i brought almonds. oh. you know, my budget is. i hear you got a big old budget going. good evening. the chair has called the meeting to order. if you could please rise for the pledge of allegiance. the united states of america into the republic for which it stands. one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. president lyons, i'd like to take roll. please do. commissioner benedicto, present commissioner yanez. present. commissioner yee, nice present. vice president carter overstone. present. president lyons, you have a quorum. also with us tonight is chief scott from the san francisco police department

and executive director paul henderson from the department of police accountability. we thank you. welcome, everyone, to our may 8th, 2024 meeting, we have some great, agenda items on calendar today that we want to get through. so with that, let's call the first item please line item one weekly officer recognition certificate presentation of an officer who has gone above and beyond in the performance of their duties. officer andrew young, star number 2485. healthy streets operations center. hi. good evening. my name is dennis hong. i'm currently the sergeant assigned to the healthy streets operation center, also known as soc. i would like to extend my gratitude to chief bill scott, director paul henderson and the police commission for the opportunity to recognize the exceptional work done by the brave men and women of the san francisco police department. today, it is my honor to present

this award to a member of my team, officer andrew young, who epitomizes what it means to truly be a team player like myself. officer young is also a san francisco native, and he grew up in the sunset and the mission district. officer young entered the department in 2015 and worked patrol at tenderloin, ingleside and central station. in 2019, he joined h soc and has been a permanent staple since. h soc is a unique unit to be in as we work closely and directly alongside with other city agencies such as the fire department, public works, department of emergency management, homelessness and supportive housing. officer young represents the department in the most positive light. officer young embraces a special balance of structured intervention and compassion, and has played a key role in advancing the goals of the san francisco police department. officer young has helped san francisco's most vulnerable

population access the much needed services that they need, such as shelter and housing, along with treatment for those with mental health disorders and substance abuse, while also reconnecting individuals back with their loved ones from their home states. as i have many positive things to say about officer young's work, don't just take my word for it here are some of the words from leaders of other city agencies that we work closely with. this is from san francisco fire department, acting captain sean delis. quote, officer young is an invaluable part of the asau crew. he approaches the work with professionalism, kindness and a calm manner. it is a great pleasure to have him as a part of the team, unquote. and this from department of emergency management. h soc manager david nakanishi. quote. officer young's ability to engage with the most challenging individuals with compassion, understanding and patience makes them an

essential member of the team. his experience and dedication to service makes him a natural leader. one sought out for consultation on procedures and the law. his attitude and demeanor makes him well liked by all he engages with, including people experiencing homelessness , residents, business people, fellow officers, and h soc team members. officer young is well deserving of recognition for his example and dedication to service to the city, and i'm honored and privileged to work with them, unquote. the streets and sidewalks of san francisco are much cleaner and safer thanks to officer young's hard work and commitment to excellence. and with that, officer young, i'd like to present with you the police commission recognition award. i'll say a few words first.

yeah, please. well, first of all, congratulations. thank you, captain, for that great introduction. and, but please go ahead and speak. and then i'm going to turn it over to the chief. well, thank you very much . i'm very honored, you know, it's growing up here in the city, it's definitely changed over the years. and, you know, i'm glad to be a part of a unit where we can make, you know, such a large impact to the community that, you know, i grew up in, you know, i couldn't have done this without you know, the support of my, you know, the my teams back there as well. i'm very thankful for them to show up. hey, you know, i have my family and my, you know, girlfriend here as well. so, you know, it's very nice to see all the support and, you know, it's i'm just, you know, speechless right now. thank you so much for the appreciation. thank you. chief scott. thank you, president elias, officer young, i, your sergeant, did a remarkable job. and just expressing what you do and how

you do it. and just for the public. i mean, this is not a job that is easy, it's very difficult work. there are people that in really desperate need of help. and oftentimes it's thankless for a lot of people, you know, who, don't think that the police department should even have anything to do with this type of work. but but we do play a role. and you have done that remarkably. and i know five years to be in that unit. and i think you volunteered when we first stood up this team, you were one of the early officers to, to engage in this type of work. and you still at it and you're still doing a great job. so for the entire unit, thank you all for what you do. but for your work, it really deserves this type of appreciation. and notice and thank you. thank you all and your leadership. sergeant thank you. chief, officer young, i want to congratulate you and thank you for your service. i know h is actually like your sergeant said, a very unique unit because it's a unit where everyone comes together. i remember when they

first created h soc, and i took the tour at dem. is that where you still stay? right it was a very interesting and sort of novel idea at that time to break down the silos and have everyone in a centralized area where you all work together and it was really, i think, powerful, and the fact that you've been doing this for several years now speaks, i think, volumes because you get called out on everything. it's not just you know, like police work, whatever. you know, people imagine that to be. but i think it's a lot of humanitarian things that you do there at h soc, because that was the goal of addressing the 311 calls or the calls from fire or everything else. so, it's i'm sure every day is a unique day for you when you come to the office. so thank you. so much for your commitment to h soc and for making it, really a well-oiled machine, because i remember, as i said, when it first started the idea, and now to see it come into fruition is a great thing. second, i want to

thank your family, because of their sacrifice, not only do you put your life on the line every day and come and do this work by putting on that uniform, but i think it's they also, are there to support you and be there when you get home. and the things that you miss and the stress that you're under, they deal with. so a huge thank you to them as well for allowing you to do your job and being the best that you can be. a third, thank you for your team for showing up again. i think this speaks volumes to what kind of, unit the h soc is, it's a very collaborative unit, and you can tell that by the fact that your team is here, i would have you introduce each of them so you can, you know, embarrass them that way. but if you don't want to, that's fine as well. we'll just say welcome. and then finally, i will say that as a san franciscan native, that you are. the one important question we're supposed to ask you is what high school are you into? right i was really waiting for that because that's really the that's the test to see if you

really are a native or did you go to daly city, right. no, i, i went to galileo. okay all right. so you passed. so again, congrats, nations. thank you for the hockey team for being here and supporting your fellow officer. and to the family with that, commissioner benedicto, thank you very much. president elias, and i want to start by thanking sergeant huang for that wonderful introduction and explaining to everyone what the h soc team is and what it does, i first met sergeant huang when i attended the active attacker training, and i'm pretty sure he wasn't the one that shot me with a paintball. so we won't we won't hold it against him there, but, echoing what president elias said. congratulations, officer, and thank you for your work with h soc. it is. we talk a lot at this commission about issues with with the department and that we want more community policing that we want more cross-agency collaboration. we want more things that look like the cross staffing of the crisis intervention teams. and h soc brings all those together. it's an example of the community policing. it's an example of cross-agency collaboration and

things, working in innovative ways, in ways that involve other agencies, but also still recognize, the law enforcement component. i'm so glad that your family and your team is here as well. and yeah, i think the recognizing you and really the whole h soc team for the work that that group does, you know, whether it's homelessness or whether it's mental health issues or addiction. we have to recognize that law enforcement alone isn't enough. we have whole of community problems. and i've often said that whole of community problems require whole of community solutions. and h soc is an example of a part of a whole of community solution. and thank you so much for your work making that a reality, officer. thank you, commissioner yi. thank you very much. there. president cindy elias, first of all, i want to congratulate you, i guess, for all the hard work you have done, especially coming up here from the city to myself, also want to thank the sergeant for putting you forward and the team that behind you, including

the officers and the family. so i know all the challenges you go through. every i don't know all the challenges, but i know that you face many challenges day in and day. day out. so at the end of the day, i just want to say make sure you come home safe and continue good work here in the community. looking forward to seeing you out in the streets more. thank you very much. appreciate it. thank you. vice president, officer young, just just wanted to congratulate you and thank you for your service to our city, there's nothing that i that i was going to say that hasn't already been said, but just wanted to recognize the especially difficult work that h soc does, on my way to the hearing room today, i wrote up the elevator with some of your colleagues, and i actually asked them if they were the ones receiving the award today because they seemed so excited to be attending this meeting, but they said, you know, of course. no, they were just here to support their colleagues. so i think that that just goes to show how well regarded you are

within your unit and the collegiality of the unit. so, it's great to have you here and congratulations. thank you. thank you, sergeant. for members of the public who would like to make public comment regarding line item one, please approach the podium. and there is no public comment. next item. line item two. general. public comment. at this time. the public is now welcome to address the commission for up to two minutes on items that do not appear on tonight's agenda, but are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the police commission under police commission. rules of order. during public comment, neither police nor epa personnel nor commissioners are required to respond to questions by the public, but may provide a brief response. alternatively, you may submit public comment in either of the following ways. email the secretary of the police commission at sapd. commission at sf gov. org or written comments may be sent us postal

service to the public safety building located at 1245 third street, san francisco, california 94158. if you would like to make public comment, please approach the podium. here's my collection. you'll have to adjust it. is it is it on there? you keep. do you have a surprise for us? that is a. you own his. okay. i'm on. i guess, yes. good evening. okay, so it's the first time i'm going to do this, and please don't let me do it again, because i don't do this. it's not my way of changing stuff, but it's a necessity. so so i'm

going to ask the mayor here what ? what is the meaning intended of this here? are you here is 49 north, not 40 900 square foot. what is the what do you intend to say here? we need an explanation. or you can't skip it because it couldn't be completed by you. you can't approve something that big, i mean, you need to approve it. there's no way the artist is not coming and doing this like this. so you are familiar with this? what is this? i don't know, okay, you saw it. it's enough. good. okay can go back here if you like. another thing i would like to mention, i think it's english. guys. sidewalks is for

work. so you see more and more six years old on scooters. so when do you give them tickets? it's become a real problem. it's english. sidewalk is to work for pedestrians. look it's the same. i don't want to take care of all this. i mean, but you have to do something in downtown. it's crazy. last thing i see, i see everything there is all of a sudden, many garbages were taken away. what's going on here, mayor? in different district is true. so it doesn't concern the police. but still i had to say it. have a good night. we need explanations of this thing. yeah . i want to directly address the voters of san francisco. as i plan to do for each meeting of

the police commission that comes to order, because we've missed three of the last four, i talked to one member of the commission. he thought me taking attendance was funny. well, there are only window onto the police department, so please be there every time, particularly the mayor's appointees, i'm going to repeat, like, a broken record, to the voters. the police department is broken. it does not do the job it was created to do, the reason that they do not do this is because they do not have an elected police chief. right now, you've got a chief that's appointed by the mayor, picked by this commission, four members, the majority of whom ha ha, are, are picked by the mayor . so you get the mayor's choice. there are 471,000 of you. you deserve a choice in police commission in the police chief choice. it might be this guy. i

mean, he might run and be a completely different person if he's elected in his own right. but elect a police chief. you want foot patrols? we had foot patrols in this town a few years back. tragically, a, several officers were killed in oakland in, a traffic stop that went bad . and, the cop there got killed, the assailant, disappeared. 100 cop cars came, but, they couldn't find the guy until one woman came up and told them where she where the guy was. and you know what she said? she said , oh, i waited till i saw a cop. i knew i knew a hundred police cars. she didn't know anyone without foot patrols. you do not know the public? good evening.

police commissioner and police chief. my name is chris klein. i'm here asking for your support and to request a referral to the district attorney for indictments on several elected officials. first, i need to let you know that i have over 25 years of investigating high tech crimes and have previously partnered with state and federal funded task forces to include react and nc three tf here in northern california. these elected officials illegally gave out credentials to public health and safety systems, which has weaponized public health. these systems, such as one system used primarily by homelessness and supportive housing, and sherlock, used primarily by human service agency, can send data to a person to alter their mental health, their normal situational awareness, alter their ptsd, and done to force compliance on bad policies and ideas by using ultrasound to cause pain, swelling, injuries, and sometimes death. these systems are military grade technology and systems. yesterday, these systems were used on a driver that caused a child and an adult to be struck

and injured. that vehicle was headed for me and was approximately 45ft away before the police made an arrest of the driver with their guns drawn. these few even used the systems to illegally hack into the sfpd system rgb spectrum. again i'm requesting the police commission and police chief to make this a priority and submit referrals for indictments on all parties involved today, i have spoken at the fire commission, the disability and aging commission, and now here at the police commission. thank you. good evening, commissioners. good evening. chief for those who don't know me, my name is j connor b ortega. and while i'm not here as a candidate, i am here as a concerned san francisco resident. as always, i want to take this time to thank the men and women of the san francisco police department for the incredible work they do to keep us safe from criminals by

doing a job the rest of us cannot do our officers truly are the wall that keep the monsters at bay and i also want to join everyone this evening and congratulate the officer that was being recognized this evening. however, there is something i must address and that address is a statement made by a commissioner at the previous meeting. commission benedicto's statement was, and i quote the response ability of this commission is to defend the progress that this department has made against attacks, against backsliding, against false choices, that pit reform, against public safety. end quote. the commissioner also pointed to a quote from benjamin franklin concerning monarchies and republics. however, through our democratic process, we, the people of san francisco reaffirm ummed that it's not us who are pitting reform against public safety, but it's rather this commission's commitment to weaken our public safety. in the name of your version of reform, we do not accept never will i

ever want this commission to be confused. so allow me to reiterate that the majority of san francisco myself included, passed prop e because this commission has failed to put policy over politics. so we, the voters did it for you. the longer you all refuse to accept that fact, we will continue to pass propositions that will continue to strip away your power. now at the same time, you all have egos to fix in order to be compliant with the law, and i look forward to it. thank you. always happy to have you here, mr. ortega. thank you. i'm sorry i wanted to, find it overhead. sorry that's my mother

who passed away. and i want to thank those of you that had helped me with go fund me for my mother, mother's day is here. it's coming now. i don't have a mother to say mother's day to, except for a picture right here. i'm going to miss her, but i'm going to keep doing what i'm doing. my mother raised me well. i come here every wednesday when you're available. i'm sorry concerning my son, aubrey. albert casa. i'll hold the picture up concerning my son aubrey albert, who was murdered august 14th, 2006. again i don't have a son to say. happy mother's day for him to say

happy mother's day to or to give me flowers. i'm still looking forward to this presentation that you're going to have today on homicides and how to solve them, and i hope that it's implemented and just not talked about. i wanted to invite some mothers with me today, but i didn't want them getting angry and nothing's going to happen. i want them to see that something's going to happen for their children. i bring these pictures with me to show you this is all i have left of my son. me standing over his his casket at. his body decaying. this is my mother's day gift that they left me. they took his body. but they didn't take his spirit. i still hold on to that.

but my flesh still hurts for this young boy. he has siblings left. please do something. and that is the end of public comment line. item three consent calendar. receive and file action sfpd audit and electronic communication devices. safe streets for all 2024. first quarter family code 6228 incident report sb 1421 for dpa and sfpd. motion to receive and file second for any member of the public would like to make public comment regarding line item three. please approach the podium. seeing none on the motion. commissioner walker, how do you vote? no. i'm sorry, commissioner benedicto. yes commissioner benedicto is. yes. commissioner yanez. yes. commissioner yanez is. yes.

commissioner yee. yes. commissioner yee is. yes. vice president carter overstone. yes. vice president carter auberson is. yes. and president elias. yes. president elias is. yes. you have five yeses. line item for adoption of minutes. action for the meetings of april 17th, 2024. motion to adopt the minutes for april 17th, 2024. second, for any member of the public would like to make public comment regarding line item four. please approach the podium . there's no public comment on the motion. commissioner benedicto, how do you vote? yes, commissioner benedicto is yes. commissioner yanez. yes, commissioner janez is yes. commissioner. yee. yes commissioner yee is. yes. vice president carter. oberstein. yes. vice president carter is. yes. and president elias, president elias is. yes. you have five yeses. line item five. chief's report. weekly crime trends and public safety concerns provide an overview of offenses, incidents, or events occurring in san francisco having an impact on public safety. commission discussion on unplanned events and activities. the chief describes will be limited to excuse me will be

limited to determining whether to counter for future meeting. chief scott thank you, sergeant youngblood. good evening, president elias. vice president carter stone, commission executive director. henderson and the public, start off this week's report with our crime trends overall, violent. i mean, part one crime is down 30. that is about a 5000. a little over 5000 fewer crimes than this time last year, property crime is down 33% and violent crime is down 13. our homicides are down 42% from this time last year, with a total of year to date of 11 homicides, compared to 19 this time last year and that year to date, number is about a five year low. in terms of homicides, our shooting victims are down 35, 35 year to date, compared to 54 this time last year, and our homicides with firearms are down 38% eight year to date compared to 13 on this

time last year. total gun violence victims are down 36. that's 43 gun violence victims this year compared to 67 year to date. gun seizures are down slightly, about 7% down. we have 308 gun seizures, and of those, 59 were ghost guns. this time last year there was 312 with 57 ghost guns. in terms of major incidents, this past week, there was one homicide in the 1700 block of quesada avenue in the bayview district. this occurred on april 29th at 9:32 p.m. the officers responded to the area following a shotspotter activation. when they arrived, a victim with gunshot wounds was located and the officers rendered aid, but unfortunately, when the suspect was transported to a local hospital, they succumbed to their injuries. no arrests at this time, but officers are following up on leads and we will keep the public posted on the status of

that investigation of the progress, a couple of significant incidents. there's a stabbing at seventh and market on the 5th of may at 7:52 a.m, the victim and the subject got into an argument when the subject stabbed the victim multiple times. officers were able to locate the subject and make an arrest. in this case, there was also an elder abuse battery that occurred on the 1st of may at 10:20 a.m. and a 100 block of post street. two victims were standing outside when an unknown person pulled up to them, got out of the car and pushed both victims down to the ground. subject jumped back into their vehicle and fled the scene. that investigation is ongoing with no arrests yet. a carjacking occurred at san francisco state on the 1600 block of holloway avenue. this was on the campus with the jurisdiction of the state campus police, san francisco state campus police. this occurred on

may 1st at 3:54 p.m. the victim was walking back to their car when they saw three unknown subjects around the car and two unknown subjects inside their car. the victim pulled out their phone to record the incident, at which time one of the subjects pulled out a gun and told the victim to delete the videos. subjects were able to take the victim's vehicle and flee from the scene. sf state pd is handling that investigation, although sfpd did respond, and then lastly, as far as significant incidents, there is a, hate or prejudice based incident that occurred at sunset and yolo on the 1st of may at 3:15 p.m, the subject was yelling racial slurs toward the victim. the victim confronted the subject and the subject pulled out a taser. the subject then fled the scene and the victim did not want any further police action, except for a report which our officers gladly

took. later on. the witness, a witness, tweeted about the incident and it did get some attention on social media. but that person was not arrested. and, other than brandishing the taser, there were no other crimes committed. so our first amendment activity, there have been first amendment activities on both san francisco state's campus and usf's campus. those first amendment activities have been handled by the respective campus, either public safety or campus police. and we have not been called to assist, and they continue to manage those incidents. and those incidents have been peaceful, that is the report for this week. there were no shootings this week, no stunt driving incidents, and no major traffic related incidents this week. thank you. commissioner benedicto chief. and if this ends up, i know that the cut off for the weekly report might be

the monday. and so if this makes sense to put over for the next report. but i know there was tuesday morning, there was a 14 year old girl injured in a in the course of a pursuit. i wonder if you could talk a little bit about that incident. yeah, yes, i can, i do have the details on that. that incident started as a felony hit and run. it started, at jones and market street and the tenderloin police district, a car was basically driving recklessly, doing donuts and intersection and struck a pedestrian, injuring the pedestrian in the officers, tenderloin officers then spotted that car as it attempted to leave the scene and broadcast the information, and ended up going in pursuit of that car. that vehicle. the suspect continued to drive recklessly and struck, a 14 year old in front of francisco middle school. that 14 year old was injured, the lieutenant who was monitoring the pursuit canceled the vehicular pursuit due to risk of more people getting

injured. however, the plainclothes units located this person in the embarcadero area and took that person in custody. so there was an arrest made on that incident. and, officers actually did a good job locating the suspect after the pursuit was canceled. so that's about as much as i have the injuries on both of the pedestrians that were struck were non-life threatening. so it was only after the 14 year old was struck that the supervising officer called off the pursuit. is that right? yeah, that is my understanding. yes. and it was in the vicinity of her, her school, the pursuit that that she was hit right? yes. okay. do you know if. once the pursuit was looking like it was going to be in the proximity of a school, would there would do you think there would be discussion of potentially canceling the pursuit? just as you got to that vicinity, given that you're likely to encounter children in that area? or is that a factor that should be considered that

is a factor that is considered and should be considered. i don't know exactly, what information the lieutenant had, but that is always a factor that should be considered. thank you, chief. vice president carter, thank you, president elias. thank you, chief, for the report. i actually was going to ask about the same incident. chief the. is it is it right that the chase went on for over an hour? in this case, i don't know. that is not in this report, but that's definitely something i can follow up on. i don't when i asked, one newspaper reported, i think that the chase began at 7:53 a.m. and that the 14 year old girl was struck around 9 a.m. does that sound about right or you're just not sure? i don't. i have to verify that i don't have that. okay and is it right that the 14 year old girl who was struck that she had some bones broken? i think that was also reported, but i didn't hear that in your

report, non-life threatening injuries. and that's it's what i know. okay. but but, the newspaper report that that i think she had at least one broken bone in her shoulder is that you're just not sure if that's accurate. i'm not sure if that's accurate, but we don't typically put out that type of information in terms of persons, medical conditions. so understood, particularly for a juvenile understood, is the suspect was being pursued for felony hit and run. is that correct. that is felony hit and run a violent felony? yes. it is. yes. it's a violent felony under the california penal code as defined, not under the california penal code, but it is a violent felony. it's violence with a vehicle, but it is a violent felony, right. the reason i but our prior policy, violent felony, has the meaning as defined by law, right? yes. okay. so the reason i asked that

is because under our prior vehicle pursuit policy, this pursuit may not have been authorized, i would not agree with that because under the current pursuit policy, it still gives the ability to authorize the pursuit if there's that type of risk to public safety. so you're talking about an individual that was driving recklessly, struck a pedestrian and continued to drive recklessly. so i don't agree with that statement. right. so i think theoretically, that's right. i guess i think when commissioner benedicta and i spoke to officers, one thing we asked them was, you know, our policy prior policy has this second bucket where you could pursue for any crime if there's an imminent bona fide risk to public safety and what we heard in response to that was, as a practical matter that is not relied upon outside of maybe dui because, it's just defined. it's

so open ended, you know, it empowers the officers to weigh, i think, 15 or 17 different factors. but what what we were told is that a practical matter because it's unclear what counts and what doesn't, officers play it safe and pursue for dui because that clearly poses a future risk to public safety, but for other crimes that are not violent felonies that that pursuits are not engaged in, is that is that not your understanding of just as a practical matter, how things happen? well, i'm not saying that individual officers may not feel that way. if you were told that, i'm sure they do. well, it was a i would say it was a consensus in a room in a big room. yeah. but i think the question, the fundamental question that you asked is, was this outside of the pursuit policy? and my answer is based on the facts that we know right now. no okay. so but i think the question is, under the prior policy, what would a chase be have would a chase be initiated

as a practical matter. and i think the answer to that, at least based on what commissioner benedicto and i heard from officers is the answer is no. i believe, commissioner, if you ask an officer if they saw a vehicle basically run over somebody or hit somebody and that vehicle fled, would they pursue that car and it's still driving recklessly. i have to think that most officers would say that they would probably try to take that person into custody and pursue them. but again, i'm not saying that what you were told is not how some officers view the policy, but that particular set of circumstances. i would like to think that our officers would take action and not let that type of continue go unabated, that that type of, behavior go unabated, and a few months ago, we had a presentation before this commission on our pursuit

policy, what other jurisdictions are doing and some of the outcomes. and there is a lot of newspaper reporting after the fact, excuse me after the fact, showing that, san francisco has the lowest apprehension rate and highest collision rate of any law enforcement agency in the state of california. and i asked you what we were going to do, given that our vehicle pursuit policy was poised to be become even more permissive than it already was. you know what? what we could do to ensure that we protect innocent bystanders, from injury or death as we as you know, we've seen deaths in the in the recent past, what we were going to do, and i guess i'll ask you again, in light of yesterday's tragedy, what are we going to do now? because we already have the highest collision rate under the prior policy. and now our policy is has expanded dramatically. and,

you know, just just yesterday we saw i think, a pretty tragic outcome that that could have been worse. but i think was, pretty concerning, as is. well, we will continue to do what we are supposed to do and train to do to manage those pursuits, and those prior discussions. i mean, it's established that pursuits are dangerous. and when somebody is driving recklessly before any type of police involvement and they continue to drive recklessly, at some point we got to look at that person's behavior well as well, because it wasn't a police interaction that caused that first collision with that pedestrian. it was this person who was doing what they were doing. but the short answer is, we have to monitor these pursuits. we have to control these pursuits. in this case, the watch commander terminated pursuit, albeit it was after the injury. but we have to do what we can to

monitor and control these pursuits. now with the use of technology that we soon will get that after pursuit termination piece where the apprehension, is at issue, i believe that will probably increase with the use of technology and drones, but in terms of just the pursuit itself, it's about pursuit management. it's about doing what you can to mitigate the safety of the public and the risk and due regard for public safety, but there's still a component of this that you can't control the person that's being pursued. and what they're doing, i mean, that's beyond our control. we can control what we do. so what are we going to do? i go back to its management of the pursuits, which is not a foolproof answer because accidents still happen even after we terminate pursuits. i mean, that's happened in this city, but we do have a responsibility to protect the due regard of the public, and that is a pursuit of the

supervisors. i mean, a responsibility of all involved. and we just have to do that the best we can. great, sir, thanks, chief. last question on this, one thing that came up when commissioner benedicto and i spoke to officers about the pursuit policy was star chase, that's something that got brought up, several times. and, you know, for the public, my understanding is that there's exists in basically two forms. one is where something is attached to the front of a patrol vehicle that shoots out a small object that attaches to the suspect car. that's a gps tracker. second version is a handheld version that can be fired, onto the suspect car, and my understanding is this this is this was this has been raised several years ago, this would this would allow for apprehension without any pursuit. so without any risk to the public that that arises from a pursuit, is there any update

you could give to the public about, where you stand on that, and if this is something that could potentially be implemented, given that i think it was brought to your and command staff's attention several years ago. yeah, definitely. absolutely. and we have a placeholder in the budget for star chase and other technologies. we still have to finish the research on star chase. and if we get it, how we would deploy it, but i have personally researched that and others on the department has as well. so we have a placeholder in the budget, hopefully to implement that type of technology. the one thing i will say is, yeah, it i believe can be very useful in terms of tracking a vehicle and doesn't guarantee apprehension, but it can be very useful in tracking a vehicle. so, we have a placeholder in the budget for it. so you will ask for star chase this budget cycle. is that

correct? yeah. we have asked for at least when i say a placeholder funding to implement that technology because we don't have a contract, we still have some. so you will ask for the money for star chase, but you are still conducting due diligence on whether you will actually take the steps to purchase and implement the use of star chase. is that right? star trek, star chase, as well as, a couple other technologies. so, yes. okay. and i promise this will actually be my last question, but it just arose in the in your last answer, which is, you know, i think, frankly, for myself and maybe members of the public here, this too, you know, you say it's being evaluated and research is being done, but it has been several years, you know, since this was first raised. and i, i'm just wondering if there's anything you can say on why why it would take so long to just give a yes or no answer on whether this is something that i understand. the budget is a separate process, but a yes or no answer on whether this is a technology that we think is worth pursuing,

in our department or not. why does that something like that take several years? i let me make sure i understand your question. the yes or no answer. yes. we are interested in star chase, things take several years because we have to prioritize our budget and, you know, we have many things that we would like to get. some never even. so let me just clarify i because i said i understand there's a budget issue, but you said something. you said you have a placeholder for it in the budget, but you are still doing research to figure out whether you actually want to use it or not, whether it's a good idea for sfpd to use it. so that's the piece that i'm asking about, not the budget part. you know, we have a we see the statistics. we have an incredibly high collision rate. it seems that every year we have multiple tragedies to innocent bystanders from chases. you have this on a surface level, promising at least partial solution raised to leadership's attention. and yet it takes years to just evaluate whether we want to move forward with it or not. so, you know,

setting aside whether you get the money from the political branches, that's not up to you. why are we still why do we still not have an answer on is star chase a worthwhile technology or not? that that's what i'm asking, i believe that it is. but the bottom line is, i think the verdict is still out on, you know, the star chase is not a widely used technology, and there's a reason why. i mean, obviously, you've done your research. one of the deployment methods for star chase is what looked like a gun that you shoot into the bumper of a car. i think we need to think carefully about those types of things because they're not. that is not without its own set of risks. so we have a lot of ideas that come on the table and not all of them get implemented. star chase is one that we are interested in. but like anything else, you know, the list is here and we try to narrow that down to get to what's realistic. for us to actually deploy drones has been

in the conversation for years to do, let's not get started on drones because i don't have a lot more questions. to answer your question, there are many things that are on our list of things that would be good to have if we can get it, and that's one of them. but there are many others that have not been implemented yet. we have to prioritize. okay. understood. thanks, chief. mr. young. yes thank you, president elias. and thank you, chief, for the report. it's, really promising to see at least, you know, fewer incidents of gun violence and some of the numbers going down. i think that, community policing, some of the strategies that have been implemented are having a positive impact, i wanted to ask you, i read somewhere that the lawsuit as a result of the hill bomb is the judge there is inclined to proceed with allowing that, to happen. i'm not going to inquire about anything specific to that other than when the, hill bomb

happened. this commission requested that we have an investigation of what exactly, you know, may have happened, to, to, you know, kind of escalate the situation. and if there was going to be an analysis of whether this was a policy failure, a planning failure, and yet i haven't heard anything. are we close to having a summary or an outcome of that investigation on the department's end, given the pending litigation on this, i really don't think it's wise for us to have a public presentation at this time. there are a couple of things that are happening, including, you know, the investigation that the epa has is doing that's still ongoing, but it is, as you said, i don't know how many lawsuits, but i know there are lawsuits, and we have litigation holds on records and things of that nature. so i

don't think i should be speaking about that incident, giving, given what we're we're facing litigation. we're two months away from the potential next hill bomb. has there been any effort to outreach to those individuals that participate in these this mission station, having community meetings to be able to engage, whether it's, community members, homeowners or skaters, to plan and hopefully have a better outcome this year. yeah, we, as we get closer, that will happen. and it also happened, for the halloween, which we've had in the past, hill bombs during the halloween, halloween evening actually. but there was community outreach of that type for halloween as well. and i can't say it was as a result of that that we didn't have hill bombs, but we did not

have any hill bombs. so there was an interest in making sure that we didn't have the same type of issues that we had in july of last year. so there was that. and we will have it this year, because typically it happens in july, as you just laid out, pointed out. and so is there consideration for, for, a different approach or strategy for how to intervene in the potential hill bomb that will be taking place? well, we will have community outreach, if that's your question. and i do know that we have people that are in the skate, skate border community that we have engaged with, more since last year's event. there is a lot more public interest for people that live in that community since last year's event. so we do plan to tap into both of those resources. and anybody else that wants to be in this conversation , which is what happened in in october. so that is likely to expand as we draw near, people

tend to, anniversaries tend to refresh people's memories and spur interest. so i'm sure we'll have some interest in what we're doing. and how we do it. and people that want to have that conversation. great, on a different item with regards to the language access numbers, thank you for providing an update on how we got to the numbers that were presented, the explanation or the analysis of the situation was that there was a person responsible for collecting that data and submitting it to oca, but that we do not know what that person's methodology was. and we can't access that person. is that person on staff any longer, that person, i believe, has been off on, an injury or a work related injury for quite a while. so there are some, some record keeping these records

that we just don't have, don't have in our hands right now, and that what needs to happen is to sit down a conversation between the current coordinator, which is officer guerin, who you all heard from, and, the former officer who did that for, for many years, i think about 4 or 5 years. and so i know that this dgo will, has been identified as one of the ones that will be having some public community working groups and feedback sessions. and i appreciate that because there's a lot of work to do on this. but what is your analysis of why in less than five years, we've had a 50% drop off in the number of clients and the utilization of language access services? well, i mean, part of, i think in what you were given, is are the records what what they need to be or what they should be, and are we

keeping accurate records because, there's a thought that we're not comparing apples to apples, and that's why it's important to actually understand what was reported in the past, and you know, the other the other part of this is the we just don't know if everything is being counted like it should be or it in terms of track. and for these language access requests. and that's part of our what we have to get to the bottom of, because there was that drop off and we, we need to understand what that is. but at this point we don't have that answer yet. and i think when we do get a chance to talk to the prior person, we'll be able to sort through if we are comparing the same set of factors which i don't believe we are, but that has not been confirmed yet. i don't know if it was agendized past the previous conversation, but i think, you know, the

report that was submitted to us that explained the way why we why the numbers had looked so different is exactly what where we're at right now. chief, do you feel that when that person comes back from their medical leave, we can get an update and hone in on what the discrepancy issues are and how to better transition if and when this happens again, so that we don't have a gap or an enormous drop off in numbers. the way we've seen you. yes, i do. and, also moving forward, i mean, this whole exercise, i mean, there are some things that we believe that we can improve on in terms of working with oca and making sure we're on the same page with the reporting of what needs to be and should be reported. i mean, i think it just benefits the community at large, right?

the better everyone understands what procedures, what protocols this department has in place and when they encounter folks that may need support, language access, support, that we are able to avail them of it and be proactive about it. right. i know i received materials that explain what the training looks like. it's a very passive, approach to, to offering this service. i think we rely on individuals who, as the training itself mentions, you know, under duress, people who have limited english proficient. we, actually retreat. right. and have even more limitations when they are encountering a law enforcement official. so i think there's a lot of work to be done. and i would like to get a better sense of what the solution is. how do we get back to 30,000 clients when the census demonstrates

that, you know, language access is still a need and the numbers of immigrant or people who, require language translation services has not changed in those five years. so i hope that we do, invest the time and energy so that we can improve in this area. thank you. yes, sir. mr. thank you very much, mr. president, cindy ellis, i just want to follow up on that regards to that. two pedestrian, hit and run, first of all, i want to thank the officer for stopping that car going further, and then my other question, i would, i would like to ask is whether the person that was, you know, arrested and detained, was there a, i guess, a test of toxicology tests on them, whether he was at, it was in pure alcohol or where they use on drugs or is or is that

someone their investigation. i don't, my understanding is there was no, objective symptoms of that. okay so i don't, there was no, no charges on under the influence. okay. and then i'll take up, vice president, matt carter on regarding this, the new start technologies for, i guess the new generation of, device to is, i guess, stop vehicles and so maybe we can work on that. okay i'll be happy to share some thoughts on it. well there's a lot of things that's coming out that, you know, it's i right now, so also on the regards to the, i guess on the muni bus, do we have a policy with the muni to i guess when they have incidents of on

the bus where they push the button and we respond to it, and then what's the time frame and, we do respond to those, those distress distress calls for that, bus operators, and the response time varies. it really depends on where it happens. and where officers are when they when they receive those calls. we do have a muni, unit, it's a small unit, but they are responsible. partly not solely, but they are responsible for working with muni to address those type of issues. but really, it's a patrol function. it's as much as a patrol function when those type of calls come out. but we do respond to those, those type of calls are high priority calls. a priority calls. so just really depends on the circumstances of that particular incident of how long it takes. and now looking at the time frame, probably, during after school, that's probably when you probably would

get the most calls for these issues regarding, students on the bus having issues or the bus drivers pushing that button, is there any thought in taking a look at that, time frame, say 3 to 5? you know, during when students are going home, parents are concerned that the kids get home. you know, see if you have a policy on that. yes, sir. i yes, i can follow up. i don't know that we have, those type of trends, but it's definitely something i can follow up on in terms. but we do respond to any type of emergency calls involving our our busses or our bus operators when they need help. and then, the mta, fare collectors, are they part of not part of the police department, they're not. okay, thank you very much, chief. thank you. sergeant. members of the public would like to make public comment regarding line item five, the chief's report. please

approach the podium. on hill bomb. thanks for opening that up. the, i understand you weren't in the in the loop on that, chief. that's what you said after the incident. you know, we keep getting a series of irish captains in the mission . i live in the mission, the mission is not irish anymore, who's appointing these captains, the captain. we had before this last one. he wanted to build an additional wall around the place. he really did. i complained, i said, why you got all all of those, those horses and stuff out there in front of blocking it off. why don't you put a pedestrian? pissoir. there. why don't you put a bathroom there? they laughed me off. and let's build a wall instead. and they dumped him. and i doubt that you. that was your idea to appoint an irishman down there. but anyway, then we

got another guy. this guy arranges a hill bomb. okay. the purpose was quoted in the press. a captain standing back from the scene said, we're going to make a lot of arrests today before the thing even got going. the whole purpose of that, you're not in the loop. they're going to arrest a lot of brown and black kids because they wanted their ids. they wanted to get them into the system. and that's exactly what they did. they set them out there in your the street by your station. well, they sent everything to ncic. first thing the first lawyer in the scene said was defending the kids. was, is this a new system yet? the answer is, yeah, you're too late. so the chief doesn't seem to be involved in this. the answer is elected chief. and again, it might be this one. he might be a completely different person if he's elected by 471,000 voters like me instead of a single mayor. thank you.

i'd like to use the overhead overhead again. again? i was again talking about my son. again, again. it's mother's day and i'm waiting. still waiting for that presentation on on how to solve unsolved homicides. i would bring awareness to all the other unsolved homicides of these young people and children that have been murdered over the years in their cases. still unsolved. and these mothers are still suffering. here is more mothers that i stand with. and here is maddie scott's son, and his case is unsolved. so what do we do about this? i hope the presentation is going to bring some awareness and some implementation on all these unsolved homicides. this boy's father is passed away. he the

one gave me this poster and none of these cases are solved. i'm not sure about this little baby, but you got a little child on here that is murdered and. i keep bringing this about my child. this is what i have to look at. you may be tired of looking at it, but i'm not. this is my son laying on a gurney, lifeless. his skin is decaying. what do we do about it? i know your mothers are proud of you. i see young men every day and i asked them and i say, i know your mothers are proud of you. i wanted to be proud of my son. i raised him well. i made sure he went to school. is a little african american boy. i was scared for him, but he was doing well. graduating from school, i

had to walk across the stage and receive his diploma and death. and i'm still advocating for him in death. i'm his voice now, let alone standing with other mothers. do something about this . that is the end of public comment item line item six dpa director's report discussion report on recent dpa activities and announcements. commission discussion will be limited to determining whether to counter any of the issues raised for future commission meeting. executive director henderson. thank you, i just want to i know we passed the, consent calendar. i just want to point out for folks because it's in the notes, that part of the consent calendar included the sfpd, devices for a bias from the first quarter of 2024. and a lot of those programs in there were

also the focus of the dpa misconduct audit. so those have been, that's in there in case anyone is looking in there. it's referenced in the audit. so i don't want to miss, making those connections in terms of the audit, we also attend and participated this week in the association of local government auditors. i sent the entire team to that, convention by the entire team. i mean, steve fleharty, but i it sounded more impressive when i said that i just stop. i sent everyone, yeah. we this is the royal. we presented, and made two presentations at the conference, the first one was an introduction to law enforcement auditing that was co-presented, with, the state of colorado. and the second presentation was on

on our audit on san francisco police department's handling of officer misconduct. if i hadn't mentioned it before, that audit actually won an award. it was a night award for that audit, and so, steve fleharty received the award, and i plan on having that available in case anyone would like to take pictures with it, i'm going to bring that at the next commission so you guys will have it to see. don't really touch it or get close, but you can take pictures with it for your instagrams and social medias, i do want to thank, our audit liaison, commissioner benedicto, the video that he prepared played at the conference as well as mine. i'm not going to say whose was better received, but let me just tell you, someone got a standing ovation. so people were very excited about it. we'll just leave it at that then it was definitely yours. i'm not i'm not going to answer. i'm just

going to let you know it was well received, at the conference, the next audit is in progress. and just as a reminder that audit, is focusing on the department's process to ensure accurate and complete stop data. so that's still on the way. we're currently reviewing stop data extracts that have been provided from the department, in terms of, internal operations, we are in the dpa is now in the final stages of uploading data sets, for the first time to data sf and data sf is a citywide initiative that's run by the city's chief data officer, aiming to create a public and open database with hundreds of data sets that are accessible from across the departments. and the goal and participating in that is one to publish our most requested data. so hopefully

that reduces our public data requests by having what we release be evidence informed by what people are asking for more frequently, and then secondarily to increase transparency and accessibility for our stakeholders. so we're looking to forward feedback on what data is valuable and what information those stakeholders make decisions about, both with policing and police accountability. that includes the public. this commission, the department, board of supervisors and the mayor. so i'll keep you updated on that project. but we're excited about, participating, in that project as well, using our technology to create more efficiencies and transparencies, we also, participated in a presentation of dpa 101 talking about the organization, how we do what we do, at the tenderloin station meeting, one of our senior

investigators, ali, who is here and seated in the back, visited the community center and answered questions as well for the public about our investigative process, attorney stephanie walker wilson from dpa. and outreach coordinator carolyn wysinger presented at the department's academy for their most recent promotional class as well, and answered questions about the organization and the work that we do since our last commission meeting, our cases, that have opened, closed and are pending have remained relatively consistent, but the top allegation for new cases that have come into the agency is, again, these are allegations have been in order for, an officer misbehaving or speaking inappropriately to the public, followed. secondly by complaints of excessive force or failure to properly investigate. number three, the full breakdown of those allegations that have come into the agency, have been filed

and are available on our website as well, we have. we have a number of cases that are still pending final decisions, the investigations are completed, but we're pending final decisions, 119 of those, sustained cases by dpa are still pending with the chief's office, and we still have 13 cases, that have been sustained, that are pending with the commission, several of the cases that are pending with the commission are actually scheduled over the next two months. so i look forward to reporting those pending numbers, numbers decreasing, pretty soon over the summer, we have one case this evening that's in closed session tonight, also here in the hearing room with me is my chief of the legal division, diana rosenstein, and also senior investigator ali schultheiss, as well as jermaine

jones, who will be presenting on two of the agenda items coming up for the evening, as always, people can contact us directly at sfgovtv. org forward slash dpa or you can contact the office directly at (415) 241-7711. that concludes my weekly report and i will reserve my comments, for the agenda items as they are called for the rest of the evening. oh, no, sir, minutes is up. is it? the chief got it down to six. did he? he did. i had a lot to say. weeks of practice. i had changed the format and i need you to do better, mr. henderson. more information, sergeant, for members of the public. no one's on the dais. no, from members of ye. oh, okay, i just want to thank you again, dpa. executive

director, second time, second consecutive year for the 19th ward, it's actually the third. not that i'm counting the third time. the third. third. yes. well, it's the second time, so i guess it's. oh, did i say thank you? i think for the first one was, in part with the controller's office, but it was the same staff person. they just weren't on my payroll. but it was anyway, congratulations there, executive director paul henderson. the award doesn't say that, but i may have a little post-it or something. don't you worry. we're all going to see it. thank you, thank you. commissioner sergeant. for members of the public, they would like to make public comment regarding line item six dpa director's report. please approach the podium. and there's no public comment. line item seven commission reports discussion and possible action. commission reports will be limited to a brief description of activities and announcements. benedicto thank you very much. president elias, just a couple of things, from my report. one

was that that, president elias and i, attended a demonstration of a new, less lethal force option called a bolawrap that sfpd is considering, trialing with some of its tactical units. it's basically a very strong reinforced, rope that is around these two probes that will wrap around your your arms or legs. there's going to be a full presentation before the commission about this option, i believe, next week. but i'll be absent next week. so, here, and so president wise asked me to share my report this week. i think that from the materials we'd read about it, as well as seeing it in action, i think it provides an additional tool in the toolbox for our officers to use that are less of lethal force. it doesn't carry the same risk. it's a good de-escalation, item and it also does has a pretty low chance of causing accidental injury or pain. i was volunteered to be have it deployed on me and it was a

perfectly, pinched my legs a little bit, but otherwise it was, it was not, was not painful in any way, president elias got to shoot the chief with it. so, there's probably tape of that floating around somewhere, but it was, a very enlightening demonstration to see the literature from them. it seems like they're the company, is committed to not repeating some of the mistakes we've seen with the deployment of tasers in some jurisdictions. so one example, as we've seen in a lot of jurisdictions that have used tasers, there are some very tragic accidents where an officer will reach for their firearm. and, in an attempt to deploy the taser and deploy lethal force when they didn't intend to, because a taser is the same basic shape and format of a firearm, and the bolawrap weapon is shaped more like a like a remote, almost. and so that accidental deployment issue is hopefully been sidestepped. so they seem to have taken a lot of thoughtful choices. and it's been deployed in some other departments, including some in the bay area. i believe mountain

view, california has used it with success. so looking forward to my fellow commissioners as well as members of the public, seeing that seeing that demonstration as well, the second item on my report is, as members of the public are aware, last fall there was an issue with sfmta, issuing tickets to stolen cars. and those tickets getting back to an owner who not only no longer has their car, but now is a ticket. and since then i've been working closely with commander nicole jones of the traffic unit, who i wanted to give my compliments to chief, who's been doing a really tremendous job on this collaboration and in general on the collaboration between sfpd and mta. they've now loaded their handheld license plate readers with a stolen vehicle file, which i updated the commission on previously. so that's led to, i believe, over 200 recoveries of vehicles that are stolen. and those vehicles are now not getting ticketed. and those, owners are getting their car recovered by sfpd at at no cost to them, the next step is to add this technology

to the little vehicles that you see. mta go on. i guess they're called gophers, those, readers have been installed in about 100 of those gopher devices, so hopefully that'll continue to improve this collaboration between sfpd and mta on on these stolen vehicles, and i'll continue to meet with, commander jones quarterly as we continue this, to see the status of this collaboration. you know, we talked about, sock a little bit earlier. i think the sfpd mta collaboration is another example of the way we want the cross-agency collaboration to work. and i was talking to commander jones that it's unfortunate that it began with the way it did with these incidents of stolen tickets, but the collaboration seems to be working productively and i'm happy to report that, and also gave them a presentation. as long as it's working well, i'll continue to include it in my report. and that concludes my report. thank you. anyone ever doubts commissioner benedicto's commitment to his role as a police commission? then they need to see how he put himself in harm's way to do this

demonstration, and the only reason i think he was he volunteered is because, nobody wanted to hurt him. and there was such a long line to have me volunteer that they they chose him instead. but i, i look forward to next week. it is going to be before the commission and the public. so they can get more information on this new equipment, i will reserve my comments, but i will, invite people to learn more about it and anticipation for next week's, agenda item because, my, i'm excited because my understanding is we're going to actually have a really great presentation. the training department's going to come and be available to answer questions for the public and for the commission, on this new equipment, is there a video of commissioner benedicto as part of my commissioner benedicto? i'm not going to be telling all the business, but yeah, i'll let him answer that. there may or may not be a video. yes, i'm bringing popcorn. commissioner

yee, thank you very much there, president. cindy. eliza, i just want to continue on. with, commissioner kevin benedicto. i last april 24th, we attended the san francisco police sexual assault awareness honoring, victims by wearing jeans and solidarity with, the world's that, you know, been victimized. also on the san francisco quarterly, police award, for the officers of the month ceremony. so again, been a busy time for, commissioner benedict. i'm just trailing behind him. so that's all i have to report. thank you very much, chief. oh, i just wanted to say, with that bolawrap technology, it's a restraint device, not a less lethal. it's a restraint device. mr. yanez. thank you, president elias, quick report, we are making major progress on the

diversion program, on the prebooking diversion program. we're back on track with meeting consistently with the community assessment referral center, there is, you know, a lot of interest and investment in from both parties, i think, to make sure that we get this, going. and despite there being some challenges with funding because the city's, you know, being challenged with funding, i think that we're going to have a program, in the near future, hopefully before the end of this year, we will have something going on, so i really appreciate , policy, director, i think diana oliva. oliva. oliver. roach. doctor. oliva. roach. doctor oliva. rocky. doctor. that's right. okay well, she's definitely been able to shepherd this along. yes, sir, defense. yeah. that's right. yeah we should definitely take a moment to congratulate. and so be hard

to have, doctor. there you go. and so i'm sure she's. you know, viewing this at home. oh, congratulations. she's not. i hope she's enjoying a night out. i know. right? her celebration today. yes. i hope she's not watching, and then, i really want to, give a shout out to jermaine jones from dpa, who took the torch from janelle k haywood. yes, with regards to the investigative social media, dgo, it's been a very, involved process with many partners, we are at the stage where, dpa is working and actually meeting with officers who are involved with, investigative social media investigations themselves. and we've been getting a lot of, agreement on what needs to be in place in order for us to improve the dgo and the policy around investigative social media. so

thank you for your work on that effort. and i know that it is still, well, you know, a ways to go before we come to a conclusion with that process because there are still some differences of opinion in some areas. but i like that we are having good communication and making progress on that. so that is my report. thank you. thank you, vice president carter. thank you, president elias, it's been almost three months now since this commission voted to enact dgo 9.07, and i believe it's set to go into effect sometime next month. chief i just wanted to ask you if you could give any update on the status of the preparation of the training materials or just implementation more generally? sure, we're on track. so we have, no reason for an extension at this point. we'll continue to apply for it. it's very

succinct. okay. thank you. that's all for me, sergeant. for members of the public, they would like to make public comment regarding line item seven. please approach the podium. commissioners, i'm h brown. i have a master's in special education. i've been working with gangster kids since i got out of the navy in 1965. so that's a long, long time. i've, anyway, i won't brag. anyway, i'll be here every week trying to get through the calendar, trying to get you to put on your agenda, trying to get you to talk amongst yourselves about whether or not we should have an elected police chief. okay that's just about it. except quorum. quorum you know that, one of the directors here who

was appointed by the mayor wouldn't be here if one of you had called in sick. that's because we lost our quorum, what, three times in the last four meetings? the chief is smiling. he knows what's up. you know, the mayor doesn't want to see you meet. period. that didn't prop e give you an idea of what she thinks of you, she doesn't want to want anybody in the way of what she does with the police chief, pardon me? the police force, except for the sfo, because she wants their endorsement and she'll do whatever for that. that's the problem there. the police chief is torn between the mayor who appointed them and the cpo, who actually runs the force, commissioner, you feeling ill now or no. if next week. if deborah. and never mind. thank you very much. but quorum guys, you're our window into the police department and the police

department is not working. that is the end of public comment, madam. line item eight joint presentation and discussion with dpa and sapd on the city and county of san francisco's homicide rewards program, industry best practices, and efforts to solicit information to solve cases. discussion. hello. hi good evening, i'm noah mellinger. i'm the captain of the major crimes unit. this is lieutenant sanders. he's the officer in charge of the homicide unit. we're going to do a brief powerpoint, and then dpa is going to present their findings. and then we'll be here for to answer any questions you may have, that's pretty much it. do you have the powerpoint up there? it's on there. oh all

right, i don't know . which this thing right here. no. good evening, president elias. vice president carter. ulverstone commissioners. chief. scott director. henderson, paul. good evening. i'm here to discuss or present information about rewards for unsolved and cold cases. okay. san francisco

police department established a cold case unit with the goal of reexamining evidence to vigorously investigate cases for successful outcome. the unit is currently staffed with five, nine, 60 retired employees. some of those guys were lieutenants, captains and sergeants. and we actually have one sworn sergeant assigned to the unit. unsolved homicides are constantly being reviewed and investigated for any new leads. forensic evidence, or other information that may be helpful with solving cases. after five years of non-activity, a case may be reassigned to the cold case unit regardless of the unit assigned to the to the case. rewards are still offered once all the exhausted leads have been excuse me. once all leads have been exhausted, once it's been transferred to cold cases,

regular communication with the next of kin is established to give updates, and some information will be shared with the next of kin. family members. this next slide is about admin code 10.103 thousand six. it's been effective since may 8th, 2016. public donations are approved for the purpose of this admin code. some of the rules set forth. i'll go over that. the chief may pay a reward to any person or persons providing information to leads that leads to an arrest and successful conviction of a person for the crime of murder. the person may not have participated in the planning commission or concealment of the crime. information must have been unknown to the police and to the da's office at the time it was provided. the reward is at the

chief's discretion and there's no right to a reward, the board of supervisors can shall approve any reward over $100,000. we also have a unit order 17 zero one. and this unit order on the right hand side. all leads, like i said before, have to be exhausted, then the investigator will complete a memo. once the memo goes up to chain and gets approved, it's released, and we request the media relations department to issue a press release and possibly a news conference. increments on a reward can go from $10,000 or more, depending on the circumstances of the case. the case is ongoing, and constantly being reviewed, and every six months we can increase the reward. so we've always had a

dedicated web page for the san francisco police department on unsolved homicides and cold cases. in february of 2023, we took steps to improve and revamp this page. this web page. members of the it team, myself and chief scott, we met and we put together a what we thought was the best format considering the information that we all came up with and that members of the public wanted to see. so we got their feedback as well. the new reward website was completed and went live in may 30th of 2023. the old website only had 17 cases, which, had 19 victims on it. year to date. we have 176 cases on the website and like i said, it's active, currently

active. additional ways that we try to bring attention to homicide cases are through the tv monitors at district stations . that's been in place since 22,022 with the help of miss paulette jones and retired lieutenant mike philpot, excuse me, miss brown. sorry we also have investigators attend memorials. we pass out reward bulletins at community meetings and in the community. we frequently partner with the media relations unit to request a news release or issue a press conference for certain cold cases, the media relations unit will also publish information on sfpd social media platforms for us, and in some cases, reach out to the mainstream media outlets to produce a cold case segment. we also work with the san francisco police department community engagement division and assist in events or attend

events that they plan. this next powerpoint, to so rewards paid out in 2000. since 2001, we paid out seven rewards, the first reward was 2001. the last i was paid in 2013. and it's important to point out that it pays can remain anonymous per the admin code. and i'll turn it over to mr. jones. sorry i, president elias, commissioners and chief scott, i'm jermaine jones, policy attorney for the dpa. i was asked to, assist the homicide team with looking into how jurisdictions handle cold cases. can you get closer to the mic? sure thing. real soft spoken. i get that a lot, so i

met with the cold case team, specifically chris fountain, to get a better, better understanding of how their operation works and what they've looked into for, then looked into policies for some large jurisdictions around the country and followed up with survey questions, unsurprisingly, we didn't get too many responses, but four did respond. at a high level, there are some pretty big policy differences among jurisdictions, the biggest split is between government run reward programs and third party reward programs, the government run reward programs, are present in san francisco, philadelphia, l.a. county, and metro dc. they all have, small differences, but i'll go into those, third party reward programs are often run by a group called crime stoppers. it's, a national organization that has subchapters for state

and areas and also get into those, other differences between these programs include the payment clauses. so whether you need to obtain a conviction, whether an individual needs to be charged or whether it's just identifying or arresting a suspect, other differences include, whether the information is unknown to law enforcement agencies or it's corroborating information, reward amounts vary , and the types of crimes involved, it varies widely. so the government run programs are mostly, homicide reward programs. the programs run by crime stoppers include tips for almost any crime, it seems, so i'll get into some of the government run programs. the, cold case team went over the san francisco, requirements to pay a

tip, so i won't repeat them at length, but they break down to tips that lead to an arrest and conviction for murder, the person receiving the tip has to have no participation in the underlying crime, and the information must have been unknown to sfpd, philadelphia was a jurisdiction that mirrors san francisco. except they had a much more stringent, list of ineligible persons to receive tips. la county has another government run program that's distinct from la city. so the la county program is run through the board of supervisors, it comes out of the discretionary fund of each supervisor, it applies to homicide, but also manslaughter and damage to property. and it includes instances that of tips that lead to apprehension, and or conviction. but the or prong is

importantly, when the board of supervisors makes a finding of impossibility of conviction due to the death of the suspect. metro dc also runs a government program, they give out rewards of up to $25,000 for tips that lead to arrest or conviction, but there's no public information on, participation or whether tips have to be unknown, so as you see, with the government run programs, they, they often they all, are, deal with tips that lead to convictions, the third party tip lines, by contrast, don't always deal with convictions, those. are sometimes arrests and that can be a wide range of crimes. third party tip lines are run by, third party service, and they solicit tips online, by phone or using smartphone apps,

they don't require any personal information, and the tipster often receives a unique id that they can check, for updates. one important difference between these third party tip lines and a government run tip line is that they're donation based. these crime stoppers programs are often funded by large corporate sponsors, and are run in coordination with the local law enforcement unions, and that's seen across the vast majority of the programs, other third party organizations include silent witness and tip soft, and again, they're not limited to homicide cases, lapd had a pretty, big, press conference when they partnered with la crime stoppers to pay $500 tips that were related to ghost gun manufacturing and trafficking, i'd like to briefly go over some of the other crime stoppers regional programs. just

to give a sense of what other jurisdictions are doing. so new york city has a pretty robust crime stoppers program. they've been working with the organization since 1983, and over the last 40 years, they've paid about $3 million in rewards . their website says that it's led to the arrest of over 9000 suspects and 1000 solved murders, their most recently cited high profile case was related to a 2022 train car shooting that resulted in ten victims, nypd crime stoppers reported receiving multiple tips, which led to the arrest of the suspect. and they paid out a $50,000 reward, which was split evenly between all of the tipsters and, new york is a good jurisdiction to look at because they keep their website pretty updated. they've paid $14,000 in tip rewards, during the month of april 2020 for i didn't really

see other jurisdictions that kept their information as up to date as new york, lapd's, or the los angeles crime stoppers program is also, functioning in los angeles. aside from the government run program. that was something unique that i saw to la, the la crime stoppers program works with 87 cities and 44 law enforcement agencies, they have paid about $200,000 in rewards, and have received over 150,000 tips, 5000 of those tips were homicide tips and they have reported their tips leading to $58 million in drug seized and 4400 arrests. but they didn't have any specifics on homicides, some other jurisdictions that have crime stoppers programs are san diego county, one piece of information that they publicized, which i didn't see

other places, is that they, they're crime stoppers group works with media partners to bring more awareness to unsolved felony crimes, the silicon valley crime stoppers is, another, local jurisdiction in using the program, we sent out a survey to ten jurisdictions just to see if people would talk to us about the structure of their, cold case program and whether their tip lines have led to reliable, reliable information. we sent our request out to ten jurisdictions, and four responded, our intern, whose last name i would butcher, followed up and spoke with several of the jurisdictions, all four, all four jurisdictions stressed, very high volume of tips that can come in when they publicize, one of these, rewards

. and, they acknowledged that third party tip lines are a reliable source of information and helped them to corroborate known information, but they couldn't point to any specific homicides solved, so that was what i could find, by looking around the country at what jurisdictions are doing. okay, go ahead and come on up, we have vice president carter overshown. thank you, president elias. and thank you for the presentation from, jermaine jones and lieutenant sanders. i think most of my questions are going to be for jermaine, but but please, lieutenant sanders, please chime in if, if you have anything to add on any of these first. first, i just want to acknowledge why we're having this, this agenda item, which is all because of miss brown, who attends every single police

commission meeting and advocates , not only for the solving of her own son's murder, but for, better success and better approaches to address all the unsolved homicides that have been that have been pending for so long. so just want to acknowledge her and for all of her advocacy on this. and this is this is why we're here. what i speaking for myself, what i would love to be able to do is to look at what other jurisdictions are doing and see if they're doing things differently than we're doing that have shown some success or some promise. so let me just ask a couple questions for deepa, just so i understand what what we learned from looking at the other the other jurisdictions policies. so is it on this, on

this chart? can you just tell us which one of these which of these jurisdictions, where do they require that the information be unknown to the department in order for, for the award to issue? and i guess the reason i'm just asking is because, you know, they all require that an award lead to some outcome, whether it be an arrest or conviction. so i guess i'm just having a little bit of a hard time understanding if the local law enforcement agency is already in possession of information, how can a tip that doesn't provide any new information lead to an arrest? do you see what i'm saying, yeah, i see what you're saying there. well, the philadelphia policy, i believe, spoke directly to tips that were new

to the department. okay. what other jurisdictions have. well, the four that responded said that tips are helpful for them in corroborating information. so i'm not a detective. i don't know if that helps them get to an arrest, but okay, that's fair. so maybe they already had the information, but they're they're more certain of it when it's when a tip kind of corroborates evidence, other evidence that they had that might be the case. okay. i guess. and so what were the four jurisdictions that responded to our survey, so that was san diego, san jose, houston and phoenix. okay. and so i guess, you know, there's multiple levers here. there's the amount of the award, right? more money would presumably incentivize

more tipsters. seems like we're paying way more money than anyone else. so that's not something that would necessarily increase the efficacy of our program. there's the outcome, seems like we have a pretty high bar relative to other jurisdictions requiring conviction. not just not just arrest or apprehension, then there's the question of who's eligible. i guess, you know, my understanding is we don't give out awards for anonymous tips. and there's also, various persons that are ineligible depending on if they were involved in, is it just the underlying crime or is it broader than that, i'd have to take a look at the admin code. i believe it's the underlying crime for san francisco. yes, but okay, i would like to point out, let's see the policy in philadelphia, it's a little bit more of a stringent list. so in

ineligible persons include elected officials and their family members, anyone providing information in consideration of a plea or negotiated settlement, anyone who's a fugitive or wanted anyone involved in criminal activity and providing information with the sole motive of removing criminal competition and any person that provides essential information with ulterior motives. contrary to public policy, they have a much broader. okay, that's helpful, but, but but for us, it's just involvement in the underlying crime being investigated. okay so i guess i mean, the question in my mind is, you know, which things could we change in our policy? i guess in the last thing i would note about our policy is that as i understand it and please, lieutenant sanders, feel free to chime in. it is discretionary in the sense that even if you meet the qualification for the award, either the chief of police or the board need to ultimately approve it, depending on the amount. is that right? yes

that's correct. okay. and jermaine, in response to the survey, it sounds like we didn't in response to the survey or any other information we collected, we did not find a jurisdiction that was having a lot of success solving homicides and specifically homicides through their tip program. is that right? that's correct. the only jurisdiction that published, any sort of statistics on their tip program and homicides was new york and san diego. they they both reported solving homicides through tip programs, but they didn't have specifics that they could share with us. at least san diego didn't. new york didn't respond. okay, lieutenant sanders, could i ask you a couple of questions now? now that i've kind of got a little bit better handle on this. so

there are some aspects to our policy that strike me as restrictive in the in terms of, you know, who qualifies for the award, but it's not clear to me why. why we couldn't have a more permissive policy. so, for example, you know, not a not giving awards to anonymous tipsters and then also requiring that the tip lead to a conviction when instead of just, let's say criminal charges being filed, you know, interm, if you're just thinking about getting high quality information that leads to positive outcomes, it seems like we should be just as happy, right, to get an anonymous tip that's high quality. and then secondly, you know, it's outside the tipsters control whether a jury ultimately convicts someone. all that's from law enforcement's perspective is that the information was reliable enough to obtain an indictment. and

institute charges, why? why, yeah, why why do we i mean, do you do you think there's a good reason to not give tip money to anonymous tipsters and to require conviction? or do you think we could relax those restrictions, and perhaps get more, get more people coming forward. it's a good question, i do believe that i was working in homicide when this was put together back in 2016, and that was to get information coming in for one of the cases. i actually had a quadruple homicide when i was investigating it. it was tough to get information coming in. i know that the chief of police back then went to the board of supervisors to increase the reward. why they came up with those rules, i'm not sure, but in my opinion, i mean, i

know that we at the time, they had to consider receiving misinformation on so they can prevent wrongful convictions and , and incentivizing witnesses, to give information would be an issue. so they had to put some limits or term's in there. okay. and just from your experience, just your experience working from sfpd, what would you be do you have would you have any concerns about allowing anonymous tipsters to receive money or only requiring, for example, that a tip lead to charges being brought rather than a conviction? is there something in your experience as as a, you know, as an officer that would tell you that we shouldn't relax the rules? i personally don't have any concerns regarding anonymous

tipsters, being paid money to receive information. i think it would be a big help for my unit personally. to solve some of these cases and bring closure, so i. i don't have an issue with that, but i do know it's not up to me. it's up to the board of supervisors and of course, everyone else. of course. yes. okay. great. and i just had one more question for jermaine, it seems like this is an area where there isn't a ton of as much information or data as we would like to be able to guide our own policy, our own policy making here at home, is there anything else that you would recommend that we do as a commission to gather information on this topic, given that that dpa and the department have already worked pretty hard to pull pull information together, yeah. i think it would be helpful for the commission to send a letter

to some of the jurisdictions that i pointed out, specifically new york, maybe to get some more information from them, when they get an email from department of police accountability. i don't know how, likely they are to want to reply to that, but, i think maybe some additional inquiry would help, do they know that it's the award winning department of police accountability? i didn't add that triple triple award. yeah, that was my fault. aside from that, maybe starting conversations with departments that have cold case units that work with, anonymous tip lines just to maybe have some deeper discussion of whether the programs are working well for them. i know there's probably more they would say to these guys than they would say to me. so, those conversations might be helpful, outside of that, i think, you know, for san

francisco, it's the we have the, the highest reward amounts in the nation, so it's not a amount of money issue. it's really, we're seeing with other jurisdictions, they have more tips flowing in with smaller dollar amounts, so, so, it's just a, a question of whether that's beneficial to them. great. thanks so much for the joint presentation. director henderson, thank you. i'll start with, the department. i appreciate the history of what the reward board fund has been. i think that's really helpful. and having this conversation and shaping what is possible for what we're doing. and i also want to thank, mr. jones from dpa for pointing out the specific comparisons i've always said. and i think it's really important that being able to compare apples for apples

matters, and it's hard to look at what san francisco is doing without a comparison from other like, agencies. so i think that was also super helpful. i would, you know, commissioner overstone asked me for this, asked for the suggestions, which i was going to do, but thank you, ahead of time, one of the things that i think might be helpful, as an extension from the collaborate from the presentation is if maybe the inquiry comes not just from the commission, but from the department itself, since you guys work together to make the presentation, i can't imagine that the departments from the other cities would not be responding, if sfpd were the ones that were asking for some of that information. and then we had a follow up, maybe not a full hearing and presentation, but in a report that gets issued to the commission with the information and analysis from both of the both of the parties, meaning both dpa and the

department itself, on maybe some of the ways that we could tweak out some improvements for the process that's going on. it's not lost on me that this is the highest reward, amounts that we have here. and if we could couple that with some of the outcomes that they're able to achieve in other jurisdictions. and i do understand that in those jurisdictions, it's a coupling with agencies like crime stoppers that's deeply involved with community involvement that generates a lot of those tips that may be helpful. but if there's a way for us to harness some of those suggestions into something that might be helpful, that's that's my suggestion is some sort of report. after we get information from the other agencies, that's it. commissioner benedicto. thank you, president elias. thank you to the department and to dpa for that presentation. it was it was very helpful. i mean,

i think that i agree with what the vice president said and that the focus here is what can we be doing differently to get better results. and i think that what that was very helpful to hear both what we're doing and to see those what other departments are doing, mr. jones, i had a couple of questions for the jurisdictions that use third parties that use like crime stoppers, for example. what is the like? you know, i know they're often a nonprofit. like what is that relationship like on the back end? is there an mou between the department and the third party? i i recognize we didn't get that much information. i'm wondering if you have any sense of that. yeah i actually tried to look for mous, but i didn't see them, the website show that they are nonprofits and they're often run, in collaboration with the local police union. so, let me see if i wrote a list of them. i

shortened my notes. oh. so la, for instance, the sponsors included the la county peace officers association, the la police protective league, and various corporate sponsors, new york was supported by the new york city police foundation, i don't have the rest of them off the top of my head, but i can send those along to you. so are there jurisdictions those la using both a government program through the ordinance and partnering with a nonprofit? so are our jurisdictions that have that have both. it's not either or, that that's correct. la was the only one that i found that had both, so they have a program run through the board of supervisors, and then they have a separate affiliation with the la crime stoppers. and the crime stoppers organization works with all of the law enforcement agencies in the county. interesting because, yeah, i do feel like, you know, we are somewhat restricted by the ordinance as to what changes we

can make here, but if there were a separate organization like crime stoppers, that was that was acting, you know, as a private entity, they're obviously not bound by by by the ordinance in quite the same way as crime stoppers are these like, for example, you know, it looks like la, new york, san diego, san jose, all these organizations. is it a single like nonprofit that does a nationwide? are these sort of organizations that share a name but are actually independent organizations? do you know? i don't know precisely. i know that there's a crime stoppers usa, which is kind of the national model. and then, there are jurisdictional crime stoppers groups, oakland had one, but i haven't been able to find any other information about it. and then some of them are county specific. some seem to be cities. so yeah, it seems like that like that kind of partnership. it seems like would be a good complement to what we have, because it seems from what i've looked at from your research, crime stoppers has a lower threshold and a lower

reward. and so it could be so the other side of the coin for our central reward program, which is the very high threshold, but the very high reward, maybe we can invite crime stoppers to come and present to get that, because again, like we're also just looking for more data, and it seems like they might potentially have a significant amount of data, there are, there is the santa clara chapter, which is pretty close. so i'll reach out to them and try to see if i can make a connection. okay, great. and then i think your suggestion that if there's anything the commission can do, or the department to help increase the responsiveness to your inquiries, i think there's a commitment in figuring out what we can change. i, you know, i spoke to miss brown before this, had started, and she's been going she's coming here a long time. and, you know, we're trying to get to a place where we can have action and not just discussion. and so i think anything we can do to move that forward, i think, is important. i also want to, echo i want to thank, vice president carter hubberstone for, for asking this

item to be agendized and for his leadership on this issue and echo his. thanks. to miss brown for her tireless advocacy on this issue, as well as to president elias for their work on this. so thank you for the presentations, and thank you for coming today. chief thank you, president elias, just a couple of thank you for the research and the teamwork on this. one of the things i just wanted to note that, i think vice president carter was done in commissioner benedicto that we haven't discussed is the inner relation and the interplay between fear of retaliation and people's reluctance to even accept a reward. i mean, we have significant rewards here, but, one of the challenges that we have is dealing with, even if somebody gets a reward for somebody who's rooted in a community and afraid to get involved because they're afraid of what might happen to them, we

that's a very difficult piece to figure out that i think for us, if we can figure out that piece, we may get more success. you know, we have, you know, witness relocation through the state and those type of things. but oftentimes, it's they're not in sync all the time. so that's a huge hurdle, particularly for violence and homicides that, are gang related or people are afraid of what might happen if they get labeled, you know, a snitch, basically. so that's that's one piece that i know we've talked about with some of our survivors is a real hard hurdle to clear that we haven't really figured out yet, but that's one that we'll continue to try to put some thought into because i think if we can marry those two pieces up, we may have more success with people taking on these rewards and cooperating . sergeant for members of the public who would like to make public comment regarding, excuse

me, line item eight, please approach the podium. as i said, i was special education teacher for a long time. it's really good. one because i was raised in the projects. you know what, chief? we knew everybody who killed everybody when we were six, eight years old because we were invisible and we were running around the, the, the scenes of these things, from the time whatever. some of some of the kids carried guns, call them poppers, a six year old kid carrying a gun on the side, you know, the adult is going to use it won't get busted. but, what i was thinking was, miss brown, my condolences, but, this is 2006, age. the 12 year olds in that era, and i taught i taught middle schoolers, and i