We have, you know, reviewed evidence after evidence that shows because theres this myth that tasers are less than lethal, that they often are used more regularly than guns and, therefore, lead to more deaths. We, you know, just from statistics from 1983 to 2017, there are at least 155 People Killed by police where tasers are a primary or contributing cause of the death, and then what we also know, its not only dangerous for the person thats tased, its dangerous for the officers themselves. Because they are ineffective 45 of the time, and when you have to get close to tase someone, so if an officer, instead of creating that time and distance, is getting close to tase someone and its ineffective 45 of the time, its putting that officer in as much danger as its putting the individual being tased. And thats a real, real concern. And then finally, you know, i was just listening to an npr report the other day that said because of the substantial risk to life that tasers cause, because of the
Dispatchers. President yee if we were to support this ask, would it mean that there is probably going to be reduction of overtime . Im also looking where we can save money, too. Supervisor from the Police Departments standpoint, we increased our staffing over the past 18 months to make adjustments. So we believe that with we would love to see the other departments support it. We went all in from the start. We didnt ask for additional funds for this budget. But to have the other departments supported would really get us closer to what this model envisioned anyway, which is to lead with services. Recognizing all the challenges that supervisor mandelman and supervisor fewer and supervisor ronen brought up, we recognize and acknowledge that, but i think the where the Police Department is in a good position, the budget director said, last year we made a conscious effort with our infusion of officers to focus on staffing properly and thats what we did. So we feel like were in a good position
Significant, exciting, and meaningful progress on police reform. We you have lowered the amount of use of force significantly and substantially. The amount of officers that have been cit trained continues to go up, and instead of, you know, what we had had before your arrival, which was a whole series of officerinvolved shootings, what weve seen lately is the regular use of time and distance that leads to the peaceful resolution of crises, often with people with mental illness, that have gotten those individuals the treatment they need with nobody, no officer, no civilian injured. And its just incredibly exciting. Its a tremendous testament to your leadership. I cant tell, you know, to your officers, i cant tell you how many times recently that captains in my district have called me and detailed incidents that in the past could have led to someone getting shot and killed, but instead, through time and distance, and working with dph and deescalation, led to successful outcomes. And its
Evidence after evidence that shows because theres this myth that tasers are less than lethal, that they often are used more regularly than guns and, therefore, lead to more deaths. We, you know, just from statistics from 1983 to 2017, there are at least 155 People Killed by police where tasers are a primary or contributing cause of the death, and then what we also know, its not only dangerous for the person thats tased, its dangerous for the officers themselves. Because they are ineffective 45 of the time, and when you have to get close to tase someone, so if an officer, instead of creating that time and distance, is getting close to tase someone and its ineffective 45 of the time, its putting that officer in as much danger as its putting the individual being tased. And thats a real, real concern. And then finally, you know, i was just listening to an npr report the other day that said because of the substantial risk to life that tasers cause, because of the deaths that this weapon has
Been resistant to coming indoors. Nothing is off the table in terms of what we need to do to address the problem. But some of the things you brought up are addressed in the budget. We all agree were not doing as as well as we could be. Our department was not set up frankly and this was maybe on a error when the department was formed, but we were not set up to respond to people on the streets. And what were trying to create with this budget is to give us the space to be able to do that. As you notice, the departments who are asking for funding are not the police, theyre not public works, its primarily d. P. H. Asking for another person to have someone there fulltime, which is critical. Our Public Health Department Needs to be there all the time. Same thing for us, to make sure somebody is there, seven days a week, 16 hours, as well as a more senior person to oversee what is happening there. And then d. E. M. To coordinate this in some ways, i dont want to say a neutral party, but theyre