Mission Station police officers sent out department-wide emails on Friday and again on Saturday, soliciting their colleagues to work overtime hours out of the RV-sized mobile command unit parked at 16th and Mission BART Plaza.
The No. 1 task for officers earning overtime dollars to staff the mobile command unit? Keep locals from defacing it.
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to keep the van safe, free from vandalism,” read the jauntily written emails, which borrow the catchphrase from “Mission: Impossible”
After noting that the officers will be tasked with securing Mobile Command Unit No. 2, which SFPD drove onto the plaza last week in a bid to address street vending, drug sales and drug use, the emails state that cops will be responsible “as well” for “addressing quality of life issues in the area.”
The 16th and Mission BART plaza has, for decades, been a problematic corner. Past attempts to address this have been less noticeable than an RV-sized police vehicle with flashing lights. In 2018, a ping-pong table was briefly installed; one year later, an intentionally uncomfortable, two-ton bench meant to deter reclining was plopped down here.
In the 1980s, a hut-like police “koban” was installed here. Locals found their own use for it: “It became a urinal,” recalled a Mission Station lieutenant from the time.
In recent years, as rampant illegal vending overtook the Mission Street corridor, conditions have taken a turn for the worse. With this year’s crackdowns on overt drug dealing and drug use in the Tenderloin and SoMa, a new influx of troubled people and troubling conditions are now present at or near the plaza. Mayor Daniel Lurie has taken an interest in, first, Sixth Street and, now, 16th Street plaza.
Mobile Command Unit No. 2 is parked indefinitely at the plaza, 24 hours a day. Overtime shifts are available six days a week, with the exception of Wednesday. This, in SFPD jargon, is the “fat day” that officers on every schedule are working, so the van will presumably on Wednesdays be overseen by officers on regular time.
While teams of officers have made dozens of arrests at or near the plaza multiple times this month, battalions of cops won’t be stationed out of the mobile command unit. “This is a two-person detail,” reads the email, “so bring a friend.”
The email states in writing what officers stationed elsewhere in the city working out of mobile command units have said anecdotally: One of the primary tasks for personnel taking on this assignment is to prevent people from urinating on or tagging the vehicle.
It’s also more overtime spending for a police department increasingly relying upon it: Mayor Lurie recently pushed for $61 million in additional police overtime. That comes on the heels of $108 million in police overtime expended in the last fiscal year; overtime is booming as the department continues to grapple with a depletion in the number of sworn officers.
A recent report by the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst found that, as the SFPD’s overtime spending more than doubled in the past five years, that a disproportionate amount of the money was going to a small cadre of officers: “12 percent of sworn staff who worked overtime accounted for 32 percent of SFPD’s total overtime hours.”
I’m sure I must be missing something, but I live in the neighborhood and come across people smoking stuff that’s not pot every time I leave the house. Not always at a BART plaza. Can’t some undercover cops just walk around and bust these people? At least take their dope? Same for illegal vendors. This RV looks imposing but if the cops are concerned about people tagging it or peeing on it, is it really more of a deterrent than just a patrol car?
And…..because the police chief is appointed and NOT ELECTED by San Franciscans, accountability , oversight and transparency to the public are CRITICAL. Add to that the astronomically expensive salaries, benefits & retirement packages, along with signing bonuses and Overtime pay, and there is a slam dunk argument for accountability. SFPD are among the highest paid city employees and data a shows they are doing a terrible job,
Original US constitution prohibits standing armies. Armed and trained professionals on duty 24/7 365 days a year with retirement benefits meet that definition. Militias well regulated by locals with funding by the federal government (that could not be sent out of the country to fight bankers wars) were to enforce the laws. Its timely wisdom. I am 70 y/o but can show up armed with a camera.
Whatever it takes.
Koban: it would be nice not to re-use that word in this country, especially right now where everything is going down the drain fast, like democracy,etc…It can only be used in a civilized country where crimes rates are a joke : Japan. I agree with the french person who just said that the Statue of Liberty should be returned to France since this country does not cherish freedom any longer.it was said jokingly but of course, our uneducated local Nobel prizes here in the US did not get the joke. Trying to solve violent crime in this country is like trying to explain daylight to a bat and since we are getting rid of the Dpt of education, things will not get better but worse.
The recent City Analyst’s audit revealed an alarming pattern of SFPD’s +5 year history of abusing and double dipping on overtime. Newbie photo-op Mayor Lurie signs “executive orders” to double down on OT for SFPD in this, his hair brained scheme…….after SFPD wastes millions of $$ and blows through their OT budget (an DC supplemental budget extensions like a fentanyl addict. Lurie’s (and his newbie enablers on the BofS )“safe clean” campaign is already an epic failure. In political speak “safe clean” translates to performative, pointless, wasteful and lacking oversight.
The reason why people hate SFPD is that SFPD is calling for overtime to keep people from pissing and painting on their RV, instead of being calling for overtime to enforce the law to keep our public spaces clear.
These Mobile Command Centers sure appear intimidating!
I imagine they incorporate bathroom and kitchen facilities, working spaces with computers and communication devices, and a place to store weapons.
I hope the officers don’t smoke! (They would have to go outside!)
Perhaps the city could buy one or two more units to park north of 16th on the blocks where the big crowds of “suspicious people” seem to have all migrated.
That might do it.
No need to park a unit up at Alta Plaza in Pac Heights.
The crimes in that neighborhood are most likely spinning through optical fiber and splashing clean in distant lands– through clever shell companies, tax havens, and real estate transactions.
Faith in Action–where are you?
At one time, a mobile van unit with a priest & an assistant offered Mass & communion by setting up a table, an altar cloth, & a crucifix, while parishioners helped set up 20-25 folding chairs around the plaza, handed out prayer books & hymnals, & musicians appeared out of nowhere. Were confessions discreetly heard? I don’t know.
Forgiveness is always in style.
Honestly, why doesn’t SFPD provide a graffiti wall, temporary or permanent? & hire a consultant from Precita Eyes to show them how it can be done.
My name is Ruben Berdeja I’m a city advocate in San Francisco Mission. I love what you guys are doing to San Francisco PD is about time but also this is an ongoing old problem that spread throughout the mission is it’s called prostitution and I feel that if you hold these cars that are picking up these women for 30-day hold for coming in a crime they will stop coming down in the mission they tried to pick up regular girls that are young they’re just coming home from work or College cuz they think their prostitute you stopped the prostitution you stop the drug dealing
If ML and others would stop vilifying all policing, more people would want to be cops, and the overtime costs would come way down, potentially to zero.
Radicals created this reality. Interesting it is that it’s kinda backfiring against some (most? all?) of their goals. 🤷🏻♂️
Nobody wants to work for the corrupt SFPOA.
Oversight, transparency and accountability are not “vilification” especially with our post pandemic budget crisis. All city departments must tighten and explicitly justify their spending. Especially with SFPD’s decades of abuse and misuse of tax payer dollars. Their charging rate is THE WORST in the nation. SF isn’t the only national city struggling with post pandemic shortfalls.
Meant to say “crime clearance rate.” The DA charges. SFPD is supposed to apprehend and arrest criminals who commit crimes. SF has the lowest rate of ANY police department in America today. Perhaps becsuse they are obsessed with optics like peeing and tagging and not on “results” lije catching and arresting criminals.
It’s low because that’s precisely what the most vocal ideologues wanted – and they got it.
You are in denial.
The ‘Kobans’ were great but dangerous.
I was there and 40 already and watching it all.
Gangs chased the cops out by shooting holes in the Kobans.
Truth is that cops in SF now do an overall big fat ‘F’ across the board.
We don’t know them cause they hide in their cars and vans and now they haul an entire house over to hide in.
Pitiful
go Niners !!
h.
Campers,
Mayor should get a bucket of black paint and draw out about 50 slots for Vendors and Put Numbers on them !
That and 3 cops cause sometimes less is better if it is more personal if you get me.
No big shows for the Velcro Brass I call em, just 3 cops taking turns in the booth that is open and manned 24/7/365.
Put a small stage about 18″ off the BART Plaza surface and keep something on it every day and every night cause the is the Mission in San Francisco and if anyone knows of a more interesting crowd then you go there.
lol
go Niners !!
h.
A small stage! Musicians! Art work! Watch an artist at work!
That is a terrible idea. Thankfully, the mayor doesn’t have the power to unilaterally co-opt public space for whatever private use they seem to think it is best suited for.
Then Mayor Breed (along with the Wreck Parks) Phil Ginsberg evicted and moved the Heart of the City Civic Center Farmers Market (that once served 35,000 to 40,000 San Franciscans each week) to its current site so they could “activate” a skate park that is now barely used less than one year later. In doing so, both contributed to the burgeoning food desert in the Tenderloin. Hint: you cannot eat a skateboard and olds can’t skateboard.
Aren’t fentanyl dealerships and passed out fentanyl users unilaterally co-opting public spaces for whatever private use they seem to think it is best suited for?
Siting puestos, food stalls serving tipico Latin American and Native American street food, on the BART plazas would be the best way to drive out unhealthy uses with healthy uses and to create a destination to attract visitors to the neighborhood in the process.
There are already a few food stands that regularly set up in the plaza. They need to be encouraged and augmented with more.