When San Francisco Superior Court Judge Bruce Chan announced the sentence — life in prison without the possibility of parole — Zuri Wilson’s jaw tightened. But only for a moment. In the gallery at Department 24 of the Hall of Justice, someone broke protocol and exclaimed, “Wow!”
But Wilson wasn’t surprised. Quite the opposite: This is exactly what he foresaw, and he never changed his expression during Thursday’s hearing. For the second time, he’d been found guilty of laying in wait and shooting Shawnte Otis dead in 2013. For the second time, he was sentenced to life without parole.
“I’ll be back,” he said via phone after the May 2 sentencing. He continues to profess innocence and his attorneys will, once again, appeal the ruling: “I’ll redeem myself.”
After the hearing, the 47-year-old Wilson, a solidly built Black man with a shaved head, a tomato-red sweatsuit and chains around his waist binding his hands, rose silently. A sheriff’s deputy led him out the back of the courtroom to where he’s spent most of the last decade: San Francisco County Jail.
But not for long. Soon, he’ll be transferred to state prison. And here’s the thing: Wilson says it can’t come soon enough.
“It’s a new breed of inmate in here,” Wilson says of San Francisco’s jails. “They don’t respect anything. They are mentally unwell. Most of them are drug addicts. It’s total chaos.”
The deputies guarding him, he continues, are far from the “racist cowboys” of prior years. “It’s a new kind of staff. People from the same cultural backgrounds as us: Asian, Black, Mexican. They are not racist. I feel bad for these deputies. They’re working-class people and they are not in here abusing us.”
Wilson says that the repressive system he faced even relatively recently as a San Francisco inmate is gone. And yet, he feels that the quality of life behind bars here has grown worse, for both the inmates and the deputies guarding them.
The irony is not lost on him, and now he can’t wait — can’t wait — to go to a state prison that he acknowledges is far more dangerous than where he is now, and where inmates, often brutally, keep one another in line.
But that’s a tradeoff he’s willing to accept. Wilson has spent several of the last 10-and-a-half years he’s been incarcerated in state prison rather than county jail. In state prison, he says, there is order. In state prison, there is accountability.
“Prison is a serious place. People are appropriately housed,” he says. There are jail inmates in San Francisco “who don’t have respect for anything. What’s the word to describe them? Ignominious. They’re mentally ill and have difficult behavioral issues. The staff are more humane than they were even five or 10 years ago; I don’t blame them for anything going on here. They just don’t know how to deal with this type of person.”
An inmate desiring prison over San Francisco county jail may come off as counter-intuitive. But not to people who’ve done time in the city’s jails or worked there for many years. “I’m hearing that more and more,” says a longtime jail staffer. “It’s sad,” says a former staffer. “A lot of guys say they can’t wait to go to [state] prison. At least there they get to go outside to the yard. And, mind you, a lot of these guys are just sitting there waiting; they haven’t even been found guilty yet.”
Inmates last year had to go to court regarding a lack of access to sunlight for those incarcerated in city jails. In a settlement, the inmates won the right to 15 minutes of sunlight a day — but only for those who’ve been locked up for more than a year.
Nathan Peterson, one of Wilson’s attorneys, says that he has “numerous clients who’ve been eager” to leave San Francisco county jail for state prison. Like Wilson, they have “complaints about people with psychiatric disorders mixed into” the general population.
Peterson has been practicing law for a little over a decade, “And when I first started, I was under the impression that people did not want to go to state prison and would prefer to be in county jail,” he said. “But I’ve seen a shift. I was surprised at first. Now I’m not.”
Wilson is not venting about conditions in San Francisco’s jails because he’s bitter about the outcome of his case. In fact, I’ve been talking to him about jail conditions, on and off, since 2022.
In our earliest conversations, he predicted that ramping up arrests for quality-of-life crimes would lead to problems city leadership either didn’t foresee or didn’t care about. In essence, Wilson felt that the city would move the chaotic conditions of San Francisco’s most desperate streets into its jails, additionally burdening the overworked, understaffed deputies and creating bedlam.
The deputies themselves foresaw this. So did their union leadership.
Last month, the jails went on lockdown for a full week following six attacks on deputies. At an April 16 press conference, Sheriff Paul Miyamoto said that overcrowding was a factor in the jail system’s difficult month. The average population in the jails hovered around 800 inmates between 2020 and 2023. It is presently around 1,200.
That’s a lot lower than it was in the past, but San Francisco had more facilities in the days of yore. County Jail No. 4 on Bryant Street, which once housed more than 400 inmates, was shuttered in 2020. The long-closed jail annex in San Bruno, which has a 300-bed capacity, was reopened last year due to the ballooning inmate population.
“We are full to the brim,” a veteran deputy tells me. “We have no space to house these people. We have no staff to watch over these people,” adds another.
That’s because, in addition to fewer facilities than in the past, the Sheriff’s Department also has fewer deputies. The department reports that it is 108 deputies down in its custody division. Its most recent staffing report lists 153 vacant deputy positions and 197 overall vacant positions. Deputies say they are now being “drafted” — their term — two times a week to work 16-hour shifts. That’s down from three times a week, as was the case in recent years, but far less than the once-every-couple-of-months that was customary in the past.
So, those are the numbers. But the problems go deeper than numbers: “I told you the new policies the city was enacting would put all the people in the Tenderloin in jail,” Wilson said. “They hadn’t bathed for months in the streets, and they ain’t bathing here.”
Wilson, again, is not alone in his observation. “I see it,” says a longtime deputy working at County Jail No. 2. “They are detoxing. I have never seen this amount of people detoxing in a single setting.” Adds a former jail staffer at County Jail No. 3, “People are in withdrawal. It looks like a mini-Tenderloin in there.” This former staffer says they would wear a mask at work not just to prevent the spread of disease, but to mitigate the odor of unwashed human bodies.
“People are in withdrawal. It looks like a mini-Tenderloin in there.”
former San Francisco jail staffer
Because of a lack of deputies, the former staffer said they were sometimes on their own among the inmates, many of whom were not mentally well. “All they would say was, ‘Just be careful around this person.’ But they were not getting the help they needed.”
But, soon enough, this won’t be Wilson’s problem. He’ll be off to prison.
To be certain, there are more quotidian issues that could lead a longtime inmate to prefer prison over jail. There’s more access to outdoor facilities, better food, cheaper goods at the commissaries, and other perks. Rather than sharing an electric razor with 120 guys and grumbling about the guy before you using it to groom his private parts, you can just have your own razor.
Mostly, however, Wilson seems to crave order — order born out of a clearly problematic and repressive system. It is a bit odd at first to hear an inmate making this calculation. But only a bit, and only at first. Essentially, it’s what non-incarcerated San Franciscans are being offered, too.
The winning political message, as espoused by a majority of our mayoral candidates, is to do what we did back in the 1980s and 1990s: Roll back police oversight, ramp up arrests, and send more people to our “full-to-the-brim” jails. Hiring more deputies to serve as guards and building more jails does not seem to be a bullet point on any candidates’ platforms, even if their other policies might necessitate it.
To borrow attorney Nathan Peterson’s words: I was surprised, at first. Now I’m not.
Interesting story. Thank you for it.
We do need to keep in mind that incarceration serves to protect citizens from the people being incarcerated. If these violent crazy people are a danger to fellow prisoners, imagine how much of a danger they would be to ordinary people on the street.
Clearly, SF jails require more resources, but given that even current inmates and deputies are complaining about the “new breed” of inmates, shouldn’t we be glad they are inside and not out on the street?
Every single aspect of the conditions inside jails will make their condition worse, so, no, we shouldn’t be glad they’re in jail.
Every condition that exist in these communities were created by our system, inside and outside. And the solutions are always the same and so are the results. Government leaders and community leaders should work hand and hand.
I’ve been handling prisoners’ rights litigation (pro bono) for 25 years. It has always been the case that inmates preferred state prison to county jail. The prisons have programs, large yards, less disruption in schedules, etc. that the jails don’t have. I don’t doubt that the county inmate population has gotten crazier, and it’s good news that the jail staff seems to have improved. But inmate preferences for state prison over jail is nothing new.
SF law enforcement has always been dysfunctional. Maybe it’s because civilians who have no experience in law enforcement are overseeing these departments and no idea of the reality of what’s going on. Or it is the ineptitude of department heads and administrators. Complaints have been made but nothing gets done to fix it. We need real leadership in this city not just talking heads.
Several years ago, the Feds were looking to give the City and Sheriffs Department millions of dollars to build a new Jail, I was part of the staff that met with Contractors for the project. After 6 months of meetings and planning – the then Board of Supervisors Voted against the project for the city and the Feds ended up giving the money to a neighboring county. The reason why they voted against the project ? None of the SF City supervisors wanted to be “on record” for voting for a new Jail facility.
These your kids and drug addicts kicking heroin and Finn doll coming in there with John that got to be a ugly sight I know the staff and real inmates have been the prison that’s 40 and up can’t stand the county jail nobody wants to go to prison but s*** got to get up out of there thank God I retired from going to prison and wasting 26 years going back and forth for that s*** but I’ve been out 15 and I retired if I knew what I know now I would have did better but when you know better you do better
This is really NOT a new way of inmates feel..18 years I was offered a plea bargain of one year in the county jail. I hate the county jail so much that I asked them to give me 16 months in state prison instead.. they denied it.. they would however give me two years in state prison ..So the deal that was on the table was either one year or in the county jail or two years in state prison guess what I took? Yes I took two years in state prison !! signed a deal that day and asked to be on the next bus smoking…But be honest it was not just about the county jail it was also that I would be on probation rather than parole and I can’t be treated like a little kid by probation at least parole treat you like a grown man
Zuri Wilson is correct on what he’s saying. Things are way diffrent in county jail then state pen. Mayor captain LT. Etc need to reopen thr other jail or remake the old San bruno there was a yard there basketball court windows with fresh air. Also special needs people had there own pod area that’s how it need to be
There are currently 15,000 empty beds in the state system. The county and state should contract to make use of them too ease overcrowding.
Leave all the drug consumers in jail and transfer all other inmates out of the City Jail and county Jail into another prison until their trial or conviction. Some inmates are there for months after months before their trial is complete and they are found innocent or guilty. these inmates have problems and some have mental issues that need to be addressed. What would you do if you had no money, food, or home and no help?
Over crowding in jail houses, could be avoided by not incarcerating low level offenders. We need more community service programs instead of jail time.
This is an interesting, and certainly startling, story. Clearly Joe, you have taken an ongoing responsiblitiy in the last few years to follow Zuri Wilson’s ongoing saga.
It strikes me that this could be an interesting situation for a series like PBS’ Independent Lens. The personal situation of Wilson’s conviction and incarceration for a long period by now, coupled with the concerns about the jail population, are striking. Certainly the personal situation leads one to ponder what may happen to him, but concerns about the jail inmates and the affected staff becomes a far bigger need for some reform. Having worked rather closely with jail staff when I worked in social services in the eighties through most of the first decade of the this century, I had some insight into the type of situations they faced. Yes things seem to have really changed, at least in San Francisco, but I suspect this goes beyond that to other locations as well. I would have to say that prosecution cases that come to court are where reform needs to start. The mental situation of those being sent to these jails should be taken into account. Are there facities where they could go, particularly in temporary situations as jailed inmates? Likely not, but it still needs to be addressed as to how to deal with this growing problem. It is just another strong reason that getting sufficient staff at these facilities is going to get worse as well.
Why would anyone believe what a convicted killer has to say??? His opinion is worthless and should be kept that way. I hope he didn’t get paid for this!
I blame it on the SFPOA,
Yep.
When Jail population hovered at 800 for several years, Sheriff Miyamoto offered to Staff the 181 member SFO contingent for the cops who claimed they were short manpower in the City.
Suddenly, Mayor Breed decides to arrest not just dealers but their customers too.
Chief Scott fiercely defends his boss’ idea and insists he will keep 8 officers tasked with only arresting users and they account not only for the overcrowding but for the mayhem as unlike the dealers, they are generally out of their minds in any number of ways and in withdrawal to boot.
But, SFPOA staved off any attempt to diminish their Empire.
h.