SFPD's Northern Station Redistricting Meeting Raised Issues Of Community-Based Policing

SFPD's Northern Station Redistricting Meeting Raised Issues Of Community-Based Policing

Photo: davitydave

Nuala Sawyer
Published on February 12, 2015

Hoodline is following the proposed police redistricting plans in central San Francisco. Here’s the latest on Northern Station. To catch up on proposed changes in the Tenderloin, read our recap of the SFPD's Tenderloin community meeting.

The San Francisco Police Department and the Police Commission are continuing their tour of the city, holding community meetings for those in police districts that may have their borders significantly changed this year. Kickstarted by a mandated review of San Francisco's police districts every ten years, the goal of the redistricting is to provide better and more organized policing across neighborhoods.

For the past year, a committee of captains and command staff spent over 100 hours examining the neighborhoods, community centers, political districts, and neighborhood associations across the city. Facilitated by the Public Safety Strategies Group, 30 maps were eventually drawn, with different districting options. These were narrowed down to five, and handed over to Police Chief Greg Suhr, who combined the proposed changes into one new map.

As a reminder, here's what the committee decided San Francisco's police districts should look like:

Last night Northern Station's community meeting took place in a large room at Jones Memorial United Methodist Church. The gathering of community members was significantly smaller than the Tenderloin's meeting two weeks prior, and while some of the issues raised overlapped, the tone of last night's meeting was more somber. 

Northern Station Police Captain Greg McEachern spoke those who had gathered, explaining some of the reasons behind the new proposed boundaries for his district. The new district lines are in blue, while the old ones are in orange:

The first positive point of the new district, he pointed out, is that it's going to include a geographic area that's closer to Northern Station itself. Right now, Park Station covers much of the geographic area that is nearest Northern Station, meaning that response time is slower, and there are often fewer foot patrols.

Duboce Triangle is also set to benefit from this redistricting proposal. At the moment, the Duboce neighborhood is located at the intersection of Park, Northern, and Mission police districts. By fully incorporating Duboce into Northern Station, crime can be managed more effectively, police presence will be more consistent, and residents will be able to know which station is responding to their calls. 

But with a larger territory comes more responsibilities—which did not go ignored. Northern Station currently includes 32 schools, but with that expansion 10 more will be added, bringing the number to 42. Two housing developments—Martin Luther King and Marcus Garvey—will also be included in the district's expanded boundaries. 

In regards to the added population, Captain McEachern raised the point that Northern Station has the largest physical resources of any station in San Francisco. Although only 100 police are currently present at Northern Station, the locker rooms, parking lot and facilities can hold up to 150. When quizzed as to whether Northern would receive 50 new officers to meet its capacity, Chief Suhr responded that 24 would be added if the redistricting went through. This reflects a city-wide problem, with SFPD currently in need of 300 new officers citywide.

Similar to the Tenderloin's community meeting, Northern Station's was also very diverse. Six members of San Francisco's Black and Brown Alliance were in attendance and spoke, as did a Reverend, Pastor, the head of the Bayview Opera House, and a criminal defense lawyer. Despite the diversity of speakers, several key issues were raised over and over again.

The first was a call for "community-based policing." This was broken down by speakers as a need for sensitivity-training, culture-based education, and for the race of police officers in each station to accurately reflect that of the populations they are serving.

Thanks to the work of Reverend Amos Brown, a racial profiling class was added to the San Francisco's police academy's curriculum in the past few weeks. The class, which was on the roster until 10 years ago, was dropped without Chief Suhr's knowledge. Five days after Reverend Brown brought this to his attention it was remedied, and all 100 cadets in the academy will now receive the training.

The second issue that was raised frequently was an emotional one. Four mothers of men who had been slain in San Francisco spoke passionately to the need for a more reliable police investigation process, for community members to support one another, and for closure on those murders that are still unsolved.

Paulette Brown, mother of Aubrey Abrakasa, showed the room a blown-up print of her son's body in the morgue. Asale-Haqueenyah Chandler, the mother of Yalani Chinyamarindi, who was killed in January's quadruple murder, spoke eloquently on the matter of violence and her dissatisfaction with the police's handling of the case. She pointed out that unsolved murders of young black men were not uncommon in San Francisco, and called for the FBI to brought in on her son's case. "If cases aren't being solved, then you need some help," she told the commission. 

Overall, the members of the community who were present at the meeting voiced little opposition to the redistricting of the police station's boundaries itself. Instead, many used it as a venue to voice their concern over general police presence and activities in the city, and to tell their stories. Their call was not for a better boundary, but for better policing citywide. 

Two more community redistricting meetings will take place before these boundaries go under government review. Southern Station's will happen on February 25th at 6pm, in the Gene Friend Recreation Center at 270 6th St. Bayview will have its redistricting meeting on March 4th at 6pm, at the Southeast Community Center at 1800 Oakdale Ave. We'll keep you updated on the final results.