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Transcripts For SFGTV 20140124

incarceration. drug court, the sisters program, probation officers, judges, and others refer women to safe house. these women are traumatized. many are suffering from mental illness, and especially from ptsd. some are pregnant. they are young. they are old. they do not need to be in jail. we have a comprehensive program and mental, physical, and dental care, education, group therapy, money management, computer training, job internshipses and more. and we do this for slightly over half what it costs to keep a woman in jail. our graduates are working. they are off the street, out of the emergency rooms, off the welfare roll. out of jails, out of courts, and onto the tax rolls. what's not to like? all the programs that provide alternatives to incarceration, particularly residential programs like safe house, are struggling for funding. a lot of that money would give us a big boost. we would like to open a second house. all the funds would be used for the people we serve and none of it would go to the financierses who had create aid whole new class of homeless people with their evictions ~. so, please, no [speaker not understood] to alternatives. (applause) >> thank you, reverend. next speaker, next speaker. good afternoon. my name is angel reid and i'm a clinical social worker in san francisco. i work with women who are formerly incarcerated and have histories of substance abuse. so, that means i work with women whose mother started beating them to a bloody pull be when they were nine months old, whose father started raping them when they were three years old, and whose guardians started giving them meth and other drugs when they were 9 and 10. these women are severely traumatized and we are only further trauma ~ traumatizing them by sending them to jail where they are exposed to abuse and violence that is so pervasive within cdcr. what we need is not new jails. we need rehabilitation facilities. thank you. >> thank you. we have a few more speakers. [speaker not understood] crack off. sarah wedsky. debby [speaker not understood]. i apologize if i mispronounce the last name. zoe wilmont and [speaker not understood]. thank you for the hearing. i'm [speaker not understood] and architects and designers for social responsibility, a nonprofit [speaker not understood] and district 9. thank you for representing me. i appreciate [speaker not understood] raised here today. i want to speak to some of the facts that i know you're concerned about. and i've had the opportunity to read the previous budget, the controller's estimate of forecast and spend time on one thats was released today. there are technical issues in there i hope you'll spend some time on. one is the alternative -- other speakers mentioned the community based alternatives were not assessed even by law enforcement based [speaker not understood] were assessed. one of them, the sheriff's program that wasn't estimated so it basically assumed it would have zero impact on future jail population. of the other programs which they limited to a future total of 60 people per day who might be kept out of jail, even that 60 people was not factored into the population [speaker not understood] they used [speaker not understood]. that seems to me like there is a mathematical problem there. i also notice the transportation costs that have been floated around in these estimates. the most recent number is $300 million over 40 years and that's going to be what's incurred if a new replacement jail downtown is not built. i find that number -- that just totally impossible to fathom. and the reason is because we already have county jail number 5 in san bruno by all accounts that's going to stay hope open. we have 17 years left to payoff the bond. we're already running a shuttle bus service there. it's staffed moving a few more people to san bruno i don't see how that can result in tens of millions of dollars a year in extra costs. lastly i'd like to say if it's true that certificates of participation cadthctionvction be used for service projects but have to be used for capital -- i'm a big fan of the city's capital planning project -- let's expand the capital plan to include the capital needs for alternatives like supportive housing which is half the cost of jail housing. like another safe house resident hope just asked for. that's what i think we can do with that money. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. (applause) hi, thank you for the hearing. my name is adrian [speaker not understood] roberts. i'm a member of the california coalition for women prisoners and we work with people incarcerated in the san francisco county jails and also in the state prisons for women. i also want to say i was born in this city. we at cc [speaker not understood] feel strongly some of the most important voices in this discussion are the very people who are incarcerated and who can't be here. we want to publicly thank david campos's office who sent in aides to come speak with our weekly group on tuesday nights which i might add is very different than just taking a fewer of the facility. we want to invite the rest of the supervisors to come, contact our organization and come actually sit down in rooms and speak to the people, the very population who are most directly impacted by this decision. so, in that vein i'm going to read statements from some of our members who are currently in county jail 2. a new state-of-the-art facility is irrelevant if it's filled with deputies who abuse their power, with insufficient health care, with lack of continuing education, with no contact visits with our families. a jail house is a jail house is a jail house. it is never safe. i've been in jail pretrial for more than one year. i know people who have been here for up to six years pretrial. if you are concerned about the burden of transportation for our families, create bail reform. let me raise my kids, not just sit across from them at a table in a crowded room. they want to lock us up and helping the people with their problem. they really don't care at all. this is about money. money they get for having us in jail. the deputies are very disrespectful. they treat us like we're nothing. thank you. >> thank you. (applause) >> next speaker. good afternoon, my name is [speaker not understood] i'm also a member of the california coalition of women prisoners. and i like hundreds of others who are adamant about staffing the building of this new jail, but i'd like to take my time to give space to the voices inside for the people and families who their decision most affect and they will hear there is a pretty unified message. these are from men in the rfcp program in san bruno. "first let me express my gratitude for the rare opportunity to speak about my opinion regarding the pro poed building of the new jail. i find this strange that a group of people want to tear down the hall of justice to build an institution to lock up humans. 290 million could be invested into programs with a common goal of rebuilding communities. no need for a new jail. if we decrease recidivism. some priorities are out of order. lamar. "290 million, that should be used towards education, public housing, lunch programs, affordable health care, more jails would equal dark days for the youths of san francisco. "how is there enough money to build a bigger jail when there is barely enough money to keep some of our schools? [speaker not understood]. "i believe we the people could come together to learn ways to help people learn not to come to jail by starting funding programs to me a funder's needs of why they come to jail and address those issues in the first place." donald. "i feel the 290 million to use to build another jail is not needed at all. that money could help people get into programs in education so they will not commit crimes and help people who get out of jail or prisons to get on-the-job training and skills for good jobs." that's from gabriel. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. hi, i'm diana block and i'm also with the california coalition for women prisoners. and i guess i just first want to say i am really proud to be part of this community here today and all the people who have spoken up from is san francisco, the organizations and the residents. i think this is what keeps me hanging on and being in this city and i really appreciate that, and also the hearing. so, having said that, i also just want to say i think you've heard very clearly the reasons why we should not be rebuilding this jail. and i would like to urge you to think outside of the box, outside of the cage. what san francisco is actually good at, a few years ago, the only question people would ever think of was paper or plastic. now there is no such thing as plastic in grocery stores in san francisco, which is like a groundbreaking change in the consciousness which is spread across the country. just think, if you could change the question around jails as well, and what an impact it could have for jails around the country and communities around the country. so, the question is not, you know, how many millions to spend, but how to reduce the prison population of the jail of san francisco. how to tree deuce it so that there are no women left in san francisco county jail. ~ reduce and i really hope that you will think of that question seriously. thank you. >> thank you. (applause) >> i'm going to read a few more names. iris biblowitz. angel reid. commander jeff caldwell. [speaker not understood]. and [speaker not understood]. next speaker, please. hi, my name is [speaker not understood] johnson. i'm a wellness organizer at [speaker not understood] community against violence. we work with low and no eligibility with lgbt [speaker not understood]. [speaker not understood]. most are black and latino people who have suffered through violence and discrimination throughout their entire lives and incarceration is only retraumatized them rather than helping them lead healthier lives. knowing that 75% of our jail population is pretrial, i worry about what jail expansion would mean for our members who wouldn't be able to afford bail. when 56% of our jail population is black men, i worry about what jail expansion would mean for people from my communities who are already being displaced at alarming rates in this city as housing becomes less and less available to them. the people who come to [speaker not understood] for services are struggling to find ways to meet their basic needs such as housing jobs, and health care. incarceration does not solve the vast need for community services. in fact, it makes it worse. as prison expansion leads to budget cuts to education health care and human services. at [speaker not understood], we found that community services that increase people's health and healing build up public safety while incarceration only leads to more trauma and more limited access to meeting basic needs. we have been able to work with our members to develop healthy approaches to conflict and unsafe situations and to make healthier choices to take care of themselves and those in their communities. leading to reduced rates of violence in their lives. i believe that we should invest in more community services [speaker not understood]. one that help prevent and alleviate the impact of violence our members face. that would be a more cost-effective sustainable and safe solution for our city's most vulnerable people. many of whom would end up behind bars if we expanded our prisons. please consider [speaker not understood] and say no to more jails. thank you. (applause) >> thank you very much. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is pete [speaker not understood]. i work at the california partnership. i appreciate you opening the forum here to this incredibly important issue. we are a statewide coalition of anti poverty organizations. mostly of what we focus on is eliminating poverty in california and we work with clinics and food banks and affordable housing groups to do so. we see incarceration as something that happens to poor people, like hunger, like homelessness, like all of these other -- like poverty. it impacts poor people's lives. we've got a chance here in san francisco to face that head on and instead of going with the -- continue to be the city we all dream of, we're proud to serve, we're proud to work in. so, i want to speak to the fact that what we heard in the report earlier today doesn't reference what the population of the jail would look like if we put these resources into systems outside of the criminal justice system. what if we put this money into real community-based services that are owned by the community, not tie today law enforcement, not tied to building back into the law enforcement and the criminal justice system. what if we -- if we have to use this as capital money, sure, let's put it into building housing, building clinics, building thing that are not -- if we've got a choice to build something, we have to build something with this money, let's build things we can be proud of. let's build beautiful homes for people in the city of san francisco. i'd also like to say that meanwhile we are having this conversation while organizations would serve the very folks we're talking about, the same folks who are coming to our clinics as well as being locked up in jail, though organizations are being pushed out because of rent. being pushed out because san francisco is too difficult to hold is on, keep a foothold for poor people and the organizations that serve them ~. so, let's talk about what we want the city to look like, who want to be here, and start from that conversation. let's invest in homes, not jails. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. (applause) good afternoon, supervisors. thank you for holding this hearing. david elliott lewis, co-chair mental health board, city and county of san francisco. one of the things our board does is program reviews and one of the programs we reviewed in the end of last year was jail psychiatric services. so, i toured the jails. i spoke to staff. i interviewed inmates in custody in both cj1, 2, 3 and 4. and i can tell you 3 and 4 needs to be replaced. it's not conducive to mental health rehabilitation. it's not conducive to any kind of recovery. so, given that this place is going to be replaced, where do we put it? do we put it in san francisco or do we put it in san bruno? it's going to go somewhere. 850 bryant has been condemned basically so where are we going to put them? if we put them in san bruno, it's really unfair to the visiting families. they talked about a half hour to 45-minute drive time. a lot of these poor families can't drive. they have to take public transportation. for them it's a half day to get to san bruno and back. that is really unfair and without these families, you deprive these incarcerated inmates of the support that they need from their families. so, we need a facility and this is not jail expansion. several people incorrectly talked about this as jail expansion. this is actually a jail reduction. the new facility would have fewer cells, more program space, and much improved family visitation space. the current family visitation space for men in san francisco is horrid. it's just horrible. so, this would be a much more humane facility with better mental health facilities. and while i'm all in favor of more pretrial diversion and actually be putting people in jail at all, for those that have to be there, this give them the absolute best facility we can. so, again, i hope you will consider funding this and replacing the facility with fewer cells, better cells, more program space, better visitation space. thank you. ~ let's >> thank you. next speaker. hello, my name is gabrielle a bruce. thank you for having this hearing today ~. i'm not affiliated with -- i'm not here as an activist. i'm here just as a regular citizen. so, i am so glad to hear as a native and lifelong san franciscan about all of the alternatives to incarceration that the city has been pursuing and very, very successfully and i hope we do have bail reform. and i'm concerned many of the people we do have in our jail are awaiting trial simply because they can't come up with bail. that said, if we must have a jail, i do believe that it should be in san francisco. i have a serious concern about families having to go out to san bruno. i have a concern about our volunteers. i work with -- i'm a volunteer with an organization that goes into the jails and i'm concerned about our volunteers having to go out to san bruno into -- away from the area where they live. i volunteer while we live in san francisco, we have to go out there. the families, many of the families do have to take public transportation and there's almost no public transportation out there. it is a long way from here if you've got to take the bus. let me tell you. the last stop is -- maybe you could call it bart, but really it's over there at san francisco state and it's a great hardship for people. we work to help parents, incarcerated parents stay in contact with their children through reading programs. and unfortunately it's hard for the children to visit their parents. we work so hard and the parents are working so hard to stay connected to their families and we need to do everything we can. if we must have incarcerated people, to make things as easy as possible. thank you. ~ >> thank you. next speaker. hello, my name is kimberly roar balk. i don't have too much to say that hasn't already been said ~ regarding however people's concerns about families and family connectivity and access. it's my understanding that when san brewin owe was full there were shuttles going back and forth with no budgetary impact between the city and the facility. i venture to guess that the money that a new jail would cost, not to mention the bond money on san bruno that somebody mentioned, far exceeds the expense of actually transporting family members and/or attorneys to and from. so, i just wanted to say that. jenny friedenbach from the coalition on homelessness stated that 27% of the people in the county jail are homeless. so, i think that if there was bail reform that would clear out about a third of the current population. finally, i agree with dorothy. one, it' frustrating here to be speaking against a jail that doesn't need to be built, where the other side is basically grasping for straws to justify a new jail ~. and i just wonder what's going on here. somebody has a financial interest in building a new jail and some politician who shall not be mentioned perhaps is backed by whatever party has an interest in building a new jail and, you know, that's all i can figure out. but i'm against it. (applause) >> i have a couple more speakers. thank you. rachel less and lori nierny. i apologize if i mispronounce the name. please go ahead. and any member of the public who has not spoken would like to speak, please line up. hello. my name is marlene morgan and i'm speaking as a member of the community coalition around sutter cpmc. and there's a lot of similarities between what we're talking about today and talking about rebuilding hospitals in san francisco. we're talking about rebuilding beds. we're talking about closing facilities, centralizing facilities, consolidation. we haven't even gotten into the issue of land use, traffic, environmental issues. but when we first came before the board and before the planning commission eight years ago, the corporation that was sponsoring a redesign of our health care in san francisco were very convinced that they had the answer, that they knew what the best outcome was going to be, they knew what the best practices were going to be, the best outcomes for health care. and in our eight years of push back as a community coalition, actually every single thing that we started with was a wrong assumption. what we've seen in the last period of time is a change of philosophy, a change in legislation, a change in funding, a change in technology that made it a bad idea to consolidate all health care services in one location and close all the other ones. so, we had a great victory because of this community coalition and the help of the board, i want to say, that were very involved. but we had a great mediated settlement between the mayor's office, the board, the community coalition, and the sponsor to get an outcome that created a really good -- good future with san francisco health care. i really support chief still's proposal to do more research, to think carefully, to step back, to look around and to see if we can have a better outcome in the next 15 months. and then we can see what's going to work for us. thanks a lot. >> thank you very much. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors. debby lerman. i am with the san francisco human services network and we are opposing the construction of the new jail. community based services and alternatives to incarceration are the most effective and the most cost-effective way to both prevent crime and reduce recidivism. rather than spending money on a new jail, the city could achieve savings and reduce the jail population to investment in substance abuse and mental health treatment reentry services, homeless serve is he, programs that reduce poverty, violence prevention, work force development, education, supportive housing, and services for at-risk youth. in other words, investment in people. prevention and treatment approaches are better than institutionalization for a community as a whole and they are far more likely to increase public safety. and also community-based alternatives to incarceration are consistent with our city's values of compassion and belief in the potential of every individual. so, we urge you to make san francisco a leader in progressive criminal justice by rejecting the proposal to build another jail. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. [speaker not understood] and i am opposed to the jail. first i'd like to point out that nearly all of the public comments have been in opposition to the jail, which is very telling of how the community feels about this plan. i'm also a graduate of san francisco state and i come from a working class family and i would not have been able to graduate from school if it were not for the financial aid that i received and graduated without any student loans or debt. and had i had a criminal family record, that would not have been possible and i would not have a degree right now. and, so, be i'm here to address the causes that our people are ending up in jail and helping them. i'd also want to talk a little bit about the transportation costs and the possibility of using san bruno. first, the estimates are much higher than they could possibly be and i urge you to investigate that data a little bit more. also the talks about the buses for family members going to visit their loved ones. first, the shortest transportation would be for the family members to be in the house with their family and not breaking up the families. second of all, there's all this cost of [speaker not understood] project. what about wanting to be cheaper anyway for -- to improve the public transit if that was the issue that there's no buses. there seems to be a lot of money for other things. also i just wanted to say it doesn't make sense as a sheriff, kind of re-appropriating some of our language and talking about [speaker not understood] more communities of color and not keep it out of sight out of mind. >> thank you. but locking people up is ignoring them. >> thank you. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors and members of the community. i want to thank you for holding this hearing today. my name is barbara atard. i'm a police accountability consultant. i'm here representing the lawyers guild. i'm also a long-it time city employee, retired city employee. i worked during reentry for the sheriff's department many years ago with the office of citizen complaints dealing with police misconduct issues. i'll be brief. i think that the previous speakers have made excellent points. the inmate population is decreasing. building a new jail is counterproductive. what we should be spending money on is alternatives to incarceration, to solving the problems that have resulted in racial disparities in the jail population. some of these alternatives include restorative justice programs, mental health services, bail reform, increased pretrial alternatives, solutions to homelessness and building affordable housing, gang abatement programs, drug programs, and educational support for at-risk youth and adults. in closing, i just want to emphasize that the only solution that makes sense for keeping families together is to keep families -- family members out of jail and prison. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker. thank you, supervisors, and thank you for hearing me. my name is andrew mendes. i'm a formerly homeless resident of san francisco and like the district attorney said -- the public defender said, that people are in jail because they're poor. there's only two types of americans. there are americans who are -- who have access to health care and education based on their family's economic status and there are those who are denied access to health care and education based on their family's economic status. when i became homeless it was essentially for the reason became homeless, mommy and daddy were not there to help. i think everybody knows if we build that prison who is going to go there and why? so, don't do it. a good -- my favorite supervisor said to me one time, if you only have a hammer, all of your problems will look like nails. so, just keep that in mind. and there are obviously ways to fix a problem, ways to not fix a problem. so, if i can it. ~ fix it. thanks. >> thank you very much. next speaker. (applause) good afternoon, my name is jeff caldwell. i'm a commander with san bruno police department. i'd like to first off acknowledge the working relationship we've had with the san francisco sheriff's department for decades. as you may or may not be aware, the jail has been a fixture in the community of san bruno for in excess of well over 75 years. if i could echo what chief greg suhr said earlier this afternoon, adjacent to that facility is a bedroom community, it's residential primarily in addition to a community college. having that in mind, any change to that operation or that facility and/or rebuilding or anything down there, there is a potential for an impact to the members of our community as well as that school. therefore, i'd like to formally and respectfully request that the supervisors keep the city of san bruno abreast of the developments of this discussion down the road and months to come. thank you. >> thank you very much, officer. and we definitely will. thank you very much for your patience. next speaker. i'm

Transcripts For SFGTV 20140125

[speaker not understood] block. raphael sperry. adrian sky roberts. [speaker not understood] leon, laurel butler. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is mindy kener. i work with anders and anders foundation. [speaker not understood]. whatever happens with the jails, we would like reentry clients to build and democrat aloe the jails. [speaker not understood]. we work with people who are incarcerated and do not have access to employment when they get out. we need to train them. we need to have funding available to help them so they don't go back in. this is speaking for the clients that i speak to every day. we also need to be mindful of the fact we need to accommodate families of those who are incarcerated to be able to see their loved ones. chief suhr and public defender adachi spoke to the fact that it's very difficult to go to san bruno. we need families to see their families. it helps them while they're incarcerated. it gives them hope that they will be out and see their families. going to san bruno is impossible. we go thereby car. it takes 45 minutes to get there. so, i want you to please be mindful of those who are in and those who come out, and that help is needed badly. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. supervisors, i'm terry anders of anders and anders foundation. it probably will be a jail bill. but like mindy kener who spoke before me, why can't reentry be part of that? see, too often the economics is the about the politics and the politics is about the economics. the people who are poor and incarcerated because they don't have the wherewithal to get themselves into another situation. so, since you are public officials, you're talking about building a public institution with incarceration, which there are some people that probably need to be there. but the reality is why not help change that factor by putting people in reentry who don't have no job skills? putting them to work? you're talking about putting $290 million? how much is that going to the depressed neighborhoods? how many of that is going to ex offenders? you need to think about that when you're chalking up those numbers. >> i have a few more names. david lewis and [speaker not understood]. greetings. my name is la fontaine, i'm a father of three, organization called all of us none. and also a full captive of the san francisco county jail 43 months, almost three years. 33 months, not 32 months 15 days, but exactly 33 months. ~ and we can build the most urban friendly, eco friendly, ergonomickally friendly services programs, church members going into it and have it in the most ideal locations. but as long as there's a culture of punishment, retribution and violence stemming from the guards who helped create [speaker not understood] environment within the county jail, all of them san bruno, i've been in the county jail here, the sixth floor, the seventh floor, the jail will only serve as a cage that provides employment for the nonimprisoned population and all the contractors and whatnot. it is 2014 and sadly we are revisiting a very horrible side of u.s. history, except with better public relations, a pseudomulti-cultural dissertation, and a refined methodologies of hypocracy. we must invest in people and stop investing multinational transnational corporations security forces. thank you. >> next speaker, please. thank you. (applause) hello, my name is [speaker not understood] and i'm the program coordinator for project [speaker not understood] which is a program that supports teenagers who has a parent in prison or jail. and i'm here today to read a statement on behalf of one of youths in my program who can't come because unfor the fortunately these meetings happen at the hours youth can't attend. i'm going to read a statement on behalf of her now. i am the child of a father who pep nearly 20 years in and out of jail and most recently released. i am a current student at city college of san francisco and resident of san francisco my entire life and therefore i know firsthand what services children and families and those in our jail system need in addition to knowing what services my family still needs in working to reunify with my father. it is absurd to argue that spending money to build a new jail will benefit children of incarcerated parents by providing better [speaker not understood] to interact with our parents and programming in the jail. it would be better to [speaker not understood] and provide sustainable living for us all. funding a new jail will make it harder for my younger sister to successfully grow up in san francisco because there will be less money for books in her school, for healthy food in her cap tier i can't and for a safe place to go after school. it will make it harder for her to thrive. why invest in a new jail rather than the potential of our youth? helping a child or teen know that potential today could very well reduce the need for a new jail tomorrow. san francisco has done a great job of providing alternatives to incarceration and i urge you to stay commit today that vision which means not using our money to fund a new jail. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. (applause) ~ michael [speaker not understood] has been involved in [speaker not understood] panthers senior disability action now for 15 years, but i'm speaking as an individual. i believe this rebuilding of san francisco jail is going to be bad for all of san francisco residents, but the rebuild is going to be inappropriate and harmful to different populations and different ways. so, i would want to concentrate on the benefits of seniors and people with disability, although the other groups equally valid reasons to oppose it such as young adults, parents with children, and lgbt residents. to run them down quickly, jail is a particular hardship for seniors and people with disability. jails is inappropriate for seniors and people with disability, but most important seniors and people with disability need the services that would be sacrificed in order to finance this jail thing. the projected cost, 600 million if you include financing, could give us 20 million in services each year over the 30 years that would be required to pay that debt. the $1 billion prop c housing trust fund could be expanded by 60% so we would really start including housing for very low-income groups like seniors and people with disability. 600 of the city's poorest family could be in subsidized apartments for 30 years. mentally medical health programs that have been cutback for years could be restored and even expanded. but most important, we grape with everyone else that the space already exists in the jails even with the closure of cjc3 and 4. in fact, with new proposed sentencing -- >> thank you. not even cj6 would be necessary. >> thank you. next speaker, please. good afternoon, my name is [speaker not understood]. the conditions at the 850 bryant jail are deplorable. this is more than a fact. it is a message that devalues those who are housed there. some people may be adverse to having anything too nice for those they want to see punished. keep in mind that many people in jail are awaiting their day in court and have not been found guilty of anything. nobody is suggesting providing luxurious living. but a facility that is clean and safe for inmates, staff, and visitors is a must. supporting rehabilitation and supporting a new jail are not mutually exclusive. no matter how creative we are with alternatives of incarceration, there will remain a portion of the population who will spend time in jail. i am a strong proponent of rehabilitation. i was raised by [speaker not understood] expert and spent my career developing and running rehabilitation programs in the nonprofit sector as well as for the city and county. if inmates are kept in surroundings that indicate they are deemed unworthy, they will have difficulty feeling hopeful enough to engage in rehabilitation. the new facility would have classrooms so inmates could gain knowledge and skills to help turn their lives around. by being on-site, transportation issues are eliminated. rehabilitation become accessible and a natural part of the daily routine. we need a decent jail in which people awaken to new days that lay the foundation for better tomorrows for them and ultimately for san francisco. >> thank you very much. next speaker, deborah bruce. elaine morgan. david baruto. and kim roberti. [speaker not understood]. sorry about that. go ahead. i'm [speaker not understood]. i've been a resident of the mission district since 1968 and i came there as an activist and i'm still an activist. ~ around civil rights, and now prison reform and general overhaul. i went to the sacramento hearing that was about the funding of the jails in the state. i was very impressed with the fact that san francisco was not funded, and it kind of surprised me. i am not sure if the reasons behind it and what the justification was, but to me it sent a very strong message that the adequate -- the buildings are adequate, the ones that are here. i really believe that. i toured the facility at 850 bryant once and i found it repairable. it was sold to us when it was built as an earthquake sound building and that it would last for many, many decades. there is another point i want to bring up and that is that the people being released from the prisons in this state have not been rehabilitated as they should have been and it's going to be up to the countieses to rehabilitate them. there has to be ~ a lot of citizenry involvement and thing like that. we need to focus on funding the rehabilitation rather than building more facilities. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. reverend glenda hope. i've worked in the tenderloin for 40 years and i'm the founder of the safe house for homeless women escaping prostitution. on the streets in the s-r-os and especially at our safe house, we see an alarming increase in serious mental illness. mental health treatment should be a priority focus for city planning and budgeting, jailing, mentally ill people only exacerbates their problem. our safe house is an example of an effective alternative to incarceration. drug court, the sisters program, probation officers, judges, and others refer women to safe house. these women are traumatized. many are suffering from mental illness, and especially from ptsd. some are pregnant. they are young. they are old. they do not need to be in jail. we have a comprehensive program and mental, physical, and dental care, education, group therapy, money management, computer training, job internshipses and more. and we do this for slightly over half what it costs to keep a woman in jail. our graduates are working. they are off the street, out of the emergency rooms, off the welfare roll. out of jails, out of courts, and onto the tax rolls. what's not to like? all the programs that provide alternatives to incarceration, particularly residential programs like safe house, are struggling for funding. a lot of that money would give us a big boost. we would like to open a second house. all the funds would be used for the people we serve and none of it would go to the financierses who had create aid whole new class of homeless people with their evictions ~. so, please, no [speaker not understood] to alternatives. (applause) >> thank you, reverend. next speaker, next speaker. good afternoon. my name is angel reid and i'm a clinical social worker in san francisco. i work with women who are formerly incarcerated and have histories of substance abuse. so, that means i work with women whose mother started beating them to a bloody pull be when they were nine months old, whose father started raping them when they were three years old, and whose guardians started giving them meth and other drugs when they were 9 and 10. these women are severely traumatized and we are only further trauma ~ traumatizing them by sending them to jail where they are exposed to abuse and violence that is so pervasive within cdcr. what we need is not new jails. we need rehabilitation facilities. thank you. >> thank you. we have a few more speakers. [speaker not understood] crack off. sarah wedsky. debby [speaker not understood]. i apologize if i mispronounce the last name. zoe wilmont and [speaker not understood]. thank you for the hearing. i'm [speaker not understood] and architects and designers for social responsibility, a nonprofit [speaker not understood] and district 9. thank you for representing me. i appreciate [speaker not understood] raised here today. i want to speak to some of the facts that i know you're concerned about. and i've had the opportunity to read the previous budget, the controller's estimate of forecast and spend time on one thats was released today. there are technical issues in there i hope you'll spend some time on. one is the alternative -- other speakers mentioned the community based alternatives were not assessed even by law enforcement based [speaker not understood] were assessed. one of them, the sheriff's program that wasn't estimated so it basically assumed it would have zero impact on future jail population. of the other programs which they limited to a future total of 60 people per day who might be kept out of jail, even that 60 people was not factored into the population [speaker not understood] they used [speaker not understood]. that seems to me like there is a mathematical problem there. i also notice the transportation costs that have been floated around in these estimates. the most recent number is $300 million over 40 years and that's going to be what's incurred if a new replacement jail downtown is not built. i find that number -- that just totally impossible to fathom. and the reason is because we already have county jail number 5 in san bruno by all accounts that's going to stay hope open. we have 17 years left to payoff the bond. we're already running a shuttle bus service there. it's staffed moving a few more people to san bruno i don't see how that can result in tens of millions of dollars a year in extra costs. lastly i'd like to say if it's true that certificates of participation cadthctionvction be used for service projects but have to be used for capital -- i'm a big fan of the city's capital planning project -- let's expand the capital plan to include the capital needs for alternatives like supportive housing which is half the cost of jail housing. like another safe house resident hope just asked for. that's what i think we can do with that money. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. (applause) hi, thank you for the hearing. my name is adrian [speaker not understood] roberts. i'm a member of the california coalition for women prisoners and we work with people incarcerated in the san francisco county jails and also in the state prisons for women. i also want to say i was born in this city. we at cc [speaker not understood] feel strongly some of the most important voices in this discussion are the very people who are incarcerated and who can't be here. we want to publicly thank david campos's office who sent in aides to come speak with our weekly group on tuesday nights which i might add is very different than just taking a fewer of the facility. we want to invite the rest of the supervisors to come, contact our organization and come actually sit down in rooms and speak to the people, the very population who are most directly impacted by this decision. so, in that vein i'm going to read statements from some of our members who are currently in county jail 2. a new state-of-the-art facility is irrelevant if it's filled with deputies who abuse their power, with insufficient health care, with lack of continuing education, with no contact visits with our families. a jail house is a jail house is a jail house. it is never safe. i've been in jail pretrial for more than one year. i know people who have been here for up to six years pretrial. if you are concerned about the burden of transportation for our families, create bail reform. let me raise my kids, not just sit across from them at a table in a crowded room. they want to lock us up and helping the people with their problem. they really don't care at all. this is about money. money they get for having us in jail. the deputies are very disrespectful. they treat us like we're nothing. thank you. >> thank you. (applause) >> next speaker. good afternoon, my name is [speaker not understood] i'm also a member of the california coalition of women prisoners. and i like hundreds of others who are adamant about staffing the building of this new jail, but i'd like to take my time to give space to the voices inside for the people and families who their decision most affect and they will hear there is a pretty unified message. these are from men in the rfcp program in san bruno. "first let me express my gratitude for the rare opportunity to speak about my opinion regarding the pro poed building of the new jail. i find this strange that a group of people want to tear down the hall of justice to build an institution to lock up humans. 290 million could be invested into programs with a common goal of rebuilding communities. no need for a new jail. if we decrease recidivism. some priorities are out of order. lamar. "290 million, that should be used towards education, public housing, lunch programs, affordable health care, more jails would equal dark days for the youths of san francisco. "how is there enough money to build a bigger jail when there is barely enough money to keep some of our schools? [speaker not understood]. "i believe we the people could come together to learn ways to help people learn not to come to jail by starting funding programs to me a funder's needs of why they come to jail and address those issues in the first place." donald. "i feel the 290 million to use to build another jail is not needed at all. that money could help people get into programs in education so they will not commit crimes and help people who get out of jail or prisons to get on-the-job training and skills for good jobs." that's from gabriel. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. hi, i'm diana block and i'm also with the california coalition for women prisoners. and i guess i just first want to say i am really proud to be part of this community here today and all the people who have spoken up from is san francisco, the organizations and the residents. i think this is what keeps me hanging on and being in this city and i really appreciate that, and also the hearing. so, having said that, i also just want to say i think you've heard very clearly the reasons why we should not be rebuilding this jail. and i would like to urge you to think outside of the box, outside of the cage. what san francisco is actually good at, a few years ago, the only question people would ever think of was paper or plastic. now there is no such thing as plastic in grocery stores in san francisco, which is like a groundbreaking change in the consciousness which is spread across the country. just think, if you could change the question around jails as well, and what an impact it could have for jails around the country and communities around the country. so, the question is not, you know, how many millions to spend, but how to reduce the prison population of the jail of san francisco. how to tree deuce it so that there are no women left in san francisco county jail. ~ reduce and i really hope that you will think of that question seriously. thank you. >> thank you. (applause) >> i'm going to read a few more names. iris biblowitz. angel reid. commander jeff caldwell. [speaker not understood]. and [speaker not understood]. next speaker, please. hi, my name is [speaker not understood] johnson. i'm a wellness organizer at [speaker not understood] community against violence. we work with low and no eligibility with lgbt [speaker not understood]. [speaker not understood]. most are black and latino people who have suffered through violence and discrimination throughout their entire lives and incarceration is only retraumatized them rather than helping them lead healthier lives. knowing that 75% of our jail population is pretrial, i worry about what jail expansion would mean for our members who wouldn't be able to afford bail. when 56% of our jail population is black men, i worry about what jail expansion would mean for people from my communities who are already being displaced at alarming rates in this city as housing becomes less and less available to them. the people who come to [speaker not understood] for services are struggling to find ways to meet their basic needs such as housing jobs, and health care. incarceration does not solve the vast need for community services. in fact, it makes it worse. as prison expansion leads to budget cuts to education health care and human services. at [speaker not understood], we found that community services that increase people's health and healing build up public safety while incarceration only leads to more trauma and more limited access to meeting basic needs. we have been able to work with our members to develop healthy approaches to conflict and unsafe situations and to make healthier choices to take care of themselves and those in their communities. leading to reduced rates of violence in their lives. i believe that we should invest in more community services [speaker not understood]. one that help prevent and alleviate the impact of violence our members face. that would be a more cost-effective sustainable and safe solution for our city's most vulnerable people. many of whom would end up behind bars if we expanded our prisons. please consider [speaker not understood] and say no to more jails. thank you. (applause) >> thank you very much. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is pete [speaker not understood]. i work at the california partnership. i appreciate you opening the forum here to this incredibly important issue. we are a statewide coalition of anti poverty organizations. mostly of what we focus on is eliminating poverty in california and we work with clinics and food banks and affordable housing groups to do so. we see incarceration as something that happens to poor people, like hunger, like homelessness, like all of these other -- like poverty. it impacts poor people's lives. we've got a chance here in san francisco to face that head on and instead of going with the -- continue to be the city we all dream of, we're proud to serve, we're proud to work in. so, i want to speak to the fact that what we heard in the report earlier today doesn't reference what the population of the jail would look like if we put these resources into systems outside of the criminal justice system. what if we put this money into real community-based services that are owned by the community, not tie today law enforcement, not tied to building back into the law enforcement and the criminal justice system. what if we -- if we have to use this as capital money, sure, let's put it into building housing, building clinics, building thing that are not -- if we've got a choice to build something, we have to build something with this money, let's build things we can be proud of. let's build beautiful homes for people in the city of san francisco. i'd also like to say that meanwhile we are having this conversation while organizations would serve the very folks we're talking about, the same folks who are coming to our clinics as well as being locked up in jail, though organizations are being pushed out because of rent. being pushed out because san francisco is too difficult to hold is on, keep a foothold for poor people and the organizations that serve them ~. so, let's talk about what we want the city to look like, who want to be here, and start from that conversation. let's invest in homes, not jails. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. (applause) good afternoon, supervisors. thank you for holding this hearing. david elliott lewis, co-chair mental health board, city and county of san francisco. one of the things our board does is program reviews and one of the programs we reviewed in the end of last year was jail psychiatric services. so, i toured the jails. i spoke to staff. i interviewed inmates in custody in both cj1, 2, 3 and 4. and i can tell you 3 and 4 needs to be replaced. it's not conducive to mental health rehabilitation. it's not conducive to any kind of recovery. so, given that this place is going to be replaced, where do we put it? do we put it in san francisco or do we put it in san bruno? it's going to go somewhere. 850 bryant has been condemned basically so where are we going to put them? if we put them in san bruno, it's really unfair to the visiting families. they talked about a half hour to 45-minute drive time. a lot of these poor families can't drive. they have to take public transportation. for them it's a half day to get to san bruno and back. that is really unfair and without these families, you deprive these incarcerated inmates of the support that they need from their families. so, we need a facility and this is not jail expansion. several people incorrectly talked about this as jail expansion. this is actually a jail reduction. the new facility would have fewer cells, more program space, and much improved family visitation space. the current family visitation space for men in san francisco is horrid. it's just horrible. so, this would be a much more humane facility with better mental health facilities. and while i'm all in favor of more pretrial diversion and actually be putting people in jail at all, for those that have to be there, this give them the absolute best facility we can. so, again, i hope you will consider funding this and replacing the facility with fewer cells, better cells, more program space, better visitation space. thank you. ~ let's >> thank you. next speaker. hello, my name is gabrielle a bruce. thank you for having this hearing today ~. i'm not affiliated with -- i'm not here as an activist. i'm here just as a regular citizen. so, i am so glad to hear as a native and lifelong san franciscan about all of the alternatives to incarceration that the city has been pursuing and very, very successfully and i hope we do have bail reform. and i'm concerned many of the people we do have in our jail are awaiting trial simply because they can't come up with bail. that said, if we must have a jail, i do believe

Transcripts For SFGTV 20140125

i have a serious concern about families having to go out to san bruno. i have a concern about our volunteers. i work with -- i'm a volunteer with an organization that goes into the jails and i'm concerned about our volunteers having to go out to san bruno into -- away from the area where they live. i volunteer while we live in san francisco, we have to go out there. the families, many of the families do have to take public transportation and there's almost no public transportation out there. it is a long way from here if you've got to take the bus. let me tell you. the last stop is -- maybe you could call it bart, but really it's over there at san francisco state and it's a great hardship for people. we work to help parents, incarcerated parents stay in contact with their children through reading programs. and unfortunately it's hard for the children to visit their parents. we work so hard and the parents are working so hard to stay connected to their families and we need to do everything we can. if we must have incarcerated people, to make things as easy as possible. thank you. ~ >> thank you. next speaker. hello, my name is kimberly roar balk. i don't have too much to say that hasn't already been said ~ regarding however people's concerns about families and family connectivity and access. it's my understanding that when san brewin owe was full there were shuttles going back and forth with no budgetary impact between the city and the facility. i venture to guess that the money that a new jail would cost, not to mention the bond money on san bruno that somebody mentioned, far exceeds the expense of actually transporting family members and/or attorneys to and from. so, i just wanted to say that. jenny friedenbach from the coalition on homelessness stated that 27% of the people in the county jail are homeless. so, i think that if there was bail reform that would clear out about a third of the current population. finally, i agree with dorothy. one, it' frustrating here to be speaking against a jail that doesn't need to be built, where the other side is basically grasping for straws to justify a new jail ~. and i just wonder what's going on here. somebody has a financial interest in building a new jail and some politician who shall not be mentioned perhaps is backed by whatever party has an interest in building a new jail and, you know, that's all i can figure out. but i'm against it. (applause) >> i have a couple more speakers. thank you. rachel less and lori nierny. i apologize if i mispronounce the name. please go ahead. and any member of the public who has not spoken would like to speak, please line up. hello. my name is marlene morgan and i'm speaking as a member of the community coalition around sutter cpmc. and there's a lot of similarities between what we're talking about today and talking about rebuilding hospitals in san francisco. we're talking about rebuilding beds. we're talking about closing facilities, centralizing facilities, consolidation. we haven't even gotten into the issue of land use, traffic, environmental issues. but when we first came before the board and before the planning commission eight years ago, the corporation that was sponsoring a redesign of our health care in san francisco were very convinced that they had the answer, that they knew what the best outcome was going to be, they knew what the best practices were going to be, the best outcomes for health care. and in our eight years of push back as a community coalition, actually every single thing that we started with was a wrong assumption. what we've seen in the last period of time is a change of philosophy, a change in legislation, a change in funding, a change in technology that made it a bad idea to consolidate all health care services in one location and close all the other ones. so, we had a great victory because of this community coalition and the help of the board, i want to say, that were very involved. but we had a great mediated settlement between the mayor's office, the board, the community coalition, and the sponsor to get an outcome that created a really good -- good future with san francisco health care. i really support chief still's proposal to do more research, to think carefully, to step back, to look around and to see if we can have a better outcome in the next 15 months. and then we can see what's going to work for us. thanks a lot. >> thank you very much. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors. debby lerman. i am with the san francisco human services network and we are opposing the construction of the new jail. community based services and alternatives to incarceration are the most effective and the most cost-effective way to both prevent crime and reduce recidivism. rather than spending money on a new jail, the city could achieve savings and reduce the jail population to investment in substance abuse and mental health treatment reentry services, homeless serve is he, programs that reduce poverty, violence prevention, work force development, education, supportive housing, and services for at-risk youth. in other words, investment in people. prevention and treatment approaches are better than institutionalization for a community as a whole and they are far more likely to increase public safety. and also community-based alternatives to incarceration are consistent with our city's values of compassion and belief in the potential of every individual. so, we urge you to make san francisco a leader in progressive criminal justice by rejecting the proposal to build another jail. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. [speaker not understood] and i am opposed to the jail. first i'd like to point out that nearly all of the public comments have been in opposition to the jail, which is very telling of how the community feels about this plan. i'm also a graduate of san francisco state and i come from a working class family and i would not have been able to graduate from school if it were not for the financial aid that i received and graduated without any student loans or debt. and had i had a criminal family record, that would not have been possible and i would not have a degree right now. and, so, be i'm here to address the causes that our people are ending up in jail and helping them. i'd also want to talk a little bit about the transportation costs and the possibility of using san bruno. first, the estimates are much higher than they could possibly be and i urge you to investigate that data a little bit more. also the talks about the buses for family members going to visit their loved ones. first, the shortest transportation would be for the family members to be in the house with their family and not breaking up the families. second of all, there's all this cost of [speaker not understood] project. what about wanting to be cheaper anyway for -- to improve the public transit if that was the issue that there's no buses. there seems to be a lot of money for other things. also i just wanted to say it doesn't make sense as a sheriff, kind of re-appropriating some of our language and talking about [speaker not understood] more communities of color and not keep it out of sight out of mind. >> thank you. but locking people up is ignoring them. >> thank you. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors and members of the community. i want to thank you for holding this hearing today. my name is barbara atard. i'm a police accountability consultant. i'm here representing the lawyers guild. i'm also a long-it time city employee, retired city employee. i worked during reentry for the sheriff's department many years ago with the office of citizen complaints dealing with police misconduct issues. i'll be brief. i think that the previous speakers have made excellent points. the inmate population is decreasing. building a new jail is counterproductive. what we should be spending money on is alternatives to incarceration, to solving the problems that have resulted in racial disparities in the jail population. some of these alternatives include restorative justice programs, mental health services, bail reform, increased pretrial alternatives, solutions to homelessness and building affordable housing, gang abatement programs, drug programs, and educational support for at-risk youth and adults. in closing, i just want to emphasize that the only solution that makes sense for keeping families together is to keep families -- family members out of jail and prison. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker. thank you, supervisors, and thank you for hearing me. my name is andrew mendes. i'm a formerly homeless resident of san francisco and like the district attorney said -- the public defender said, that people are in jail because they're poor. there's only two types of americans. there are americans who are -- who have access to health care and education based on their family's economic status and there are those who are denied access to health care and education based on their family's economic status. when i became homeless it was essentially for the reason became homeless, mommy and daddy were not there to help. i think everybody knows if we build that prison who is going to go there and why? so, don't do it. a good -- my favorite supervisor said to me one time, if you only have a hammer, all of your problems will look like nails. so, just keep that in mind. and there are obviously ways to fix a problem, ways to not fix a problem. so, if i can it. ~ fix it. thanks. >> thank you very much. next speaker. (applause) good afternoon, my name is jeff caldwell. i'm a commander with san bruno police department. i'd like to first off acknowledge the working relationship we've had with the san francisco sheriff's department for decades. as you may or may not be aware, the jail has been a fixture in the community of san bruno for in excess of well over 75 years. if i could echo what chief greg suhr said earlier this afternoon, adjacent to that facility is a bedroom community, it's residential primarily in addition to a community college. having that in mind, any change to that operation or that facility and/or rebuilding or anything down there, there is a potential for an impact to the members of our community as well as that school. therefore, i'd like to formally and respectfully request that the supervisors keep the city of san bruno abreast of the developments of this discussion down the road and months to come. thank you. >> thank you very much, officer. and we definitely will. thank you very much for your patience. next speaker. i'm [speaker not understood] and i'm a nurse so, of course, i have a perspective, the perspective of people's well-being and health and also the well-being of the community. and in terms of mental health, about 40% of the people in the jails have mental health issues. and jails are not places to heal. the clinics that i've worked in that was even a stretch. people with paranoid schizophrenia, jails just are not therapeutic places. about 10 years ago i went to the old baker center to hear a presentation about the missouri project for youth, and i think it would also relate to adults. they had community-based alternatives, group homes, emphasis on treatment, not punishment, case management, mental health treatment as well as substance use treatment, a 40% about had mental illness diagnoses. a percentage were homeless also. and they had decreased recidivism compared to most other states. this was a division of youth services in missouri. and i would like to see that happen in san francisco, community-based alternatives. the mayor had said that he's committed to fast tracking building housing including affordable housing. we'll see how affordable it is. but would he be if he also committed to building board and care home supportive housing for people who need it to prevent homelessness, and also to choose housing instead of going to jail. in addition to the mental illness is people have a lot of history of trauma and abuse and this is also not helped in a correctional facility. i'm also worried about gentrification increasing arrests because i know in my neighborhood, in the mission, a lot of people and downtown are being swept out. >> thank you. next speaker. hi, my name is tash. i'm here representing the youth [speaker not understood], increasing graduation, not incarceration, transforming education. we also came from santa cruz. i grew up here in san francisco and just want to talk about how ignite feels as well as how i feel. i think that san francisco's success and effectiveness in its programming should not be contingent on opening another jail. the sheriff is right. the jail is deplorable, but san francisco's mental health services, public and community colleges, public schools and community colleges, youth centers, drug treatment centers, all of these things that prevent people from being funneled into jail in the first place are also deplorable as well. if the sheriff and elected officials worked diligently with the community to invest time, energy, and money into these resources that truly prevent people from being in here, we wouldn't be faced with this in the first place. i also want to note that jail is not a conducive learning environment no matter how expansive the programs may be and no matter how nice the facilities may be. it's also very contradictory and practical to be offering the state-of-the-art programs so people in the grips of poverty. after we've turned them away from the family, after we put them in the violent process of being incarcerated and ripping them of any job opportunity anyway. i think that in the time it would take to build another jail, we could -- i think it is the sheriff's job to work in line with the judicial system on bail and sentencing reform as well as reassess the criminal confinement of people in poverty. our community knows what it means and we do not need another jail. (applause) >> thank you. next speaker. hello, my name is norm miska. i'd like to thank most people who have spoken already. i'm not going to repeat the nuts and bolts that people have brought up many time. i just have a limerick i wrote right now, thought you might like it. mirkarimi once wanted a jail. his plan surely was doomed to fail. he asked for some cash, but there was backlash because his ideas were stale. thank you. (applause) >> thank you. next speaker. hi, i'm rachel [speaker not understood] with the u.s. prostitutes collective. we wanted to register our opposition to [speaker not understood]. we think that should be addressed, not a new jail. more of us are being criminalized every day just for trying to survive. we're being pushed into crimes of poverty like prostitution, shop lifting, selling drugs, being homeless, and pushed into jail. so, it's really the increasing criminalization of just surviving that's filling up the jails with poor people and that's really what needs to be addressed, not a new jail. i mean, we're being told that there is some bureaucratic reason why that money can't be put into services. you know, we just don't buy that. we know that there's capital money could be -- there are all kinds of way ways to divert money. we just don't accept that it can't be ~ put into desperately needed resources for people. most second workers are mothers, single mothers trying to feed kids and put food on the table. and if women had money and didn't have to be illegal to support ourselves and our children, then fewer women would be in jail. many young homeless youth, trans people and others turn to prostitution as a survival mechanism and the most vulnerable among us, you know, the black, immigrant, and other women of color are being targeted by the police [speaker not understood] and ending up in jail. so, it's criminal for the city to be spending money on the new jail where that money should be diverted into resources. thanks. >> thank you. (applause) >> next speaker, please. hi, my name is lori naren and i'm speaking for clear strike which is part of the global women's strike. we're also here to say no to the new jail for san francisco. whether [speaker not understood] identified or not, we are a high rate of those who get arrested and go to jail. we are being criminalized due to poverty and inequality which has worn us down. we suffer from discrimination, low wages, no incomes and violence, especially folgbtq people of color. poverty and economic inequality must be addressed to end our crises, not criminalization. last june there were horrific statistics that came out during pride about the high number of lgbtq young people homeless in san francisco. thises was followed by the rate of lgbtq elders committing suicide because of poverty. 29% of homeless population in san francisco identify as lgbtq. as queers we have often been forced to leave families due to violence, bullying and home phobia and we end up on the streets to this day. ~ homophobia when we end up on the streets, we're vulnerable to be arrested, exposed to violence and ending up in jail. queer or not, when we are in jail or prison, our loved ones suffer and have to do an additional work load as a result. it's a huge amount of work, getting the loved ones out of jail, keeping their dignity or helping them deal with the enormous trauma and abuse of jail. so, for these reasons, we say no to this jail plan. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. (applause) good afternoon, supervisors. i will try to be mercifully brief. my name is david [speaker not understood], i'm the chief of staff for san mateo county dave pine. i'm here to echo the sentiments of the officer you heard from san bruno. we realize for many outside of san francisco, it seems like for those living here the vacuum of space is all on the outside. i assure you that is not the case. there is a community in san brewin owe better neighborhood, college and churches. for better or for worse, they will be part of this dialogue and may end up being or playing a role in the solution to the internal challenges that you're going to wrestle with. so, we ask only humbly that and respectfully that you keep that community in mind and also keep us in the loop. we came a little late to this and [speaker not understood] the documents you have before you today. so, hopefully as the process goes forward, maybe we could be at the table to some degree realizing we are not your constituents, nor your taxpayers. so, we thank you for your consideration. >> thank you, supervisor mar. >> i was going to say welcome back, mr. baruto. please congratulate i think supervisor pine on being the president of the -- our sister county down south. but thank you. >> and we'll be happy to make sure that we can communicate with you and give you all the information. next speaker. hello, my name is larry edmonds. [speaker not understood]. this is a book i want to display. it's called [speaker not understood]. okay, there you go. the book is called "the black man handbook." and the first thing i read, it tells you how to talk to the policemen. slowly, take a ticket and don't run because you may be killed. and, so, and the jail system here, one thing that i notice people advocated [speaker not understood], who helped me a lot, disability action network have helped me a lot in living in san francisco. people are forgetting that while we want more peep to go to jail in this city, why we have people building [speaker not understood] is because there is 30 to [speaker not understood] that live in s-r-os. that is a form of jail. our rights, we don't have rights [speaker not understood]. we often see the police a lot so we already have maybe 100,000 people who are going to be going in that circle. i don't want anyone to enter jail and i don't want them to reenter. but a lot of this money that can be saved, needs to be target today people living in the s-r-o, lgbt seniors with disability in these hotels that we're not getting the mental health services that you're saying we want to give the people after they get in jail. we're all the same people, everyday people and it should start with people in shelters and in the s-r-os and we won't have any jails because we are connected to each other. and we don't want to be that revolving door that we keep seeing what's going on now. so, this is a very important day to be advocating for housing and services and not more jail. >> thank you very much. (applause) >> is there any other member of the public who has not spoken who would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, i know that we are about to lose a quorum of this committee. so, i want to give an opportunity to say anything else, but i do want to thank all of the members of the public who have patiently waited to speak, who have come to this very important hearing. i again want to thank all of the government agencies that have been involved in this matter, including, of course, our budget and legislative analyst and campbell specifically for the great work that they have done. to our sheriff's department. to the mayor's office. to, of course, the capital planning committee. to all of the law enforcement agencies that have been a part of this discussion, including the public defender, the district attorney, the chief of juvenile probation. thank you for that. i also want to thank all of the community advocates who have been contacting all of us and providing information and input. you know, i think that we are moving in the right direction. and even though there are differences of opinion, i think there is also a lot of common ground. and what i hope happens is essentially what i heard from many people and i think the chief of adult probation said it well. i think that we have an opportunity to get more information, especially as time come through -- as time pass he he. from my perspective, i think that we need to let the facts guide us to the right result, whether that is no jail or a new jail of a specific size. i think that we need to do in the end what is in the best interest of not only the population that's there, but of the entire community in a way that is consistent with the values of san francisco. and i think that it is pretty remarkable with this kind of discussion happens because in most jurisdictions outside of, you know, stepping back and looking at the positive and the commonality, it's really an only in san francisco type of debate that we can have this kind of discussion. other jurisdictions would look at it in a very different way so i'm very proud that we in san francisco have a different take. supervisor mar. >> yeah, i just wanted to really quickly say i really appreciate sheriff mirkarimi for being here for the whole hearing and different staff, like cathy gold wood and others for really focusing on this and the community based and progressive organizations that are here. i have a lot of respect for the work that you do every day, from the work with critical resistance and other groups that form curb to in the community efforts that you are involved in. i'll just say off the top that i think the data, as supervisor campos said, should drive our decision making. but after visiting san bruno and the hall of justice, i absolutely agree that we need to rebuild the jail to make it more humane and to focus on the restorative justice type programs that the sheriff has led and as a progressive effort of criminal justice in our city. but i think it's not an either/or. we have to support the community based programs, focus on mental health, on drug treatment and other things that people have talked about. and i know that as the budget committee looks at our budget and as a master plan comes together on criminal justice, that my hope is that we don't look at this as an either/or, and we try to do both. i think ms. campbell and the budget analyst office numbers, i'll have to look carefully at the projections of the decline of the prison population. and as tim redmond and others have written in 48 hills and other places our goal should be to drastically reduce the prison population and have incentives to do that. and, in fact, he eliminates the need for it. but until we can do that, i think we have to make sure that there is a humane facility that we have for the people who are incarcerated where their families have access and that we look at the numbers critically of the economics of the transportation costs and other factors that the budget analyst has really focused on. but i'll just say that i thank everyone for the great testimony and i look forward to more communication about this as we look to create both a strong alternative to incarceration, but also a humane jail facility as well. >> thank you very much, supervisor. and one thing that i just in terms of process, i know that there is additional information that we want to get and there is certainly additional review that we would like to ask the budget and legislative analyst to do. so, with the understanding that there will be future discussions and that this is the first of a number of hearings on this, can i have a motion to continue to the call of the chair? we have a motion to continue to the call of the chair. without objection, without objection, the matter is continued to the call of the chair. [gavel] >> mr. clerk, do we have any other business before this committee? >> that concludes today's agenda, mr. chair. >> before i do that, i want to thank carolyn goose enin my staff who spent tremendous deal of energy to put this together. thank you, carolyn. meeting is adjourned. [gavel]

Transcripts For SFGTV 20140127

aloe the jails. [speaker not understood]. we work with people who are incarcerated and do not have access to employment when they get out. we need to train them. we need to have funding available to help them so they don't go back in. this is speaking for the clients that i speak to every day. we also need to be mindful of the fact we need to accommodate families of those who are incarcerated to be able to see their loved ones. chief suhr and public defender adachi spoke to the fact that it's very difficult to go to san bruno. we need families to see their families. it helps them while they're incarcerated. it gives them hope that they will be out and see their families. going to san bruno is impossible. we go thereby car. it takes 45 minutes to get there. so, i want you to please be mindful of those who are in and those who come out, and that help is needed badly. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. supervisors, i'm terry anders of anders and anders foundation. it probably will be a jail bill. but like mindy kener who spoke before me, why can't reentry be part of that? see, too often the economics is the about the politics and the politics is about the economics. the people who are poor and incarcerated because they don't have the wherewithal to get themselves into another situation. so, since you are public officials, you're talking about building a public institution with incarceration, which there are some people that probably need to be there. but the reality is why not help change that factor by putting people in reentry who don't have no job skills? putting them to work? you're talking about putting $290 million? how much is that going to the depressed neighborhoods? how many of that is going to ex offenders? you need to think about that when you're chalking up those numbers. >> i have a few more names. david lewis and [speaker not understood]. greetings. my name is la fontaine, i'm a father of three, organization called all of us none. and also a full captive of the san francisco county jail 43 months, almost three years. 33 months, not 32 months 15 days, but exactly 33 months. ~ and we can build the most urban friendly, eco friendly, ergonomickally friendly services programs, church members going into it and have it in the most ideal locations. but as long as there's a culture of punishment, retribution and violence stemming from the guards who helped create [speaker not understood] environment within the county jail, all of them san bruno, i've been in the county jail here, the sixth floor, the seventh floor, the jail will only serve as a cage that provides employment for the nonimprisoned population and all the contractors and whatnot. it is 2014 and sadly we are revisiting a very horrible side of u.s. history, except with better public relations, a pseudomulti-cultural dissertation, and a refined methodologies of hypocracy. we must invest in people and stop investing multinational transnational corporations security forces. thank you. >> next speaker, please. thank you. (applause) hello, my name is [speaker not understood] and i'm the program coordinator for project [speaker not understood] which is a program that supports teenagers who has a parent in prison or jail. and i'm here today to read a statement on behalf of one of youths in my program who can't come because unfor the fortunately these meetings happen at the hours youth can't attend. i'm going to read a statement on behalf of her now. i am the child of a father who pep nearly 20 years in and out of jail and most recently released. i am a current student at city college of san francisco and resident of san francisco my entire life and therefore i know firsthand what services children and families and those in our jail system need in addition to knowing what services my family still needs in working to reunify with my father. it is absurd to argue that spending money to build a new jail will benefit children of incarcerated parents by providing better [speaker not understood] to interact with our parents and programming in the jail. it would be better to [speaker not understood] and provide sustainable living for us all. funding a new jail will make it harder for my younger sister to successfully grow up in san francisco because there will be less money for books in her school, for healthy food in her cap tier i can't and for a safe place to go after school. it will make it harder for her to thrive. why invest in a new jail rather than the potential of our youth? helping a child or teen know that potential today could very well reduce the need for a new jail tomorrow. san francisco has done a great job of providing alternatives to incarceration and i urge you to stay commit today that vision which means not using our money to fund a new jail. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. (applause) ~ michael [speaker not understood] has been involved in [speaker not understood] panthers senior disability action now for 15 years, but i'm speaking as an individual. i believe this rebuilding of san francisco jail is going to be bad for all of san francisco residents, but the rebuild is going to be inappropriate and harmful to different populations and different ways. so, i would want to concentrate on the benefits of seniors and people with disability, although the other groups equally valid reasons to oppose it such as young adults, parents with children, and lgbt residents. to run them down quickly, jail is a particular hardship for seniors and people with disability. jails is inappropriate for seniors and people with disability, but most important seniors and people with disability need the services that would be sacrificed in order to finance this jail thing. the projected cost, 600 million if you include financing, could give us 20 million in services each year over the 30 years that would be required to pay that debt. the $1 billion prop c housing trust fund could be expanded by 60% so we would really start including housing for very low-income groups like seniors and people with disability. 600 of the city's poorest family could be in subsidized apartments for 30 years. mentally medical health programs that have been cutback for years could be restored and even expanded. but most important, we grape with everyone else that the space already exists in the jails even with the closure of cjc3 and 4. in fact, with new proposed sentencing -- >> thank you. not even cj6 would be necessary. >> thank you. next speaker, please. good afternoon, my name is [speaker not understood]. the conditions at the 850 bryant jail are deplorable. this is more than a fact. it is a message that devalues those who are housed there. some people may be adverse to having anything too nice for those they want to see punished. keep in mind that many people in jail are awaiting their day in court and have not been found guilty of anything. nobody is suggesting providing luxurious living. but a facility that is clean and safe for inmates, staff, and visitors is a must. supporting rehabilitation and supporting a new jail are not mutually exclusive. no matter how creative we are with alternatives of incarceration, there will remain a portion of the population who will spend time in jail. i am a strong proponent of rehabilitation. i was raised by [speaker not understood] expert and spent my career developing and running rehabilitation programs in the nonprofit sector as well as for the city and county. if inmates are kept in surroundings that indicate they are deemed unworthy, they will have difficulty feeling hopeful enough to engage in rehabilitation. the new facility would have classrooms so inmates could gain knowledge and skills to help turn their lives around. by being on-site, transportation issues are eliminated. rehabilitation become accessible and a natural part of the daily routine. we need a decent jail in which people awaken to new days that lay the foundation for better tomorrows for them and ultimately for san francisco. >> thank you very much. next speaker, deborah bruce. elaine morgan. david baruto. and kim roberti. [speaker not understood]. sorry about that. go ahead. i'm [speaker not understood]. i've been a resident of the mission district since 1968 and i came there as an activist and i'm still an activist. ~ around civil rights, and now prison reform and general overhaul. i went to the sacramento hearing that was about the funding of the jails in the state. i was very impressed with the fact that san francisco was not funded, and it kind of surprised me. i am not sure if the reasons behind it and what the justification was, but to me it sent a very strong message that the adequate -- the buildings are adequate, the ones that are here. i really believe that. i toured the facility at 850 bryant once and i found it repairable. it was sold to us when it was built as an earthquake sound building and that it would last for many, many decades. there is another point i want to bring up and that is that the people being released from the prisons in this state have not been rehabilitated as they should have been and it's going to be up to the countieses to rehabilitate them. there has to be ~ a lot of citizenry involvement and thing like that. we need to focus on funding the rehabilitation rather than building more facilities. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. reverend glenda hope. i've worked in the tenderloin for 40 years and i'm the founder of the safe house for homeless women escaping prostitution. on the streets in the s-r-os and especially at our safe house, we see an alarming increase in serious mental illness. mental health treatment should be a priority focus for city planning and budgeting, jailing, mentally ill people only exacerbates their problem. our safe house is an example of an effective alternative to incarceration. drug court, the sisters program, probation officers, judges, and others refer women to safe house. these women are traumatized. many are suffering from mental illness, and especially from ptsd. some are pregnant. they are young. they are old. they do not need to be in jail. we have a comprehensive program and mental, physical, and dental care, education, group therapy, money management, computer training, job internshipses and more. and we do this for slightly over half what it costs to keep a woman in jail. our graduates are working. they are off the street, out of the emergency rooms, off the welfare roll. out of jails, out of courts, and onto the tax rolls. what's not to like? all the programs that provide alternatives to incarceration, particularly residential programs like safe house, are struggling for funding. a lot of that money would give us a big boost. we would like to open a second house. all the funds would be used for the people we serve and none of it would go to the financierses who had create aid whole new class of homeless people with their evictions ~. so, please, no [speaker not understood] to alternatives. (applause) >> thank you, reverend. next speaker, next speaker. good afternoon. my name is angel reid and i'm a clinical social worker in san francisco. i work with women who are formerly incarcerated and have histories of substance abuse. so, that means i work with women whose mother started beating them to a bloody pull be when they were nine months old, whose father started raping them when they were three years old, and whose guardians started giving them meth and other drugs when they were 9 and 10. these women are severely traumatized and we are only further trauma ~ traumatizing them by sending them to jail where they are exposed to abuse and violence that is so pervasive within cdcr. what we need is not new jails. we need rehabilitation facilities. thank you. >> thank you. we have a few more speakers. [speaker not understood] crack off. sarah wedsky. debby [speaker not understood]. i apologize if i mispronounce the last name. zoe wilmont and [speaker not understood]. thank you for the hearing. i'm [speaker not understood] and architects and designers for social responsibility, a nonprofit [speaker not understood] and district 9. thank you for representing me. i appreciate [speaker not understood] raised here today. i want to speak to some of the facts that i know you're concerned about. and i've had the opportunity to read the previous budget, the controller's estimate of forecast and spend time on one thats was released today. there are technical issues in there i hope you'll spend some time on. one is the alternative -- other speakers mentioned the community based alternatives were not assessed even by law enforcement based [speaker not understood] were assessed. one of them, the sheriff's program that wasn't estimated so it basically assumed it would have zero impact on future jail population. of the other programs which they limited to a future total of 60 people per day who might be kept out of jail, even that 60 people was not factored into the population [speaker not understood] they used [speaker not understood]. that seems to me like there is a mathematical problem there. i also notice the transportation costs that have been floated around in these estimates. the most recent number is $300 million over 40 years and that's going to be what's incurred if a new replacement jail downtown is not built. i find that number -- that just totally impossible to fathom. and the reason is because we already have county jail number 5 in san bruno by all accounts that's going to stay hope open. we have 17 years left to payoff the bond. we're already running a shuttle bus service there. it's staffed moving a few more people to san bruno i don't see how that can result in tens of millions of dollars a year in extra costs. lastly i'd like to say if it's true that certificates of participation cadthctionvction be used for service projects but have to be used for capital -- i'm a big fan of the city's capital planning project -- let's expand the capital plan to include the capital needs for alternatives like supportive housing which is half the cost of jail housing. like another safe house resident hope just asked for. that's what i think we can do with that money. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. (applause) hi, thank you for the hearing. my name is adrian [speaker not understood] roberts. i'm a member of the california coalition for women prisoners and we work with people incarcerated in the san francisco county jails and also in the state prisons for women. i also want to say i was born in this city. we at cc [speaker not understood] feel strongly some of the most important voices in this discussion are the very people who are incarcerated and who can't be here. we want to publicly thank david campos's office who sent in aides to come speak with our weekly group on tuesday nights which i might add is very different than just taking a fewer of the facility. we want to invite the rest of the supervisors to come, contact our organization and come actually sit down in rooms and speak to the people, the very population who are most directly impacted by this decision. so, in that vein i'm going to read statements from some of our members who are currently in county jail 2. a new state-of-the-art facility is irrelevant if it's filled with deputies who abuse their power, with insufficient health care, with lack of continuing education, with no contact visits with our families. a jail house is a jail house is a jail house. it is never safe. i've been in jail pretrial for more than one year. i know people who have been here for up to six years pretrial. if you are concerned about the burden of transportation for our families, create bail reform. let me raise my kids, not just sit across from them at a table in a crowded room. they want to lock us up and helping the people with their problem. they really don't care at all. this is about money. money they get for having us in jail. the deputies are very disrespectful. they treat us like we're nothing. thank you. >> thank you. (applause) >> next speaker. good afternoon, my name is [speaker not understood] i'm also a member of the california coalition of women prisoners. and i like hundreds of others who are adamant about staffing the building of this new jail, but i'd like to take my time to give space to the voices inside for the people and families who their decision most affect and they will hear there is a pretty unified message. these are from men in the rfcp program in san bruno. "first let me express my gratitude for the rare opportunity to speak about my opinion regarding the pro poed building of the new jail. i find this strange that a group of people want to tear down the hall of justice to build an institution to lock up humans. 290 million could be invested into programs with a common goal of rebuilding communities. no need for a new jail. if we decrease recidivism. some priorities are out of order. lamar. "290 million, that should be used towards education, public housing, lunch programs, affordable health care, more jails would equal dark days for the youths of san francisco. "how is there enough money to build a bigger jail when there is barely enough money to keep some of our schools? [speaker not understood]. "i believe we the people could come together to learn ways to help people learn not to come to jail by starting funding programs to me a funder's needs of why they come to jail and address those issues in the first place." donald. "i feel the 290 million to use to build another jail is not needed at all. that money could help people get into programs in education so they will not commit crimes and help people who get out of jail or prisons to get on-the-job training and skills for good jobs." that's from gabriel. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. hi, i'm diana block and i'm also with the california coalition for women prisoners. and i guess i just first want to say i am really proud to be part of this community here today and all the people who have spoken up from is san francisco, the organizations and the residents. i think this is what keeps me hanging on and being in this city and i really appreciate that, and also the hearing. so, having said that, i also just want to say i think you've heard very clearly the reasons why we should not be rebuilding this jail. and i would like to urge you to think outside of the box, outside of the cage. what san francisco is actually good at, a few years ago, the only question people would ever think of was paper or plastic. now there is no such thing as plastic in grocery stores in san francisco, which is like a groundbreaking change in the consciousness which is spread across the country. just think, if you could change the question around jails as well, and what an impact it could have for jails around the country and communities around the country. so, the question is not, you know, how many millions to spend, but how to reduce the prison population of the jail of san francisco. how to tree deuce it so that there are no women left in san francisco county jail. ~ reduce and i really hope that you will think of that question seriously. thank you. >> thank you. (applause) >> i'm going to read a few more names. iris biblowitz. angel reid. commander jeff caldwell. [speaker not understood]. and [speaker not understood]. next speaker, please. hi, my name is [speaker not understood] johnson. i'm a wellness organizer at [speaker not understood] community against violence. we work with low and no eligibility with lgbt [speaker not understood]. [speaker not understood]. most are black and latino people who have suffered through violence and discrimination throughout their entire lives and incarceration is only retraumatized them rather than helping them lead healthier lives. knowing that 75% of our jail population is pretrial, i worry about what jail expansion would mean for our members who wouldn't be able to afford bail. when 56% of our jail population is black men, i worry about what jail expansion would mean for people from my communities who are already being displaced at alarming rates in this city as housing becomes less and less available to them. the people who come to [speaker not understood] for services are struggling to find ways to meet their basic needs such as housing jobs, and health care. incarceration does not solve the vast need for community services. in fact, it makes it worse. as prison expansion leads to budget cuts to education health care and human services. at [speaker not understood], we found that community services that increase people's health and healing build up public safety while incarceration only leads to more trauma and more limited access to meeting basic needs. we have been able to work with our members to develop healthy approaches to conflict and unsafe situations and to make healthier choices to take care of themselves and those in their communities. leading to reduced rates of violence in their lives. i believe that we should invest in more community services [speaker not understood]. one that help prevent and alleviate the impact of violence our members face. that would be a more cost-effective sustainable and safe solution for our city's most vulnerable people. many of whom would end up behind bars if we expanded our prisons. please consider [speaker not understood] and say no to more jails. thank you. (applause) >> thank you very much. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is pete [speaker not understood]. i work at the california partnership. i appreciate you opening the forum here to this incredibly important issue. we are a statewide coalition of anti poverty organizations. mostly of what we focus on is eliminating poverty in california and we work with clinics and food banks and affordable housing groups to do so. we see incarceration as something that happens to poor people, like hunger, like homelessness, like all of these other -- like poverty. it impacts poor people's lives. we've got a chance here in san francisco to face that head on and instead of going with the -- continue to be the city we all dream of, we're proud to serve, we're proud to work in. so, i want to speak to the fact that what we heard in the report earlier today doesn't reference what the population of the jail would look like if we put these resources into systems outside of the criminal justice system. what if we put this money into real community-based services that are owned by the community, not tie today law enforcement, not tied to building back into the law enforcement and the criminal justice system. what if we -- if we have to use this as capital money, sure, let's put it into building housing, building clinics, building thing that are not -- if we've got a choice to build something, we have to build something with this money, let's build things we can be proud of. let's build beautiful homes for people in the city of san francisco. i'd also like to say that meanwhile we are having this conversation while organizations would serve the very folks we're talking about, the same folks who are coming to our clinics as well as being locked up in jail, though organizations are being pushed out because of rent. being pushed out because san francisco is too difficult to hold is on, keep a foothold for poor people and the organizations that serve them ~. so, let's talk about what we want the city to look like, who want to be here, and start from that conversation. let's invest in homes, not jails. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. (applause) good afternoon, supervisors. thank you for holding this hearing. david elliott lewis, co-chair mental health board, city and county of san francisco. one of the things our board does is program reviews and one of the programs we reviewed in the end of last year was jail psychiatric services. so, i toured the jails. i spoke to staff. i interviewed inmates in custody in both cj1, 2, 3 and 4. and i can tell you 3 and 4 needs to be replaced. it's not conducive to mental health rehabilitation. it's not conducive to any kind of recovery. so, given that this place is going to be replaced, where do we put it? do we put it in san francisco or do we put it in san bruno? it's going to go somewhere. 850 bryant has been condemned basically so where are we going to put them? if we put them in san bruno, it's really unfair to the visiting families. they talked about a half hour to 45-minute drive time. a lot of these poor families can't drive. they have to take public transportation. for them it's a half day to get to san bruno and back. that is really unfair and without these families, you deprive these incarcerated inmates of the support that they need from their families. so, we need a facility and this is not jail expansion. several people incorrectly talked about this as jail expansion. this is actually a jail reduction. the new facility would have fewer cells, more program space, and much improved family visitation space. the current family visitation space for men in san francisco is horrid. it's just horrible. so, this would be a much more humane facility with better mental health facilities. and while i'm all in favor of more pretrial diversion and actually be putting people in jail at all, for those that have to be there, this give them the absolute best facility we can. so, again, i hope you will consider funding this and replacing the facility with fewer cells, better cells, more program space, better visitation space. thank you. ~ let's >> thank you. next speaker. hello, my name is gabrielle a bruce. thank you for having this hearing today ~. i'm not affiliated with -- i'm not here as an activist. i'm here just as a regular citizen. so, i am so glad to hear as a native and lifelong san franciscan about all of the alternatives to incarceration that the city has been pursuing and very, very successfully and i hope we do have bail reform. and i'm concerned many of the people we do have in our jail are awaiting trial simply because they can't come up with bail. that said, if we must have a jail, i do believe that it should be in san francisco. i have a serious concern about families having to go out to san bruno. i have a concern about our volunteers. i work with -- i'm a volunteer with an organization that goes into the jails and i'm concerned about our volunteers having to go out to san bruno into -- away from the area where they live. i volunteer while we live in san francisco, we have to go out there. the families, many of the families do

Transcripts For SFGTV 20140127

transportation and there's almost no public transportation out there. it is a long way from here if you've got to take the bus. let me tell you. the last stop is -- maybe you could call it bart, but really it's over there at san francisco state and it's a great hardship for people. we work to help parents, incarcerated parents stay in contact with their children through reading programs. and unfortunately it's hard for the children to visit their parents. we work so hard and the parents are working so hard to stay connected to their families and we need to do everything we can. if we must have incarcerated people, to make things as easy as possible. thank you. ~ >> thank you. next speaker. hello, my name is kimberly roar balk. i don't have too much to say that hasn't already been said ~ regarding however people's concerns about families and family connectivity and access. it's my understanding that when san brewin owe was full there were shuttles going back and forth with no budgetary impact between the city and the facility. i venture to guess that the money that a new jail would cost, not to mention the bond money on san bruno that somebody mentioned, far exceeds the expense of actually transporting family members and/or attorneys to and from. so, i just wanted to say that. jenny friedenbach from the coalition on homelessness stated that 27% of the people in the county jail are homeless. so, i think that if there was bail reform that would clear out about a third of the current population. finally, i agree with dorothy. one, it' frustrating here to be speaking against a jail that doesn't need to be built, where the other side is basically grasping for straws to justify a new jail ~. and i just wonder what's going on here. somebody has a financial interest in building a new jail and some politician who shall not be mentioned perhaps is backed by whatever party has an interest in building a new jail and, you know, that's all i can figure out. but i'm against it. (applause) >> i have a couple more speakers. thank you. rachel less and lori nierny. i apologize if i mispronounce the name. please go ahead. and any member of the public who has not spoken would like to speak, please line up. hello. my name is marlene morgan and i'm speaking as a member of the community coalition around sutter cpmc. and there's a lot of similarities between what we're talking about today and talking about rebuilding hospitals in san francisco. we're talking about rebuilding beds. we're talking about closing facilities, centralizing facilities, consolidation. we haven't even gotten into the issue of land use, traffic, environmental issues. but when we first came before the board and before the planning commission eight years ago, the corporation that was sponsoring a redesign of our health care in san francisco were very convinced that they had the answer, that they knew what the best outcome was going to be, they knew what the best practices were going to be, the best outcomes for health care. and in our eight years of push back as a community coalition, actually every single thing that we started with was a wrong assumption. what we've seen in the last period of time is a change of philosophy, a change in legislation, a change in funding, a change in technology that made it a bad idea to consolidate all health care services in one location and close all the other ones. so, we had a great victory because of this community coalition and the help of the board, i want to say, that were very involved. but we had a great mediated settlement between the mayor's office, the board, the community coalition, and the sponsor to get an outcome that created a really good -- good future with san francisco health care. i really support chief still's proposal to do more research, to think carefully, to step back, to look around and to see if we can have a better outcome in the next 15 months. and then we can see what's going to work for us. thanks a lot. >> thank you very much. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors. debby lerman. i am with the san francisco human services network and we are opposing the construction of the new jail. community based services and alternatives to incarceration are the most effective and the most cost-effective way to both prevent crime and reduce recidivism. rather than spending money on a new jail, the city could achieve savings and reduce the jail population to investment in substance abuse and mental health treatment reentry services, homeless serve is he, programs that reduce poverty, violence prevention, work force development, education, supportive housing, and services for at-risk youth. in other words, investment in people. prevention and treatment approaches are better than institutionalization for a community as a whole and they are far more likely to increase public safety. and also community-based alternatives to incarceration are consistent with our city's values of compassion and belief in the potential of every individual. so, we urge you to make san francisco a leader in progressive criminal justice by rejecting the proposal to build another jail. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. [speaker not understood] and i am opposed to the jail. first i'd like to point out that nearly all of the public comments have been in opposition to the jail, which is very telling of how the community feels about this plan. i'm also a graduate of san francisco state and i come from a working class family and i would not have been able to graduate from school if it were not for the financial aid that i received and graduated without any student loans or debt. and had i had a criminal family record, that would not have been possible and i would not have a degree right now. and, so, be i'm here to address the causes that our people are ending up in jail and helping them. i'd also want to talk a little bit about the transportation costs and the possibility of using san bruno. first, the estimates are much higher than they could possibly be and i urge you to investigate that data a little bit more. also the talks about the buses for family members going to visit their loved ones. first, the shortest transportation would be for the family members to be in the house with their family and not breaking up the families. second of all, there's all this cost of [speaker not understood] project. what about wanting to be cheaper anyway for -- to improve the public transit if that was the issue that there's no buses. there seems to be a lot of money for other things. also i just wanted to say it doesn't make sense as a sheriff, kind of re-appropriating some of our language and talking about [speaker not understood] more communities of color and not keep it out of sight out of mind. >> thank you. but locking people up is ignoring them. >> thank you. next speaker. good afternoon, supervisors and members of the community. i want to thank you for holding this hearing today. my name is barbara atard. i'm a police accountability consultant. i'm here representing the lawyers guild. i'm also a long-it time city employee, retired city employee. i worked during reentry for the sheriff's department many years ago with the office of citizen complaints dealing with police misconduct issues. i'll be brief. i think that the previous speakers have made excellent points. the inmate population is decreasing. building a new jail is counterproductive. what we should be spending money on is alternatives to incarceration, to solving the problems that have resulted in racial disparities in the jail population. some of these alternatives include restorative justice programs, mental health services, bail reform, increased pretrial alternatives, solutions to homelessness and building affordable housing, gang abatement programs, drug programs, and educational support for at-risk youth and adults. in closing, i just want to emphasize that the only solution that makes sense for keeping families together is to keep families -- family members out of jail and prison. thank you. >> thank you very much. next speaker. thank you, supervisors, and thank you for hearing me. my name is andrew mendes. i'm a formerly homeless resident of san francisco and like the district attorney said -- the public defender said, that people are in jail because they're poor. there's only two types of americans. there are americans who are -- who have access to health care and education based on their family's economic status and there are those who are denied access to health care and education based on their family's economic status. when i became homeless it was essentially for the reason became homeless, mommy and daddy were not there to help. i think everybody knows if we build that prison who is going to go there and why? so, don't do it. a good -- my favorite supervisor said to me one time, if you only have a hammer, all of your problems will look like nails. so, just keep that in mind. and there are obviously ways to fix a problem, ways to not fix a problem. so, if i can it. ~ fix it. thanks. >> thank you very much. next speaker. (applause) good afternoon, my name is jeff caldwell. i'm a commander with san bruno police department. i'd like to first off acknowledge the working relationship we've had with the san francisco sheriff's department for decades. as you may or may not be aware, the jail has been a fixture in the community of san bruno for in excess of well over 75 years. if i could echo what chief greg suhr said earlier this afternoon, adjacent to that facility is a bedroom community, it's residential primarily in addition to a community college. having that in mind, any change to that operation or that facility and/or rebuilding or anything down there, there is a potential for an impact to the members of our community as well as that school. therefore, i'd like to formally and respectfully request that the supervisors keep the city of san bruno abreast of the developments of this discussion down the road and months to come. thank you. >> thank you very much, officer. and we definitely will. thank you very much for your patience. next speaker. i'm [speaker not understood] and i'm a nurse so, of course, i have a perspective, the perspective of people's well-being and health and also the well-being of the community. and in terms of mental health, about 40% of the people in the jails have mental health issues. and jails are not places to heal. the clinics that i've worked in that was even a stretch. people with paranoid schizophrenia, jails just are not therapeutic places. about 10 years ago i went to the old baker center to hear a presentation about the missouri project for youth, and i think it would also relate to adults. they had community-based alternatives, group homes, emphasis on treatment, not punishment, case management, mental health treatment as well as substance use treatment, a 40% about had mental illness diagnoses. a percentage were homeless also. and they had decreased recidivism compared to most other states. this was a division of youth services in missouri. and i would like to see that happen in san francisco, community-based alternatives. the mayor had said that he's committed to fast tracking building housing including affordable housing. we'll see how affordable it is. but would he be if he also committed to building board and care home supportive housing for people who need it to prevent homelessness, and also to choose housing instead of going to jail. in addition to the mental illness is people have a lot of history of trauma and abuse and this is also not helped in a correctional facility. i'm also worried about gentrification increasing arrests because i know in my neighborhood, in the mission, a lot of people and downtown are being swept out. >> thank you. next speaker. hi, my name is tash. i'm here representing the youth [speaker not understood], increasing graduation, not incarceration, transforming education. we also came from santa cruz. i grew up here in san francisco and just want to talk about how ignite feels as well as how i feel. i think that san francisco's success and effectiveness in its programming should not be contingent on opening another jail. the sheriff is right. the jail is deplorable, but san francisco's mental health services, public and community colleges, public schools and community colleges, youth centers, drug treatment centers, all of these things that prevent people from being funneled into jail in the first place are also deplorable as well. if the sheriff and elected officials worked diligently with the community to invest time, energy, and money into these resources that truly prevent people from being in here, we wouldn't be faced with this in the first place. i also want to note that jail is not a conducive learning environment no matter how expansive the programs may be and no matter how nice the facilities may be. it's also very contradictory and practical to be offering the state-of-the-art programs so people in the grips of poverty. after we've turned them away from the family, after we put them in the violent process of being incarcerated and ripping them of any job opportunity anyway. i think that in the time it would take to build another jail, we could -- i think it is the sheriff's job to work in line with the judicial system on bail and sentencing reform as well as reassess the criminal confinement of people in poverty. our community knows what it means and we do not need another jail. (applause) >> thank you. next speaker. hello, my name is norm miska. i'd like to thank most people who have spoken already. i'm not going to repeat the nuts and bolts that people have brought up many time. i just have a limerick i wrote right now, thought you might like it. mirkarimi once wanted a jail. his plan surely was doomed to fail. he asked for some cash, but there was backlash because his ideas were stale. thank you. (applause) >> thank you. next speaker. hi, i'm rachel [speaker not understood] with the u.s. prostitutes collective. we wanted to register our opposition to [speaker not understood]. we think that should be addressed, not a new jail. more of us are being criminalized every day just for trying to survive. we're being pushed into crimes of poverty like prostitution, shop lifting, selling drugs, being homeless, and pushed into jail. so, it's really the increasing criminalization of just surviving that's filling up the jails with poor people and that's really what needs to be addressed, not a new jail. i mean, we're being told that there is some bureaucratic reason why that money can't be put into services. you know, we just don't buy that. we know that there's capital money could be -- there are all kinds of way ways to divert money. we just don't accept that it can't be ~ put into desperately needed resources for people. most second workers are mothers, single mothers trying to feed kids and put food on the table. and if women had money and didn't have to be illegal to support ourselves and our children, then fewer women would be in jail. many young homeless youth, trans people and others turn to prostitution as a survival mechanism and the most vulnerable among us, you know, the black, immigrant, and other women of color are being targeted by the police [speaker not understood] and ending up in jail. so, it's criminal for the city to be spending money on the new jail where that money should be diverted into resources. thanks. >> thank you. (applause) >> next speaker, please. hi, my name is lori naren and i'm speaking for clear strike which is part of the global women's strike. we're also here to say no to the new jail for san francisco. whether [speaker not understood] identified or not, we are a high rate of those who get arrested and go to jail. we are being criminalized due to poverty and inequality which has worn us down. we suffer from discrimination, low wages, no incomes and violence, especially for lgbtq people of color. poverty and economic inequality must be addressed to end our crises, not criminalization. last june there were horrific statistics that came out during pride about the high number of lgbtq young people homeless in san francisco. thises was followed by the rate of lgbtq elders committing suicide because of poverty. 29% of homeless population in san francisco identify as lgbtq. as queers we have often been forced to leave families due to violence, bullying and home phobia and we end up on the streets to this day. ~ homophobia when we end up on the streets, we're vulnerable to be arrested, exposed to violence and ending up in jail. queer or not, when we are in jail or prison, our loved ones suffer and have to do an additional work load as a result. it's a huge amount of work, getting the loved ones out of jail, keeping their dignity or helping them deal with the enormous trauma and abuse of jail. so, for these reasons, we say no to this jail plan. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. (applause) good afternoon, supervisors. i will try to be mercifully brief. my name is david [speaker not understood], i'm the chief of staff for san mateo county dave pine. i'm here to echo the sentiments of the officer you heard from san bruno. we realize for many outside of san francisco, it seems like for those living here the vacuum of space is all on the outside. i assure you that is not the case. there is a community in san brewin owe better neighborhood, college and churches. for better or for worse, they will be part of this dialogue and may end up being or playing a role in the solution to the internal challenges that you're going to wrestle with. so, we ask only humbly that and respectfully that you keep that community in mind and also keep us in the loop. we came a little late to this and [speaker not understood] the documents you have before you today. so, hopefully as the process goes forward, maybe we could be at the table to some degree realizing we are not your constituents, nor your taxpayers. so, we thank you for your consideration. >> thank you, supervisor mar. >> i was going to say welcome back, mr. baruto. please congratulate i think supervisor pine on being the president of the -- our sister county down south. but thank you. >> and we'll be happy to make sure that we can communicate with you and give you all the information. next speaker. hello, my name is larry edmonds. [speaker not understood]. this is a book i want to display. it's called [speaker not understood]. okay, there you go. the book is called "the black man handbook." and the first thing i read, it tells you how to talk to the policemen. slowly, take a ticket and don't run because you may be killed. and, so, and the jail system here, one thing that i notice people advocated [speaker not understood], who helped me a lot, disability action network have helped me a lot in living in san francisco. people are forgetting that while we want more peep to go to jail in this city, why we have people building [speaker not understood] is because there is 30 to [speaker not understood] that live in s-r-os. that is a form of jail. our rights, we don't have rights [speaker not understood]. we often see the police a lot so we already have maybe 100,000 people who are going to be going in that circle. i don't want anyone to enter jail and i don't want them to reenter. but a lot of this money that can be saved, needs to be target today people living in the s-r-o, lgbt seniors with disability in these hotels that we're not getting the mental health services that you're saying we want to give the people after they get in jail. we're all the same people, everyday people and it should start with people in shelters and in the s-r-os and we won't have any jails because we are connected to each other. and we don't want to be that revolving door that we keep seeing what's going on now. so, this is a very important day to be advocating for housing and services and not more jail. >> thank you very much. (applause) >> is there any other member of the public who has not spoken who would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, i know that we are about to lose a quorum of this committee. so, i want to give an opportunity to say anything else, but i do want to thank all of the members of the public who have patiently waited to speak, who have come to this very important hearing. i again want to thank all of the government agencies that have been involved in this matter, including, of course, our budget and legislative analyst and campbell specifically for the great work that they have done. to our sheriff's department. to the mayor's office. to, of course, the capital planning committee. to all of the law enforcement agencies that have been a part of this discussion, including the public defender, the district attorney, the chief of juvenile probation. thank you for that. i also want to thank all of the community advocates who have been contacting all of us and providing information and input. you know, i think that we are moving in the right direction. and even though there are differences of opinion, i think there is also a lot of common ground. and what i hope happens is essentially what i heard from many people and i think the chief of adult probation said it well. i think that we have an opportunity to get more information, especially as time come through -- as time pass he he. from my perspective, i think that we need to let the facts guide us to the right result, whether that is no jail or a new jail of a specific size. i think that we need to do in the end what is in the best interest of not only the population that's there, but of the entire community in a way that is consistent with the values of san francisco. and i think that it is pretty remarkable with this kind of discussion happens because in most jurisdictions outside of, you know, stepping back and looking at the positive and the commonality, it's really an only in san francisco type of debate that we can have this kind of discussion. other jurisdictions would look at it in a very different way so i'm very proud that we in san francisco have a different take. supervisor mar. >> yeah, i just wanted to really quickly say i really appreciate sheriff mirkarimi for being here for the whole hearing and different staff, like cathy gold wood and others for really focusing on this and the community based and progressive organizations that are here. i have a lot of respect for the work that you do every day, from the work with critical resistance and other groups that form curb to in the community efforts that you are involved in. i'll just say off the top that i think the data, as supervisor campos said, should drive our decision making. but after visiting san bruno and the hall of justice, i absolutely agree that we need to rebuild the jail to make it more humane and to focus on the restorative justice type programs that the sheriff has led and as a progressive effort of criminal justice in our city. but i think it's not an either/or. we have to support the community based programs, focus on mental health, on drug treatment and other things that people have talked about. and i know that as the budget committee looks at our budget and as a master plan comes together on criminal justice, that my hope is that we don't look at this as an either/or, and we try to do both. i think ms. campbell and the budget analyst office numbers, i'll have to look carefully at the projections of the decline of the prison population. and as tim redmond and others have written in 48 hills and other places our goal should be to drastically reduce the prison population and have incentives to do that. and, in fact, he eliminates the need for it. but until we can do that, i think we have to make sure that there is a humane facility that we have for the people who are incarcerated where their families have access and that we look at the numbers critically of the economics of the transportation costs and other factors that the budget analyst has really focused on. but i'll just say that i thank everyone for the great testimony and i look forward to more communication about this as we look to create both a strong alternative to incarceration, but also a humane jail facility as well. >> thank you very much, supervisor. and one thing that i just in terms of process, i know that there is additional information that we want to get and there is certainly additional review that we would like to ask the budget and legislative analyst to do. so, with the understanding that there will be future discussions and that this is the first of a number of hearings on this, can i have a motion to continue to the call of the chair? we have a motion to continue to the call of the chair. without objection, without objection, the matter is continued to the call of the chair. [gavel] >> mr. clerk, do we have any other business before this committee? >> that concludes today's agenda, mr. chair. >> before i do that, i want to thank carolyn goose enin my staff who spent tremendous deal of energy to put this together. thank you, carolyn. meeting is adjourned. [gavel]

Transcripts For FOXNEWSW The OReilly Factor 20150612

to do to step up the so far unsuccessful campaign against isis terrorists in iraq. yesterday we learned about a new troop deployment. today, taught by the top brass that there could be more to come. correspondent kevin courk is at the white house tonight. >> reporter: the president's decision to send an additional 450 troops to iraq could signal the beginning of a subtle but important new strategy in the fight against isis. the white house is said to be considered so-called mini bases, known by some as lily pads throughout the country. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff general martin dempsey suggested it could better enable u.s. advisers to work with iraqi security forces in fight against isis "we're looking all the time at whether there might be additional sites. it's another one of the options." additional bases would likelyor the one being built in anbar province. but it's calling into question whether this is a case of mission creep, a slow ramp up of u.s. military involvement. white house officials say no. >> rather than being evidence of mission creep, it would be evidence of some progress in the ongoing mission to support the iraqis as they take the fight to isil on the ground in their own country. >> help the iraqis fight isis. that's the obama doctrine in iraq. but given the spread of isis critics argue the president's plan has failed and adding a few more troops won't do much. >> i think it's a step. but the truth is half measures taken too late are not going to make a difference. that's what this is. >> it's a good start. but he's going to need to stand up and say, look here's going to be the strategy that's going to wipe them out. >> how long will the white house maintain its current posture? some of the president's top military advisers say regardless of attack this will be a long fight. >> we said this is going to take a long time. this is not a three, five-year, the president said five years he said originally. it's a three, five year 10-year problem. >> that the white house insists can be engaged without whose sale changes on the level of troops on the ground. >> the general has a lot of credibility when talking about these issues. the best way i can describe to you the president's position is what he said. >> this latest white house strategy is designed in part to get more sunni iraqis to be involved in the fight against isis. but that has been a decidedly tough sell thus far. bret? >> kevin corke, thank you. a 17-year-old northern virginia honors student is facing 15 years in prison tonight for helping another teen travel to syria to join isis. ali amin pleaded guilty to terrorist charges today. he admitted using twitter to encourage isis and its supporters. the number of cases brought against isis suspects on u.s. soil now stands at 50. an american war hero is facing court-martial over speaking out about a lack of coherent plan to get american hostages out of the middle east. national security correspondent jennifer griffin has the story tonight from the pentagon. good evening, jennifer. >> reporter: good evening, bret. lieutenant colonel jason amarine is a decorated green beret. in 2010 he was asked to look for ways to bring sergeant bowe bergdahl home when army commanders realized there was no coherent way to do so. he testified and how the army retaliated against him for blowing the whistle on a failed u.s. hostage policy. >> juan weinstein is dead. collin rutherford josh boyle, caitlin coleman the child she borne in captivity remain hostages in pakistan. i used every resource available but i failed them. after making protective disclosures to congress the army suspended my clearance, removed me from my job and sought to court-martial me. >> the army won't say why it is investigating him. "both the law and army policy would prohibit initiating an investigation based solely on a soldier's protected communications with congress." lieutenant colonel amarine describes turf battles between the state department, fbi, cia and dod that he says cost the lives of american hostages like warren weinstein, killed in a cia drone strike in january. >> i'm before you because i did my duty and you need to ensure all in uniform can go on doing their duty without fear of reprisal. >> he contacted congressman duncan hunter about his concerns. he says the retaliation began when hunter revealed the military tried and failed to pay a ransom for bergdahl which is against the u.s. law. bret? >> jennifer griffin live at the pentagon. thank you. tonight republican lawmakers are charging that president obama wants control over who lives in your neighborhood. and he's using the power of the purse strings to pursue it. is that true? correspondent rich edson is here with an amazing story tonight. >> reporter: the obama administration is proposing to use the power of the federal government to foster more inclusive communities to reduce the number of towns and neighborhoods that are almost all rich or poor black or white. within the next few weeks, the department of housing and urban development will finalize a regulation to use billions in grant money to influence local governments to build affordable housing and spend on other initiatives in areas supporters say have better schools. other public fa sill tis and infrastructure traditionally wealthier places. opponents charge president obama is threatening to withhold federal grant money to as they say push communities that reject his liberal ideology. in a statement arizona republican congressman paul gosart writes "hud officials shouldn't be holding hostage grant moneys aimed at community improvements based on its unrealistic eutopian ideas of what every community should resemble." in a house committee this morning, the president's hud secretary defended the policy. >> can i get a commitment from you that you are not going to do anything that pre-empts what the municipalitities are doing in their area? that you are not going to go in and make any zoning laws or any rules that are going to pre-empt what cities are going to do? >> i've seen some of this talk about that congresswoman. this is not about changing -- >> yes? >> this is not about changing zoning laws, planning laws anything like that. >> the house has passed an amendment that would halt the hud regulation even though it were to pass the senate the white house would oppose it. >> rich thank you. stocks were up again today. the dow gained 39 s&p 500 finished ahead 4, nasdaq was up 6. the chairman of the corporation that owns fox news channel is preparing to hand over the reins to his son. rupert murdoch will make 42-year-old james murdoch the new ceo of 21st century fox. another son, lockland murdoch, will become executive cochairman along with his father. there are new questions tonight about what bill clinton and the clinton foundation will do if hillary clinton becomes president. chief white house correspondent ed henry who's covering the clinton campaign looks at the possibilities and the controversies. >> as former president bill clinton revealed he may go so far as to step down from the family's foundation in part to help contain political damage for his wife. one of hillary clinton's rivals declared today he does not want to go negative but can't help but believe that groups paying half a million dollars for a speech were trying to curry favor with the couple. >> it's not bill clinton. i have a problem with organizations that are giving out these kinds of huge honorarium. i don't understand why they do it. i suspect they do it to garner favors. >> amid the criticism, the former president told bloomberg television if his wife is elected president, he may step down from the foundation and he will probably no longer give speeches for money. >> i don't think so. i don't think that -- because once you get to be president, then you're just making a daily story. >> if such speeches would be a conflict if hillary clinton is elected president it raises questions about why more red flags were not raised when similar activity occurred while she was secretary of state. as bill clinton tried to deal with the cloud hanging over the foundation by declaring nobody has been able to prove was wrong doing. >> our disclosures are more extensive than most private foundations? yes, they are. having nothing to do with politics. >> reporter: democratic social senator bernie sanders says even he has been surprised by his ability to get huge crowds like 1,000 people in keene, new hampshire this weekend. the presidential candidate used a breakfast this morning to blast hillary clinton for waffling ahead of a key trade vote in the house on friday. >> secretary clinton, if she's against this we need her to speak out right now. right now. and i don't understand how any candidate, democrat republican is not speaking out on that issue. >> reporter: in an exclusive tonight, fox news got new polling information from the conservative group american crossroads. it shows in battle grounds white women in particular seem to be lukewarm on hillary clinton. her image with them 48% favorable, 40% unfavorable. they're hoping to change that with this speech on saturday phase two of the campaign bret. >> ed thank you. up next the manhunt intensifies for two escaped killers in upstate new york. first here's what some of our fox affiliates around the country are covering tonight. fox 10 in phoenix with the recall of about 48,000 acura mdx suvs and rlx sedans. the company says their autonomous braking system can malfunction and put vehicles at risk of collision. so far no incidents or injuries have been reported in the u.s. fox 45 in orlando. a team from seaworld rescued three sandbar sharks involved in a serious accident during transport to new york. the sharks are said to be doing well. a fourth shark, though did not survive. this is a live look at sacramento from our affiliate out in california fox 40. the big story there tonight is a pregnant mom who tried to suck rattlesnake venom from her young son's foot. the boy was bitten while walking along a trail. he's fine. and the venom did not spread to the mom or the unborn child. however, officials say sucking the venom out of a snake bite is not advisable. that's tonight's live look police are concentrating on an area near a maximum security prison in upstate new york in their search for two killers who escaped over the weekend. correspondent molly line is in west platsburg, new york. >> reporter: day six and the hunt intensified after law enforcement say dogs picked up a scent zeroing in on the area from the maximum security prison from which convicted murderers sweat and matt escaped. search teams and choppers as residents near the clinton facility correction facility were told to lock their doors and stay inside. with word of a fresh trail, road blocks increased. law enforcement shutting down a stretch of state route 74. >> we're looking underneath every rock behind every tree and inside every structure until we catch these two. >> reporter: sharon frazier watched helicopters zooming over the wide swath of wilderness from her back porch. >> it's scary to think that these people are out there. >> reporter: schools closed for the day, and families are on edge. amanda dickinson is a mother of two, keeping her children close. >> they've actually been sleeping in our room every night with us so we can keep an eye on them. >> reporter: her husband is an officer at the prison where investigators are still working. >> they've been searching the place top to bottom for anything to make sure there's nothing else going on with any of the inmates. >> reporter: word the escapees may have take an cab ride in philadelphia proved false. while the investigation is expanded to vermont, there's no evidence they reached the neighboring state. meanwhile, prison tailor shop employee joyce mitchell, who investigators say befriended the inmates and may have played a role in their escape has not been arrested. the road blocks remain in place and state police say the public should have no hesitation in calling in if they see any suspicious activity. bret? >> molly, thank you. we'll head back for breaking details. the jockeying for position ahead of the first republican presidential debate is already under way. rick perry is trying to hang onto his spot in the top ten while jeb bush is hanging out with foreign lead nurse a bid to boost his foreign poll credentials. chief crit stall correspondent carl cameron. >> reporter: after laying a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier and meeting with polish leaders, former governor jeb bush said poland wants more military muss nell europe to combat russian aggression and indicates he intends to provide it as president. >> i do think we should expand our presence here through deployments of different training exercises. we ought to have a more significant presence in this region for sure. >> reporter: he suggested it could be several thousand more u.s. troops. bush was also asked to clarify his 1995 book suggesting the number of american kids growing up in single parent homes has been skyrocketing for lack of a social stigma against parents who don't live up to their responsibilities. >> my views have evolved over time. but my views about the importance of dads being involved in the lives of children hasn't changed at all. it's a huge challenge for single moms to raise children in the worlder that we're in today. >> reporter: several bush rivals will be in utah without him this weekend for mitt romney's big off the record mix and mingle with donors. >> one candidate is very different from the others. >> reporter: one week after former texas governor rick perry announced his a candidacy a pac supporting him is launching ads keeping him in top ten in national polls to qualify for the first debate in ohio hosted by fox news channel. perry runs tenth in an average recent poll right now. he would comprise the first debate if the results don't change. there are six candidates behind perry in the first polls looking to knock him out. those who don't make the cut will take place in a forum. qualifying is a priority for all the candidates. bush announces his decision to run monday and goes straight to new hampshire, south carolina. then on tuesday, donald trump announces his decision and hits the early states too. bret? >> carl thank you. coming up shortly, republican presidential candidate carly fiorina joins the panel in our center seat. still ahead, why is the number of abortions way down in the u.s.? it depends on whom you believe. first, the handshaking, arm tugging and promise making surrounding tomorrow's big votes on president obama's trade agenda. ♪ ♪ every backyard comes together around a grill and kingsford charcoal. gather 'round. furious lobbying tonight on both sides of the trade issue. this comes ahead of some key voting tomorrow that could give president obama new power or scuttle his trade agenda. chief congressional correspondent mike emanuel is on capitol hill tonight. >> reporter: a full court press is under way with the white house chief of staff, secretaries of labor and treasury all visiting capitol hill trying to persuade skeptical democrats to back a trade promotion authority package president obama supports. republican leaders say there should be no more excuses for democratic leader nancy pelosi and her colleagues after addressing an issue with trade adjustment assistance or taa. >> i'm pleased to have worked with speaker boehner to pay -- fix the pay in the taa. we still have one concern we have always had, public employees are not included in the taa. >> reporter: republicans call the idea that a government worker's job could be moved overseas after a trade deal nonsense. >> this is a red herring being raised by some of her colleagues. i don't understand where public workers would fall into trade adjustment assistance in any way, shape or form. >> reporter: yet unions are pressing democrats to oppose this trade promotion package, while mr. obama and his team are pushing for support. >> what the president has said is that members of congress should be more concerned about the jobs of americans than their own jobs. >> reporter: what lawmakers are considering is a measure to allow a president to negotiate a free trade agreement. for example with asia. it would set limits and requirements such as making sure congress and the public would get two months to review any proposed trade deal. >> the country needs to see these trade agreements 60 days. oh and you cannot put any immigration in here. you can't put any climate change in a trade agreement. so thissies we want to pass trade promotion authorities. >> reporter: there was a really close call late today on a procedural vote narrowly passing 217-212 with many democrats and some republicans opposed. tomorrow may be a nail biter for house gop leadership and the white house. bret? >> mike emanuel live on the hill. also from the hill tonight, some of the reasons for and reaction to word of a major decrease in abortions in this country. correspondent shannon breen. >> reporter: both sides agree the number of abortions in the u.s. is dropping, though they don't don't necessarily agree about why. >> abortion rates are dropping a third. they are seeing sonograms where they see boys and girls, they see humanity. >> reporter: pro-life advocates point to hundreds of laws passed at the state level over the last few years. some requiring doctors to give women seeking abortions specific information about their pregnancies, and others placing limits on how far into a pregnancy abortions can be performed. pro-choice supporters like planned parenthood president sissy richards disagrees quote better access to birth control and sex education are the biggest factors in reducing unintended pregnancies. she adds more restrictive abortion laws do not reduce the need for abortions." the associated press collected data from across the country and found since 2010 abortions were up in only two states michigan and louisiana. during that same period number of unintended pregnancies remained roughly unchanged. buoyed by their state level successes, pro-life groups are now pushing for a federal limit on abortions after 20 university of phoenix into a pregnancy, a point at which they say unborn children can feel pain. the house has passed its measure, and today 2016 presidential contender senator lindsey graham introduced the companion measure in the senate. >> i hope that we can as americans understand this is a very defining moment in our history. who we are and what we believe. >> reporter: the president has vowed that he will veto this measure if it passes the senate. earlier this year the administration issued a policy statement saying that the bill disregards both women's rights and the constitution. bret? >> shannon breen, thank you. a french prosecutor says the copilot who deliberately crashed a commercial airliner was deemed unfit to fly by several doctors but they could not tell. andre us lubitz's employers because of patient privacy laws. the prosecutor says lubitz had seen seven doctors within the month before the march crash, including three sessions with a psychiatrist. three astronauts are back on solid ground tonight after almost 200 days on the international space station. the trio including american terry verts, landed safely in kazakhstan today nearly a month late. their return was delayed by the failed launch of a russian cargo ship in april. no grapevine tonight. when we come back republican presidential candidate carly fiorina in our center seat. center seat. it is back. tonight we are pleased to have republican presidential candidate carly fiorina in our center seat. joining us on the panel, syndicated columnist george will amy walter national editor for the cook political report and judge andrew napolitano fox news senior judicial analyst. thanks for being here. >> it's my pleasure. thank you for having me. >> we asked twitter followers and facebook followers to send in questions in addition to the panel tonight. here's a couple of them. jjtremmel writes how will she save u.s. jobs when she cut lots of them at hp? how would she restore an aging infrastructure in the u.s.? >> well of course let me address hp. i led hp through a very difficult time. the dotcom bust post 9/11. your questioner may remember that it's taken 15 years for the nasdaq stock technology index to recover from that period. and yet we doubled the size of the company. we grew the growth rate at four times. we tripled innovation. but in a difficult time sometimes difficult decisions are necessary to compete. it's interesting that many of the companies that were our leading competitors at the time no longer exist. i think what we have to realize in the 21st century is that we have to compete for every job. and honestly we're shooting ourselves in the foot all the time. complexity of our tax code and our regulatory structure is now destroying another businesses than we are creating in this country, which means we're destroying jobs. most of the businesses that we're destroying are small and family-owned businesses. that's important because they create two-thirds of the new jobs employ half the people, we also shoot ourselves in the foot when we have the highest tax rate in the world. we shoot ourselves in the foot when we don't have a competitive education system. we have to compete for every job. and the federal government can do a lot to make competing for those jobs harder as it is doing now, or easier. >> so when you hear somebody and some other people al scarpa typed in and called you a failed ceo in the tech industry how do you respond to that? >> well didn't fail. the thing about business is they're numbers. so you can't just talk about it. there's a track record. in my case the track record is undeniable undeniable. we built the company to almost $90 billion. we quinnaudrupled cash flow. went from lagging behind in every product category and every market segment to leading in every product category and every segment. in other words, we competed and we won. it's also true i was fired in a board room brawl that lasted over two weeks. i know having led that you have to challenge the status quo to lead. and when you challenge the status quo, you making am is. which -- making am ie enemies. >> the federal court might rule that the federal subsidies in the affordable health care program is illegal. he will stand on the rose garden saying folks are losing their health insurance. >> i think we clearly need a stopgap measure which as i understand the senate and congress are getting close to so we protect those people who are suddenly in a terrible situation. on the other hand, we need to put forward a long-term solution. we should have done this when hillary care failed. it was a strategic moment when the party should have seized the advantage and put forward a solution. my own view is this. we ought to let states manage high risk pools. states have done this successfully new hampshire is one. the closer you get to those decisions are the better. which is why devolving decisions out of washington to the states makes sense. i also think we need now to try in the health insurance market the one thing we've never tried which is the free market. we have always had regulated oligopolies. we used to have 50. a cozy little arrangement between regulators and insurance company. now we have one big national one. let's try the free market where people have to compete for your business. >> so let's talk about your experience you ran a multinational, multimillion dollar company. but how is that transferrable to running the national government? you're running against folks who have been governors, who have run multibillion dollar or million dollar states. aren't they more suited to be able to take that skill set than you? >> well let's talk about what it actually takes to be in the oval office. what's the skill set you need? i think you need someone who understands the economy. i do. i think better honestly than anyone else running. i started as a secretary. i've been in lots of different business settings. i think you need someone who understands how the world works. i know more world leaders on the stage today than anyone running with the possible exception of hillary clinton although i didn't do photo ops. i sat this close to vladimir putin or the king of jordan or african premieres, african leaders, european leaders latin leaders. we need somebody who understands how bureaucracies become. our government has become one jai giant bloated bureaucracy. technology is an important tool. it's defining our flooifs really amazing ways. some very scary ways. and finally, i think we need someone who understands what leadership is which is not about power and title it's about unlocking the potential of others in this case unlocking the potential of this nation. but who also understands sometimes leadership requires tough calls in tough times for which you're prepared to stand and be held accountable. so i think i'm very qualified. there are other qualified people as well. but i think i bring a unique set of skills and experiences to the table. >> judge we're going to start with you after this quick break. center seat with carly fiorina. we'll talk foreign policy the politics of the day when we come back. and we're back with our panel and republican presidential candidate carlie fiorina in our center seat tonight. judge. >> one of the things you did, carly, when you ran hp and in the years after was how general michael hayden set up the most extensive spy apparatus in the world, one that is capable of intercepting every phone call every e-mail and every text message of everyone in the united states of america. a scheme that four federal judges have found profoundly violates the fourth amendment's requirement of individualized suspicion and one that the justice department has said has not stopped a single terrorist act or aided in a single prosecution of terrorist behavior. are you proud of where that spy system has gotten us today or should it be dialled back? >> well i think you overstate my role with general hayden. but i did have the privilege of serving as the chairman of the advisory board for the central intelligence agency. as you may know i have commented recently on this issue specifically and said that it's not clear to me at all that section 215 has stopped a single terrorist attack. it's also true that when i served as that chairman i advised both the cia and the nsa to be as transparent as possible about everything they were doing. when people don't understand what's going on they fear the worst. so for example, why is section 215 necessary? i agree with you. it has not been proven that it is necessary. what is going on when the nsa builds gigantic data centers in the middle of the country? they need to be as transparent as possible about that. finally i would say, i think this is one of the reasons people are frustrated with the political process. how long have we known the patriot act was going to expire? i don't know. quite awhile. and in the decade or more since 9/11 we've learned a lot about the terrorists. we've learned a lot about technology. we've learned a lot about what the concerns of the american people are. and yet somehow it always comes down to the wire to the last minute. there's grandstanding. and yet there's not a calm deliberation of a solution that would satisfy this balance between privacy and security. >> the president could dial that back with the stroke of a pen. the nsa works for him >> yes he could. >> would you as president? >> well i think we've dialled it back with what just passed. yes, i would certainly be more transparent. yes, i would dial it back somewhat. i do think that sending the responsibilities over to the telephone companies is a bad idea actually. it's not at all clear that they have the capability to do what they're being asked to do. and i think that probably ensures that we will have less transparency going forward, not more. so i think we've ended up with this kind of hodgepodge that doesn't satisfy a lot of anybody right now, unfortunately. >> iraq policy 450 troops added in iraq. is it enough? what would you do? >> well this president it seems to me is always doing too little too late. i mean, he said 3,000 boots on the ground although he's refused to call them boots on the ground. advisers whatever you would call it. he says 3,000 would do it. it hasn't done it. i'm not sure what difference 450 would make. >> are you quoting hillary clinton there? >> there you go. i missed that one, bret. good one. but i think the one thing he hasn't done that i would do immediately is hold a camp david summit. not to talk our arab allies into a very bad deal with iran. we see iran reneging every day. but instead to talk with our arab allies about what they need from us to fight this fight. we've been asked for some very specific things. the kurds have been asking us to arm them for three years. we have not. the egyptians, i remember you visiting president alsizi. they have asked us to share intelligence. we are not. king abdullah of jordan has been asks asking us for bombs and material. we haven't provided them. the saudi, the qatarrys they know this is their fight. they're not going to fight it unless they sent resolve and leadership and support from the united states. and so far they have none of that. that administration continues to say we need to go through the central government in baghdad. there is no central government in baghdad. there's a shia-led government that is in collaboration with iran now. >> george. >> the senate has voted 90-1 saying we reject the policy of containing iran thereby implying that iran unlike the soviet union is not rational enough to be with nuclear weapons deterred. do you agree with that? and if so does that mean that president fiorina would order military strikes on an iran that was acquiring a nuclear capability? >> well i think once again, president obama has continued to give the american people a false choice which is a little bit implied in your question. his false choice is if you don't agree with what i'm doing or not doing, there is no option but to go to war. i think with isis there is an option that we haven't availed ourselves of. like-wise i think that's true with iran. i can remember sitting in netanyahu's office five years ago speaking to him about iran. it was a private meeting. there were no cameras. iran is a clear danger. they've had a strategy to destabilize the region and gain a nuclear weapon for a very long time. i would make two phone calls day one in the oval office. the first to netanyahu. the second would be to the supreme leader of iran. while he might not take my phone call he would get the message. the message would be until and unless you are prepared to open every nuclear facility, every uranium enrichment facility to full unfetterred, anytime, anywhere inspections, we will exact the most punishing financial sanctions we can. we actually have a lot to do with how hard or how easy it is to move money around the financial system. we have used none of that leverage. and we should. and i would also take the recommendation of general james maddus when he was commanding in the middle east. he gave a whole set of recommendations to the white house about how to push back on iran's proxies. we haven't done any of them. we haven't executed a single one of those recommendations. >> amy, you'll start the next panel. next up a lightning round with carly fiorina in our center seat. there structurally? >> well, i think it is not necessary for us to win the caucuses outright to proceed. i think what's most important honestly what's important for me politically is to continue to exceed expectations. continue to build momentum and rise in the polls. and continue to turn that enthusiasm into real support. we are at the process now of beginning to roll out endorsements. we just rolled out a whole series of endorsements in new hampshire. i think you will see that happening in iowa as time goes by. i'm very pleased with the team we have in iowa and the support we're building. what's interesting to me, and it's true in iowa and new hampshire as well, 82% of the american people now think we have a professional political class that is more focused on its own power and privilege than on doing the people's work. that is why i think people are paying attention because i don't come from the political class. but i am a citizen with experience that's relevant. >> do you think very quickly we know what we have two debates coming up. threshold about first tier or second tier. if you don't make it into the first tier would you show up to participate in a second tier debate? >> well, i'm very focused on making it to the first debate. if that were to happen yes i would show up. i think debates are important. they are important for the american people and for me. a lot of people don't know yet who i am. >> you are encouraged about where you are. new bloomberg poll that says feelings toward you favorable 41% unfavorable 19%, not sure 40%. >> i feel pretty good about that shot sure is a reflection of the fact that many people don't know me. in new hampshire the last poll i saw among registered republican primary voters my name i.d. was 4%. and, yet you i recently was at 2% in the polls and now i'm 4% in the polls in new hampshire. that's a lot of -- i see the right trajectory. >> after you, who is the best republican to take on mrs. clinton to expand the base of the party and to appeal to nontraditional republican voters? >> well, i think that's up to others to demonstrate. what i would observe. >> who would you want if it's not you? >> it's not up to me. it's up to the voters. and i am running in this election because i think i can win this job and i think i can do this job. what i would observe is that so far the person who is taking on hillary clinton is me. i think she needs taking on. sometimes the media will ask are doing it because you are a woman and i say no and she is not doing it because she is a woman. she represents a southwest policy and political class that we have had enough of in this nation and i think it's going to be a fight. >> george. >> because the nine supreme court justices are over 75 years old the next president may have decisive effect on shaping the court conservatives are divided. populist conservatives say judges should be deferential to the elected branches of government. constitutional conservatives say no, it should be actively engaged and holding the branches to their enumerated powers. but get into a long seminar on jurisprudence which one of those groups do you most identify with? >> in this case i most identify with the constitutionalist. my father was a federal judge. he was a constitutionalist. i think often of my dad, so i would appoint judges that remind me of my father whether they're men or women. >> the "new york times" has expressed an intense interest in the granular details of the household economics of the rubios. [ laughter ] >> do you have any overdue library books or parking tickets we are going to read about. >> i just released two full years of my tax returns so everybody knows every detail about my personal finances. i believe in being transparent. but, wouldn't it be nice, if the "new york times" would do such a detailed expose on the clinton global initiative or bill or hillary clinton. >> they have done a few pieces. we will see if they continue. you are giving a speech tonight state of women in america. jeff caldwell writes in on twitter why would do the millions of conservative women keep getting ignored. does she, do you you sense the mood is finally changing out there? >> great question. i'm giving the speech because there is no denying that women's potential is not fully utilized in this country. the data is clear. frankly, i think it's time that we take this conversation back. that he we take the term feminist back. to me a feminist is a woman who chooses her own life that we take the conversation back. i'm tired of being told i'm waging a war on women because i don't believe in the litany of the left. >> thank you so much for coming and i'm sure we will see you on the trail. >> all right. >> stick around for kicker part. we have one final thing before we say goodbye to carlie. finally tonight, good to reflect on things you are grateful for every now and then. one week night host made it a weekly tradition. is he is thankful for a lot of things including where pop culture and politics intersecond. >> thank you the final chips in the bag of doritos for remind me i'm not above drinking crumbs. >> thank you people who say there is more one way to skin a cat to make me wonder why you even know the first way. >> thank you the new season of the bachelorette for featuring two women and it a guys or as it's also known the race for president. >> two women and 25 guys. >> pretty funny. >> "saturday night live" too. thank you very much for being center seat and thank you for inviting us into your home tonight. that is it for "special report," fair, balanced and unafraid. greta goes "on the record" right now. ♪ ♪ >> it is friday june 12th. a fox news alert. closing in. blood hounds hot on the trail of the killers. >> shut down for blowing the hidlid off of controversial policies. >> they removed me from my job and sought to court char-martial me. >> why the whistleblower is fighting for the rights of all who serve. >> meet the iraq veteran just ordered to take down the flag. "fox & friends first" starts right now. >> good morning. you are watching "fox & friends first". it is friday morning. i am ainsley earhardt. >> made it to the end of the week. i am heather childers. thank you for starting your day with us. right to the fox news alert. a manhunt for two escaped murderers. new clues overnight as blood hounds track their scents not far from the prison where they broke down. >> residents on edge of the news that they may still be in the area. anna kooiman has been live where they believe they are closing in on the killers. >> reporter: you got it ainsley and heather. good morning to you and all of you at home. we will get a confession from a corrections officer in just a moment. first heading into day 7 of the manhunt authorities say a scent picked up by blood hounds may be their stronger lead in the case as they search for the escaped killers. picking up that scent in new york neighboring this area blood hounds picked up the scent of david sweat and richard matt. they found food print and food wrappers they may have been using to camp. they may have been so desperate they were searching in a garbage can looking for food at a gas station reportedly. meanwhile a tip that the two men were picked up in philadelphia proving to be false yesterday proving the se

Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom Live 20160718

when police arrived, the shooting began. [ inaudible ] >> something you have never seen. it was over as minute. the situation of baton rouge is already very tense after the police involved shooting of officer sterling on july 5th. louisiana police announced they have received threats against officer in the city of baton rouge. >> mathew gerald and montrael jackson and brad garafola were the police officers shot from the attack. again, u.s. president obama condemned all attacks on law enforcement. regardless of motive, the deaths of these three officers under score the dangers of police across the country confront every single day. we as a nation to be loud and clear that nothing justifies violence against law enforcement. attacks on police or attack on all of us. the rule of law that makes society possible. >> cnn's drew griffin had been in baton rouge all day and following the development and he joins me now, what do we know about the person who carried out this shooting. >> reporter: natalie, it is a complicated story. he graduated in high school in kansas city, missouri. he went to the marines, spent five years. deployed in iraq for about seven or eight months and came back and left the marines after five years of service in 2010. and then this person who he is named of gavin long seems to take a change and his wife began posting online. he had joined of what people believed to be radical african-american, black national group. he changed his name last year from gavin long to cosmo sentapenra. he began to post very insighting kind of comments talking about the need to stop protesting and taking action. we'll show you one of those v youtube videos after the police shooting raised so many concerns. this is the person under the name cosmo posted in youtube. >> no words, he does not understand protests. if y'all want to keep protest and doing that. the real ones, the alpha ones, we know what it is going to take. it is only fighting back or money. that's all they care about. revenue and blood. revenue and blood. he also posted you got to fight back. that's the only way bullies know how to quit. he made that post in the city of dallas after the shooting of five police officers there. police here are working under a theory that he rented a car in kansas city and drove to dallas and drove here to baton rouge where he must have chased the police department and knew where those police officers would be coming. the shooting happening just a mile or a mile a half from where i am standing right now in the police station. natalie, it is a confusing picture of this young man. i don't think he did act alone at this point. i am trying to see if he has any associates who may have helped him or might have known about his plan prior to this, so far, there is no indications of that. natalie. >> yeah, he also did this on his birthday which is another dui civil war twist as well. do we know anything more about how this started? there was some reports of police responding to a 911 call, i am not sure if that was done to lure the police in or not? anything on that? >> reporter: yeah, the police are calling it an ambush, we don't have the information specifically on what was that 911 call, was it somebody who saw a man walking down the streets dressed in black carrying a rifle on sunday morning. of course, someone saw that and called 911. was it this killer who called 911 talking about a fictitious shoot out. there was some way he was able to through someone else's 911 call or through his own 91 call to lure police into what was a trap and he just started shooting them when they arrived. three shot dead and three more injured and one tonight as they tried to help him in the hospital. it does look like what the police are calling this is a pure lily an ambush. >> i feel for the community of baton rouge, they have been through a lot. thank you drew. >> it seems like we are talking about these things too often. >> the deaths of police officers again and we are talking about this. police officers, one of them posted on facebook about how tired he was. physically and emotionally, that's unable. >> one day after the dallas police ambush and three days after alton sterling's death. he wrote this on facebook. i swear to god i love this city but i wonder if this city loves me. in uniform, i get nasty and some considered me a threat. i experienced so much in my short lives a and these last th days have tested me to the core. >> just powerful to hear his words and his feelings. >> and he's an african-american police officer shot dead today. >> in this climate of confusion, that's the word earlier, anderson cooper, spoke with johnson. >> this is a tremendous -- he really believed what he was doing and helping people. >> he had a young baby. >> yeah. >> yeah, three or four months old. any time i talk to him, he talked about what he can do and helping baton rouge to be a better city. >> he written a lot in the wake up of alton sterling and the difficulty he's facing. is that something he always wanted to do? >> yes, jose, would tell me that he can be some where that's protected and dedicated and helping people. he's been like that all his life, he's a dedicated young man, that's just the way he was. >> we just saw -- excuse me. >> looking at him and got a new child, my heart goes out. >> absolutely. >> there is more that he wrote on his facebook page that's quite -- >> if anyone wants to check it out. >> the mayor of baton rouge spoke out. >> he says it is up to the public now to support the police and to protect them >> basically, this was a major of gut blow. i mean nobody even expected this to happen. we were whining down from other activities with sterling family and then we started getting into a load of drawing dawn some of the officers that had been working 18 hour as day and s saying we'll relieve you now and this morning, we hit in the face with another incident. >> i call the community to understand, those people kill and injure our first responders, now is our time to be first responders for those who are victims of the sense less killings and let them knowing that we are standing there for them and know that we are not going to let that define baton rouge. >> the mayor of baton rouge pointed out the fact that the city is already struggling in tense place trying to come together from another profile shooting. police involved shooting of alton sterling. >> sterling's aunt pleaded for peace in light of this continuous violence. >> we don't call for no bloodshed. that's how it all started with bloodshed. no more bloodshed. [ cries ] >> please, go home and do whatever. this is our house. you cannot come to our house killing us. that's what you are doing because at the end of the day, these people calling these families and they're telling them that their daddies and mommies are not coming home. i know how that feel because i got the same phone call. no justice. stop this killing. stop this killing. stop this killing. [ cries ] >> your heart goes out to people dealing with so much death in the last several weeks. lets bring in garret, the u.s. congressman from the state of louisiana is joining us live from baton rouge. it is good to have you with us on this day, our deep condolences in your state, you have lost loved ones. before we talk about the person behind all this. lets talk about the people there in that stay cicity and how the coping and what happened. >> we may have an issue of connection. >> reporter: i can barely hear you >> first of all, i want to say thank you for being with us. how are people dealing with this tragic news that's been happening? >> reporter: [ inaudible ] >> we have some audio issues with mr. garret. we'll get back to him in a moment. you are watching cnn special coverage following the police deaths, killings of police officers in the state of louisiana, we'll be right back after this. i have asthma... ...one of many pieces in my life. so when my asthma symptoms kept 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covers your business in more places. so you can take your business just about anywhere. plus, our extended range lte reaches twice as far and it's 4x better in buldings. get more done in more places. switch your business to t-mobile@work today. welcome back to cnn, our special coverage following the breaking news in louisiana, the city of baton rouge, yet, another tragedy from a gunman from missouri ambushed and killed three police officers sunday morning. three other officers were wounded. police received the call of allman carrying a rifle dressed in all black walking along a highway and when police arrived, the shooting started. >> all this was over in minutes. that gunman died in the shoot out with police, keeping in mind the situation, baton rouge is already very tense from the police involved shootings of alton sterling on july 5th. police are receiving threats in the city of baton rouge. brad garafola and montrael jackson and mathew gerald. u.s. president obama calling the shooting in called for and condemn t condemned the attacks on all law enforcement. >> the deaths of these three officers under score police across the country of what they are facing everyday. nothing justify violence against law enforcement. attacks on police or attack on all of us. the rule of law that makes society possible. the president of the united states speaking and now lets go live to baton rouge, our u.s. congressman from the state of louisiana is joining p jous nowe from baton rouge. >> sir, it is good to have thank you, the audio problems happening time to time, deepest condolences in to the families there of our state. before we talk about the person who's behind all this. i do want to ask about the community and that state, how people are coping with all of this? >> reporter: yeah, you know, we have been through some of the worst hurricanes and some of the worst environmental disasters with the oil spills and we dealt with it all here. we have been able to come back and recover. this community is a very, very close knit, people give their shirts off their back to help one another and to have a situation like this in the wake of alton sterling shooting is just awful. it is an effort to the hate and divide the community. you will see quickly that this community is coming back together and not let this affect our future. >> i want to focus on the fact that we don't know much at this point. we don't have any indications of any motive for investigators, this investigation under way, i want to play out what we do know that the person behind this follo follows several conspiracy groups, law enforcement say that he had two websites described himself as a freedom strategy and a mental game coach and nutritionist author and spiritual advisor and he was part of some sort of a black sovereign group. there is a lot of questions about who was at this point. >> reporter: there are certainly are. the bottom line is you can track this thing and think about . police officers came right here to protest police head quarters rather than where they have been having peaceful for the past several days. sir, we appreciate you being with us again. we send our deepest condolences to the families and the people in your state are dealing with so much grieve, thank you sir. cnn's senior law enforcement tom fuentes is joining us now from virginia to talk about what happened, tom, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, the latest information, this was an ambush. police were lured there by a 911 call. what does it say to you? >> now, in the u.s. for many years, we are seeing it in this situation, it is actually been a threat of what i went through rookie police training in 1973 where we heard about calls where police officers were lure todd location and got ambushed. it is relatively new at the recent times. >> it is one more thing that police officers have to think about. >> i want to talk to you about that, louisiana, just had a statewide conference to talk about the increase sense of vigilance and police said they have to maintain and protect and serve despite the tensions and what about that? how should they be doing their jobs right now? >> well, it is very difficult because we cannot, you know, we had isis for two years of messages killing police officers and we have the attack of new york police officers with a hatchet a year and a half ago. a militia group in -- and now we have individuals or black group inspired to say avenge black people who have been shot by police. and in their minds by killing white police officers or for that matter, police officers. >> there is any time that needs to be a sense of trusts on both sides or a sense of respect on both sides or perhaps is now you use a lot of examples where police officers have a lot of threats that get them. the question is how do we get there right now? this was a u.s. marine for certain reasons decided to take his anger out in a violent way and kill people >> yeah, that's true. we heard so much in this country about community policing and dallas policing and one of the most extensive and successful police program in the world and yet the shooter that went and attack and kill dallas police officers last week lives in another town and the suburbs in dallas. >> and in baton rouge, you know, we don't know and we hear that the relations are as good with the community and with the police in baton rouge. this shooter came from kansas ci city, missouri, hundreds of miles away. police at the local level can do a great deal in the community to try to win trust. when you have people driving hundreds of miles to attack officer in a town they have no ifi affiliations or any connections, i don't know how to fight that. >> we heard from president obama and even donald trump that says our country is divided. these are difficult times right now. we appreciate your support there. >> thank you, natalie. >> we don't know the real motivation of this shooter, they're going dak bback to his and investigate there. there is a lot of people going in different directions. we are waiting for investigators to tell us the motives and beginning to follow the breaking news there. in turkey, the president of that nation saying he won't rule out providing the death penalties for people's behind friday's coop. a funeral on sunday for some of the people killed in the uprising there. at least 290 people died in the coup atestimony. attempt. >> cnn is live in turkey, it is good to have you at this hour ian. investigation is under way and as who's behind coup and people who have been arrested and now the president is considering bringing back the death penalty. >> reporter: well, that's right, we heard that yesterday speaking at a rally and it was the people who started chanting "we want the death penalty," they're the ones saying he cannot ignore the will of the people. they are considering bringing back the death penalty which had been out lawed in turkey or those people responsible for this coup. now, we are hearing at least 6,000 people who have been arrested and in relations with this coup and a lot of people are wondering exactly who are these people exactly and a lot of them are soldiers but there are other people that have been arrested as well. erdogan is also calling for supporters to continue in the street. do what you need to do in the day go to work but at night, we need you out in the streets at night. we saw them texting on the streets of is stantanbul or hon their horns or waving their flags, chanting. for now at least of what you are hearing from the president, it does not seem like we are out of the woods yet. they need that street support, george. >> yes, the failed coupe atte a showing of the division. many critics did not support the president. this is the opportunity where mr. ergogan -- the question that we have for you coming out of this seemingly stronger. >> reporter: oh, definitely, from what people have been saying of what people are seeing him acting is that it has not beholden him and strengthen his position. when you look at the opposition for the most part and political party, this incident is a lose for them. you have ergogan -- they support the democratic process here in turkey but at the same time when erdogan landed in istanbul, he said it was different from god. what that exactly means, we are not sure. a lot of people believe that he meant that this is only going to encouraged him to out his power here, something he's trying to do here. >> ian lee, is live for us in istanbul. we appreciate your report there. >> we have much more on the deadly police ambush in baton rouge including if gunman of his conspiracy group that he's following. more is coming up here. you are watching "cnn news room." ♪ ♪ you live life your way. we can help you retire your way, too. financial guidance while you're mastering life. from chase. so you can. this is cnn breaking news. >> welcome back, we are live with natalie allen. >> i am george howell. >> u.s. authorities are investigating a motive of the gunman who shot and killed three police officers in baton rouge. gavin long was very active, identifying himself with black separatist movement. there is no indication he was directed by any particular group. he followed several conspiracy groups that of monitoring. law enforcement said he had two websites where he described himself as a freedom strike tat. >> three officers have been identified, mathew gerald and montrael jackson and brad garafola. >> one officer is wounded and another one is in grave condition. >> nothing justify violence against law enforcement. >> it appears that the -- he also went by the nick name of cosmo setepenra and wrote books under that name. one law enforcement source says the gunman appeared to be paranoid. >> he was on a bunch of different websites and joined a different groups that are strange when luke at tyou look names of these groups. it appears that this individual is suffered from some type of paranoia and you put that together with him traveling to dallas and him posting information how he admired the dallas shooter and we had him coming over to baton rouge, another flash point location in the country right now and committed this horrendous act. we have been concerned about copy cats and we talk about them every single time after every one of these scenario and here is one primary example. >> lets get to cedric alexander, joining us live, it is good to have you. the former background of the national president of the executive and here in dekalb. i want to ask, sir, the simple fact that this happens and our concern of copy cats, your thoughts there. >> any time we are concerned that there will be others who'll come and attempt to do the same type of thing. that's a concern of law enforcement, now, we are in a place of where we are in america of things that's going around, it is important that we remain vigilant for our officers out there. we want to make sure that we as community members give them all the support they needed, a challenging time and not just their loss. >> the law enforcement that suffered last week and as of today. all supporters are needed for the community going forward >> it is interesting because we are at a point of this investigation where we really don't have a great deal to gleam from motive. is there anything that you are hearing from your sources or any background that you are getting on this? >> no, i think what we have to do is patiently wait and allow this investigation to evolve overtime. each day we are going to learn more and more about who this shooter was. we gathered a lot of information just today. what was his motivation to lure those officers into that location and appeared to look that way. >> each day that goes by, we are going to learn more and more about what the motivation of this shooter was. >> i want to also ask you of your thoughts because when you look at the picture of who the person behind this was, there is a lot to unpackaged, you get the sense that he was part of a black separatist group and at the same time he connected and following to group suggested of paranoia. what do you make of what we know about him at this point? >> a little gross analysis of him where i put my psychologist hat on, george, there is clearly some indication of some emotion emotional disturbance from him if you look at his writing that posted. they did not make much sense, he was disoriented all over the place or disorganized and associated himself with all types of groups of some sort of fashion. i think in the end of it all, i would fairly guess that he probably had some psychological emotional issues that were going on and that were positioning to the shooting today. where it began, we don't know. we also talk about an individual that just a few years ago, finished high school and served five years in the united states, marine core was discharged and all of a sudden we find this and it is very unbelievable because those officers that lost their lives today served their country and their community. they loved their community and they're in baton rouge and even though this is a challenging time for law enforcement in this country, -- it was a sense less death and officers knew that they were targeted today. we are going to have to pick up where we are as a nation, gor george, to move forward. it is going to take the police and the community to do so. >> cedric, sir, if we'll just put the images there of those officers killed today. >> many people are jumping the gun and trying to understand who the gunman was and what the motive is. we simply don't know and the moment right now is simply to remember these officers were killed. cedric alexander, live, thank you sir. >> thank you for having me. >> the presumptive nominee are responding to the shooting >> donald trump made his tv route with his new running mate, more on politics right now with sarah murray. >> donald trump and hillary clinton sharply condemned the killings of police officers in baton rouge today. another horrific shootings scrambled the landscape. >> clinton released a statement there is no justification for violence and for hate and for attacks to our law enforcement who put their lives everyday for us. >> trump took part, we are trying to fight isis and now our own people are killing our police. the country is divided and the world is watching. and his new running mate, mike pence. they are most prepared to take on security threat. tr >> we have to wipe out isis. >> with troop ons ts on the gro. >> one of the big reasons that it shows -- so many people have said party unity because of outsiders. >> evpence's campaigning, something trump said he won't pressure pence to take part in. >> i call her crooked hillary, she's crooked hillary. i didn't ask him to do it but i don't think he should do it because it is different for him. >> reince priebus says those splits are different for the ticket. >> people want strength and people love that about donald trump. it is good reassuring to see a diversity and style. >> a long time pence's ally, jeff caldwell echoing that sentiment in an interview of cnn. trump had second thought about his vp pick. >> this is the most important decision that any president nominee makes and he wants to take time and be sure of that selection and he's feeling comfortable with mike pence and they're going to be a great president and vice president. >> sarah murray reporting there for us at the convention kickoff here on monday. >> and here in cleveland, people have a right to heard but not to march anywhere they want. we'll tell you how city plans to keep a lid on the protests at the national convention and the nice attack. next. ♪ ♪ (vo) you can pass down a subaru forester. (dad) she's all yours. (vo) but you get to keep the memories. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. mary buys a little lamb. one of millions of orders on this company's servers. accessible by thousands of suppliers and employees globally. but with cyber threats on the rise, mary's data could be under attack. with the help of at&t, and security that senses and mitigates cyber threats, their critical data is safer than ever. giving them the agility to be open & secure. because no one knows & like at&t. thought i told you to stay off our turf. and what would you know about turf, skipper? let's end this here and now! let's dance! flo: whoa there! progressive covers boaand rvs, okay? plenty of policies to go around. [ grunts ] oh, oh, i'm the bad guy? you threw a fish at us, so, yeah. yeah. coverage for land and sea. now, that's progressive. by switching to xfinity x1. rio olympic games show me gymnastics. x1 lets you search by sport, watch nbc's highlights and catch every live event on your tv with nbc sports live extra. i'm getting ready. are you? x1 will change the way you experience nbcuniversal's coverage of the rio olympic games. call or go online today to switch to x1. welcome back to cnn news room, we are learning more of the investigation in the massacre in nice, france. french authorities arrested the albanium couple. six people are in custody. the suspect's ex-wife was released on wednesday without charging. >> mohamed lahouaiej bouhlel drove into the crowd. 84 is the death toll right now. more than 200 was injured and sh bouhlel was shot to death by police. >> it is good to have you with us. if you can just explain to our viewer in the u.s. and around the world of the mood of people in nice and throughout france. how are the french coming together regarding to what happened there? >> well, i was pretty struck walking here. there is a huge crowd coming down to see the flowers here. the other crowds here, when you look down the promenade, there is these patches of memorials and flowers where all the bodies laid after the attack on thursday night and it really brings home and of what happen that evening. you can see children -- a truck running people over, it is really quite -- people are coming here and laying flowers on the beach in memory and a moment of silence as well. ten members of one congregation of one mosque, all perished in the attack. i any people are just still in shock. it is sinking in here and you can see some of the emotions. meanwhile our investigation continues and we find out more of the attacker himself. >> mohamed lahouaiej bouhlel was a delivery driver with a wife and three children. in march he drew a wooden palette at another driver. he got a six months suspended prison sentence. i told myself i did my job. if i had done my job badly he might have been in prison and would have never done what he did. he's struggled with a sense of guilt and shock. >> he did have a record of domestic violence and accused of beating and humiliating his estranged wife. there was nothing that would suggest of jihadist. he said the attacker did not stand out in the crowd and would not have raised any suspicious when prosecutors say he came here to the promenade, not once but twice in the days leading up to the attack. >> his brother took a picture of himself that night looking happy in the crowd. prosecutors say mohamed lahouaiej bouhlel sent a message to someone telling them to "bring more weapons." police are questioning several people. those who knew bouhlel says he began to speak in communicating with isis. >> he was never religious and never in a watch list. he likely radicalized rapidly committing the worst terror attack in history. nobody and not even his lawyer saw it coming. nice, france, will ripley. >> a big debate is coming around this and running up to an election here in france. this is all the discussions about security and immigration rolling in place and services are wide reprekusson here. >> thank you for your reporting >> isis u.s. secretary of state john kerry told cnn the terror group is losing ground, though, and these random acts are a sign it is feeling threatened. >> people are acting out in various places, but they are not growing in their ability to do things. they are shrinking. we've taken back 40%, 45% of the territory they held in iraq. we're squeezing town after town. we've liberated communities. we're making progress now advancing on mosul in syria. likewise they're not able to attack and hold towns. they are on the run. and i believe what we're seeing are the desperate actions of an entity that sees the noose closing around it. >> kerry also told cnn's jake tapper that the u.s. had no knowledge of the terror suspect before this attack there in nice. let's talk now about the republican national convention, set to begin in just hours in cleveland, ohio. thousands of people expected to take part in protests there. we'll show you how city officials plan to keep them out of the arena and in the zone, as it is. we'll explain that when "cnn newsroom" continues. o the shark! squuuuack, let's feed him to the sharks! yay! and take all of his gold! and take all of his gold! ya! and hide it from the crew! ya...? 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you may have ibs. ask your doctor if non-prescription ibgard is right for you. ibgard calms the angry gut. available at cvs, walgreens and rite aid. we've been talking about the conventions for months, and now they're happening. just hours from now republicans converge on cleveland, ohio where they're expected to nominate donald trump for president. >> at the same time large protests, they are expected outside that arena. it's better known as the q there in cleveland. and martin savidge explains how officials plan to control demonstrators without stepping on their right to be heard. >> reporter: establishing a protest zone in cleveland hasn't been easy. because you run up against two very different ideas -- security versus freedom of speech. but eventually there was a compromise. west 20th and lorraine where at least it all starts. it's got access to public transportation and a wide open area. but from here you don't see the q unless you're up at altitude, like we are now. across the valley, over the river. which is why demonstrators will be allowed to march or parade about a mile and 3/4 toward downtown over a predetermined route that took months of negotiation. that is one of the guardians of transportation. it's a unique architectural feature of this beautiful art deco 1932 bridge. and the protesters could come right over this, and they get a great view of the q, but they can't get near it. and from a security point of view it works out. they're hemmed in. now, if there's going to be trouble, it's on the other side. there is no law specifically stating how close demonstrators must be able to approach. court rulings have said it should be close enough for them to be seen and heard. this is the closest that the demonstrators will be able to get to the quicken loans arena. we're right at the end of the bridge we just crossed over. from here they're supposed to turn and veer off in the opposite direction. something they're potentially not likely to do. because they want to be seen and heard. and this is also where the police presence is likely to be very heavy. and that's why there's a good chance if there is conflict it's going to happen right here, because the demonstrators will be pushing in and of course law enforcement will be pushing back. the police say as long as everyone reminds peaceful it won't be a problem. but if that changes they also say they'll be ready. martin savidge, cnn, cleveland. >> we'll have more of our breaking news coverage in the next hour. i'm natalie allen. >> and i'm george howell. stay with cnn. so you can take your business just about anywhere. plus, our extended range lte reaches twice as far and it's 4x better in buldings. get more done in more places. switch your business to t-mobile@work today. sorry, just getting a quote on motorcycle insurance from progressive. yeah? 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