Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20171124

Mor more engrained. Just so im clear, we can rule on it, but they cant use it. Yes. Do you second that . I second that. It sounds logical. Okay. Now, lets have some discussion. Commissioner mazzucco . Yes. I just seconded the motion. I tell the public i want to thank everybody for their input. I, too, did receive a lot of information from other organizations, northern station, there was a survey of is 37 people, 95 were in favor. I dont like to put in numbers, how many were in favor, how many were not. As a commissioner, when i first heard it, i had some concerns. Well, wed like to have some more crisis intervention training, wed like to have video. All our officers have cameras. The cameras all have videos. Crisis intervention training, over 900 officers are fully c. I. T. Trained, and by the time this is implemented i think it will be closer to 1300, which is the majority of officers that are out on the streets. This is working, and im very proud of how our officers have changed that dynamic, so those things have happened that lead me to believe this is a wise decision. The department of justice who came to review us has suggested we do this. In conversations with many people from the department offus i s justice, could be believe believe we didnt have this. Our San Francisco sheriffs department, sheriffs deputies have tazers, and theres been no problems. Our city attorneys used to dale with it and been working with it. It bears out that this resulted in fewer injures to both officers and those involved on the other side. I truly hope and pray that we never have to use these devices, deescalation works, but the reality is id like to see these weapons used in the rare circumstance when the only thing left is to use a firearm, so i think thats when its appropriate, so i think watching this department make Great Strides with 5 poipt 01, i think its appropriate that we go forward with this, and go forward continuing to protect the members of this city and the members of the San Francisco Police Department, so i want to thank everybody for their time and effort, and i want to tell you weve made Great Strides. Some of you say theres a delta between the two of you. I ask you to reach out to them, because there is a different dynamic. I do want to clarify, the remarks with the San Francisco bar association. I love the work that julie tran has done, however, the committees remarks doesnt reflect the remarks of the people that ive spoken to, but i do admire the work that youve done, and so for those reasons, i think we should move forward with this program. Commissioner ong hing. Im going to vote no on this motion. The decision to vote no, actually, is quite easy for me, and ill explain why in a minute, but announcing it is actually difficult because in the relatively brief time that ive been on the commission, ive ive come to get to know many members of the Police Department, get to know them and to respect them a great deal in terms of what their goals are and what their approaches are, and and i i think theyre very much a credit to the city, and i i firmly believe that. It would be easy enough to it would be easy enough to vote no for relatively simple things that folks have talked about today and that weve all learned about in the last several months, that theres very credible studies that the adoption of tazers actually increases death rates, that just the cost. Once we got a handle on it, its going to he very high. The financial cost is going to be a very steep investment that, in my opinion, the money could be better spent. Theres deep concerns that i have over the the ineffectiveness of the weapons and the failure rate. Even if its not half failure rate, the failure rates that have been cited even by those supporters have been pretty bad, to be honest with you, and the limitations of when tazers should be used, theyre vast, and so its very easy to be focused on those. The Racial Disparity in the use of the tazers, unfortunately, theres data about our own department ea s racialization of policing in San Francisco, and thats very disturbing. The potential to disrupt and interrupt a deescalation and use of force and time and distance strategies that that the amended motion spoke to. It would be simple enough just to hang my hat on those types of factors to vote against it, but ill be honest with you, the main reason im voting against it is because of the message that it sends to the community. I have a duty as a member of the commissiondpsh a and i the Police Officers in this room to understand why im saying no. Its not meant as disrespect to you, its meant as an exercise of my duty to Public Safety in San Francisco, and a huge part of Public Safety has to do with the trust of the community, and i the community that i worry about the communities that i worry about are those elements of the community that are the most likely to be victims of tazers. Without seeing the hundred letters that commissioner melara assigned alluded to, i very seriously doubt if theyre representative of the communities that are actually going to be victimized by tazers. Its the wrong message to be sending to the community to adopt tazers right now. Itll itll put us so far back in terms of the achievements that this this department has made with respect to the credibility that this department is advancing and working toward, and and it is its its out of that sense of duty to the entire community of San Francisco that i oppose this motion. Commissioner marshall. So we both talk about the 13 years and the 13 times ive been here for all 13 years and more times, and one of the great things about being on the commission and being an individual is the perspective you have on everything, so ill begin sha begin im not going to say how i vote. You might be able to figure it out. What falls flat with me a little bit is the timing of when to have them. When the department was not progressing, it was not a good time to have them. When the department is progressing, its not a good time to have them. I would not be surprised that when the department is in very good shape, it would not be the time to have them because what ive heard is that people just dont like tazers. A lot of people there i think i heard a statement put pretty well it will never be the time to have them. So so time doesnt matter to me. The time, there is no the time. You have to decide whether youre going to have them or youre not, and this just may be somebody that runs a nonprofit and has a board like my board to support me. They support my direction and what i think is best for my organization. As a board member here, if my chief speaking is a good thing to have and his experience, i listen to that; and, you know, when i hear the community how many people in this city in 800,000 . Everybody thinks they have their slice of the community. Whoever their following is the community. Ive heard so many different voices, so many different things, i happen to think personally that this department has come so far so fast, its moving forward at lightning speed. I actually dont think its a set back. I do not at all. I have a lot of faith in this department, and one of the great things ive heard, and nice thing ive heard is i do have an example its done in a way that did not produce oakland, when you said zero, that means there is a way to do it right or right as it can be done, so you could probably figure out where im going with this, where my head is at, so those are my comments before we take the vote, and you will know what that is shortly. Are you ready . All right. Commissioner dejesus. I have to say, i think its incredibly sad in this age of trumps and black lives matters, our own officer involved five shootings of minorities and mentally ill that this commission is seriously considering voting for tazers after all these years. You know, i was hoping this commission would do the right things. Theres cameras rolled out, were having issues on the cameras, and more important, i just found out tonight, were just talking about c. I. T. Training of 10 hours. Its a shame, and i think we should give the measures that we put in place a chance. Theyve never answered the questions of of what are they trying to solve. This came up after the mario woods shooting, you know, if we had a tazer, we wouldnt have shot. Tazers who have electrocuted that man. We should look at our own o. I. S. s and training issues. We should be working on the trust with this community. This community has been seriously affected. This commission has shutdown many meetings because of the anger and the distrust and the angst, the communities, the mission community, the homeless community, the tinderloin community, and bay view community, and we set meetings in the middle of the morning or middle of the afternoon behind a Police Officers door. I think the process theres something wrong with this process. I think it was meant to keep people out. People waited six months before they had an opportunity to talk, and then, when theyre here, theyre disrespected in a manner where theyre still locked out, theyre locked outside, and they cant participate. I think its shame on this commission to even consider voting on this, and i think we should give our dgos a chance to work, our cameras a chance to work. We should force our department to really analyze our training issue. We should talk about our technology, sorely lacking. Youre going to get 8 million to get tazers, and we dont even have the technology to get the data. Were rushing to give a training to give tazers. I think the whole thing is a deflection. What we have is an analysts report that says we can look forward to 102 tasings a hear. Thats from the 0 to 126. That is tasing in communities of the under represents, the under privileged and homeless and the mentally ill, and i think thats 102 too many. And this other thing the department of justice said is we shouldnt even be reviewing our own officer involved shootings. We should not let the police make the decision whether the Police Shooting are in policy, and now, what are we going to do . Were going to turnover whether tazering is in policy by the police to do the tasing. That whole process is not transparent. There is no community representation. We get a report that says found in policy, in policy, in policy, and thats what we can look forward to. Why arent we concentrating on that dgo report . How are we ignoring not only an officer involved shootings, but not only attacked lgbt, minorities, but members within their own department . We have all that shame sitting here on that department. None of that has been taken care of, and theyre saying were going to get a weapon. That is a weapon, its not a device. I do appreciate the command staff. I think theyre working hard with these meetings that theyre having, but i dont think its changing the culture within the 2,000 Member Police department. They havent shown anything that the culture is changed. The use of force may be down, but there may be a variety of reasons why its down, but were talking about a culture that has not been a culture thats been sadly on display in the last two years, so so i think we should i think youre making a mistake tonight to support this, even if you want to wait a year. The fact that you want ten hours of training, oh, its so sad. I cant even go there. I think this commission has turned their deaf ears to the communities that are most affected by this, and weve heard it many times tonight. Who is the community in who represents the community . The community is the people who are most affected by any any adverse impact by this department, and i just think its a shame that people who took the time to come here, the people who took the time to come to all the different meetings, you know, 97 , 93 of the community doesnt want tazers, and it just falls on deaf ears. Were supposed to take into account and consider the comments of the city, and its falled on deaf ears here. I looked at this this morning, and when it came to the critics, those were the community members. We talked about deescalation will always be the policy, thats what were training right now, and why dont we have some demonstration of that before we move forward. I call for the question. Oh, im still talking, maam. I call for the question. Well, im still talking. And theres a lot of conclusionary long of over zealous over sight and things like that. I havent seen it yet, and ive been here a long time, and i just have to say, if youre going to move it on things like that, just shame on all of you. I call for the question. All right. Secretary, aspects of our use of force policy are working. We are moving in the right direction, but commissioner ong hing is correct to do this now is not the right thing to do. This is going to derail the progress we are making. This is going to tell people that we are in the middle of moving this process, moving this department in a more positive direction, that we are ready to abandon that just as things begin to get better. Use of force techniques are working. Our use of force is down, but weve heard people already misconstruing dgo 5. 10. Videos are just in place. Weve got problems with them, but theyre just in place, and their effectiveness is just becoming known to us. C. I. T. Training, yes, we have more officers doing it and by the way, commissioner dejesus is right, if were going to give officers tazers, we need to have 40 hours of training. C. I. T. Trapinining, 900 office at most. Thats not half the department. We need to keep doing things we do well and keep moving down that line. There is a cultural shift in this department slowly happening, and it can build, and it can really take force, but there are still Text Messages and horrible things that people are saying to one another. We need to build understanding in this department and with our community. And yeah, we heard from a lot of people here, and im not saying the folks here in this room or in the hallway or the people watching at home, those are the only members of the community yeah, theres 800,000 people, and were responsible to all of them, and weve heard messages and letters saying we were in favor of tazers, and you know what . Im not someone to say, never tazer, im just saying not now. Were making such good progress. Lets not turn our back on it. Ive got to tell you, out of all the people who spoke her tonight, tammy brian, who umm cans here regularly, with positive and negative things to say, she summed it up for me, im having really positive interactions with the police right now, and she complimented. We need that kind of communication. We need that kind of experience between San Francisco and the San Francisco Police Department to grow. I have to tell you, i have Great Respect for the men and women who served this department. I am not saying that i dont trust you by any action my actions, im saying lets turn our actions toward something bigger and greater than another weapon. I know people say well, we need a use of force option between the tazer and the gun. Well, we havent even explored any of those. We havent talked about any of those, seriously. Weve talked about this one the three times that ive been on the commission, and here, we have issues around bias and yeah, we have issues around use of force, and no one is addressing the fact that tazers use is disproportionately against blo black and brown people. We have got to solve our issues around those kinds of incidents before we move to use a tazer. And, you know, people have also said well, if you guys dont do it ive heard this from people if you guys dont do it, then, the voters of San Francisco are going to do it on the next ballot . You know what . I believe in government by the people, of the people, for the people, so if thats what the people of San Francisco as a whole decide to do, i can respect that, and maybe seven people shouldnt be making that decision, but i can tell you one that feels strongly that if we have to be asked today, were not there yet. And im asking all of you, all of you, please dont do this yet. If you want to put a time limit on it, you want to see use of force policy in place, its not about the time, its about what is the policy doing . Come back and visit it in a year, and if the policy is working, and if things are better, and if we have a better relationship with our community, and we feel we still need these weapons, then implement this. Please, please commissioners, do not do this. Second kilshaw, call the vote call the roll. Clerk on commissioner melaras motion that the for the commission to approve the San Francisco Police Department to kwipt Police Personnel with conducted energy devices, tazers, as a use of force option, and that the department finalize the policy and bring to the commission within 30days, and on with commissioner hirschs friendly amendment, that the San Francisco Police Department shall not use electronic control weapons until department general order 5. 01 use of force has been implemented for at least two years, commissioner mazzucco how do you vote . Aye. Commissioner marshall, how do you vote . Aye. Commissioner dejesus, how do you vote . No. Commissioner melara how do you vote sfl. Aye. Commissioner ong hing, how do you vote . No. Commissioner hirsch, how do you vote . Aye. Commissionerturman, how do you vote . No. The motion passed 43. All right. So by a vote of 43, the San Francisco Police Commission has approved the use of tazers as a use of force option; however quiet it shall not be implemented until one year until two years after the use of force policy has been approved which was approved in december of 2016 therefore, it will not come into play until december of 2018. Do i have an appropriate motion . We just voted. We just voted. We just voted. Move to adjourn. I move to adjourn. Second. All in favor . This meeting is good morning, everyone. My name is todd rufto of the Workforce Development program. Its great to be here at the San Fran