At some point on Wednesday, the meeting’s going to careen off the rails. “Shit-show breaks out” isn’t a Police Commission agenda item, but it might as well be. Various members of the public will recriminate one other and members of the government; members of the government will recriminate various members of the public and one other. Demonstrations will break out....
First-year Police Chief, Bill Scott, wasn’t the first thing San Francisco stole from Los Angeles. In 2009, the department opened their station doors to a community advisory board model followed by the Los Angeles Police Department. In theory, the city’s 10 district captains appoint a representative group of neighborhood stakeholders to meet, discuss community issues and take action to address...
What happens at a police station? Or, here’s a better question: what should happen there? If you walked into most of the 10 district stations in San Francisco, your answer would likely be as short as you’d hope your visit would be. The station lobbies are, with some exceptions, furnished with hard surfaces, little light, and there’s often little information...
San Francisco’s attempt to incorporate community input into the police reform effort could be viewed as delusional (police would never take advice from civilians) to foolhardy (the two would never get along). Nevertheless, that is what the SFPD and civilian stakeholders have attempted to do as they work through the Justice Department’s 272 recommendations to make the SFPD better. Nearly...
Covering the Police is a collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Update: 2/12/18 Since publishing this piece on December 5th, all of the district station’s have taken a page from Bayview’s use of Mailchimp and residents can now sign up easily for a newsletter for any or all of the ten stations. The links to sign up are all...
Covering the Police is a collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Robert Hirsch, one of the newest police commissioners and a mayoral appointee, was considered the swing vote in the decision whether to arm the San Francisco Police Department with Tasers. Hirsch, a lawyer who had long been a hearing officer in complaints against the police, had said earlier...
Covering the Police is a collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Months of heated debate over whether to arm San Francisco police with Tasers came to a raucous conclusion late Friday night as the city’s Police Commission voted 4-3 to approve the stun guns. The meeting’s adjournment near midnight was met with thunderous cries of “shame, shame, shame,” from...
All during the fall, the Human Rights Commission held community meetings with hundreds of San Francisco residents to hear from them on whether the San Francisco Police Commission should approve Tasers for the San Francisco Police Department. For Sheryl Davis, the executive director of the Human Rights Commission, what struck her from the meetings was the inescapable fear youth hold...
San Francisco police officers got the call at 11:35 p.m. on Saturday — there was a domestic disturbance, possibly a weapon. They arrived at the Russian Hill apartment to hear Damian Murray threatening his wife and two children with a gun. For three hours, crisis negotiators worked to calm Murray. And then, in quick succession, a gunshot fired from within...
To Rick Smith, the founder and chief executive officer of Axon, which manufactures Tasers, electricity is not something to be feared, but revered. Electricity offers life. Without it, Smith wrote in 2007, “Earth would be nothing but a barren rock in the cosmos.” And Smith has long been determined to prove this point, arguing that equipping law enforcement with the...
As the San Francisco Police Commission decides whether to equip the SFPD with Tasers, two national experts reforming traditional police training see a place for Tasers on an officer’s tool belt – but one also viewed them as less than critical. However, both agreed that training was key to using Tasers effectively. Sue Rahr, the director of the Washington State...
Over the last two weeks, the Human Rights Commission and the San Francisco Police Commission have held two public hearings on Tasers. We went out on the street to talk to residents. The Commission will vote on the issue sometime this year.
There were those who came with questions, those who came to lecture and those with prepared notes that they held between their trembling hands as they spoke. Some 80 residents from across San Francisco filed into City College’s student union Tuesday night and took their seats in bright orange plastic chairs to talk about Tasers and whether the San Francisco...
More than 100 people turned out for a community meeting on Tasers Tuesday night, first breaking into small groups of roughly 25 each, and then convening in a fiery public comment session that at one point erupted into activists chanting, “No Tasers!” and drowning out Police Commissioner Sonia E. Melara’s calls for order. The police commission has voted against the...
The police commission has welcomed two new members since our last coverage of it in October. Here, they discuss some of the recent efforts of the commission. The seven commissioners are civilians and receive a $100 stipend in exchange for setting policy and making disciplinary decisions for the San Francisco Police Department. They hold public meetings every Wednesday night. Robert Hirsch...
