Police reforms get new overseer
State attorney general will shepherd S.F. compliance after U.S. pulls out of effort
The state attorney general’s office on Monday will begin overseeing hundreds of reforms at the San Francisco Police Department that were recommended by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2016 after controversial police killings and escalating tensions between law enforcement and the communities they’re assigned to protect.
The agreement between California Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office and the city comes after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions pulled the plug in September on his department’s police reform efforts under the office of Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS.
Despite Sessions’ withdrawal, the police chief and the mayor of San Francisco said they will continue to heed the 272 federal recommendations issued by COPS, and Becerra’s office will step in as a third-party reviewer.
“It is really important that we continue this work,” said Police Chief Bill Scott. “It’s really important that independent eyes are looking at what we’re doing.”
Scott said his department has already moved forward with almost half of the recommendations outlined in the COPS report from October 2016. But the federal agency’s role was also to keep tabs on the department’s progress.
When Sessions canceled the national community policing program, saying his office would deliver resources that would help fight violent crime instead, he also scrapped the planned
follow-ups.
“The public really hasn’t had a progress report on our work,” Scott said. “The California Department of Justice stepping in and taking that role really speaks to an independent eye to give the public confidence that the San Francisco Police Department is committed to these reforms.”
The deal to bring in Becerra’s office was being brokered by Mayor Ed Lee before he died suddenly from a heart attack in December at age 65. Mayor Mark Farrell said he expects to sign the agreement with the state Department of Justice on Monday.
Lee and former Police Chief Greg Suhr had asked for the review by the Justice Department in April 2016 amid mounting pressure from the community following controversial police shootings, including the 2015 killing of Mario Woods.
Woods, a 26-year-old African American man, was shot dead by five police officers. He was suspected in an earlier stabbing and was holding a knife as he shuffled along a wall in the city’s Bayview neighborhood, police said.
The incident was captured on video and pitched the city into the national conversation over police accountability and race.
The COPS office’s findings and recommendations focused on use-of-force issues, as well as community policing, racial bias, transparency, accountability, and recruitment and hiring practices.
Becerra said his team will work “very similarly to how the COPS program worked.”
“It was disappointing to see the federal Department of Justice’s office was pulled off the scene, because it was essential,” Becerra said. “We were fortunate enough to step into the void.”
This new agreement, he said, “will make sure San Francisco doesn’t miss a beat.”
San Francisco is one of 14 cities nationwide that were working with the COPS office. Becerra said he hopes the arrangement with San Francisco will provide “a very good template” for other jurisdictions around the country.
The deal between the city and state attorney general, though, comes as some stakeholders continue to squabble over some of the federal recommendations — particularly regarding use-of-force policies.
In December 2016, the San Francisco Police Commission followed a recommendation under the COPS report to prohibit officers from shooting at moving vehicles.
Seven months before that policy was passed, a police sergeant had shot and killed 29-year-old Jessica Williams, who was allegedly trying to flee officers in a stolen car. The shooting was a final straw for the beleaguered Suhr, who promptly resigned.
Mayor Lee later hired Scott, in January 2017, as an outsider chief from the Los Angeles Police Department and tasked him with implementing the federally recommended reforms.
The San Francisco Police Officers Association, though, began fighting the policy’s limit on firing at vehicles before it was even enacted. The union has filed a lawsuit saying the commission violated its collective bargaining rights.
The controversy over the relatively new policy was rekindled Thursday when an auto burglary suspect backed over a plainclothes San Francisco police officer and the suspect’s alleged accomplice near Alamo Square.
Video of the dramatic episode shows a second officer running to the scene and drawing his gun without firing while the driver runs over the men as they grapple behind the car.
Martin Halloran, president of the Police Officers Association, said the incident demonstrates how the policy “puts our officers’ lives in danger.”
“It is so frustrating to SFPD officers that our use-of-force policy prohibits us from shooting at a suspect in a vehicle even if that suspect is trying to kill or seriously injure innocent civilians or our officers,” he said. “That policy must be changed.”
The police union is in labor negotiations with the city and is seeking more money for its officers as the June 30 deadline for a new contract gets closer.
Scott said it’s the Police Commission’s role to change department policy, even though he can make recommendations as chief.
“I think we have a good policy,” Scott said about prohibiting officers from firing on vehicles. “Whether we can revisit it, I’m going to look at it and if we see something that needs to be brought up, I won’t hesitate in doing that.”
Both the union and the department have also been advocating arming officers with stun guns, commonly known as Tasers — another recommendation by the COPS office.
Last year, the Police Commission narrowly voted to equip officers with the weapons starting in December despite strong opposition from activists and police critics.
San Francisco is the last major police force in the nation without such devices.