Redrawing the lines of San Francisco’s police districts may seem like a dry topic, but I hear about it from Tenderloin residents all the time. According to SFPD Chief Greg Suhr, the process of demographics analysis for redistricting is currently underway. However, the neighborhood’s low-income residents are chomping at the bit to have their voices heard and no one can tell them when or if that will happen.
Why do residents care so much? It is challenging to reduce crime under strict police district borders. Drug dealers know exactly where those ungovernable boundaries lie.
Shootings and stabbings are all too common along the Larkin Street corridor near Little Saigon; the stretch between Golden Gate and Geary is heavy with narcotics sales that often become violent. Meanwhile, thousands of children and a disproportionately elderly and disabled community live in the neighborhood.
Care to guess where the Tenderloin district ends and the Northern district begins? You got it–Larkin Street.
“It’s a real problem,” says Stephen Tennis, an SRO tenant who has lived at Larkin and Geary for over 15 years. “People [selling drugs] know that Northern cops will not cross over Larkin Street so they stay out of sight on the other side until they roll past. I’m told that the two stations are working together more now, but who knows if things will get safer.”
Larkin Street itself lies in the Northern District and is only slightly over a mile from the Northern police station, yet the district stretches from Larkin to the Marina. A sprawling territory, the policing strategies appropriate to a less dense, less urban district are not the ones needed in the tight hustle and bustle of the Tenderloin.
Tenderloin police should have the benefit of working in a smaller geographic but higher crime area so they can concentrate on engaging with local businesses, organizations, and residents to improve safety through changes to the environment.
Macy’s is Not in the Tenderloin
The already short-staffed Tenderloin police district includes Macy’s in Union Square as well as Nieman Marcus. This means that instead of preventing public drug dealing on Leavenworth and Turk, officers are stuck processing shoplifters at these Union Square stores.
That’s why Tenderloin residents are insisting that new police boundaries move the Tenderloin district west. The eastern boundary should be Mason Street, with the western side ending up to Van Ness. This would ensure that the narcotics traffic–and therefore enforcement–remains the problem of Tenderloin officers who already spend most of their days on that exact issue.
Kevin Stull, who lives at another SRO only a few blocks east of Larkin Street says that he worries about children’s safety. “There is Sgt. John MacAulay [children’s] park right at O’Farrell Street and Larkin and there is just so much drug activity there. We really need to make it safer for people to be there.”
Other tenants living at Larkin and O’Farrell Street have observed the need for a change to the community and law enforcement response to unsafe conditions on this corridor. In response to pressure from tenants, the Central City SRO Collaborative and La Voz Latina (programs of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic) began working with local families to organize monthly parties in the park. Turnout and the enthusiastic participation from volunteers has been overwhelming.
When do these families and single adults who share a common concern–namely, safety–get to make sure that SFPD redistricting reflects the intimate knowledge that residents have of their own neighborhood?
When Tenderloin residents met with Chief Suhr last year, they asked him to move the district boundary to Larkin Street while awaiting the broader changes. The Chief refused, saying that it causes all kinds of problems to make unilateral changes incrementally.
At the time, the new district lines were supposed to be implemented in November 2014 to coincide with the opening of the new police command center near Mission Bay. That opening is now set for February 2015, but there has been no public process around the new district lines.
The Tenderloin wants to be part of the conversation before decisions are made or reports written–and residents want to know when, precisely, their voices will be part of the process. San Francisco is a city that prides itself (and rightly so) on public participation. We know that SFPD won’t disappoint.
Karin Drucker is an organizer with the Central City SRO Collaborative.
