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Police commission reviews early intervention data showing 281 alerts in Q1; department to tailor alerts with University of Chicago
Summary
The San Francisco Police Commission heard a detailed first-quarter 2017 Early Intervention System briefing showing 281 alerts, 353 uses-of-force incidents and five open interventions. The department said it will work with the University of Chicago to refine alerts by comparing officers in similar assignments.
The San Francisco Police Commission on Wednesday reviewed the Police Department's first-quarter 2017 Early Intervention System (EIS) briefing, which identified 281 alerts and a series of recommendations to refine how the department detects patterns of problematic conduct.
Sergeant Stacey Youngblood told commissioners the EIS recorded 281 alerts in the quarter, with 47 percent triggered by three-or-more uses of force within a three-month period. She said the quarter included 353 use-of-force incidents involving 653 officers and a total of 803 discrete uses of force logged in the system.
'The alerts are threshold-driven,' Youngblood said, describing the distinction between 'indicators' (individual flags such as an OCC complaint or a use-of-force event) and 'alerts' (when thresholds are met). She said 9 percent of members received EIS alerts in Q1 2017 and the department currently has five open interventions, two for failure to appear in court and three for tactical communication concerns.
Commissioners pressed for clarifications. Commissioner De Jesus asked what drives the large increase in alerts on page 7 of the briefing; Youngblood said the inclusion of 'pointing a firearm' as an indicator beginning in late 2015 accounts for much of the change. Commissioners also sought the percentage of officers who triggered alerts and the presenter said the figure appears later in the packet as about 9 percent.
The department described station-level patterns, reporting Mission, Bayview, Tenderloin and Southern among the busier stations for indicators and alerts. Youngblood said the EIS currently compares officers department-wide but that the University of Chicago has been invited to help redesign the system to compare officers working in similar assignments and neighborhoods so alerts better reflect local operational context.
'We need to compare officers within the same area,' Youngblood said, noting that an officer assigned to the Tenderloin has a different assignment than an officer in the Richmond District.
The presentation also summarized interventions and remediation options: personalized coaching, 30/60/90-day performance plans, academy refresher courses and, when appropriate, formal referrals. Youngblood said many supervisors engage in informal counseling before a case reaches formal intervention.
No formal action was taken; commissioners asked staff to return with tailored EIS proposals and data showing how the University of Chicago recommendations would change alert triggers.
