Not even the 49ers opening game or the dampest evening in recent memory could keep the crowds away from the Sunset Recreation Center on Monday night, where local residents met with city and state officials to discuss the state of criminal activity in the Sunset District.
The 80 chairs provided were quickly filled, and at least as many people crowded around the sides and rear of the room to hear from and ask questions of California State Assemblymember Phil Ting, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón, SFPD Chief Greg Suhr, Captain Denise Flaherty of the Taraval Police Station, and District 4 Supervisor Katy Tang.
The meeting had been arranged in the wake of an apparent spike in car break-ins and thefts, home burglaries, and assaults around the neighborhood. At the meeting, attendees expressed frustration at the city's reaction to these issues, which some deemed inadequate.
Photo: Ray Chu
At last night's meeting, Supervisor Tang's staff collected questions from the community in attendance, and some of those questions were selected and answered by the officials sitting at the front of the room.
Though the officials sitting up front were clearly the focus of the community's frustration, several made the point that they live in the Sunset themselves and in some cases had been victimized by the same crimes that were being discussed.
Assemblymember Ting mentioned that he wasn't originally scheduled to be at the meeting, but that as a resident of the neighborhood who had been a victim of petty crimes himself, he wanted to show his support before excusing himself early to go pick up his daughter from art class. Chief Suhr spoke of having both his car and his son's vehicle broken into, and said he understood how violating these crimes can be. These early anecdotes seemed to go a long way in placating local residents.
Photo: Jonathan Gerfen/Hoodline
When questioned about what seemed like an insufficient police presence in the neighborhood, Chief Suhr said that the SFPD is understaffed by 300 positions compared to the city's mandate, and that while he couldn't give specifics for strategic security reasons, he did say that the Sunset is "about in the middle" compared to other neighborhoods when it came down to police staffing per capita. Suhr couldn't help laughing when some specific figures were cited by the public, stating that no matter what anybody had heard, there were "definitely more than two police cars in the Sunset."
Increasing SFPD staffing in the Sunset and rest of the city is a priority, Suhr said, and while new police academy classes are being trained as quickly as possible, it'll take some time to get staffing levels up. The recession, he said, had prevented the city from adding new officers as quickly as older ones retired over the past several years.
Responding to concerns from the crown that police officers had treated local crimes nonchalantly and were insensitive to the victims, Suhr said, "I apologize for anybody that has been treated that way—it's not okay." He suggested that anybody who felt that they weren't be taken seriously by the police should report such treatment to himself or to Captain Flaherty. "Investigators need to held accountable."
Proposition 47 was a big topic of concern for the public, and questions regarding it were handled mostly by Gascón and Ting. Assemblymember Ting explained the history of corrections and rehabilitation in California that had led to Prop 47's lesser sentences for certain types of crimes, explaining that not only was the state's past expenditures on prisons simply not sustainable, but that they hadn't been effective, either, with inmates more likely to turn to violent crime after a prison sentence, even if their original offense hadn't been violent. Regardless of whether Prop 47 might be responsible for the recent wave of crime in the Sunset, Ting noted that it couldn't simply be repealed, and that it had been voted for by 60 percent of Californians and 80 percent of San Franciscans. It would take new legislation on a future ballot to alter or repeal what was currently the law of the state.
Photo: Jonathan Gerfen/Hoodline
District Attorney Gascón, who had been a visible proponent of Proposition 47 before it became law, attempted to convince the crowd that there simply was not any evidence that Proposition 47 was significantly responsible for recent crime, noting that crime in both the city, state, and the rest of the country (the latter of which is not affected by Prop 47) had been rising before the law had passed, and that other factors could be responsible. Gascón went on to describe just how broken and ineffective the criminal justice system had become in California, and how Proposition 47 was an attempt to try to treat the root causes of crime, rather than punish the offenders after the fact. "We as a nation and a state can no longer afford to keep sending the mentally ill and substance abusers to prison for an extended period of time," he said, continuing later, "We need to rehabilitate people, not warehouse them."
As the evening wore on, some in the crowd seemed to grow tired of one-sided answers to pre-submitted questions. One voice from the back of the room tried to make a point by calling for raised hands of those who had been had their car or home broken into. Several hands went up. As more questions were called out from the floor, and as a recent home burglary on the Great Highway was brought up, Supervisor Tang began wrapping up the formal portion of the meeting and invited people to stick around to ask their questions one-on-one with the officials.
Photo: Jonathan Gerfen/Hoodline
The last round of formal questions addressed what the community could do to better participate in the issue of crime, and what action plans the SFPD had for the near future. Captain Flaherty and Chief Suhr explained that calling 911 was always appropriate to report a crime in progress, even if it seemed relatively minor, and that the operators taking the call would triage it. They also pleaded with the public to file police reports for crimes, even when there was no expectation that the crime would ever be solved. "Talking on NextDoor.com is great, but please make sure we know what's going on by calling us and by filing police reports."
Security cameras were discussed, and the SFPD representatives also explained that one of the best ways to avoid becoming a victim of crime was to make oneself an unattractive target to criminals by not leaving visible items in cars, and by utilizing good locks and security systems. A member of the Police Commision who was in the audience briefly took the microphone and insisted that if anybody had a concern with how the SFPD was handling their case, and if they didn't feel safe, that they should feel perfectly comfortable discussing those concerns directly with Captain Flaherty. Flaherty herself noted that the discussion was likely to continue at her monthly Captain's meeting with the public at Taraval Station (2345 24th Ave.) at 7pm Tuesday night (that's tonight).
As the meeting ended, the discussion continued, with throngs surrounding each official and members of their staff. When asked what his reaction was to the meeting, Chief Suhr told us, "It's clear how frustrated people are with the issue of crime, and the message has landed hard with myself and with my cops."
One of the neighbors who helped organize the meeting said that he very happy with the huge turnout, but wasn't impressed with some of the canned answers on topics such as Proposition 47.
Mary McNamara, a Sunset resident since 2013 who helped out with organizing the meeting, told us, "This meeting was a fair start. The neighborhood has been traumatized by a recent burglary, and we are a very concerned community."
