San Francisco County Grand Jury • 2015-2016 • Agency Response

Into the Open: Opportunities for More Timely and Transparent Investigations of Fatal San Francisco Police Department*

Published: September 02, 2016 8 pages
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Note: Missing finding numbers detected: F2, F3, F4, F5, F6

Findings and Recommendations 2 findings

F1
None of the City agencies that are fundamental to OIS investigations has done an adequate job informing the citizens of San Francisco how the process works. Response: Disagree, partially. The OCC can only speak to the transparency efforts it has made, and not to the efforts made by the other agencies noted in this finding. As for the efforts of the OCC, state law prohibits the OCC from providing the public with factual information about specific cases, including most of the details of the processes used in any specific case. Copley Press, Inc. v. Sup. Ct. (County of San Diego) (2006) 39 Cal.4th 1272. It has been the experience of the OCC that most complainants' concerns about transparency stem from the limitations imposed by state law, not any failure on the part of the OCC to divulge information that the OCC is permitted to share. That said, the OCC is able to inform the public about the process in general, and does so in the following ways, among others: a) The OCC publishes annual and quarterly reports, which are also available at the OCC website, sfgov.org/occ. These reports note the specific OIS cases investigated, when the OIS incident occurred, and when the investigations were closed. b) The OCC publishes monthly Complaint Summary Reports, also known as Openness Reports, detailing cases resolved that month. These are redacted to omit any specific case identifier, such as the case names, or the complainants' or officers' names. The details provided include a summation of the allegations, the findings of OCC, and the action taken by the Chief of Police and/or the Police Commission on those cases. These reports are also on the OCC website. c) The OCC's process for investigating cases is disseminated to the public through the OCC Community Outreach Strategic Plan. As part of that plan, OCC staff attend a wide variety of outreach events in the community, where staff introduce the OCC, its mission, provide information regarding procedures in general, and distribute OCC brochures. d) The OCC website describes the process for receiving and investigating complaints, which applies equally to OIS cases as it does to other kinds of complaints. VAN NESS AVENUE, SUITE 700, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102 • TELEPHONE (415) 241-7711 • FAX (415) 241-7733 • TTY (415) 241-7770 WEBSITE: http://www.sfgov.org/occ The Honorable John K. Stewart September 2, 2016 The Police Commission and the OCC staff deserve credit for the hard work they have put into these transparency efforts. Taken together, these steps have made the San Francisco police discipline system among the most transparent such systems in the state. However, the OCC does agree with the Grand Jury that the addition of a webpage specific to the OIS process on the OCC website as described in Recommendation 1 would be a valuable resource for the community. The OCC is working on creating such a page, as described in the next response.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
Each of the three City agencies fundamental to OIS investigations - SFPD, DA's Office and the OCC - should create a "OIS Investigations" web page specifically devoted to educating the public about that agency's role in the investigation of OIS incidents. Each agency's web page should be comprehensive and answer the following questions: Who is involved in the investigation, and what are their roles and responsibilities; • Why is the agency involved in OIS investigations; What is the investigation's purpose, what goals does the investigation attempt to achieve, what parts are disclosable and/or disclosed to the public, and what parts are not an/or cannot be disclosed and why; When does the investigation begin, what is the general time frame by which the • public may expect the investigation to be completed, and what variables may affect this time frame; How does the OIS investigation process work; and Where may the public go for more information about OIS investigations generally, as well as about specific OIS investigations. Each agency should make its "OIS Investigations" web page available in English, Spanish, Chinese and Filipino (Tagalog). Each agency should provide a link from its home page to its "OIS Investigations" web page, so that it can be accessed easily. Each agency should add its "OIS Investigations" web page to its website as soon as possible, but no later than six months after the date this report is published. Response: This recommendation has not been, but will be, implemented in the future. As noted above with respect to Finding 1, the OCC agrees that the webpage described in this Recommendation would be valuable to the community. As part of a package of ongoing information technology improvements at the OCC, the Mayor and Board of Supervisors have 25 VAN NESS AVENUE, SUITE 700, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102 ● TELEPHONE (415) 241-7711 ● FAX (415) 241-7733 ● TTY (415) 241-7770 WEBSITE: http://www.sfgov.org/occ The Honorable John K. Stewart September 2, 2016 allocated funding for a new Assistant Information Systems Analyst (Civil Service Classification 1051). I intend to task that individual with creating the webpage containing the information described in Recommendation 1. Other staff are crafting the content, which will be translated as recommended.
F7
OCC Investigations are hampered and delayed by the fact that its investigators and attorneys must transcribe their own extensive notes of each witness interview. Response: Agree.
Related Recommendations (1)
R7
A. The OCC should allocate current year funds and include funding requests in the proposed budget for fiscal year 2017-2018, and thereafter, for transcription services, so that OCC staff can spend more of its time on investigations and legal analysis and less time on the transcription of interview notes. Response: This recommendation has been implemented.

Conclusions 1

* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.