A San Francisco deputy police chief told attendees at a town hall in the Castro Thursday that, as protests over federal immigration crackdowns grow, the police department may need to step in to protect federal immigration agents and protesters alike.
“Our role is to be a peacekeeper,” Deputy Chief Derrick Lew said when District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman asked for clarification on how San Francisco’s sanctuary city ordinance affects how police can and cannot interact with ICE.
“It doesn’t matter what our politics are, but we kind of have to draw the line so that people don’t get hurt,” Lew said.
Lew added that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is responsible for the safety of its own agents and those they arrest. But police officers may need to protect ICE agents against protesters — or vice versa — he said.
“It’s not going to look right for us,” Lew said. “But I think we’re in this really difficult situation of, we don’t want the community to get hurt.”
Lew said they do not want residents to have force used against them but, “on the other side of the coin … we can’t just sit by and watch our fellow law enforcement agent or officer get hurt.”
Lew’s statement came two days after police officers were filmed near a violent ICE protest, reluctant to intervene. On Tuesday, several officers stood half a block away from about 20 people trying to block ICE agents from taking into custody an immigrant arrested in immigration court, as depicted in Mission Local’s video.
ICE agents rammed a van through a group of protesters even as a woman clung to the hood. She was eventually thrown from the vehicle, which narrowly avoided running her over. The woman ripped open her knee, she told reporters: “I was bleeding everywhere.”
This happened in full view of police, who told protesters, “Move out of the street. You’re blocking traffic. You have to move out of the street,” and hurried folks along.
Later, during a blocks-long scuffle between ICE agents and protesters, one agent aimed a rifle at protesters and journalists.
SFPD spokesman Robert Rueca told Mission Local that police were called to the area Tuesday to assist with “First Amendment activities,” and police call logs show at least three calls to the department in the area between 10:30 a.m. and noon.
The department’s Director for Strategic Communications, Evan Sernoffsky, later told Mission Local that most police did not arrive until after the van carrying the arrestee — and a protester on the hood — had driven away.
Mission Local’s video, however, showed officers there during the incident. Sernoffsky reiterated Lew’s characterization of the police’s role to protect “everybody equally in our city.”
Tuesday’s incident, Sernoffsky added, “didn’t deal with SFPD. This was an incident between federal authorities and citizens.”
The mayor’s office did not respond on the record to a request for comment on how the city’s police should respond to tension between ICE agents and protesters.
Under the city’s 1989 sanctuary ordinance, all city employees, including police officers, are prohibited from assisting ICE. The police department’s policies specifically prohibit officers supporting “routine ICE/CBP operations, investigations, or raids.”
They can only respond when it “appears reasonably necessary to prevent serious injury to persons, whether or not a criminal offense is involved.”
Lew, for his part, likened police officers’ roles to those of officers assisting any other law enforcement agency.
“Just like if CHP [the California Highway Patrol] were to get into some sort of a situation out on our streets off of some other traffic stop, for example, we would help them out of that situation,” he said.
“It’s a really fine line the PD [police department] will have to deal with when these things come about.”
Angela Chan, assistant chief attorney for the San Francisco public defender’s office, disagreed.
“SFPD’s job is to protect members of the public, including the protesters who were there on Tuesday,” she said. “It’s not to act as security guards for ICE.”
Chan said that the department is specifically prohibited from helping ICE in accordance with a 2020 policy that the police commission passed. If anything, she said, police should have intervened when ICE began driving with protesters clinging to the front of their van.
“On Tuesday, it appeared that SFPD was not assisting the protesters who were facing significant injury by the ICE van who was driving recklessly,” she said. That, Chan added, “is deeply concerning.”
Lew’s comments came at the end of a town hall about public safety in the Castro. An attendee also said they were concerned that vigilantes could be masquerading as ICE agents. Immigration agents routinely wear masks and dress in plain clothes.
Nationwide, at least three people have been arrested for impersonating ICE agents or police officers, the New York Times reported.
A gunman dressed as a police officer in June shot two Democratic lawmakers and their spouses in Minnesota, killing Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, and wounding Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman.
“It’s a super sticky situation out there right now,” Lew said. If residents are concerned about impersonators, “call us and we will do the best that we can to try to figure out what’s going on.”
But, he said, “I don’t suggest that someone takes matters into their own hands … Be a good witness and we can try to deal with these sorts of things.”
Io Yeh Gilman and Eleni Balakrishnan contributed reporting.
We all know they won’t; but the police should be protecting the people of San Francisco against ICE goons, period.
I wonder if Lew would be singing this tune if Chinese immigrants were being targeted by ICE instead of almost exclusively Latinos under Trump’s racist goons?
I doubt it very much.
Not so
So, let’s say there are a half dozen foreign nationals in the US illegally, and they are impeding lawful operations of US Marshals, or other Law Enforcement agencies, maybe, they’re slashing tires, throwing Molotov cocktails, or simply climbing on top of government vehicles, if not setting them on fire; maybe, at a.monimum, they are blocking access to public buildings and shoving law enforcement, and, you say that law enforcement is in conflict with local residents and the local police should therefore back the foreign nationals? Is that about where you are coming from?
SFPD job is not to protect Feds, nor the National Guard is theirs.
Let the Feds take care of themselves.
The SFPD has a record of not protecting average folk. In fact, just the opposite and even more so if the average citizen is poor, not white and/or female.
My personal direct experience with SFPD has consistently been negative. I would never call them and would rely on my friends and community if ever faced with unknown masked assailants.
I think many people feel the same and this is going to be bad for everyone.
Either way, they did jack when the time came to actually do their jobs. What are we paying these goons to do, just stand around? Meanwhile we are cutting actually useful city jobs… And not hiring for thousands of other necessary jobs. Might as well get some police officer scarecrows and post em on the corner instead of waiting current wages and future bloated pensions on these positions.
The options there were either for SFPD to stand around, or start arresting vigilantes. It’s not realistic they interfere with Federal LE as ICE has superiority, plus a better in-house steroid regimen.
But they can sit by and watch as civilians get hurt.
Who are these masked men ?
Did Acting Chief Yep make Lew a Deputy Chief ?
Did Acting Chief Yep order the Mission’s Community-friendly Captain Johansen replaced with Brady lister, Lieutenant Manny Bonilla ?
It would appear that SFPD is getting the green light to get more violent with citizens who are partying (see 4th of July in Mission) or exercising their constitutional right to demonstrate.
Do these top cops preaching threats of violence get demoted under a new chief ?
Would you publish a shot of the current SFPD command from the rank of Commander on up along with their pictures ?
It’s hard to keep track of the action on the field, what with all of the call-ups and retirements.
go Niners !!
h.
Lew is letting his personal beliefs get in the way of the MOUS, orders and bulletins issued by the Commission and Command Staff. Promoted too quickly?
Since, according to a police officer, 94/95% of them voted for the Mar A Lago dude, of course they want to join in..Start doing your job here in the city to start with, start enforcing the laws, start issuing tickets for traffic violations, start to try to stop side shows, start to arrest and fine the bikers, start closing illegal nightclubs, start arresting drug dealers, start somewhere…
Anyone wearing a mask is doing so because they know they are breaking the laws or are too afraid some people will find out where they live..the kidnappers look like our local thugs..So SFPD why don’t you arrest those masked people breaking the laws ?
Daniel Lurie is sending SFPD in to help ICE brutalize SF residents, AND illegally providing license plate and other surveillance data to ICE, PLUS his general silence on everything the authoritarian Trump admin is doing…. Has there been some deal struck between these two? Is it just class solidarity between Lurie and Trump? We might need to start thinking about a recall campaign.
Cops don’t arrest cops and have a career afterwards. And as far as they’re concerned, ICE are cops and it’s “us or them”. So, don’t plan on getting “protection” from SFPD if ICE is coming down on you, even if you’re a citizen. The only chance we have of making a difference is if the Mayor *orders* them to intercede on behalf of those being kidnapped. However, that’s just not going to happen. Lurie doesn’t have the stones to do that, the people here just aren’t all that willing to support that decision.
They never do anything, why make it different now?
I don’t want the military here, patrolling the streets. That’s what happened in LA when Karen Bass didn’t send cops to protect the federal building from protestors.
Trump would love to have footage on Fox News of the military sweeping through San Francisco; it’s what his supporters want. But he needs a pretense. Let’s not give him one.
Don’t let that fear guide you. That’s exactly what they want.
translated: “Don’t punch the bully in the face, because he’ll come down on your even harder. Just suck it up and give him your lunch money again.”
Darn those negative votes. This is true. Watch out for those breakaway protesters. Our protesters must self police for the anarchists who are out to make trouble. That’s the trouble with mask-raiders.