Last month the commission hired Roseville-based headhunter Bob Murray and Associates to conduct the search in a joint venture with the Washington-based Police Executive Research Forum, which recently completed an organizational assessment of the SFPD. Intended to guide the SFPD over the next decade, the study recommends expanding community policies, enhancing information services, and employing Tasers to minimize the number of deadly shootings by officers.
"The mayor tends to favor the idea [of Tasers] but is concerned about what he is hearing about the BART case and wants closer scrutiny of the issue," Ballard told us last week.
Potential candidates with San Francisco experience include former SFPD deputy chief Greg Suhr, Taraval Station Captain Paul Chignell, and San Mateo's first female police chief, Susan Manheimer, who began her career with the SFPD, where her last assignment was as captain of the Tenderloin Task Force.
"It would be wildly premature to comment on the mayor's preference for police chief at this time," Ballard told the Guardian.
Among the rank and file, SFPD insider Greg Suhr is said to be the leading contender. "He's very politically connected, and he is Sup. Bevan Dufty's favorite," said a knowledgeable source. "The mayor would be afraid to not get someone from the SFPD rank and file."
Even if Newsom is able to find compromise with the immigrant communities and soften his tough new stance on the Sanctuary City policy, sources say he and the new chief would need to be able to stand up to SFPD hardliners who push back with arguments that deporting those arrested for felonies is how we need to get rid of criminals, reduce homicides, and stem the narcotics trade.
"The police will say, you have very dangerous and violent potential felons preying on other immigrants in the Mission and beyond," one source told us. "They would say [that] these are the people who are dying. So if you are going to try and take away our tools — including referring youth to ICE on booking — then we will fight and keep on doing it."
While that attitude is understandable from the strictly law and order perspective, is this the public safety policy San Francisco residents really want? And is it a decision based on sound policy and principles, or merely political expediency?
Sup. David Campos, who arrived in this country at age 14 as an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, says he is trying to get his arms around the city's public safety strategy. "For me, the most immediate issue is the traffic stops in some of the neighborhoods, especially in the Mission and the Tenderloin," said Campos, a member of the Public Safety Committee whose next priority is revisiting the Sanctuary City Ordinance. "I'm hopeful the Mayor's Office will reconsider its position. But if not, I'm looking at what avenues the board can pursue.
"I understand ...
The seat warmers who have served on the Police Commission, while an improvement from the pre-Prop H days, have not taken up the challenge of moving the department from a place where individual cops get to call their daily work plans to a policy driven department where the policy priorities of communities drive the department's daily work plans for rank and file officers.
There are massive yet finite resources made available by the taxpayers to fund the SFPD--has the budget hit half a billion yet?--so that means that calls are made on what laws to enforce and what laws to ignore. So long as the cop in the cruiser makes the call on what laws are important to enforce instead of elected and appointed political leaders, then we see a lack of political control over a department which clearly needs hand holding.
Greg Suhr he who did well by Wilie Brown in his policy of containment in the TL, SOMA and N. Mission, is precisely the wrong choice for the SFPD Chief, but if Newsom wants him, he will be installed. The last thing we need is a politically connected operator as Chief, rather we need a strong manager who can take civilian orders and coordinate police coverage on those issues. And besides, Suhr declined to follow procedure as his riot squad confronted anti globalization actions in the Mission a few years back and ended up taking responsibility for the injury of a cop. But since Suhr is wired politically, get ready for a heightened politicization of the SFPD to burnish those right wing credentials in anticipation of Newsom's run for governor.
Newsom will not win the nomination, but he will do a whole lot of damage in the process.
-marc
Suhr came up to Mesha Idriss-Stelly whose son was gunned down in the Metreon theater by the cops and started laughing at her. This was at a Police Commission meeting. Deputy Chief Suhr mocked the grieving mother: "How's your cancer?" he asked her with an even bigger laugh. He knew she was ill.
Just the kind of guy you want leading SFPD
h.
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