When San Francisco’s Police Commission voted in January to approve a new policy to curtail certain traffic stops that often target communities of color, it was hailed by some as a historic victory.
Now, nearly a year later, that policy has yet to be enacted. Instead, it remains mired in closed-door bargaining sessions with the police union.
The traffic stops, called pretext stops, are a common police practice: Police officers pull over drivers for minor infractions — like a broken tail light or expired tags — as an excuse to embark on a fishing expedition for other crimes. Officers have been accused of disproportionately using pretext stops to search and question Black and Latinx drivers, potentially leading to higher uses of force or killings among those groups.
The bargaining process, called “meet-and-confer,” allows for the San Francisco Police Officers Association, or POA, to raise concerns, if the policy could affect the terms of its members’ labor contract.
But historically, meet-and-confer has been used to stall policies that the union dislikes, outside of public view, and forces negotiations for months, or even years, on policy issues outside its purview, according to those involved.
“It’s now been well known for quite a while that the scope of the meet-and- confer is one thing that the POA has traditionally abused,” said David Rizk, a deputy federal public defender who has done extensive police-reform work with the San Francisco Bar Association. “Historically, the city was expressly tolerant of that, as part of a sort of overall pro-labor approach to governance.”
The union, over the years, has often raised issues unrelated to its labor contract, Rizk said, delaying the policies from implementation.
And, that the union opposes the pretext stop policy — one already successfully enacted in places like North Carolina and Washington — isn’t mere conjecture.
“Apparently, it’s going to be a downright fight with us,” wrote union head Lt. Tracy McCray in the union’s October newsletter, “as we will not rollover on any policy that jeopardizes our ability to get dangerous criminals off our streets.” (The statement came after a series of policy discussions in 2022 in which McCray was present, and months into the commission’s negotiations with the union.)
The policy outlines nine non-moving traffic violations that officers should not use as the sole basis for stopping a driver, and encourages police to instead focus on more dangerous moving violations. If a motorist is suspected of a crime, officers can still pull them over for that crime, and cite them for any of the nine violations.
“This is not a radical policy,” said Brian Cox, director of the Public Defender’s Office’s Integrity Unit. “What the Commission is doing is bringing us in line with best practices across the country.”
And yet, the policy remains in limbo, and the public remains in the dark as to why.
Potential conflicts of interest
In addition to the union and the commission, other city agencies also play a role in the meet-and-confer process: The City Attorney’s Office is present, as is the Department of Human Resources representative who delivers communications between the commission and the union.
These arrangements, however, raise the specter of a conflict of interest.
For example, the Department of Human Resources representative, LaWanna Preston, is not an independent go-between. She reports to the oft union-aligned police chief during the bargaining process, not the purportedly impartial HR department.
And the City Attorney’s Office represents both the police department and the Police Commission — often at odds. City attorneys will both defend officers facing lawsuits for misconduct, and advise the commission on setting policy and doling out discipline to those same officers.
“It’s time for the Police Commission to have its own attorney,” said Cox. “The City Attorney is the agency that defends the city in lawsuits, and they represent the police department — they’re in a conflict-of-interest situation.”
To what extent the City Attorney’s Office and the Department of Human Resources are complicitly allowing the meet-and-confer process to drag on, sometimes for years, is unclear.
As in any attorney-client relationship, the commission can choose to take or reject the city attorney’s advice. And the San Francisco Bar Association, for its part, has warned that the union would try to stall the pretext stops policy, and that did not belong within the meet-and-confer process; they have also said in the past that the City Attorney’s Office gave improper advice to the commission.
The Police Commission has, in recent years, nominally been shifting away from the city’s history of obeisance to the union — but often chooses to hear the union out for longer than required by law.
The DOJ specifically called out meet-and-confer
One of the U.S. Department of Justice’s 272 reform recommendations from 2016 to improve policing in San Francisco stated that the union and the commission should “identify ways to improve input and expedite the process in the future for other policy development.” In other words, it emphasized the need for fast action, particularly when it comes to critical policies.
And, initially, steps were taken to make this so. Records show that, in 2018, then-Police Commission President Robert Hirsch instructed the Department of Human Resources “to only meet and confer over mandatory subjects of bargaining.”
The current police commission has also taken a similar stance. When it passed the pretext-stop policy in early 2023, Commissioner Kevin Benedicto called for a quick and “good-faith” bargaining process.
This week, Benedicto called the lengthy negotiations “disappointing.”
“We’re bargaining in good faith on issues that fall within the scope,” said Benedicto, though he did not say whether out-of-scope matters had been raised by the union over the past year.
Commission Vice President Max Carter-Oberstone agreed, saying that the meet-and-confer process for the pretext-stop policy had already gone on for “an extraordinary amount of time,” and that the commission has been “doing far more than the law requires.”
Carter-Oberstone seemed to agree with the Bar Association’s assessment that the policy is not subject to negotiation with the union.
Benedicto, who once advocated with the Bar Association, said it could be “very frustrating” for community members and groups who organize to push forward policy only to see stalled implementation.
Past time for impasse
While the pretext-stop policy has been in meet-and-confer, a misinformation campaign has spread among often-online commentators who seem to believe the policy has already taken effect — and blame perceived lawlessness in the city on police having their hands tied.
And now, as the year mark approaches, some say action is needed.
“I think it’s well past time for the Police Commission to call an impasse,” said former commissioner Angela Chan, now a policy chief in the Public Defender’s office. She said she didn’t remember stalling tactics from the union being as common when she served on the Police Commission between 2010 and 2014.
There are recent precedents for this. When the Police Commission found itself in a similar stalemate with the union over a contentious new use-of-force policy in 2016, it declared an impasse and decided to end negotiations, voting to adopt the policy six months later.
(The union filed a lawsuit, lost, then appealed. The Court of Appeal ruled that the city was not required to meet and confer on the policy, arguing that such a requirement would “defeat the purpose of requiring cities to make fundamental managerial or policy decisions independently.”)
The body-worn camera policy, too, was stalled for more than two years; an impasse was declared in 2019, and an agreement was reached by late 2020 to change one non-binding sentence.
“Sometimes you just have — to borrow a phrase from ‘The Godfather’ — … to go to the mattresses,” said Cox. Or, Rizk said, the commission could lift the veil on negotiations and make them public, applying some pressure on the union.
Today’s commission has already begun disclosing when messages were sent to the union and when responses were received by the commission.
But last week, despite being in recess, the Police Commission called a special meeting, apparently for the sole purpose of discussing the pretext stop policy with the labor negotiator. That meeting, too, was held in private.
“The traffic stops, called pretext stops, are a common police practice: Police officers pull over drivers for minor infractions”
These certainly aren’t common in San Francisco, where police officers have decided they no longer need to pull over drivers at all.
Pretext stops lead to rescue of kidnapped, trafficked minors. They lead to apprehension of wanted felons. They lead to disruption of crime. All of which is for the common good of the community. What significance is that disproportionate involvement of black and Hispanic drivers (if that’s really the case) when black and Hispanic officers are the ones making the stop? Because there’s a lot of them doing just that. If low priority stops “potentially (lead) to higher uses of force or killings among those groups”, just what do they think more high stakes stops will lead to?
Remember Timothy McVeigh was pulled over for a minor violation after he had blown up the federal building. Stop limiting the police from being proactive.
Disabling responsible cops to stop and cite vehicles for broken tail lights for instance is not just cutting down the numbers of and putting the onerous of irresponsible let alone fraudster drivers to prove their taillights were working before a fender bender accident! It is also to ensure they allow responsible drivers in the rear to know s/he in the front is coming to a stop whether it is in the day but especially dangerous in the night! Because it is too late for cops on the accident scene to know if the driver in the front in a fender bender case is also at fault! Even responsible drivers are helped by cops to stop and cite us for driving with a broken tail lights which failed anytime before we bring it in for annual maintenance check! In California with already high insurance premiums due to many criminals on the streets! Drivers from minority races will not be targeted by cops if they are responsible drivers with proper working vehicles! If a driver is not responsible it has nothing to do with their race but a danger to other responsible drivers! The already bad attitudes of some black and brown vehicle drivers are well known to all so that the cops doing their jobs already keeping a blind eye when they are driving in their hoods but it should NOT be allowed in neighborhoods of San Francisco with responsible locals and tourists visiting our City!!!
The Police Commission is a huge part of the problem in this city and should be ignored as much as possible.
Did you all see that Shohei Ohtani wouldn’t come to the Giants because of the street crime? One can argue about whether the crime, or the perception of crime, is the true problem. But there’s a big problem in this city, and it’s NOT that police are stopping too many motorists.
If the issue is so important then why did the members of the Police Commission take off the entire months of August and December and no meeting APEC week. The Commission President has not been at any meeting since August To keep an issue moving forward you need to keep it in the public eye but when you and your leadership take that much time off then things will not be in the public eye and not moving forward.
Krupke,
The Mayor’s people led by former Progressive, Debra Walker have been trying to torpedo their own commission since the Mayor lost control when one of her appointees turned out to be not only honest, but fearless.
He was the one who blew the whistle on London’s ‘I quit whenever you want’ letters everyone had to sign before getting these jobs with the Mayor.
I’ve been wondering why whatshername the president is absent so much.
That gives the Mayor’s people an opening to defeat a quorum lacking, or whatever by walking out of the meeting led by Walker and the Mayor’s other appointees didn’t like it either and then the meeting has to pause til the Mayor’s lackies led by Walker return.
No coincidence that the Mayor has a measure on one of the 2024 ballots taking power away from the commission she no longer controls like she can the Chief.
Til Matt Gonzalez came to Town in 2002 the Mayor appointed all 7 commissioners.
the underlying issue here is that the SFPD members won’t do their job unless the city meets their demands. this was apparent when retail theft and car break-ins soared because the sf poa didn’t like the reform-minded da.
much like the military coups justify overthrowing elected governments for not addressing perceived threats, we have a militarized organization refusing to follow the governing policy of the elected government and effectively dictating governance because they have the guns.
the sf poa is a threat to our democratic institutions.
f*&k the poa!
” “as we will not rollover on any policy that jeopardizes our ability to get dangerous criminals off our streets.”
I do not believe this at all. They just want to do what they want to do.
Thanks for the compliment r.Brown. My parents would have been very upset to know that my French heritage is being mocked when
Referring to measure Delugnuts. The DOJ report was a huge overreach as some departments around the US refused to implement
any of their proposed changes.this is very simple and people just don’t get it. If you come to work everyday and hear the BOS slamming you,
Led by the little Napoleon, a Police Commision ,most of whom hate
Cops, and a Chief of police who make a great mannequin, but not much of a Chief of Police. No cop is going to put a full effort fourth
When their performance and discipline are in the hands of these
Booger eating morons. Anyone reading this answer me one question
If you wanted to be a cop, would you really go to SF. What would be the possible motivation when you could go to myriad cities the more and
And in a community where cops are respected and have the backing of city government. Gary Delagnes
changes
To quote Hamlet, to do the bidding of the Police Commission “is a custom more honour’d in the breach than the observance.”
You’re kidding, right ?
You’re worried about them stopping someone proactively ?
How about being worried about when they do nothing at all ?
That’s what they did when Chesa Boudin was DA and they wanted crime in San Francisco to look out of control which it was because their Union told them to do a Slowdown and ignore people beating the crap out of bus driver’s (“you’ll be OK” – ML cop comment to bleeding bus driver with perp across street ignored) …
I thought SFPOA couldn’t get anyone worse than Delugnuts but McCray apparently can’t even read and she’s a Lieutenant from Sub-Hell.
No Problem.
An elected Police Chief can bring order if they exercise the powers granted them by the new Charter Amendment that creates their office.
Proof ?
How about the Sheriff’s Department ?
The Deputies don’t do Work Slowdowns.
Sheriff Miyamoto is the Boss and that’s it.
Just like Michael Hennessey was the Boss for 32 years.
The Latter built the first Round Jail in America.
And, the first School Inside a Jail.
You’ll be seeing it all as their new Oversite Commission takes shape.
Just named their Inspector General at $239,000 a year.
Terry Wiley
Career Prosecutor
Played football at Cal (looks like big running back)
Oversaw a Juvenile Division somewhere.
Just lost election for DA against their Reform incumbent.