this program. all right. hello everyone. thank you so much for joining me. i'm san francisco mayor london breed and i'm joined today with our police chief bill scott to talk about the crime statistics in san francisco. and i just want to back up and put things into perspective. first of all, it's been a challenging year. we say that over and over again, but we also understand the challenges everyone is living with whether it's people who've lost their jobs and homes. kids that who aren't in school.

those that struggle with mental health challenges and a number of other issues. sadly, in san francisco, we have seen certain crime statistics increase, but we've seen others decrease. and the chief will get into those more specifically. now, despite dealing with this pandemic and seeing a number of people especially with the omicron variant out sick, we've seen that happen not just with people in san francisco, but many of our city workers including those from our police and fire department. the public safety arm of san francisco. and i just want to take this opportunity to really thank our police officers, many of them have had to do overtime because we've had hundreds of officers out as a result of omicron and others have had to step up to take their place. we know that there are a number of challenges that we see and we know that people are anxious to see improvements in the tenderloin community with the emergency declaration, but the

fact is we have a number of employees that are out. others have stepped up to take their place and we want to ensure that not only are we doing what we need to do in the tenderloin community to keep that community safe, we also need to make sure that we're keeping everyone in the entire city safe. we know that that is such a priority for so many san franciscans. and as a leader of this city, it is a priority for me. nothing is more important than to make sure that people who live in this city, people who work in this city, people who visit san francisco feel safe as they walk down the streets. and the fact is that does require police officers. it does require folks who are part of our public safety network. it does require us working together. and to be clear, it does not mean that we ignore the reforms that we need to do here in san francisco with our police department. it does not mean that we ignore

all the work we're doing to provide an alternative response to policing. those things go hand in hand with also keeping people safe so that they don't become victims of violent crime. so i want at this time to really just talk about what has been our plan moving forward. our plan moving forward, of course, is definitely contingent upon us providing those various services with our street crisis response team, our ambassadors, our escorts for our seniors. so many great programs in san francisco with a lot of nonprofit agencies that are working hand in hand with us to deliver for san franciscos who are most impacted by crime. yesterday, i was in chinatown, we were talking about the statistics and the hate crimes that have increased by 567% in

the a.p.i. community specifically and our need to enhance our support is what we're doing because that is critically important to the safety of that community and to making sure that people understand that we don't tolerate this and we will do everything we can to make sure that justice is served for the victims of these violent attacks. and part of that is making sure that we have a robust police department. a department that has officers who can not only walk the beat, but those that can investigate crime. those that can deal with a number of the challenges and victim services and support all the things that we need in order to make sure that not only are people kept safe and we prevent those crimes from happening in the first place, but once they happen that there is a process to bring those who commit those violent acts to hold them accountable. and that's what this is all about. the department over the past couple of years since 2019 has

seen a reduction in the number of police officers by about 20%. and so where our operating with the staffing that we have and meeting the needs all over san francisco, but we clearly need more. just recently, we received a letter from the controller's office of san francisco that says if we don't move forward with the supplemental that i introduced for $22.5 million to help with the cost associated with the police and fire department, services will be impacted because they won't be able to allow us to spend above our means. so what does that mean? that means that the controller's office will come in and make certain decisions for us. that means that the police academy classes which are already struggling with recruitment for our police department won't happen. that means no more back filling of officers. no more getting police officers on the streets in the numbers

that we need in order to ensure safety. that's what it means. it means our fire department will be affected. $7.9 million for the police. $14.6 million i believe for the fire department to address what we know is again the overtime related to the additional services needed from people being out sick and also the shortage in staffing of people who have retired or left the department for various reasons. this is not asking for more. this is asking for the basics, what everyone expects in the city as it relates to public safety. that's what this is about and i'm hoping that the member officer the board of supervisors see it that way.

this is about what people expect. when there's a shooting in the bayview hunter's point community which has occurred on far too many occasions, the expectation is that the police will show up. when there's a stabbing or a shooting or assault in the tenderloin community, that community expects that the police will show up and they will get justice. when there is crime of any occurrence, whether it's a burglary when someone is breaking into someone's home while they're there. can you imagine experiencing that and not having the police show up right away when you call 911. that should never happen in a major city like san francisco. there should be an expectation if something happens and you're in need of medical treatment, the paramedics will come. when you're in need of support from law enforcement because you've been assaulted or robbed or anything has occurred, the police should be expected to show up. so this additional resource we need is about maintaining that

level of service and we know we need more, but in the meantime, as our city has really suffered during this pandemic, not just the challenges of mental illness and addiction and homelessness and all of the things that we continue to address, but crime. and crime has to be addressed in a number of ways. there is not a one-size-fits-all, but there is a real need to make sure that we don't completely deplete our police department and then still expect justice and service and support when sadly we become the victim. we can do better and my hope is that we will do better. my hope is that the board will approve this supplemental and the police department will be able to continue the great work that they have done for san francisco especially during this pandemic. so, with that, i'd like to introduce our police chief bill

scott to talk specifically about the statistics from last year. >> police chief scott: thank you, mayor breed. and good morning everybody. we're going to have graphics on the screen so you can follow along. and before i start with the statistics, let me start and put this into context. statistics are what's reported to us. and we all understand that sometimes what translates on the statistics may not be your experience. aside from homicide, i think traditionally in policing, crimes go unreported. homicide is probably the purest statistic we have because it's really hard not to have a homicide reported or murder reported. short of everything else, we know there are crimes that we don't get because they're not reported from shootings to reports, to burglaries, you

name it. some crimes don't get reported and i want to put that into some context because when we talk about our statistics, we're talking about what's reported to us and we understand that for some people, that may not be their experience. that might not be what they're seeing. the victim may not have reported it or things in particular from their world view might not be consistent with what we put up. this is merely what we report and i think it's important that we understand and put into context what statistics are. as mayor breed said, we know there's a lot of work that we need to do. we also know that there is a lot of good work that's been done. so we're going to talk about both. we're going to talk about the challenges and we're going to talk about the things where we've seen some progress and some improvement. and being that i led off talking about homicide are the purist statistic that we have. i'm going to start off with our homicide and each one of these graphs that you see are, you'll

see the last several years of statistics. so you can put into context what the trends are. violent crimes will start here and we'll put into context what the trends are over time because it paints a clearer picture when you look at crime statistics over a period of time. we have 56 homicide this past year in 2021. and when you look at this graph, this graphic, the last time we had homicides was 2017. we saw a decline for three years and then starting in 2019, we started to see an increase in homicides, and sadly, this is not just a san francisco trend, this is a national trend and this is something that is truly concerning to all of us. many of our investigations have led us to facts that indicate that many of our cases are connected with some of the surroundings cities in the bay area and so we've been doing a lot of work with those

jurisdictions and those police departments both on the law enforcement side and on the social services side to try to turn this trend around. 56 homicides for san francisco is a big deal and it's something we're committed to turning around and before i end my discussion, i'm going to talk a little bit about some of the strategies that we've put in place to do just that. i also want to say that in our effort to bring these cases to resolution, we solved our clearance rate for homicides this past year was 77%. so almost eight and ten of our cases we solved and that's been consistent over the last several years and that rate is really far above the state average and the national average and so that's something we're pleased with. not to say we can't do better. we want to solve every case, but sadly for the families and the victims, we don't solve

every case, but we'll definitely work as hard as we can to do just that. those cases can be solved and those investigators can't do the work if we don't have what's in place. we have to have the staffing to do that. we also have to have community support and there are too many people to thank in terms of many members in our community. but we'll keep pushing forward and we want to turn that 56 to a much lower number. a couple years ago, i think it was the mayor's first year in office or second year in office, we were at 41 homicides for the year. that is as low as we've been since the early 1960s. we want to do better than that. gun violence contributed to the majority of our homicides and the next graphic, you'll see our gun violence victims for 2021. there were a total of 222. that's the highest we've been

since 2016. and you look at the friends. it really follows the homicide trends where you see a dip. 2018 to 2019 and then it starts to do back up. now, we don't really know the role that the global pandemic plays in this. there's a lot of theories out there. there's a lot of anecdotal crime is high because of all reasons connected to covid and all that may be true, but we really don't have the evidence to point that out. this category of crime is going up and we need to turn it around. in terms of gun violence, we are working with several community groups and also with our mayor's office and her public safety folks in her office to bring strategies to the table. we've brought strategies to the table that don't only rely on us being able to solve the case, but also really addressing the people who are most at risk and i'm talking about the people who are at most risk of either shooting

somebody or being shot. and what we have done over the last two years is a lot of research to drill down on who those people are and reach out to them and their families to try to get them some help. in the cases where we can't get them help and they commit a crime, investigate those cases thoroughly and vigorously and bring them to justice. and that balance is how we will move forward in addressing gun violence. it's been successful so far. last year we started in a hole with gun violence. it's our intention to cause that to continue as much as we can and so far this year it's early, very early. so i'm not going to put too much weight in this but we're on a much better note than this time last year.

next category. rapes. as you can see in the graphic, we had 204 rapes reported last year which is a little bit below where we were in 2020. we saw a significant decrease between 2019 and 2020. so that's going in the right direction. sexual assaults are right up there with homicides as far as the seriousness, the impact on the victims and their families, something that we take very seriously and hopefully we can continue to see that number go in the right direction. next category of violent crime or robberies. so robberies, i want to put this into a little bit of context with the mayor's comments about how important staffing is. robberies are one of those crime categories where officers on the street really make a difference. we saw this in parts of the city such as the tenderloin mid year when we upped our deployment in the tenderloin. we saw pretty significant

double digit percentage wise dropping robberies. we ended the year with 2, 242 robberies which is a slight decrease this year about 200 robberies left. we still have a lot to do with robberies. but the reason it's so important to put officers in these areas where we know these robberies are occurring, the majority of these robberies are street crimes. people are going to and from whatever it is they're.co in the daily activities alike. when officers are present and this is proven time and time again, we tend to have less of those events when officers are present. that's why foot patrols and foot beats and bike officers and presence and engagement is so important in terms of reducing robberies. so that is our strategy moving forward. we know it works. we know it can work. we need the people to do it and we're committed to just that. part of our analysis when we identify where robberies are

occurring, usually, the drill is we identify the hot spot. and the best case scenario, the officers are there to begin with to prevent the robberies from happening, but if we can't do that, then we usually adjust our deployment and we put officers in those areas and we see crime go down and that happens time and time again. so officers matter. we need to have them out in the field and as we see, we've made some progress and robberies and we hope to continue that. next category is assaults, and aggravated assaults. now i want to explain to you all that shootings are included in this category. we break out shootings because shootings are so important and such a big issue for our city. we break that out. but these numbers that you see and aggravated assault and shootings are inclusive in these numbers. so we had an increase. as you see, it increased with a

couple hundred, 200 aggravated assaults. 81 is the number for 2021. this is another set of crimes where at least the public ones where deployment matters. it matters a lot. some aggravated assaults happen inside peoples' homes and businesses and we can't always get to those and try to prevent them. but the ones that happen in the public, it's really important to have officers present and deployed and visible in those communities where these are occurring. these assaults include as i said, gun related violence, but they also include bodily weapons. they include knives. they include other weapons, sticks, bottles. that's inclusive of all of our assaults. it went up from 2020 to 2021. it's something that we had to turn around. very serious crimes and policing matters in that. and on the investigative side, we have to do more in our investigations to solve more of these cases. so now we're going to go to

property crime. burglaries are the first category that i'll talk about. 2020 and this was the year of the global pandemic. we saw a significant jump in burglaries and as much as we try to figure out whether the pandemic was partially responsible, there are some of those statistics in 2020 that are pandemic related. we had a rash of burglaries and lootings during june, late may of 2020 relate today all the civil unrest across the country. so that contributed to it, but it went beyond that. many of our san franciscans had their houses and their garages broken into, businesses broken into, and we saw an uptick. the first half of this year, it was a significant uptick. so we adjusted our deployment. we put officers where these incidents were happening including putting our plain clothed officers, deploying

them at night. surveilling people who we believe to be involved in those burglaries. we made some key arrests. we were tracking the prolific burglars and we were able to make arrests on many of them. and we started to see about mid year, about may, we started to see those numbers decline and they declined throughout the year. so we ended the year on a positive note with burglaries. but we're not out of the woods on burglaries. as you can see, we're far higher than 2019 and the previous year. so we still have a lot of work to do and we still have a lot of people to hold accountable for what we're doing. what we find with the burglary suspects is many of them are repeat offenders and prolific. those are the ones we have concentrated on. those people, those individuals. we've had some success. some of our most prolific once we got them in custody, we saw drops in certain neighborhoods where we believe they were active and this goes beyond the city and county of san

francisco. so those are strategies that we'll continue to deploy with our burglaries and we believe if we do that, they will continue to go in the right direction. so we ended the year on a good note, but we still have a lot of work to do. next category is larceny. and this is the whole gamut. so this will include architect. and packaged thefts and all. so as you can see, when you compare 2021 to 2020, it was a significant increase in thefts. and it's pretty much across the board. but when you look at this over the last five years, we were on a steady decline. 2020 was an aberration. but then we go to 2021 and we get an increase in 2020. so we look at this over time. not as much out of whack as if you put an asteric by what we

believe was the impact of covid with our decrease in 2020, but we were able to make some headway on a lot of these categories. retail theft. we've had the mayor and i some announcements this summer about how we were addressing retail theft. we did see a difference and some of those locations that were getting hit the hardest when we made those adjustments and those included we doubled the size of our retail theft, our investigation unit. we added personnel to better coordinate our ten beat appointment which is our uniformed officers that get hired by retailers and the coordination between those off duty officers and on duty officers is as good as it's ever been so that has helped because that has led to better coordination and better coverage the other category that's been stubborn in our city is the car break-in

issues. mid year, the mayor made an announcement about our tourism deployment. in our city, we were talking about the areas in our city where people come here and they want to see it. they have to see those areas. and then they come here and get victimized. and we're finding discarded luggage all over the city. we started what we termed our tourism deployment and much of that was done in overtime. and the areas that we concentrated on, we saw significant decreases. so that deployment although we had to make some adjustments. that deployment is still happening we also want to make sure the people that live here day in and day out so there's a lot of work to be done there. we did see some turn arounds

with our car break-ins and we'll continue to turn this picture around. looking at the long term. you can see the trends over from 2017 to 2019 was a decrease and then 2020, that significant decrease and then arrives in 2021. so we want to turn that around and not be above where we were last year in terms of the overall larceny picture. and we think some of the strategies that i mentioned will help, but it also helps to hold people accountable and bring them to justice when they do those types of crimes. auto thefts is the next category. and we have a little bit of a longer view in amount of thefts and as you see, you see it will be up in a second. you see a decline from 2015 to 2019 basically then 2020, there was a significant increase. that was somewhat of a trend that we saw in other cities as well. we do track other cities to see if what we experience here is something that's just in san

francisco. this is something bigger. auto thefts, many cities experience increases. and we saw significant increase in 2020 and then it levelled off a little bit in 2021 and we saw actually just a very slight decrease. so auto thefts is a big issue. we recover a lot of the cars that get stolen. unfortunately, we don't solve as many of the cases as we would like to. so that's an area that we have to continue to work on and there are some technology trends that we're seeing that we have to delve in more in terms of the thieves who are still in cars or kind of a step ahead of the game with technology. so not anything they can go into detail now on, but it's something that as we had analyzed these problems and we really understand kind of why these increases are happening, we definitely will share that with the public. so statistically as the mayor

said and i will reiterate, there are ups and downs. there are areas where we've had some good progress and there are areas like homicides where we have to turn things around. it takes people to do it. we want to do the job the way the city expects us to do it. so while all this is happening, we're pushing forward with all of our that helps us. and as you all always hear me say, we're not a perfect police department. we have our issues and problems, but when we identify what those problems are, we're going to, work to fix them and make them better and as we move through 2022, we're going to do

everything we can from a public safety and policing perspective to give the residents of our city the safest city we can help them have. so, with that, we'll open it up for questions and if you all don't mind, we're going to take questions for the mayor first and then i can take any policing questions and then anything in detail we can talk about off line. we have our team here, we can talk about details off line. so thank you. >> christian. >> where have you seen successes from the tenderloin emergency plant. are you already starting to see some successes in that area? are they pushing the problem around? also are you still hoping to graduate more, we talked about more police recruits in the future to increase the number

of officers? >> what do you mean by successes? >> are you seeing fewer reported crimes in that area. maybe that's something more so for the chief. >> yeah. i'll just say that i've gotten information for a number of stories of people that we've been able to help even on day one with someone who wanted to go into treatment and needed a t.b. shot and we were able to do that and get them into a behavioral health bed before we were able to transition them into a location where they are getting help and turning their lives around. we have a number of stories like that. . i wouldn't say we have hundreds of stories like that. we'll probably be able to provide that as time goes on. this is not a problem in the tenderloin that was created overnight.

the tenderloin has had so many challenges for many years and we saw during this pandemic, things have gotten so much worse even though we've added a number of resources to help support with mental illness and substance use disorder with our street crisis response team, with our street wellness team, with our street overdose entities that were created to be an alternative response to policing so that when folks are experiencing crisis which does not in some cases require a police response, those have been extremely successful and i think we can get you the data later about the number of calls that they've responded to and how many people we've been able to help as a result of that and as this tenderloin deployment plan moves forward, we definitely need more time before we can provide statistics or specific information about the number of people that we've helped. but we are hopeful.

i was there yesterday, i'm probably obsessed with going to the tenderloin every day to see what's going on down there and it has its good days and bad days and i do appreciate the fact that it appears that this linkage center has been extremely helpful and what we're hoping after we finish hopefully with this surge of covid that we'll see more officers out on the streets in the tenderloin community to help support the various agencies and programs that we have to help people. >> mayor, on the tenderloin linkage center, the chronicle has been reporting the drug use. what is the policy on drug use there? >> well, we don't have a policy as it relates to this linkage center other than meeting people where they are. the goal is to allow people who suffer from addiction to come into this center, to no

questions asked to get food, to maybe get a shower. to get support, to get services, but we're not forcing anyone to do anything. and at the end of the day, you know, this is a place where there's no judgment where this isn't a one size fits all solution and i wouldn't suggest that something like drug use is allowed, but it's happening all over the city sadly. it's happening all over the tenderloin and regardless of this linkage center or any place else, we can't control who does or does not do or do not use drugs at any given location. our whole point of why we set up this linkage center is to meet people where they are and to try and get them the help and support they need. at this time, we are hopeful that they feel safe, they feel comfortable. they feel they can trust this location so when they are ready

to get help, they have a number of people who are part of this nonprofit 360 that will instantly, immediately help deliver them to treatment detox support or whatever it is that they need. >> is the street effort part of a larger effort to get people off the sidewalk. how far along we are and what has to happen next and staffing with police. what should people expect to see as far as what comes next? >> well, it's not just staffing with police. it's the department of public health. as i said, a number of city employees and nonprofit employees would typically be the people that we would rely on to work in these establishments, to work in the tenderloin, they've been out too in some cases with omicron and my hope is that people see

a difference and they feel a difference as you walk down market street, the sidewalks are clean. as you walk in parts of the neighborhood and the tenderloin, you can actually get past the sidewalk and not see feces or step in feces or anything of that nature. my goal is to make it a walkable, livable, safe, and clean city and that involves making sure that people who unfortunately have taken over in some cases, many of the sidewalks and areas of the tenderloin that that doesn't continue. and that those people who are suffering with addiction are -- we're able to make sure they're not overdosing out on the sidewalk somewhere or that we're discovering them weeks after they've passed away in their tent. like we're trying to avoid losing lives as well and so this kind of controlled environment is a way to, again,

no questions asked. come on in. we're not here to judge. we're here to help you and we want people to feel comfortable coming into this space. it's getting people off the sidewalks, it's cleaning up the tenderloin. it's addressing crime and the violence that occurs which unfortunately, i mean, you see the statistics and, you know, it's gotten increasingly violent in the tenderloin. the stabbings and the shootings on a regular basis. so we are trying to get a handle on that as well. and so we want people to see and feel a difference and we're hopeful in the coming months as we continue to try and address this, it will be a noticeable difference and people will not, you know, be so focused on, well, what's going on at the linkage center, we don't think it's right. well, you know what, i don't think it's right to see it out on the street and walk near

needles and feces either. this is a solution that we are hopeful will lead to real change and will really lead to less crime and also less overdose deaths in san francisco. >> one followup honor crime statistics in general. there's a lot of discussion about crime is up, crime is down. when you step back big picture, roughly crime is high in the city. do you think something is lost in the sort of discussion of crime? >> well, i'll just tell you this. i know we talk about statistics as a way to communicate what we know is actually happening based on the information because we know also there are a lot of people who won't report it. it's i'm sure in many cases, it's more than that. statistics really don't matter when you're a victim. and i think at the end of the day, i am hearing more stories from more people about

situations that they experienced that they are really blown away. and let's just take it back a little bit. people who i grew up with in public housing who were like, london, this is too much. this is just the situations people are dealing with in the city and i think at the end of the day, regardless of the statistics, when it happens to you and you used to feel comfortable and safe walking around san francisco and all of a sudden, you're randomly attacked and you're traumatized and you can't even walk your kids to school, that's a problem. so from my perspective, this city has to do more and when these crimes are committed, when that line is crossed, we have no choice but to make sure that we follow through with investigations, that we arrest the possible suspects. you know, when i was growing up, there were sometimes people who were arrested for crimes they never committed. but in san francisco and all the work we've done over the

years around police reform and changes, the likelihood when we make an arrest is likely the person that we arrest. so they need to be held accountable and justice for the victims of these crimes need to occur just like justice for people who might have challenges with the criminal justice system in order to deal with public safety. it's not either or, it's all of it. we look at the statistics, but when it happens to you, who cares about statistics. we need to make sure that the people of the city are safe. and that it does include amplifies and it is what it is. all right. thank you. >> police chief scott: okay. any other questions? great. yes, ma'am. >> this question's regarding

the sfo shooting last week. >> police chief scott: first of all, we're going to have a town hall. we'll announce today, probably today or tomorrow as we always do on these types events. let me just put the context of how these things work. this particular incident, the state attorney general's office is the lead investigative agency for the criminal investigation. so the officers whether they're legal or not. when we have a shooting no matter who investigates it, the scene is basically frozen. it's frozen this will the people who are responsible and have jurisdiction to recover that evidence, to examine it can get to it. that takes time. and in any situation whether

it's this one on friday or whether it's any other case that we've ever had, you don't have confirmation on what you have immediately because the scene is frozen. in other words, if there's a gun on the ground, nobody's going to touch it and examine it for usually hours. so the notion that what we knew when we knew it, all that comes out in the town hall, but it's -- i've seen some stories written that are questioning this department's integrity and it's transparency on this and it's really misplaced because anybody that's ever that understands this work knows that it's not even our investigation to begin with. we don't get to touch the evidence, we don't get to examine it. that didn't happen for hours by the time the state investigators showed up. san mateo had responsibility for awhile until the state made the declaration they would take

the investigation. so it's really kind of a -- it's really misplaced and it's sad to be honest with you. the way that narrative has been put out is really sad. any other questions? >> chief, there's been a focus on the police staffing and the need to beef up the numbers in the force. so when you look at the increase in certain categories and how crime has been up in certain areas, how much of it is done to a lack of officers? would you expect to see similar numbers if you weren't working against the 20% reduction in police officers? >> police chief scott: let me make sure i understand your question. >> i just wonder in the category where we have seen an increase was significant around theft or whatever it may be and the fact that you're down numbers both in the overall numbers of police officers and also because of covid, how much

of a link do you put there? do you think that you would see an improvement if you just had more officers to work with? >> police chief scott: in some categories, yeah, we believe definitely because as i stated, robberies and crimes that happen in public spaces, those are the ones where you can really impact with robust deployment. and some of those, like thefts and car break-ins and it really takes officers being out in the field and being visible in addition to the backside, the investigative side and all that's been impacted by both our staffing shortages and this latest surge of covid. so, yeah, i think and this is anecdotal at best, but i do think it makes a difference. okay. all right. thank you all.

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my name is doctor ellen moffett, i am an assistant medical examiner for the city and county of san francisco. i perform autopsy, review medical records and write reports. also integrate other sorts of testing data to determine cause and manner of death. i have been here at this facility since i moved here in november, and previous to that at the old facility. i was worried when we moved here that because this building is so much larger that i wouldn't see people every day. i would miss my personal interactions with the other employees, but that hasn't been the case. this building is very nice.

we have lovely autopsy tables and i do get to go upstairs and down stairs several times a day to see everyone else i work with. we have a bond like any other group of employees that work for a specific agency in san francisco. we work closely on each case to determine the best cause of death, and we also interact with family members of the diseased. that brings us closer together also. >> i am an investigator two at the office of the chief until examiner in san francisco. as an investigator here i investigate all manners of death that come through our jurisdiction. i go to the field interview police officers, detectives, family members, physicians, anyone who might be involved with the death. additionally i take any property with the deceased individual and take care and custody of that. i maintain the chain and custody

for court purposes if that becomes an issue later and notify next of kin and make any additional follow up phone callsness with that particular death. i am dealing with people at the worst possible time in their lives delivering the worst news they could get. i work with the family to help them through the grieving process. >> i am ricky moore, a clerk at the san francisco medical examiner's office. i assist the pathology and toxicology and investigative team around work close with the families, loved ones and funeral establishment. >> i started at the old facility. the building was old, vintage. we had issues with plumbing and things like that. i had a tiny desk. i feet very happy to be here in the new digs where i actually

have room to do my work. >> i am sue pairing, the toxicologist supervisor. we test for alcohol, drugs and poisons and biological substances. i oversee all of the lab operations. the forensic operation here we perform the toxicology testing for the human performance and the case in the city of san francisco. we collect evidence at the scene. a woman was killed after a robbery homicide, and the dna collected from the zip ties she was bound with ended up being a cold hit to the suspect. that was the only investigative link collecting the scene to the suspect. it is nice to get the feedback. we do a lot of work and you don't hear the result. once in a while you heard it had

an impact on somebody. you can bring justice to what happened. we are able to take what we due to the next level. many of our counterparts in other states, cities or countries don't have the resources and don't have the beautiful building and the equipmentness to really advance what we are doing. >> sometimes we go to court. whoever is on call may be called out of the office to go to various portions of the city to investigate suspicious deaths. we do whatever we can to get our job done. >> when we think that a case has a natural cause of death and it turns out to be another natural cause of death. unexpected findings are fun. >> i have a prior background in law enforcement. i was a police officer for 8 years.

i handled homicides and suicides. i had been around death investigation type scenes. as a police officer we only handled minimal components then it was turned over to the coroner or the detective division. i am intrigued with those types of calls. i wondered why someone died. i have an extremely supportive family. older children say, mom, how was your day. i can give minor details and i have an amazing spouse always willing to listen to any and all details of my day. without that it would be really hard to deal with the negative components of this job. >> being i am a native of san francisco and grew up in the community. i come across that a lot where i may know a loved one coming from the back way or a loved one

seeking answers for their deceased. there are a lot of cases where i may feel affected by it. if from is a child involved or things like that. i try to not bring it home and not let it affect me. when i tell people i work at the medical examiners office. what do you do? the autopsy? i deal with the enough and -- with the administrative and the families. >> most of the time work here is very enjoyable. >> after i started working with dead people, i had just gotten married and one night i woke up in a cold sweat. i thought there was somebody dead? my bed. i rolled over and poked the body. sure enough, it was my husband who grumbled and went back to

sleep. this job does have lingering effects. in terms of why did you want to go into this? i loved science growing up but i didn't want to be a doctor and didn't want to be a pharmacist. the more i learned about forensics how interested i was of the perfect combination between applied science and criminal justice. if you are interested in finding out the facts and truth seeking to find out what happened, anybody interested in that has a place in this field. >> being a woman we just need to go for it and don't let anyone fail you, you can't be. >> with regard to this position in comparison to crime dramas out there, i would say there might be some minor correlations. let's face it, we aren't hollywood, we are real world.

yes we collect evidence. we want to preserve that. we are not scanning fingerprints in the field like a hollywood television show. >> families say thank you for what you do, for me that is extremely fulfilling. somebody has to do my job. if i can make a situation that is really negative for someone more positive, then i feel like i am doing the right thing for the city of san francisco.