Following the trail of broken glass

Broken car windows are telling a story that’s hard to miss in San Francisco. Auto break-ins and street muggings are bumping up across the city with fears fueled by word-ofmouth anecdotes and disturbing statistics.

The police clearly need to step up enforcement, which department leaders have begun. But it’s not enough to ward off an outside directive from the Board of Supervisors that will make matters worse.

From the Outer Mission neighborhoods to the twisty block of Lombard Street, the city is seeing a surge in street crime. Police may be flooding the zone with extra patrols, but it’s not paying off yet. Auto burglaries in the Russian Hill and Fisherman’s Wharf neighborhoods are up 28 percent, with robberies increasing by 7 percent from April to July compared with a year ago. And that’s just one corner of the city where property crimes have climbed from 24,257 in the first half of last year to 27,198 reports in the same span this year. Major crime may be down, but not the kind that most people experience most often.

“We’re trying,” police say, by sending out more officers who are making more arrests. There are other factors: Little evidence means weaker cases, legal follow-through can fall short, and victims can invite trouble by leaving suitcases or backpacks in plain view inside a car.

One suggestion from two supervisors, Hillary Ronen and Norman Yee, is a mandate that each of the city’s 10 police districts set up a property crimes unit devoted to the issue. It’s a rerun of an idea that was vetoed by Mayor Ed Lee last year and a similar plan turned down by voters. It breaches the customary rule that board members set policy and spending while leaving nitty-gritty operations to experienced hands.

Law enforcement doesn’t need this level of political meddling. But it can’t expect to ward off the outside pressure unless it does a better job of protecting the city from eyelevel crime. All that twinkling glass along San Francisco streets needs a forceful answer.