Last week, Mayor London Breed announced that she’d be calling upon we the voters in March 2024 to alter policy regarding San Francisco police car chases. Because the Police Commission has “gone way too far,” she says, officers are unable to careen through the city like Frank Bullitt in pursuit of criminals who’ve pilfered a Walgreens or bipped a car window and stolen a suitcase.
It’s not surprising the Police Commission is being singled out for mayoral opprobrium here. The mayor, through a uniquely spectacular political own goal, antagonized and alienated her own appointee and lost control of that body. The Police Commission is the latest in a series of groups or individuals the mayor has singled out as responsible for the city’s problems (not her).
Prior and/or current repositories of mayoral blame include: The (since-ousted) leftist District Attorney, the Board of Supervisors, myriad unwieldy commissions, sclerotic city departments, local, state and federal judges and, finally we the voters, who have abridged mayoral powers as outlined in the City Charter of 1996.
What’s a bit jarring is that the Police Commission would be chided regarding the police department’s vehicle-pursuit policy — which was adopted in 2013. The commission, at that time, was composed of Suzy Loftus, Julius Turman, Joe Marshall, Petra DeJesus, Sonia Melara, Thomas “Tip” Mazzucco and Victor Hwang. Nobody has suggested pillorying any of them yet, but the deadline for the November 2024 ballot remains a ways off.
Mayor Breed chose Alamo Square as the site to hold a press conference announcing this nascent ballot measure. And — officially at least — that wasn’t meant merely to troll Supervisor Dean Preston. Rather, she said, it was because of a recent viral video of a vehicle break-in there, in which it appeared a police car with flashing lights was doing nothing to prevent a thief from shattering a car window and scurrying off with someone’s property.
“Many people wondered why the police could not pursue and make sure that person is brought to justice,” Breed told the crowd, for whatever reason adopting the Donald Trump “many people” framing when lobbing dubious propositions. “Some of the changes to policies have limited our officers’ ability to be as effective as we know they can.”
Well, that’s interesting. And not just because, as noted above, the “changes” the mayor is mentioning are a decade old, and were enacted by people who have long since departed this commission — and, in one case, departed this mortal coil. More to the point: The police did pursue the thief on the viral video. The suspect dropped the stuff he’d stolen, and fled.
The anecdote the mayor used to undergird her photo-op — and symbolically justify this ballot proposition — simply did not happen.
For good measure, Breed introduced two ballot measures on Oct. 17: The second would require the city’s thousands of welfare recipients to undergo drug screening and potentially be compelled into treatment if they want to retain money and/or housing.
There’s plenty of incongruous stuff in both, but parsing their content feels a bit like scoffing at physics incongruities in a “Star Trek” episode — adhering to reality is not the point here. But, okay, what the hell: Here are a few quick things:
- Does it make sense to combat San Francisco’s decades-long property-crime problems by encouraging more high-speed police chases in a densely populated city — especially when, in too many instances, police spurn the calls from people who have trackers on their stolen property or other tangible evidence, and know exactly where their items are?
- Does it make sense, as Breed’s police measure would, to exempt use of police surveillance from the extant process that dozens of city departments have already successfully navigated regarding scores of surveillance systems? In 2021, the SFPD went through that process to clear its use of a license plate reader — a potentially fraught technology that, if not handled carefully, can result in federal authorities co-opting local efforts and deporting people. If the police can handle the delicate task of defining policy here, why can’t they produce coherent drone policy or camera policy? (Of note: It appears Breed’s legislation deftly and surreptitiously undoes this city’s ban on facial recognition technology).
- On its face, does it make sense to coerce drug-using welfare recipients into treatment on pain of losing money and/or housing — a move that seems to be a recipe for increased homelessness and property crime? Numerous scientific studies have cast doubt upon this strategy: See here, here, here, here, here and here.
So, it’s hard to relate to these ballot measures as serious efforts to improve San Francisco governance — or, frankly, its residents’ lives. Everything makes much more sense if you simply view them as transparently political vehicles aimed at bolstering the mayor’s re-election campaign.
Way back in 2018, when the San Francisco police union was attempting to entice voters into ratifying its own chosen SFPD equipment policy, Chief Bill Scott had thoughts on outsourcing such decisions to the electorate.
“It is not a national best practice to promulgate policing operational policies relating to equipment usage and regulation by voter majority …” he wrote about a Taser regulation measure that ultimately lost by a 60-40 margin.
“This responsibility to set and make policy adjustments, and the responsibility to manage the operations of the Department, should rest with the Police Commission and the Chief of Police, respectively.”
And yet, there was Chief Scott alongside Breed at her Alamo Square press conference, in his uniform at a political event — a questionable ethical proposition. There he stood as she called for the promulgation, by voter majority, of policing operational policies relating to equipment usage and regulation. Gee, chief — what changed?
Politics changed. And there’s quite a difference between governing and politics — and none of this makes a whole lot of sense as governing. But, you know what? As politics, the mayor’s ballot measures could work out fine — for her. By coming out in favor of drug-testing welfare recipients — a move also favored by MAGA chaos agent Rep. Matt Gaetz — Breed neatly prevented any of her mayoral opponents from outflanking her on the right.
Mayoral aspirant Daniel Lurie was quick to blast Breed’s proposal as unserious and unworkable. And that may well be so. But he also may have just taken the bait: If one views Breed’s ballot measures not as policy proposals, but political ploys designed to shore up her conservative support and block Lurie or anyone else from eroding that support, then Lurie just did that work for her.
Breed’s measures can serve as a convenient, sloganeering wedge issue for any candidate seeking office in San Francisco — including individuals running for spots on the Democratic County Central Committee, which will, in the end, decide the local Democratic Party endorsements in the huge-turnout November 2024 election.
But you can do a lot more than bludgeon people ideologically with ballot measures like this. You can also raise a ton of cash. Unlike candidate races, which are capped at a $500 donation limit, generous donors can give unrestricted amounts of money to a ballot measure. Ballot campaigns, in fact, can even communicate and coordinate with candidate campaigns. Expect to see Mayor Breed on all the TV ads or mailers in March, shoring up her base for November.
“It’s basically a vehicle for a politician to run on, allowing them to raise money in unlimited amounts of dollars.”
Political strategist Jim ross
“It’s basically a vehicle for a politician to run on, allowing them to raise money in unlimited amounts of dollars,” sums up political strategist Jim Ross. And he ought to know!
Along with fellow strategist Eric Jaye, Ross helped pass Supervisor Gavin Newsom’s Care Not Cash measure in 2002, which Newsom used as a springboard to the mayor’s office in the following year. “Homelessness was the No. 1 issue, as it is now,” Ross continued. “In 2003, we put a variety of things on the ballot heading into the mayor’s race — restrictions on people on the street.”
Well, plus ça change. Both Jaye and Ross thought this strategy could work again, two decades later. Care Not Cash, both noted, appealed to voters because it was sold as compassionate; a strikingly similar measure that played up accountability and punitiveness was trounced two years prior. If Breed and her team can convince voters that coercing drug users into treatment at the potential cost of their housing and food money is actually compassionate, Jaye and Ross thought that may yet be a political winner.
They differed, however, on the November ramifications of Breed losing one or both of the March measures. Ross felt this would be a bit like, say, Michigan losing a home tune-up to Appalachian State — which would surely bode badly for the looming matchup vs. Ohio State.
Jaye, however, didn’t see it that way at all.
“You might be overthinking this,” he said. “This is not about getting 50 percent. It’s about keeping Daniel Lurie from taking away the 40 percent she needs to be a credible mayoral candidate.”
And if one or both of the measures lose?
“I could write her statement right now: ‘Unfortunately, we had a progressive electorate that fell for the lies of Dean Preston. The fight for the truth is not over, and begins again today.’”
For San Franciscans hoping for government solutions to this city’s myriad problems, we regret to inform you that it’s just shy of 13 months until the next mayoral election. Until then, it’ll be politics all the way down.
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Yes Breed is unqualified to lead this City. Yes lately she is pandering to donors and voters who think homelessness, mental illness and crime are real problems and who demand changes.
Bursting his own balloon, the author seems to acknowledge that pandering for votes happens every election.
But it’s unclear how the humble author (or Dean Preston) proposes to solve these problems. Perhaps he want us to raise more taxes and spend more money on the issues? Perhaps he believes these problems are not as bad as we are led to believe, or that solving these problems will create other unacceptable problems?
The dirty secret of SF politics is the size and spending of the SF Government. Breed is the highest paid mayor in the nation. There are hundreds of SF bureaucrats like her enjoying highly paid careers. Despite the lack of results, nobody in government is willing to suggest turning down the spigot of money given to them or their programs, because they don’t want to be next on the chopping block. This is something Breed and Preston can agree on. And sadly, no local writers (either moderate or progressive) seem interested in discussing this issue either.
Yes, I strongly agree on our Mayor’s stance. London Breed is doing an excellent job here. We all need to coming together to combat these pesky street crimes by letting SFPD act freely on the SF City streets. Our city’s police officers should never be subjected to constraints and restrictions on what they can or can not do. The woke BS should be removed ASAP. The criminals brats running around on our city streets assaulting the innocents and robbing stores in our community should all be locked up in their prison cells for a long long time.
I’ve not voted for any revenue measures for several years now, except for Preston’s vacancy tax, precisely because those dollars would simply go into the sieve of corruption, doing more harm in the long run than good.
It is a confession of “progressive” complicity that they are promoting most of these revenue measures even though under the strong mayor charter, Breed has repeatedly used those revenues to screw “progressives'” purported political priorities.
At this point, my approach is not to starve government until it is small enough to drown in a bath tub like Grover Norquist’s conservative prescription. No, I’m prepared to sacrifice activist government that we need and are not getting due to corruption by starving the beast until the parasites fall off.
In SF car chase terms, voting NO on revenue measures is like running a robot bomb car down the stub end of Clementina at 8th to take care of the problem, only nonviolently at the ballot box.
youtube . com /watch?v=TzUtXMNizVo
Feed a cold, starve a corrupt fever.
Interesting.
Thought I was the only one reflexively voting against every revenue measure. Even with the now popular inclusion of a “Citizens Oversight Committee” to guarantee the grifters won’t be skimming off a large chunk of the proceeds. What citizens? Who citizens?
And yeah – “until the parasites fall off”.
And the Vacancy Tax.
Whatever happened to that?
Evidently there’s still hundreds if not a thousand “affordable” non-profit run units still sitting vacant.
We were fed campaign pablum on 40,000, 60,000 or was it 80,000 privately held units sitting vacant the inclusion of which in the rental market would drastically alter the supply/demand equation leading to lower rental prices.
How’s that whole thing going?
London Breed is doing a fantastic job – San Francisco residents and business owners are fed up with crime and she’s responding
Easy to brush off crime concerns from your living room in Excelsior. Move to an apartment in SOMA with street parking and you’ll quickly change your tune
The brilliant inclusion of clips of car chases from “Bullitt” and “Dirty Harry” illustrates exactly why Breed’s legislation is folly. A year ago, when SFPD said that they needed killer robots armed with explosives to deploy in densely populated settings to protect people, the public outcry was deafening and SFPD was prevented from doing so. Back then SFPD bizarrely offered the mass shooting at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas as its main rationale; any thinking person understands that deploying an armed robot inside a 43 story hotel tower would have accomplished little. San Francisco is THE SECOND MOST DENSELY POPULATED CITY in America. Green lighting high speed car chases on our streets and in our neighborhoods is brain dead. It’s politicking and irresponsible. London Breed: San Francisco’s worst Mayor ever.
Willie Brown beats her for “worst” title and he’s not even the worst ever.
Breed is worse than Brown or even Jordan.
Brown was competent and malicious.
Jordan was too incompetent to be malicious.
Breed excels at both incompetence and maliciousness.
That is why we must build more prisons to lock up the baddies who are running around and robbing stores on our city streets.
Just give them back their helicopters. They were even better at crashing those.
Notable SF car chases in cinema
Magnum Force – Clint Eastwood (480)
What’s Up Doc? – Streisand
Foul Play – Chase and Hawn
The Rock – Nic Cage
48 Hours – Eddie Murphy (Muni)
Dirty Harry – Bus over bridge
Planet of the Apes -GGB escape (Franco)
Interview with the Vampire – Opening
Big Trouble In Little China – Truck scene
Antman and the Wasp – Entire film
Innerspace- ending
American Graffiti
THX 1138 – Motorcycle Chase in Pre Bart tunnels
Probably Vertigo as well
Bullitt- obviously
Any others?
Sir or madam —
Thank you for this public service. It’s not a “chase” scene per se, but the recent Muni scene from Shang-Chi may belong on some manner of list.
Yours,
JE
Not sure if Joe Eskenazi noticed, but governing in San Francisco was abandoned way before Breed. This is why we’re where we are at today. We have a police force that is over burdened, de-fanged, and humiliated. I applaud Breed for trying to turn that around. We have drug tourism. We need solutions and when someone tries to make changed to our failed system those who support the status quo call it out as politicising.
When my partner’s van was stolen last year, the GPS tracker told us right away via cell-phone app, but the SFPD refused to take any action at all beyond inviting us to file a police report. We knew where it was in real time while it was moving and where it was taken in Oakland. They refused to engage at all. The SFPD and Oakland PD both would not come with us to retrieve the van. Getting it back ourselves was SCARY.
I can’t fault you for choice of Police Squad clips! Great crossover episode!
Regarding Dean Preston, he lives at Alamo Square right? He’d do himself a ton of good by leading daily neighborhood watch tours, alerting tourists and taking photos and videos of the thieves.
I’m okay with the cops having tighter controls on police chases, and I am against facial recognition and the cops co-opting door camera and other video from private cameras without a warrant.
But I’d be quite good with a variety of semi-permanent drone solutions in frequently targeted neighborhoods. (What Alamo Square really needs is drones combined with remotely operated paint filled sprinklers in the park directed outward towards the street at the intersections)
Residents are sick of property crime. Preston ignores constituents concerns. More focused on getting Hayes St shut down, something we really don’t need. (There is plenty of rm on the sidewalks).
Now that D5 added the Tenderloin the tent encampments (with all their stolen property) has leaped over Van Ness and is inching ever closer to Deans house, but alas since it won’t go up the hill it will be ignored.
Enough. Crime, mental illness with open drug use is a problem for everyone. Dean is not interested in fixing it. At least the Mayor is doing something.
Residents will not be voting for the far-far left.
As Joe said: Breed purposely selected her Alamo Square photo op rally (with Dorsey, Engardio and wanna be supervisor Marjan Philhour innthe copaganda chorus) to troll Supervisor Preston. That right there should tell you something. Breed is small and petty. She makes speeches but has no plans on the why or hows. Same goes for all the recalls she promoted and supported. The DA and School Board were recalled. Things are worse than ever. And millions of tax payer dollars were wasted. Fine if you don’t like a candidate or their actions. Wait until election time and vote them out. Don’t waste $$$ on expensive pointless recalls.
I see Supervisor Stefani in the photo but not Philhour…
well…this bit of writing demonstrates clearly how SF finds itself in the position it is in. Playing the Trump card as criticism that he wants to be seriously considered is a dead nuts indicator that blind defense of ideologic narrative is the purpose of the effort.
Breed is playing the game and she’s probably holding her nose as she makes these statements, but she knows the writing is on the wall and law and order in SF is going to sell. But keep swinging, Ace. Maybe you can sell your narrative in Seattle, Portland or Baltimore.
Had an old coworker who’s wife was killed in a police chase. Bystander. That’s who dies in these chases.
That’s why bans on them are pretty widespread. Cops still find excuses to drive dangerously, but it helps a little.
That’s quite the morally vacant position to stake out, Mayor Breed.
It’s less the pursuit policy that is pi**ing people off than appearing to want to bring order to SF
I see why saying the policy is 10 years old helps absolve the current Police Commission in some people’s eyes. Except, what if it’s a bad policy? What if in the 10 years since it was passed, certain types of crime have increased & aren’t being battled effectively because of this policy? What if the City’s 911 stopped processing car break-in calls a few years after that policy was passed because they were clogging up the lines? (We can thank the Mayor’s predecessor for that one).
I think JE makes some good points here – don’t mistake my critiques above as trying to undermine them all. I agree – with the geolocation features built into a lot of what’s getting stolen – why isn’t that information being leveraged more? I fear the answer is that prosecutions based on where the items end up are inherently trickier & that chasing down more of this stuff after the fact probably isn’t as much of a deterrent as knowing that you might get chased after going on a spree.
The Mayor’s attempts to position herself for the upcoming election are best seen as vaporware. But there is a good debate to be had here at some point – like on the GPS point JE makes above. Why isn’t that happening? There might be a very good explanation to some of the points JE and I are making – shouldn’t these issues be joined in some forum, somewhere? What does the Mayor think the appropriate policies should be? What does Lurie think? The winner has the power of nomination for some of the seats at the PC.
As you might be able to tell, I don’t think this policy’s vintage should be counted in its favor. Is it working? Are we even coming close to tracking the extent of this problem much less solving it? My uneasy feeling is that we really aren’t even doing a good enough job data-wise to inform opinions. We’re getting back to the old Daniel P Moynihan maxim of each side being entitled to its own opinions, not its own facts. I fear the data here is so poor, we are spinning our wheels.
Mission Local is remarkably consistent. On every single issue involving crime and law enforcement, you manage to choose the wrong side. How do you do it?
Casey —
Must be a hell of a thing being the sole arbiter of right and wrong. Thanks for visiting our humble website.
JE
It used to be more challenging, I admit. In the beginning I would read your coverage and accept it at face value. Then I started looking at it more critically. There was a period when I wondered why you think “every cop is a criminal, and all the sinners saints.” I seriously wondered if you were kidding; if this whole website was an elaborate prank.
Now I’m at the final stage: acceptance. You all just really like criminals and really hate cops. Got it.
Casey —
Either you’re expertly parodying the dumbest and most reductive pseudo-take or you are that guy. Either way, enjoy yourself.
JE
Campers,
I am the only Mayoral candidate for 2024 with new ideas.
For this SF Police problem:
I’d bring in around 50 cops from Tawain and another 50 from Tokyo and some from Israel and Germany and Switzerland to rotate with a couple of hundred of San Francisco’s finest whom I’m certain our ‘Sister’ cities would welcome.
Some firefighters and nurses and DPW people too.
Two year tours like Peace Corps.
And, I’d move to bring Mike Hennessey’s idea of an elected SF Police Chief to voters.
Pick the one who guarantees and produces 1950’s style permanent Foot Patrols.
Use the 500 vacancies to hire Patrol Specials and recruit cops at law schools and convents and every tech convention in sight.
Yuval Harari rocks !
h.
Campers,
When some fire trucks fly big american flags off their tail ends.
Where cops are recruited off an LE Underground Railroad of bad apples.
What you got here is an Emergency Response Force in need of a Culture Change.
I’m serious about bringing in a hundred foreign cops,
The other Public Safety positions too.
Our cops and other departments need a complete Attitude Adjustment.
Mixing in some good apples will help.
Let’s see how this year’s Niners boys respond to defeat.
h.
Both Breed and Ronen expected to waltz into offices where all they were expected to do is to make sure that the connected operations get paid.
Eventualities undermined these presumptions, as circumstances deteriorated for a range of reasons, most unanticipated, and now these two find themselves in way over their heads.
This is as much an indictment of government as an agent of redistributing public revenue streams to private operators as it is the absolute unfitness for purpose of these two hacks–neither delivers the goods to an increasingly restive electorate–and are now desperately flailing, blamethrowing everywhere, onto everyone but them. This pathetic performance only exacerbates the antagonism and contempt in which the electorate now holds them.