San Francisco Police Commission Meeting 9/16/2020 Summary

The San Francisco Police Commission oversees the policy, top leadership and aspects of budget decisions of the San Francisco Police Department. The Board of Supervisors, which appoints some of the commissioners, ultimately controls the budget of the department. I've been live tweeting San Francisco Police Commission meetings at #sfpolicecommission for the last few months, along with a few other dedicated watchdogs. The meetings are roughly every week, on Wednesdays, starting at 5:30 pm, and are currently broadcast via Webex.

In addition to the live tweets, though, I realize it might be useful to also keep a record of major developments and findings from these meetings going forward, to help anyone working on police reform, defunding and/or abolishing the police. Since I don't wish sitting through these meetings in full on any sane person, or even reading through the hundreds of tweets. So here are screen grabs of the most important developments. Any factual mistakes are my own.

9/16/2020 Meeting Documents 

• Agenda
• Supporting Materials

New Developments & Issues Raised for Future Commission Discussion

Official Reform Process Monthly Update

The Report: Chief Scott speculates that the SFPD will be finished with 200 out of the 272 recommendations by next spring. Fifty of the recommendations will be more difficult to implement, but does not specify which (nor is the format of the current monthly report in compliance with the recommendations in the report).

Data Driven Gun Violence Prevention & Intervention Strategy

The Report: There was much discussion of programs and processes for supporting victims of gun violence, particularly Black San Franciscans, but no strategy or analysis system for actually stopping gun violence, despite the title of the presentation. The one exception presented was an outside-funded initiative created by Supervisor Walton.

Department of Police Accountability 2019 Annual Report

The Report: There are huge numbers of public complaints about SFPD officers, the DPA only takes a small percentage all the way through to investigation, even fewer to recommendation for discipline--but Chief Scott takes disciplinary action on just a fraction of those few cases. The Chief fundamentally disagreed with the Police Commission that this is a problem.

Please volunteer for/donate to Wealth and Disparities In The Black Community, founded and led by Phelicia Jones. Ms. Jones has been working on police reform since the SFPD murdered Mario Woods back in 2015.