SFPD Archives — Page 2 of 18 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Memorial concert follows DA’s decision not to charge driver who killed cyclist

Sasha Cuttler

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May 13, 2014

Memorial concert follows DA’s decision not to charge driver who killed cyclist

In the wake of yesterday’s decision by the District Attorney’s Office not to bring criminal charges against the driver who killed 24-year-old Amélie Le Moullac as she cycled in the Folsom Street bike lanes on her way to work last August, her family will be holding a benefit concert this Friday (May 16) for Amélie’s Angels, a charity created in her name to benefit needy schoolchildren in Haiti.

The concert by Amelie’s mother, organist Jessie Jewitt, and other Bay Area musicians starts at 7:30pm in St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, featuring the Palo Alto Philharmonic and Conducter Geoffrey Pope. Amélie’s friend and co-worker Steve Lynch, who told us the event will be both a memorial and a fundraiser, said he was disappointed by the DA’s office decision not to bring charges in the case.

“I personally find this to be very upsetting, particularly given the way her investigation was handled, but the main reason I wanted to write you was to see if you would be interested in mentioning the benefit concert. It’s something that we’re trying to do to get her family some closure,” Lynch told us.

As KQED reported yesterday, the DA’s Office decided there was insufficicient evidence to bring an involuntary manslaughter charge against delivery truck driver Gilberto Alcantar, who turned right at Sixth Street across Le Moullac’s path, killing her. The San Francisco Police Department had recommended criminal charges after initially conducting only a cursory investigation, an insult that was compounded by Sgt. Richard Ernst showing up and making insensitive, victim-blaming comments at a memorial event by cyclists at the scene of Le Moullac’s death. Afterward, bike activists asked nearby businesses if they has surveillance video of the accident, finding video that police had neglected to seek that led investigators to conclude that Alcantar didn’t have the right-of-way when he ran over Le Moullac.

The Board of Supervisors held hearings on how the SFPD conducts such investigations, and Police Chief Greg Suhr later apologized for Ernst’s comments and the faulty investigation and pledged to conduct more thorough investigations when motorists kill cyclists, including looking at the three other similar fatalities last year. Alcantar was never even given a traffic citation in the deadly accident, but Le Moullac’s family has filed a civil wrongful death lawsuit against Alcantar and the company he was driving for at the time, Daylight Foods.

Since the accident, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has created new bike lanes and other markings on Folsom Street to more clearly delineate how bikes and cars should merge as they approach intersections so as to avoid the illegal “right hook” turns that are so dangerous to cyclists.

In a public statement announcing Amélie’s Angels and the benefit concert, Jewitt said, “Many people have asked me whether I was going to set up some type of fund or activity to improve the safety of SF streets for bicyclists. Although great improvements need to be made in this area, I leave it to advocates such as the Bicycle Coalition and other concerned individuals to petition for these changes. Amélie was not a cyclist. She was simply a young woman who thought that cycling to work would help the environment and would be a good form of exercise. In the days following her death, I felt her love so intensely, I knew I had to channel it into some activity that would directly enhance the lives of others.”

Bike sting on BTWD

Michael Redmond

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May 13, 2014

0

City officials and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition hailed the May 8 Bike to Work Day as a success, with the official SFMTA count finding 76 percent of vehicles along Market Street during the morning commute were bikes. But a pair of motorcycle cops ticketing cyclists that afternoon on the Wiggle put a damper on the celebration.

As we reported in last week’s paper (“Cycling to City Hall”), cycling has come to enjoy almost universal support in City Hall, at least in terms of political rhetoric, although the Mayor’s Office and SFMTA have committed only a small fraction of the funding needed to meet official city goals for increasing ridership. And the BTWD bike sting on the Wiggle, a key east-west bike corridor in Lower Haight, felt like a slap in the face to the SFBC.

Since another series of police stings targeting cyclists on the Wiggle last fall, SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum has been working closely with the San Francisco Police Department on its goal of focusing traffic enforcement resources on intersections with the most collisions, none of which include the Wiggle (the SFPD’s Focus on the Five initiative pledges traffic enforcement resources to the five most dangerous intersections in each police district and the five most dangerous traffic violations).

On May 7, Shahum was even at the Police Commission hearing discussing the issue, and she says that Police Chief Greg Suhr and other top brass in the department have offered their assurances that such arbitrary stings on the Wiggle weren’t a good use of SFPD resources.

After recent hearings on how SFPD officers have refused to give citations to motorists who hit cyclists, Suhr and the department have also pledged to do so. But Shahum said she also heard from a cyclist on Bike to Work Day who was the victim of a hit-and-run by an impatient, road-raging motorist on 18th Street, and he told her that police refused to take a report even though he took down the license plate number.

Shahum said she’s disheartened by that story and those of the half-dozen cyclists she heard from who were ticketed on the Wiggle for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign on the Wiggle.

“I’m not confident the commitments from the chief and the commission are making it down to the officers. They are still pursuing very outdated traffic enforcement policies,” Shahum told us.

Shahum said she spoke to Capt. Greg Corrales, whose Park Station precinct includes the Wiggle, and Cmdr. Mikail Ali, who heads traffic enforcement, and both said they had no knowledge of any enforcement stings on the Wiggle. SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza told us the officers were there based on citizen complaints about people running stop signs, but that the timing on BTWD wasn’t intentional: “It was a random thing they happened to be there that day.”(Steven T. Jones)

MARCUS BOOKS EVICTED

For months, we’ve been covering the story of Marcus Books, the nation’s oldest continuously operating black-owned, black-themed bookstore located in San Francisco’s Fillmore District. Facing eviction from the purple Victorian where the bookstore had operated since 1981, the family that owns it had launched an ambitious fundraising campaign in an effort to remain in place.

Widespread community support for the culturally significant bookstore even led to the Board of Supervisors granting landmark status for the bookstore’s Fillmore Street address, on account of “its long-term association with Marcus Books … and for its association with Jimbo’s Bop City, one of the City’s most famous, innovative and progressive jazz clubs.”

But the bookstore was evicted on May 6. As of May 12, the owners had been locked out and unable to access their books — but community supporters were vowing to keep the pressure on.

In the meantime, an open letter sent to supporters via email by bookstore co-owners Tamiko, Greg, and Karen Johnson begins, : “Dear Supporters: It was difficult to know what to tell you about our struggle to stay in our building, its winding path of lawyers and judges and protests and promises, hopes and gravities made it difficult to report our status on a curved road. But the current property owner has changed the locks to the door of 1712 Fillmore Street.” (Rebecca Bowe)

WHAT BUBBLE?

While business and political leaders within San Francisco continue to express optimism that the technology industry will keep growing and filling all the new office space we can build — there’s even talk in the business community about overturning Prop. M, the 1985 measure that placed limits on new office construction — the rest of the world seems more concerned that the latest tech bubble could pop.

That would hit San Francisco — where 13 percent of private sector jobs are in the tech/information sector, giving this city more job growth since 2007 than all but three entire US states — harder than other cities in the world. San Francisco Controller’s Office has repeatedly warned how vulnerable we are to significant drop in tech valuation, even though it has also predicted that this time is different and things seem fine for the foreseeable future.

But with indicators such as Twitter’s rapidly tanking stock, the irrational exuberance of Google and Facebook paying billions for companies with big ideas but no real business model, and total venture capital investments surpassing levels from the last dot.com crash, San Francisco could be in big trouble. (Steven T. Jones)

BAN THE BEANBAG

Injured veteran Scott Olsen is calling on Mayor Jean Quan to ban the Oakland Police Department from using less-than-lethal weapons during protests and other crowd events.

The announcement came through his attorneys at the National Lawyers Guild on May 6, on the heels of the Oakland City Council’s vote to approve a $4.5 million payout to Olsen for brain injuries he sustained at the hands of the OPD at an Occupy Oakland protest in 2011.

An OPD officer shot a beanbag into the crowd, striking Olsen in the head. His skull was shattered and part of his brain was destroyed. Olsen had to learn how to talk all over again. The beanbag may have been “less lethal,” he contends, but the injury cost him dearly.

“Other major Bay Area cities don’t use SIM [Specialty Impact Munitions], chemical agents, or explosives on crowds, and we don’t need them in Oakland,” Olsen said, in a press statement. “OPD can’t be trusted to abide by its policies. These dangerous weapons must be completely banned at demonstrations and other crowd events. ” (Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez)

GENERAL HOSPITAL AS ASSEMBLY LINE?

San Francisco’s Department of Public Health has a $1.3 million contract with Seattle-based Rona Consulting Group to implement the Toyota Management System, a workflow methodology based on the auto-manufacturing model, at San Francisco General Hospital.

This new model, which aims for greater workflow efficiency, is being implemented just as healthcare staffers raise concerns that staffing levels at SFGH are dangerously low.

“Nurses often work through their breaks, and they stay after their shifts to get charting done,” said David Fleming, a registered nurse who has been at SFGH for 25 years. “I think nurses are getting the job done — but they’re at the edge.”

A group of healthcare workers spoke out at the May 7 Budget & Finance Committee meeting, during which supervisors discussed the DPH budget. Public employee union SEIU 1021, which represents healthcare workers, is in the midst of contract negotiations but Fleming said they had been grappling with reduced staffing for awhile.

According to a contract request to the Health Commission sent anonymously to the Bay Guardian, DPH entered into a 24-month contract with Rona totaling just over $1.3 million, for the purpose of implementing the Toyota Management System methodology as part of the transition to the new SFGH acute care facility, scheduled to open in December 2015.

The Bay Guardian received a copy of the contract request via BayLeaks (see “Introducing BayLeaks,” Feb. 18), which uses encryption software known as SecureDrop to enable sources to anonymously submit documents. (Rebecca Bowe)

Stop wiggling around the bike debate

Michael Redmond

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May 13, 2014

118

EDITORIAL

Our blog post last week about traffic cops ticketing bicyclists riding the Wiggle on Bike to Work Day (see “Bike sting on BTWD,” page 13) triggered heated reader reactions on both sides, as stories about bikes often do. Many are angry that cyclists routinely run stop signs, while cyclists argue police should focus enforcement on motorists who present a far greater danger to the public.

When we finally heard back from the San Francisco Police Department this week, a spokesperson said that targeted enforcement on the Wiggle is being driven by complaints, and that the SFPD is compelled to act on those complaints and can’t selectively enforce traffic laws. A few people in the neighborhood have pledged in online forums to put a stop to the scofflaw behavior of cyclists there.

This presents an ideal opportunity for San Francisco to finally have a long-overdue discussion about traffic safety and how to encourage more people to ride bikes, which is official city policy — and for good reason in this era of global warming, fiscal austerity, and increasing traffic congestion.

The Wiggle — a series of city-posted turns snaking their way through Lower Haight — is a crucial east-west connection that is one of the most well-traveled bike routes in the city. But it also includes stop signs at the end of every block, six in all, that almost every cyclist slowly rolls through.

Rather than let a few people undermine the city’s voter-approved policies promoting cycling, we should see this standoff as an opportunity to use intersection designs and traffic enforcement strategies that recognize it unnecessarily clogs up intersections for everyone when cyclists lose their momentum and have to start pedaling from a full stop.

So as part of the study of Wiggle intersections that is now underway, the city should give serious consideration to installing traffic circles at each of these intersections, something it should then consider for intersections throughout the city that have high volumes of cyclist traffic.

San Francisco should also start pushing statewide reforms like Idaho-style laws allowing cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop signs, which wouldn’t change when motorists or pedestrians have the right-of-way, simply enshrining into law how cyclists already ride.

In the meantime, the SFPD should focus on dangerous intersections and behaviors, as Police Chief Greg Suhr has already pledged, and clearly communicate that priority to traffic cops. As it does with marijuana laws, San Francisco should make a deliberate decision to not make criminals of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

If thousands of San Franciscans are breaking the same law everyday, in the same intersections that actually have low collision rates, perhaps the problem is systemic. We should make changes that foster a respect for the law, not pursue crackdowns that will only feed division and hostility on our streets.

Bike to Work Day marred by another Wiggle police sting UPDATED

Sasha Cuttler

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May 9, 2014

114

Bike to Work Day marred by another Wiggle police sting UPDATED

City officials and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition hailed yesterday’s Bike to Work Day as a success, with the official SFMTA count finding 76 percent of vehicles along Market Street during the morning commute were bikes. But a pair of motorcycle cops ticketing cyclists that afternoon on the Wiggle put a damper on the celebration.

As we reported in this week’s paper, cycling has come to enjoy almost universal support in City Hall, at least in terms of political rhetoric, although the Mayor’s Office and SFMTA have committed only a small fraction of the funding needed to meet official city goals for increasing ridership. And yesterday’s bike sting on the Wiggle, a key east-west bike corridor in Lower Haight, felt like a slap in the face to the SFBC.

Since another series of police stings targetting cyclists on the Wiggle last fall, SFBC Executive Director Leah Shahum has been working closely with the San Francisco Police Department on its goal of focusing traffic enforcement resources on intersections with the most collisions, none of which include the Wiggle (the SFPD’s Focus on the Five initiative pledges traffic enforcement resources to the five most dangerous intersections in each police district and the five most dangerous traffic violations).

On Wednesday night, Shahum was even at the Police Commission hearing discussing the issue, and she says that Police Chief Greg Suhr and other top brass in the department have offered their assurances that such arbitrary stings on the Wiggle weren’t a good use of SFPD resources.

After recent hearings on how SFPD officers have refused to give citations to motorists who hit cyclists, Suhr and the department have also pledged to do so. But Shahum said she also heard from a cyclist on Bike to Work Day who was the victim of a hit-and-run by an impatient, road-raging motorist on 18th Street, and he told her that police refused to take a report even though he took down the license plate number.

Shahum said she’s disheartened by that story and those of the half-dozen cyclists she heard from who were ticketed on the Wiggle for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign on the Wiggle.

“I’m not confident the commitments from the chief and the commission are making it down to the officers. They are still pursuing very outdated traffic enforcement policies,” Shahum told us.

Shahum said she spoke to Capt. Greg Corrales, whose Park Station precinct includes the Wiggle, and Cmndr. Mikail Ali, who heads traffic enforcement, and both said they had no knowledge of any enforcement stings on the Wiggle. We left a message for SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza, and we’ll update this post if and when we hear back. [UPDATE 5/12: Esparza just told us these citywide traffic enforcement officers were there based on citizen complaints about people running stop signs, but that the timing on BTWD wasn’t intentional: “It was a random thing they happened to be there that day.” He also noted that just 1 percent of traffic citations from April went to cyclists, and 93 percent to motorists, but he said officers can’t ignore traffic violations. “We cannot say as an agency do not cite pedestrians, do not cite bicyclists, that would be selective enforcement,” he said, while also agreeing that if officers that day on the Wiggle ignored motorist violations to focus on cyclists, that would also be selective enforcement.”]

One of the cyclists ticketed on the Wiggle yesterday wrote this account to Shahum: “I suspect you will be hearing from a lot of cyclists in the next few days regarding the 2 cops who decided to hang out at Waller and Steiner Sts. yesterday to nail riders ‘running the stop sign.’ I was there at 4:51pm yesterday and I approached that intersection as I always do everyday braked with my right hand and signaled with my left arm to make that left turn onto Waller. I know for a fact I stopped as there was a car opposite me heading south on Steiner and I had to make sure which direction it might go. Once I made my left turn, there to greet me was a man in blue telling me to stop and present my driver’s license to him. He said that I failed to stop and I quote ‘your pedals were still moving at the stop sign.’… So, a great 20th anniversary of bike to work day turned out to be a real downer for myself and I would guess for dozens more of riders. What a scheme to do this on a bike to work day with so many more riders out there.”

At the Bike to Work Day rally outside City Hall yesterday morning, where a broad cross-section of local political leaders and city officials spoke after riding their bikes to the event, Chief Suhr talked about the importance of making the streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists: “We are all in this together. Under the leadership of the mayor and the supervisors, all the department heads, we are committed to Vision Zero that in 10 years there are no fatalities in San Francisco.”

Mayor Lee, who also rode to work, said: “I was proud to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Bike to Work Day by riding this morning from my neighborhood, Glen Park, accompanied by a growing number of bike commuters, including families, who are taking advantage of the benefits of a fun, healthy, affordable way to move around our City. With innovative bikeways like the new contraflow bike lane on lower Polk Street that connects Market Street to the Tenderloin and City Hall, we continue to improve and enhance our City’s bike network to connect our residents, neighborhoods, and businesses. But in order to do even more to make our streets safe, we must invest in our aging transportation infrastructure.”

Political power play unseats SF Police Commissioner

Michael Redmond

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May 6, 2014

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Political power play unseats SF Police Commissioner

Police Commissioner Angela Chan fought the federal government as they unjustly tried to deport undocumented San Franciscans who were guilty of no crimes, and won. She fought to arm the SFPD with de-escalation tactics instead of Tasers, and won again.

But at the April 30 Board of Supervisors meeting, Chan lost. The board denied her reappointment to the Police Commission, and seven supervisors voted to appoint her opponent, Victor Hwang, instead.

The decision came after heated backdoor politicking by Chinatown political leader Rose Pak, insiders told us. Politicians involved would only speak on background, for fear of reprisal from Pak, yet indicated that Pak felt Chan did not consult often enough with Chinatown interests and focused too broadly on issues of concern to other communities.

Chan gained national recognition for her work against Secure Communities, challenging a provision that allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to call for illegal holds of undocumented persons they’d later like to deport. Pak came out swinging against Chan in the wake of those battles, we were told.

“It’s a sad day for the immigrant rights movement when a strong leader cannot be reappointed,” Sup. Eric Mar said just before the vote.

After Sup. Katy Tang introduced the motion to strike Chan’s name from the appointment, and replace it with Hwang’s, other supervisors noted the obvious elephant in the room — there was not only one vacant seat on the police commission, but two.

Supervisor John Avalos suggested the Board of Supervisors make a motion to request the mayor appoint Hwang himself, allowing for both Chan and Hwang to be appointed.

But Board of Supervisors President David Chiu said he’d asked Mayor Lee that very question to no avail. “It is not something that will happen,” he said. “It is not the practice of the mayor to solve difficult decisions of the board. It’s up to us.”

Sups. Mark Farrell, Scott Wiener, Malia Cohen, London Breed, Jane Kim, Tang and Chiu voted to strike Chan’s name from the appointment, and to vote to appoint Hwang instead. (Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez)

LAWSUIT FILED TO HALT TECH SHUTTLE PILOT

The road to regulating Google Buses has a new pothole: a lawsuit.

A lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court May 1 demands the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s commuter shuttle pilot program be put on hold while a full environmental review is conducted under the California Environmental Quality Act.

“We know that these buses are having devastating impacts on our neighborhoods, driving up rents and evictions of long-time San Francisco residents,” said Sara Shortt, executive director of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco and one of the lawsuit petitioners. “We’ve protested in the streets and taken our plea to City Hall to no avail. We hope to finally receive justice in a court of law.”

The suit was filed against the City and County of San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee, the Board of Supervisors, the SFMTA, Google, Genentech, Apple, and a handful of private transportation providers. It alleges the tech shuttle pilot project is in violation of the California Vehicle Code, which prohibits any vehicle — except common carriers (public buses) — to pull into red zones that are designated as bus stops. It also alleges the city abused its discretion and violated the CEQA by exempting the Shuttle Project from environmental review. (Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez)

ILLEGAL ANTI-CAMPOS FLYERS TARGETED IN ETHICS COMPLAINT

Several San Francisco neighborhoods over the last week have been targeted with illegal campaign flyers against Assembly candidate David Campos — breaking both state election laws requiring the group and its funding source to be identified and local laws against placing political flyers on utility poles and other surfaces.

Former Ethics Commission Eileen Hansen this week filed a complaint about the guerilla campaigning with the California Fair Political Practices Commission, which has jurisdiction over state races.

“I am asking for the intervention of your office into what appears to be a blatant and arrogant violation of campaign finance reporting and disclosure laws in California’s 17th Assembly District Primary Election,” Hansen wrote in the April 30 letter. “As you well know, the political climate in San Francisco is quite sensitive, and nerves are raw. If this violation is allowed to continue, it will have a chilling effect on the entire election and further alienate voters, and potential voters.”

The race between Campos and David Chiu has indeed gotten more heated in recent weeks, but Chiu campaign manager Nicole Derse denies that the campaign has any knowledge or involvement with the illegal campaigning: “We think everyone in this race should be transparent.”

In her letter, Hansen casts doubt on the Chiu campaign’s claims of innocence: “The wide distribution, professional design, and overnight appearance in distant locations strongly suggest that these flyers have been produced and distributed by a funded political organization aligned with Assembly candidate David Chiu, whose aim is to attack and discredit Chiu’s opponent David Campos.”

And she even identifies a leading suspect in this illegal campaigning: Enrique Pearce and his Left Coast Communications firm, which has a history of dirty tricks campaigning on behalf of Mayor Ed Lee and other establishment politicians. Hansen notes that the flyers appeared right after the registration of a new campaign committee, San Franciscans for Effective Government to Support David Chiu. Although the group hasn’t reported any fundraising yet, its contact phone number goes to Left Coast Communications and Pearce, who hasn’t yet returned our calls on the issue.

This campaign stunt in reminiscent of an “independent expenditure” effort in the District 6 supervisorial race in 2010, when Pearce was connected to a mailer supporting Sup. Jane Kim that was funded partially by Willie Brown, again because the supposedly independent group listed his phone number even though he was worked directly for Kim.

The anti-Campos mailers include some nasty and misleading charges, labeling Campos “City Hall’s Hypocrite” by falsely claiming Campos ignored rising evictions until he decided to run for the Assembly and that he was concerned about Google buses but wanted to charge them less than $1 per stop. A third flyer claims Campos “lets wifebeater sheriff keep his job” for his vote against removing Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi from office for official misconduct.

“This is a secretly funded shadow organization aligned with David Chiu, committing a desperate move that is as illegal and it is false in its claims,” Campos told us, saying he hopes the FPPC is able to stop and punish those involved. (Steven T. Jones)

SUPES CALL FOR INCREASED YOUTH FUNDING

José-Luis Mejia says he’s seen a little bit of everything in his work with transitional-age youth.

A few have died suddenly; others wound up incarcerated. Then there are those who beat the odds by attending top-level universities, opening up their own businesses, or dedicating themselves to public service.

As associate director of Transitional Age Youth San Francisco, Mejia was part of a grassroots coalition that has been working for about two years on crafting a measure that aims to increase funding for youth programs, seeking to give a boost to transitional-age youth services in particular.

It culminated with the April 30 introduction at the Board of Supervisors of a suite of new proposals to support youth programs, including a pair of charter amendments that will appear on the November ballot.

An amendment sponsored by Sup. John Avalos would renew the existing Children’s Fund, renaming it the Children and Youth Fund, and increasing the property-tax set-aside that supports it from three cents per $100 of assessed valuation to five cents. Funding would be designated for programs set up to aid “disconnected transitional-aged youth,” including homeless or disabled youth, unmarried parents, those who identify as LGBTQ or are aging out of foster care, and other specified categories. The amendment would also create a Commission on Children, Youth, and Their Families, to oversee the Department of Children Youth and their families. A second charter amendment would extend the Public Education Enrichment Fund (PEEF), another source of funding for youth programs.

Avalos has strong support on the Board, but the mayor’s office has reportedly been pressuring supervisors not to support Avalos’ measure.

“As we all know, San Francisco is experiencing incredible economic activity,” Avalos noted April 30. “We’re experiencing growth and speculation that is lifting many boats, but not lifting all boats. And some of the people who are not doing so well are children and families.”

The Children’s Fund, and PEEF currently set aside over $100 million for children and youth in San Francisco. The funding sources would sunset if action were not taken to extend them. (Rebecca Bowe)

Watching the police

Michael Redmond

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May 6, 2014

2

rebecca@sfbg.com

Nearly two years ago, on July 18, 2012, on-duty San Francisco police officer Mary Godfrey fired her weapon twice, killing 32-year-old Oakland resident Pralith Pralourng in an encounter at Washington and Davis streets.

Following the incident, police said Pralourng was mentally ill and had lunged at Godfrey with a box cutter, prompting her to fire in defense of her own life. Just before it happened, Pralourng had slashed his coworker at Tcho chocolate factory and fled.

Last September, the San Francisco Police Department honored Godfrey with a silver medal of valor for her conduct in that incident. The second-highest possible honor, silver medals are awarded in cases where an officer exhibits “outstanding bravery in the performance of duty,” according to a definition on the SFPD website, and “risks his or her life with full and unquestionable knowledge of the danger involved.”

However, an internal affairs investigation into the officer-involved shooting remained open at the time that the medal was awarded. In fact, in a May 5 voicemail, police spokesperson Albie Esparza confirmed to the Bay Guardian: “That case is still open, so there is no more information that we are going to release at this time.”

More than eight months have passed since Godfrey was honored — and yet the shooting is still under investigation.

The San Francisco Police Commission voted to approve Godfrey’s silver medal, along with a list of other medal of valor recipients, at its June 26, 2013 meeting. But it was Commissioner Angela Chan, who was recently denied reappointment to her post in a 7-4 vote by the Board of Supervisors, who cast the lone dissenting vote (See “SFBG Wrap” in this issue).

Chan was later quoted in press reports as saying she believed that awarding Godfrey with a medal of valor before the formal investigative process had concluded seemed to undermine that process. Internal affairs investigations are part of the city’s formal process to ensure police accountability. San Francisco also has an independent city department, the Office of Citizen Complaints, which provides civilian oversight by making determinations about citizen complaints alleging officer misconduct.

Chan’s dissenting vote prompted a backlash from the San Francisco Police Officers Association. In a blistering letter dated September 11, 2013, President Martin Halloran informed police commissioners of the POA’s “extreme disappointment” in the dissenting vote, also sending a copy of the letter to Mayor Ed Lee.

“Officer Godfrey was extremely upset when I met with her and immediately voiced her regret at having to take the life of another human being,” Halloran wrote. “It is every officer’s worst nightmare. The emotional and psychological trauma following an officer involved shooting can be severe, and it is absolutely essential that officers involved in these types of incidents receive positive reinforcement, as well as counseling, to reassure them that they did nothing wrong.”

Counseling seems appropriate, but Halloran’s blanket statement that officers involved in deadly use of force incidents should be reassured that “they did nothing wrong” seems to discount the city’s process for determining whether or not an officer’s action was justified.

The SFPOA president went on to note that his organization has long complained that “officers are left hanging for months, and in some cases years, before being recognized for their heroic acts, sometimes making them feel more insecure and raising more self-doubts about their actions.”

The SFPOA’s overt condemnation of Chan for her dissent suggests that the police commissioner faced strong opposition from a politically powerful entity when she came up for reappointment.

More importantly, it suggests that the SFPOA won’t hesitate to exert pressure on police commissioners who question the department’s actions — and raises questions about why top brass would ignore an open investigation that had yet to establish whether Godfrey “did nothing wrong.”

Internal affairs investigators weren’t the only ones looking into this fatal shooting of Pralourng. The OCC, the civilian police oversight board, was also investigating the incident when Godfrey was honored. Almost two years after the fact, the OCC investigation also remains open.

The OCC’s annual report, released March 12, was slated for presentation at the Police Commission on May 7. The 179-page report shines a light on the allegations filed against police officers, the process by which these complaints are investigated and addressed, and the rate at which complaints are sustained and followed up with disciplinary action.

Being a police officer isn’t easy, and can be very dangerous — even costing officers their lives in extreme circumstances. The OCC report notes that 75 percent of San Francisco police officers did not have any complaints filed against them in 2013. But of the remaining 25 percent, the report noted that 131 officers had been named in two or more complaints, while another 405 officers had each been flagged in a single complaint.

If the OCC determines that a complaint about officer misconduct is valid, then it is counted as “sustained.”

In 2013, according to the report, the OCC received 727 complaints, and closed 722 complaints. Of the 722 that were closed, 43 — or about 6 percent — were sustained. Of those sustained cases, 91 percent resulted in corrective or disciplinary action by the SFPD, the report noted, ranging from a verbal admonishment to a suspension.

Of the 43 cases that were sustained, 56 percent were for “neglect of duty,” the majority of which was issued for failure to collect traffic stop data. That was followed by “unwarranted action” at 24 percent, “conduct reflecting discredit represented” at 10 percent, “unnecessary force” at 7 percent, and “discourtesy” at 3 percent.

A synopsis of the “unnecessary force” findings provides examples, such as an incident in which “a sergeant and officers used unnecessary force when without cause, they entered a residence, grabbed, detained, arrested and removed an occupant from the residence, and took him to the ground.”

But according to the report, “By far the most frequent finding in all allegations was ‘not sustained,'” reflecting the outcome of 61 percent of allegations in OCC complaints.

The determination “not sustained” isn’t the same as finding that an officer acted appropriately, nor does it mean a complainant made false allegations. Instead, the finding is issued when “there is not a preponderance of evidence to prove or disprove,” the allegation, OCC Executive Director Joyce Hicks told us.

Put more simply: An officer responds to a complainant with a contradictory account, and since there isn’t enough evidence to prove otherwise, the case is closed.

“Officers were found to have engaged in proper conduct in 25 percent of the allegations,” the breakdown continued. “Complainants’ allegations were ‘unfounded,’ or not true, in 2 percent of the allegations.”

A chart of “findings closed” in 2013 (a separate measure from complaints) showed that out of 2,183 findings, just 72 — or 3 percent — were sustained. The vast majority, 1,337 were “not sustained.”

A breakdown showing the nature of complaints filed reveals that five allegations of unnecessary use of force were sustained in 2013, while 167 were not sustained, out of a total of 208 complaints alleging unnecessary use of force.

At the end of 2013, according to the OCC report, the civilian oversight board “continued to investigate three officer-involved shootings. Two of these shootings resulted in the death of the suspect. In 2013, the OCC closed two 2011 officer involved shooting cases with no sustained findings.”

Hicks noted that she faces budgetary constraints that have prevented her from hiring more investigators, an ongoing problem at the OCC. “We still don’t have the best practices number of cases,” she said, noting that the City Controller had issued a 2007 audit stating that investigators should be handling no more than 16 cases at once, while “my investigators’ caseloads have never fallen below 21.”

Aside from its investigations into citizen complaints, the OCC also makes policy recommendations. Following a number of officer-involved shootings in 2012 involving mentally ill individuals, the OCC issued a set of recommendations on handling responses to individuals experiencing mental crisis — the exact sort of situation that led to Pralourng’s death in 2012.

Samara Marion, an attorney with the OCC, noted that one recommendation pertains to how the Firearm Discharge Review Board, which evaluates whether a shooting was justified, performs its analysis. Rather than merely relying on the internal affairs and homicide reports, Marion said, the OCC recommendation is to “have the training division do an analysis that’s point by point,” so that the determination is made taking into account “all of the decision-making and tactical steps leading up to the officer-involved shooting.”

That work is expected to continue, but as far as the Police Commission is concerned, it will have to go forward without input from Chan, who had planned to take a close look at officer-involved shootings in her next term.

“It was shameful and outrageous what happened, because I was targeted for doing what I believe in,” Chan said later. But she said political pressures has thwarted that goal.

“What happened was not really about me,” she continued. “It was about whether something as important as a civilian police oversight body should be politicized.”

Politics trumps police oversight

Michael Redmond

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May 6, 2014

4

EDITORIAL

A proven advocate for the public interest was removed from the San Francisco Police Commission last week. Not only was this a missed opportunity for stronger civilian oversight at a time when the San Francisco Police Department is under federal scrutiny, it raises disturbing implications about how things get done in City Hall.

The Board of Supervisors voted to oust Police Commissioner Angela Chan, voting 7-4 to strike Chan’s name from the appointment and replace it with contender Victor Hwang instead. City Hall insiders privately explained that Chinatown power broker Rose Pak, a friend of Mayor Ed Lee who wields great political influence, pressured supervisors to vote for Hwang specifically because she and her allies wanted Chan to be ousted. Supervisors who could not be relied upon to vote for Hwang were even reportedly cautioned that they shouldn’t be too vocal about their positions.

A civil rights attorney who proved effective and independent as a commissioner, Chan often directed pointed questions at police, for example drilling down on the finer details of officer-involved shootings.

Hwang, also a civil rights attorney, is qualified and respected, but he didn’t need to replace Chan. There’s another vacant seat on the commission — up to Mayor Ed Lee to appoint — so this vote was never about Hwang’s qualifications versus Chan’s. There was room for both.

This was about political patronage, pure and simple. It was about getting rid of an independent voice and replacing her with the former chair of the “Run Ed Run” committee, which urged Lee to break his pledge and run for mayor — a tradeoff that hurts police accountability.

Having two civil rights attorneys on the Police Commission would have sent a strong signal that the city is serious about addressing police misconduct at a time when the SFPD officers are facing federal charges for alleged civil rights violations (see “Crooked cops, March 4).

Supervisors should have called upon Lee to appoint Hwang rather than ousting Chan. Instead, the board majority was unwilling to challenge the consolidated power of Lee and his well-connected allies, who conducted an anti-democratic closed-door lobbying effort.

Board President David Chiu, who is running for Assembly, stated at the meeting that he’d asked Lee about appointing Hwang to the vacant seat, only to be told: “It is not something that will happen.”

So Chiu was unwilling to question the mayor’s bizarre refusal to appoint a candidate that Lee’s own allies were furiously advocating for. Instead of pushing for stronger civilian oversight of police, Chiu and six other supervisors voted to oust a commissioner with a proven track record.

If elected officials are casting votes for personal advancement, or out of fear that they’ll be rendered ineffective as punishment for pissing off the wrong people, then San Franciscans have a big problem: Their local government is beholden to the whims of entrenched power.

Lawsuit filed to halt “Google bus” shuttle pilot program

Erica Hanna

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May 1, 2014

17

Lawsuit filed to halt “Google bus” shuttle pilot program

The road to regulating Google Buses has a new pothole: a lawsuit.

A lawsuit filed in San Francisco Superior Court today demands the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s commuter shuttle pilot program be set aside while a full environmental review is conducted under the California Environmental Quality Act.

“We know that these buses are having devastating impacts on our neighborhoods, driving up rents and evictions of long-time San Francisco residents,” Sara Shortt, executive director of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco and one of the lawsuit petitioners, said in a press statement. “We’ve protested in the streets and taken our plea to City Hall to no avail. We hope to finally receive justice in a court of law.”

The suit was filed against the City and County of San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee, the Board of Supervisors, the SFMTA, Google, Genentech, Apple, and a handful of private transportation providers. It alleges the tech shuttle pilot project is in violation of the California Vehicle Code which prohibits any vehicle, except common carriers (public buses), to pull into red zones that are designated as bus stops. It also alleges the city abused its discretion and violated the CEQA by exempting the Shuttle Project from environmental review.

The Coalition for Fair, Legal and Environmental Transit, Service Employees International Union Local 1021, the union’s Alysabeth Alexander, and Shortt are the petitioners of the suit. In early April, they also petitioned the Board of Supervisors to vote for an environmental review of the tech shuttles.

The contentious meeting lasted over 7 hours, with housing advocates and tech workers firing shots from both sides into the night. Ultimately the supervisors voted 8-2 against the environmental review, a move seen as driven by a deferential attitude towards the technology industry in San Francisco.

Paul Rose, a spokesperson for the SFMTA, responded to the lawsuit in an email to the Guardian.

“The agency developed this pilot proposal to help ensure the most efficient transportation network possible by reducing Muni delays and congestion on our roadways,” Rose wrote. “We have not yet had a chance to review the lawsuit and it would not be appropriate to comment on any pending litigation.”

The early April vote was only the latest in the city’s alleged deferential treatment towards the commuter shuttles.

The SFMTA allowed the shuttles to use Muni bus stops for years without enforcing illegal use of red zones, the suit alleges. A study by the city’s Budget and Legislative analyst revealed that out of 13,000 citations written to vehicles in red zones in the last three years only 45 were issued to tech shuttles — despite the SFMTA’s knowledge of 200 “conflicting” bus stops between Muni and the tech shuttles.

Much has been made of those startling numbers, with petitioners alleging a “handshake deal” on the part of the SFMTA to tech company shuttles, allowing them to park at red zones at will.

But emails the Guardian obtained by public records request show Carli Paine, head of the tech shuttle pilot program, followed up complaints on illegal stops made by tech shuttles since 2010, but to no avail.

“Know that I have made clear to the shuttle providers that the law says that it is not legal to stop in the Muni Zones,” Paine wrote in a July 2012 email to a colleague who was in contact with tech companies. “Participating in this process does not mean that they are guaranteed not to get tickets–especially if they are doing things that create safety concerns or delay Muni.”

Paine also attempted to clarify enforcement policies around the shuttles with enforcement officers from the SFPD and SFMTA, also to no avail, the emails show.

The deferential treatment to shuttles may not have originated from the SFMTA then, but from higher up the political ladder.

“There are a number of our supervisors who do not want to buck the tech industry,” Shortt told the Guardian. “They feel there may be more to gain from allowing illegal activity to continue by these corporations than support.”

But does the suit call for the tech shuttles to stop running? We asked Richard Drury, the attorney filing the suit, to explain the specific asks of the suit.

“Not technically no,” Drury said. “They’ve operated illegally for years and the city turned a blind eye. They could continute to do that while the city runs an environmental review, but if the SFMTA or Police Department decided to start ticketing them for $271, they could.”

So the lawsuit wouldn’t stop the shuttles. It just asks for them to be reviewed.

Among issues regarding air quality the shuttles’ heavy weight damages city streets at much higher rates than cars, studies by the city’s Budget Legislative Analyst showed. Studies conducted by students and other interested individuals revealed increased rents near shuttle stops, which the filers of the lawsuit say leads to a displacement of residents.

Displacement is a consideration in CEQA reviews, a recent addition to state law.

“We’re just asking for the city to study the impacts,” Drury said. “Maybe that means the shuttles get clean fuel, or corporations pay to offset displacement of residents.”

Below is a downloadable PDF of the lawsuit.

Google Bus Commuter Shuttle Lawsuit by FitztheReporter

Political power play unseats SF Police Commissioner who fought Secure Communities

Erica Hanna

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April 29, 2014

48

Political power play unseats SF Police Commissioner who fought Secure Communities

Police Commissioner Angela Chan fought the federal government as they unjustly tried to deport undocumented San Franciscans who were guilty of no crimes, and won.

She fought to arm the SFPD with de-escalation tactics instead of Tasers, and won again.

But at today’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Chan lost.The board denied her reappointment to the Police Commission, and seven supervisors voted to appoint her opponent, Victor Hwang, instead.

“I can see the writing on the wall and the way the votes are coming down,” Supervisor Eric Mar said to the board just before the vote. “It’s a sad day for the immigrant rights movement when a strong leader cannot be reappointed. Its a a sad day when a woman standing up for immigrant justice is not reappointed.”

The decision came after heated backdoor politicking by Chinatown political leader Rose Pak, insiders told us. Politicians involved would only speak on background, for fear of reprisal from Pak, but openly told the Guardian that Pak felt Chan spent too much time advocating for other communities of color, instead of just focusing on issues affecting Chinatown.

Chan gained national recognition for her work against Secure Communities, or S-Comm, a program that allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold undocumented persons they’d later like to deport, often indefinitely.

Pak came out swinging against Chan in the wake of those battles, we were told, because they diverted from efforts relating to Chinatown. Public records requests also show that Pak’s allies operated against Chan, demonstrating Pak’s influence.

A series of public records requests from the Guardian confirmed that Malcolm Yeung, a well-known “hatchet man” for Pak, emailed the Board of Supervisors with scores of support letters for Chan’s opponent, Hwang. One of those support letters came from noted Reverend Norman Fong, a powerful voice in the Chinatown community and the executive director of the Chinatown Community Development Center.

For a full recap of the nasty politics that came out to slam Chan, check out our post from earlier today.

Sup. Katy Tang introduced the motion to strike Chan’s name from the appointment, and replace it with Hwang’s.

“We are lucky when we have such strong candidates,” Tang said. “However it is because of Victor’s sense of criminal justice and civil rights experience that we bring to a full vote to put Victor to the Police Commission.”

But other supervisors noted the obvious elephant in the room — there was not only one vacant seat on the police commission, but two. One appointed by the supervisors, the other appointed by Mayor Ed Lee.

Supervisor John Avalos suggested the Board of Supervisors make a motion to request the mayor appoint Hwang himself, allowing for both Chan and Hwang to be appointed, a compromise move that would benefit everyone.

“[Mayor Ed Lee] could appoint Victor to the committee,” Avalos said to the board. “There’s room for both of them to be on the commission.”

But Board of Supervisors President David Chiu said he asked Mayor Lee that very question, and that he was denied.

“It’s something I asked,” he said. “It is not something that will happen.” He went on to note that both candidates were very well-qualified, but did not explain why he would support one over the other, saying: “It is not the practice of the mayor to solve difficult decisions of the board. It’s up to us.”

Then Chiu said he would vote for Hwang, a surprising move. Chiu is running for state assembly on the notion that he is the compromise candidate, yet was unable to broker a compromise that was clearly in front of him: there were two vacant police commission seats, and two candidates.

Chiu’s support for Hwang was especially surprising considering Rose Pak is oft-described as Chiu’s political enemy. One must wonder what political favors he gained for his support of Hwang.

Kim repeatedly referenced her friendship with Hwang in the discussion leading up to the vote.

In the end, Supervisors Mark Farrell, Scott Wiener, Malia Cohen, London Breed, Jane Kim, Tang and Chiu voted to strike Angela Chan’s name from the appointment, and to vote to appoint Hwang instead.

“I had a good four years on the commission,” Chan told the Guardian in a phone interview afterwards. “I was able to accomplish a lot, along with the many people who came out today to support me. People from the mental health, African American, Asian American and Latino communities. Hopefully with this experience they will become more organized and powerful as a community.”

After Victor Hwang’s victory, the Guardian stopped him outside of the board chambers to ask him: If Rose Pak helped you get your seat, are you beholden to Rose Pak?

“The simple answer is no,” he told the Guardian. “She’ll have no more sway than anyone else. She’s a leader in the community, and there are many leaders in the community. I’ll make independent decisions for myself.”

His first priorities as a Police Commissioner, he said, would be what he called “the little things” — pedestrian safety by the Broadway tunnel, graffiti enforcement, and making sure calls for matters like break-ins are enforced in a timely manner.

Hwang doesn’t want to start new projects right away, he said, because there are already big issues with the SFPD on the table. He said the Alejandro Nieto shooting would be a focus moving forward.

In our last story covering the shady politics behind Hwang’s appointment, we likened the political machines supporting him to the Game of Thrones House Lannister (the purported villains of the show). Hwang wanted to set the record straight.

“I think Ivy [his partner and Sup. Kim’s legislative aide] took one of those personality tests for me,” he said, “it came back as Jon Snow.”

Jon Snow is the closest thing Game of Thrones has to a hero.

Image below: A Guardian file photo of Victor Hwang, newly appointed by the Board of Supervisors to the Police Commission.

hwang

Will San Francisco Game of Thrones oust police commissioner?

Erica Hanna

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April 29, 2014

11

Will San Francisco Game of Thrones oust police commissioner?

Police Commissioner Angela Chan did not pay fealty to the proper lords and houses, sources say, and in a true to life Game of Thrones, she may now lose her office. The throne in question is a seat on the Police Commission, which Chan may be reappointed to by the Board of Supervisors today [Tues/29], but her chances don’t look good.

In a political tussle reminiscent of House Lannister’s schemes against House Stark, political machines far larger than the idealistic Chan are churning to keep her from regaining her political office. The forces of Chinatown community leader Rose Pak and her fellow power brokers are backing potential replacement police commissioner Victor Hwang, whose sudden candidacy took many off guard.

As first reported by Tim Redmond of 48hills.org, Pak’s political pushers dialed every supervisor and marshalled their armies, hellbent on unseating Chan.

They may win, but not because Chan was a bad commissioner. Actually, the problem might be that she was too effective, and now people in power want her out.

Expanding the mayor’s power

In a Rules Committee meeting Apr. 17, backers of both candidates wore their house sigils, green or white buttons meant to support their chosen candidate, both of whom are seemingly very qualified.

On the one side, Hwang is an ex-assistant district attorney, ex-public defender, ex-nonprofit attorney, and advocate with over 20 years of experience holding police to task for their wrongdoing. He’s fought human trafficking and litigated against out-of-control cops.

But the incumbent, Chan, an attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, has many similar qualifications. She also has a proven track record on the Police Commission: she crafted the Crisis Intervention Team, tasked with de-escalating standoffs with mentally ill offenders; advocated language access in the police force; helped to revise rules protecting children at school facing arrest; and opposed arming police with tasers.

Both candidates have an extensive list of backers. District Attorney staffers, the Anti-Defamation League, advocates from the Chinatown Development Center, and Randy Shaw of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic all wrote to supervisors backing Hwang. The Guardian even named him a “local hero” in our Best of the Bay issue in 2004.

But the Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco Women’s Political Committee, members of the Central Americans Resource Center, Board of Education President Sandra Fewer, the local NAACP, and even a retired police officer all backed Chan. The Guardian also named her a local hero, in 2010.

A change.org petition calling for her reappointment to the commission has 255 signatures, as of this writing.

Chan hasn’t yet given up the ghost.

“I’m hoping the full board will recognize I work extremely hard,” she told the Guardian. “I look after the community, especially those who are most marginalized.”

Though many issues have political bents and political sides, one aspect of this tussle reveals the power play behind the curtain: the two candidates are competing for one empty seat on the commission, when there are actually two seats vacant.

Why fight over just one seat?

The answer lies in political motivations insiders would only outline for reporters on background. You see, in a city where many commissions (see: SFMTA) are fully appointed by the Mayor’s Office, and therefore beholden to his whims, the Police Commission has a mechanism to dilute that power — a minority of seats are appointed by the Board of Supervisors. The seat Chan and Hwang are fighting for is the supervisor appointed seat, and for now the mayor’s seat sits empty and uncontested.

Hwang was co-chair of Progress for All, which ran the Run, Ed, Run campaign for Lee’s mayoral candidacy. If the question was really just about making Hwang a commissioner, the mayor could appoint him today with a snap of his fingers. But that’s not the point.

Many insiders, including ones that seemingly support Hwang, told the Guardian that Mayor Ed Lee has plenty of reason to usher Chan out and appoint Hwang in her place. The SFPD long pushed for tasers but found a formidable opponent in Chan, and the mayor would benefit from police support next election, they said. Others said her combative style ruffled people’s feathers, a seemingly legitimate complaint until you consider more cooperative boards like the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency define “cooperative” by mostly voting in unison and with little discussion, coincidentally also often in agreement with the mayor’s positions.

Angela Chan asks an SFPD station captain if officers use verbal means to de-escalate situations.

That’s why Chan is dangerous; she’s a freethinker, and a loud one at that. By pushing the supervisors to appoint Hwang, we were told, the mayor would unseat a potential political liability, and net a freebie commission seat appointment in the deal.

Win-win.

This isn’t to say Hwang is a bad guy. He longs for public service (nicknaming his practice the Ronin Law Firm), and expressed disappointment in political power struggles beyond his control.

“For me it’s not about Angela, it’s about the police commission,” he told the Guardian. “To give Angela credit, I think the work she’s done on Crisis Intervention Team and language access are important issues.”

And for his part, he said that though many political entities aligned with political powerbroker Rose Pak are pushing for his appointment, he wouldn’t be beholden to her, or them.

“Are Chinatown issues important to me? Yes, they’re very important to me,” he said. “Am I going to answer to one or two folks just because of whoever they are? No. That would be putting my own 20 years of work aside to kowtow to one particular person over anyone else.”

Hwang told us Supervisor Eric Mar is asking the mayor to appoint him to the second vacant police commission seat, but if that effort isn’t successful Chan and Hwang will go head to head.

So the supervisors have a tough choice ahead of them, but for some, the decision is tougher than others.

Conflict of interest

Some of the supervisors have votes that are fair to guess at. Long time progressives like Sups. Mar, John Avalos, and David Campos are ideologically aligned with Chan, and have reason to vote in her favor.

Chan needs six votes to be re-appointed to the commission, and some of those votes are up in the air.

Sups. Norman Yee, and Katy Tang voted to approve Chan in the Rules Committee, the first round before today’s Board of Supervisors vote. But that’s no guarantee they’ll vote for her again.

Sup. Jane Kim has an odd conflict of interest. Ivy Lee, an attorney and one of Kim’s staffers, is Hwang’s romantic partner. The couple has three children together. He dedicated a brief he wrote for the Asian American Law Journal, “to my incredible partner Ivy Lee, who gave birth to our second son Kaiden, as I was writing the brief at the hospital.”

Is that conflict of interest grounds for Kim to recuse herself from the vote? Is it proper for her to vote to appoint her staffer’s partner to a political position? We reached out to Kim’s office but did not hear back from her before going to press.

Board of Supervisors President David Chiu’s vote is also an open question.

Chiu worked with Chan in 2011 to fight against the federal Secure Communities program, which as we then reported, was a database allowing the feds to circumvent local policies protecting local immigrants who have been arrested but not convicted of any crimes and deport them.

They were partners in the struggle for human rights. So will Chiu back his former ally, Chan, in her re-appointment?

We called, texted, and harangued Chiu to call us back, but did not hear from him before press time. To be fair, he’s running for the Assembly and was likely between one of his dozens of necessary appearances. He did have an aide call us back, but he was unable to give us a hint at which direction Chiu may vote in.

Complicating his choice is a mix of allegiances. With so many former and current allies on both sides, Chiu will make someone angry no matter which potential police commissioner he votes for, insiders told us.

And Chiu’s vote may be the deciding one. With real reform of the SFPD on the line, the stakes are higher than the fictional Game of Thrones.

Ultimately, Chiu will have to vote his conscience.

Correction 3:28pm: The article earlier identified Ivy Lee as married to Victor Hwang. In actuality, Hwang and Lee are romantic partners who decided not to marry in direct protest of the LGBT community being denied the right to marry.

Update 6:50pm: The vote was cast, and Victor Hwang was appointed to the Police Commission in place of Angela Chan. Read our full story.

Where there’s smoke

Michael Redmond

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April 22, 2014

0

news@sfbg.com

It was April 20 in Golden Gate Park, the fabled 4/20 in the parlance of pot smokers, and we found Nick and Chris standing under the shade of a tree with a cluster of friends, including Geoff, the proud owner of a five-foot bong.

Nick had done several hits through the supersized smoking device that day. Beside him, Chris took hits from his own handheld bong. “I’m feeling good,” Nick reported. “But I’m also kinda hungry. I could go for some Chinese food. Ohh, and some Sapporo!”

Administering a hit of marijuana through such unwieldy paraphernalia is quite the operation, requiring one person to stand and hold one end, another to light the marijuana once it’s packed into the bowl, and a third to inhale the five-foot column of milky smoke that rises through the chamber. The smokers on the receiving end contorted their faces as they inhaled, inevitably coughing and laughing as they breathed out, seemingly amazed by the experience. The college-age friends were in 420-induced bliss.

The annual 420 celebration in Golden Gate Park is unpermitted, with no official organizers, yet thousands of festivalgoers nevertheless flock to it year after year. It’s a quintessentially San Francisco experience: Young and old congregate for a collective daylong smoke-out, bringing drums, dogs, grills, shade structures, hand-blown glass, tie-dyed tapestries, Hacky Sacks, sound systems, and other picnic paraphernalia along with them.

The area around Hippie Hill — at the eastern end of the park, near Kezar Stadium — was a jumble of humanity crammed elbow to elbow, reeking of pot smoke. The crowd reflected a wide range of ethnicities and brought out many displaying an outlandish sense of fashion, sporting shiny plastic marijuana-leaf necklaces, sleeve tattoos, piercings, face paint, and piles upon piles of dreadlocked hair.

San Francisco maintains an iconic status as a weed-friendly city. While 420 in Golden Gate Park is a lighthearted scene that’s also proved irksome for city agencies plagued by leftover trash and traffic jams, serious year-round marijuana advocacy efforts continue to mark the Bay Area as a hotbed for drug policy reform and thriving, legitimate pot-based entrepreneurship.

GREEN BEACON

The movement to legalize marijuana for medical purposes started in San Francisco, the lovechild of the city’s hippie movement and its caregiving response to the AIDS epidemic. It was Dennis Peron and other activists here who wrote Proposition 215, the statewide legalization measure that California voters approved in 1996.

A decade ago, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a comprehensive set of regulations for its two dozen or so medical marijuana dispensaries, guidelines that have proven to work well and be a model for other jurisdictions to follow, elevating pot purveyors into accepted members of the business community (see “Marijuana goes mainstream,” 1/27/10).

Some have even begun to regard the Bay Area as a model for how to implement a sensible approach to regulating marijuana. On April 16, US Rep. Dina Titus (D-Las Vegas) traveled to San Francisco on a fact-finding mission after Clark County, Nevada legalized medical marijuana, with Las Vegas and other Nevada cities expected to follow shortly.

“I want the state to learn from someone who’s done it right,” Titus told the Guardian as she toured The Apothecarium on Market Street, an elegant dispensary reputed to be one of San Francisco’s finest.

In addition to helping guide Nevada’s implementation of medical marijuana legalization, Titus said she’s working on federal legislation that would better protect small businesses involved with a marijuana industry that is growing rapidly in the US, thanks to Colorado and Washington taking the next step and legalizing even recreational uses of marijuana.

For example, Titus wants to make sure marijuana businesses have full access to banking services, something that the US Department of Justice has occasionally interfered with. As Titus told us, “The federal government shouldn’t be wasting time and going after people who are abiding their state laws.”

BLISS AND BOUNDARIES

Back at 420 on Hippie Hill, Amber and Charlie lounged on a blanket with Gizmo, an affectionate pooch they’d adopted from “this guy who lives in a tree house” in Santa Cruz. The young couple, ages 18 and 20 respectively, had hitchhiked to California from Washington. Yes, “we may have done some weed,” Charlie said before letting out a peal of laughter.

“It’s been pretty awesome,” Amber said. “Literally, there was smoke coming from everywhere,” the moment 4:20pm arrived. As far as the eye could see, she said, the scene was nothing but “people smoking weed. It was crazy.”

Lilian was at the park with a friend, wearing a crown of daisies she’d woven with flowers plucked from nearby the park entrance. “All day we’ve been doing joints and blunts and pipes,” she explained. “We haven’t had any bong hits yet, but we had a couple vape hits, because they were like giving free test trials here at the park. So we were like, alright, why not?”

Lilian exulted the “positive vibes” of the event, but it wasn’t all weed and roses. A short while later, reports of gunfire sent police cars racing into the park with sirens wailing. While police later reported that they never found evidence of anyone actually discharging a weapon, two different individuals were arrested on charges of possessing a firearm.

Emergency personnel responded to four medical calls, police reported the following day, including one person who had a seizure, someone who suffered an abrasion at Haight and Ashbury streets, and two underaged individuals who experienced problems after becoming overly intoxicated. For a crowd of thousands pushed the boundaries of indulgence, quite a small number suffered harm.

Eight other arrests stemmed from charges of selling marijuana or possessing it for sale, possession or sale of opiates, one warrant arrest, and another on charges of “malicious mischief,” according to police.

A few days before the unpermitted gathering, city officials held a press conference announcing a “comprehensive plan” to crack down on the anticipated debauchery, which included not only the Golden Gate Park marijuana celebration but the “Hunky Jesus” competition, a countercultural hallmark held annually on Easter Sunday in Dolores Park.

“Last year we had a lot of challenges,” said Sup. London Breed, whose District 5 encompasses Golden Gate Park. “We need to make the city and streets safe this year. We want people to come and enjoy San Francisco, but we also want them to respect San Francisco.”

Thus, city agencies ramped up deployment of both plainclothes and uniformed police officers, and sent out more parking and traffic control officers.

The previous year, when massive amounts of debris had been left strewn throughout the park, it took 25 city employees over 12 hours to clean up five tons of trash left by intoxicated visitors, said Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the city’s Recreation and Parks Department. The Department of Public Works’ tab for cleanup exceeded $10,000.

But the main draw of the event, in true San Francisco fashion, was behavior Police Chief Greg Suhr hinted in advance would essentially be tolerated. “The sale of marijuana is still a felony,” Suhr emphasized, “but I don’t think [the SFPD is] naive enough to believe that we can stop people from smoking on 4/20.”

CANNABIS AS MEDICINE

Advocates for legalizing even recreational use of marijuana had hoped to make the November ballot this year, but the campaign’s signature-gathering effort has sputtered out.

Sponsored by the California Cannabis Hemp Initiative, the legalization measure was named for Jack Herer, a renowned cannabis advocate who passed away in 2010. The campaign is now ramping up for another try in 2016, when some advocates hope the presidential election will drive younger voters to the polls.

But while efforts to legalize weed in California for recreational use falter for now, the legitimate use of cannabis for medicinal purposes has giving rise to healthy businesses and research on health benefits. At the April 16 event at the Apothecarium, Titus had lots of questions for Allie Butler, an expert in marijuana who has a master’s degree in public health and told Titus, “I want to do cannabis research for the rest of my life.”

Butler introduced Titus to the various strains of marijuana, explaining what ailments each is good for. The CaliWidow can be a cure for headaches, she explained, and Blue Dream is “good for nausea. We prescribe that for cancer patients all day.” She indicated another strain, saying, “this is the Jack Herer, it’s my mom’s favorite.” Fancy, knowledgeable, and above ground, this isn’t your mom’s marijuana business anymore.

SFBG Wrap, April 16-23

Michael Redmond

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April 22, 2014

0

BART FINED FOR WORKERS’ DEATHS

The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration has fined Bay Area Rapid Transit for three “willful/serious” safety violations in connection with the death of two transit workers last October, saying BART is at fault due to a lack of safety measures.

“Safety standards are designed to save lives,” acting Cal/OSHA chief Juliann Sum said in a statement, “and they were not followed.”

The transit workers were killed in the final days of the BART strike. The accident claimed the lives of Christopher Sheppard, a BART manager and member of the AFSCME union, and Larry Daniels, a contractor, who had been inspecting a “dip in the rail” before they were hit by an oncoming train.

The workers were required to go through what’s called a Simple Approval process to get permission to work on the track, but the OSHA citation seized on that process as a dangerous underlying factor in the fatal accident.

“Employer’s control method, namely the ‘Simple Approval’ procedure, does not safeguard personnel working on tracks during railcar movement,” the citation reads. “The employer allowed workers to conduct work on the railway tracks where trains were traveling. The employees had no warning that a train moving at more than 65 miles-per-hour was … approaching the location where they were working.”

BART General Manager Grace Crunican quickly issued a statement. “Passenger and employee safety is our top priority at BART,” Crunican said. “BART has fundamentally upgraded its safety procedures with the implementation of an enhanced wayside safety program and a proposed budget investment of over $5 million.” She added that Cal/OSHA considered the safety violations to be “abated” in light of these changes, “meaning that none … pose continuing safety hazards.”

Simple Approval has since been terminated, BART spokesperson Alicia Trost told the Guardian. “BART permanently eliminated Simple Approval immediately following the tragic deaths,” she said. “We are also implementing the extra layers of protection for track workers.”

Notably, the two workers were killed during BART management’s attempt to train managers to operate trains during the strike, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, which continues to investigate the incident. (Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez)

SORRY STATE OF PUBLIC HOUSING

Sup. London Breed has proposed setting aside city funding to renovate vacant and dilapidated public housing units, in an effort to quickly make housing available for homeless families in the face of a dire shortage.

At the April 15 Board of Supervisor’s meeting, Breed cited an anticipated budget surplus and called for the Controller and City Attorney to begin drafting a supplemental budgetary appropriation of $2.6 million, for renovating 172 San Francisco Housing Authority units sitting vacant.

“There are over 40 public housing developments in San Francisco, and given the decades of mismanagement and financial neglect that public housing has endured, many units are currently not available for San Franciscans to live in,” Breed said. “As we grapple with an unprecedented affordability crisis and an acute shortage of housing, particularly affordable housing, these fallow public housing units represent one of our best and cheapest opportunities to make housing available now.” Breed, who represents District 5, previously lived in San Francisco public housing.

The Housing Authority receives its funding through the federal government, but spokesperson Rose Marie Dennis said those federal dollars don’t stretch far enough for the agency to perform routine restoration of vacant units. “We have to work with the resources that we have,” she said.

According to an analysis by Budget & Legislative Analyst Harvey Rose, the city has lost $6.3 million in rent that could have been collected had its empty public housing units been occupied.

The day after Breed floated her proposal for a budgetary supplemental, tragedy struck at Sunnydale, the Housing Authority’s largest housing development, when a deadly fire claimed the lives of a 32-year-old resident and her 3-year-old son. The cause of the fire is under investigation, but a San Francisco Chronicle report noted that the Housing Authority had planned to rebuild Sunnydale for years due to its poor condition.

The following day, April 17, Mayor Ed Lee announced that emergency funding of $5.4 million had been identified through the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, to address serious deferred maintenance needs — such as busted elevators in apartment complexes where disabled seniors rely on wheelchairs and canes to get around. (Rebecca Bowe)

SUPES OUTFOX LANDLORDS

When the San Francisco Board of Supervisors gave final approval April 15 for legislation to substantially increase landlord payments to tenants in the case of Ellis Act evictions, it reflected a key change designed to counter a recent eviction push by landlords.

Winning approval on a 9-2 vote, with Sups. Mark Farrell and Katy Tang opposed, the legislation increases the current required relocation payments of $5,265 per person or $15,795 per unit (plus an additional $3,510 for those with disabilities or over age 62) up to the equivalent of two years’ rent for a comparable unit. That translates to tens of thousands of dollars.

For example, the Controller’s Office calculates that a family evicted from a two-bedroom apartment in the Mission District rented at $909 per month would be entitled to $44,833 in relocation payment.

The legislation was originally scheduled to go into effect 120 days after passage, in order to give city officials enough time to implement it. But when sponsoring Sup. David Campos heard landlords were rushing to evict tenants prior to the fee increase, he checked in with the City Attorney’s Office and other departments to see whether they could be ready sooner. After getting the green light, Campos amended the measure to go into effect 30 days after it’s enacted into law.

The question now is whether Mayor Ed Lee, who has not taken a position on the legislation, will act quickly to sign it. He was initially given 10 days to decide. Since a veto-proof majority approved the legislation, the mayor’s decision is to either grant approval or stall the inevitable, triggering more evictions at lower levels of relocation assistance. (Steven T. Jones)

POLICE TAPES BROUGHT TO LIGHT

Police radio dispatch records from March 21, the night 28-year-old Alejandro Nieto was gunned down in Bernal Heights Park by San Francisco Police Department officers, had been impossible to obtain despite requests from journalists, attorneys, and community members who had ties to Nieto.

Then, incredibly — thanks to a combination of tenacious reporting and the website Broadcastify.com — the radio dispatch audio popped up in a news report on KQED’s website.

Originally captured in real-time by a website works like an automatic police scanner and preserves all files, the recordings offer a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse of what occurred in the moments leading up to the highly controversial officer-involved shooting.

The SFPD’s account of the incident is that officers opened fire in defense of their own lives because Nieto pointed a Taser at them, causing them to believe he was tracking them with a firearm.

But the audio files that have now surfaced reflect no mention of a suspect brandishing a weapon.

The first mention of a “221” — police code for person with a gun — is to relate a 911 caller’s description of a Latino male suspect, who has “got a gun on his hip, and is pacing back and forth on the north side of the park near a chain-linked fence.” Just before the shooting, a voice can be heard saying over the radio, “There’s a guy in a red shirt, way up the hill, walking toward you guys.” Several seconds later, another voice calmly states, “I got a guy right here.”

Twenty-six seconds after that, a person can be heard shouting, “Shots fired! Shots fired!”

“What’s very telling is that none of the people are saying, the guy had a gun, he pointed it at us,” said attorney Adante Pointer of the law office of John Burris, which is preparing to file a complaint on behalf of Nieto’s family against the SFPD. “It begs the question, did [Nieto] do what they said he did?”

“If this was a righteous shooting,” Pointer added, “then [SFPD] … shouldn’t have any fear of public scrutiny.”

Friends and supporters of Nieto have led marches to protest the shooting and set up a website for ongoing events, justice4alexnieto.org. (Rebecca Bowe)

City College special trustee restores public comments, meetings

Erica Hanna

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April 17, 2014

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City College special trustee restores public comments, meetings

Protests against City College of San Francisco’s leadership trumpeted grave concerns in the college community over the lack of public voice at the school. Now, some of those concerns have been resolved, and the beleagured CCSF is taking baby steps towards restoring democracy.

Special Trustee Robert Agrella announced via mass email today the return of public comment to City College board meetings, and, well, actual meetings. Local college officials praised the move as a step in the right direction.

“Perhaps the restoration of some level of openness will make people feel their voices are being heard,” said Fred Teti, the college’s Academic Senate president. The school’s senate only yesterday passed a resolution urging Agrella to restore public comment, Teti said, and with good reason.

Though the mention of board meetings may be elicit a shrug or a snooze for some, for City College students the right to speak out publicly to school leaders was important enough to be jailed over. Only last month, hundreds of student and faculty protesters stormed the school’s administrative building, and in the violent clash with SFPD and City College Police, one student was pepper-sprayed and another punched in the face.

Both were jailed afterward, and one of the students said all he wanted was a dialogue.

“We just want to have a conversation with Bob Agrella,” Dimitrious Phillou said in a video interview with the college’s newspaper, The Guardsman. “It’d be nice if he would talk to us, like a real human.”

And changes to City College are coming spitfire-fast. After they got word from their accreditors that they may close in July of this year, the school has scrambled to reshape classes offered at the school to meet the requirements, and vision, of their accreditors. Agrella was appointed by the state to take the place of the college’s duly-elected Board of Trustees — and therein lies the issue.

Not everyone agreed with the board, and many members through the years have been accused of laziness, incompetence, and worse. But at the very least, the college community had a monthly opportunity at public meetings to tell the board what was right and what was wrong, leading to many decisive turnarounds: budgets amended, classes saved, services restored or cut.

It was an imperfect process, but at least a forum existed to give the public the right to address their officials in full view of the public. Under Agrella, no such forum existed.

Student and faculty shout “let them speak!” at a City College board meeting.

When Agrella took over the powers of the board, the idea was to expedite decision-making in order to save the college. But this meant an end to the meetings. Though he posts the agendas for his decisions online, he held no public meetings, and only solicited “public comment” via email, which many rightly noted were not public at all.

“Apparently these meetings are happening in the special trustee’s head,” Alisa Messer, the City College faculty union president told the Guardian in our story, “Democracy for None [3/18].” “No one agrees that [email] comment is public.”

That will change April 24. Agrella will hear public comments at 4pm at City College’s main campus in the Multi Use Building, Room 140. Unlike meetings of City College’s full board, Agrella’s public comment session will not be televised or audio recorded. When we asked why, college spokesperson Peter Anning said he would look into it.

Anning added that Agrella did issue one warning. “He was very clear that this was going to follow board policy which will require civil discourse,” Anning said in a phone interview. “That’s been an experience in the past, where people have gotten belligerent. He said he won’t tolerate that.”

California Community College Chancellor’s Office spokesperson Larry Kamer said Agrella’s decision to restore public comment was a practical one.

“I think Bob is a problem solver, he’s a practical guy,” Kamer said. “If there was concern and discontent about public comment, I think he just wanted to deal with it before it became a problem.”

Messer applauded the decision as a step in the right direction, but cautioned that it was a small step in terms of restoring City College’s democracy.

“Of course, at any moment Dr. Agrella could — and should — restore actual board meetings,” she told us. “He could even include the voice of the voters by convening our publicly elected Board of Trustees.”

The Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution last month urging Agrella to do exactly that.

“The resolution sends a very clear message about the importance of restoring democratic decision making at City College,” Sup. David Campos told the SF Examiner.

But, as Teti told the Guardian, sometimes you need to recognize that victories come incrementally.

Thinking Agrella would restore the Board of Trustees, video airing of public comment and full meetings all at once is perhaps a stretch, he said, “That’s the pie in the sky idea.”

Police radio dispatch from Alejandro Nieto shooting raises new questions

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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April 17, 2014

41

Police radio dispatch from Alejandro Nieto shooting raises new questions

Police radio dispatch records from March 21, the night Alejandro Nieto was gunned down in Bernal Heights Park by San Francisco Police Department officers, had been withheld from the public, journalists, and attorneys – until San Francisco reporter Alex Emslie obtained copies of those records via Broadcastify.com and published them on KQED’s website.

The radio dispatch files offer a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse of what occurred in the moments leading up to the officer-involved shooting, which has generated tremendous controversy in recent weeks.

Friends and supporters of Nieto have led marches to protest the shooting and are planning ongoing events to keep the pressure on. The SFPD’s account of the incident is that officers opened fire in defense of their own lives because Nieto pointed a Taser at them, causing them to believe he was tracking them with a firearm.

We’ll turn to the audio in a moment, but first, a key point. In an interview following a town hall meeting held by the San Francisco Police Department on March 25, the Bay Guardian asked Police Chief Greg Suhr: “Can you say more about the behavior that was actually reported in the 911 calls?”

Suhr responded, “The information that we had at the time was that he was behaving in an aggressive manner.”

Yet the audio files that have now surfaced reflect no mention of aggressive behavior, nor of a suspect brandishing a weapon.

Here are excerpts of the full sound file, originally posted to KQED’s website:

The first mention of the 221 – police code for person with a gun – is to relate a 911 caller’s description of a Latino male suspect, who has “got a gun on his hip, and is pacing back and forth on the north side of the park near a chain-linked fence.” The next description that comes over the dispatch radio, also apparently related from a caller who was in the park, is that “he is eating chips, or sunflower seeds.”

Several minutes later (here’s the full audio recording), officers can be heard communicating with one another after they have arrived at the park.

First, a voice reports that the “subject is walking down the hill.” Then, 39 seconds later, someone can be heard saying, “He is walking inside the park.”

Six seconds after that, someone says, “There’s a guy in a red shirt, way up the hill, walking toward you guys.”

Several seconds later, a voice calmly states, “I got a guy right here.”

Twenty-six seconds after that, a person can be heard shouting, “Shots fired! Shots fired!”

“What’s very telling is that none of the people are saying, the guy had a gun, he pointed it at us,” said attorney Adante Pointer of the Law Offices of John Burris, which is preparing to file a complaint on behalf of Nieto’s family against the SFPD. “It begs the question, did [Nieto] do what they said he did?”

Pointer added that the sound files still don’t offer a complete picture of what transpired. “There is more than one radio channel,” he pointed out, and added that his firm hopes to obtain other relevant documentation through a process of discovery, once a lawsuit has been filed.

“If this was a righteous shooting,” Pointer said, “then [SFPD] shouldn’t have any fear of being transparent. They shouldn’t have any fear of public scrutiny.”

At an April 14 press conference, Burris discussed the difficulty his office had encountered in its initial attempts to obtain recordings of police radio communications.

Guardian video by Rebecca Bowe

As it turns out, those files were indeed preserved – by a third party. Broadcastify.com, a San Antonio-based company founded by an IT professional who previously worked for IBM, broadcasts live audio transmitted by public agencies picked up by radio scanners, and maintains a publicly available database of sound files.

We attempted to reach San Francisco Police Department’s media relations team this afternoon to discuss these audio files. However, we were informed that all of the public information officers were gone for the day, and unavailable to speak with the press.

City unveils plan to get tough at 4/20 gatherings

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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April 16, 2014

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City unveils plan to get tough at 4/20 gatherings

City officials today announced a “comprehensive plan” to crack down on unpermitted 420 events at Golden Gate Park this Sun/20, saying it was necessary because last year’s debauchery got out of hand. That means more police, both in uniform and plainclothes, will be in the park for the greatest marijuana celebration of the year.

“Last year [on 4/20] we had a lot of challenges,” said Sup. London Breed, who is spearheading this year’s efforts since the park falls in her district. “We need to make the city and streets safe this year. We want people to come and enjoy San Francisco, but we also want them to respect San Francisco.”

The problems Breed was alluding to included underage drinking, traffic congestion, and massive amounts of trash left in the park, especially in the area known as Hippie Hill.

Last year, it took 25 city employees over 12 hours to clean up the five tons of trash left by intoxicated visitors, according to Phil Ginsburg, general manager of San Francisco Recreation and Parks. And because 420 activities are unsanctioned and without an official sponsor, the burden to pay for the cleanup falls upon the city. In 2013, the Department of Public Works spent more than $10,000 to restore Golden Gate Park.

In anticipation of an even larger crowd this year, for both 420 and Easter events happening in the park, the city is gearing up to deal with people and traffic. In addition to deploying additional law enforcement in plainclothes and uniform, officials also plan to ramp up parking control, utilize additional bus services, and employ city workers to direct traffic.

A press release issued by Breed’s office indicated that police would take “a strict enforcement approach to all code violations.”

But speaking at the press conference, San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr said officers will have zero tolerance for violations such as underage drinking, open containers, selling drugs, unlicensed vendors, and even walking while texting. Noticeably absent from the list of offenses he mentioned was actually smoking marijuana.

“The sale of marijuana is still a felony,” Suhr emphasized, “but I don’t think [the SFPD is] naive enough to believe that we can stop people from smoking on 4/20.”

Captain Gregory Corrales confirmed that maintaining safety is the station’s top priority. Last year there was only one violent incident and eight arrests for selling drugs, but there were zero citations for possession of marijuana.

Pot smoking, which has long been tolerated, if not embraced, in our progressive enclave, was officially deprioritized as a crime by the Board of Supervisors in 2006, barring incidents that involved driving under the influence, minors, or violence. Breed noted that while she does not “condone illegal activities,” she admits that this aspect of the 420 celebration is difficult to control.

So please, stoners of San Francisco, follow the cardinal rule of nature lovers by packing out whatever you pack in. And above all, have a safe and merry holiday.

Claim filed over SFPD shooting of Alejandro Nieto

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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April 15, 2014

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Claim filed over SFPD shooting of Alejandro Nieto

The family of Alejandro Nieto, the 28-year-old City College student and community activist who was gunned down by the San Francisco Police Department March 21, has filed a claim against the city in preparation for a lawsuit responding to what they allege was an unjustified shooting.

Friends, family and supporters of Nieto gathered in front of San Francisco City Hall April 14 with attorney John Burris, who is representing Nieto’s family. Burris is a prominent civil rights lawyer known for representing families whose sons have died as a result of officer involved shootings, including the family of Oscar Grant.

An initial examination of the body suggests Nieto died from wounds inflicted by at least 10 bullets, fired by multiple officers, Burris said. Police initially encountered Nieto in Bernal Heights Park in response to a 911 call reporting a man with a gun. Nieto, who was employed full-time as a security guard, actually possessed a Taser and not a firearm. Police said officers opened fire because he pointed the Taser at them, and they confused it with a gun when they saw a red dot emitted from the device after it was drawn, tracking officers.

Burris isn’t buying the police department’s account, but said he faces obstacles obtaining key information that would shed light on the incident.

“We have not been able to obtain the 911 audio,” or other communications records documenting what happened just before and after the shooting, Burris said. So far, the San Francisco Medical Examiner has not released an official report.

“That is part of the problem we are up against. We can make requests and ask for it to be preserved,” he said of the audio files, “but we cannot get it. And unfortunately, lawsuits are one way that we know we’re going to get it.”

Benjamin Bac Sierra, a friend of Nieto’s who is serving as a spokesperson for the family, waved a bundle of petitions he and community members had collected to call for an investigation at the local level. “Besides filing this claim, the family demands that San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon launch an official investigation into Alex’s killing by the San Francisco Police Department,” Bac Sierra said. “We demand that the district attorney fully investigate this case on behalf of Alex and his family.”

Burris said he believed moving forward with an independent lawsuit was necessary even as the Office of Citizen Complaints, an independent agency overseen by the San Francisco Police Commission, advances its own investigation.

“I’ve worked with the OCC on many cases in the past, but that’s on a parallel track. They have one process, we have another,” he said. “At the end of the day, we have to do our own to protect ourselves.”

Burris also said that given the recent history of federal prosecution against the SFPD, he believed the involvement of the U.S. Attorney’s office would be appropriate. “We’re requesting that the U.S. Attorneys here with the Department of Justice conduct an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding Alex’s death,” Burris said, “and if necessary, file criminal charges against these officers.”

In a later conversation with the Bay Guardian, Bac Sierra noted that an audio recording of the shooting had been obtained from a neighbor of the park, who captured it through a home security system. Bac Sierra said the recording suggests two shots were initially fired, followed by a pause, followed by “a continuous volley” of shots. Bac Sierra, who declined to provide the neighbor’s name, said the sound file did not contain audible verbal communications prior to the shots being fired.

Community members angered by Nieto’s death have set up a website, justice4alexnieto.org, and have planned an event for the one-month anniversary of the shooting. Called Burritos on Bernal Hill, the gathering is scheduled for Monday, April 21, at Precita Park at 5pm.

Avalos: Should SFPD officers wear body mounted cameras?

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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April 9, 2014

44

Avalos: Should SFPD officers wear body mounted cameras?

The fatal shooting of Alejandro Nieto, a man who possessed a Taser that was mistaken for a firearm who was killed in Bernal Heights Park, produced a backlash of community anger toward the San Francisco Police Department. It was the first thing Sup. John Avalos mentioned when he called for a hearing on equipping officers with body-mounted video cameras at the April 8 Board of Supervisors meeting.

Avalos knew Nieto, and the incident struck close to home. He mentioned another recent incident of police violence at City College of San Francisco in which officers targeted student protesters; video footage from a bystander shows an officer releasing his nightstick, making a fist, and throwing a punch at someone already being restrained.

“These incidents show that there’s a great deal of work we need to do … to build trust between members of the community and the police department,” Avalos said. “These incidents involved people I knew and it almost makes me feel how widespread the problem can be.”

Police body-mounted cameras have been tried in New York, Los Angeles, New Orleans and other places as a way to shore up police accountability and provide a record of officer interactions with targeted suspects, Avalos said, and there is support for the technology both among law enforcement communities and civil liberties watchdog organizations.

“Many police support these cameras because they can help protect police officers against false accusations,” Avalos noted. “Watchdog groups support police body-mounted cameras because they can help reduce incidents of police misconduct. The [American Civil Liberties Union] supports the cameras because they allow the public to monitor the government, instead of the other way around.”

Avalos’ request called for a review of the feasibility of equipping police officers with body cams, taking concerns about cost and privacy into consideration, plus a cost-benefit analysis to show how the cost of the cameras would compare with potential savings from reductions in citizen complaints and use-of-force lawsuits.

SFPD spokesperson Sgt. Danielle Newman noted that the SFPD is already in contract negotiations for a pilot program that would equip 50 plainclothes sergeants with body-mounted cameras. The program would be funded through a federal grant, Newman said, and the department has not yet received the cameras or hashed out policies spelling out how long data would be stored, how often they would be used, or whether officers would be able to switch them on and off at will.

Newman said the pilot program grew out of allegations that undercover officers had stolen property and violated the civil rights of SRO residents during searches of their units, incidents that were initially brought to light by the San Francisco Public Defender and more recently became the subject of a federal indictment.

“When Chief Suhr took over, he was looking at ways to ensure that those things don’t happen again,” Newman explained. The department was under the leadership of former Police Chief George Gascon when the officers now facing charges were caught on film by SRO surveillance cameras.

Despite the planned pilot, Newman said Suhr was less certain about the idea of equipping 1,500 to 2,000 officers with body cameras, as Avalos’ request is geared toward.

“The concern with the chief is that with San Francisco, we haven’t been able to get crime cams put up,” she said, let alone having all officers record all police contact with the public. “That’s something that would need to be ironed out.”

Newman added that there were cost and logistical concerns associated with storage of bulk data generated by the cameras.

Rachel Lederman, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild who represented Occupy protester Scott Olsen in a police misconduct case that left Olsen with lasting brain injuries and resulted in a $4.5 million settlement, said she was skeptical of body cams as a “quick fix” for police violence.

Oakland police officers are equipped with personal digital recording devices, she noted, but in the incident the left Olsen permanently injured, “there were 11 police officers with less-lethal weapons who were supposed to have PDRDs on – but didn’t.”

Lederman said that based on her experience, the footage that is captured on body cams is kept under lock and key by police, and remains hidden to all but doggedly persistent criminal attorneys. In practice, “journalists and affected people can’t get it without a lawyer,” she said, because police departments tend to withhold the footage with the excuse that it pertains to ongoing investigations.

In order to serve as an effective tool for holding law enforcement accountable, Lederman said, body-cam videos “have to be produced under the Public Records Act.”

Lederman added that the video quality tends to be low, officers can turn them on and off at will, and “they try to use them as evidence against people they are arresting.”

Still, a study in Rialto, California that was undertaken by a group of Cambridge University researchers determined that police use-of-force and complaints against police officers declined dramatically after officers were outfitted with the recording devices.

“The findings suggest more than a 50 percent reduction in the total number of incidents of use-of-force compared to control-conditions, and nearly ten times more citizens’ complaints in the 12-months prior to the experiment,” the authors concluded.

Lederman believes those findings are somewhat misleading, however. “Rialto has 66 police officers,” she pointed out. “It’s not really comparable to San Francisco or Oakland.”

Alerts: April 9 – 15, 2014

Michael Redmond

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April 8, 2014

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WEDNESDAY 9

Town Hall Meeting for Pedestrian Safety

Muslim Community Center, 4760 Mission, SF. gmackellen@eagsf.org. 6-8pm, free. Responding to the recent trend of pedestrian collisions in San Francisco, a coalition of neighborhood leaders has called for a Pedestrian Safety Town Hall. Supervisors Campos, Avalos, and Chiu will be in attendance, along with leaders from SFMTA and the SFPD, to discuss and propose ways to protect pedestrians against automobile accidents in San Francisco.

THURSDAY 10

Community Forum: Activism Against Displacement

LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market, SF. www.urbanidea.org. 5:30-7:30pm, free registration online. Responding to the ’80s office high-rise boom, Proposition M has defined development and infrastructure in the City’s downtown to this day. Now, in the midst of another boom of development and evictions, Central City activists are proposing a Housing Balance Act, to link the rate of market development to a balanced affordable and middle-income housing. Join in the discussion to be part of the effort and find out more.

Panel Discussion: What the frack?!

1011 Market, 2nd Floor, SF. www.sfcamerawork.org. 6-8pm, free. Featured photographer Sarah Christianson will be present along with participants from Earthjustice and The Sierra Club to discuss fracking, a harmful oil and and natural gas extraction technique. The talk will examine how the scars from previous oil booms are healing, what new wounds are being inflicted, and who is on the forefront of the movement to safeguard California against environmentally harmful oil development.

SATURDAY 12

Cesar Chavez Holiday Parade and Festival

Dolores Park, Guerrero and 19th, SF. www.cesarchavezday.org. 10am-5pm, free. Celebrate the life of labor activist and civil rights leader, Cesar Chavez. The parade will begin assembling at 10am at Dolores Park, and there will be a street fair featuring food, music, entertainment, and arts and crafts booths from noon until 5pm on 24th St. between Treat and Bryant.

An evening with Matt Taibbi

First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing, Berk. www.kpfa.org. 7:30pm, $12 in advance, $15 at door. From the award-winning investigative journalist and bestselling author of The Great Derangement and Griftopia comes THE DIVIDE: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap. Matt Taibbi, one of the most widely read journalists in America who is best known for his work at Rolling Stone, will speak about his new book, which offers a galvanizing exploration of how our growing wealth gap isn’t just warping our economy, but transforming the meaning of rights, justice, and basic citizenship. Taibbi will be joined by Donald Goldmacher, Producer and Director of Heist: Who Stole the American Dream?

Immigration reform protest snarls downtown SF, 23 arrested

Sasha Cuttler

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April 4, 2014

28

Immigration reform protest snarls downtown SF, 23 arrested

Today [Fri/4] at 11am, the SF Bay Coalition for Immigrant Justice held a protest and rally to urge President Obama to halt all deportations and keep his promise of comprehensive immigration reform.The protest included a group of 23 people, some of which are undocumented immigrants, which took part in a peaceful act of civil disobedience.

All 23 protesters — 15 women and eight men — were arrested; cited for failure to diperse, failure to obey a traffic officer, and blocking an intersection; and booked at the police substation in the Tenderloin before being release, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

More than 30 SFPD officers flanked the march after activists, clergy, and community organizers gathered at One Post St. and made the short but spirited walk to 120 Montgomery St., a building that houses the San Francisco Immigration Court.

Video of two of the arrests.

Rev. Debra Lee, a United Church of Christ pastor working with Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights, said, “We are here… because everyday we see people in our congregations who come to us because their family has been thrown into crisis by the federal government.”

Other clergy members who were arrested include Rev. Richard Smith of St. John Evangelist Episcopal Church, and Rabbi Mike Rothbaum, of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice. “We work with with people of other faiths because part of the power of the coalition [is that] although we have different faiths, we come together around a common belief that the migrant should be treated with dignity.” Lee told the Guardian.

The protesters march downtown. Photo by Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez.

Rothbaum delivered a powerful address standing atop a parked pickup truck. Rothbaum held up a black-and-white photo of members of his family being sworn in as US citizens. In the image was his aunt, a Polish Jew. “I would like to remind President Obama that his father was a wandering man from Kenya,” he said. “That my aunt and his father are no different from the people being held in this building.”

All three clergy members were arrested for taking part in the act of civil disobedience. Others arrested include Akiko Aspillaga, a native born Filipina who came to the US at the age of 10 with a visa. But because of a mix of complications with the employment of her mother and misinformation, Aspillaga and her parents lost their visas. Nevertheless, Aspillaga is now a graduate student at San Francisco State University’s school of nursing. However, because she is undocumented, she cannot receive federal grants or loans and depends on scholarships, and her mother to pay for tuition.

Another was Reyna Maldonado, a City College of San Francisco student born in Mexico. “We are here to demand President Obama to stop deportations. There has already been 2 million deportations.” Maldonado had a picture of Alex Aldana, who is currently being held in a San Diego ICE detention center: “He is one of the people we are fighting for [in addition] to stopping separations of families.”

Even if both women are undocumented, face arrest, and a risk of being turned over to US immigration authorities, they felt the risks were worth it. “I feel like the moral imperative right now, with families being torn apart and all the pain our community… Everything is worth it,” Akiko told the Guardian, “There is a possibility of me being deported but we’re standing up for something we believe in.”

After all the speakers addressed the crowd of about 300 people, the group of 23 sat in a tight circle on a banner that read, “Deporter in Chief.” And parodied President Obama’s “Hope” campaign poster with a pair of handcuffed hands replacing the president’s picture.

Once the group of 23 blocked traffic on the intersection of Sutter and Montgomery, SFPD officers began moving people off the street and onto the sidewalks. Then, one by one, each member of the group had their hands zip-tied behind their back and loaded into one of three SFPD vans.

This protest was part of a national day of action in favor of immigration, and it precedes an even bigger mobilization tomorrow in San Jose.

Photo Gallery

Crime and politics

Michael Redmond

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April 1, 2014

10

steve@sfbg.com

San Franciscans awoke March 26 to the surprising news that state Sen. Leland Yee (D-SF) had been arrested on federal corruption charges as part of early morning police raids targeting an organized crime syndicate based in Chinatown, along with reputed gangster Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow and two dozen others.

Yee had a reputation for sometimes trading votes for campaign contributions, a perception that had only gained strength in recent months as he launched his first statewide campaign, running to lead the Secretary of State’s Office, casting key votes for landlords and big industries that he refused to explain to local activists.

So in a year when two other Democratic Senators have also been stung by federal corruption and bribery probes, the televised image of Yee in handcuffs wasn’t beyond the realm of possibilities. It was surprising, but not shocking.

Yet by the mid-afternoon when the 137-page federal criminal complaint was unsealed and journalists started reading through what undercover FBI agents had discovered during their five-year criminal investigation, it read more like a sensational organized crime and espionage novel than a court document, a real page-turner that just got more wild and incredible as it went on.

What began with the FBI investigating a murder and leadership transition in the San Francisco branch of the ancient Chinese organized crime syndicate known as the Triad, led by an undercover FBI agent who had infiltrated the group, evolved into a widening investigation accusing Yee of arranging an illegal arms trafficking deal with a Muslim rebel group in the Philippines in exchange for $100,000 funneled into his campaign, on top of smaller favors that Yee allegedly did in exchange for envelopes with $10,000 in cash.

It was even worse for local political consultant Keith Jackson, a key Yee fundraiser who was also on contract with Lennar Urban for its Bayview-Hunters Point development projects, with the undercover FBI agents allegedly drawing Jackson into big cocaine deals, money laundering, bribery, and even a murder-for-hire plot. If the complaint is to be believed, Jackson seemed willing to do just about anything to enrich himself and raise money for Yee.

Meanwhile, the public image that Chow has been cultivating for himself since his 2003 release from federal prison — that of a reformed career gangster turned Chinatown civic leader, someone praised by local politicians for inspiring fellow ex-convicts to turn their lives around — was replaced the complaint’s description of a powerful “Dragonhead” overseeing a vast criminal enterprise involved in drugs, guns, prostitution, protection rackets, moving stolen booze and cigarettes, and money laundering.

“I think the whole city is in shock at the moment,” Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, who represents Chinatown and ran against Yee in the 2011 mayor’s race, told the Guardian that afternoon. “Today’s widespread law enforcement actions are incredibly disturbing. The detail and scale of the criminal activities are shocking.”

In the days that followed, Yee withdrew his candidacy for Secretary of State and was suspended by his colleagues in the California Senate. But where this wild tale of crime and corruption goes next — and who else gets implicated as these powerful and well-connected defendants look to cut deals to avoid the lengthy prison sentences they all face — is anyone’s guess.

THE CRIMINAL

Chow, 54, was raised a criminal, telling the History Channel’s “Gangland” that he stabbed someone in Hong Kong at the age of nine before moving to San Francisco in 1977 and getting involved in the Hop Sing Boys gang and Chinatown’s criminal underworld.

He survived the Golden Dragon Massacre, a shooting between rival Chinatown gangs that left five dead, but he was arrested in 1978 for a robbery and sent to prison for the first time, released in 1985. The next year, he was sent back to prison for attempted murder and more gang mayhem, released in 1989.

“I did time with Charles Manson, a good friend of mine. Kimball, a serial killer. I did time with a bunch of amazing people. Each person you talk to you learn something from. Ain’t no stupid people inside the prison, you can say that,” Chow told Gangland.

In 1991, a gangster named Peter Chong was sent from Hong Kong to San Francisco to extend the reach of the Wo Hop To Triad. He enlisted Chow as his right-hand man, and together they extended the reach of the Wo Hop To across the Western United States, trying to create an all encompassing gang named the Tien HaWui, “The Whole Earth Association.”

Chow was arrested again in 1995 on a variety of racketeering and other criminal charges and sentenced to 25 years in prison. But he later testified against Chong and got his sentence reduced, and he was released from federal prison in 2003.

After his release, Chow publicly claimed to go legit, working on book and movie deals about his life, as well as building connections in the political world. Chow posed for photos with then-Mayor Gavin Newsom and other local political figures.

But the latest criminal complaint said that even as Chow pretended to be moving on, he continued to make incriminating statements to the undercover agents “confirming his knowledge of and involvement in criminal activity.”

THE COMPLAINT

The criminal complaint alleges that “Chow is currently the Dragonhead, or leader, of the San Francisco-based Chee Kung Tong organization,” which it described as a criminal syndicate connected to Hung Mun, a criminal dynasty that began in 17th century China, “also referred to as a Chinese secret society and the Chinese Freemasons.”

It says Chow was sworn in as CKT head in August 2006, soon after the still-unsolved murder of CKT head Allen Leung. Chow’s swearing-in was reported in local Chinese media sources, so SFPD and FBI conducted surveillance there and launched an investigation.

The FBI says it began infiltrating CKT five years ago, including an undercover FBI agent dubbed UCE 4599, who in May 2010 was introduced to Chow, who “then introduced UCE 4599 to many of the target subjects.” UCE 4599 told Chow he was a member of La Cosa Nostra, the Italian mob.

In March 2012 he was inducted into CKT as a “Consultant,” the complaint alleges. It says that Jackson — a former San Francisco school board member and political consultant — had also be inducted into CKT as a “Consultant,” participating in various criminal conspiracies.

The gang members are accused of laundering money made from “illegal activities, specifically illegal gambling, bookmaking, sports betting, drugs, and outdoor marijuana grows.” They allegedly laundered $2.3 million between March 2011 and December 2013 for UCE 4599, with members collecting a 10 percent fee for doing so.

The complaint says Jackson “has a long-time relationship with Senator Yee,” and “has been involved in raising funds for” Yee’s run for mayor “and for Senator Yee’s current campaign in the California Secretary of State election.” And much of the complaint details deeds allegedly committed by Jackson and Yee.

In fact, the second person named in the complaint, right after Chow, is Yee, “aka California State Senator Leland Yee, aka Uncle Leland.”

As the complaint alleges, “Senator Yee and Keith Jackson were involved in a scheme to defraud the citizens of California of their rights to honest services, and Senator Yee, [Daly City resident Dr. Wilson] Lim, and Keith Jackson were involved in a conspiracy to traffic firearms.”

THE POLITICIAN

Yee and Jackson met UCE 4599 through Chow, and then Jackson allegedly solicited him to make donations to Yee’s 2011 San Francisco mayoral campaign “in excess of the $500 individual donation limit. UCE 4599 declined to make any donations to Senator Yee, but introduced Keith Jackson and Senator Yee to a purported business associate, UCE 4773, another undercover FBI agent,” who made a $5,000 donation to Yee’s mayoral campaign.

Yee had $70,000 in debt after that mayor’s race and worked with Jackson on ways to pay off that debt. “This included soliciting UCE 4773 for additional donations and in the course of doing so, Senator Yee and Keith Jackson agreed that Senator Yee would perform certain official acts in exchange for donations from UCE 4773.”

Yee allegedly agreed to “make a telephone call to a manager with the California Department of Public Health in support of a contract under consideration with UCE 4773’s purported client, and would provide an official letter of support for the client, in exchange for a $10,000 donation.”

Meanwhile, it says Jackson and Yee continued raising money for his Secretary of State race by soliciting donations from UCE 4599 and UCE 4180, another undercover agent. “They agreed that in exchange for donations from UCE 4599 and UCE 4180, Senator Yee would perform certain officials acts requested by UCE 4599 and UCE 4180.”

That included Yee issuing an “official state Senate proclamation honoring the CKT in exchange for a $6,800 campaign donation, the maximum individual donation allowed by law.” Yee allegedly did so, and it was presented by one of his staff members at the CKT anniversary celebration on March 29, 2013.

Yee and Jackson are also accused of introducing a donor to unidentified state legislators working on pending medical marijuana legislation, the donor being another undercover agent who claimed to be a medical marijuana businessman from Arizona looking to expand into California, “and in payment for that introduction, UCE 4180 delivered $11,000 cash to Senator Yee and Keith Jackson on June 22, 2013.”

In September, after making another introduction, Yee and Jackson allegedly received another $10,000 cash donation for their services. Then Jackson allegedly had an idea for getting even more money.

“Jackson told UCE 4599 that Senator Yee, had a contact who deals in arms trafficking.” Jackson then allegedly requested UCE 4599 make another donation “to facilitate a meeting with the arms dealer with the intent of UCE 4599 to purportedly purchase a large number of weapons to be imported through the Port of Newark, New Jersey.”

That deal for up to $2.5 million in weapons involved automatic weapon and shoulder-fired missiles, the complaint said, and “Senator Yee discussed certain details of the specific types of weapons UCE 4599 was interested in buying and importing.”

The complaint says that Yee expressed discomfort with how openly UCE 4180 discussed overt “pay to play” links between cash donations and official actions. “I’m just trying to run for Secretary of State. I hope I don’t get indicted,” Yee allegedly told two undercover FBI agents during a walk on June 20, 2013, urging them to be less explicit about connecting official favor with campaign donations.

“Despite complaining about UCE 4180’s tendency to speak frankly and tie payment to performance, and threatening to cut off contact with UCE 4180, Senator Yee and Keith Jackson continued to deal with UCE 4180 and never walked away from quid pro quo requests make by UCE 4180,” the complaint said. “In fact, Senator Yee provided the introductions sought by UCE 4180 and accepted cash payments which UCE 4180 expressly tied to the making of the introductions.”

Yee’s attorney, Paul DeMeester, told reporters they will contest the charges: “We will always in every case enter not guilty pleas, then the case takes on a life of its own.”

Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez contributed to this report.

Massage therapists hope for a happy ending

Sasha Cuttler

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March 27, 2014

41

Massage therapists hope for a happy ending

The California Massage Therapy Council, a statewide body that licenses massage practitioners, may expire at the end of this year unless extended by the California Legislature. Some anti-prostitution crusaders say reverting to local control will make it easier to shut down covert brothels, but the practitioners fear a return to the bad old days, when stigmas and stereotypes overcomplicated their lives.

On one side of the debate are the massage therapists, who say that the council protects them from unfair discrimination, replaces a patchwork of local ordinances, and provides a greater level of respectability to their profession. However, an array of city officials, police departments, and powerful groups such as the League of California Cities argue that the CAMTC makes it easier for illicit massage parlors to get away with prostitution and human trafficking.

“I receive complaints from neighbors all the time about certain establishments,” said Sup. Katy Tang about her supervisorial district in San Francisco’s Sunset District. “We can inspect, but we have no ability to enforce any of our regulations. If there are any penalties, we can’t enforce them.”

Tang’s frustration stems from Senate Bill 731, legislation that was signed into law in 2008. That bill created the CAMTC, a non-profit organization that has the authority to certify massage practitioners and therapists in California. Prior to the creation of this body, each city and county enacted its own certification procedures, leading to a messy patchwork of rules all over the state.

Before the CAMTC, “there were 550 different kinds of regulations from city to city,” said Ahmos Netanel, CEO of the organization. “Within a radius of one mile, you can have a situation where different cities have their own standards. One city may require no training, and another right next door may require 1,000 hours.”

A massage provider working in California pre-2009 not only had to be savvy with the medley of laws, but also needed to purchase expensive licenses for each city he or she planned to practice in. The CAMTC creates a universal—though voluntary—system, where licensed practitioners can travel and work freely around the state.

The contentious part of the law comes from the protection that it offers to licensed practitioners. Any establishment that employs all CAMTC-certified massage providers is exempt from city ordinances that target massage businesses. Law enforcement agencies claim that these restrictions impede their ability to crack down on illegal parlors, but the massage therapists say that they are necessary to fight off discriminatory laws.

Some of these unfair regulations targeted entire establishments, such as zoning rules that forced all massage businesses into run-down or dangerous parts of town, with the assumption that they were brothels. Massage providers argued that this was neither fair nor safe for, say, a 75-year-old woman seeking out massage for arthritis, or a soon-to-be mom trying to obtain a pre-natal massage.

Other laws targeted the therapists themselves. Stacey DeGooyer, a certified massage therapist in the Bay Area, remembers times when practicing massage meant mandatory STD testing and reminders from police to not wear undergarments as exterior clothing.

“I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this is for my profession?’” DeGooyer said.

To massage practitioners’ chagrin, they are still lumped into the same category as adult entertainers and subjected to “archaic prostitution laws,” according to DeGooyer, while similar legitimate therapies, such as physical rehabilitation, are overlooked. Most massage providers aren’t looking to be on par with physicians, but they don’t want to be on par with prostitutes, either.

Bodywork in San Francisco

Currently, the city of San Francisco has its own certification program that is regulated by the Department of Public Health. To practice massage in the city, the provider must have a license from either the city or the CAMTC. However, only those who have the state CAMTC license can legally call themselves a “licensed massage” therapist or practitioner.

Tang has been one of the most outspoken critics of the CAMTC in San Francisco, urging the Legislature to let the body sunset at the end of the year.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m against [the CAMTC], but there are structural flaws in how it was designed,” Tang said. “It was created for good reasons, since there were so many jurisdictions and they wanted to standardize it and create a cohesive process.

“But there are jurisdictions like San Francisco where we have our own robust process, but when an establishment uses all CAMTC practitioners, they can bypass all rules. More and more people are starting to become aware of this and are starting to do CAMTC instead, and the city can’t do anything.”

But Netanel disagrees.

“Some cities are claiming that the CAMTC makes it more difficult for law enforcement, but that’s not the reality,” he said. “We even got a thank you letter from the Santa Monica Police saying we made it easier for them, not harder. Cities that cooperate and partner with CAMTC greatly benefit from our tools and protocols to go after bad apples. Other cities have a misinterpretation of the law, and choose to take a different approach.”

Netanel said that even though some cities, such as San Francisco, compete with the CAMTC by providing their own massage licenses, over 150 other California cities have made CAMTC certification mandatory within their jurisdictions. He also points out that many applicants who are denied a license by the CAMTC often turn around and obtain a license within their cities, which generally have lower standards than the state organization.

The number of massage establishments have surged since the adoption of the CAMTC, which critics use as evidence for a growing number of illicit parlors. But Netanel referenced multiple points in the original bill which allows law enforcement to do its job to prevent prostitution. The CAMTC has no real enforcement power to go after illegal establishments itself, but instead works to prevent them from existing in the first place. Out of over 63,000 applicants, Netanel said, they have never certified a single person who has been convicted of illicit activities. They also utilize an online complaint form to report questionable behavior, and respond to all complaints within 24 hours.

The Department of Public Health and the SFPD—the two city entities which police illegal massage business—both ignored multiple requests from the Bay Guardian to find out exactly how and if the CAMTC makes their work more difficult.

The CAMTC is set to be dissolved at the beginning of next year, unless the Legislature decides to extend the original law. A current bill in the California Assembly would extend the CAMTC’s authority until 2019, an additional four years, and massage therapists across the state are pleading for that to happen.

“Even with those who criticize [the CAMTC], we share the same goals,” Netanel said. “We want a safe, healthy, and reliable certification process, so consumers can trust their therapists. Even more, we want to put an end to illegal massage parlors so they are no longer categorized with honest providers.”

Complaint against Yee includes firearms trafficking and envelopes full of cash

Sasha Cuttler

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March 26, 2014

54

Complaint against Yee includes firearms trafficking and envelopes full of cash

The federal criminal charges filed today against Sen. Leland Yee (D-SF), local political consultant Keith Jackson, reputed Chinatown organized crime boss Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, and 23 other defendants allege a vast criminal conspiracy that was penetrated by undercover FBI agents, who say they then gave Yee envelopes full of cash in exchange for official favors.

Among the many bizarre aspects of this blockbuster case, Yee stands accused of taking part in a conspiracy to illegally smuggle firearms into the country, and using those deals to help secure campaign contributions for his current campaign for Secretary of State, while he was sponsoring a trio of gun control bills that were signed into law last year.

Yee, who reportedly faces 16 years in prison for two felony counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and to illegally import firearms, was arrested this morning during a series of early morning police raids, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment this afternoon, and was freed after posting a $500,000 unsecured bond.

Chow had a long criminal history as the admitted head of the Hop Sing gang in SF’s Chinatown, serving prison time. “Chow’s criminal history includes a guilty plea in federal court for racketeering, involving murder for hire, conspiracy to distribute heroin, arson, and conspiracy to collect extensions of credit,” the complaint notes. (You can read the full complaint here.)

Chow publicly claimed to go legit after being released from federal prison in 2006, and he has cultivated many high-profile business and political connections in San Francisco. But the 137-page criminal complaint that was unsealed today alleges that “Chow is currently the Dragonhead, or leader, of the San Francisco-based Chee Kung Tong organization,” which it describerd as a criminal syndicate connected to Hung Mun, a criminal dynasty that began in 17th century China, “also referred to as a Chinese secret society and the Chinese Freemasons.”

It says Chow was sworn in as CKT head in August 2006 after being released from federal prison, soon after the still-unsolved murder of CKT head Allen Ngai Leung. Chow’s swearing-in was reported in local Chinese media sources, so SFPD and FBI conducted surveillance there and launched an investigation.

CKT is allegedly part of Triad, an international Chinese organized crime group with ties to China and Hong Kong, and in San Francisco it is said to be comprised of Chow’s Hop Sing, a street gang with 200-300 members, and the Wah Ching gang headed by George Nieh, who was charged with a variety of crimes today.

“Nieh said he was in charge of the Wah Ching gang and Chow was in charge of the Hop Sing gang. Nieh said they used to be enemies, but banded together instead,” the complaint says, relating what they allegedly told FBI informants who had infiltrated the organization.

The FBI says it began infiltrating CKT five years ago, including an undercover FBI agent dubbed UCE 4599, who in May 2010 was introduced to Chow, who “then introduced UCE 4599 to many of the target subjects.”

Chow allegedly told UCE 4599 that he oversees all of CKT criminal enterprises, but doesn’t actively run them anymore, acting as a arbiter, or as a judge when one CKT member kills another. Nieh allegedly heads the criminal activities division and reports to Chow.

They are accused of laundering money made from “illegal activities, specifically illegal gambling, bookmaking, sports betting, drugs, and outdoor marijuana grows.” They allegedly laundered $2.3 million between March 2011 and December 2013 for UCE 4599, with members collecting a 10 percent fee for doing so.

UCE 4599 told Chow he was a member of La Cosa Nostra, an Italian mob, and in March 2012 he was inducted into CKT as a “Consultant,” the complaint alleges. It says that Jackson — a former San Francisco school board member and political consultant who has worked for Lennar Urban and Singer Associates — had also be inducted into CKT as a “Consultant,” participating in various criminal conspiracies.

The complaint says Jackson “has a long-time relationship with Senator Yee,” and “has been involved in raising funds for” Yee’s run for mayor “and for Senator Yee’s current campaign in the California Secretary of State election.” And much of the complaint details deeds allegedly committed by Jackson and Yee.

In fact, the second person named in the complaint, right after Chow, is Yee, “aka California State Senator Leland Yee, aka Uncle Leland.”

“Senator Yee and Keith Jackson were involved in a scheme to defraud the citizens of California of their rights to honest services, and Senator Yee, [Daly City resident Dr. Wilson] Lim, and Keith Jackson were involved in a conspiracy to traffic firearms,” the complaint alleges.

Yee and Jackson met UCE 4599 through Chow, and then Jackson allegedly solicited him to make donations to Yee’s 2011 San Francisco mayoral campaign “in excess of the $500 individual donation limit. UCE 4599 declined to make any donations to Senator Yee, but introduced Keith Jackson and Senator Yee to a purported business associate, UCE 4773, another undercover FBI agent,” who made a $5,000 donation to Yee’s mayoral campaign.

Yee had $70,000 in debt after that mayor’s race and worked with Jackson on ways to pay off that debt. “This included soliciting UCE 4773 for additional donations and in the course of doing so, Senator Yee and Keith Jackson agreed that Senator Yee would perform certain official acts in exchange for donations from UCE 4773.”

Yee allegedly agreed to “make a telephone call to a manager with the California Department of Public Health in support of a contract under consideration with UCE 4773’s purported client, and would provide an official letter of support for the client, in exchange for a $10,000 donation. Senator Yee made the call on October 18, 2012 and provided the letter on or about January 13, 2013,” and Jackson allegedly took the cash donation from the agent.

Meanwhile, it says Jackson and Yee continued raising money for his Secretary of State race by soliciting donations from UCE 4599 and UCE 4180, another undercover agent. “They agreed that in exchange for donations from UCE 4599 and UCE 4180, Senator Yee would perform certain officials acts requested by UCE 4599 and UCE 4180.”

That included Yee issuing an “official state Senate proclamation honoring the CKT in exchange for a $6,800 campaign donation, the maximum individual donation allowed by law.” Yee allegedly did so, and it was presented by one of his staff members at the CKT anniversary celebration on March 29, 2013.

Yee and Jackson are also accused of introducing a donor to state legislators working on pending medical marijuana legislation, the donor being another undercover agent who claimed to be a medical marijuana businessman from Arizona looking to expand into California, “and in payment for that introduction, UCE 4180 delivered $11,000 cash to Senator Yee and Keith Jackson on June 22, 2013.”

In September, after making another introduction, Yee and Jackson allegedly received another $10,000 cash donation for their services.

In August of last year, in an effort to raise more money, “Jackson told UCE 4599 that Senator Yee, had a contact who deals in arms trafficking.” Jackson then allegedly requested UCE 4599 make another donation “to facilitate a meeting with the arms dealer with the intent of UCE 4599 to purportedly purchase a large number of weapons to be imported through the Port of Newark, New Jersey…Senator Yee discussed certain details of the specific types of weapons UCE 4599 was interested in buying and importing.”

The complaint, a declaration by FBI Agent Emmanuel Pascua, does indicate that both Chow and Yee sometimes tried to declare their legitimacy to the FBI agents.

“It should be noted that throughout this investigation, Chow has made several exculpatory statements about how he strives to become legitimate and no longer participates in criminal activity,” it says.

For example, Chow has been working on book and movie deals about his life, and he would regularly make statements attempting to distance himself from CKT’s alleged criminal activities, as well as building connections in the political world. Chow posed for photos with then-Mayor Gavin Newsom and other local political figures.

“Chow has also been portrayed in many Chinese newspapers as being involved in community affairs and has been photographed posing with local politicians and other community leaders. For example, in August of 2006, Chow was photographed hold a Certificate of Honor from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for community service of the CKT,” it reads.

But the complaint also said that Chow continued to make incriminating statements to the undercover agents “confirming his knowledge of and involvement in criminal activity.”

The complaint says that Yee also made many exculpatory statements and expressed discomfort with how openly UCE 4180 discussed overt “pay to play” links between cash donations and official actions.

“Despite complaining about UCE 4180’s tendency to speak frankly and tie payment to performance, and threatening to cut off contact with UCE 4180, Senator Yee and Keith Jackson continued to deal with UCE 4180 and never walked away from quid pro quo requests make by UCE 4180. In fact, Senator Yee provided the introductions sought by UCE 4180 and accepted cash payments which UCE 4180 expressly tied to the making of the introductions.”

Yee’s attorney, Paul DeMeester, told reporters they will contest the charges: “We will always in every case enter not guilty pleas, then the case takes on a life of its own.”

Officials in San Francisco and Sacramento are still reeling from the allegations. “I think the whole city is in shock at the moment,” Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, who represents Chinatown and ran against Yee in the 2011 mayor’s race, told us. “Today’s widespread law enforcement actions are incredibly disturbing. The detail and scale of the criminal activities are shocking.”

California Senate President Darrell Steinberg told reporters today that he has asked for Yee’s resignation and that he plans to introduce a resolution Friday to suspend Yee and two other Democrats chargeed with political corruption, Rod Wright and Ron Calderon.

Sen. Mark Leno (D-SF), who took part in that briefing, told the Guardian, “I’m frustrated and angered on behalf of my constituents that my Senate colleagues and I are there each day to create positive changes and all of these situations are distracting…It reflects badly on a great institution.”

Guardian reporter Joe Rodriguez Fitzgerald, who contributed to this report, has been covering this case from the federal courthouse today, and we’ll have more on this unfolding story in the coming days and the next issue of the Guardian.

Unanswered question on SF housing

Michael Redmond

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March 25, 2014

3

Nobody has a good answer to San Francisco’s most basic housing problem: How do we build the housing that existing city residents need? It was a question the Guardian has been posing for many years, and one that I again asked a panel of journalists and housing advocates on March 14, again getting no good answers.

The question is an important one given Mayor Ed Lee’s so-called "affordability agenda" and pledge to build 30,000 new housing units, a third of them somehow affordable, by 2020. And it’s a question that led to the founding 30 years ago of Bridge Housing, the builder of affordable and supportive housing that assembled this media roundtable.

"There really isn’t one thing, there needs to be a lot of changes in a lot of areas to make it happen," was the closest that Bridge CEO Cynthia Parker came to answering the question.

One of those things is a general obligation bond measure this fall to fund affordable housing and transportation projects around the Bay Area, which Bridge and a large coalition of other partners are pushing. That would help channel some of the booming Bay Area’s wealth into its severely underfunded affordable housing and transit needs.

When I brought up other ideas from our March 12 Guardian editorial ("Lee must pay for his promises") for capturing more of the city’s wealth — such as new taxes on tech companies, a congestion pricing charge, and downtown transit assessment districts — Parker replied, "We’d be in favor of a lot of that."

Yet it’s going to take far more proactive, aggressive, and creative actions to really bridge the gap between the San Francisco Housing Element’s analysis that 60 percent of new housing should be below-market-rate and affordable to those earning 120 percent or less of the area median income, and the less than 20 percent that San Francisco is actually building and promoting through its policies. (Steven T. Jones)

No charges in CCSF protest

The two formerly jailed City College student protesters can now breathe a sigh of relief, as they learned March 19 that the District Attorney’s Office won’t be filing criminal charges against them.

Otto Pippenger, 20, and Dimitrios Philliou, 21, were detained by SFPD following a violent clash during a City College protest on March 13. Their ideological and physical fight for democracy at their school is also the subject of one of our print articles in this week’s Guardian ("Democracy for none," March 18). Philliou’s attorney confirmed to the Guardian that charges were not pursued by the District Attorney’s Office.

"The charges have been dropped for now, in terms of the criminal case," said Rachel Lederman, president of the San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which is representing Philliou.

But, she noted, they’re not out of the fire yet.

"The fight is not over for them," she said, "as it’s possible they’ll face school discipline."

Heidi Alletzhauser, Pippenger’s mother, told the Guardian that Vice Chancellor Faye Naples indicated the two would face some sort of disciplinary hearing, though Naples told Alletzhauser that Pippenger would not be expelled. (Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez)

Activists cross the border

Last November, the Guardian profiled Alex Aldana, a queer immigration activist who was born in Mexico but came to Pomona, California with his mother and sister on a visa at the age of 16 ("Undocumented and unafraid," 11/12/14).

On March 18, Aldana joined a group of undocumented immigrants in a protest at the US border crossing at Otay Mesa in San Diego. Chanting together as a group, they marched over the border and presented themselves to U.S. Immigration and Customs and Border protection agents, whom they asked for asylum.

Among the immigrants who surrendered to immigration agents were women, children, and teens. Some are separated from their husbands, children, and families in the US and, like my own mother (see "They deported my mom," March 11), wish to be reunited.

The youth protesters were brought to the US earlier in childhood, but deported to Mexico after being taken into custody and detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some would have qualified to remain under the Dream Act, but were forced to leave the country before it was signed into law.

The protesters marched toward the turnstiles that separate Mexico and the US, chanting "Yes we can," and "No human is illegal."

A few feet from the gates, the group paused to listen to a final pep talk from Aldana.

The action was captured and recorded in real time on U-Stream. About 16 minutes into the video, he can be seen addressing the crowd, fist raised. "We have nothing to lose but our chains," Aldana told the group. Then, in Spanish, he said, "Without papers," to which his fellow protesters responded, "without fear."

They made their way to the turnstiles and one by one they walked through, straight into custody of US border guards. As they crossed the border, they told a cameraperson where they hoped to go. They named cities, such as Phoenix and Tucson, and states, such as Alabama, Oregon, and North Carolina. But each one said, in English or Spanish, "we’re going home."

It was part of a series of organized border crossings by the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, to highlight the experiences of young people who lived for years in the United States but were deported due to their immigration status. In Aldana’s case, he traveled to Mexico voluntarily, due to a family emergency. (Francisco Alvarado)

Oakland settles with injured Occupier

Iraq War veteran and injured Occupy Oakland protester Scott Olsen, 26, won a settlement of $4.5 million from the city of Oakland in a federal lawsuit, his attorneys announced March 21.

At the tail end of a thousands-strong 2011 Occupy Oakland protest, an Oakland Police Department officer fired a beanbag directly into Olsen’s head, causing serious and lasting brain injury. His attorney, Rachel Lederman, said that was why the payout was so high.

"His bones were shattered, part of his brain was destroyed," she told the Guardian. "He’d been working as a computer system network administrator. He’s not going back to that kind of work, and it compensates him for his wage loss for his lifetime."

But in the end, she said, "No amount of money can put his head back together." (Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez)

Guardian seeks columnists

The Bay Guardian is looking for a pair of new freelance writers to do separate monthly columns covering the technology industry and economic/social justice issues. The two new columns would go into a rotation we’re tentatively calling Soul of the City, along with Jason Henderson’s Street Fight column and a new environmental column by News Editor Rebecca Bowe that we’ll debut in our Earth Day issue.

For the technology column, we want someone with a deep understanding of this industry, its economic and personality drivers, and the role it could and should play in the civic life of San Francisco and nearby communities. We aren’t looking for gadget reviews or TechCrunch-style evangelizing or fetishizing of the tech sector, but someone with an illuminating, populist perspective that appeals to a broad base of Guardian readers.

The other column, on economic and social justice issues, would cover everything from housing rights to labor to police accountability issues, with an eye toward how San Francisco can maintain its diversity and cultural vibrancy. We want someone steeped in Bay Area political activism and advocacy, but with an independent streak and fearless desire to speak truth to power.

We strongly encourage candidates of color, young people, and those representing communities that need a stronger voice in the local political discourse to apply.

If you’re interested, please sent your qualifications and concepts, along with one sample column and ideas for future columns, to Editor-in-Chief Steven T. Jones at steve@sfbg.com. Help us escalate this fight for the soul of the city by adding your voice to the Guardian’s mix.

SFPD to answer questions on fatal shooting of Alejandro Nieto

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

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March 25, 2014

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SFPD to answer questions on fatal shooting of Alejandro Nieto

San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr will be on hand this evening [Tue/25] for a town hall meeting to discuss last week’s officer-involved shooting in Bernal Heights Park. The shooting victim, 28-year-old Alejandro Nieto, was a City College of San Francisco student, a Latino, and Bernal Heights resident who had hoped to become a youth probation officer.

Just before sunset last night [Mon/24], a group of about 150 friends, family members, and community supporters gathered for a vigil at the spot where he was gunned down by multiple police officers.

The community members lit candles, sang, burned incense, and conducted Buddhist chants in honor of his spiritual practice. Those who knew Nieto, whom they called Alex, described him as caring, ambitious, and committed to nonviolence.

“He was such a bright person,” said Ben Bac Sierra, an author and instructor at City College who knew Nieto through shared ties in the neighborhood. Nieto had been helping Bacsierra organize community events and book readings, he said. They’d rolled down Mission Street together in a classic low-rider for a parade, shouting “si se puede!” while onlookers cheered them on.

Torrance Bynum, former dean at City College’s Evans and Southeast Center campus and a former instructor of Administration of Justice, described himself to the Bay Guardian as Nieto’s mentor. “I would give him rides home from class,” he said. Nieto would stop by to visit him, and “if I was in a meeting, he would wait for me.” Bynum said he’d phoned Nieto on his birthday just a few weeks ago, March 4.

On Monday night, major questions still lingered about the events leading up to Nieto’s death.

A statement issued by the SFPD on March 21, about three hours after the shooting, said officers had arrived at the park in response to “911 calls of a male subject with a gun.” Police “encountered a male subject with a weapon,” the statement went on. “The male subject pointed a weapon at the officers, and multiple officers discharged their firearms.” (In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Deputy Police Chief Lyn Tomioka indicated that he “appeared to draw a weapon.”) He was pronounced dead, the statement noted, “and an additional weapon was found.”

In the days following the shooting, however, friends and family members told reporters that Nieto had a stun gun, not a firearm, because he worked as a security guard at a nightclub. They also said Nieto was peacefully eating a burrito just before the shooting occurred.

According to California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services records, Nieto obtained registration to work as a guard/patrolperson in June of 2007, and obtained a permit to carry a baton in September of 2013. Security guards must complete a 40-hour course of required training before registering with the state.

A report in the San Francisco Chronicle suggested that just before the shooting, Nieto was “acting erratically and threatening passersby,” quoting an unnamed witness who said a man had threatened his dog with a “pistol-type stun gun” and yelled profanities. It also referenced a past incident involving Nieto’s alleged use of a stun gun.

A person who declined to be named told the Bay Guardian that about half an hour before the shooting occurred, two men who were walking down the pedestrian pathway on the north slope of Bernal Heights Park alerted a jogger that there was a man ahead wearing a gun on his hip.

They told the jogger that they had called the police. The jogger, who was about 50 feet from the man and started moving away from him after receiving the warning, was too far away to see whether he had a weapon but noticed that he was “pacing back and forth” and “air boxing.”

When the Bay Guardian phoned the SFPD to ask what sort of weapon had been discovered, Sgt. Danielle Newman said she could not release that information.

“He was never arrested in his life,” Bac Sierra said of Nieto during the vigil. “He wanted to be a good person – and he was.”

Bac Sierra later told the Bay Guardian he’d first heard the news Saturday night, and spoke with members of Nieto’s family the following day. The family was not notified of what happened until 3pm the day after the shooting, he said. The report was that Nieto had been shot 14 times.

Sup. John Avalos, who represents the Excelsior District, said he had worked with Nieto in the past and knew him from Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth. “I was making sure that his life was going in a positive direction, and what we saw in Alejandro was that he had a really big heart,” Avalos said at last night’s vigil. “He gave it to a lot of people, and often probably didn’t give it enough to himself.”

He added, “Blood’s been shed, in this case, by people we’re supposed to trust. But … we have a lot of difficulty trusting our police, because from time to time these things happen.”

Avalos also mentioned that when it comes to dealing with subjects who are mentally ill, SFPD has an established protocol. Under a program that began in 2011, specially trained officers with the department’s Crisis Intervention Team are to be dispatched to the scene when calls involve a mentally ill individual.

At tonight’s meeting, Suhr is expected to answer questions from community members. Friends and supporters of Nieto are still in shock from the news.

“I don’t know what it’s going to take, but I think all of us here should call on the Office of Citizen Complaints, and make sure they do an investigation,” Avalos said. “We need to make sure that the officer who – I really hope, despite all the shots that were fired, are having trouble with their consciences right now. Because taking anybody’s life, or hurting anyone in such a way, is unconscionable. This young man, he deserves that from all of us, to make sure the senseless taking of his life was not done in vain, that it leads to something better.”

Avalos said he was also there on behalf of Mission District Sup. David Campos, who was unable to attend because he was in a hearing.

The SFPD town hall is scheduled for 6pm at Leonard Flynn Elementary School, located at 3125 Cesar Chavez Street.

Bac Sierra urged everyone gathered at the vigil to attend the town hall meeting. “Those cops have to feel this,” he said. “This neighborhood has to feel this.”