San Francisco Police Scandals Throughout the Years
Recently The Standard reported that SFPD is sharing license plate data with ICE despite our sanctuary city ordinance. What other scandals have they been in over their history?
San Francisco was a very different place in the 1850s. Vigilantes formed committees, patrolling the streets and looking (mostly) for wayward Australians. According to the Wikipedia article, “Popular histories have accepted the former view: that the illegality and brutality of the vigilantes was justified by the need to establish law and order in the city.”
It didn’t get easier. Prohibition was an opportunity for more bribes and corruption than ever. Technically drinking was against the law but it was practically ignored as long as you paid off SFPD.
The Standard reports: “In 1922, Police Chief Daniel O’Brien said that complaints of police officers’ bootleggery and extortion came from ‘all districts of the city,’ and big proprietors paid money to officials for ‘protection’ from the law.”
Another example of the San Francisco police department setting the bar for evil is the Compton’s Cafeteria riot. They practiced brutality against trans people, especially trans women of color, and when they got pushback they punished harshly.
For all that LGBTQ people are celebrated in SF, with people like Supervisor Matt Dorsey even being an openly gay and openly pro-cop elected official, queer people have been harassed and assaulted by the cops throughout SF’s history.
After the assassination of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone and the subsequent pardoning of Dan White, who used the Twinkie Defense to claim junk food made him act out a violently homophonic fantasy, there were more riots. It was called the White Night because of Dan’s last name. Police once again showed that they serve themselves first and foremost.
In 1989 SFPD collaborated with the forefather of ICE to hold a violent and dangerous confrontation in a nightclub called Club Elegante in the Mission. Not only did they block all the exits, they also beat people who tried to leave. That’s why we have a Sanctuary City policy. The cooperation between law enforcement and immigration policy enforcement has shown to be brutal, even lethal.
So the license plate scandal is not too out of line with SFPD’s long track record of corruption. It’s almost as though something deeply evil festers without proper oversight. The more surprising thing is that supervisors in a representational democracy, even backed by concerned citizens who want to stem the corruption, have time and again been unable to enact significant, lasting change.
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