EARL SANDERS 1937- 2021
Tough, smart homicide detective became San Francisco’s first Black chief of police.
Earl Sanders, the stylish, tough homicide detective who became San Francisco’s first African American police chief and who championed the hiring of minority officers, died Monday after a lengthy battle with kidney failure.
Sanders was a San Francisco cop for 39 years, working some of the most difficult murders in the city’s history, from the Zebra “Death Angels” killings of the 1970s to the 101 California mass murder of the 1990s. He was 83 and died at an assisted living facility in Burlingame.
Known for showing up at homicide scenes in the dead of night dressed in his trademark fedora, Sanders had a way of coaxing information from all varieties of reluctant, dubious and shifty characters.
“How do you get people to talk? By bulls— ing ’ em,” Sanders said. “Sometimes you play the good guy, sometimes the bad guy. Whatever works.”
To those who knew him, however, he was very much the good guy — gracious, polite, downtoearth and smart. But he was also nononsense tough when he needed to be.
He was also a man of many interests — cooking, fishing, hunting and, above all, reading. Sanders so often had a book in his hands that his
nickname on the force was “School.”
“My dad was a renaissance man,” said his son, Marcus Sanders. “He was a caring father and he had an indomitable smile. No matter what came at him, he had that smile.
“He became my best friend from the time I was 16, 17 years old. And he always told me, ‘ Sanders backtoback could change the world.’ ”
San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott on Monday praised his predecessor for his “trailblazing legacy” whose bravery in standing up to racism in his early days as an officer ultimately made the Police Department “better and more inclusive.”
“Members of the San Francisco Police Department today take justifiable pride in a legacy of progressive innovation that animates our quest for improvement and reform to be a national model of 21st century policing,” Scott said.
“That legacy owes in large part to the leadership and courage Earl Sanders demonstrated throughout his career here.”
A native of Nacogdoches, Texas, Prentice Earl Sanders came to San Francisco as a teen, washed dishes at the Fairmont Hotel and
graduated fromWashington High School and Golden Gate University, earning a master’s degree in public administration. In the 1950s, he served as a second lieutenant in the National Guard.
In 1964 he was sworn in as one of about two dozen Black San Francisco police officers. As Police Chief Thomas Cahill was presenting him with his badge and asking him what kind of officer he wanted to be, Sanders replied with a smile that one day he wanted Cahill’s job. Sanders served as chief from 2002 to 2003.
Four years after joining the force, Sanders helped form the Officers for Justice group that later sued the department for failing to hire minority officers. A 1978 trial ended with a consent decree that set new rules for hiring and promotions.
Sanders rose quickly through the ranks, serving in the robbery bureau for five years before being named to the homicide squad in 1971.
His cases included the Zebra killings of the 1970s, a sixmonth series of random slayings of 14 white people by four Black suspects, who were eventually convicted, and the 1993 mass shooting at 101 California, a skyscraper where eight people and the gunman died. And with Rotea Gilford, the first Black homicide Inspector in the city, he worked the baffling case of the Doodler, a mid1970s serial killer who stabbed gay men to death after luring them with sketches and has eluded capture to this day.
For 16 years Sanders was paired with homicide Inspector Napoleon Hendrix. The two detectives worked more than 300 cases and were known throughout town as the partners in the big hats who were diligent, fair, honest and respectful, whether working a case in the Hunters Point projects or the mansions of Pacific Heights.
In a 1995 Chronicle interview, the pair — like other longtime partners — responded to a reporter’s questions by finishing each other’s sentences.
“We know what each other are thinking —,” Hendrix said.
“— so we don’t need to say anything,” Sanders said.
Both men were known for practicing the good cop, bad cop routine, switching from jovial to forceful and back.
“We use what works,” Sanders said. “We’ve worked together so long that we both know when to switch gears.” Hendrix died of cancer in 2009.
In a lengthy 2017 interview, Sanders told The Chronicle that the technique for interviewing murder suspects was not much different from the technique his mother used when questioning him and his brother about childhood misdeeds. She put the two of them in separate rooms and probed for inconsistencies in their stories, until one of them cracked.
“It worked,” Sanders said with a smile.
In 1996, newly elected Mayor Willie Brown appointed Sanders as assistant chief. Six years later, Brown named Sanders to succeed Fred Lau as the city’s first Black chief, calling him “a great street investigator, a fine administrator ( and) the right man to take this department forward.”
Sanders at the time called his appointment a
“dream come true” and vowed to increase recruitment and community policing, especially by investigators.
“He was almost like a television cop,” Brown said Monday. “The tie, the hat, the sport coat, raincoat if necessary. He was a cop’s cop.
“Nothing pleased me more than to have sworn him in as chief, because it was the end of a lifelong effort, the pinnacle of his career,” Brown said. “He was the symbol of all those efforts to get African Americans into leadership positions in law enforcement.”
Sanders’ tenure was not without controversy. Four months after his appointment, three offduty San Francisco officers were involved in a street brawl with two young men over a bag of Mexican takeout food. District Attorney Terence Hallinan indicted Sanders and nine other officers on obstruction of justice charges. He alleged they had improperly investigated the incident — which came to be known as Fajitagate — in an attempt to cover for the three officers, one of whom was the son of an assistant chief.
Charges against Sanders were dropped 11 days later. Two of the officers were acquitted in criminal trials relating to the brawl; the third was not charged.
“I am happy that truth has won out and justice has been served,” Sanders said, after a judge threw out his indictment.
Sanders, citing the stress of Fajitagate, retired in 2003 after serving only a single year as chief. The next year he sued Hallinan and the city for $ 33 million. The suit was dismissed. Sanders said the affair might have contributed to a mild stroke he suffered that led him to walk with a cane.
He suffered another stroke in 2010 and underwent dialysis three times a week, but it did not prevent him from leading an active retirement. He cultivated roses, took in ballgames and regularly engaged in his favorite game, dominoes.
Sanders’ wife of 58 years, Espanola Sanders, died in 2019. He is survived by his son, who lives in San Francisco; a daughter, Marguerite Sanders of Foster City; and three grandchildren, Prentice Sanders, Jessica Sanders and Bailey Sanders, all of Oakland.
Services are pending.