San Francisco Police Commission Meeting - February 15, 2023
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San Francisco Police Commission Meeting - February 15, 2023
The San Francisco Police Commission met on Wednesday, February 15, 2023, at 1:45 PM. The meeting included a certificate of appreciation presentation, public comment, consent calendar, reports from the Chief and the Department of Police Accountability (DPA), a disciplinary review board presentation, adoption of a new general order on behavioral health referrals, and a discussion on missed policy revision deadlines. The commission also held a closed session.
Consent Calendar
- The commission unanimously (7-0) received and filed the following items: SFPD and DPA's 1421 and SB16 report, 2022 fourth quarter document protocol report, fourth quarter audit of electronic communication devices for bias, family code 6228 semi-annual report and resolution of the sexual assault evidence kit, and the annual report for DGO 11.02 secondary employment calendar year 2022.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Item 1 (Certificate of Appreciation): The sister of honoree Rome Jones thanked the commission for honoring him, highlighting his work as a change agent. Julie Tron, a working group participant, emphasized the need for systemic inclusion of community members in such groups, noting that outreach via CPABs is not happening sufficiently.
- Item 2 (General Public Comment): Multiple speakers from the Central City SRO Collaborative’s safety committee reported noticeable improvements in the Tenderloin neighborhood over recent weeks, citing cleaner streets and reduced drug dealing. They requested sustainability of these efforts and asked for increased foot patrols. One caller urged the commission to conduct more accessible outreach to help the average person understand police data and policies.
Discussion Items
- Item 1 – Certificate of Appreciation: Chief William Scott presented certificates to Angela Jenkins and Rome Jones for their contributions to the bias working group, particularly their advocacy for including "bias by proxy" in DGO 5.17, which was later hailed as a model by California. Both honorees spoke about the difficulty of engaging with law enforcement and their commitment to improving policy. Commissioners praised their unique perspectives and sacrifice.
- Item 4 – Chief’s Report: Chief Scott reported that year-to-date major crime is down, with property crime decreasing 21% and violent crime slightly down. He described targeted enforcement in the Tenderloin: 23 arrests in the prior six days, increased fentanyl seizures, and a strategy of “holding ground” after arrests to prevent dealer return. In the Mission District, new resources have been deployed to address prostitution on Capp Street, including motorcycle officers. Chief Scott confirmed SFPD adheres to the sanctuary city policy, distancing the department from recent media coverage about proposed carve-outs. He also noted a potential new drug, xylazine (“tranq”), which is resistant to Narcan.
- Item 5 – DPA Director’s Report: Executive Director Paul Henderson reported 17 cases pending trial, 9 pending commission decision, and 88 pending chief’s decisions. The highest complaint precinct was Mission (5 complaints), followed by Northern (3). DPA is developing a new online complaint form for officers to streamline submissions. An audit on SFPD’s monitoring of department communications is in draft, expected to be sent to the department by end of February.
- Item 7 – SFPD 2022 Third Quarter Disciplinary Review Board: Chief of Staff Sarah Hawkins presented results: aggregate trends included discourteous conduct, failure to write incident reports, failure to thoroughly investigate, and failure to title body-worn camera videos. DPA trends included failure to take required action and failure to activate BWC. Policy failures: supplemental incident report not properly assigned and need to ensure auto-population of incident titles. Recommendations: update Department Bulletin 11-273, improve IT system, and develop training on social media use. Vice President Carter Overstone praised a joint IA-DPA training for officers.
- Item 8 – DGO 11.13 (Behavioral Science Unit Referrals): Deputy Chief Nicole Jones presented a new policy creating directed and recommended referrals to the Behavioral Science Unit for employee mental health and wellness. Directed referrals are mandatory; recommended are voluntary. Confidentiality is key, and no written records are kept for voluntary referrals. Commissioners supported the policy, recognizing officer stress. Vice President Carter Overstone asked about intersection with EIS; Deputy Chief Jones clarified the policy provides a mechanism for required meetings. The commission voted to adopt.
- Item 9 – Discussion of Deadlines for DGO 8.10 Revision: Vice President Carter Overstone led a detailed inquiry into why the department missed a December 6, 2022 deadline to respond to DPA’s stage one recommendations on DGO 8.10 (First Amendment activity guidelines). Deputy Chief Raj Vaswani, the executive sponsor, cited the Pelosi investigation and staffing constraints. He acknowledged he did not seek an extension despite sending 189 tweets in the period. The Vice President expressed concern about the double standard this sets for officer discipline. Chief Scott asked that officers not be subjected to disciplinary inquiries in public; President Elias acknowledged the frustration but stressed accountability for overdue DGOs.
Key Outcomes
- Consent Calendar (Item 3): Approved unanimously (7-0). Items included SFPD and DPA’s 1421 and SB16 report, fourth quarter document protocol report, bias audit, sexual assault evidence kit report, and secondary employment annual report.
- DGO 11.13 (Item 8): Adopted unanimously (7-0) with instructions to meet and confer with bargaining units only on mandatory subjects and to set clear boundaries to avoid unreasonable delays.
- Closed Session (Items 10-13): The commission voted unanimously to hold closed session and later voted not to disclose any discussions, asserting attorney-client privilege.
- Next Steps: The commission will continue to monitor DGO revision timelines. The chief’s office and DPA will work to reduce the backlog of 88 pending disciplinary cases. The department will extend the agreement with the district attorney’s office on surveillance ordinance until end of March. DPA’s audit draft is due to the department by end of February.
Meeting Transcript
Meeting to order, if you could please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. All right, if I could take roll. Commissioner Walker. Commissioner Benedicto. Present. Commissioner Yannis. Present. Commissioner Byrne. Here. Commissioner Yee. Here. Vice President Carter Overstone. Present. And President Elias is in route. Also with us here tonight, we have Chief Scott from the San Francisco Police Department and the Executive Director Paul Henderson from the Department of Police Accountability. Sergeant, could you call the first item, please? Line item one presentation of certificate of appreciation action from Ms. Angela Jenkins for the Bias Working Group and Mr. Rome Jones for the Bias Working Group. So good evening, uh Vice President Carter Overstone, Commission, Executive Director Henderson and Public. Thanks for putting this first on the agenda. I just want to say a few words and acknowledge uh two community members who have been very, very engaged with this police department and and policing in San Francisco. And I know one of the things that we always try to do is get people to be engaged with this police department and our policy uh making and the commission's policy making. And for the public, I want to just say that this is what that looks like. And I know they aren't the only two because we have many people in in our city that participate in this process, but I want to give special thanks to Miss Angela Jenkins and Mr. Rome Jones. And just to be specific before I read the uh certificate of appreciation, our uh biased DGO 5.17 took a long time for us to develop. And there was a lot of community input in it. There was the work groups and um it it was a lot of conversations. Commissioner Lyas and at the time, Commissioner DeMalley Taylor were the commission leads. But what Ms. Jenkins and Mr. Jones did was they really started the conversation about the bias by proxy that ended up in the policy and ended up being a big part of having a policy that actually the state of California and the Ripper Board uh hailed as a model. And for those of you that aren't familiar with biased by proxy, this is when a person calls the police and their biases are then transmitted to dispatchers, and then it causes a reaction that sometimes can lead to very, very bad consequences. So Ms. Jenkins and Mr. Jones were the two community members that really raised that issue, and we responded and we ended up getting it in our policy. And we really appreciate your work. This is long overdue because I think that was like three, four years ago when those conversations were happening, but it's not too late to appreciate the good work and their leadership in this process. So I just want to acknowledge them and I will read their certificates uh one at a time. First for Miss Angela Jenkins, and I think you have some family here, so if you don't mind standing up or if you standing up and uh I'm sure there's some photos coming here, but certificate of appreciation from the San Francisco Police Department in recognition of Ms. Angela Angela Jenkins and deepest gratitude for her work and contributions in the bias working group. These contributions helped the department move forward. Such an example is worthy of the highest esteem by the San Francisco Police Department, awarded on this 15th day of February, 2023. Signed by me. Ms. Jenkins would like to say a few words, but that's me. Um I think it was teasing Sergeant Youngblood saying that I was usually at home watching family feud, but my name was inside here, so I was gonna come on down and look at this. Um I'm very very um I want I'd love to see the recognition for people who painstakingly risk being uh label as snitch to come to the working group. So it's very, very difficult for me.
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