. >> president of the bar association of san francisco is before us. good evening, madam president. >> thank you, mr. president and commissioners, thank you for having us. mary baldwin. i'm the president of the bar association of san francisco. you are all familiar with the work that the bar association has done on this issue and has presented to you over the past two years. our criminal justice task force has studied this issue closely. it's made up of prosecutors, public defenders, prime criminal defense attorneys, law enforcement, judiciary, civil rights attorneys, mayor's office, and academics, and i emphasize that to emphasize the broad range of viewpoints and perspectives that makeup that task force and that brought those backgrounds to bear in this careful study of this issue. the task force produced two memos. you have them. the most recent was done on september 18th of this year. in presenting the findings to the board of directors of the bar association, the board of directors voted unanimously to not support the use of tazers, and we sent you

i'm a member of the san francisco bar association, and i work closely with a lot of your people, and we are he aall lawyers, and i want to thank you for all the hard work you've done, and for the analysis you gave us, not only for case law, but that studies, and this was what it was about. it took a lot of your time, a lot of your effort, and i want to commend you and your board for looking out for san francisco, and i don't want to think that this one member represents all of this commission, and i want to thank you for all of your work. >> thank you for all of your work. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. thank you very much for your indulgence and your patience in allowing us to have your time to speak. it's greatly appreciated. my name's allen levine. we've heard forcyte sometime across the country and in the bay area a change for the use of deadly force, and the use of bullets and batons. a friend of mine many years ago chaired with me a dilemma they had. they said they wanted change in their life and wouldn't stand for it, and that's what

i do want to clarify, the remarks with the san francisco bar association. i love the work that julie tran has done, however, the committee's remarks doesn't reflect the remarks of the people that i've spoken to, but i do admire the work that you've done, and so for those reasons, i think we should move forward with this program. >> commissioner ong hing. >> i'm going to vote no on this motion. the decision to vote no, actually, is quite easy for me, and i'll explain why in a minute, but announcing it is actually difficult because in the relatively brief time that i've been on the commission, i've -- i've come to get to know many members of the police department, get to know them and to respect them a great deal in terms of what their goals are and what their approaches are, and -- and i -- i think they're very much a credit to the city, and i -- i firmly believe that. it would be easy enough to -- it would be easy enough to vote no for relatively simple things that folks have talked about today and that we've all learned about in the last several months, th

san francisco with these devices. the concern that the community has had and we are talking about homes coalitions, the san francisco human rights commission has come out against this, we are talking about the bar association, they have all come out because they feel it's dangerous. their concern is about priorities, training, deescalation, other kinds of concerns that have been -- [ crosstalk ] >> they are effective 50% of the time in lapd. 50% of the time nationally. but again, sfpd has a real incentive to make sure if it's implemented and they are issued that they work effectively and don't create the kinds of liability issues that are potentially here. >> you mentioned the dangers of the devices. what are they? >> we have had 1005 people die from these. one recently in oakland last month. and we have one where a law enforcement officer's son in kansas city, a young man named bryce was killed -- was -- brain-dead now because of the use. so they are not as lethal as bullets but they are still lethal and they can kill and that's the concern the community has but sfpd feels like proper training is what will minimize these impacts. >> isn't it better to have a nonlethal option or a less lethal option than t