Good morning, this meeting will come to order. Welcome to september 21, 2023 of the government audit and Oversight Committee of the San Francisco board of supervisor. Im supervisor preston, joined by Catherine Stefani and connie chan. The clerk is Stephanie Cabrera i thanks to sfgovtv for staffing this meeting. Madam clerk, any announcements . Providing Remote Access and Public Comment via telephone. The board recognizes that equitable Public Access is essential and will take Public Comment first Public Comment will be taken on each item. Those attending in person will be allowed to speak first then take those waiting on the telephone line. Your item comes up and Public Comment is called, those joining in person should line up to speak and those on the telephone dial star 3 to be added to the queue. If on your telephone, remember to turn down listening devices. You may submit written comment by email to the government oversight clerk and send stefani. Cabrera sfgov. O rg to city hall. If you submit Public Comment in writing it will be forwarded to the surprisers and included as part of the file. Items acted upon today are expected to appear on the board of supervisors agenda october 3, 2023 unless otherwise stated. Thank you. Thank you. Please call item 1 . Hearing to discus the plan for carbreak ins and requesting the mayors aw Police Department office of District Attorney office of Economic Workforce Development, Municipal Transportation Agency and department of Emergency Management to report. [providing instructions for Public Comment] thank you madam clerk. Before we hear from departments wanted to make additional remarks. Im looking forward to this hearing and i called for this hearing to give members of the public an opportunity to hear from city officials about an issue that has long effected our city and that is car breakins. I think we all know that year after year residents and visitors to our neighborhoods are victimized by car breakins and despite announcements and efforts regarding initiatives tocome cam bat the issue the city made no noticeable progress. Doesnt mean there is no progress, but you dont see the results in terms of reduction in car breakins and folks are understandably frustrated and visitors to our city are not only losing money and property, but often left traumatized and with a very bad experience in our city, and i should say it isnt limited to tourists, but certainly disproportionate visitors. It is time to let the public know what the city is doing to have a conversation what is working and not working and what can be done to reduce car breakins in San Francisco. I represent district 5 with several hot spots for the breakins including hate ashbury, japan town and [indiscernible] since i took office my office raised this issue and explored potential solutions and gotten updates with multiple departments and discussed potential programs to mitigate the harms that car breakins cause, but we havent seen significant change. I think given theeven though it is quite pronounced in my district it is impacting other districts including colleagues on this committee and given inwide spread nature och the issue it is most beneficial to us to discuss strategy in terms of city wide focus, not necessarily particular districts, but we recognize there are and well hear more about the areas where the problems is the worst. In preparation for today, my office did Extensive Research on this topic reviewed years of announcements regarding car breakins, reviewed in detail 20152016 civil grand jury report that explored this issue, and requested that the departmentthe clerk just read send representatives and discuss and meet with us on this issue. Over the past two months we requested data and meetings with each of the departments to discuss current and past strategies as well as explore future possibilities, and im grateful to the departments that accommodated our request and spent significant time with our office to try to tackle this problem and make sure we are all on the same page as the efforts undertaken and what is working and not. We also engaged with car rental companies, travel industry representatives, constituents, merchants, Community Benefit districts, and particularly from some of the most impacted areas in our district. And Good Samaritans who i want to note. There are many out there who every day are assisting people who are victims of having their car windows smashed and possessions stolen and a lot of these folks go unnoticed and showing quite a bit of kindness to stranger victimized, plarmly those visiting our city. In all the discussions we found nearly everyone is eager to engage on this issue, and i think it is my hope we have a opportunity to harness that spirit of collaboration for good and to make progress here. In that spirit last week after as i said all most two months of meetings and research, we sent each departments mentioned a memo with some ideas and suggestions for some of the things we can do to supplement particularly our prevention efforts. Looking forward discussing idea said in more detail after we hear about the itisy past and current approaches. Also want to recognize that after we call for this hearing, sfpd along with District Attorney announced the start of a Bait Car Program and looking forward hearing more about that program today and appreciate the information we have gotten in our briefings from sfpd on that. I also want to emphasize that in my opinion, the path to reducing car breakins cannot rely on any one strategy to the exclusion of others. Everyone we have spoken with with this in all of the departments that i have mentioned are in agreement that we need Effective Solutions on all fronts to finally get this problem in our city under control. I want to make this clear, this hearing is not just about stopping the next viral video, which will get a lot of attention, it isnt the focus here. There were over 22,000 breakins to vehicles reported to sfpd last year and that figure i think everyone agree likely understates the extent of the problem as many breakins go unreported. This is in addition to direct impact on victims. This is trumending tremendous number of calls for service and should not accept this number as inevable or throw up our hands and dont think anyone wants us to do that. Car breakins effect as mentioned not only the immediate victims, but also make everyone in the area and in the neighborhood feel less safe, impact San Franciscos reputation and the likelihood of people visiting our city, and consume a tremendous amount of city resources. Sfpd and beyond to respond to breakins, take the Police Reports, clear glass from our streets and sidewalks and return items to victims when they are recovered in addition to cases that arewhere a arrest is made and prosecuted and consume resources. From our extensive interviews and research, i will say that i am disappointed by the current lack of a coordinated response. I think that folks are in all these Department Working on this issue, but there is a lack of coordinated response and i think that prevented us making more progress and prevented from having a shared understanding across departments of what trat strategies are deployed and data we have and how we measure success and hold ourselves accountable when it comes to this longstanding problem. I want to emphasize our purpose is not to place blame for the past, about to figure out how to move forward in a more effective and transparent manner. As part of that transparency, i asked sfpd to present on the data, the strategies and the Park Smart Campaign which had origins with sfpd. We also asked representatives from sfmta and oewd who are here who are not planning a presentation, but will be available for questions from the committee. I want to note that despite our requests they do so, rec park and District Attorneys office did not send representatives which is disappointing. We hope todays hearing is not the end of the conversations and these departments will make a effort to engage on this issue in the future. We did receive earlier this week written responses from the District Attorney office so i want to acknowledge that. Tackling a issue this magnitude will absolutely require collaboration and communication Going Forward. So, without further ado, and unless colleagues wanted to say anything before the presentation, i want to thank and welcome all the Department Representatives here today, including commander Derrick Jackson from San FranciscoPolice Department and as i mentioned others who are here available for questions, including chris corgus, Deputy Director of Community Economic development at oewd, and rob malone,b senior manager for parking and curb management at sfmta as well as i believe ted graff director of parking for curb management and operations is joining remotely i believe today. Commander jackson, the floor is yours. Welcome, and to you and your team. Looking forward to the presentation. Good morning supervisor preston, supervisors. Again, commander Derrick Jackson from San FranciscoOperations Division metro. With me this morning is lieutenant steven jonas, also from Field Operations and legislative liaison rema muloof. This morning what we have is a presentation which represents data and strategies. Overview of the city wide burglary statistics and strategies for addressing some of these issues. I will start with the first slide. Here on behalf of chief scott. Chief scott said that i am disturbed every time i see these crimes on social media or the local news. Auto breakins are devastating to the residents and visitors quhoo should be having a joyous experience in San Francisco, rather then the nightmare of losing valuable personal belongings. Next slide represents our park smark leaflets and pamphlets and just to give background on thatso, chief scott in 2017 began implementing strategies to address the high number of breakins identified bekning in 2017. This included working with various City Departments on park smart. Individual police stations implemented strategies at the level identified in areas within their districts where extrapatrols would be beneficial. The data showed decline of the breakins during this time period. The most notable decrease in breakins was during the covid pandemic years. That represented a sharp decline as the city returned to normal operations within the city and county of San Francisco. After 2020, breakins did begin to increase. The actual Park Smart Program was started in 2014 by dave lazar Commanding Officer at central station. That began with collaborative effort with captain lazar Community Police advisory board. Again, in 2017, sfmta also borrowed the material that was represented on the pamphlets and began that as part of the adver tizeing compain. Im familiar with the Park Smart Campaign as a captain at northern station and what i did is allow and direct my officers to take the pamphlets with them while in patrol in some of the most impacted areas. So, the next slide represents basically what we all knew. If you love it, dont leave it. Car breakins are a unfortunate realty in San Francisco, and the campaign is please, do not leave any belongings in your vehicle. So, the next slide represents city wide auto burglary data year to Year Comparison. Looking at the year to Year Comparison beginning in 2017 and measuring out to 2020, if you look at the graph that we have before us, you will notice that between the dates of 2021 and 2022, there was only 8 percent uptick. However, if we look at the overall graph between the dates and years of 2017 and 2022, there was a 28 percent decline. If we look at the next slide, the graph represents city wide auto burglary data. January 1 to september 2017. So recollect for the first 9 months looking at this graph, it is clear that the numbers represent increased downward trends. So, 2020 again represents the height of the pandemic where the auto breakins were at the lowest point. The question is, knowing for the first 6 months of those years, there was a obvious decline what represented the uptick after the 6 month period . The next slide represents auto burglaries and what they represent is the key impacted areas. So, if we look at the bullet points here, company a, which represents central station, indicated the highest number of auto breakins according to the map here, at 2005. The next impacted area, company e rks representing northern, pthe area most impacted were alamo square, palace of fine arts and japan town. If we look at the next bullet point, company f, park station, the most impacted are twin peaks and haight street and company g, the richmond, most impact is Golden Gate Park, legion of honor and i, represents the teravel district, the most impacted were the stonestown galria. Structures and parking lots were also impacted by auto burglaries. The next slide represents what we are doing to help mitigate some of these auto breakins and that represents our city wide plain clothe operation. January through may 2023 therep 21 Successful Operations, 37 subjects aarrested and 14 fire arms recovered. The next slide represents what were some of the most historical strategies. Including increased patrol, increased high visibility with fixed post, plain units and high crime tourist areas to mitigate some of these auto breakins. The next slide represents what are some of the current strategies. Some of those include, the areas of fixed post and arrest. Investigative intervention, surveillance tools, community and city and department collaborations to help address and recognize auto breakins. In short, that is some of the data and strategies that we have compiled for todays hearing. We are open and available for questions. Thank you commander jackson. I do have some questions and again, some of these things our office discussed with you and feel we have been having these conversations for a while in your prior role of captain in northern station, tracking at a more micro level, the monthly meetings around breakins and the response, but appreciate your broader role and perspective in your position now. In terms of the investigations, can you give committee and the public a sense of what your investigations are showing in terms of patterns ofhow decentralized these breakins are . How many are involving us suspects using stolen vehicles or any other patterns your investigations are revealing that you can share . Yes, thank you. Some patterns we recognized, some of these include multiple thieves per vehicle. The criminal element operates predominantly during the daylight hours. Often target tourist areas. Suspects usually utilize counter surveillance and attempts to identify Undercover Police operations. And the breakinsthe suspects usually flee at high rate of speed with disregard for Public Safety. Those are a few of the things we have recognized. There are often other things that contribute to that. Oneoff opportunities operating within 24 hours so not necessarily organized crew, but often just oneoff. Your persons who arent really associated with any group that is targeting our vehicles and our most impacted areas. And i also have with me lieu lieutenant jonas here who is lieutenant in charge of the plain clothes operation so he may be able to offer other perspective on what we are doing as far as strategies. Lieutenant jonas. Thank you. There will be a Public Comment period after. Good morning. So, in terms of trends we see, i think commander jackson highlighted a lot of them. We do see suspects using both stolen cars, and cars that are not reported stolen. We do see a lot of attempt to evade detection through switching out license plates, having heavily tinted windows, things like that. As commander jackson said, the suspects are frequently working together in groups, and what we find an icdotally is these groups are responsible for a high number of the burglaries that we encounter. In terms of strategies we are using, the plain clothe team at the stations are heavily engaged with the community. They have a lot of direct Community Contacts with folks either residents or businesses and the officers have provided their Contact Information to kind of cut out the middle man as far as dispatch goes so that they know immediately when suspects are in a area. They get a good description and have good contacts to obtain Surveillance Video when it comes to investigations. We