Following a spate of controversial public safety incidents, Mayor Ed Lee and other city officials called on the Department of Justice’s office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) to assess the SFPD and provide a roadmap for improvement. In October of 2016, COPS released its report introducing the launch of several reform initiatives. As the oversight and accountability body overseeing the San Francisco Police Department, the Commission is a primary stakeholder ensuring sustainable change and improvements in everything from anti-bias training to body-worn camera adoption to policy revision.
FUSE Executive Fellow Rania Adwan, in coordination with the Office of the Mayor, supported the seven-member commission in building the department’s reform efforts. Rania’s work moved to restructure and streamline the process by which department policies are drafted and implemented, improved inter-agency coordination on critical matters such as complaints and investigations, and developed the process for city-wide debate on use of force options. The commission now has clear channels to engage in the reform efforts and a reporting structure to hear the department’s progress, bolstering its ability to track and understand the work undertaken by the SFPD towards improvement. Rania brokered difficult conversations around police accountability, civic engagement, constitutional policing, use of force, individual rights and the impact of implicit bias.
