S.F. police chief criteria less selective than most
Acting San Francisco Police Chief Toney Chaplin’s bid to win the job permanently is getting plenty of political support — even encouragement from Mayor Ed Lee — but his biggest ally may be the city’s loose job requirements. Take, for example, the educational criteria. “With a few exceptions, most major cities require a bachelor’s degree as a minimum — and almost always graduate degrees are preferred,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the nonprofit Police Executive Research Forum in Washington, D.C., which provides management and technical assistance to large police departments.
However, San Francisco says only that “a bachelor’s degree, preferably augmented by postgraduate studies, is highly desirable.”
Chaplin says he has a bachelor’s degree, but he’s unusually closed-mouthed about it.
Before becoming acting chief in May, Chaplin was running the SFPD’s reform efforts as a deputy chief. When he applied for his management certificate with the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training in January 2015, Chaplin showed he had earned 65 semester units of college education, but “no degree information was present,” the commission said.
Chaplin told us he then received a bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership this year from an accredited university. However, he declined to name the school, citing privacy reasons.
“I probably have 200 credits,” Chaplin said. As for why the credits are not on file with the state commission, Chaplin said, “The forms are very long, but I do have a degree.”
There’s also the issue of command experience.
“Most cities will say 10 to 15 years in a command position of captain or above,” Wexler said.
San Francisco’s experience requirement for a chief is 10 years “of progressively responsible law enforcement experience, including senior executive assignments” — with no specific mention of rank.
Coincidentally, the definition of command experience fits well with Chaplin’s rise within the department. Although the 26-year department veteran has extensive background as a street cop, he didn’t hit the command ranks until 2015, when he was promoted from lieutenant to commander.
Police Commission President Suzy Loftus said some of the requirements, such as the one about education level, were in place for previous chief searches. She said that they’re intended to “just get the recruiting process started” and that interviews and other considerations would also be factored in during the selection process.
But fellow Commissioner Petra DeJesus has questions about the criteria.
“No college degree? I’m not comfortable with that,” DeJesus said. “Onthe-job training is great, but there is something about college that really instills critical thinking.”
On a separate front, there are questions about whether the chief should have to live in San Francisco. The idea is that it would be good for the chief to be nearby should a big earthquake or other major emergency happen.
Chaplin, however, lives with his family in the East Bay. He would be the first chief in recent memory not to live in the city.
“The city attorney said living in the city could not be a requirement, but I can’t imagine a chief of police not living in the city,” DeJesus said. The police union can. “Maybe it’s time we got realistic, given housing prices these days,” said Police Officers Association President Martin Halloran.
If a tree falls: The tree limb that fell and hit a woman as she watched her children playing in Washington Square Park, badly injuring her, is under lock and key at an undisclosed location.
“They’ve got it in a cell,” said one source in the know.
Matt Dorsey ,a spokesman for the city attorney’s office, confirmed that “the city has retained a large portion of the branch where it broke from the tree, and that remains in a secured city facility.”
Dorsey declined to say what — or where — the “secured city facility” is, other than somewhere in the Recreation and Park Department system.
“In anticipation of litigation, it will be preserved for independent analysis together with photographs, measurements and other material evidence gathered at the scene,” Dorsey said.
He declined to comment further. But we have it on good authority that within days of the incident, the city brought in an outside arborist to do an autopsy on the 100-pound limb for clues to why it suddenly broke away from the Canary Island pine tree Aug. 12.
Rec and Park is confident the other pines by the park playground are fine and has no plans to remove them.