crimes, and we recover them after the crimes are committed. we are working with a.t.f. and our crime gun investigations unit to really try to get a handle on these guns. they're not serialized, but we

have made some arrests where people are manufacturing the type of guns in their homes. we just arrested last week an individual who was in his homemaking ghost guns, so it is a problem in the city, and we are working to address that as best we can. significant incidents this past week, we did have a homicide at mason and market. this was a shooting. we had some really good investigative leads on this, so i will have more news on this for sure next week for the commission, hopefully very good news where these lead in terms of holding the shooters accountable. one victim was pronounced deceased at the scene, and the second victim was shot, but these injuries on the second victim were not life threatening. there's some good evidence, including project video in the

area. well, i will report where we are next week on these, as well, and i think we are going to be able to hold these folks accountable. other critical incidents on this report, there was an aggravated assault at fourth and channel. this happened on april 30 at 2:00 in the afternoon. an officer from central station was driving by on fourth saw the suspect standing over the victim and striking the victim as the victim was on the ground. the officer approached and took the suspect in custody without incident. the victim indicated he was walking with a baby stroller and the suspect walked up and

punched him in the back of the head and he hit the ground. good thing the officers were in the right place at the right time and were able to make an arrest. the district attorney filed charge in this incident, and the baby was not hurt in the incident. other significant incidents, we had a potential hate crime at mcallister and leavenworth. this was on the muni 5 line. the victim was sitting in the rear of the coach when five victims, we believe to be around ages ten to 12 -- >> president cohen: ten to 12? >> yes. long story. the victim's hair was lit on fire. we don't know whether it was intentional or not. that's what we're investigating, but nonetheless, it is very, very disturbing. so the age of the potential

suspect is ten, so if this was intentional, it's even more disturbing. we're trying to identify these individuals. the victim is okay, but again, these are just random type of acts that we've really got to get a handle on in our city. and the one that i will report on is an assault with a deadly weapon, an assault on an elderly. the suspects were standing on a bus plat -- the victims were standing on a bus platform, and the suspect ran up and stabbed both of them. with this terrible incident, we did make an arrest on this

case, and i want to say this: you know, this arrest -- this is where we talk a lot about community policing and officers on the beat and officers knowing their neighborhood -- that's how we made this arrest. the officers from tenderloin who know that community who know, you know, a lot of the people that come and go and get involved in a lot of things were able to take the evidence and quickly identify the person that did this. they knew where to find this person, and they made an arrest very, very quickly on this case. that's how community policing comes together. again, we want to prevent these cases in the first place. if you're having officers hookup on the platforms, but we can't be everywhere, and we can't be on every corner, but it helps when the officers are there, and it helps when the officers know their community. so that arrest was made. it was a very, very quick

arrest, very responsive. we also have our community liaison unit that are supporting our victims with social services, and that's why we put social services for the community in place so we can enhance that level of service, as well, so we'll keep you posted on that if there's any further development. it was one single suspect on this case. we also have side [inaudible] working with our neighboring jurisdictions, what we knew is that in the east bay, they had significant side shows that they disrupted, and the pattern has been when they get disrupted in the cities in the east bay, they move to san francisco, which is exactly what happened. we were deployed with our stunt driving patrol unit, which we take from officers from

all-around the city, and that's exactly what happened. we were able to break these events up fairly quickly. we did confiscate several vehicles, and we didn't have shots fired, which is always a good thing we don't have shots fired, so i just want to give a kudos to the officers in the units. there was one arrest, five vehicles towed, and we have other vehicles that have been identified, and we're going to follow up on the back end and see what we can do with that. i think i'm out of time, so that concludes my report. >> president cohen: thank you very much for your report, and please, on behalf of the commission, thank the officers' quick thinking and good policing in the cases that you

highlighted. >> thank you. >> president cohen: i just want to push you a little bit. you made this report with some shocking and heartbreaking individual incidents. how do we move forward? what's the strategy? are we augmenting? pivoting? obviously, the community policing is working. if the officer had not been driving down fourth and king, just imagine what would have happened. we would have been dealing with a homicide. what do we need to be doing differently? >> well, i think, commissioner, part of what has happened -- we talked about this today when we briefed on some of these

incidents. we have some room to improve on the collaboration. we have to take a look back and see if we missed anything. the officers have been in contact with them, but the thing is, when you take a look back at these cases, we don't want to miss anything with an entity, particularly a public entity that may have a go at getting themselves involved in these situations by their acts. but one of the things we have to do is look at it from every aspect of it. for example, in cases where we know that people have had run-ins with bouts of psychosis, drug induced or otherwise, and then, we look back, and so many entities have

been engaged with that person. sometimes, there's nothing that could have been done differently, but oftentimes, we say, if we had done a little bit better in this area or that area, we could have done better. that's what we're going to start to do, not just in policing. we're concerned with putting our best foot forward but also bringing in our other departments. i think we have room to grow there. we have partners. it's not that the entities aren't there. we need to look back at these incidents critically and not let it happen again. that's one thing we're going to try to drive in the police department, and i know we have the willingness, but we need to work together and pull this together because the last thing we want to do is, we should

have caught it here. we don't want that to happen. >> president cohen: thank you. completely understood. colleagues, are there -- hamasaki. commissioner hamasaki. >> commissioner hamasaki: thank you, president cohen. chief, that's a great point. was this -- regarding the highly publicized attack, you said this individual was known to officers. was this, like -- i don't know -- substance abuse, mental health related incident? is there any more you can share at this point in the investigation? >> well, commissioner hamasaki,

that's a really good question. speak to what i just said to commissioner cohen's question, that's what we're going to take a look back at. right now, we knew who he was. that's why we were able to locate him to quickly, but there is no indication at this point that there was no type of hate or prejudice, but there is no investigation to be done, so i don't want to close that door. at this point, we don't see any evidence that this was a hate crime or prejudice related, but there are other areas that you mentioned, and right now, we're doing that. we're in the process of doing that, so i don't have all of those answers for you, but definitely, we're going to do that on this case, and we want to establish the practice that

we do that on all the cases. as you know, commissioners, oftentimes you look back and say, if the right people gave the right information, it could be [inaudible]. >> commissioner hamasaki: -- and we want to be sure to not fuel the fire and instigate

other incidents here. the other thing, in my 27, 28 years in san francisco, problem of drug sales in the tenderloin and, you know, i've seen a lot of posts of large seizures. i think it's good that we're getting those off the streets. but i guess we've had those conversations before. i've sat in on a lot of community conversations in the tenderloin. it seems like no matter what we throw at it, the next night, it's the same situation. is there a long-term strategy

and is it possible that maybe we could have a presentation on that to address the concerns of the residents of the tenderloin maybe in the coming weeks or months? >> yes, we'd definitely love to do a presentation. we do have to make the arrests on the drug dealers, and you expect that, and it should happen, particularly with the level of fentanyl we're getting off the street. we've almost, year-to-date, doubled the amount of fentanyl, and we've gotten a large amount of fentanyl on the street.

we quadrupled the size of our foot beats, and we had officer -- fourth to eighth street, on every corner, we had officers there every day. >> commissioner hamasaki: i remember that. >> things got much, much better, but we weren't able to sustain that. public dollars are not unlimited, but we know that that works. another example is when we were having a lot of problems at the b.a.r.t. platforms down below, as we call it, at the tunnel, and we joined forces with the b.a.r.t. and the b.a.r.t. p.d., and it was great because we were patrolling late at night.

here's the thing. we're not solving the problem. if we displace it, it just goes to another area, but i think that's where the community policing [inaudible] arrest and we're not -- i'm going to use a term that you use -- playing whack-a-mole, but if we are consistent, that's what we can do. if you're consist enough, in my professional opinion, you can make a difference. >> commissioner hamasaki: well, make president cohen and i can work together and schedule something and talk about how we can hopefully see some change in the coming months. i know it's a long-term prospect, but, you know, it's -- for those of us that passed through, i don't live there, but it's -- you know,

nobody -- there's just too many families and children that live there to allow this to be acceptable, so that's -- that's my only thoughts on that. thank you, chief, thank you, president cohen. >> thank you, commissioner. >> president cohen: commissioner larry yee. >> clerk: commissioner, you're muted. >> commissioner yee: thank you there, sergeant stacey youngblood. first of all, i want to thank the sfpd that solved the stabbing of the senior asian

women on fourth and market. my question is can we do collaboration with the sfmta police and see if they will, instead of board checking, instead of checking fares, actually getting on the bus and traveling with the residents to and from, making them feel safer. just yesterday, we were in a community meeting in chinatown, and all the community leaders were there, and then, they asked a question about safety, and how can they feel safe? i said we're doing the best job we can over here in san francisco police department, and in central station, they're doing great, but then, this thing happened, and i was just

shocked because it's just that it shows how vulnerable we are, and i guess we have to see if there's any additional resource that we can partner with, and i was wondering if the m.t.a., they have their policing out there, if they can join with you, seeing if that will work to make it safer for us in the city. >> thank you, commissioner yee. so whenever we could, i told you we would work with partner agencies in the city, and we'll have more for you on that. >> commissioner yee: thank you. >> thank you.

>> president cohen: colleagues, are there any other questions for the chief? okay. chief, thank you for your report. i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> president cohen: let's keep moving. >> clerk: continuing on-line item 3, 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. presentation of the monthly statistical report. >> president cohen: director henderson, welcome. >> thank you. are we ready?

>> president cohen: we're ready. >> okay. we have 299 cases today that are currently open and pending. this time last year, we had 337. we've sustained 23 cases this year so far. this time last year, we had sustained 15. in cases that have investigations that have gone beyond nine months time, we have 27. this time last year, we were at 38. that number has gone down. i've been reporting it every week. so far, cases that are mediated this year are at 11. this time last year, we were at 16. cases whose investigations have gone beyond the 270-day investigation, 18 of those cases are being tolled, and

again, looking at each cases case-by-case where they're tolled, the officers are on disability pay, vacation, but require -- that have longer delays related to scheduling. again -- and i know we got a call about this, but as a reminder, there have been no 3304 deadline that's have been blown or missed by d.p.a. since i have taken over. i will continue with that trend, and i think to date, that's still the case. i think there's a reference to some of the other cases, but i have to consult with the city attorney, because i'd hate to violate confidentiality, but no 3304 violations or deadlines have been missed so far. in terms of the outreach, we've done a number of expanded outreach things this month that include -- and again, as a

reminder, a lot of the community activities are on our website that can be found there, and many of them are live streamed so that people can participate in them actively as they have interest. on the 22, we met and coordinated a meeting with the s.f. young defenders program and are making sure they play a role in our program in the summer. also on that day, we participated in the community megablack meeting, focusing on the sunday school meeting and the concept for sunday school for black youth in san francisco. on the 24th, we joined a

meeting, and on the 27, we participated in the black law enforcement racial equity team meeting, addressing implementing the racial equity plans that d.p.a. has published and is also on the website, as well. the next day, we followed up with the equity leaders for those initiatives, of which d.p.a. is one, just following up on the implementation again. on the 29. so sorry, can you hear that? >> president cohen: yes. >> because i'm focusing on jumping something else, she wants to take it away, and now i've got the sad eyes. sorry. on the 29, we also participated

in the community megablack meeting, talking about initiating a series of black town halls to address getting important information to disenfranchised communities. and we are about to rollout our summer and fall internship programs, so i'll have more later next meeting on that for everyone. i want to talk more about the audit because our audit team -- and i alluded to this before, but they received an award from the office of the controller in their april department wide merit award event, and the event was in recognition that our audit, san francisco's audit, again, thanks in large

part to this commission and malia cohen when she was a member of the board of supervisors won the alga awards. this is the first use of force audit that was done of this type that went into as much depth as it did, and it was part of the reason why it won the award. the audit presented their report at the 2021 alga national conference on wednesday, may 4, which was today, so this was happening earlier today, the presentation of this audit for reviewers and auditors all throughout the nation. currently, the audit team is following up with the police department on the implementation and the status of the report and the use of force data report on accuracy,

development -- [inaudible] >> okay. thanks, ashley. >> president cohen: can we just make sure that everyone is on mute, please. >> okay. the next item is the monthly statistical report that was published already. i'll just give you the highlights of it. no one wants me to read all of the stuff. d.p.a. received 63 complaints this month, which is an increase of 19% from the same period as last year. currently, we are down 2% year-to-date. in 2021, total complaints we have received at this point was

221, and 2020, total complaints received was 204. and that information was also published already, and like i said, summarized to make it easier as well as a chart line talking about how the volume of cases have come in, meaning the method that folks reach out to d.p.a. and contact us. tonight's senior investigator who is present on the call is brent bajen is available if questions come up and taking notes for us, and also, the contact information for d.p.a. where folks can contact us directly is sfgov.org/dpa or you can just google sfdpa, and the phone number to contact the agency 24 hours a day is

415-247-7770. i want to end by thanking all my staff for making this presentation and i will end with that. >> vice president elias: thank you, director henderson. next item, sergeant youngblood. >> 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, commission announcements and

scheduling of items identified for consideration at future commission meetings, action item. >> vice president elias: thank you. commissioner yee? >> commissioner yee: thank you very much, commission vice president elias. i'd like to submit a resolution honoring asian american and pacific islander police officers and personnel for the next meeting. if you could please tell me what i need to do, i'd appreciate it. >> vice president elias: okay. great. we have the item received, and we'll work on getting it agendized. any other commissioners? commissioner brook center, commissioner byrne,

commissioner hamasaki? >> president cohen: i do have one thing that i want to report out. i've invited to have the a.g. come and sit in the commission, specifically talking about the use of force policies, the agenda that he's going to be putting forward as the attorney general, and he has accepted the invitation. we are working on getting the meeting scheduled, so hopefully we can get this done within the next month. more to come. thanks. >> that is fantastic. >> vice president elias: very exciting. very exciting. okay. so let's go onto public comment. >> clerk: at this time, the public is now welcome to make public comment regarding line item 3, the reports to the commission. if you would like to make a public comment, please press star, three now.

good evening, miss brown. you have two minutes. >> yes, hi. i wanted to say -- talk about -- concerning my son again and read his case number to the public. my son was murdered august 14, 2006, and if anyone knows anything concerning my son's murder on 2006, out there in t.v. land, it's -- the case number is 060862038, and the perpetrators that murdered my son, their names are thomas hannibal, terrence moffat, andrew badue, jason thomas, anthony hunter, and marcus

carter. one of them is deceased. these are the men that were there that day that pulled the gun on my son. this is down at 850 bryant in the homicide detail room -- this is how i got these names. these names weren't pulled out of a hat. these names are on my son's case, and sometimes when i call in, i feel like i'm entertaining you all, but i'm not entertaining you all. this is something that i'm suffering for for the rest of my life, and i just want some consideration concerning this because my son's case is old news.

-- my son's case isn't old news. my son won't be able to live his life, and i won't give up fighting for him or anyone, and all i want is some help. our kids are dying on the street, and whether it's 20 years ago or to the present. i shouldn't have to live like this. i'm a taxpayer, too, and i want some help. >> clerk: thank you. vice president elias, that is the end of public comment. >> vice president elias: thank you, sergeant youngblood. can you please call the next line item? >> clerk: line item 4, presentation regarding asset forfeiture. discussion. >> vice president elias: who's presenting on this? >> thank you. we have community presenter [inaudible] swanney on this.

>> thank you. sergeant, can you put the slides up for this? >> clerk: yes, sir. >> thank you. should i go ahead and start? >> vice president elias: yes, please start. >> hello, everybody. good evening, president cohen, vice president elias, members of the commission, and chief scott. my name is deputy chief swanney, and i oversee the investigation division, and within the asset forfeiture division, we have the narcotics

unit, and that's primarily where we focus on the asset forfeiture. part of the people presenting with me are going to be our c.f.o. for san francisco police department, patrick leon and sergeant chris oshida, who works in the narcotics unit and one of his specialties is assess forfeiture. and what i'll start out with, if we can -- oh, we're already up. so basically, the statutes that we cover are just there for reference. they cover title 21, which is drug and food crimes, general crimes under title 18, foreign international, and -- but primarily what we do is we focus on state narcotics laws, and so that is our primary under the health and safety,

sections 11469. these sections in s.b. 443 actually outlined and made it a lot more clearer how asset forfeitures were going to basically be not only administered by the police department, attorney generals, and district attorneys, and also the s.f. admin code which basically describes the fund itself. the purpose of the asset forfeitures are basically in three steps. it's to seize the items, it's the court review and disposition of the cases and the case review, and the distribution of funds. and, of course, the purpose is to intervene, disrupt, and deter criminal activity. and the items that are seized, primarily cash, is strictly

regulated on how we distribute that, which we'll go into later. most of the items that we seize, they're almost all drug related. 90% or more of our cases are drug related, and they're usually at the execution of a search warrant, but not every search warrant that concerns property results in a seizure, and i'll have sergeant oshida describe that in a flow chart. when there is belief that property or cash is connected to illegal drug activity, again, what we would do is then present this to the district attorney, and we work closely with the district attorney's

office on this. next slide, slide number 4, and i will turn this over to sergeant oshida, who's the real expert. >> good evening. as you can see from the slide, there's two flow charts, one on the top and one on the bottom. one is the state level forfeitures, which is what we normally deal with. on the bottom is the federal aspect, and we have a very limited wall net, so i'll speak mainly about the state procedure. so what typically happens is i will get a report for somebody who was arrested for drug trafficking, and we talk about asset forfeiture, it's for drug trafficking, not possession standard. a minimum of $500 seizure funds has to be reported for seizure to be initiated.

i gather the facts, probable arrest. i do a work-up of the individual that's arrested, and i present to the district attorney's office, and they will either initiate forfeiture or deny forfeiture on that case. once forfeiture has been initiated, the person whose assets are seized are given instructions on how to oppose the forfeiture, and they have 30 days from the date of service. once that's done, then it's in the judicial system. now whether the case is adjudicated or the district attorney's office and the individuals come to a stipulated agreement, that's kind of where it stays until i get the instructions from the d.a.s office on how to distribute the money, and that's either giving it back to the person or depositing it

into a department account, and that's generally how it works. we can go to the next slide. now, i just want to reiterate that just because someone's arrested and they have more than $500, we don't always file an asset forfeiture. there's a lot of research into the person that's being arrested and their history and likes like that are taken into consideration. and in this slide, it talks about, of course, cash, property, real property. sfpd, as long as i've been there, have never seized any real property. we don't have any vehicles to date that we've seized, and occasionally, we will seize items like jewelry and watches

or things like that, but for the most part, it's cash. >> thank you very much, sergeant oshida, and as sergeant oshida said, 95% of it is u.s. currency, and that's because it's easy to distribute. rarely if it's cars, the issue becomes storage, etc., and very rarely jewelry. again, california law prohibits us -- we have not seized real property, but it does prohibit us from seizing any kind of real property that is being used as a family residence or for any lawful purpose. that is in there, in the state law, so protects citizens from their homes. -- from their homes being seized. slide 6? and then, you know, the third

part is the distribution, which c.f.o. young will go into in more detail. basically, the district attorney gives us a letter, and the letter will basically outline what -- how much we're seizing and what's happening to that. is there anything you wanted to add on that, sergeant oshida? >> no, that's -- the distribution, it can be a total amount, it can be a partial amount, and that's totalled between the district attorney and the person filing the claim. it could also be determined by the courts at the end of their proceeding as part of their -- at the end, you know, when they plead guilty or whatever may happen, the judge may rule that the assets be forfeited. another time that they don't

receive their property back, they don't file a claim, and we usually give them a couple of month grace period before anything is really deposited into the account. >> and then, just the last part, just the individual does not get their property returned if they don't make a claim or if a claim is not filed or -- or a stipulated agreement with the d.a.s office that a portion of it is forfeited, like what sergeant oshida just described, or the court could rule that the items are not forfeited or they're distributed as part of a plea agreement. and that's all. we can go to slide 7. and i'm going to hand this over to our c.f.o. who can describe our distribution.

>> thank you, acting chief. >> thank you. >> before i begin, i did want to add that for federal joint investigations that result in [inaudible] that [inaudible] or federal attorney's office, and we don't have involvement in that process until it gets adjudicated, and it is a separate process from the [inaudible]. >> vice president elias: i'm so sorry. can you please speak up? we're having a really hard time hearing you. >> can you hear? sorry. can you hear me? >> vice president elias: yeah. >> sorry. it froze. i want to start with explaining

the asset distribution. federal and state law determines how forfeiture is allocated [inaudible] for federal agencies, their [inaudible] their organizational hierarchy [inaudible] and the -- for the department of justice program is administered by the [inaudible] recovery section, and for the department of treasury, it's [inaudible] by the executive office for asset forfeiture. as i tried to explain earlier, the types of receipts we receive, it's only determined once it goes through [inaudible] at the federal

level, we receive notices from either the respective department of treasury or finance office. for state forfeitures, the distribution is [inaudible] california health and safety code sections 11469 and 11495. how it's distributed is that of the proceeds, 24% goes to the california general funds, 1% goes toward the california district attorney's training fund. of the remaining percent, 15% of that amount is allocated toward antigang and antidrug programs that is to be -- the programs determined by the sheriff, the chief of police, the district attorney, and

chief probation officer. the residual funds pertains to [inaudible] fund of 55%, and that goes to law enforcement that participated in the [inaudible]. next slide, please. this slide shows what the total state forfeiture of the assets for the last three years. the role other entities refers to other law enforcement agencies that we're partnering with. [inaudible] 2020 due to the pandemic and the closure of

everything. next slide, please. [inaudible] next slide, please. so how asset forfeiture funds are used. [inaudible] the california district attorney's attorney association uses a manual on what the california state requirements are. to summarize how funds are used, funds must be used for law enforcement purposes. some examples of that item

[inaudible]. the other requirement is that [inaudible] to increase or supplement law enforcement resources. agencies cannot budget in advance of anticipated shared funds. next slide, please. the following slide is [inaudible] addressing some of our budget needs. within these categories, we have nonpersonnel [inaudible] the use of funds of such items include our [inaudible] development that provides opportunity for personal and professional development and to enhance policing skills at all levels of our department, personal protective department,

and evidence management, inventory control of our property, capital upgrades, additional enterprise storage infrastructure and [inaudible] district attorney's office. next slide, please. that concludes our presentation. if there's any questions, i'm sure we'll be happy to answer them. >> vice president elias: thank you. is that the -- i'm sorry. can i interrupt you or are you finished? >> he's finished, commissioner. >> vice president elias: okay. great. ah. >> president cohen: okay. thank you for the presentation.

thank you, commissioner elias, for stepping in on my behalf. commissioner yee is the first name on the roster. commissioner yee, do you have questions? >> commissioner yee: yeah. i'm looking for budget 2020. has that been spent already or is that in the progress of being used? that's on, probably, next to the last page. >> that's a -- >> commissioner yee: yeah, total dollar amount is 1,328, -- no, $1,328,236, so have those funds been exhausted? >> yeah. so that total represents what we have spent in the fisk of

year 2020. >> commissioner yee: okay. spent. >> yeah. >> commissioner yee: okay. >> for 2021, $907,000 represents what we have spent so far. it does not include the items that are currently procured and in progress [inaudible] office. >> commissioner yee: is there also a balance or is that spent -- as it comes in, you guys spend it? is there any balance for 2021? >> yes. so in terms of -- in terms of how we can use the funds, we can't budget for items in advance or anticipation, so we do have to wait until we receive the funds before we spend it. in terms of the balances, you

have existing balances in the -- we do have existing balances within our federal funds. [please stand by]

so i'd like you to explain a little bit more about the nonpersonnel and perhaps is there an itemization of how these funds and how the department uses them? and, then, my third and final question would be how are these funds that are recovered or these assets that are forfeited and taken by sfpd, how much goes to the drug task force? or the narcotics division which seems to be the division that would be handling or primarily in charge of these types of cases? >> let me answer the first one. >> commissioner: i'm so sorry. but i really am having a hard time hearing you.

if you could speak louder. you have a really low voice in general. >> president: you're not the only one. it's a struggle over here too. >> i'm almost -- >> president cohen: that's relative patrick. [inaudible] at least not in my family. >> vice president elias: exactly. >> i don't know if this makes it any different. i'm talking through the phone but i do apologize for the audio. so within the categories, i tried describing it earlier, for the nonpersonal services, part of what is included within

the amount is pause for our leadership development and another portion of that includes some of the support costs for our enterprise system infrastructure. because the system. we also needed to add additional assets. so of those amounts, a portion of the nonpersonal services and a significant amount of the capital equipment was for the [inaudible] . the interdepartmental services that was part of what we have with the attorney's office. it pays for an attorney to work on [inaudible]

cases. we've had the work order with them for many years and that's what that line represents. in terms of securing supplies, we've purchased personal protective equipment for our sworn members and it also includes applies to our evidence based manage system that improved our inventory management system for property evidence. if i may ask, what was the second question that you had, vice president elias? >> vice president elias: whether they had an itemized list of where the money is

spent. i'm sure sfpd has more to show us in terms of where this money is specifically going. is that fair? >> we can -- in terms of -- it's only clear if i. -- is that in terms of state capital equipment? >> vice president elias: right. >> i would have to run a different report to generate those types of details. it wouldn't fit on the slide. >> vice president elias: no worries. i think that will be good information for us as well and then a final question is how much of the money that is actually forfeited and sfpd has that goes into specialized units such as the drug taskforce or gang taskforce? how is that diffeyed up?

is it divied up in those those specialized units? >> sure. within the funds, we spend it on the year that needs arise. so, for instance, one example would be for the enterprise construction that we had and we also needed extra storage and within that scenario, funds were made. and in terms of funding for specific units, we don't do allocations like this is going

to this and that. it's based on long-term needs that has large investment requirements. so one example, we did plan to use some of the funding to help with the drug section of our criminalistic slab. there has been delays within the transition, the [inaudible] was supposed to be open earlier, but there has been delays. we were supposed to move to the traffic collision and the forensic science division. once it actually becomes operational, it would require

some of distancing equipment to be replaced and also to have existing capability gaps. one example of that would be -- in terms of specific use, we don't have any specific allocations for any. it's more based upon what [inaudible] is about. >> vice president elias: okay great. and i think there will be more

clarity when we get the itemized list. we look forward to that. >> president cohen: i have a couple questions for you. thank you for the presentation. i thought it was incredibly thoughtful and very well put together. just if you have presented on this and stated it, my apologies, i just did not hear it. question, are there any differences in the kinds and type of assets that are seized through federal forfeitures versus state forfeitures? >> did you -- so a majority of our assets are all cash. so 95% cash. is that what you're referring to? and, as far as property, very rare. >> president cohen: okay. >> anything outside of cash. >> president cohen: are most of the assets seized related to narcotics arrests or

investigations? >> almost all. >> president cohen: is any assistance offered by law enforcement or other government agencies to exonerate persons to help them retrieve their seized assets? >> oshida's on the line there, are you still on the line, chris? >> i am. >> okay. >> president cohen: sergeant, let me re-ask the question. is there any instance offered by law enforcement or other government agencies to exonerated persons to help them retrieve their seized assets? >> so they're served with the paper work to tell them the forfeiture's being initiated. all the steps they need to do and how to fill out the paper work and where to do and the

timeline. we don't really do more than that. forfeiture is a civil matter. so if they, you know, if you've hired an attorney they need help, and we get them in contact with our d.a.'s office and they work it out with them. >> president cohen: all right. so is there a reason why there's been a significant decline in state forfeitures from $600,000 in 2019 to $196,000 in 2020? and this is versus a relatively flat dollar amount of federal forfeitures from a little over a million dollars in 2019 to $905,000 in 2020. yeah. 2020. that's the number. >> that's primarily based upon the closure of the court.

so because of the pandemic, there hasn't been a lot of activity because the courts have been closed and so that's why there's been that drastic reduction. >> president cohen: i see. i didn't think about that. that makes sense. this is a little more on procedure. do your procedures differ when seizing for evidentiary reasons rather than for other reasons? do the procedures change or is it standard? >> no this is -- go ahead. >> sorry, sir. when the person is placed under arrest and charged with trafficking, the funds are seized as evidence. so the individual's issued a property receipt. so the funds are seized as evidence initially and

forfeiture is initiated from the road. >> president cohen: okay. i want to refer back to slide 4. you don't need to pull it up but if you can just refer to it for the purpose of my question. what share or proposed forfeitures are approved by the district attorney? >> forfeitures can be approved in the d.a.'s office. we can't do anything without their approval. >> president cohen: i didn't hear that last part. can't do anything without what? >> without their approval. >> president cohen: so they're all approved by the district attorney's office. >> yes. >> -- that are initiated, yes. >> president cohen: okay. so also on slide 4 in the top level, you show that a

narcotics unit is activated to verify forfeiture. is this the case for assets seized outside of narcotics related cases? >> so typically if it's a nonnarcotic case, there are penal code sections that apply to criminal profiteering. typically who is investigating it will notify me and say this is what happens and these are the funds we seized. i'll forward the report to the d.a.'s office. as far as i'm concerned personally, i don't have any role in that. it's between the d.a.'s office and that investigative unit. >> president cohen: okay. is anyone else in the department authorized to verify forfeitures? >> at this point, they all go through narcotics. >> president cohen: okay. that's good to know. so that's one point of

interest. okay in slide 9, can you explain or what explains the near doubling in the amount of federal forfeiture revenue? 18 and 19 and 19 and 20? is it just more narcotics? >> i think one thing that's not easily explained within any of these slides is that the forfeitures that we receive isn't really based on what's collected i think in 2019 or 2020. the forfeiture only represents the number of cases that have completed the adjudication process. so the 2019 number can be composed of cases that date back 10 years, 5 years and everything in between. for us, there's no easy way for

us to say why the numbers are the way that they are other than the total receipts are representative of the number of cases that completed the adjudication process and the number represents what the federal agencies have decided is an appropriate share for the mr. president. when we request for a share, it's not guaranteed and there's no promise that we're going to receive anything. what they consider is the participation that the agency is providing to the investigation, but also it is up to the federal agencies and the courts to decide what amounts any agency is provided. >> president cohen: so okay.

so the budget has been tight in the last couple of years and i'm wondering how you decide how to use the funds that are assets for forfeiture accounts. >> so part of how we spend the asset forfeiture accounts, a lot of it is dictated by what the requirements for both the federal and the state provisions require. one of which is that any use has to be -- has to supplement our budget. any type of request, any type of -- any type of use of the fund must supplement our budget. if we had a -- we can't cut a budget item and then use the forfeiture funds to replenish whatever the cut was.

so everything we spent the money on is accordance with what the state requirements are and what the federal requirements are in supplementing resources and ensuring that it's for law enforcement purposes only. there are additional requirements from the feds and also on the state side. there's some items that require their special permission before we are allowed to spend the money on those items. >> president cohen: what agency has the ability to audit this fund? this pool of money? because i'm going to tell you right now to an untrained person, to a civilian, it sounds like a slush fund and i know that's not the case. so just tell me. it feels like we're having this hearing but it's so opaque. we almost know that about wherever other penny in the

police department's budget spent. but this is not quite as clear. help me understand where and how the money is spent. >> so within the money, all of the uses that we spend asset forfeiture on, it is subject to the uniform guidance requirements, the federal uniform guidance requirements, it is subject to the single audit. we do report it to the city. the city does hire an independent accounting firm, auditing firm to audit the city's finances. >> president cohen: as a result of that audit that the city pays for, where does that -- where do those findings lie? where is that report? >> it's part of the city single audit report. >> president cohen: so it's the controller's office that's managing this audit? >> correct. >> president cohen: okay. >> so the auditor, they sample specific programs depending

upon the risk profiles, depending upon the amounts, what the other entity that monitors these programs itself is the inspector general. so, at times, they come out and they do an assessment and either a monitored visit or a actual full audit of jurisdictions and ensuring that they're complying with all the rules and regulations, the federal requirements. they do offer the department of justice offers trainings on how to administer the funds, what permissible uses are and to provide some of the. >> president cohen: so, you're giving me great detail about the process. i really just want to know numbers. what's in the account and what are you spending it on?

>> can you repeat that? >> president cohen: what's in this account? what's in this budget? and what are you spending it on? that's, i mean, i understand there's rules, state and federal rules. i get all that. but the singular issue is how much do you get a year and what exactly are you spending it on? those are just the two issues that we have not gotten an answer to. >> so on slide 11, i tried to provide some context of what we've spent the money on. it is within the major category budget or major category of expenditures. we can provide additional details. unfortunately, i can't run the report at this time. it will have to come after. i did describe some of the

uses. so within nonpersonnel. for example, within nonpersonnel services, one of the line items that's included within the $426,000 of this year is expenditures for the leadership development institute. another item for capitalized equipment, expenditures that we had for the enterprise infrastructure, that's what we spent some of the money on. the d.a.'s office, we have a work order with them, that represents the last item for interdepartmental services. so there is some context of what we -- i tried to provide some context of what we spent the money on. slide 8 and slide 9 does represent what we received from both the fed and the state. >> president cohen: okay. i'm going to pivot. commissioner elias has a question for you. i see one in the chat, commissioner elias.

did you ask this one already? >> vice president elias: no. well i asked him for an itemized list. i think it addresses all of our concerns. you're absolutely right, every penny in the department is accounted for. so we just need more clarity on this. so i think if he provides an itemized list of where this money is going and if we can get it for years 2019, 2020, and an up to date one on 2021 so we can see how much money is come engine and where it's going. so if you can get those to the commission office and they will distribute to the commissioners, i think that will be helpful. >> i can do that. >> president cohen: thank you very much. we appreciate that. and i'm going to stop with my line of questioning. i just wanted to add a finer point to the questions that were already asked. seeing that there are no other questions in -- out there, we are going to continue to move forward. mr. leung, thank you.

and the rest of the team, raj and oshida, thank you for your presentation. very informative, kind of. >> i apologize for my audio issues. >> maybe it's a department thing. the chief had trouble with it too. >> vice president elias: they're trying to silence you all today. >> president cohen: they knew you were coming to talk numbers and budgets. we're joking, guys. come on. lighten up. okay. what's next, sergeant youngblood? >> clerk: next is public comment. >> president cohen: all right. >> clerk: for members of the public that would like to make public comment regarding line item 4, please press star 3 now. and president cohen, it appears there's no public comment. >> president cohen: all right.

thank you. let's keep moving forward. next item, please. >> clerk: line item 5, presentation regarding community violence reduction team. discussion. >> president cohen: all right. who do we have making this presentation? >> so we have our operations chief redman may want to open this up. if not, commander viswaney is going to do the majority and before we open it up, i just want to say this is an extension of the conversation we have when we did the california partnership conversation and one of the big pieces that you all see as we really are restructuring how we approach our violence and particularly with g.t.f. i think commander viswaney.

>> just to check, can everybody hear me? >> mhmm. >> if we can put up the slide. >> coming right up. all ready, chief. >> okay. i will save you the formal introduction. in this portion, what i will have is i'll have lieutenant scott biggs is going to work with me to present this and, again, i oversee the investigations and part of the investigation and the strategic investigations bureau. and within the strategic investigations bureau, we have formulated a new structure that lieutenant biggs will go into

detail about but it's the community violence reduction team and this is a modified it's transitioned from just the gang taskforce where lieutenant biggs was originally responsible for. he has much larger responsibility and he worked closely with lieutenant lou on it. and within the community violence reduction team, you have gun violence team specific. ment it's the crime gun intelligence center and narcotics and we can go to slide 2. okay. now i'm just doing a brief introduction on this and this one just to give you relationship of how this is going. so we started a partnership in may 2020. you had already received a

presentation by california partnership for safe community, so i'm not going to go too much into detail on that, but it is important in the context of this presentation. so california violence initiative and prevention grant started this funding. it's a three-year grant and we partnered with california partnership in may of 2020 as an independent consultant to help us structure this new structure for gun violence and it was primarily to not just reduce gun violence, it was also to reduce repeat offenders and to build trust between community and police. and, what they did is they did a data driven analysis on homicide and shootings and found that group dynamics drove

gun violence. it's looking at all different aspects of violence. and, from there, what i will do basically talk about how this is going to transition into this new unit. do you want to go ahead and start that, lieutenant biggs? >> yeah. sure. can everybody hear me? great. i'll first give an overview of -- actually, if you can go to the next slide, please. the community violence reduction team, our top priority is gun violence based on the significant of our violence reduction initiative. restructured our approach under this cvrt team.

basically, cvrt is made up of dedicated investigators focusing on homicide through their work. these investigators understand current street rivalries, monitor crime trends. they focus on repeat offenders and respond to critical shooting related incidents. they also -- we also have strengthened the collaboration with the gun crime investigations unit to focus on this gun violence as well. this new approach focuses on intelligence collection, detailed analysis and proactive disciplined investigations and, you know, i just want to emphasize that our work cannot be done without input from the community and intervention partners. so when it comes to complex

street conflicts we know that homicides and shooting related incidents go beyond our county lines. so basically requiring us to work with other outside agencies including state and federal agencies as well as other prosecutors as well. members of the cvrt team will receive specific training in this new process in our new effort specifically in procedural justice search and seizure and risk management and that frame work is currently being built out. next slide, please. so cvrt and our unit have implemented a weekly shooting review board meeting. the meeting consists of investigations bureau patrol and other outside jurisdictional partners that

intend. the goal is to use data and current crime trends to focus our efforts and identify opportunities next slide, please in partnering with cjic, we captured data including maps that's depicted on this slide here of shot spotter activity. this information is presented during these meetings, during our discussions of weekly, i'm sorry allows our department basically to focus on identified hot spots so we can shift resources accordingly and provide district level deployment recommendations from this meeting. the shooting review meaning

further is not meant to be a venue for the focus on specific investigations. instead, it's primary purpose is to understand current violence to prevent future violence. next slide, please. sfpd knows that a majority of our gun homicide and nonfatal shootings are driven by and connected to street group dynamics. as you can see here depicted on the slide it's a complex web to understand exactly what's going on. our collaboration with ca partnership and our hard work -- the hard work of the cvr team confirmed that the majority of our gun violence in san francisco is associated with these high risk networks. next slide please.

we specifically look at a rolling 90 day period in order to determine which groups are causing the spikes in violence at any given period of time. this process helps us identify potential victims with hopes of intervening in those incidents. by recognizing which groups are mostly active, we're able to focus our enforcement and intervention efforts. a strong -- using a strong problem analysis and the shooting reviews are the first, basically the first two initial steps in implementing our focused approach. next slide, please. the review process allows us to identify and focus on individuals that are basically driving violence in san francisco and surrounding

cities. this is backed by academic research which indicates that specific focus on high risk individuals can significantly reduce gun violence. therefore, the cvrt officers work to identify these individuals in the hybrid social networks that are becoming -- that are at most risk of becoming victims or offenders of your next shooting or next homicide. all this is nationally recognized via academic research which is highly likely to retaliate within the next 120 days. so our goal primarily is to interrupt these cycles of

retaliation to prevent further victims from shootings. next slide, please. i just want to highlight again we currently are working with in response to shootings and homicides, this group is

comprised of different city agencies and community groups supported by the mayor's office. the primary focus of this meeting is to provide victim assistance and offer services. the goal is to help community service and step away from the life style. to remove violent offenders from the street. we do understand arrest and incarceration should be used and and we support intervention strategies and that will conclude the presentation. >> president cohen: thank you, mr. bigs.

any question. >> vice president elias: it was my understanding that you had selected certain officers to man this unit so that it can accomplish the goals that you set forth in this presentation. maybe you want to speak a little bit about that. >> sure. thank you, commissioner elias. we did. some of the investigators that were doing this this type of work are still in the unit. we enhanced that with ten officers. the type of officers who now are part of this unit, the new officers, they all have a strong policing type of community background. it is about reducing shootings and reducing people from being shot and reducing arrests

really because we'd like to do it without arresting. we do know we have a job to do once we have a shooting and we need to be held accountable for that. but the goal bottom line is can we do that on the front end? so those officers have been introduced to many of our communities. we just had a meeting with residents of patrera hills on monday and what we've been doing, we've had these meetings monthly and we've been introducing the new officers a few at a time where they get on our meeting. they tell about themselves, what their backgrounds are, it's about a 45 minutes to an hour meeting and it's about engagement. so we do think we have a very talented crew of officers that complement this work and we're excited about that.

>> president cohen: particularly, you hear the chief report coming down from violence in the bayview. in march, just a recap, we heard presentations from supervisor walton. presentations from the command staff and the street violence intervention team as well as community members and it's my belief that no resource should be spared in the efforts to reduce gun violence. so in response to tonight's presentation, i just have a couple questions, i think they're very simple. here is my first one. it's in two parts. are we fully resourced in our efforts in gun violence in the bayview as well as some of the other more violent police districts?

and, again, this is through intervention efforts. are we resourced where we need to be? >> no. we're not. that's an easy answer. the data supports that answer, but here's the thing, you know, we've got to make the best of what we have until we can get fully resourced. in bayview, we added total officers since we first started having this discussion in the bayview alone and a lot of this violence is in the southeast part of the city so which causes units like the cvrt, the community violence reduction team to focus on this. we know there's more to be done there. but to answer your question, we don't have enough officers to

do what we need them to do. >> and, if we're not fully resourced what community intervention resources needed to bring gun violence to an absolute minimum? >> well, the good news is this. the majority of that money is going to support that. the mayor's office has been supportive of this, new approach to work and we fully expect that this will be expanded. i know, you know, through the human rights commission director davis has funding to help with the violent issue from a supportive perspective, getting people hired to support that work and prevention type of work. so all of those are good things that are steps in the right direction. so i think we're getting there.

i do think it's going to take us really getting this started and then seeing what the needs are. we hope to have some early success with the life coaches and then we'll have better opportunity to actually see what the needs really are. and, by the way, actually on the call, he presented to the commission. so i think he's on the phone if we have any questions for him as well. >> president cohen: okay. that's good to know, thank you. >> one thing i wanted to adjust recently. the arrest that's made in addition to homicide, this team worked really closely. we just made that arrest and the press release should be going out any minute right now. the same thing with another homicide recently there was an arrest. we're still not done with the

press release. still an open investigation, but same thing. the cvrc team was really instrumental in getting some of these arrests and to give you an idea of a recent example of community component, we had these specially trained officers out on the street and there were two people that we were looking for that were wanted and they happened to see them and they have the sensitivity and the maturity to pull back and actually make the arrest away from this very volatile family event which had a pretty large attendance and it would have not only safety wise, it was escalated a

situation, but i think it would have really reduced the trust between family members, community members, and this team had the where with all. back in the day, they would have made the arrest. they held themselves back and said, number one it's not appropriate. this is probably not the type of venue we want to make an arrest in and, you know, they made the arrest. i think it was, what? 24, 48 hours later. way more low key and it worked out for both of us so just an example. >> president cohen: thank you. i appreciate that example and i want to acknowledge john hamasaki. >> commissioner hamasaki: sorry. i was moving my mouth a little bit slowly today. thanks, president cohen. so is this -- i'm sorry.

so is the gang taskforce, is this like a rebranding or is it still a separate unit that works with the community violence reduction team? >> no. commissioner, this is the total restructuring. there is no more gang taskforce. the community violence reduction team is the unit now. we still investigate the shootings as we have explained in our investigation. it's more than just the name change. it's really a different way of doing business, more community center, more collaborative and, we still have that work of investigations to do, we're doing it in a different way. you know, we have to collaborate in order to move the needle on this work and really, you saw the presentation, you know, when i say we want to continue that

trajectory that the city has that presentation, that california partnership, you saw the trajectory from 10 years to now which has been almost a third of what it was, we think there's still room to continue to do that with the challenges we have with reenvisioning our whole jail system and with people in the city. it's more than a name change. we still have to do the artwork of solving crime. investigators have to do that but there's a lot more to this than that now. >> okay. >>. >> commissioner hamasaki: ultimately, i guess a name change and restructuring is great. what i care about is the impacts on the community and, you know, gang taskforce in san

francisco historically has not had a great relationship with the community in san francisco and gotten calls here. i know from my work and i don't know if cindy ever worked gang cases in her day, but you know, it's not just the arrests and i assume this was in the presentation that my questions were on, but i did send over some questions to the commission office that i assume will be covered at a later date. it's not just who gets arrested. it's how people are treated on the streets. the detentions, the stops, the -- when there are shootings. how people are treated in the community especially young black males in the bayview. so, you know, i think it's great the way you're thinking

about this and thinking about the approach, but i guess maybe we can talk more about details and how this is going to be implemented with some specificity and to ensure that, you know, it's not just a name change but, you know, i don't know all of the answers as to why there are, you know, i do, you know, gang taskforce -- gang and narcotics have always been the units that have been

identified as um, creating some of the resentment towards sfpd. so i know this was kind of a broad overview, but i'd like to get more of the details and learn more about it in the coming days, months, weeks. >> yeah. thank you, commissioner. i will say we hear you on that and we also hear the community. part of this process is really listening to concerns from the community that we do this work in and that's why it's driving a lot of this approach. so you get no disagreement on us. we do have to treat people the right way. we have to be constitutional in our work and we have to be respectful even on the worst day when somebody has shot somebody. that's a part of this work that we want to make sure we are attentive to and it is definitely more than just a

name change because we are listening to you as well as the community on those issues and as the lieutenant pointed out, we can make all the arrests in the world but we're not successful unless we have the trust of the community doing our work and that's part of what we're trying to get. that's part of what we've heard on those -- officers heard it directly. new officers in this unit when they talk to community members about these issues, they want to secure jobs, but they want to be treated with respect but they want to do it the right way. we appreciate you bringing that up. but, definitely, we're in tune with that. >> commissioner hamasaki: okay. thank you. and, you know, i'm not -- i guess, i appreciate all of the goals and aspirations of the restructuring. i'm just um, i want to see it in action, i guess. so, you know, that -- time will

tell, but i do, you know, commend you and the department on rethinking the approach that has caused problems in the past. >> yes, sir. thank you. >> vice president elias: if i can add something too. you know commissioner hamasaki, i've handled several gang cases as well and i share your concern, but i would also like to invite you to some of the meetings that the department has had with lawn and reagan who are helping guide i think the new unit and are a big resource in how i think the development of this new unit is going to happen and take shape so as well as their collaboration with the public defender's office and other community stakeholders who are think are going to disspell the

negative, you know, the negative experiences people have had with the old gang taskforce. so i really am looking forward to it and i'm a big fan of vaughn and reagan. >> president cohen: with that, i'd like to recognize commissioner yee. >> commissioner yee: madam prosecute, i have no questions. >> president cohen: my apologies. anyone else have anything they'd like to add. okay. let's go to public comment. >> clerk: at this time, the public is now welcome to make public comment regarding line item 5. if you would like to make public comment, please press star 3 now. good evening, caller. you have two minutes.

>> caller: hello everybody. this is danielle harris. i come here tonight from having handled numerous designated gang cases over the years. i have studied sfpd gang taskforce files in extreme detail as part of that representation and their designated gang experts for days at a time in some instances. at the same time, i have lost clients that i cared about to gun violence and i don't want to lose anymore. but i also don't want to live in a city where young men of color are watched and under round the clock surveillance and i can tell you after several decades, i have never seen a white person arrested

for a so-called gang offense in the city. i am very much in support of community based interventions that offer real support and real alternatives to young folks instead of branding and surveilling them. but i haven't seen or heard any details that provide any clarity about how if and how this new program differs from what we know as the existing gang taskforce and i want to believe that it will, but in order for folks i think to believe it, we need to hear more detail. thank you. >> clerk: thank you, caller. good evening, you have two minutes. >> caller: yes. i wanted to piggyback off of

that too about the gang taskforce and as i've been complaining about since i found out that my son was accused of being a gang member, you know, that needs to change. and, my son is murdered and dead and in his death, he was being accused as a gang member. and he's not here to defend himself. you know, and i think about, you know, one of the resolutions to fix it. you know, we're talking about the homicides and the shootings and all that and i've been asking and mothers and fathers have been asking to put out the posters. we're talking about paying police officers to walk the streets. why don't they put out the posters so we as mothers and maybe the violence will stop there and the gun shootings will stop there and those victims' faces were continuously out there. i know if i was a murderer and i see a person that i murdered, i'd think about shooting -- not shooting someone again and maybe i'll get caught.

and then i think about all the people that have been arrested for murder. they say they've been arrested or they've been caught. yes, you caught them, but have they been convicted? they're being let go because nobody quote unquote no one's coming forward. we can say we caught them, we arrest them, but there is no conviction. there's no conviction made on those persons. not that i know of. what can we do about that and how many times are we going to keep preaching to the choir about the same thing over and over again especially about th

president cohen, if i can make a motion to pull this from the calendar. >> president cohen: sure, absolutely. let me just check procedurally.

sergeant youngblood, i don't think we need a motion to pull. we can just at the discretion of the chairman of the board move this to pull it off the agenda and put it on a future agenda, is that correct? >> clerk: i believe so, president cohen. >> yes. >> president cohen: okay. thank you. we will pull it off the agenda and revisit it in the very near future. okay. no problem. i think we still need to take public comment on the item even though we're not going to be hearing it because it was publicly noticed. [please stand by]

>> well, deescalation is also mentioned in the d.g.o. >> president cohen: okay. >> if you look at section 8.202 of the definitions, it has deescalation, officers shall, when feasible, employ

deescalation techniques to decrease the likely use of using force and increase the likelihood of volunteer compliance. so throughout the course of our training, deescalation is at the front of all of our training. >> president cohen: thank you. i appreciate you reading it for the record. >> if i may, in our critical mindset response training, it's embedded in that and many other modules of our training, so

it's in all of it. we are seeing some really good outcomes because we are focused on deescalation. >> president cohen: great. all right. thank you. all right. well, there's a motion on the floor, and that motion is to approve the revised draft of department general order 8.02, hostage and barricade suspects. is there a second? >> commissioner brookter: second. >> president cohen: i think that was a second by commissioner brookter. all right, commissioner brookter. let's take public comment, and then, we'll take a vote. >> clerk: for members of the public that would like to make public comment on item 7, department general order 8.02, please press star, three now. president cohen, there is no

public comment. >> president cohen: all right. no public comment. let's take a roll call vote, please. >> clerk: on the motion to approve department general office 8.02 -- [roll call] -- department general order 8.02 -- [roll call] >> clerk: you have six yeses. >> president cohen: that's great. that means it's unanimous. please call the next item. >> clerk: line item 8, public comment on all matters pertaining to item 10 below, closed session, including public comment on item 9, vote

whether to hold item 10 in closed session. for those members of the public wishing to make public comment, press star, three now, and president cohen, there is no public comment. >> president cohen: all right. next item, please. >> clerk: item 9, vote on whether to hold item 10 in closed session, san francisco administrative code section 67.10. >> president cohen: thank you. public comment. >> clerk: president cohen, we just held public comment. >> president cohen: you're right. vote whether or not to go into closed session. >> clerk: make a motion? >> president cohen: i make a motion to vote whether or not to go into closed session. >> vice president elias: second. >> president cohen: motion to go into closed session, second by commissioner elias. roll call vote. >> clerk: on the motion to go

into closed session -- [roll call] >> clerk: you have six yeses. >> president cohen: excellent. thank you. let's go to >> president cohen: motion made by commissioner elias. is there a second? >> commissioner brookter: second. >> president cohen: second by commissioner brookter. let's take a roll call, please. >> clerk: on the motion not to disclose -- [roll call]

>> clerk: you have six yeses not to disclose. >> president cohen: excellent. unanimous, folks. thank you very much. next item. >> clerk: item 12, adjournment. action item. >> president cohen: all right. adjournment. thank you very much for your time. very good work today.

so good morning everybody. welcome to george christopher playground. a playground that was dedicated by the way 50 years ago in 1971 by mayor's alioto and christopher. so we're so delighted to have our very special guest, the 2021 mayor of san francisco going to say a few words in a little bit. my name is phil ginsburg and, yes, this is an actual and not a virtual opening. i haven't -- i haven't seen -- we vnt done one of these and i haven't seen this many people in one place so i'm kind of nervous and shy and not u t