Transcripts For SFGTV Mayors 20240703

Give you a round of applause. Thank you for your leadership. [applause] from the board of supervisors, president aaron peskin, supervisor myrna melgar, supervisor rafael mandelman. Thank you for being here. [applause] i would like to recognize our police commissioners, commissioner walker, commissioner yee and commissioner benedicto. Thank you commissioners. [applause] i would like to also recognize the mayors chief of staff, shawn elseburn and also i like to thank from the mayors team, ivy lee and martha for making sure everything is perfect. [applause] thank you martha for getting us all organized. I see in the crowd as well, rodney fraung from the chamber of commerce, thank you rodney for all your support. What is exciting about this ceremony every quarter is the list of sponsors continues to grow and we cannot have this event unless we have sponsors willing to step up and support us. First i like to start out with the bxp team. Steve colvin, rod dale, of course our former chief of police greg sur and deputy chief john loftus. Thank you for being here for your sporelt. Also like to thank tracey the president of San Francisco Police Officer association who is here today. Round of applause for tracey. She always likes to stand in the back but definitely front and center. The entire list of sponsors. The [indiscernible] mccall catering, decker eelectric, [indiscernible] hok, Metro Service group. Pag nini electric. Bay area host committee. Jma, parks hotel group, hilton hotel, jp morgan chase. In addition to that, some of the larger sponsors have boma, the hotel council, union square alliance, neighbors for better San Francisco and of course the chamber of commerce so round of applause for all the sponsors that helped make this happen. [applause] this has been a remarkable 24 hours for the San Francisco Police Department. I just want to share with you we started out 24 hours ago notifying a captain and new lieutenants and sergeants of promotions. Daniel dudley is here today. Startingsome were at the department of Emergency Management as the mayor kicked us off for the unveiling of the new dist patch center. We are very grateful for dem and all the support for the officers in the field. And then after that, we are at headquarters honoring Sexual Assault victims by denim day. A great event with all the special victim investigators honoring them. Couple hours later, we were honoring the professional staff. This is administrative staff, professional staff we had a chance to honor them. Then, we took our photo for the 175 anniversary of the San Francisco Police Department. That photo, will be a tremendous history piece as we look back years from now and see who was in the photo so thank you mayor breed and everyone who showed up for photo. Now we end the night honoring our Police Officerss in San Francisco so it has been a incredible day and grateful to be part of the department and entire team. Okay, with that well move right into the ceremony and we have three separate captains that are going to describe the heroic or great work of the officers, but before we do i will have there mayor and chief say a few words and well start with mayor london breed. Mayor breed. [applause] thank you assistant chief lazar for recapping the last 24 hours with all the incredible activity that occurred for the San Francisco Police Department. As was mentioned, i want to give another shout out to our former police chief, greg sur for bringing forth this incredible idea to honor our officers and all the incredible work they do for the city and county of San Francisco, and bringing bxp along to be a sponsor as well, so thank you again chief sur. [applause] assistant chief lazar mentioned we were just out in front of city hall taking a commemorative photo to recognize the 175 year history of the San Francisco Police Department. When i looked around at the men and women of the department, there was something very different in the photo of today then the photo of 175 years ago. There were not only people of color in this photo today, there were women and in fact there were so many people leading this department that had a great opportunity to insure that the diversity of the department reflects the city that they serve. It is so great to be here today and to honor the men and women of this department. The people who put their lives on the line every single day and to say thank you. Thank you for your work and your service, and thank you for choosing to be a part of making San Francisco safe. The thing that was not mentioned is what is happened recently that we should all be very proud of. The fact that this yearthis past 2023 and continuing has marked one of the lowest crime rates that San Francisco has seen in the past 10 years. Not including the pandemic, and that is attributed in most part to the hard work of the men and women of the department, their investigations going above and beyond and doing all the amazing work they do to keep the people of San Francisco safe and today you will hear about some of those stories. They may sound as though they are easy to do when you talk about them, but can you imagine the action that it takes . The intuitive nature they possess and use in order to have the skillset necessary to combat a lot of challenges in San Francisco. Today we recognize their work and that they have gone above and beyond and we celebrate the department and the history that has been made in this department over the past 175 years. So, im excited to be here and excited to honor the officers and grateful to each and every one of you for what you do to may San Francisco better and safer on a regular basis. Thank you all so much. [applause] okay. Thank you mayor breed. I now like to call up our chief of police, bill scott. [applause] thank you assistant chief lazar and thank you mayor breed. Good afternoon everybody. First, i want to say hello and welcome to the families here supporting these officers who will be awarded today with the officer of the month. It is really really gratifying to hear about your work, to see your work and to be here to give you a personal thank you for all the things you have done to get this award today. To the families, i just want to say just a few things and then ill turn it back over to assistant chief lazar. Those in the administrative positions, we live through the work of the officers on the street. We live through the work of the investigators on the streets and this isnt a easy job as we all know and you hear that said. There is a lot of ups and downs but the one thing that keeps us going is when we see the fruit of all the investments this city buts in its Police Department, work its way down to the people doing the work and we see it work the way it is supposed to work. We see it work right, and this is the example of what it looks like when it works right. It is uplifting when i hear your stories and we read your reports and read your commendations and captain comps, that keeps this Department Going and what keeps us going, and dont stop doing what you are doing. We have momentum now, mayor mentioned about the crime statistics. Things have turned around from a couple years ago when seems like everybody was against Law Enforcement and we know not everybody but it felt that way, and now we have tons of not just support, but vocal support, visible support, people are cheering us on and are that momentum and wind behind our sails propels us forward. I want to personally thank the officers officer vincent, officer daniel dudley, officer taylor, officerand officer cameron. I remember your names. And officer Cameron Stokes because when you hear the stories and the work they have done, it is not only heroic, but this is what we do. This is what the city is here for, the Police Department is here for, so thank you again and going to turn it back over to assistant chief lazar and the captain so they can read the commendations and you can hear about this heroic work, so thank you. [applause] okay, thank you chief scott. I now like to call up captain tom harvey Commanding Officer of mission statement. [applause] hello everybody. My name is captain harvey, mission station and tonight i have the pleasure of presenting the following award recipients for both officer vincent and officer daniel dudley, mission station. I will be reviewing two incidents with everyone that involve both of these fine Police Officers. The first incident is regarding a crew of middle of the night garage door burglars had been hitting the west side of the city in the early weeks of january this year. The organized group case garages in the middle of the night while people slept and successful committing burglaries stealing bicycles and other items before escaping to a van. For clarification, the hot burglary describes a burglary where the suspects break in while the people are at home inside their house. Due to the superb investigating efforts, Department Wide emails and alerts kis tributed regarding the suspects believed to be involved. Officers from mission station are soon enlisted in the operation to apprehend the offenders. After locating the suspect vehicle, a surveillance was conducted on the 1,000 block of clayton street in Park District of San Francisco. Officer vincent learned the vehicle occupants were on foot and standing next to a open residential garage. Officer working undercover began foot surveillance on the suspects. He watch as they use flashlights to peer in garages and able to communicate to the arrest team when this Group Successfully burglarized a garage stealing bikes, scooters, among other items. Once the burglary had been completed, officer advised the arrest team to move in and all 5 suspects were arrested and booked into custody and all stolen property returned. As a result of this, the string of burglaries that plagued the west side of the city was over, thanks to these two officers and their team, which is right over there. [applause] the second incident on february 9, investigation was underway to the where abouts of the suspicious vehicle which fled from mission station officers the night before. The vehicle occupant suspected of being involved with vice related crimes. As early as the very next morning the investigation lead to oakland california. In oakland, officer vincent and his partners who i will quickly acknowledge, officer dan dudley to left, officer glen griffon, officer cody, officerlocated the vehicle and observed the suspect as he entered a liquor store. The team had a preing plan to safely take the suspect into custody. Officer was the first in. He was the first officer inside the liquor store and that is where he encountered the suspect who was 6 foot 4, 250 pounds and standing in a narrow isle. With the assistance of officer daniel dudley, officer moslang ordered the suspect to let go of the gun. Officer had his hand inside the suspect pocket while the suspect was holding and grabbing to a gun and refused to let go. These two gentleman to my left with the assistance of their team wrestled with the suspect well over 2 minutes. It was a long physical struggle and as i said, the suspect was tall, he was large and strong. None the less, they persevere jd able to take the suspect safely into custody after a very close call. The gun was recovered. The arrest was made and are this suspect was booked not only for the fire arm related charges and also the person h a burglary warrant out of palo alto, Domestic Violence and probation warrant out of contra costa county. Congratulations to officer vincent and dan dudley, soon to be sergeant, daniel dudley. [applause] [applause] okay, thank you captain harvey and congratulations to the officers. I would now like to call up captain luke martin, Commanding Officer of southern is station to make his presentation. [applause] alright. Thank you everybody. Good evening. Im luke martin, Commanding Officer of southern station. I have the privilege to present this award to officer taylor, officer luc and like to go into a little about each officer before we get into the incident we are here to talk about. Officer taylor has been in the department 6 years, total 8 years Law Enforcement. She works midnight shift for those that are in the Police Department that is like grave yards. She has been doing that the entire time by choice. She has seniority to work easier shifts but chooses to work the night shift. Also a Field Training officer and i can probably talk to you about 3, 4 dozen different incident officer taylor is involved in. She is extremely hard working, amazing work ethic and generally does impeccable work. She is a joy to have as Commanding Officer. I sleep easier knowing she is out there tonight. Officer luc did her probation at southern station and recently finished that and transferred to central station. Our loss, their gain. Very impressed with officer luc right away. She showed a real eagerness to get out there and learn about the job and do police work. She showed a tremendous work ethic, very fearless out there and showing all the officers on our team she was out to do this job and do it the right way so hoping she transfers back to southern, but well see. Hopefully chief can make it happen. The incident we are here to talk about, like i said there are many we could have reviewed, but this is a particular one it happened on thursday morning february 8 at about 1 a. M. In the morning. The officers were on patrol and one of the rougher neighborhood in the southern, which incompass 7th and mission, 8th and mission. We tend to have a lot of narcotics activity, a lot of violence in that area as it relates to narcotics and i asked the officers to do a lot of work out there and being the good officers they are, that is what they were doing. As they patrol they noticed somebody riding their bike on the sidewalk. Didnt seem to have much purpose just roaming around and they decided they needed to stop that person for that violation. Officer taylor was driving the car and officer luc in the passenger seat. Officer luc exits the car to stop the person and immediately the person drops the bike and takes running on foot. So, officer luc without hesitation is in a foot chase with the suspect not knowing what is going on but thinking there is probably more then just riding a bike on the sidewalk. Being the veteran officer officer taylor is, she didnt bail out of her car too, she knew to stay in the car and keep the pursuit going but in the vehicle. Lot harder to outrun a vehicle as you can imagine. So, as they continue the pursuit, the suspects runs up an alley where they lose sight of suspect for a short while. Officer luc makes the turn to the alley and the suspect is waiting for her. They order the suspect to the ground. He is refusing all lawful orders. In the mean time they call for backup. Backup is coming from tenderloin and southern station officers, and they end up physically trying to take the suspect into custody. As they are doing it, the suspect is fighting and resisting but they are able to safely take the suspect into custody. They do a pat down search for weapon jz dont find any. They are very confused why the suspect might have been running, so as good officers they retrace their foot pursuit to see if the suspect tossed anything and sure enough, short ways away locate a 9mm hell cat fire arm that appears to be loaded. So, they are able to recover that and in order to really solidify this case for prosecution they start canvasing the area for Video Surveillance and they locate a video that captures that suspect pursuit travels. Sure enough, on video they see clearly the suspect with his hand dumping the fire arm on the street to avoid him actually being caught with that fire arm, so excellent work by the officers from start to finish in this case. That wasnt all actually. So, as they continue their arrest search of the suspect, they find a scale and several different types of narcotics, fentanyl, meth, marijuana i believe as well and enough for salespossession for sale of narcotics so all in all an amazing case, one of many the officers do on a nightly basis. Congratulations. Thank you very much for all your hard work. [applause] [applause] okay, thank you captain martin and congratulations to the officers. I now like to call up, captain jason soyer, Commanding Officer for northern station for his presentation. [applause] good afternoon everyone. Jason soyer, captain of northern station here with officer Cameron Stokes. Where is your family at . Alright. [applause] buckle up i will tell a story what a fantastic and heroic Family Member you have here. March 18, just over a month ago, just after 6 30 in the morning after her shift starting, officer stokes responding to call for service of a man asleep in his car as octaveia and lombard. A wellbeing check and that is all anybody knew. Officer stokes responded by himself, made contact with the driver who was asleep and keen sense of observation noticed a fire arm within reach on the floorboard of the car. Realizing he did not have time to wait for backup, officer stokes quickly seized the fire arm in front of the suspect and able to secure the fire arm and ordther suspect out by himself without any use of force to get the suspect into custody. Then the backup came. Isnt that how it works . After the scene is rendered safe officer stokes decided to do investigation instead of leave it there. A search of the car revealed large quantities of crack cocaine, meth, mushrooms and american all packaged for resale. This is something that happened every day that the public thought was a wellbeing check, but because officer stokes doing what he was doing to be trained correctly was able to safely take a situation far bigger then what people thought it was and able to defuse it into a arrest. Needless to say, the gun was illegally in position, it was was a stolen fire arm. The car was not the suspect. Everybody about it was wrong but this happens every day when a officer using proper training, safety techniques is able to do his job and i also want to point out, thank you for putting Something Like this together, because this is a arrest that happens virtually every day at northern station and most part doesnt get noticed. This the work the San Francisco Police Officers do daily you dont hear about. It doesnt make the paper. As a quite professional does this work on a daily basis as other officerso extremely proud to work with officer stoke jz for your Family Members you have a great person here. We are happy to have him at northern. Come get your award. [applause] [applause] okay, one more large round of applause for all of todays honerees [applause] okay. The ceremony may be over, but the celebration continues, so i like to say a couple things. First, well have mayor breed and chief scott along with the honorees and their captains proceed out to the photo area, and secondly, we hope you enjoy the refreshments that have been provided. My gosh, mayor breed always has to remind me, i get a c plus overall. Mayor breed, thanks for the reminder month after month. The honorees receive and would be remiss if i didnt tell you this, each receives a 500 Gift Certificate and they also receive a night at the Hyatt Regency at the embarcadero for their great work thanks to the sponsors and thank frz the remindser, mayor breed. [applause] yes okay. Thank you for that. Now, if i may ask the mayor and the chief and the honorees to make their way up to the photograph area. Stick around, say hello to everyone, enjoy the refreshments and have a wonderful evening. Thank you. Board of appeals president lopez will be do proceeding and joined by Vice President lemberg and commissioner trasvina and commissioner eppler and city deputy first year for legal advice im the executive director we will also be joined by representatives from the city departments will be presenting before the board corey the Planning Department and Kevin Birmingham building inspection and mag any executive director with the Entertainment Commission and dylan manager with the Entertainment Commission and the groundwater manager i apologize