Black americans being stopped proportionately more in San Francisco as well as hispanics versus whites . Were you given any of that data. Im sorry. Our study was about connecticut, so im not sure i understand the question. Were you given any information about San Franciscos data, in terms of use of force . Yes, it was. The San Francisco data was shared with us, and i didnt have a chance to study it in detail, but it was my understanding that it is my understanding that in San Francisco as in most other u. S. Cities, African Americans are more likely to be relate use of force situations, even when you take into account higher arrest rates. Commissioner ong hing. Commissioner, you alluded a second ago to under reporting, and when i read your report, it seemed like you were well, maybe im reading into this, were you surprised at the level of under reporting, and what did you discover anecdotally about the under reporting . Well, its not so much that im going to i believe we discuss this at page 35 of the report, and im just flipping through it. Page 32 bottom of page 32 of our report. We had so this was the first year in which Police Departments were reporting. Before this, it had not been required by law, and i dont think we should assume that under reporting was the result of anything strategic or nefarious on the part of the police department. Police departments had different understanding whether they were required to report every single incident in which the tazer was arched arched or cited, when they gave someone a shock. In other words there were studies in large cities where only reported incidents where someone was tased, and so i think there was some confusion in 2015 about what kind of reporting was required. As a result, it seemed to be inconsistent, and we assumed it was incomplete. But to the extent that the case incident report showed discrepancies between what had been reported in the tazer reporting forum, the case incident report, we also found a trend by which the case incident reports tended to show more tazer deployment than tazer deployment that were indicated in the form, and that was troubling because we cant see those mistakes that happened in the other direction, but i think on the whole, there was confusion about the Police Departments, about whether they what exactly they were supposed to report, especially when it comes to tazers that were shown to people without being used. Thank you. Commissioners, any further questions . All right. Miss buchanan, thank you for your time. Thank you all for listening to me, and i wish you well in your decision making. Thank you. The next speaker is sergeant joe vigil. [ inaudible ]. Excuse me. If you have something to say, please tell it to the sheriffs officers. Theyll be glad to convey any message. Sergeant vigil. Thank you so much for the commissioners to having me tonight. Thank you to everyone in the audience for listening to what i have to say. My name is Sergeant Joseph vigil. Im a Police Sergeant with the Richmond Police department right across the bay. Ive spent any last nine years working in the city of richmond. I am one of our lead defensive Tactics Instructors. Throughout the course of my career, ive been a training officer, a detective, a sergeant, and i instruct in different areas having to do with policing. Tonight, im going to talk to you about the tazer and how we use it in our city. I have some statistics, and ill go over some of our policy stuff with you as well as over sight. Since i started working with richmond, i carried the tazer with me. It predated me to arriving in richmond, so it was already in service when i got there. When it first came into service in richmond, it was only issued to sergeants for a test period. After the test period, it was issued to all the officers. The tazer that we carrie currently are the x26ps. They are detectiveirectly linkr cameras with a 30 second buffer, so anyone wearing a camera with a tazer, if its within the radius, any time the tazer goes into the on position, every camera automatically starts recording with a 30 second buffer. We carry the x26 tazers. Theyre bright yellow. We carrie the cartridges with bright green blast doors, and our department only authorizes us to carrie the tazer on our nondominant hand, so therell never be an issue of going for the tazer and pulling your gun because its on the opposite side of your body. Our tazer operates in two different modes drive stun where you activate the tazer to press the trigger, or the blast doors on the tazer cartridge, where you can touch stun someone essentially, and they feel the effects in localized pain in the area of being touch. The other mode we out williuti in is the probe mode. There were several different links for tazer cartridges. The ones we issue range between 20 feet, 25 feet, up to 30 feet. So any time we have a tazer incident, it gets reported at every level, and it has to be approved at every level before it moves up the chain of command, so if i have two officers who use a tazer on a detail, they automatically report it to me or to the team sergeant, who then enters that information into the a Computer System that tracks uses of force. Now i understand every department tracks force differently, every department has different use of force definitions. For the purpose of our department and how we track force, any time the tazer comes out of the holster, its activated or threatened to be used on anyone, thats force, so that gets documented in our system. After the sergeant is made aware, all the information gets inputted, and it gets forwarded to the lieutenant. The lieutenant and the sergeant both review independentally of each other for any thing justified in the incident. Theyre look are info lookin for, is the force justified . Was the force reasonable for the force being used. That gets forwarded to our civilian committee. They all see the same information when it gets forwarded from the sergeant to it lieutenant. Any time we have a tazer deployment whether its a drive stun or its in probe mode, our policy states that individual will be medically treated and medically cleared, whether theyre being placed on a medical evaluation or booked in the county jail, as well as immediately after the incident. Thats something weve been training our officers on for the last couple years, and its nothing thats going to change moving forward, so in essence, if the tazer is used, as well as any other force, as soon as the individual is subdued, officers are to immediately start first aid, whether it be putting someone in a recovery position, attending any visual injuries, or just a verbal checking out, hey, are you okay . Take a couple seconds, and then, walking them through any force that was used, helping them cope with the after effects. I talked a little bit about training. Our training protocol has been the same ever since a became a defensive Tactics Instructor with richmond. We follow the tazer or axiom tradition for training. For the purpose of our department, we made changes to it and added to it. So before we issue a tazer to someone, that officer has to sit in a class. Its a combination of lecture, video, and then, we add to it practical application, instruction drills, as well as to maintain the tazer to prevent issues in the future. That way we can determine if theres an issue with the tazer, we can try to diagnose whats wrong with it. That way, were not putting tazers into service that in essence will not work, will not function properly. As well as our regular eight hour training when we first issue that, that then becomes a part of our continued use of force training, whether it be on a monthly or yearly basis. We have defensive Tactics Training every year on a yearly basis for our department so everyone gets trained the same way. Tazer is incorporated into our lethal or less than lethal force training that we have every month, and it differs from month to month, so just because we have certain training for one month, that doesnt necessarily mean the tazer will be incorporated that training, but it does happen in other months thatll supersede the year, so officers are always training with it and inspecting it to ensure that its used properly. So real quick, im just going to take a second to talk about how or policy is written and how its written in the report system. Our policy mirrors state law, and it mimics axiom about tazer training, tazer law, and after action care which is also in place in our policy. And at every level, it gets reviewed after incident. Even a if the tazer is outilized and not taken in drive stun mode, it still gets looked at by the captain. I also had the privilege of sitting on our use of force review board. All of our uses are captured every month. We get a copy of that every month to review, along with all the video that was captured of that incident, so its my job to package these and prepare them for the use of force review board. We meet every month, we review every case of force for every month, and we ask the same questions that have already been asked to ensure that were utilizing the lowest level of force, as well as using it properly within policy and within state law. Any any issues that come up are addressed immediately, and i would just like to finish with just some stats to kind of put things into perspective. So were richmond. Were a smaller city than San Francisco. Our population just under 100,000. For the year of 2016, we averaged just under 260,000 calls for service. Of those 260,000 calls for service, we had 164 calls positive use of force incidents. Of those 174 incidents, the tazer was used 12 times. Out of the 12 times the tazer was used, four times it took more than one cycle of the tazer to work. Of the four times, one time the tazer was ineffective, and it was due to heavy clothes. In that same period of 174 use of force incidents, there were 15 tazer give ups. That means the tazer was presented, the officer made an announcement, hey, youre going to get tased if you dont stop, and the individual complied, and for us, voluntary compliance is what were always trying to get. Even though 2017 isnt over yet, weve had 194,000 calls for service, weve had 107 use of force incidents. In that, weve had 14 tazer give ups. Where the officer made a warning, and the individual complied. There were 12 incidents where the tazer was used. Of those, we had seven incidents where the tazer was ineffective because the officer was too close to the individual, two individuals where the officer was too far from the individual. One incident was a dog. Two incidents had no effect because of improper placement and large clothing, and then one incident, the tazer failed, and the officer followed up with a drive stun because of poor placement. All right. Thank you, commissioner. Thank you, sergeant vigil. Mr. Lionisio . Good evening, mr. Lionisio. Sarmg, i believe if theres questions though, theyll ask you to come back later. Thanks. Good evening, mr. President , commissioners, chief. I want to thank you for having me back. My third visit with you speaking about these issues. I guess whats really kind of what i want to rely today is through this process, there have been a lot of different questions asked, and i think as i stand here today, a lot of the questions that have been asked regarding the efficacy of these weapons really havent been answered. Theres been a lot of talk, theres been a lot of talk of studies that have been done, but so far, everything that ive seen on the studies, they all apply to the old weapon platform. Very, very little that ive seen applies to the weapon that San Francisco p. D. Would be adopting, so again, its interesting to see how effective and how safe the researchers found the old weapons, but those weapons are no longer made. So i guess my biggest concern is the fact that weve, what, spent months in this process, and i dont see where were really any further along than we were in the beginning. The only studies independent studies that im aware of at this point are the study from the u. K. , the study from lapd if you call that a study. Its more of a report and both of those actually call into question the efficacy of this weapon. So i just i wish i could stand here and give you a lot of new information about this weapon and the studies that ive seen since the last time i was here, but ive been searching and searching and there really isnt much out there. So again, i just see that we are we really havent progressed in the debate to the point where i would have expected, at this point, unfortunately. Like i say, i dont really have a whole lot of Additional Information to offer because this really isnt any, and short of some independent research that could validate and or confirm the efficacy of these weapons, i just its something that when youre reporting 50 failure, when youre reporting 50 electrical output, when you are basically creating conditions around the country where the inventor, mr. Rick smith, he predicted that in 15 years ago in his patent writing. He, in great detail, described what would happen when an ineffective weapon was used on a motivated individual; and what he reported 15 years ago is exactly what were seeing in the cases of failure today, so again, i wish i had some some pearls of wisdom to bring to the commission, but since we last met, i have been searching and searching for more data to either confirm or deny the efficacy of these weapons, and there just isnt any out there. Ive only used five minutes of my time, but i really dont see where i have a lot more to say, unfortunately. Okay. Thank you, mr. Lionisio. Thank you. Next speaker is mr. Michael brave. Good evening, mr. Brave. How are you, sir . [ inaudible ] im going to get started while shes setting this up. Mr. Chair, commissioners, thank you for having me here. If theres any questions i can answer for you tonight, thats he what i will do. My prince position with axion is to follow up just very briefly on mr. Lionisios statement, the platform that the x 2 is based on, first came out with the x 3 in mid2009. The mid2 came out in mid2011. There have been over 220,000 x 2 units that are in the field, and as far as united kingdom, in their study, they have now fielded 200,000 x 2s, and those are the numbers as i stand here tonight. Just a few things to go through and the down arrow is not working. Because the num lock was on. Just a couple of things. I think we all agree that were looking to go with the standard thats he announce i didnt telled by the United Nations, which is the minimum force necessary to obtain the objectives. I think thats the way to go, but that is the United Nations thats been in place for a couple of decades. In doing that, were looking to help officers with the right equipment to make the right decision under the totality of circumstances that theyre faced with. Part of that is to help them lower the foreseeability of probable injury when they have to use force, and if you look at the numbers, the numbers are real simple. For every 71 encounters with uses of force by police officers, there will be one those are the numbers, theyve been published, theyve been around for a long time. What i wanted to address with you very briefly that i was asked to do is independent of cew studies, use of cew studies on those are alcohol or drug effects, effectiveness versus constitutional law, and effectiveness that negates the use of force. As written in 2010 by the International Association of chiefs of police when they were putting out their policy, which is in the present process of being replaced, but at that time, they looked at 4 Research Papers on tazer devices. Seven of those were somehow tied to the manufacturer. Secondly, when it comes to electricity of the human body, this has been researched now for 120 years. There are many, many papers on this, and when you think about who does research on manufacturers products, whether it be bayer aspirin or whether it be your car or anything else, its the manufacturer that does it. The bottom line is tazer weapons have had more independent research on them than any other force option, and any other theyve had more independent research than any other force option, and of course there are hundreds of papers, studies, etcetera that have been public hirschshed on those that im going to speak on tonight, none have been published or researched by exxon. Across six universities published by the u. S. Department of justice, they looked at 1,201 cases, and they found there were no injuries or mild injuries in 99. 7 of incidents. When they first went to them in housto houston the tazer, because of what it can do, is the ideal weapon that when officers are forced to attempt to control someone who is not in their rational thought is the device, and the reason why is real simple. Im also a police officer, im a police trainer. Ive been certified to teach every weapon available to street Law Enforcement officers and still am. Its real simple. Use of force weapons create one of two way either a, you cause sufficient pain to cause them to comply, or b, you cause sufficient trauma to get them to comply. The tazer device is the only option that allows you with an adequate probe spread under the circumstances that you are very much aware of to take away their volitional muscle control, and when you take away their volitional muscle control, it allows you to control, capture, and restrain them, and if necessary present them for medical attention without the need of additional force. Thats why when you look at the studies that have been done on people that are in agitated states, are in excited states of delirium, there have been numerous papers that have been written that basically say the tazer, when used in probe 340ed with adequate probe spread is the optimal force tool. Now, obviously you want to use it as little as possible, but if your goal is to get someone whos completely out of control under control, the best way to do that is take away their volitional control as quickly as possible. The verdict study, again, not done by tazer, shows that for less restrictive policies, you can drop Fatal Police Shootings by two thirds. Use of cews heres one kpamp will. This was a recent book chapter that was published, use commonly in the prehospital setting, and increasingly used to control violent and aggressive individuals while maintaining a margin of safety as well as to reduce the need for impact weapons or injuries associated with their u