Blog note: this article references a June 2016 grand jury report.
With car break-ins spiking again in San Francisco to the tune of about 85 a day, police Thursday unveiled a shakeup that eliminates a citywide task force focused on the epidemic in favor of assigning dozens more cops to walk neighborhood beats.
The disbanding of the auto burglary task force, which the city created less than two years ago, comes even though the city’s civil grand jury recommended that San Francisco not only make the special unit permanent but beef it up with more officers and equipment.
While the 18-person unit had netted more than 200 arrests, the problem continued, and Police Chief Bill Scott said at a news conference that trying to stop criminals before they act is a more effective strategy than seeking to catch them later. He is shifting staffing from the agency’s central office to its 10 stations.
“We really want to get in front of the crime,” said Scott, who took command in January. “We know it’s only a piece of the puzzle, but we know it will make a difference.”
Scott came to the job amid escalating criticism from city residents about filth and crime in San Francisco’s streets. He spoke as newly released figures revealed that victims had reported 17,970 vehicle break-ins across San Francisco through the end of July, a 28 percent jump from the same period last year.
At this rate, the city will far exceed the 25,899 burglaries in 2015, which the civil grand jury said cost victims at least $19 million. In 2010, less than 10,000 vehicle break-ins were reported the entire year.
Magnifying the problem, guns taken in car burglaries have been used in a number of killings in the city, including the July 2015 shooting of Kate Steinle on Pier 14.
The civil grand jury report, released in June 2016, said gangs were responsible for up to 80 percent of the burglaries, but that police made arrests in fewer than 2 percent of cases.
The grand jury’s chief recommendation was to “ensure the Patrol Bureau Task Force has adequate resources, including investigators, a dedicated crime analyst, and necessary vehicles, equipment and technology to expand surveillance and apprehension.”
“A decentralized police force,” the report said, “has been ineffective at curbing organized criminals who offend across precincts.”
Martin Halloran, president of the city police officers’ union, was skeptical of the chief’s plan, particularly the elimination of the task force.
“I’m not sure that’s the right approach, but I hope he proves me to be wrong,” Halloran said.
One of the strengths of the task force, he said, is that it worked to gather strong evidence to take to prosecutors who may be reluctant to bring charges and to judges who may favor leniency in property-crime cases.
“You may not necessarily get that if you’re walking a foot beat,” Halloran said.
The spike in break-ins has been particularly intense in the Mission District, which has seen a 182 percent increase this year. The city’s northern reaches including the Marina, Pacific Heights and Western Addition experienced a 40 percent jump. The downtown area that includes the Financial District, North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf saw a 25 percent rise.
“We see broken glass everywhere,” said Keith Pesci, a 46-year-old artist who heads a city-sponsored street cleanup crew and lives at the Mission Navigation Center, a supportive housing complex. “At least three to five places a day. It’s everywhere.”
On Thursday afternoon, between two parked cars near the BART station at Mission and 24th streets, granules of broken auto glass glistened among fallen leaves and discarded fast-food wrappers. Not far away, on South Van Ness Avenue, a black Toyota Corolla was missing the glass from a passenger-side window.
The Police Department declined to specify how many officers would be reassigned to street patrols, but Scott said the number citywide would nearly double to the “mid-100s.”
The Mission District substation will see staffing of foot patrols increase fourfold, while the force will be doubled at the Central substation that serves the Financial District, North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf, and the Park substation that serves the Castro, Haight and neighboring areas.
As a result, Scott said the department’s narcotics division will see cuts, though he did not provide details.
Deputy Chief Michael Redmond, who worked with Scott on the new deployment, said that even with the elimination of the citywide task force, arrests would continue as relocated officers did similar work on the local level.
“We’re excited for them to go back to the stations because they bring a wealth of experience,” Redmond said.
Officials said the restructuring had already begun in some parts of the city, including the Twin Peaks neighborhood, where a 71-year-old man was shot and killed during a robbery in July. With more police on patrol in that area, crime has plummeted since the killing, police said, with just one car break-in between July 17 and Aug. 16 — compared with nearly 40 in the prior seven months.
“This highlights how important it is to have officers out on the street,” Scott said.
Acknowledging that San Francisco’s car-burglary rate was tainting its image as a world-class city, the department also announced a new marketing effort called “Park Smart,” basically a reminder for residents and tourists alike not to leave valuables in their cars.
Mary Ortiz, 76, who sat on the porch of her small apartment building in the Mission District on Thursday afternoon, cooling off with a beer, said she hadn’t seen police pay enough attention to street crimes like car burglaries. Most of the vehicle break-ins, Ortiz said, happen late at night and trigger car alarms.
“The cops don’t ever come,” she said.
Not far away, at Auto Glass Now on Bryant Street, shop manager Ru Das said business had been strong over the past couple of years.
“There’s been a substantial spike” in car break-ins, Das said. “In the past you would see it only in certain areas, like SoMa and Dogpatch, but now I’m seeing cars even from Pacific Heights being broken into almost daily. And it’s happening in broad daylight.”
“They’re even breaking into cop cars,” he added. “We’re doing official police vehicles multiple times a week. We just did one yesterday.”
September 1, 2017
SF Gate
By Kurtis Alexander and Michael Cabanatuan, San Francisco Chronicle staff writers
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