Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240713

President , you have a quorum. Thank you. You always know the a students. They always said present as opposed to here in class. This is the San Francisco Police Commission meeting of october 9, 2019. I want to welcome a new employee of ours, phil lowhouse. Welcome aboard. Hell be working with the commission as an adviser. We dont have an extremely lengthy agenda tonight, so there will be three minutes for public comment. With that, were ready for the first item. Line item 1 a . Chiefs report. Update on youth engagement. Weekly crime trends provide an overview of trends occurring in San Francisco. Chiefs report will be limited to a brief description of the incidents. The discussion will be limited to calendar any of the incidents the chief describes for a future Commission Meeting. Major events. Provide a planned summary of events occurring since the previous meeting. This will include a brief overview of unplanned events in San Francisco having an impact on public safety. Commission discussion on unplanned events or activities the chief describes will be limited to determining whether the calendar for any future meeting. Presentation of the Early Intervention system Second Quarter 2019 report. Okay. Good evening, chief. Good evening, president , Vice President , commissioners, and director. I would like to start off this week with commander daryl fong presenting on our youth engagement. We have retired command officer rick bruce here. So we want to highlight some of the work done with our youth engagement. Commander fung. Good evening president , Vice President , commissioners, director. My name is daryl fung, commander of the Departments Community engagement division. At the Commission Meeting on september 11, we presented an overview of the departments participation in a 2019 summer intern youth program. At the conclusion of that presentation, the commission requested the Department Submit followup presentation following metrics which is contained in the report contained in front of you today. Regarding the Summer Youth Intern Program in summary, over 2180 youth have participated in the s. F. P. D. Sponsored projects including future grads, project poll, youth works, and a youth career academy. The Largest Group presented was africanamerican with 55 of the participants, followed by asian youth with 18 followed by latinex. Currently the department does not have a system implementation in place to follow up with interns after the program. However, it was determined that the Community Engagement division will work with the recruitment unit to develop a process in which a career in Law Enforcement presentation will be provided to summer interns as a component of their Program Participation in the future. This presentation is currently done for the paid parttime Police Cadets as a means to encourage and nurture those interested in a career in Law Enforcement to pursue a career with the San Francisco Police Department. Furthermore, the Community Engagement division will provide the list of participants from the 2019 Summer Program to the recruitment unit to conduct outreach to these young adults to gauge their interest in future career in Law Enforcement. Now, in regards to the paid police Cadet Program, there have been 146 paid cadets hired since the program was reintroduced in 2015. There are currently 43 cadets on staff with funding available for an additional 23 positions. Now, while we do not have statistics on whether or not any of these paid cadets have participated in summer intern programs, we do know that at least 15 were graduates of the San Francisco pal summer cadets academy. Of the 146 cadets, 30 have been hired as Police Officer recruits with our department, with eight currently in the basic academy. We also currently have 15 paid cadets going through the hiring process at this time. In addition, there have been an additional 15 cadets who have accepted positions with other Law Enforcement agencies throughout the region. That concludes my report and update regarding our youth intern programs. Thank you. Any questions from commissioners . I dont see any, so thank you. Great. Thank you, commissioners. Now its my pleasure to introduce retired captain rick bruce, longstanding board member, to present an overview of the s. F. P. L. Cadet program. Good evening. Thank you. Good evening president and members of the Police Commission, chief scott. Its our honor to be here tonight. We wanted to give you a brief overview of the p. A. L. Ive been involved with the p. A. L. For 25 years and weve been a bit remiss because we havent made a presentation during that 25year period. We celebrated our 60anniversary. Chief scott has been a tremendous supporter of the p. A. L. And thats one of the reasons were here tonight, just to express our support for chief scott and everything hes done for this program. In terms of why were around and how p. A. L. S came into being. Its 105 years ago in 1914 in new york city, a Police Commissioner named arthur woods looking at these millions of children streaming in and there were no playgrounds. So he directed his Police Officers to go and find vacant lots. He did that and he would station a Police Officer at a vacant lot and the kids were free to go and play. They ran out of vacant lots. So they started what they called the play streets program. What he did was cordoned off blocks in man hat tan. He would barricade off a street. That program grew into the new York Police Athletic League at that time, eventually the athletics league. They had a famous guy on their board of directors, babe ruth. That program spread around the east coast. In 1954 there was an officer named joe martin. He was working in the louisville, kentucky, department. He was approached by a 12yearold boy who told him that his bike had been stolen and he wanted to go out and get the bullies. Officer martin told him he wouldnt do that, but he would teach him how to box if he came down to the gym. The boy came down and between 1950 and 1960 he won Golden Gloves championships. He went to rome and he was a light heavyweight. There was this old cop from the Louisville Police department, martin. Those two remained friends until his passing. Thats kind of the background in terms of why p. A. L. S are arent and the type of mentorship that can take place. In 1959, a group of San Francisco Police Officers got together. They literally went to the Police Credit union. They took out a small loan of a few thousand dollars. They started what they called the Police Athletic league at that time, so 60 years ago. If you were a kid growing up in 1960s San Francisco and you had any athletic ability at all, you were a p. A. L. Kid. All the great athletes participated in p. A. L. Programming. We didnt have the type of programming we have across north america. So the p. A. L. Filled a void in San Francisco. It became coeducational in the 1970s and expanded to a lot of different types of programming, hence the change from Police Athletic league to Police Activities league. In those ensuing 60 years, our program has produced some incredible san franciscans, including two chiefs of police. Chief heather fong was a p. A. L. Cadet. Weve got a couple of cadets with us tonight. If you go back with those of you who are sports fans, just a few years ago, when the 9ers were still a candlestick, there was a year where jason hill and donald strikland were on the field at the same time. They came out of our program. Thats a broadbrush stroke to what the p. A. L. Has done. Our commission has been keep kids off the streets and on the fields. We were a large Umbrella Organization when i got involved in the early 1990s, where we had, for example, 3,000 soccer ki kids. But we didnt have a huge level of involvement for Police Officers. We made a decision at our board of directors that every p. A. L. Program was going to have a really large stake of Police Officers involved. Weve done that since that time. Our current programs, ill go through them for you very briefly, we still have our football program, its out there at kimbell playground. Theyre on the field as we speak. Chief scott decided to literally dedicate Police Officers to that program. They are on the ground. They are on the field. Ive been familiar with that Program Since the 1970s and this is the First Time Since then that we have Police Officers coaching those kids. One of those Police Officers is here with us. We have a jew jujitsu program. One of the officers is on the mat every night. When the kids go out there, theyre with a Police Officer. Just like when the kids go to football, theyre with a Police Officer. We have a program called the kids games. Its a track and field event we hold. We get hundreds of kids out there. We have a High School Marching band, and they march down with an opening ceremony. They compete. Weve got a medal stand out there. The kids get ribbons and medals. Theres san franciscan kids out there who have an opportunity to have a medal from the police chief. Our Cadet Program has already produced one police chief. Weve got the deputy cheer here. He was a cadet in our program. Hes kind of a shining example of what our Cadet Program can produce. We have got a we still call it a fishing program. Fishing program goes back to the 1960s. There was a famous San Francisco Police Officer, herb lee. You may remember him. He passed a few years ago. He had a fishing boat and in the 1960s he decided he was going to take San Francisco kids out on the bay. A lot of kids have not only not been on the bay, they hadnt seen the bay. This was an unbelievable opportunity for San Francisco kids. We brought that program back and we call it a fishing program. Its really a whalewatching program now. Ive gone out on the boat with these kids. They have a wonderful time out there. For a lot of these kids, youve got to remember, we have kids from all across San Francisco, theyve never been out on the bay. To go out on the bay is one thing. To do it with Police Officers and make those contacts with Police Officers is really something they cant experience any place else. What id like to do is introduce a few people. These people are kind of the backbone of our sergeant darmani. You can just wave. Hes the officer in charge. He runs our program and does a phenomenal job. He runs the daytoday operation and hes nails. Officer Mike Costello is here. He runs the Cadet Program. This is a political ploy, but im going to do it anyway. This is an actual p. A. L. Kid, jujitsu, two years, hes very tough. His bad tells me he throws him all over the house. This program, the jujitsu program runs out of a police facility. We have Police Officers there. Its a program now that has a long, long waiting list. Officer leonard morel is out on the field with our football kids three nights a week. Hes out there game time. This is the third season thanks to chief scott. The mentorship, im out there on the field with these guys. To watch them interact with the Police Officers is heartwarming. These children who have these contacts and are developing these contacts at very young ages, theyre never going to forget this. When you talk to people in the filmore they talk about the generations going back playing in this program. They remember Kelly Waterfield from the 1970s. They remember police coaches they had from way back in the day. Sabine modrano is our civilian in the office. Sergeant ray padmore does unbelievable things with our cad cadets. Id also like to acknowledge that we have some command staff people here in addition to chief scott who literally serve on our board of directors. Weve got deputy chief ann manox is here. We were deputy Police Officers 100 years ago. Deputy chief david lazar on our board. Again, he was a cadet. Weve got commander poreia on our board. We have assistant chief moser who was on our board. Let me see, did barts no, were missing one of our kids. They got tied up on bart. Id also like to call up a couple of our cadets. Come on up here. Weve got aaron hemenes here. This program produced a chief of police. Weve had we do a summer Cadet Academy where the kids get to go through a police academy. Many of the kids who have gone through this program are now serving as active San Francisco Police Officers. So the program has produced a lot of Police Officers, but beyond that we call it a Leadership Program because its produced a lot of kids whove gone on to college and do things in San Francisco and serve their communities in other ways. Who am i forgetting . Captain falby is here also. Hes another member of our board. Any questions . Im happy to entertain any questions about the p. A. L. I know i gave you a lot of information there. Thats a thumbnail sketch of what the p. A. L. Is and what weve been doing for the past 60 years. I want to thank you for the work you do. I grew up in new york city in the 1950s and 1960s and i was a p. A. L. Athlete and it was a great part of my life. I thank you. Vice president taylor. I want to thank you as well, especially for the young people who are here. Thank you so much for volunteering your time and being wonderful stewards of this city and great representations of folks in our generation. I wanted to ask you about the program and thank everyone whos here and involved in this. I think its fantastic. Im always concerned in programs involving children, and this is not specific to p. A. L. Involving children. Its always important in any program that our children are safe, for better or worse. Sometimes programs can be attractive for predators and for people who would harm our kids. I just want to make sure that p. A. L. Has the right training and the right oversight and the right monitorship. If you know, if you could talk a little bit about that. Yes, we screen everybody who is involved as a volunteer. The good news is a lot of the people who are out there as volunteers are either active or retired Police Officers. But as a retired Police Officer, because im still coaching, i actually have to go down and get fingerprinted every year. We do screen everybody. We get some people who have criminal histories. We are faced with a bit of a dilemma because a lot of these people have turned their lives around and want to get back to the community. So we have to make some decisions of who is suitable for the program. We are aware of that and we take it seriously, putting the right people on the fields with the kids. Thank you very much, retired commander bruce. Im one of the p. A. L. Kids. I went fishing another success story. I dont know about that. [ laughter ]. I went fishing with sergeant herbeau. That was fun. Every summer we go fishing with kids throughout the city. Also played p. A. L. Baseball. We played throughout the city. Probably officer moreau did the same thing. It provided foundation to keep us busy throughout the summer. Also Kelly Waterfield, at the time they were the cobras, not the seahawks. Those people were influential in my life and our lives as athletes growing up. Thank you for what you do. To the cadets and the young officer costello and his young son, congratulations, its a lot of fun. We hear a lot of things about Police Officers. These are the positive things people do