Transcripts For SFGTV 20150405

Provide training on detecting and responding to bias based policing and other forms of discriminatory policing. Include Community Members from groups that have expressed high levels of distrust of police in other training. Take steps to eliminate all forms of work place bias from San Francisco Police Department. Additionally president obamas task force on 21st Century Policing and in the interim report says that Police Officer training standards should ensure basic recruit and in Service Training that upon incorporates contacts around recognizing and confronting this bias and cultural responsiveness and without going any further into detail about the training except to say that i have also participated in implicit bias training with other Police Departments when dr. Fidel has conducted that training because she believes strongly in bringing in a diversity of individuals and i attended a training a two day training in palo alto at the time when the former Palo Alto Police chief said in response to a number of burglaries in the community stop all black men to her police force and as a result of that dr. Fidel was brought in. Members of the San Jose Police force were part of the training and of course palo alto Police Officers were part of the training as well. I talked about other measures. The second measure and its something that this committee has addressed previously and that has to do with on body cameras. On body cameras should be a priority for this city to create transparency and not just on body cameras for supervisors who are conducting searches et cetera, but really and i will use this word a Robust Program that provides enough funding not only for the equipment but thats not the major expense. For the storage of the information and anecdotally in the Police Executive Research Forum report on Body Cameras Police chiefs have indicated a huge drop in citizen complaints and use of force complaints as a result of having on body cameras. Ms. Hicks understanding you please wrap up so we can get to the public speakers. I will wrap up and the third recommendation i have and its something i am addressing with the Mayors Office and that is to adequately fund the office of citizen complaints so that it can conduct its investigations in a timely manner, and that it can provide policy recommendations with more frequency so thank you very much for the time. Thank you and i will make sure that my staff reach out to you for the recommendations and professor fidel and all of the great recommendations that you have given us and thank you so much. Youre welcome. I see no questions. Im going to open up Public Comment and first call reverend amos brown and president of the naacp and i have other cards as well followed by other speakers. [calling speaker names]. Reverend brown. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. President breed and supervisor cohen, ladies and gentlemen, i am president of the San Francisco branch of the National Association for the advancement of colored people, and more importantly i have been pastor of the historic third bacht Baptist Church 40 years and i thank you for having the hearing. However, we are regurgitating, repeating what has already been said. Secondly i want to acknowledge that we are going after these four officers and possibly 14 or 16, but this approach were taken maybe analogous to that by going after the man that stole the ham out of the meat house instead of also looking at who left the meat house door open . This door my friends was opened [inaudible] by this city of San Francisco, not using the n word to refer to black folks, but black folks in San Francisco have been treated like they were to be called the n word. Over a year ago the naacp presented a three Point Program to the chief, and i leave copies of it to you. Its nothing new. Please continue reverend. And when you speak about implicit bias we have it on the part of leadership in this city for doing the tenure of mayor willy leis brown junior. All of these measures and approaches that were talking about now were advanced through a Community Based board and that document is Still Available what youre reverend brown what year was the three point plan presented . Last year. However what i am saying is that 15 years ago during the tenure of mayor brown this Africanamerican Community did through a deliberative process, through patience, through a civil approach sat down and crafted a document. I know we can learn from other places but we dont have to go to boston or seattle. If we would respect indigenous leadership in this town and follow through on what we already said was an answer to bad relationships between the Africanamerican Community and the Police Department, and notice now i began with the Africanamerican Community, but you must permit me to say i am a world citizen. I am concerned about everybody, but if were honest with ourselves this is a black problem. Black folk in this town are treated meanly. Black folks cant get housing. Black folk are doing poorly in the educational system. Black folk can not get loans because of red lining. Black folks enclaves have been destroyed by the policy of the city and visavis the Redevelopment Agency and now we look at the Police Department but the answer is in a story of an old preacher. Told some members one night you all appointed things and blame everybody but the answer is in the box and when he told everybody to come around and look in the box to find the answer low and behofl there was a mirror and reflection of everybody who was in that church. This is a mirror of San Francisco and i hope that we will stop this paralysis of analysis playing games with numbers, and admit that racism is alive and kicking and doing well in this town and we shouldnt be surprised or shocked about what was revealed and mr. Chairman and members of the committee for a whole year naacp and the black Faith Community call on the human rights commission. They did absolutely nothing with the data, with the facts. We call on the Police Commission who did absolutely nothing particularly in the wake of ferguson, and when i in a meeting right here in room 202 with faith leaders, the chief of police, and the chief of staff sat right there. Ferguson is in San Francisco and the chief got on the defensive. I thank god hes got religion today and going to be cooperating with us but hes the one that said oh no this is not ferguson. Were a liberal city. We dont have that here. Well, i said to him again chief let me finish my point. Geographically ferguson is not in San Francisco, but attitudally and in terms of practices in this Police Department i still contend ferguson is in San Francisco. Thank you reverend. Please wrap up. I am wrapping up but i hope you wrap up a good package for us to deal with this problem of racism thats been perpetrated against black folk across the board. Its in the health department. Its in the school district. Its at juvenile hall. Its all around and that means also the black community has its responsibility too. It takes two wings for a bird to fly. Two wings for an airplane to stay in the air and we cant solve the problem as long as a fire wall is put up between the community, the Police Department, the board of supervisors. We got to work as a team and collaboratively and stop pointing fingers about who stole the ham out of the meat house. We got to look at who left the door open. We left the door open because of our faulty Public Policy that has been discriminatory against africanamericans. Thank you reverend brown. [applause] next speaker. So if your name has been called you can come up. I believe reverend townsend and several of the public defenders and i will call a few more names. [calling speaker names]. Thank you to the board of supervisors for calling theory this meeting. Our members were a appalled about hearing about the text scandal and a poor reflection on the city and the Police Department and with the recent things going in the country and racism and corruption and the citizens shouldnt have to fear those sworn to protect and serve them and it is for this reason it is incumbent that we address this as a systemic issue and we realize that this is just an example of implicit racial bias policing and it stems from bold blatant actions from before. When i where there is four there is more. There are rouge cops in this doesnt and like others across the nation but i think we need to do something a little bolder. We need to call for terminations and suspensions but if its found that any person involved in the texting is of a higher rank they should be demoted. Its despicable behavior and it is this type of behavior which has created relationship break downs between us and the community and now we have issues amongst our officers wondering who was amongst them is truly one of the colleagues and how far they can really trust them . This comindicates so many relationships and we have to start a healing process and this is a gaping wound that has been opened and its a Critical Incident and the city and county of San Francisco must address it like a critical ins defnlt i have officersel doing with post Traumatic Stress and how theyre dealt with in the San Francisco Police Department and how theyre treated today. As an africanamerican officer i can tell you that racism is alive and well. What we recommend as a solution is we want to see a task force that includes the naacp, community leaders, the chief of police, the leadership and any other group and organization that is willing to engage us in a debriefing on racism. We want to have Mental Health professionals that are there available to us so that our members can tell you how we felt, how we have been hurt by being a member of the San Francisco Police Department. We risk our lives on a daily basis because we love to do this. We are here as your servants. However for us to be disrespected at this level is inexcusable and we are asking you to help bring healing to the members of the San Francisco Police Department. We ask you to allow us to engage those who are the Commanding Officers of this Police Department in conversations as to how we have been disrespected; how we have been distreated; how we have been victims not only of racism but homophobic behavior of others who have been allowed to abuse us and misuse us, and again i want to say that it is not only incumbent that the city and county train the leaders, but you got to start with the rank and file. Bring us some healing so that we can in turn do the job that we have been sworn to do and the manner in which you can be proud of. I thank you for your time. Thank you president williams. Next speaker. Good evening Reverend Richard baker is my name. When i was preparing to come here i couldnt help but think of the Old Testament prophet daniel around the fifth chapter of the work and the king called him in and said interpret the handwriting on the wall, and its clear that the handwriting on the walls of these chambers and indeed the halls of justice here in San Francisco reflect the fact that there is an utter disrespect for the africanamerican citizen in this city as well as the purported disciplinary process that is imposed by the San Francisco Police Commission. We have to look at the disciplinary record of our police chief gregory suhr who is a defendant in a case pending set for trial on april 20 brought by kelly ohare. And in that case the Court Filings its all a matter of Public Record indicate there is a disregard for the disciplinary process in San Francisco because our own police chief has what i consider to be a staggering disciplinary record himself koording to the according to the court file scption failure to report some complaints and charged lying to the fbi getting a security clearance, his involvement in the faheato gate scandal and release of protesters and suspension in 2009 for his failure to report a Domestic Violence ins incident. Is there any question in your mind why the Police Officers of San Francisco felt at liberty to exchange racist bigoted Text Messages . The handwriting is on the wall. We need a new police chief in San Francisco. We need to stop the rhetoric and the ignorance of the rights of africanamerican af people in the city and i will close africanamericans come into contact with the Police Department more than any other racial group in this city. I live in the neighborhood and the hood. I live there in the heart of it and i love it but i will share with you we need the police the Africanamerican Community needs effective and lawful policing as victims as well as persons who are alleged to have been involved in criminality. I thank you for your time and your attention this evening. Thank you reverend baker. Reverend townsend. Thank you president mar and president breed and supervisor cohen and let me say that the problem here is first of all if we believe that the owner people that saw the texts were the four officers and the other 10 or 12 then youre probably too naive to be living in america number one because america is a dangerous place. And its a culture and a psychology that sets up in the Police Departments all over with many officers. paused . Because no other Police Officer will Say Something and the thin blue line will hold fast and even officers that that do not like hearing it that its like a punch in the gut is not going to say anything because to talk out of turn jeopardizes their future, their promotions and so forth as not being a team player and what the department has to understand and just as they ask us in our community when we see a crime we need to tell the police about it. When they see crimes of this nature, social crimes they have to tell somebody about it and do something about it. That can not be a one way street. There has to be cooperation from the departmentand i dont think the chiefs actions have been strong or swift enough. We tried to tell him a year ago and when this happened i thought how much greater would have been if the chief said yes we have some problems and we implemented a Community Policing program that we implemented sensitivity training and that we implemented recruitment. It probably would have been a one day story. Thank you so much. Thank you reverend of the i will call a few more names. [inaudible] yeah, but im going to call a few more. [calling speaker names] next speaker. Hi. I am monica berlin and i have made Police Reports for the last eight months about the physical abuse of my son and San Francisco General Hospital on july 6 when i took my son there called the San Francisco Police Department to come out and take a report about my son and the San Francisco police never did anything about it. I then found these photographs of my son being sexually abused from the fraternal fathers family and they live in piiveg heights and have a lot of money the police havent done anything about these crimes. I became so distressed that i told the office of citizen complaints after making two complaints to them they was going to shoot this person and i never said anything like that my whole life. I was an ad min assistant and gentech and worked for the u. S. Attorneys office in the Federal Building ironically for the department of health and Human Services for the office of general counsel. I was relieved from the San Francisco jail last week after spending two months for felony charges after making criminal threats and just from being frustrated with the police that refuse to do anything and now i havent seen my son in four months. I saw him before his dad bit him in the face and there was a witness and the person made cps reports and they havent done anything and the police havent done anything and i think its convenient that greg suhr left and heard the important things that people had to say and he took charge of this case and ignored it thank you. And i think the Police Department is shameful thank you. [inaudible] next speaker. Hi. I am christopher hite and with the San Francisco Public Defenders Office and chair of the Racial Justice community and San Francisco Public Defenders Office. What i see is occurring right now in San Francisco and plays off of reverend browns comments there is a felonyization occurring in the Africanamerican Community and the Africanamerican Community areas of San Francisco and that is what is happening with the criminal Justice System in regard to blacks in San Francisco, and the problem is really focused on those areas. Thats where you see the explicit and implicit bias and thats where we see it as public defenders and what we did with the plan for reform and you have a copy of it and i focus in the discussion and what i think as councilmembers you should focus on is the implicit bias training, is the assignment of people of color to the black communities and blown communities and incentives that you can provide for officers to serve in those communities. Either financially or some other way so officers of color serve in those communities. What commissioner director hicks said with regards to body cameras San Francisco has the ability financially to put cameras on Police Officers. It serves as a deterrent and an ability for us to evaluate what is actually happening. Independent counsel and the use of complaints instead of grand juries when prosecuting shootings by Police Officers or beatings by Police Officers and lastly statistics have to be mandated by the councilmembers on traffic stops and this is where i would differ with chief suhr that detentions occur when you. To call them stop and frisk or not they occur everyday, all the time in the black and brown communities in San Francisco. There need to be statistics of that. Thank you. paused . It was an experienced amazing experience listening to the speakers today and from the chief and what we experience is 100 different from the things said in this chamber here today. Tonight despite all of the nice speeches and nice feelings many of my clients, future clients are going to get pulled over. Their passengers are searchd and go into jail and i will walk into a holding tank where there is a small population and filled with africanamerican youth and older people too and a lot of the proposals all seem to be in house, so the Police Department is going to look at something and the das office is looking at something but the fact that we know about the racist Text Messages is a complete freak accident. Its a fluke. The chief of police who was supervising the officers became the da. Therefore he couldnt do the investigation and asked for a federal investigation. Sergeant feringer asked to be on bail even though he was sentenced to prison and they released the Text Messages. This is like someone breaks their arm, goes to the doctor, finds out they have cancer and removes the cancer and thinks maybe we shouldnt go to the doctor anymore. We need an independent investigation. Ferguson had an investigation that revealed tremendous things about the city that the Police Department and das office and no one locally was interested in getting into. We need outside investigation of San Francisco so the city can be proud of the Justice System we have. Thank you. Thank you. [calling speaker names] next speaker. My name is Angela Jenkins and i appreciate the hearing today and i want to thank you for the opportunity to encourage our leaders to look fearlessly at the policing and congratulate this committee for voting to divest from funds that in part cruelty to animals is very important that we look at that and its a big move forward. It takes tremendous courage to prevent cruelty to animals and proof that the city earns to be known as a humanitarian hero but if we invest time, energy and funds into systems, structures, organizations that repeatedly dehumanize africanamericans, other people of color can we really truly call ourselves a humanitarian hero . My