I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the power of which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

President Clay, would I take roll?

Yes, please.

Commissioner Tecky?

Here.

Commissioner Scott?

Yes.

Commissioner Leung?

Here.

Commissioner Yee?

Here.

Commissioner Elias is en route. Vice President Benedicto?

Here.

President Clay, you have a quorum. Also with us tonight

are Chief Derek Liu from the

San Francisco Police Department and Executive Director

Paul Henderson from the Department of Police Accountability.

Okay.

Please begin.

Line item one.

General public comment.

At this time, the public

is now welcome to address the commission for up to two minutes

on items that do not appear on tonight's agenda,

but are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Police Commission.

Under Police Commission rules of order during public comment,

neither police or DPA personnel nor commissioners are required to respond to questions by the public

but may provide a brief response.

Alternatively, you may submit public comment in either of the following ways.

Email the secretary of the police commission at sfpd.commission at sfgov.org

or written comments may be sent via U.S. Postal Service to the Public Safety Building

located at 1245 3rd Street, San Francisco, California, 94158.

If you'd like to make public comment, please approach the podium.

Good evening. My name is Jennifer J. Deb Wagner. I'm with the League of Women Voters of San Francisco.

I came tonight with a general public comment about working groups.

So the League of Women Voters across the country has collaborated with a variety of law enforcement agencies around best practices, how the community can be involved.

We were lucky in that when Chief Scott came to San Francisco, our Los Angeles League of Women Voters had already worked with him on a number of working groups.

And so we were thrilled here in San Francisco to collaborate on all sorts of working groups.

And so as we sort of move into some more turnover on the commission, some policies that are being iterated upon over time,

I just wanted to give you a little feedback based on observations from our group.

So the collaborative reform initiatives were really focused on a number of issues, and they were categorized.

But I think for working groups, addressing bias, thinking about community policing, and transparency and accountability are all very relevant.

And so I want to ask how you think, over time, working groups are going to iterate.

You want community members to feel like their time is valued, that the input they give you is important, and that you're taking that to heart.

So they need to understand what their role is and what's going to happen with their feedback over time.

So, for example, when pretext stops were finally agendized after many months of requests, what outreach did you do to the groups that had been involved so that they knew that that was going to happen?

What outreach happened around items that might be on your agenda tonight?

I want to make sure that as you think about bias, community policing, transparency and accountability, the role of the community is not taken for granted.

Thank you.

I lost my son about a year ago, a year and six months. I came to y'all before. I'm not

nervous like I was before. So I'm trying to pull this up.

I'm trying to pull this actually, this up on the, about my son so y'all can know about

when it happened.

But my phone is actually,

my phone is actually tripping.

You can see it.

Okay, so actually I came to y'all a year,

I think last year sometime, my memory is off.

You know, I lost my son, he was already in a wheelchair.

I came to y'all asking y'all about facial recognition.

You know, San Francisco do not have facial recognition.

Y'all need to have facial recognition

in the homicide, at least.

They got this guy, but it took a long time for them to get him.

Why? Because San Francisco do not have facial recognition.

How many other homicides is like this?

And us as mothers said, I don't have no peace.

I don't have no peace.

You know what I'm saying?

And we know that we got sex offenders live next door.

We need to know we got murdered people that live next door.

we need to have facial recognition in San Francisco, you know.

So can y'all just think about that, you know, for the future,

for at least the homicides, the homicides.

Shouldn't take that long for them to get this guy.

That's all.

Good evening.

I'd like to use the overhead.

I'm here concerning my son, Aubrey Arbacasa,

who was murdered August 14, 2006.

To this day, his case isn't solved.

I come here every week to plead to whoever would listen about my child.

His birthday is coming up in April, April 6th, and, you know, I'm thinking about that.

And the way that homicides need to be solved.

I bring these pictures with me of all unsolved homicides.

Just like the mother was saying, our cases need to be solved.

these are all unsolved homicides i bring my pictures and this is what mothers have to go

through standing and over a cast looking at their deceased child i shouldn't have to do this or no

mother i think about the young girl that was just murdered recently over in the fillmore and about

that mother the perpetrators who killed my son left me with this i'm not ashamed of my pictures

y'all. This is the only way I can tell you how I feel. These cases need to be

solved. My son was a graduate. This was the last graduation picture I saw of my

son. So I think about Emmett Till's mall, how she thought until she died, and I

hope before I die that I get justice for my child. I will continue to come here

whether it's new police chief new mayors new whoever i want them to get to know me and

help me help me with the solving of my son i still i am still

i don't even know what to say anymore i continue to do this and nothing is happening nothing

and as a mother, I come here and I plead

and sometimes I cry.

But I want justice for this little boy right here.

Thank you.

If any member of the public has any information

regarding the murder of Aubrey Abra Casa,

you can call the anonymous 24-7 tip line

at 415-575-4444.

That is the end of public comment.

Line item 2, consent calendar, receive and file, action,

SFPD's Family Code 6228 quarterly report,

and the semi-annual report to the Police Commission on the Sexual Assault Evidence Kit,

July 1st through December 31st, 2025,

as well as SSPD and DPA's document protocol report for fourth quarter 2025.

Is there a motion in this matter?

Motion, receive and file.

Second.

If any member of the public would like to make public comment regarding line item 2,

please approach the podium.

There's no public comment.

On the motion, Commissioner Tecky, how do you vote?

Yes.

Commissioner Tecky is yes.

Commissioner Scott?

Yes.

Commissioner Scott is yes.

Commissioner Leung?

Yes.

Commissioner Leung is yes.

Commissioner Yee?

Yes.

Commissioner Yee is yes.

Commissioner Elias?

Yes. Commissioner Elias is yes. Vice President Benedicto? Yes. Vice President Benedicto is yes. And President Clay? Yes. President Clay is yes. You have seven yeses. Line item three, Chiefs Report Discussion. Weekly crime trends and public safety concerns. Provide an overview of offenses, incidents, or events occurring in San Francisco. Chief Luke.

It's hard to hear.

I hear anything.

Good evening.

Before I get started, I just wanted to follow up on a previous request from Ms. Brown.

Ms. Brown, I think that Lieutenant Sanders reached out to you and let you know who the

new investigator is for Scott Warnicke.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, I'll move into the weekly crime trends as of 2-1-26.

Starting with Part 1 crimes, overall Part 1 crimes down 37% year-to-date compared to 2025.

Total violent crimes are down 26% for the year.

Specifically addressing homicides, there are three homicides year-to-date in 2026 compared to one in 2025,

representing a 200% increase. Looking at gun violence, which is defined as the

number of people injured in a shooting incident, add to the number of persons

killed by a firearm, we are down 29% compared to 2025. Incidents of

reported rapes, which include attempted enforceable rapes, are down 20%. Assaults

for the year are down 26%, with a decrease of 30% in assaults by firearm.

robberies are down 28% with robberies using a firearm declining by 52% human

trafficking incidents down 25% with three incidents being reported so far

this year compared to four last year total property crimes down 39% burglary

is are down 44% motor vehicle theft down 44% and larceny theft down 36% overall

specifically looking at auto burglaries decrease of 44% over 2025.

Before I move on I'll go over the week over week change. You'll notice just

looking at the statistics there were a few categories that were a significant

increase so just to shed a little bit of light on that in terms of looking at the

robberies. We did do an analysis of what may be adding to that. There has been a

series of robberies with along Muni lines with very similar MOs so we're

actively working these cases. So our investigations have our investigations

Bureau is looking into that series. Additionally, there were a few reports

that were identified that were inaccurately reflected as robberies as

opposed to shoplifting incidents. So those two things added to the robbery

numbers for week over week. In terms of assaults, we took a look at that and it

doesn't seem to be any sort of common reason for the uptick in assaults so

So we're continuing to look at those patterns.

Human trafficking increase.

There were a few operations that were launched last week, and so those arrests increased those

numbers.

And then finally, with burglaries, that 9% increase, again, no common denominator, but

it was four more incidents, 47 versus 43.

So again, increases in those categories week over week, but overall still down year to

date as compared to last year.

Okay, moving into significant incidents.

There was one reported homicide during this reporting period.

So one homicide and that included two non-fatal victims.

So that puts us at three homicides year to date with two resulting from a firearm.

Overall clearance rate for 2026, 200%.

Shootings, one reported shooting this week.

There were four firearm-related shooting incidents causing injuries to six victims the week ending

2-2-26.

One incident was self-inflicted.

Two incidents resulted in two non-fatal victims.

For the year, a total of eight firearm-related incidents resulting in 10 victims.

I'll now go into a quick summary of the shootings.

On January 26, 2026, at approximately 2.02 a.m., there was a shooting at 7th and Stevenson

in the Tenderloin.

This particular incident involved a security guard working at the Ninth Circuit.

That security guard encountered a subject with a knife during that contact.

That led to the security guard discharging his weapon in his own defense.

And the subject was transported to the hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.

He was later booked for assault with a deadly weapon.

That was investigated by our Strategic Investigations Unit.

On 1-27-26 at approximately 3.42 a.m. at the intersection of Eddie and Larkin in the Tenderloin,

a – let's see here – there was a shooting with one victim.

The subject was not taken into custody.

It's an open investigation, and the victim was transported in stable condition.

On 1-27-26 at 6.25 p.m. in the unit block of Sussex in the Ingleside, there was a self-inflicted

fatal gunshot incident.

In the Northern District, there was a homicide on January 30, 2026 at approximately 5.13 p.m.

that occurred at Golden Gate and Laguna.

This was widely covered.

Three juvenile victims suffering from gunshot wounds were found by officers that were on

patrol in the area.

One of the victims was transported with life-threatening injuries and later succumbed at the hospital.

The other two did survive the incident.

On February 2nd, 2026, two subjects were arrested for this incident.

It's currently still an open and active investigation.

Moving on to significant arrests.

There was an arrest made with regard to a 2024 Mission District homicide, which was referenced

earlier this evening.

In essence, this was with in relation to a shooting of an adult male on August 5th, 2024

in the area of 20th and Shotwell.

We made another homicide arrest in reference to a January 26th, 2026 homicide where officers

responded to the area of 16th and San Bruno on January 15th, 2026.

Let's see here.

This is Human Trafficking Awareness Month.

We do know that Super Bowl and big events do bring on human trafficking,

so we do have ongoing operations working with our partners at the DA's office

and other agencies to impact human trafficking.

All right, moving on to major events.

In terms of large events, this is Super Bowl week leading up into the Super Bowl.

As of now, we have, like I've previously stated, we've canceled all days off for officers to

handle all of public safety in conjunction with our local, state, and federal partners.

As of right now, there's nothing of note to report.

Things are going well.

In terms of First Amendment activities, there was one significant march on Friday, January

30th that involved demonstrations related to ICE where we facilitated a march from Dolores

Park to Civic Center with no arrests or any other significant concern.

There was one side show incident on January 31st.

Southern Station officers responded to a side show at Pier 30.

Arctic drones were activated and that resulted in arrest of a driver and a vehicle being

impounded.

And that concludes my report.

Commissioner Skye?

Oh, excuse me, Commissioner Elias.

No, go ahead.

No, Commissioner.

Yes, Chief Lou, I wanted to comment on the shootings that we've had, the number of shootings

we've had this month.

How many were there?

And out of them, how many homicides?

I didn't hear quite a few this month.

Yeah.

So we had, let's see here, we had one, two, three, four shootings, and one resulted in

a homicide.

One was a death due to self-inflicted gunshot wound.

And I'd like to acknowledge the family of the young lady, 15 years old, who was shot

and killed in my neighborhood, her mother, Miss Tina Mabry and the Mabry family, that

we would have a moment of silence for that family.

Thank you.

And I also wanted to acknowledge the mother in the audience, Ms. Chantel, about her son,

and that we hopefully will get back facial recognition for the homicides,

that that will be put back in place soon.

So I just wanted to acknowledge Ms. Chantel

because the person who killed her son has been let out,

and it was due because of lack of facial recognition.

So that's something we need to look at.

So, Ms. Chantel, we will look into that.

So I just wanted to acknowledge that.

Thank you.

Commissioner Elias?

Thank you.

I also wanted to thank Mr. Scott for her effort

to really I think I didn't get your email until after,

but I appreciate you reaching out

to the rest of the commissioners to mobilize us

to get to partake in the, it wasn't a healing circle

type of effort for the family.

So thank you for organizing that

and reaching out to us.

I appreciate that.

Chief, I had a question for you.

With respect to the crime trends, you indicated that the human trafficking, we see a spike

in the numbers.

And my understanding is that human trafficking also includes labor trafficking, correct?

And you had indicated that the increase in that category was due to operations aimed

at trafficking, human labor trafficking.

Can you explain or talk a little bit about what those operations were?

Yeah, I don't have the exact information on exactly how they did it,

but it was in conjunction with multiple agencies, including the DA's office,

with the Human Trafficking Task Force.

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear that.

So it was in conjunction with Human Trafficking Task Force,

which includes multiple agencies and the DA's office.

So I think it would be good in honor of the trafficking month for you next week to report on what those efforts were.

Because the other question I had is that had these operations not existed, would there also still be a zero in that category?

Meaning what efforts are being undertaken to address the trafficking issue?

Because it is a huge issue, both human and labor trafficking as well as sexual trafficking.

So it would be good for us to better understand the operations that the department is undertaking to tackle this issue and what we can sort of expect if we don't have operations.

Is there any other efforts by the SFPD to address these crimes?

No problem.

We'll report back to you.

All right.

Thank you.

If any member of the public would like to make public comment regarding line item 3, please approach the podium.

I like to use the overhead.

I'm back again.

I just wanted to let you know, Chief, that the retired Captain Dominic, I can't spell the, pronounce the last name right here,

but he did call me and I believe I'm going to be meeting with them tomorrow.

Him, Calvin Sanders, and Lisa Ortez, I believe.

So I need to check that out.

I wanted to also bring this up again about the ways to pay tipsters to come forth.

They made this flyer and, you know, they announced it,

but we need to find other ways to put it out there so people can know that, you know, won't be afraid to testify because of these three things,

that they'll be anonymous and, you know, they'll get paid.

This is not out there enough.

How do we do it?

How do we put it out there even more?

Instead of me walking around with this piece of paper, putting it on a pole, who else can help put it out there even more?

I think I'm supposed to be meeting with Stephen Betts about, you know, just what the mother said, facial recommendations are, and then to see if I can meet with him also about the upcoming anniversary of my son.

So I'm asking, how do we get this out here even more?

And ways to find, to get to talk to these, the persons that murdered my child.

and we have these names all the time right here

of all the people that murdered my child.

One of them is deceased.

How come we can't go and talk to,

knock on some doors and say,

look, do you remember this murder back in 2006?

Stir them up.

So this is what I want to talk about.

So thank you.

That is the end of public comment.

Line item four, DPA director's report discussion, report on recent DPA activities and announcements.

Executive Director Henderson.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Just a couple of updates on our digitalization project.

We finished scanning our historical files.

That's from the very early 80s.

So that's decades of records that are now preserved digitally.

And we're double-checking now the electronic file tags.

This is going to be a big deal for our records

so people can digitally search for information with reliability and accuracy.

We're very excited about this project.

Our next step is going to be to migrate that information

from our local servers into secure cloud storage.

That way it will have better accessibility and security.

The project's on schedule and we'll wrap up by the end of this fiscal year in June, at which point I'll probably be making another presentation just explaining how it fits into the operations at DPA and what it means.

But we're moving along on that project.

But just in context for the rest of the city departments, we are on track to meet our local, state, and federal standards with this project for our digital content.

We will have full compliance before the federal deadline of April 24th of 2026 for our projects.

And a lot of the other departments are on track as well, or they're tasked with this as well.

We're just telling you what we're doing here at DPA.

Audit, you're going to hear about this tonight, obviously.

But this December, just for context, before it comes up on the agenda,

We've completed our 2025 audit about opportunities that exist to strengthen use of force oversight.

And this is our first independent review of San Francisco Police Department's use of force oversight since the DOJ's assessment in 2016.

So the audit, again, looks at processes, not individual incidents,

to see if San Francisco Police Department can show how forced decisions are reviewed,

documented, and used for oversight.

And what we found were that there are opportunities to improve documentation

and clarify review expectations, reinforce objectivity, for example,

so we have no self-evaluations,

and three using data to inform training and management decisions these are the

recommendations also that align with DOJ guidance post standards and best

practices from other large agencies the recommendations are designed to support

supervisors to ensure consistent oversight and promote organizational

learning without adding unnecessary burden to the department we suggest

what needs to be done but we leave flexibility in the audit on how the

department wants to implement it our audit director Steve Flaherty will

present these findings and the recommendations this evening an agenda

number seven I just wanted to give context about the audit before we call

it on the agenda in terms of staffing we are excited to welcome Paul Verone our

newest investigator who started on February 2nd of this year you'll see him

when he comes to commission probably this month.

He brings a strong investigative experience,

and the reason that I'm talking about it is because this feels a vacancy from last year

that we have been struggling to get this work done at DPA.

So it's a big deal that he's here.

We're excited that he's started, and you will meet him shortly.

Present tonight is Senior Investigator Candace Carpenter.

in case there are issues that come up during tonight's meeting where DPA can

be helpful if the public would like to get in contact with us directly the

website is sfgov.org forward slash DPA the phone number to contact us is 415

241 7711 and that concludes my report I will reserve my comments to issues that

come up during the agenda on related topics. Any member of the public would like to make

public comment regarding line item four. Please approach the podium. There's no public comment.

Line item five, commission reports, discussion and possible action, commission president's

report, commissioners reports, and commission announcements and scheduling of items identified

for consideration at a future commission meeting.

From the president's standpoint, we've been very quiet with all these activities going on with the chief and the department,

except for we have a few letters here that we'll talk about later on tonight as we'll have an issue that faces us.

But otherwise, there are no new discipline cases that have come in to be assigned, so that's where we're at.

Thank you, President Clay.

Thank you to the members of the public here.

Just a couple of items from my report.

I want to thank Commissioner Scott for helping alongside Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and

Third Baptist Church to organize a vigil and memorial that was held in honor of Renee

Good and Alex Precci, who were murdered in Minneapolis.

it was also organized by the San Francisco Interfaith Council

and I want to thank Mr. Scott for inviting me and able to attend

it was a very moving night to have spiritual leaders from all faiths

unite in solidarity with the community and show our strength

I know that right now there is particularly so much fear among the immigrant community

and I know that's relevant to some issues we're going to be discussing tonight

I want to say to the many members of the community that are in the audience tonight that we're very glad you are here, and we look forward to hearing from you tonight.

Thank you.

Commissioner Scott.

Yes, thank you, President Clay.

Thank you, Vice President Benedicto, for that.

Yes, it was a very well-attended event.

and as we're starting out the new year,

our hearts are heavy because of all of the shootings

and homicides that have taken place,

but we're here to help our new chief

and help you, our community,

so that we can have a safer city.

Our heart goes out to that mother.

We're going in the death of her daughter

right in my neighborhood,

Miss Tina and the family, the Mabry family, and to you, Chantel and Miss Paulette, I know personally

what you're going through because I lost my youngest son to gun violence, and it's not a

pain that, it's a pain that never goes away. And so we will definitely be working closely with

our new police chief, Lou, and this commission so that we can have a safer city. So I just want to

Commend everybody that's here tonight.

It's good that you're here.

And this commission is looking forward to coming to you, the community.

You'll hear about that later.

But we want to bring the commission to you all as well because your voices are valuable.

And this is about all of us or none of us.

And we're in this together so that San Francisco can be a safe city for everyone.

So thank you for coming.

Mr. Yee.

Thank you very much, President Clay.

I just want to say today we joined the celebration of Black History Month.

It was hosted by Mayor Daniel Lurie and Supervisor Shimon Juan

and the San Francisco African American Historical Cultural Society.

It's good to see our President Clay there with Commissioner Maddie Scott,

and then also Commissioner Lerong.

So it's great events.

Great to hear the community talk from the heart.

So continue the fight and the social justice.

Thank you very much.

Any member of the public would like to make public comment

regarding line item five, please approach the podium.

And there's no public comment. Line item six, discussion and possible action to

approve revised Department General Order 5.20, Language Access Services, for the

department to use a meeting conferring with the affected bargaining units as

required by law. Discussion and possible action.

Good evening. For the record, my name is Aja Steeves. I'm the manager of the

Policy Development Division here at SFPD, and I'm here to discuss the DGO 520 language access update.

I have three housekeeping items that I'd like to get out of the way initially. For my overview,

I am going to bring up a few terms and acronyms, so just want to make sure that everyone in the

room and here on the commission understand these acronyms clearly. LEP, that I'm referring to,

a limited English proficient individual. So you'll hear me say LEP. You may hear me say PDD,

that's the policy development division. I may say LAO or chapter 91. That is the local ordinance,

the local law that ensures that all city departments are compliant with state law that

requires that all of our city agencies provide language access to limited English proficient

individuals. And you may hear me say insight app or language line and that is

our language indicator tool. So I just want to make sure that that's out of the

way. Number two, I do want to talk briefly about the guiding statutes over this

policy. There are three that I think you've heard of several times in

communications that you've received and some one is cited particularly in this

policy. So Title VI, that's the federal regulation, right? And as it relates just to language access,

basically, I'll just give you a very short version of it. As it relates to us, is that it says that

basically as an agency, if you're providing, or excuse me, if you're receiving federal funding,

you can lose it if you're found to not be providing language access services, as it's

seen as discriminatory. There is a state law that actually is government code, but it's more

frequently known as the Damali Electori Bilingual Services Act that speaks to state agencies and

has some provisions that relate to local municipalities. And it tells those local

municipalities to create their processes to ensure that they can provide language access

to LEP individuals. And then more relevant to us, there is Chapter 91. And Chapter 91 is in the SF

admin code, and it's very specific to how San Francisco must comply with that law. So it has

things like compliance reporting, determining who your designee is. It has several factors that each

department must comply with. So DPH, SFPD, DPA must comply with Chapter 91. It was recently updated,

I believe, in 2024. So we started the update for 520 to make sure that we captured all of the

updates that were in that local ordinance. And then the third thing that's housekeeping related

is the department met with their city attorney yesterday,

and we are introducing two new edits

for the commission to consider

for adoption or dissent to meet and confer.

And we believe that these edits

might tighten things up a little bit better

and make it clearer to our officers

and to members of the public.

So if you go to,

and I believe these copies were provided to you,

there's a clean version,

and it's highlighted on page three.

So under the Miranda admonition, so again, it's page three, and it's highlighted so you can see it quite easily.

What it said before was when required, the Miranda admonition shall be provided in the suspect's primary or preferred language.

Now we think switching it makes it a little bit clearer.

So now it says when the Miranda admonition is required, it shall be provided in the suspect's primary language.

This is a question for Sergeant Youngblood.

Do you think it would be helpful to use the overhead so people can see?

It's not very clear.

So it is just a change here for the Miranda admonition.

Again, it's just saying when the Miranda admonition is required.

We just think that clears up the language a little bit more.

And then if you go to page four,

At the top of the exigent circumstance, we just simply removed the word or.

So the condition is not the or, it's now the if.

So it's in exigent circumstances, if waiting for a certified bilingual member or certified

civilian interpreter would delay critical actions, members may use the most reliable

temporary interpreter.

So it's, again, just deleting the word or.

So those are the two edits that we are submitting for the commission's consideration.

that I wanted to just go over before going over the general update.

Okay, so just the general overview to get everybody up to speed. DGO 520 was last updated in 2007,

so it's nearly 20 years old. This is a clear indication that the department has been providing

these services consistently for at least 20 years, if not more. But over the years, we have evolved

in terms of our tools that are readily available to us.

The DGO was on the approved 2024 annual review list,

which was approved by the commission president,

then President Elias.

The department captured about 70 recommendations

and questions and concerns that came from the working group.

To be clear, the grid, the recommendation,

excuse me, the recommendation grid

is the product of the working group.

I believe that we have also provided that in the package,

and it is also publicly posted under our working group page

on our SFPD website.

So that's readily available.

And it has been updated to show if there were any changes

since the working group concluded.

The working group did meet between July 2024 and December 2024.

And per DGO 301, the draft went through

several required development phases.

Again, this is required in another DGO

that lays out how policy is developed.

It went to public review,

which is when it's posted for 30 business days

and we take comments and must be responsive to those comments.

So that impacts the draft.

And then it goes to concurrence, which is just a leadership review.

That's when the chief and the deputy chiefs and commanders, directors,

and DPA is also present in these meetings for review.

These phases really allow to operationalize or further operationalize the policy

to ensure that it works for the department members

as they're the ones that have to implement the policy.

So again, the public review grid also should be in your packet, and that gets publicly posted as well.

So all of this is on our website and easily traced.

So notable changes to the policy.

There are several, but I will just highlight the major ones.

The training section has been updated, so it's now periodic training.

It's been expanded to all public-facing employees.

So this includes non-sworn employees.

Currently, the current 2007 version is really focused towards sworn members and recruits.

But this captures what's in Chapter 91, that it's all public-facing employees.

Another big change is the reporting section.

We've consolidated the report so that it covers the Chapter 91 report.

In Chapter 91, there are about 21 required data sets.

And so the current reporting structure has caused quite a bit of confusion.

as one report is fiscal, one report is calendar.

So some of our data has been not lining up.

So using the Chapter 91 version will clarify things

and actually get us better data to use.

And we'll be forwarding that also to the commission

and potentially have hearings about those reports.

Other changes, we've also expanded the resources for officers

during non-criminal incidents.

So now non-criminal incidents and exigencies are the only opportunities to use non-certified

bilingual members throughout the entire policy.

So in this non-criminal section, this includes consensual encounters, people asking for

directions.

Now officers don't have to call a certified bilingual member.

They themselves, if they are conversationally comfortable speaking in another language,

can actually have and build rapport with visitors

or people that are, maybe it's coffee with a cop

or they're giving a sticker to a child

that's visiting from another country.

So we've expanded that resource.

And again, currently not in the 2007 version.

We've also expanded to include preferred languages.

So we want our officers not only to determine the primary,

but the preferred language of the LEP individual.

And we also are requiring that these officers make this determination by proactively asking.

So we're not waiting for a long conversation or to tick off whether these indicators have

been met.

The officer, just the moment they believe that there is a preferred or a primary language,

they can then seek out the determination and go right into their tools.

I do want to show you, because we've also received letters pointing to other law enforcement

agencies that have these indicator tools. And the indicator tool is something we actually already

have and use quite frequently. So I do want to show you what all officers have access to that

just on their department-issued phone. So I am going to call on Sergeant Youngblood. If you can

show me your department-issued phone and go to your language indicator. And again, this is an app

that's available to all members that

have a department-issued phone.

Yeah, if you can.

And so we want to show it so that everybody

can see what it looks like.

And actually, Chief, if I can get you to open up your phone

and see if you have the app.

And maybe you can show the commissioners what it looks like.

So this is what it looks like on their phones.

It first goes into the top languages

that are interpreted by language lines.

So they determine what the top 10 languages

that they have performed interpretation services for.

And then you can click to All Languages.

And this has, I'd say, over 100 languages that are options.

So officers have this tool in their pockets, essentially.

And they can go look.

And when they're talking to someone,

they've determined that there is another language spoken.

This is their language indicator tool.

They all have it.

Sorry, we can take it back.

Maybe you have a call.

And I want to confirm, Sergeant Reynolds,

you do have this app as well?

OK, Chief, were you able to find the app?

And then another tool that we're working on.

So again, this is something that they already have.

It's already a tool that allows them

to search over 100 languages to see if an interpretation

service is needed.

They use LanguageLine to perform that interpretation.

And again, we have it truncated in the top 10.

So another tool that we've been working on

through the DGO 523 Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Working Group is related to the language access,

is a visor card for traffic citations.

And so it looks something like this.

On one side, this was worked out, the signs for a traffic

citation.

And I'll pass this around.

Actually, maybe I'll hand it to you to pass it around.

But on the other side, just to show you

what the clip looks before you pass it around.

So again, there's a clip.

It goes into their visor in their vehicle,

in their marked vehicle, and it has the deaf and hard of hearing, and then it has the top

10 languages on the other side.

So this is a tool for the officers when giving a citation that they can, if there's any communication

at all, they have this tool at the ready, and again, in their vehicle's visor clip together,

right?

So this can be updated.

This is just a prototype, but I do want you to see the things that we have been working

on to provide these tools for our officers.

If you can just give that to the chief so you can pass it around.

And another thing about it is we're trying to make it a right size so that it fits in

a tag book.

So that this is also not only for your vehicles with the vehicle clip, but it's something

that they can carry around if we have our footbeat officers and they're just out on

the street.

They have it.

It fits nicely in there.

It's not one of the forms that they have to put in their bags.

It's just readily available.

The other language identifier tool that we readily have available comes from LanguageLine.

Again, the same identifier tool that

is used by so many other police agencies.

Again, it just looks like this.

It points to the language itself,

and it has it in the native language

so that the person can just look at it, identify it, point to it.

And then we are readily, we know which language,

and we can pass that around as well,

we need to get interpretation services in.

So we have these tools.

We're developing better and more usable tools

for officers to coincide with the 520 coming out

and also 523, which working group has concluded.

We are, I believe, on calendar next week, next Wednesday.

And we can talk a little bit more about the working group

process as well on that agenda item.

So that's just the general update.

Again, with the DGO, our goal was

to make it simple and clear and concise

to help our officers implement the policy.

and expanded the resources to ensure that they don't have to call a certified bilingual member

if it's a consensual, non-criminal, non-evidentiary incident.

And we've limited and tightened up the language with the exigent circumstance.

So those are the major changes.

And with that, I am happy to take any questions you might have.

Mr. Yee?

Thank you very much, President.

Clay. Steve, I just got a question in regards to the AI translation on the phone, because you got

100 something languages on there. The issue on these translations are the accuracy of them,

because a lot of them, some of them have different dialects in the Chinese. You got the

Cantonese dialect, you got , you got , you got ,

you know, it's real complicated.

But I think if instead of being a language, spoken language,

is it written, is printed out in characters, or is it spoken?

Is it an audio translation or is it a written translation?

So the person can read the statement that you're making to them.

So I believe your question is two parts, if I understand it accurately.

So the first question was about AI.

We're not currently utilizing AI for translation or interpretation.

We are using a vendor that is considered a certified translation kind of...

Okay, so that's whether it's AI,

whether it's not, because it has to recognize a voice,

the language that's spoken.

And if you speak into it, say, my phone,

I use Microsoft translations, and I speak into it.

It's not always accurate, but it's close.

But the written characters, they don't change,

because neho, and then ho, you know, then it's written on there.

So then they can see the characters.

Is that going to be provided to, you know, as a service?

So that's currently provided as a service, but not through AI.

I just want to be very clear that we are not using an AI tool at all.

We're using a certified bilingual vendor,

and they have access to hundreds of different dialects.

dialects. So depending on the request, we can get a translation, which to your point is a written

translation. It's a written word. So depending on the dialect chosen, we will then request it to be

translated in that dialect, the written word. Interpretation is the same. So oral, we will then

ask for that oral interpretation. But again, it's not through AI. It is through a vendor that is

certified. Okay, so the person that's doing the translation, they're online?

Yes. Okay. All right. I'm happy with that. But just understand there's different variations of

dialect. So Commissioner, just to clarify, sometimes when, well, not sometimes, when we're

using the language line in those services,

oftentimes it's the subject having a direct conversation

with the language line and then translating back in English

to the officer.

So they're actually communicating back and forth

in whatever language that is spoken by the person

that we're speaking to.

And then the translator will tell the officer

what the person said.

Yeah. Just for the clarification on how, when we're using it in the field.

So, question. So, we got here, we got all these people here tonight. We got here because we got

a letter from the Chinese for Affirmative Action, Anisha Hengorani, regarding the issue that I've

talk with uh...

director henderson that uh...

twenty one percent

twenty two percent

of our dpa discipline cases were for language access problems

now let me tell you that fired me up because i just came on this commission

in two thousand twenty four in june

and this commit this

began the working group

august thirty two thousand twenty four and com finished accordingly

about December 17, 2024, never before.

Never had anyone in my, in this commission,

because I was a newbie, tell me there has been a long,

there has been an issue with discipline for language access.

So that was pretty hot because I got calls from people in the community,

business people, saying, hey, Don, what is going on here?

You mean people are not, and they're people of color.

They can't get someone to interpret information for them

that you got all these discipline cases.

So what do I do? I call Director Henderson. And I'm hot at him. I'm saying, what is going on? Because no one's told me on this commission. And he tells me that's not true. He goes, it's not true. And he says, I talked to the person who wrote the letter, and I explained to that person what you got here. These are the number of cases we intake when people want to make a complaint. And we can't, we don't have their language. So what we do is we get a translator.

and there's a box that's checked that said we have a translator

and that person, that's what they use to say that the 22% of the cases

out of DPA were discipline cases for language access.

And I say, you're kidding.

And he says, no, but I talked to the person and told them this,

the person who wrote the letter.

So they have this information.

So this information, they have this information.

I get this letter.

People have read this letter all over.

This is what they're looking at.

and nobody's corrected that, right?

And so I've talked to a number of people, and I said, this is not right.

We can't have that.

We just can't have that representation

because it has an impact on all the other things we do, okay?

So I get a second letter after the meeting with Director Henderson,

and nothing is said about the correction.

So I'm still operating under this assumption, all right?

I'm still operating under this assumption.

And then finally this morning, we get a letter that says there was a correction,

there was an error in data, but it doesn't talk about that.

So we get this here.

We got this public document, and we get this letter,

and we're talking about a system of trust because we've got to trust you

and that committee doing the things you're supposed to do to make it right

for this community to have this kind of access.

And so when you tell us you're doing something, we expect that.

We've got to trust you.

That's the expectation.

A system without trust is no system at all because it lacks credibility.

Now, what we're here to do here, what this is all about,

this is language access for all individuals needing language assistance through interpreter service.

It primary, this DGOD, DGOs are to help these officers, right?

Give them guidance.

The primary mission for the officers is to provide public safety to all people.

In the San Francisco community, no matter their categories, if it's a suspect, they need an interpreter.

If it's a victim, they need help and assistance in transferring information.

And also there's people who come in here in the city, they need help and assistance.

I mean, I've been all over the world.

I've traveled and not know a language and come to someone, an officer in that language in that country

and ask them for help because I'm speaking English, and they've assisted me.

The officers encounter that every day.

They don't just have people who may be charged or potentially have committed a crime who they encounter or victims.

They have victims.

All these people may need help.

So what we try to do, we want to give them the tools.

We want to make sure they're able to do their job to help people.

It's all about helping people, not one class, but all people.

All people have the issues that may be, in fact, language that they need some help.

Okay?

They need some help.

So when I looked at this, this policy is directed to providing sufficient guidance to the San Francisco police officers

in helping them to address the well-known language barriers needs that these people, all these people, the LEP,

these people encounter

and they encounter these people with LEP

problems in our city. Individuals.

Helping them. It's all about

helping the individual. It's not about an officer.

It's not about them. The issues.

It's all about helping people.

That's where we're at here. That's where we're at.

Now you know and I just said it

this thing began July

30th, 2024

before my time with other commissioners

on this committee.

And it ended in December.

So I'm maybe six months in.

And now we come to here, we're talking, this is 2026.

Yes.

This is 2026.

Yes, sir.

And we're still operating under a 2007, a 2007 DGO.

And we're one that gets supplemented by these acts, what do you call them, the bulletins?

We had five in the last 12 years just to supplement what you really need to be doing in this DGO.

So people get together.

You've got this working group.

You go from an 11-page document to now it's a five-page document.

And now I understand there have been some other additions.

Some of the commissioners have contacted you.

The lawyers have contacted you.

Everybody's put in.

There's some members from the community here that have contacted you and said,

And, hey, we, yes, this working group, and they met.

And I talked to Commissioner Yanez on Monday.

I saw him.

I talked to him about this briefly.

I talked to Jermaine Jones, who was on that committee, formerly from the DPA, about it,

and read some of the information that he provided, a treatise on this whole issue

and how the impact of the Biden administration's posting in the Department of Justice,

on how departments should look at this,

how they should look at this language LEP stuff

and trying to help them guide cities in the departments.

And then finally I saw the final of the Denver Police Department,

that issue and how they did that

and how the Justice Department signed off on that.

And I'm sure you guys undertook that,

and I know that was important and that was great.

But this, this, we really, what we have, you know, is unacceptable.

we know we need to get it done

we know how long it's been here

in this city

so that's what we have to do

that's what we have to do

and as I say finally I'm going to say

what we must do

we do our best to make sure

we have a reasonable

and comprehensive DGO

to provide the essential language

access to those individuals in need

so I know my other commissioners

are going to speak tonight

and I'm going to tell you

I've told you, and I know the word got out because I got a letter basically saying something that I had said,

that, you know, I see it as this.

You know how long we've been waiting to do this?

You know how these things have come and gone?

What I think in the best interest for all the community, I like them being here.

I like community being out here talking about that something that's important to them.

And I don't see that it's necessary.

I mean, tonight everyone said, oh, we're going to do a vote, and it's fine.

I know it doesn't happen that way.

I learned that being here this last year and a half, that doesn't happen.

But I still think, I believe, that it would be in the best interest.

And I think this matter, as I said, and other commissioners can decide how they would like to.

They want to move forward today or not.

But put this over to the first Wednesday in March,

and I think give you all an opportunity to sit down and talk about it.

This working group was really important.

I know Commissioner Honest told me about how these people, you guys first started, people were knocking heads.

wouldn't talk to each other almost.

They were all mad.

And at the end, people were hugging and doing things and shaking hands.

And so why can't you do that?

Because you've got to do it.

Because otherwise, remember, everyone, the chief signed off on this.

This is not a Prop E issue.

We will set the policy.

This commission gets that out.

This is one of those that, you know what, if you decide we don't like what it is,

we can do what we do, and we send it to meet and confer after we've decided

we think this is what's appropriate.

But that's what I think. With that, I'm going to have Commissioner Benedicto.

I think Director Henderson, I know you talked about your meeting with him, so I'm happy to yield to him to go first if he wanted to respond.

Thank you. I just want to clarify, it wasn't me that talked personally, it was my staff that talked to the folks that had written the letter about this.

And my summation for this would be, well, my encouragement would be not to focus on the numbers one way or the other.

I think they're important.

The numbers from DPA are accurate, but they miscount when correlated to the police department incidents related to language.

But the explanation for it is neither here nor there and doesn't speak to anything.

I think the numbers conversation is a red herring.

I think the bigger issue and the real issue is focusing on the substantive policy product that came from the working group.

I think that's the real issue.

So I just wanted to clarify the specifics of that because I don't know how helpful it is for us to get into the weeds for the numbers back and forth.

And I know there's been letters about this back and forth, and we can clarify, and I can clarify again about the numbers.

But I think the bigger issue is the policy that we're trying to get out to reflect best practices and the work from the working group.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, President Clay.

Thank you for that helpful summary.

I wanted to echo what you and Dr. Henderson said, is that we want to hear from the community here.

I'm really glad the community is here and want to hear that feedback.

I also would like to just a couple of things that I wanted to note, just so we're all on the same page.

And then I'll get on to say one is that the existing 2007 DGO is, I think, six pages.

The current draft for the commission is five pages.

and the working group draft, which I'm going to refer to as the community draft, is seven pages.

So I think the redline version is 11, but there's not been any clean version of it.

I've worked with Ms. Steve for many years on DGOs.

We have 20-page DGOs that she and I have worked very hard to shorten.

Slash.

This is not one of those cases where this was an exceedingly long DGO that was shortened.

It's either five, six, or seven pages.

I just want to clarify that off the front.

I also want to briefly address the delay between working group and coming to the commission, which does happen at times for DGOs, particularly ones that are of high importance.

And I'd like to just note that none of the delay is due to anything the community or any of the working group members have done.

There were just a lot of circumstances.

Sometimes, you know, Director Steve and I were talking just before.

For this DGO alone, since the working group, we've had Chief Scott, Interim Chief Yepp, and now Chief Luce.

There have been a multiple change of chiefs.

The facilitator for SFPD working groups is no longer with the agency.

The commissioner assigned is no longer on the commission.

And so there were a lot of reasons why this has taken so long to get to the commission, and it's not on the community.

And it shouldn't be a reason, I think, why the community shouldn't be able to provide additional feedback at this stage.

I'd like to note that I agree with a lot of the points that President Clay has raised.

there have been a lot of letters, a lot of extensive letters that have gone back and forth on this

between the department and between the language access network. And sometimes they've been talking

past each other. Sometimes there have been issues of, and they've not been very responsive. As a

litigator, we're very used to this, these sort of letters that are meant to be in an adversarial

stance. And I feel like we've fallen into that. I feel like the existence of these letters, the

existence of some of the edits present tonight, to me is just more evidence that what this DGO

needs is additional time and discussion and not necessarily to be adopted tonight.

I would like to say that this commission and this department owes the community the respect

of being heard and feeling like you're being heard, and that's what we would like to do for this.

Something I'd like to share with my fellow commissioners,

since I know we have a lot of newer commissioners,

I think maybe with the exception of Foreign President Elias,

I think if you add all of my pre-commissioned work, I'll have you beat.

I think I've served on the most working groups of any commissioner.

I think I've worked on the most DGOs of any commissioner.

Maybe among the most DGOs.

I think we're tied.

Maybe we're tied there.

But among the most DGOs of people that aren't working for the department,

I've worked on 5.01.

I've worked on DGOs even before working groups started.

I worked on 5.01 as a member of the community with Chief Sir, with Interim Chief Chaplain, with Chief Scott, with Interim Chief Yap, and now with Chief Liu.

And I say this at all the working groups.

The DGO revision process is messy.

It's complicated.

It's not for the faint of heart.

It's not for someone who just wants to yell and make a point.

It's for people who want to roll up their sleeves and make the best policy and the best guidance for the department, for the end users of our DGO, which are the officers.

And this working group did that.

They convened.

I understand at times it was contentious, but produced a community draft that had the consensus of the working group.

The department, it needs to be made clear that there's no under 3.01.

That draft is still subject to further revision.

Every single DGO gets changed from the working group draft to the version before the commission.

This is not the first time this has happened.

However, the changes for this DGO between working group and the final version from the community draft, which I'm in support of, were very extensive.

And that happens too sometimes, sometimes in a limited sense and sometimes in a big sense.

And there were a number of significant changes, some more wording than substance, and I know the parties can quibble, but there are significant changes between the community draft and the draft before the commission tonight.

And in the 10 years since, as a community member and as a commissioner, I've been working with the department on DGOs, this commission has not sent to meet and confer without any additional feedback a draft that's this many changes without taking additional feedback from the community.

It happened for 5.01.

It happened for body-worn cameras.

It happened for pre-deck stops.

It happened for search warrants, for all the DGOs that are of high interest to the community.

When there are people showing up, when we get letters from coalitions of organizations,

we owe it to the community and to the department to make sure that we have the best possible product before we can advance.

The sexual assault DGO went to, I believe.

That was a community engagement working group as well.

Just a point of correction.

So there isn't necessarily a community working group draft.

Sure.

I'm referring to what?

There's a department draft that's an early draft that's informed by the discussions that

happen at those community sessions.

I do want to apologize to this working group, and I hope I can do this via email or in person,

that it sounds like it wasn't communicated,

the scope of the work wasn't communicated clearly

to this particular group.

That has been corrected with the current working group

for 523, for the deaf and hard of hearing,

as well as for DV.

They're very clear that the working group

is there to provide the discussion and the concerns

and point out the trends that the department is not aware of

where they themselves, the department,

can take that information, synthesize that information, and put it into the draft that

goes to the commission. Through the entire development process for 520 specifically, I can

attest to the fact that the working group grid was discussed several times through the development

process after the working group concluded. So we made sure leadership was aware of the

commitments that we made to the community working group. And again, we've been very responsive to

the grid and made it a point to, because there were changes, make an extra column to identify

those changes. So we really did try to do our best in terms of keeping the intent of the discussions

that were had in those working group sessions and making it and translating it, we'll use,

translating it into words that work best for the department membership. So the intent of the

discussions and the resolutions that we offered remain in the policy today.

Thank you very much, and I appreciate that. It's also, if I didn't make this clear before,

I know you were not the facilitator of this working group since it was done,

until you sort of stepped into this midstream, had to incorporate that. I know that can always

obviously be difficult, since you weren't present at the initial working group meetings as well,

Ms. Steve's. And I think that that's very helpful, what you just provided there,

Because I do think when, and again, I'm referring to the February 2025 SFPD draft that was posted at the close of the working group, what I'm calling the community draft, just for ease, so I'm not having to call dates.

I think it's important that when there are significant changes to those drafts, the community understand why and be able to discuss it, which is what we've done in prior DGOs where there have been significant changes.

I know I've spoken both to Ms. Eves and to Chief Lou about this as well.

And what I have found is that when, and this is true with multiple iterations of the command staff,

that when the community and the department are able to, in good faith, with the goal of, you know, with shared goals in mind,

are able to reach compromises that make for a better DGO for everyone.

and make it where not everyone gets what they want,

where not everyone gets exactly the version that they wanted,

but that everyone, what we're producing, as President Clay said,

that a DGO that helps the people that we're trying to serve.

And so I'm a firm believer that when there are substantial changes,

because, again, we've been through this many times,

oftentimes there's not.

Oftentimes in concurrence or in public comment,

there's three or four minor changes, and it's more or less very similar.

That's fine.

We pass those all the time, unanimously, with very little public comment.

When there are significant changes between working group and coming before the commission, for whatever reason, I think it's important to have that discussion and to know why.

And I think that here, that process, as we can see from some frustrated members of the community, has fallen short.

And, like I said, I'm not aware of any DGO that this commission has moved to meet and confer with this much still unresolved and undiscussed issues to the point where there are a lot of unsatisfied parties.

and we know right now from what's happening in the world that our immigrant communities

are very are very scared i know that msieves and the chief you know where we've spoken at length

about being sure that we're reassuring our immigrant communities we're seeing really scary

things happen in our country particularly targeted towards immigrant communities and i think

it's important not just that we listen and support those communities but that we are actively doing

so, and that we're not doing anything to allow people to perceive distance between the community

and the department now more than ever. And I think that that can be resolved by some additional

process here. President Clay said a system without trust is no system at all, and we need credibility.

And I think I agree with President Clay 100% on that. And I think that in a variety of ways,

there's been a breakdown in trust in this process. And the way to build trust and to build credibility

is not by closing a door, which is what I think this commission would do

if it passed this DGO advancing to meeting COVID-19.

If a system without trust is no system at all,

you build trust not by closing doors, but by opening doors.

And I think that's what we need to see here.

And so where I am, based on my experience,

is I'm not ready to vote to advance this DGO.

I think there are a number of areas where the department should look to restore.

in some cases it'll disagree and in some cases it won't.

And we can talk about the substance once that's been there.

But to find elements of the community draft that makes sense to put back.

And maybe there are ones where it doesn't make sense to put back.

Like I said, we've seen this in so many DGOs where we end up with a compromised product

that actually is better for everyone.

I've spoken to Dr. Steeves and Chief Luanda.

This DGO is not an emergency DGO.

We have had emergency DGOs where we needed to act incredibly quickly because there's an operational issue.

The 5.01 and preemptive use of spike strips comes to mind, but we had to act very quickly on that.

It's not a DGO like we have far too many of from the 1990s.

And I think there's room here to rebuild that trust, to rebuild that credibility, and for the parties to work together in good faith to address some of the concerns of the Language Access Network.

not just one organization. I know there are a lot of not just CAA, not just OCA, but to address

consensus concerns that, you know, of these organizations to improve this DGO. I think that

we all want the same thing. We all want to make the best DGO possible. And this is about process,

not presupposing the outcome. Just want to set goals and ensure that there is conversations to

find elements of that, again, to honor that work that that working group did,

these people that gave their time, and find ways to where that language can be reinserted.

And so tonight I will be making a motion to table discussion of this DGO and not adopt it tonight

and direct the department to meet with members of the Language Access Network

and for the department to consider which elements of the February 2025 draft

and that it be brought back to the commission no earlier.

I think a commission will call it sometime in March.

We can agree on a date sometime in March or April to give the parties enough time.

I know a lot of February is shot with the departments.

I don't want to impose any artificial deadlines.

But I think that I'm going to say to be brought back to the commission no sooner than the first meeting in April.

And that's what I would suggest that my fellow commissioners do.

And I look forward to hearing from my fellow commissioners and hearing from the public.

And I really want to do thank Ms. Steve and the department and the public for the really hard work on this DGO.

I want to be very clear that the goal of my motion tonight is to honor all the work that's been done on this DGO

and to ensure that we have the best possible product and to ensure that we do have an environment of trust

and that we're standing shoulder to shoulder with our immigrant communities.

Commissioner Yee?

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much again, President Clay.

Thank you, President Clay, for bringing this forward and looking to you.

And I'm in agreement.

There's a lot more work to be done on this DGO, bringing it back to the community

and working through the changes that the community feel that's needed out there

for the language access.

It's a service for all.

Like when we travel abroad, they provide the language access to us as well.

So I see that I'm in an agreement with both the president and vice president to table it,

and then go back to the working group to invite the community input, outreach to them.

They're here too, as well as the ones that contact you through the emails.

So I am in agreement with both the president and vice president in moving this into another date, probably March or maybe even April, hopefully sooner rather than later.

On a side note, I just want to also bring forward one of the community members here today.

Her name is Marlene Tran.

She brought to me an issue about foreign language that our officers speak.

In the sheriff's department, they have a pin that says the language they speak.

so once the person sees that pin it says they will speak to them in that language

they have to be I guess a certified bilingual member so it's for all our

bilingual officers out there it's a plus it's a selling point for San Francisco

it shows that we care and and I don't I don't know if it's in here in the

language, but I like to see it happen and be a part of it too. So thank you very much. Marlene Tran.

Mr. Scott? Yes, I just want to

piggyback off what you said, Vice President Benedicto and President Clay, and I want to thank

Anisha and Annie for reaching out. I think that language to me is very important. I've sent in

some of the meetings with Chief Scott on the language and how valuable it is for both sides,

for the officers and for the communities that they serve. And that's very key. We have a very

unique city that serves the population. Well, language is very important. And we definitely

want to understand because communication is key. It's key in everything. And we know the different

dialects that you talked about, Commissioner Yee. And you can't always depend on AI because it

gives different versions of different things, although we're excited about it. But I see we

have been working on this for quite some time before I got on the commission. I applaud everybody

that has done all the work because it's very crucial and important that we get to a finality

with the best results. So I, being new to the commission, haven't had a lot of time to really

look at everything, and I want to make sure my I's is dotted and my T's are crossed before we

make a decision. We're new on the commission, so this is new to us. And as I said, language is key

and understanding and communication is very important when dealing with anything,

particularly legal matters and issues where the police are serving the community. And we know that

as Chief Scott has done, we know that Chief Luke wanted to do the same thing and making sure that

we're serving our community in the best way possible.

So I, too, agree, and I think hopefully we'll come to something by March.

But if need be, if we need to go any further, we'll do that, too, as you said, to April

to make sure that we do the right thing.

That's what we want to do.

So, yeah, I definitely want to commend everybody for coming out here tonight.

This is very good on this important matter.

but I think we should wait until we've digested everything and got everything right before we make a vote.

So thank you all.

Commissioner Elias.

Thank you, Ms. Steeves, for presenting this.

I also want to thank the community for being here tonight and for raising this issue,

because without you, things that are done in the dark don't come to light.

And it's because of your advocacy and your dedication to this important measure

that I think that we are able to address this.

And I know that the letter was from December 16th,

and then Ms. Steeves, you had written a letter

responding to the community's letter on December 23rd.

Did you perchance reach out to the community

that had written the letter to address the concerns

directly with them or have open dialogue?

No, simply because they sent the letter to the commissions.

Our response was to the commission.

That was the procedure that we chose.

So I think this is just a great example of why communication and open dialogue is key.

I think when I got on the commission, the DOJ reforms were already underway,

and there were only literally a handful of DGOs that had been passed over several years.

And when I joined as vice president and president, we then passed about 20-plus DGOs, more than

that actually, in order to fulfill the DOJ's recommendations and compliance.

And one of the things that was really important to me and I think was important to the community

and I worked really hard with Chief Scott as well as the department was making the working

group process more transparent because what was happening is people, you know, for working groups,

it's usually housed at the headquarters at the police department. And this is your job. You get

to go there because you're going to be there anyway. You get paid for this. But the working

group is comprised of people who have to take time off of work, have to rearrange their schedules,

and really make an effort to come and participate in this important process.

And that also doesn't speak to the fact that some community members don't feel comfortable

going into the police department in and of itself.

So for them to be there to participate, I think, takes a great amount of courage.

And what we were seeing is that people would do this, make all of this effort to participate

in this working group feel like they were part of this process and being heard, and

then the working group would submit their recommendations, they would make agreements,

They would have these robust discussions, and then the DGO would go to concurrence,

and it would go to SFPD leadership where people in leadership would rewrite the DGO

without even knowing what had happened and the robust discussion and amazing ideas that came out of the working group.

And so Chief Scott and I worked really hard to make that process more transparent

so we wouldn't have these miscommunications like that.

That's why we created the grid so that the commission, the public, the department, and DPA could see everyone's input.

They can see what the recommendations were.

And it was really helpful to the commissioners because we would then get the grid, which we have now,

and it shows each people's perspective and where everything landed.

And so that's really important, especially for me as a commissioner, when I'm making these decisions on how to pass these things.

And one thing that really stood out to me in your letter, and I think is absolutely true, which is these DGOs guard our officers.

And officers need them.

This is their playbook.

And so keeping things simple, concise, and clear is absolutely true.

But also, we don't want to lose sight that police officers serve the community.

And it's the community that they're serving that also it's really important that we make sure that their voices are heard

and that we really bring them along in this process.

So one of the things that I would encourage you to do,

and maybe we can do this,

because I know that that's why we created the grids

and put everything online,

so that if there are additional changes

after the working group convenes,

that those be updated online

so that the working group and all the others,

the public, can see that.

So if there are any changes that the department's making

after the fact, put it in the grid. And then also let's notify the working group because we had this

issue before and that was one of the solutions we came up with so that we don't have these

miscommunications and that we're all on the same page. And I do want to be clear, we're not always

going to agree. And we're not always going to say, hey, just because you have an idea,

like, you know, we're going to adopt it. But I think that being transparent and, you know,

showing them the work that we do and showing them and bringing them along and having the respect to, you know,

I think validate the fact that they took time, effort, and, you know, a lot of work to participate in this process.

We've got to be respectful of that.

So I think in the future it would be good to have those open lines of communication, have that dialogue,

put it in the grid, notify the working group members of any changes or any anticipated changes,

not a few days before the commission meeting, not a few days.

Give them time to digest it and give us the ability to digest it too

because it's hard when we get letters the day of commission

or the day before commission and we can't really dive into it.

We absolutely did update that grid and posted it in December.

So it's been posted publicly.

We absolutely agree with everything you said in terms of making sure

that the document that does track all of their concerns

and recommendations has the original response and discussion.

And then a new column is added to track all of the changes that have been made and why.

We also have an explanation.

So we post that on.

So each, when you go to our, we have a web page that's dedicated to our actual working

groups.

And each working group has their own section.

So this is introduced during each working group process.

I do have to say this process has evolved since 2024.

for. We've hired a specific working group management assistant whose full-time job and her

core functionality is going out into the community to recruit members and get a database of people

that are interested in participating in future working groups. She goes to the captains meetings,

CPAP meetings, community meetings. She's met community leaders. Isan Luper is one of the

gentlemen that she's met with who took her around Tenderloin, took her to coffee, has introduced her

to people. So this is one of the core interests that we have with the working group unit. Now

that we have, now we didn't have a working group unit until early 2024. Didn't exist.

Well, we did, we did, we did have somebody for a cop minute, but they left us. They left us.

But he was part of the unit.

Well, that's true. There's some changes.

But we didn't have a dedicated, the department didn't have a dedicated unit. So now we have

unit orders. We have processes. We have outreach processes. We work with media services. We work

with the captains. We work with park and rec. We work with the library and their distribution list.

So we are creating processes for outreach and then also meeting with community members and

telling them clearly what the scope is. And also during the working groups themselves,

now that I've been back to facilitating the working groups, it's really just facilitating

a discussion and making it very clear why they're there and what we need to hear from them. And also

So making sure that the patrol officers that are there, that we have a Q&A panel that can come in at the beginning and at the end.

What this does is actually we also facilitate this communication between patrol officers,

and we make sure that it's not sergeants, lieutenants, or captains.

These are Q2s that sit at the table and sit with the community members so that they can have a discussion to make sure that we're there for a shared goal.

We're there to listen to the community members, hear what the trends are, hear what the issues are,

And then the patrol officers can talk about how we can make that implementable.

So that really has evolved in terms of the way we're facilitating our community meetings.

And again, I don't believe 520 got to see the robust way this has evolved.

And for that, I have to recognize that.

But 609 and 523, they're really reaping the benefits of that evolution.

And as we go on in the years to come, it'll be better.

And there is this communication loop that's happening.

We are having emails.

The issue is that these are public meetings, right?

They're public bodies.

So we can't communicate with more than a quorum and have substantive exchanges without actually facilitating meetings.

So we have to be very careful about the communications, the substantive communications that we have with the groups.

I think I understand that part.

But I think a simple like if you're going to make changes like you indicated, you made changes to this one in December.

I think a simple notification to the working group, letting them know that it's posted on the website.

I think given the robust efforts, I think that should also be incorporated,

and it would be a great way to sort of close that gap on communication.

Thank you.

Thank you for all this information.

What a difference a change makes in terms of process.

That being said, it doesn't appear to me that it would be reasonable just to go over one month.

I think based upon what you're saying, that the idea of an April date would be more appropriate,

but I'm not making the motion.

I'm just talking out loud.

I'll second.

Vice House, second Vice President

Benedicto's motion.

Is it March or April?

I can repeat the motion. I said I'm making a motion

to table discussion of this DGO

and I'm also happy to send it to Commission

Sapphire Tech since I know I talk fast.

To table discussion of

this DGO and direct the department to meet with

members of the Language Access Network and the community

so they can be heard and for the department

to consider restoring elements of the department's

February 2025,

that draft that was released

to the conclusion of the working group

and to bring this matter,

schedule permitting,

to the commission in mid-April 2026.

So first date in April, Sergeant?

First Wednesday.

April 1.

So the second meeting would be April 8.

April 8?

How about April 8?

April 8.

So that's my motion.

Commissioner Lyons.

I'll second.

Oh.

Commissioner Scott, meet you to it.

Is that?

Maddie always does.

All right, if any member of the public would like to make public comment regarding line item 6, please approach the podium.

As a reminder, if you are using an interpreter, public comment is two minutes long.

If you are using an interpreter, your interpreter gets two minutes as well, so that will make a four-minute public comment for those using interpreters.

Go ahead.

May I start now?

Yes.

Good evening, Chief Liu, Commissioners. I'm Marlene Tran.

I'm here to support the increase of language access services for non-limited English speakers.

Even before I retired from teaching newly arrived immigrant children and adults

at both San Francisco Unified School District and City College,

I was also a volunteer advocate of public safety for over 30 years in Visitation Valley.

Unfortunately, due to language barriers, cultural inhibitions, lack of resources, and other limitations,

many of the victims could not report crimes against them.

For years, few outsiders knew about the extensive anti-Asian crimes

until the English media started to report on several shocking cases, especially against Asian seniors,

such as Grandma Yik Ooi Huang, who was my citizenship student,

and Grandpa Richie, who were killed while taking their morning walks.

To promote the voices and needs of our non-limited English speakers,

I have joined safety groups such as Ingleside, CPAP, API Police Forum, and Stop Crime SF,

and have personally assisted many crime victims in communicating police and the courts throughout the years.

Four years ago, I was very grateful to Sheriff Miyamoto for accepting my idea of including the dialects, languages, his sheriffs speak, on to the name tags.

And before that, Interim Chief David Lazar, who retired already, was also very supportive of it.

To better improve communications with our diverse San Franciscans, I hope our police commissioners will vote not only to increase language access services, but consider implementing the bilingual nameplate programs for all our offices and even extending it to other first responders in the near future.

So I want to thank Commissioner Larry Yee for talking about it, and I hope you all vote for that. Thank you very much.

Hi, good evening. My name is Anisha Hingarani. I'm a policy manager at Chinese for Affirmative Action, and I work very closely with the Language Access Network of San Francisco.

The Language Access Network of San Francisco is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-racial group of local community-based organizations with decades of history in San Francisco, providing community education on language access rights, addressing violations of the city's language access ordinance, and providing support to city departments to improve language access implementation.

And we see the work of the DGO working group as part of our work as LAN-SF.

So I represented LAN-SF and CAA on the DGO 5.20 community working group in 2024.

I was one of three representing community out of a total of 11 members.

Most of them were officers, SFPD staff, including legal counsel, DPA, OSEA, and city staff.

The working group collected community feedback to share during these meetings.

We conducted outreach to get resident feedback and brought in folks to provide public comment on their experiences.

And we reviewed and discussed every single line of the DGO.

We heard from officers on their experiences engaging LEP residents.

We looked at DOJ best practices and other law enforcement agencies' language access policies.

And we worked diligently to revise the policy to best serve San Francisco's diverse and growing immigrant communities.

The meetings were challenging, sometimes very frustrating, but we did our best to do what we were asked to do.

We finally produced a working group version that balanced officers' desires for clear and concise guidance with community groups' desires for proactive, detailed protocol and procedures.

but instead of advancing the working group version the department sided with

anonymous and poorly written public comments to justify removing whole

sections and watering down language we had already discussed were essential to

the DGO and rather than listening to our concerns we got a very dismissive

letter and we also reached thank you your two minutes is out

I'm sorry, but your two minutes is up.

Good evening.

My name is Millie Atkinson.

I am the legal director of the Immigrant Legal Defense Program at the Justice and Diversity

Center of the Bar Association of San Francisco.

As a member of the working group on DGO 5.20, I want to thank the San Francisco Police Commission

for your decision not to advance the current proposed version because it will harm immigrant

communities. The draft of the DGO created by the Working Group included input from members

of the community with subject matter expertise and was based on solid and effective examples

from other jurisdictions. In addition to being a member of the Working Group, I am also the

Legal Director of the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative, which includes 15

San Francisco legal services organizations representing over 1,000 San Francisco residents.

We also provide legal services to individuals who call the San Francisco Rapid Response Hotline,

and we were on call 24-7 to respond to the needs of San Francisco's immigrant community.

As part of the working group, we spent hours with SFPD in order to share our community's experiences regarding language access in San Francisco.

We were thoughtful and deliberate in our recommendations so that the department understood the challenges the immigrant community faces in reporting crime and cooperating with local law enforcement.

Since the working group last met in December 2024, these challenges have only intensified.

The immigrant community has been under attack by federal law enforcement, and as a result, many are fearful that any contact with law enforcement will lead to being torn apart from their families and detained in inhumane detention camps.

By not incorporating the working group's recommendations, the proposed DGO 5.20 would create additional barriers for our immigrant community to access vital services and threatens the safety of some of our most vulnerable residents.

By not incorporating the community recommendations from the working group, it puts victims of violent crime, domestic violence, trafficking, and abuse at further risk for exploitation and abuse.

Thank you.

Hello.

Good evening, Commission.

My name is Gabriela Castellanos.

I work with Carecen, who is an active member of the Language Access Network of San Francisco.

I also sit on various Latino health commissions, including CLI and SF-ELPEC.

I was also appointed by the Board of Supervisors to the health equity seat on the SOTA Tax Advisory Committee.

I mention that because this is a health access issue, and also because I am a very active member of my Spanish-speaking community.

I am here to remind the police commission that San Francisco does not exist in a vacuum.

The federal government has taken aim at immigrant communities, and folks have been abducted because of the language that they speak.

At the same time, San Francisco Police Department is deprioritizing language access.

Guess who needs that most? Immigrants.

Personally, I find it irresponsible to fast-track something like this 520 DGO.

This needs to be done intentionally and community informed.

As I look at this very diverse commission, I hope that your loved ones are never caught in a scenario where their safety is compromised due to the language that they speak.

That is what they are asking us to accept for our communities.

Our safety is not less important because we don't share a mother tongue.

Protect and serve means everyone equally.

San Francisco is one of the only major cities in the United States that is skirting these language access issues.

So I thank you for including the motion to table this.

Thank you.

Good evening, President Clay and Commissioners.

My name is Janice Lee. I'm with the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice.

We are proud to be the leading community-based resource in providing direct victim services for Asian Americans in San Francisco.

This program of ours is actually housed at CYC.

They have a team of case managers who provide in-language services, including direct victim support, referrals, and help with navigating really complicated government systems.

Nearly all the victims we support are limited English proficient and are victims of Part 1 crimes, robbery and aggravated assault being the most common.

Historically, we have received a majority of our referrals from SFPD or through the DA's Victim Services Division,

and we are very grateful for the strong relationships we've built with SFPD to have

warm handoffs and coordinated support for victims. So we know how important language

access is for victims of crime. I really appreciate

the fiery remarks that you've all made in defense of language access and really

strengthening this policy. You're reading the room in the moment right now.

Thank you so much. I really support the motion

that's on the table right now. Let's take the time and get it right.

You know, what's really interesting is that for this meeting, you have two additional minutes for the additional translation interpretation to occur.

Sometimes things take a little extra time.

Sometimes you need a few extra steps.

And sometimes that means that DGO might just have to be a little bit longer so that our communities are served.

We see it in this room.

If you speak another language yourself or if you have someone who's LEP in your family, you have parents who are LEP,

takes a little longer trying to figure things out with them,

whether it's doctor's appointments or whatever it is.

And so let's take our time and get it right,

and let's make sure that our police officers or patrol officers are equipped

and know what those additional steps are to be able to help our LEP community.

If we can do it in this room right now, you can do it in the community.

So thank you.

good evening commissioners my name is

I am a domestic worker and also a community worker as well.

Currently I'm the director of Nuevo Sol and we work with day laborers and also domestic

domestic workers.

And to listen to these three or four people

that have been speaking in favor of language access

brings me a lot of peace and tranquility.

Some time ago, I suffered domestic violence.

That was a very ugly situation.

I called the police and we didn't have any language access.

And every eight days, the police was there.

and it's not fair for children

to be witnesses to the violence

that us women suffer

and my children were the witnesses

of that violence

because they were the ones

that translated for me

and it was very cruel

because they at times they would not really understand what I was trying to

describe for what I was going through

And having worked with domestic workers who have also experienced domestic violence and depended on their children to communicate this violence,

I here ask you to please approve this legislation to make sure that people are not put in the situation again.

here on April 1. Thank you very much for your support. And we, as the community workers,

we have the commitment to make it possible that the linguistic access is used and that

is approved by you. Thank you very much. Good night. And that you rest.

And I will be seeing you here in April.

I am very happy that you are working on this.

Because it's very important to acknowledge the work from the group, the working group,

because it represents the community and the community labor workers that I work with.

Thank you.

And I want to thank the interpreters for the work they do

and making me understood to you.

Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Chuvi Barbonio. I am a caseworker at the South of Market Community Action Network who helps new immigrant Filipino families navigate community resources.

As a caseworker, I have encountered cases of domestic violence, child abuse, elder abuse in the community.

A lot of times victims and even the perpetrators of these abuses could not express the real story of what they have experienced because of limited English.

And sometimes they could not comprehend.

That's why I'm here today to urge the San Francisco Police Commission to advance the working group version of DGO 2.0

because the current proposed version will harm the immigrant communities.

Thank you.

Hello, commissioners.

My name is Teresa Dulalas with SOMCAN, and I live in the Soma Pilipinas, District 6.

San Francisco is one of the most linguistically diverse cities in the nation.

Nearly 20% of our residents speak a language other than English.

Language access is not optional.

It is essential and core to public safety function.

It is accountability.

it is the difference between safety and silence.

In my community, I meet people who nod politely,

who seem to understand but cannot fully respond in English,

especially in emergencies, when fear is high,

when time matters, when someone needs help now.

That gap in communication is where safety breaks down

for residents and for officers.

If police cannot clearly understand victims or witnesses,

Situations escalate, information is missed, trust erodes, language access protects the community, and it protects officers.

Without strong language access, immigrant and limited English residents hesitate to call for help.

Crimes go unreported, abuse continues, entire neighborhoods grow quieter, not because they are safe, but because they are afraid.

Children and family members should never be used as interpreters,

especially in domestic violence and abuse cases.

Survivors deserve trained interpreters' clear protocols and dignity.

SFPD has a legal obligation under federal, state, and local law.

Other major cities already meet the standard.

Please, San Francisco should not be the outlier.

The working group version of DGO 520 reflects months of community expertise and lived experience.

The current proposal weakens protections and puts our most vulnerable neighbors at risk.

Because public safety is top priority and non-negotiable.

Thank you.

Good evening, Commissioners.

My name is Annette Wong, and I'm the Managing Director of Programs at Chinese for Affirmative Action, a 57-year-old civil rights organization located in Chinatown.

I just wanted to say I'm very heartened by the comments made by the commissioners this evening, and I'm a little actually now embarrassed to read this because it seems like we're all very aligned.

But we do appreciate the time that you are taking to grapple with the real-world consequences of the policy that is before us.

And as Mr. Henderson so rightly acknowledged, we don't want to get caught up in red herrings.

And so then what is the North Star?

And I think the North Star, for obviously the commission, because you hold such power,

but also for us as a city, is to consider, do we believe that LEP people should be treated

with the same dignity and respect as native English speakers?

Do we believe that LEP people should have the same access to the rights, services, and

protections of SFPD as native English speakers?

Do we believe that LEP people should be able to approach SFPD and be fully understood without

fear of being dismissed based on their English language ability. And if the answer to any of

these questions is yes, then the policy that we just heard is unacceptable. And we have to move

on from this version, and we have to look towards a collaborative process, as you all proposed,

which we're very grateful for. We must move towards something that's not just sufficient,

but we want to move towards something that's meaningful, that we can feel proud of as a city.

I was born and raised in San Francisco. I want to feel proud of whatever DGO comes out of this.

So I'll just say in closing, we urge to advance the working group version.

It was developed collaboratively. It's modeled after best practices.

It's balanced. It's practical. It's rooted in public safety. Thank you.

Hello. Good evening, commissioners.

Commissioners, my name is Amy Aguilera, and I'm a civic engagement organizer with Poder,

and we organize with Latinx families and youth in the Mission and Excelsior District,

and most of the families that we work with are monolingual Spanish speakers. We're also very

proud to be a part of the Language Access Network of San Francisco, and so, you know, I'm really

happy to hear that this was tabled and that there is going to be more time for discussion

because we really believe that the version that came through the working group really takes into account the needs of our limited English proficient communities.

And so that's why, you know, we are here today because we think it's so important.

And we appreciate that you have also seen how important it is to take it back, discuss it, and really include the Language Access Network and the partner organizations that are here tonight.

Our community members already face so many language barriers, and so we need to work together to make it easier to live here in San Francisco, not be afraid to call the police, knowing that we have allies if we ever find ourselves in really troubling situations.

As a community worker on the ground, I have heard horror stories of how language barriers have impacted people's lives.

And these are sometimes life or death situations that could have been avoided if given proper language interpretation.

SFPD has a responsibility to protect San Franciscans and offer help, not cause fear or worsen their situation.

And so, again, you know, we appreciate that this conversation is going to be tabled, and we're going to be working with the community.

So we really, really encourage you to adopt the working group's version of the DGO 5.20.

Thank you.

Hello, everyone.

It has been a long day.

My name is Ji, and I work at the Asian Women's Shelter in San Francisco.

an emergency shelter that provides services for survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking.

The violence happened to all across backgrounds, including immigrants, refugees, asylees, etc.

I told my co-workers that today I have to leave our meeting earlier

because I have to leave everything behind and come here to fight for the language access.

I know it has been a long day, but as I listened to the commissioner,

my heart grew much happier.

And I appreciate all of you for being alive and for listening to our working group.

When people ask me why language access is so important,

I have countless of examples.

I recall there was one day I picked up a crisis line,

and the woman who called me was calling me from the psych ward.

She was arrested at 5150.

And the only sentence that she could say at that time,

because of, you know, like when people speak English as a second language

or have limited ability.

During the time of crisis, it's even reduced.

So all she can say was, I want to die.

What she really mean was that if I have to go back into that house again,

endure physical abuse, endure sexual abuse, I would rather die.

So this is one of the examples.

I have countless of them.

But I want to thank you for tabling for the next time

and also want to thank everyone for being here tonight

and we take time off from our daily work at whatever we have to do.

Thank you, everyone.

I'm going to say it in Cantonese.

三藩市警察委員會的主席, Judge Clay.

各位委員們,你們晚上好.

我是Hosean,我是來自香港的.

我目前在三藩市移民權益委員會服務.

我都是擔任委員.

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пять пять пять

And will пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять

And пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять

and to avoid the language of the language,

and to avoid our travel travel,

and to prevent this situation.

So we invite our local government members

to continue to cooperate with our local government,

to further further this legislation,

to further our local government's needs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I interpret.

My name is Jose Ng.

I serve on the Immigrant Rights Commission,

and I also work at the Chinese for affirmative action,

CAA as the Immigrant Rights Program Manager. Today I'm speaking on behalf of CAA.

Chinese for Affirmative Action participated in the DGO 5.20 community working groups in 2024

to update the policy, and I also attended and provided public comment at the working groups

meetings. We are disappointed to find that the latest version refers to synophony from the draft

approved by the working group, which included SFPD police officer, DPA, city staff, as well

as community groups.

The latest draft weakens SFPD's language access responsibilities.

We move important guidance from SFPD bulletins on interacting with limited English proficient

individuals and is in violation of the city language access ordinance.

The city's limited English proficient population, who represents 20% of the entire population,

must have their language rights protected under the DGO and have trust that the police department can meet their unique language and safety needs.

LAP individuals already face multiple barriers to accessing public services,

and these challenges have only been exacerbated by the federal administration

and lawful actions to dismantle language rights and terrorize immigrants' communities.

We need the police commission to urge SFPD to revise and amend the document to incorporate the community's feedback.

Thank you.

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Thank you.

Hi, commissioners. My name is Annie. San Francisco is an incredibly diverse city, with about 20% of residents primarily speaking a language other than English.

If the San Francisco Police Department does not provide adequate language access services, it cannot truly protect and serve everyone.

When I need to go to the police station, I'm hoping that I can feel safe to use the service, that my home language will be heard and understood.

Language access is crucial to public safety. When SFPD officers lack proper training in language services, it impacts the safety of the entire city.

If officers cannot communicate clearly with individuals who have limited English proficiency, misunderstandings, delays, and even unnecessary conflict can occur.

proper training enables officers to identify and assist those with limited English skills,

obtain accurate information, prevent dangerous situations, and protect both community members

and officers themselves. Over the past five to six months, SFPD has worked with expert

community organizations, officers, and other city agencies to gather input and explore how to better

serve residents with limited English proficiency. We urge the police commission to move forward with

the previous version proposed by the working group, because the latest version, which negates

the community testimony, professional opinions, and collaborative effort of the community

working group over the past six months, is actually causing the police department to

regress.

We hope the police department will protect the immigrant community and revise the plan

according to the version proposed by the community working group.

Thank you.

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And when I will пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять

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Hello, commissioners. My name is Ayi. I came from a Taisan immigrant family and have lived

and worked in San Francisco for many years. The central police station is located in Chinatown.

In the past, whenever I passed by or needed assistance, I often hesitate to go inside

because I worry about language barriers. Two years ago, I lost my phone while riding Muni.

The phone contains precious childhood memories of my child, so I decided to file a report.

When I entered the station, a staff member, police, immediately spoke to me in fluent Chinese

and explained the reporting process.

At that moment, my anxiety was gone because the police could speak my own dialect.

This experience showed me how important language access is,

and I hope the department continue to provide these services to help others in need.

And when the police department offers clear and practical language services,

communities with limited English proficiency can build trust and feel comfortable seeking help.

Without these services, people cannot fully understand or access the service available.

And many will simply choose not to ask for help.

My own experience provides this if residents believe this service are not meant for them,

they will not even try to seek assistance.

So we urge the police commissioner to adopt the community proposed versions

incorporating six months of community testimony and professional input

and the collaborative efforts of the community working groups.

And I hope the police department will continue to provide language services to help more people in need.

This way, I can always request services from government with peace of mind. Thank you.

will have many problems and problems around the пять пять пять

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And the fact that the пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять пять

of the situation.

We hope the police can be ready to provide a better solution to serve English-speaking

citizens with English-speaking students.

Therefore, I urge the Attorney General Assembly to provide the State Police Department of

the State Police Department to provide a better version of the State Police Department.

Thank you.

Hello, Commissioners.

My name is Ayi.

Immigrant communities and residents with limited English proficiency already face significant

challenges and language barriers when reporting crimes, especially in stressful situations.

Without language access services, these communities may feel scared and choose not to seek help.

A comprehensive language access plan can build trust, ensuring residents feel safe to report

crimes and ask for assistance without confusion or worry. When a crime occurs, officers need to

communicate with victims and witnesses. If those individuals have limited English skills,

they may not be able to clearly explain what happened.

A clear language access policy allows victims to confidently request interpretation services

and know that these services are provided free of charge.

A police department that truly serves its communities should have a well-structured plan,

including trained interpreters, clear procedures, and a system for tracking and reporting the use of language services.

Sorry. I still have the last part.

We hope the police department can develop more comprehensive measures to serve residents with limited English proficiencies.

Therefore, we urge the police commission to require the San Francisco Police Department to adopt a version proposed by the community working group.

Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Crystal, and I'm with Chinese for Affirmative Action.

First of all, thank you all, President and Vice President, for hearing our concerns and actually prioritizing serving the community.

So today I'm actually going to share a testimony from a directly impacted community member who cannot make it tonight.

So hello, Commissioners.

My name is Christina, and she actually said this in Cantonese, and I translate it.

But I'm an immigrant to the United States from Guangdong, China, since 2010.

And currently, I reside in District 10 of San Francisco.

At the Vallejo Police Station in Chinatown, I wanted to report a crime related to my personal property and safety.

However, due to my limited English proficiency, I was left waiting.

After three hours, my problem remained unsolved.

Meanwhile, English-speaking community members who reported similar incidents received immediate

assistance and support.

I felt dismissed and troubled because I experienced discrimination due to a language barrier.

I also did not feel safe or respected and did not receive the necessary help from the

police department.

Throughout the entire time, I also repeatedly used my phone translation app to explain and

communicate.

Even if there are no bilingual Chinese-speaking staff available, telephonic translation services must be provided.

Especially in emergency situations dealing with matters of life and death, the inability to find services and assistance in one's own native language creates feelings of helplessness and despair.

This personal experience illustrates the importance of strengthening language access and services, which many immigrants can resonate with.

SFPD engaged deliberately with subject matter experts, CBOs, officers, and other city stakeholders to get their perspectives on how to best serve the city's LEP population.

I trust and support the recommendations and insight.

Therefore, I urge the SF police commissioners to advance the working group's version of DGO 520.

Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners and chief police.

Thank you so much for understanding the importance of language access.

You all said, and the community also said loudly.

My name is Johannes from the African Advocacy Network.

It's a non-profit organization in the city of San Francisco, supporting immigrants from African and Afro-Caribbean countries.

We primarily support for those immigrants in terms of immigration service, and we do also outreach services.

So I really, really want to address language access.

is not only right, it's very, very, very important for those who have limited English, I mean,

languages. So this is very important for our community, for the city, and it has to be

very clearly addressed. And I really also want to thank you to the police department

working day and night outside, I mean in our city to make it safe.

I personally trust police. If I see a police car, I am always comfortable because I can speak,

I can communicate with them. But I ask some community members, they say they don't like

when they see police cars because of the language capacity. So this is very, very important and

And I hope the police can understand the importance

of the trust with the community and work with the community

to make really very accessible for the language access.

Thank you so much.

Good evening, commissioners and Chief Liu.

Deputy Public Defender Brian Cox here.

come here tonight expecting a heavyweight policy fight. That didn't happen. I think you all listen

to the collective wisdom of the community here tonight, and I just want to take time to thank

you for doing that. I also want to take time to acknowledge how hard it is to have these

conversations in public. In the six or seven years since I've been coming to the commission,

doing this advocacy work, it's not often easy to have these conversations in public,

but I think that we can and we should have these conversations. So again, I

thank you for taking the time to make space to allow this policy to move

forward in a way that I think is very thoughtful and that centers the

community's voice. I think oftentimes what's missing, what I've often

advocated for, is centering those who are impacted by the policing policies and

having their voice in the room. And so I think this is an excellent chance to

sort of double down on that and balancing that, of course, with what the

officers need to perform their jobs. So again, thank you for taking the time to

give the community space to be heard on this issue and I hope that this serves

as a model for how we can do policy moving forward. Having been part of many

working groups where there's a product that's everyone is reasonably unhappy

happy with as Commissioner Benedicto put it earlier, to then go to concurrence

only to see all the changes that the working group put in place be gone, that's very frustrating.

And so I think, again, having a space where we can work those details out, we need not agree,

but we can at least reason together.

And so thank you for creating that space and looking forward to more opportunities like that to engage in the future.

Thank you.

Hello, commissioners and chief.

I came to see Sergeant Youngblood and Sergeant Reynolds,

so I've done that.

I just want to thank you guys for all engaging on this issue.

I think this kind of gave me a little reminder

of what it was like being on the working group.

People came in with different opinions, and we come out with a better product.

And one thing I want to highlight from this process, I'm a former litigator, and so when I hear blustery letters, I just kind of hear a womp, womp, womp.

But going into the letters and looking at the substance, the language access group, their .7 was about Miranda admonition and stating that the latest version uses the phrase when required, and it adds confusion.

which could result in due process challenges.

And then the department response being,

LANSF claims the phrase, when required,

is confusing for officers.

There's explanation.

We do not concur.

No action is needed from the department.

But this meeting started with the department coming to you

with language, changing the Miranda admonition section.

And I think this letter, it brought that to light.

And so it's made the policy so much better than it already

was.

Commissioner Yee coming with Marlene's comment

on the pins was great.

It's something I've never heard before.

But having these discussions in the open,

they create better policy for the city of San Francisco

and for the 20% of residents that are LEP.

So thank you again.

Can you state your name for the record, young man?

I'm Jermaine Jones, city resident.

All right.

Do you mind if I say a quick thank you?

And that is the end of public comment.

Thank you very much.

I just want to say a couple of quick thank yous, and I want to thank President Clay for indulging me.

I want to thank my fellow commissioners for their engagement to this issue and hearing me out.

I want to thank Director Steves and Chief Liu for speaking with me beforehand and making sure they're all aligned.

And I know that having seen this process play out, I'm confident that the department will move in good faith and the community will move in good faith and we'll get to language that I think will be broadly acceptable.

I also want to make sure I know President Clay hinted I want to thank former Commissioner Jesus Yanez.

Commissioner Yanez has been a tireless community advocate on so many issues, but particularly on this issue.

He was the commissioner assigned to this DGO and worked on it for over a year before the working group and through the working group process and has continued to be a community advocate, even though he's no longer on the commission.

And we wouldn't be at this product if it wasn't for his work.

When he left the commission, I promised I would do my best to shepherd this DGO after he left.

And I hope that I've honored his work and what we've done.

but most importantly I really want to thank everyone in the community for coming out here

tonight. Like Commissioner Aliyah said you're bringing this to our attention. You're the reason

why this policy is going to be better. I know it's hard to take time out of our lives. The traffic

with the Super Bowl is crazy. Street closures and all those things but you did it and it was

genuinely an inspiration to get to hear the stories and the importance of language access

has, this is a DJO that touches the lives of so many San Franciscans, and it's so inspirational

to see at a time where things are really dark, it's good to see that the spirit of public

service and democracy is alive and well here in San Francisco.

So that's what I'm leaving this evening with.

So thank you.

Sergeant?

All right.

On the motion, Commissioner Tecky, how do you vote?

Yes.

Commissioner Tecky is yes.

Commissioner Scott?

Yes.

Commissioner Scott is yes.

Commissioner Leung?

Yes.

Commissioner Lee Young is yes.

Commissioner Yee?

Yes.

Commissioner Yee is yes.

Commissioner Elias?

Commissioner Elias is yes.

Vice President Benedicto?

Yes.

Vice President Benedicto is yes.

And President Clay?

Yes.

President Clay is yes.

You have seven yeses.

Line item seven, presentation and discussion on DPA's use of force audit.

audit discussion.

Give backs.

There's no give backs.

We got it up.

Yes, I see it.

Thanks.

I'm not going to clear my sign up this.

Okay.

I'll take one.

Oh, I like those.

Those are, those are, I buy these all the time.

Yeah, these are strong, man.

Oh, this is old school.

This is old school.

You take these?

These are like those.

Take these old school?

When they're cold?

Very good.

I need it right there.

It actually does clear my signs.

Oh, this is going straight through your head.

What?

This is fisherman's friend.

My mom will put them in hot water.

Oh.

And let them melt and drink the hot water.

I don't know if I'm going to go to that.

Is it cool?

We're still good.

I'm old school.

Yeah.

Very old school.

It's just in.

Why did somebody say something?

Did I miss something?

No.

Oh, my God.

This is like dope.

Leon?

I'm going to ask you.

This is good or dope.

Do the words, you know?

No.

It's disgusting. It's not delicious.

I think you can even move the dial.

It's pretty good, right?

Stacey, are we ready?

You can scroll it.

You can hit scroll.

Or I think forward.

Steve, you can go ahead and start if you want.

Whatever you feel comfortable with.

Okay.

Ready?

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Good evening, President Klaive, Vice President Benedicto,

Commissioners, Chief Liu, members of the public.

My name is Steve Flaherty.

I'm the Director of Audits for the Department of Police Accountability.

Tonight I'm going to be presenting our audit

on the San Francisco's Police Department's use of force,

titled Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Use of Force Oversight.

DPA issued this report in December 2025, and my remarks tonight summarize its key findings

and recommendations.

Just some background before we begin.

So the objective of this audit was to evaluate the effectiveness of SFPD's processes for

monitoring use of force incidents.

The authority to use force is a serious responsibility given to peace officers.

Investing them with this authority requires monitoring, evaluation, and a careful balancing

of interests.

For the purposes of this audit, monitoring includes incident review, trend analysis,

and related documentation.

DPA conducted this audit in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Those standards require us to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable

basis for our findings and recommendations.

As part of the audit, we reviewed SFPD policies, interviewed department personnel, and analyzed

use of force data.

We also considered findings and recommendations made by the United States Department of Justice

in its 2016 assessment of the Police Department, and we benchmarked SFPD's practices against

post guidelines and peer agencies.

So as a background, in 2016, the United States Department of Justice found deficiencies in

SFPD's use of force investigations.

The California Department of Justice later determined that SFPD was substantially compliant

with the recommendations associated with this finding,

citing supervisory responsibilities

in SFPD's use of force policy, DGO 5.01.

When notified of a reportable use of force,

supervisors must conduct an evaluation.

The evaluation form records whether an officer's use of force

was within policy and records information

about the officers who applied the force,

the subject of the force, and the force itself.

DGO 5.01 provides factors to consider when evaluating force.

These include, but are not limited to,

the officer's tactical conduct and decisions preceding the use of force, and whether the

officer assessed the subject's ability to cease resistance or comply with commands.

DGO 5.01 also requires the training division to use data collected in the evaluations to

identify and address training needs and efficacy.

With that context, I'll turn to what the audit found and how we examined how these requirements

are implemented in practice.

So, as an overview, within the audit there are three main finding areas.

Finding 1 addresses supervisor evaluations of individual use of force incidents.

Finding 2 discusses SFPD's use of data to inform officer training.

Finding 3 focuses on SFPD's reporting and auditing practices related to use of force.

Tonight, I will walk through key sub-findings from each area.

So for context, between May 2024 and March 2025, supervisors completed 994 evaluations.

In these evaluations, supervisors determined that 99% of the force was within policy, with

the remaining 1% marked as pending investigation.

We found that SFPD does not require supervisors to document the reasoning behind their policy

compliance determinations.

The evaluation form is designed as a data collection tool, which limits SFPD's ability

to show supervisors' analysis of the event, including how they applied the evaluation

factors provided in DGO 5.01.

Although the form contains a comments field, it is optional to complete, and SFPD does not provide guidance on what to enter.

In practice, supervisors completed this field in 18% of evaluations,

and when present, examples of comments included restatements of review steps or restatements of the compliance determination.

We also found that SFPD does not define how lieutenants and captains should review a supervisor's evaluation.

Although lieutenants and captains signed off on nearly all the evaluations in our audit period,

the form does not capture the substance of their reviews.

This limits the department's ability to ensure that these members provide consistent oversight of use of force incidents.

In addition, we found policy and system gaps that limit SFPD's ability to show that supervisor evaluations are objective.

Specifically, we identified several instances where officers evaluated their own force,

a practice prohibited by DGO 5.01, but not enforced by SFPD's system.

In addition, there were two instances in which the officer who used force served as the evaluation's second-level reviewer.

There were also 19 instances where a single individual submitted and then closed an evaluation.

DGO 5.01 does not require multi-level review, so the policy does not address whether it is permissible for an officer who used force to participate in the later stages of the evaluation or to perform multiple approval roles within an evaluation.

finding to assess how SIPD uses use of force data to identify and address training needs

in May 2024 SIPD transitioned the use of force evaluation form from an internal system to

benchmark analytics a vendor the department transitioned the form without ensuring a data

pipeline from benchmark to other department systems SIPD stated that it did not receive

the first data extract from benchmark until approximately five months after the transition

These extracts contained issues that persisted throughout the audit period.

This disrupted the training division's direct access to aggregate use of force data

that it could use to help synthesize issues emerging from individual evaluations

in order to determine the effectiveness of member training.

We also found that the training division does not have formal procedures

for analyzing use of force data in aggregate.

Although DGO 5.01 requires the training division to perform systematic review,

it does not provide unit-level procedures.

While SFPD reported to CalDOJ that a unit within the division performs the analysis,

that unit's manual does not contain procedures for aggregate data analysis, including how

frequently the analysis should occur or how the findings should inform training.

Lastly, in finding three, it focuses on SFPD's use of force reporting and audit practices.

We found that SFPD does not have formal procedures to help ensure consistent, accurate reporting

of qualifying use of force incidents to Cal DOJ.

Between May 2024 and March 2025, SFPD reported nine incidents to Cal DOJ.

SFPD stated that this process relied on analysts reviewing the evaluation form data

and determining which incidents to report.

State law requires agency use of force policies to include comprehensive

and detailed requirements for prompt internal reporting and notification

regarding a use of force incident, including reporting use of force incidents to Cal DOJ.

However, DGO 5.01 does not reference Cal DOJ reporting requirements or assign responsibility

for ensuring compliance.

We also found that 5.01 requires supervisors to complete both a use-of-force evaluation

form and a separate use-of-force log.

These forms capture nearly identical information between the two of them.

This duplicative data entry may reduce supervisor time available for substantive evaluation

without adding clear oversight value.

In 2016, the United States Department of Justice noted that SFPD did not have a dedicated use-of-force report.

Although SFPD subsequently implemented the use-of-force evaluation form, DGO 5.01 retained the log requirement.

During the audit, SFPD representatives indicated that the log is not used and said that the department has not formally assessed whether it remains necessary.

So the report includes 14 recommendations.

These are intended to help strengthen the consistency, thoroughness, and objectivity of SFPD's use of force evaluation process,

to strengthen the use of data from evaluations to inform training,

and to strengthen the effectiveness of the Department's other oversight practices.

Several of these recommendations call for SFPD to address the findings through potential updates to DGO 5.01.

These include defining lieutenant and captain review responsibilities,

formalizing COW DOJ reporting procedures, and removing the need for the use of force log if it is no longer necessary.

Of the 14 recommendations, SFPD concurred with two, partially concurred with seven, and did not concur with the remaining five.

SFPD's responses to all the report's findings and recommendations are included in the report's appendices.

That concludes my presentation. Thank you for your time.

So I guess the question becomes, as I looked at this audit, I mean, obviously what you're trying to do is get more objective information

as well as looking at transparency so other people can look at it and see this is what happens, right?

And so it's not, I mean, it could be wrong only in the sense that you think it doesn't comply with a rule that would give you more information to determine whether or not it happened that way or was done a certain way.

But to the extent that you just don't have that information, it's not consistent, which you think is the best practices around the country.

So I do cite some other practices from Los Angeles Police Department, and including, as it relates to the basis for policy compliance determinations, even internally within SFPD, their Field Tactics Force Options Unit provides a multi-stage review process that the department may wish to consider adopting.

The recommendation for that particular finding is just to ensure that the form captures the

basis for the determination.

The actual way that the department does that is up to the department.

So how much does the form affect in terms of what you come to in your audit?

I mean, a lot of the data, I mean, you use what you got.

You got what you got.

But I think the last time this was on or the last time they were, this computer system,

When we were discussing it with me, I basically said it was trash because you can't have that many errors in a computer system.

And these guys come and, you know, they come out to sell you this stuff, and they may have a certain amount of data they can put in.

It looks good.

But there's such variance in what you put in those, the data information from an individual standpoint.

How does that impact what you have done and how your results that you're providing us,

as you think is the deficiency in how the audit says these things need to happen

and they're not happening right?

So I can say, I think, from the work that I performed,

the form was designed as a data collection tool.

That would have benefit to the department if the data was available in aggregate

to the training division, which we found was not the case during the audit period,

so that the trained division could take that data, analyze it,

synthesize the findings from these individual cases

into broader department-wide trends.

So how did you get your information to check this out?

How did you red tag these certain particular incidents that you determined?

How did you red tag and pull that out of all these data for all these reports?

Because we got all these reports, 365 days.

We got 865 officers, 1,800 officers, 1,700, and everybody's making a report.

How do you get that data to come to this conclusion?

Yeah, so from recollection, the data came, I think, in several different spreadsheets from the system.

As I indicated, there were issues with data reliability that persisted through at least my defined audit period.

After the close of the audit period, SAPD managed to have resolved some of those instances.

one of the instances I encountered early on with the first set of data extracts I received was an issue of duplicating officer names.

So if multiple officers are involved in a use-of-force incident, it would just repeat only one of the officers' names.

So, for example, if a use-of-force incident somehow involved eight officers, it would just repeat that first officer's name eight times over.

So it would look like one officer used all the force, for lack of a better technical term.

Go ahead.

So what you're pointing out in your audit to the department, look, we believe, looking at what we see here,

these are things you need to do that we think will be very helpful in being objective and transparent to people who are coming along

who want to look at what is really happening.

Especially if the department is deciding to keep a multi-level review process.

So, for example, right now the supervisor, usually a sergeant, completes the evaluation.

it then moves up the chain the way that the system currently is set.

There might be other documentation supporting that evaluation,

but it's not contained in the system with that evaluation.

The form at one point required officers to sequence resistance and the force used,

which Cal DOJ believed could provide up the chain view, visibility into reasonableness,

but that was removed, I think, for technical reasons.

That's not an endorsement of that particular mechanism,

but it's just to say that it existed at one point within the forum.

So that's the last point in the forum.

Wouldn't it not be better, or I mean at least the system,

I mean the chief and his staff,

and they're going to have to determine whoever is doing the technology stuff,

that when you have this deficiency on a forum,

you have mandated things that have to be put in the forum.

They're putting it in the input.

If that stuff is not in, they get a red line.

Like sometimes when you buy something online,

He says, this has to be put in.

Would you think that would be a better, the better system would aid them in providing you with that additional information that you think is lacking?

Because sometimes if a sergeant's been out there for 12 hours, somebody just forgets to put stuff.

Somebody else is gone.

They can't get anyone.

But it goes through.

The form goes through.

But if you have a red line, it just stops.

Then it puts in, it calls to action.

And so I'm just talking out loud, knowing how these computer things have happened, and having dealt with a bad system over in Alameda County as a PJ with the whole issue with our computer system for criminal and civil.

Yeah, I'll defer to the department as to, you know, what technology platform, you know, they feel is best to accomplish their goals.

I will just say, I think in the response to the audit, they did indicate they are attempting to move away from benchmark.

Commissioner Benedicto.

Thank you very much, Director Flaherty.

for the audit and for the information.

For members of the public, I really do encourage you to,

I know that the PowerPoint represented,

but to go to the commission website or DPA's website

and review the actual text of the audit itself

under Director Henderson and Auditor Flaherty.

The audit reports have become,

they used to be very hard to read,

and now they're very easy to read and very concise,

and so I do recommend people look at the whole thing.

I want to commend DPA for another great audit.

I look forward to this one winning an award as well

and adding to your trophy case awards.

I had a number of questions,

mostly directed to the chief with respect to the responses.

And I know the responses were technically signed

under interim chief yet,

but I assume you don't have any changes to the responses.

Okay.

My first question was,

out of the 14 responses to DPA's recommendations,

do you think Chief Eni will require any changes to 5.01

that the commission can facilitate?

it? Yeah, you know what? I'm going to let, I'll let, uh, I'll let Jack, but I will start this.

So, you know, first off, I want to say thank you to Director Henderson. I'm sorry. I don't know

your title, but, uh, uh, Mr. Flaherty. He's also director. Director of audits. All right. Um,

I want to thank you for the audit. We always look for an opportunity to, to get better. So thank

you for that. I'll just say that broad overview looking at all 14 recommendations, I think

five of them we decided that we did not concur. Seven of them we were partial concurrence

and two were full concurrence. Just going through those, of those five do not concur,

largely it was because they were already implemented, the correction, or an option already existed

to the recommendation recommendation as far as the partial concurrences seven of

them many of them were related to the fact that the audit specifically spoke

to benchmark which we knew we were going away from the first place also there was

a there it spoke to of the partials I think it was there was a reference to a

use of force log as repetitive that was deemed to be an operational need so

we continued that, and then the other two we fully concurred with.

So that's the overview.

I'll let Commander Hart speak to any specifics that you might want to hear about.

Thank you, Chief.

Yeah, do you think there's anything that the department's either concurred or partially

concurred with that will require any changes to DGO 5.01?

I don't believe so, Commissioner.

Okay.

And I can give a little bit of an explanation.

Sure, please do.

Chief alluded to an excellent job of summarizing it.

I'm Jack Hart.

I'm a commander with our risk management office.

So good evening, Commissioners and Director Henderson.

and Chief Liu, of course. So thank you to DPA and, of course, Steve Flaherty, who communicated

with the risk management team all through the auditing period and afterwards as well.

If Steve Flaherty were a constitutional scholar and the Constitution was the yellow book of audits,

I would call him a strict constructionist. And I mean that with love being a non-math person

myself. I was told there was no math. But the nine slides, which he did, are excellent,

but it only reflects the findings during the auditing period and not the many hours of

conversations and the many things that were remedied and in progress of being remedied

during and after the audit itself.

So again, I would strongly, as a spirit of the law kind of person, I would recommend

that the commission please read the appendices C through E, which has that detailed letter

from Chief Yep, a grid of our responses, and of course, the response to our responses,

which highlights the synergy between our two departments.

Like, we're firing really on all cylinders together.

But just four very quick points was, as Chief Lew said, two things were fixed.

For example, use of force briefings to the chief is required in 5.01.

Those happen biweekly, and the things that we rely upon are posted on the Internet, so check that one.

Our software now reminds use of force investigators of all the required investigative steps mandated in DGO 5.01,

and both of these recommendations were during the audit process itself,

and we thought those were such good ideas, we immediately implemented them.

There's policy being changed to address recommendations.

So, for example, Steve mentioned that the Cal Government Code 12-525.2,

and that's simply that the business analysis team and the crime analysis unit have completed a unit order,

and it's going through the concurrence and approval process now,

where the procedures for us to submit data to DOJ are being followed,

but state law requires that it's explicitly in policy,

and so we're remedying that through a unit order that will be the express policy.

So we feel like that unit order will comply with state law and do just that.

Our vendor is being changed, as was mentioned, that will help with this Prop E process.

We're working hard to ensure that force reviewers who may be up the chain of command

can't double sign their own things, which already is in our policy under DGO 5.01.09A2.

It's already there, but as you rightly said, Commission President Clay,

It would be really nice if our software would highlight in red that this is inappropriate.

Our payroll software does that, but not our current force software.

And it's those guide rails that helps all of our members to remain in compliance, even if they make mistakes with the best of intentions.

And then finally, these do not concur recommendations.

There were five, but it's really because two were already completed.

For the remaining three, it was those left open policy questions related to should captains be in the sign-off process?

Should we continue the use of force log? Should the FTFO office at the academy be designated as use of force reviewers, which they are?

So it really leaves really one of the 14 that's a substantive do not concur issue, and that's recommendation number two.

And that one is where DPA recommends an explicit, quantified, documented thought process on why a force reviewer found use of force to be in policy.

The law is objective reasonableness.

It's based on the totality of the circumstances.

And so it's difficult to imagine a quantitative way to record or memorialize that thought process.

But the spirit of this recommendation is let's raise the vibration and the wisdom and the discernment of sergeants to not only be confident and wise in throwing the flag, using terminology from Moscone Center this week,

but also being confident to know that they can reach to outside the chain, up the chain of command in real time if they have issues or questions related to a use of force

or to strengthen our training through the promotional courses, through use of force training, and most importantly, feedback from oversight with our serious incident review board,

our discipline review board, via DPA, IAD recommendations, and even those FTFO training reviews.

So I would say we're there and we're moving the ball, certainly down the field.

Another analogy from Moscone this week.

But in all seriousness, we thank DPA for those recommendations.

And I hope the spirit in which we've responded to this, that we've taken it seriously, we're actualizing them and having discussions all the time on how we can bring this document to life.

So thank you, Commissioners.

Thank you, Commander.

That's very helpful.

And for members of the public, when Commander Hart compared Director Flaherty to a constitutional lawyer, he's an attorney himself.

So he knows from what he speaks.

So he takes that compliment.

But yeah, I am looking at Appendix C.

And so that was very helpful as an overview.

I had a couple of specific questions.

One for, and some of these you touched on in your overview.

In Appendix C response to 1.4, and that's about involved numbers evaluating or reviewing

that were enforced.

And you mentioned that there are now going to be flags in the software.

It's mentioned here that there's a department-wide email that has that language.

it's not usually the way

would that admonition be better served in a bulletin

or some other form than a department email which isn't necessarily archived and stored and accessed

in the same way? Well the requirement is in DGO 5.11

so members are supposed to know that one and have a working knowledge of that general order

so the power DMS roll call training that went to all sworn is just a reminder

of the general order that's already in place. We just feel like

once we have a better software in place, it will help the officer be reminded. There's another

system, our report writing system, where people can sign off on their own police reports. That

was the gift of becoming a lieutenant. I got to triple sign my own police reports. And so

removing that capacity in the software itself for the use of force entry, I think will drive the

number from seven to zero or 30 to zero over all of those thousands of force reports. So absolutely.

Director Flaherty, do you have anything you want to say?

Oh, sorry.

I will just clarify.

There's no dispute that 5.01 prohibits an officer who used force from evaluating their

own force.

The clarification is whether an officer who used force can appear anywhere in the review

chain and or whether it's permissible for an officer to sign off on all three review

stages.

Yeah, so in the department-wide email, the language that is used is different from 5.01.

Commander, is that accurate?

I don't recall the exact language I put in that,

but I will definitely review it.

And again, this is an ongoing process.

Training is this wonderful thing to raise the...

Exactly.

I mean, if it turns out the DJ language is clear in its face,

I think that makes sense.

If it requires clarification, I think maybe...

We can come back to you.

Yeah, it would be helpful.

I want to go to finding 3.1.

I think you actually might have addressed this.

I was going to ask if there was going to be a unit order for this government code change, and you confirmed that there was, right?

Yes, Commissioner.

Perfect. You read my mind there.

And the last area of question I have is about benchmark.

We've been talking about benchmark for, it feels like, years now.

And by my count, I think four of the responses sort of were benchmark-related issues.

and those responses to 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, and 2.1 led to benchmark.

So we've now recognized that there have been significant issues with the benchmark system.

We've seen it come up in a number of different contexts.

Is that still – so I guess my first question is, what is in place now?

Is it still benchmark, like with its flaws and doing what's best that we can do with it?

That's still the EIS?

and the collection system that's in place right now?

Yes, Commissioner.

Benchmark is still in place until a new vendor is identified and procurement is made.

And so what was nice about the reminder of the mandatory steps under DGO 5.01,

we were still able to work with that vendor to get those checkboxes in there

as that reminder to force reviewers to, did you do all the things you were supposed to do?

So we still have a working relationship, and yet it's still very much in progress,

both on this and on stop data.

So, Assistant Chief Jones.

And I can speak directly to, so we are beginning our endeavor with Axon, and Axon standards will go into place, and we're starting, the kickoff meeting is next week.

That will replace for this purpose, the use of force purpose, what Benchmark was currently doing, and then obviously stops.

we're transitioning to a different system that will work better specifically for that until

Axon is a little more developed in that area. What about for EIS? For EIS, we'll also be in

Axon standards. So use of force, EIS, and am I missing anything else? I think those are the two

main ones. Oh, internal affairs. Okay, so internal affairs, use of force, and EIS will go to Axon

standards and then stops a still to be determined system that you're going to stops is probably

going to go to a different vendor that we're not like we haven't completed any contracting for in

the sense that it's not done so um just know that that is the stop gap until axon is at a place where

we feel comfortable that they can meet our needs through standards we would like to have one system

for everything. This will also coordinate with our report writing system, all of our records

management, our body-worn camera footage. We believe de-siloing these systems is really going

to be the best move for the department and will help us make these connections a lot more efficiently

and better than we have at any time in the past.

And Axon is currently our vendor for the body-worn cameras. Are there

synergies or efficiencies that can be picked up by housing

that's all in one system?

Yes.

OK.