By Vivian Ho
>San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO — The least-controversial part of San Francisco’s very controversial discussion about law enforcement reform is a ballot measure expected to pass in the June 7 election.
Proposition D, spearheaded by Supervisor Malia Cohen, would require the civilian agency that looks into complaints of police misconduct to investigate every officer-involved shooting, instead of just shootings when a complaint is made.
The Office of Citizen Complaints investigates only about half of police shootings because investigators cannot open a case unless someone files a complaint — even though they respond to the scene whenever an officer fires a gun.
Cohen said that she believes many people don’t know they may file a complaint and that changing the process sends “a clear message to everyone near and far that we value transparency and accountability.”
“Proposition D is one step that brings us closer to rebuilding trust, and we are going to do that through transparency,” she said.
Cohen introduced the ballot measure after San Francisco became a topic in the national conversation on police misconduct and racial bias following a series of police shootings.
After a video of the Dec. 2 shooting of Mario Woods showed what many people described as an excessive use of force, the Police Commission began to reconsider the department’s use-of-force policy, and the U.S. Department of Justice’s community-policing unit launched a review of the Police Department at the request of Chief Greg Suhr and Mayor Ed Lee.
The discussion about the Police Department has been heated at times, but throughout the process, no one has opposed Cohen’s ballot measure. Suhr said he saw “no problem” with the initiative, and the Police Commission issued a resolution in February supporting it.
“This is a commonsense reform, but just because it’s common sense doesn’t mean it’s not important,” Police Commission President Suzy Loftus said. “Part of what we have to do is connect the dots and invite people to understand the system we have, and where there are places to improve it, we need to do that.”
Even the police union supports the measure, though Police Officers Association President Martin Halloran made it clear that the union does not support Cohen. Halloran clashed with Cohen after the Woods shooting, when she described the officers who fatally shot Woods as an “ethnically diverse firing squad.” Halloran called that “insensitive and inflammatory.”
“They already have the authority to conduct those investigations and we have nothing to hide, so go ahead and investigate,” Halloran said. “It will show that our members get it right 99.9 percent of the time.”
Office of Citizen Complaints Director Joyce Hicks, who worked with Cohen on the legislation, said she sees it as a way to give her agency “a jump start on the most serious investigations.”
Although in the eight years she has headed the agency, the office has never had a finding of wrongdoing in an officer-involved shooting that would require officer discipline, Hicks said investigators have made several policy recommendations that resulted in department bulletins issued by the chief — direct orders from the chief that officers must follow.
One such policy recommendation came from a shooting at a single-room occupancy hotel, Hicks said. Investigators found the shooting a failure of policy, not of officer conduct, in that the officer used a master key to enter the person’s room.
“As a result of our recommendations, the chief drafted a department bulletin reminding the officers that they have to follow the normal search-and-seizure laws, and you cannot get a passkey from the property manager and just walk into somebody’s room,” Hicks said.
Last year, the agency, which was created by voters in 1982, investigated almost 700 cases, Hicks said.
Although she has concerns about Prop. D increasing her office’s case load, Hicks said, she has planned for that and is seeking additional funding.
Cohen said that Hicks has her support in this area and that she is looking into drafting legislation that would get the agency more resources. Prop. D, she said, is just the first of her efforts to strengthen the agency.
“People have not paid attention for a very long time to the Office of Citizen Complaints, and I think if people knew they had a right to request investigations, we would see greater numbers,” she said. “That’s the spirit of Prop. D. It’s about raising people’s general awareness about the different mechanisms people can exercise when it comes to their interactions with law enforcement.”
Copyright 2016 the San Francisco Chronicle