By Vivian Ho
Demonstrators chalked up the ground outside
Hall of Justice in protest of alleged police brutality and those killed by
police officers, Friday, Dec. 18, 2015, in San Francisco, Calif. Mario Woods
was shot an ... more
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee
responded Wednesday to the outcry over the police killing of Mario Woods with
an outline of proposed and pending reforms and a directive to Police Chief Greg
Suhr and the city’s Police Commission to submit any additional policy and
budget proposals by next month.
In a memo to the Board of
Supervisors, the mayor added to the Police Commission’s ongoing discussion
about the department’s training, use-of-force policies and weaponry by including
a directive for the department to enroll in President Obama’s Police Data
Initiative, with a goal of creating more transparency and accountability.
Lee’s working plan for police use
of force, which commits the city and the Police Department to “a primary goal
of preventing unnecessary officer-involved shootings,” also includes the
creation of a new cultural competency course for officers as well as an
expansion of training on how to avoid or limit subconscious bias.
Lee said in an interview that he
wanted the memo to send a message that he is “very serious about these
changes.” The mayor’s office had prepared the memo for a Wednesday meeting with
the city’s African American Advisory Forum.
“It is really a key element of our ability to
be a successful city, to make sure we speak to our African American community
in a way that breeds even more trust,” he said. “For us to get to a point where
we really have a practice and a policy that lethal force is the last resort, we
have to get more dialogue, we have to get more African Americans involved in
the Police Department, we have to make sure that they can go to other agencies
and they know what we’re doing, and I need to be out there making sure beyond
all this that everything I’m doing is transparent as well.”
Lee’s memo is the latest promise
of reform following the Dec. 2 killing of Woods, which drew outrage when video
of the black man’s death surfaced showing that he was shot several times while
not appearing to directly threaten a group of officers surrounding him. Some
critics have called for Lee to dismiss Suhr.
Police officials said Woods was a
suspect in a stabbing and was allegedly armed with the same knife when five
officers came upon him in the Bayview neighborhood. They said the officers had
no choice but to use lethal force after attempts to disarm Woods with beanbag
rounds and pepper spray were unsuccessful.
Since the shooting, the Police
Commission has opened up discussion regarding the department’s use-of-force
policy for the first time in decades, and Suhr reignited his push to arm
officers with stun guns.
The commission had set a Feb. 3
deadline for a new draft proposal for the use-of-force policy — a proposal that
would include the decision regarding new weaponry — and Lee asked that the
commission and Suhr have any new plans to him by Feb. 15.
“I’m a fan of ambitious
deadline,” said Police Commission President Suzy Loftus. “I definitely agree
here that there is an urgency of now and a lot of folks with good ideas and
solutions that want to understand our direction.”
In addition to the policy talks,
the Police Department issued a bulletin requiring officers to file a
use-of-force report whenever they point their gun at a person, and some patrol
cars are getting equipped with riot shields. Suhr said the department has also
changed firearms training to put more of an emphasis on de-escalation and
less-lethal options.
Lee highlighted those initiatives
in his memo and said he hopes the city’s efforts can help repair trust with the
black community. He said he planned to meet with community leaders often.
“My goal is to do as much as I
can to restore strong trust,” he said. “For this community, there’s a lot of
pain. There are a lot of murders, homicides and fatigue and a lot of stress. I
think I need to do work in additional ways to signify that we want to ease that
stress out. Because of history and because of perceptions, we need to do a lot
more.”
As for calls from some community
members that he fire his police chief, Lee said, “We’re not there. We’re in
disagreement.
“What we’re doing now goes beyond
this chief,” he said. “It goes to how we view public safety, how we operate as
a city. This cannot just be a demand about this chief.”
Next week, Suhr, Loftus and Joyce
Hicks, executive director of the Office of Citizen Complaints, will travel to
Washington D.C. to meet with a Police Executive Research Forum studying the
United Kingdom’s de-escalation techniques. The U.S. Department of Justice’s
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services is also reviewing the
department’s policies, at the chief’s behest.
With the February deadline
looming, Loftus said at Wednesday’s meeting that the commissioners will be
holding a series of informal community meetings across the city to hear from
the public regarding any policy changes.
While some commissioners
expressed concern over the deadline — “I want to do it right,” said
Commissioner Joe Marshall —they agreed it was necessary to move quickly.
“The problem is not new,” said L.
Julius Turman, police commission vice president. “We have a base line of
information to begin with. Let’s take that information out and start refining
that policy and let’s move.”
Vivian Ho is a San Francisco
Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vho@sfchronicle.comTwitter: @VivianHo
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