The San Francisco Police Department’s mobile command unit, which has parked at 16th and Mission streets for the better part of the last 200 days, has been moved off the plaza for good because of “budget constraints,” Mission Station Captain Sean Perdomo wrote in an email Monday.
BART police and SFPD officers, who are assigned to accompany the Public Works staff who pick up trash and clean the streets, will continue to work in the area, he added.
The move brings to an end the longest-running police presence at 16th and Mission streets in years. For months, anyone who walked past the 16th Street BART plaza would be greeted by the hulking, white van emblazoned with the SFPD logo.
Stationed there 24/7, the “mobile command unit” was meant to demonstrate the city’s commitment to clearing the plazas of unpermitted vending and open drug use.
In an official statement, however, the SFPD said that the removal of the van was not due to budgetary concerns.
In that statement, it said the department was entering a “new phase in our strategy,” adding that it intends to replace the van with additional personnel. This includes hiring a “youth engagement officer” to work on quality of life issues near schools in the area.
The RV-sized white police van with flashing lights was first rolled onto the southwest plaza of the BART station on March 12, 2025, shortly after Mayor Daniel Lurie declared that cleaning up the 16th Street area was a priority.
“We are going to be relentless in our focus on cleaning these areas up,” he said at the time.
Overt drug use and public antisocial behavior drastically increased at 16th and Mission in the beginning of 2025, following crackdowns on drug markets in the Civic Center, Tenderloin and SoMa neighborhoods.
Scores of drug users would openly smoke or shoot up on the streets and alleys near 16th and Mission, including the BART plazas. Black marketeers would also set up vending stalls, selling stolen goods in order to make some quick cash for buying drugs.
At the time, a police source said that the command center was deployed “for looks” — a giant symbol reminding everyone who walked past that this was no longer going to be an area of lawlessness.
Since then, Mission Local’s reporting showed that the van did indeed help to decrease vending and chaos in its immediate vicinity at the southwest BART plaza. Unpermitted vending, however, continued just across the street, on Mission Street and on the northeast plaza.
The activity on Mission Street and the northeast plaza, however, began to decrease in early July as ambassadors from Ahsing Solutions began working the streets in addition to police officers and staffers from the Department of Public Works.
An uptick has occurred, however, among nearby side streets, and the east side of Mission Street remains active with vending and drug use after 5 p.m..
Staffing the van was costly. Six days a week, 24 hours a day, two police officers within it would be paid overtime, which comes out to time-and-a-half. On Wednesdays, it was staffed on straight time.
Overtime for the police, though, was something that Lurie had written into the budget. He asked for $61 million this year, despite reported pay abuse, and the Board of Supervisors begrudgingly granted it.
According to Sasha Gaona, chief of staff to District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder, their office learned about van leaving through concerned emails from constituents. They then got in contact with Perdomo.
“He assured us that foot patrols remain a priority in the area, and that BART Police continue to be actively present,” Gaona said.
Foot patrols that will actually issue tickets and–eventually–arrest and jail vendors of stolen goods should help clean up the 16th and 24th Street BART stations more than having a motorhome parked there.
+1. The police need to start ticketing and arresting thieves and their fences.
Join the police and rise up in the ranks so you can order them around personally instead of through the comments section of this website.
Time to bring out the “Mission Accomplished” banner and retreat back to the fortress at 17th and Valencia.
Don’t forget the flight suit for old Dan. Although I admit comparing him to George W Bush is harsh. No inherited wealth Lurie political dynasty for another 20 years at least.
When Lurie showed up last year The Big Finish Wine Tavern, I asked him if he could implement the foot patrols law that the supervisors passed over Newsom’s veto and which the voters reaffirmed. He said that SFPD was understaffed and could not afford to spare the officers. Then the SFPD started putting cops on the streets around 16th and Mission.
We asked SFPD to dedicate an officer to Marshall Elementary while school is in session after Five Keys security for Mission Cabins left, especially before and after school to ensure that these students were insulated from their discretionary policy choices. We were told that SFPD was understaffed and could not afford to spare the officers to defend Marshall. Then the SFPD decided to use the resources wasted on the cop camper van to fund a school safety officer.
The MO of The City Family is to scoff at good faith recommendations from residents as impractical. Go behind closed doors and figure out a way to make what they scoffed at happen. All while keeping residents at arm’s length.
Given the salaries of these policymakers, one might hope that they would not need to rely on residents to prod them, that they’d come with these apparent solutions on their own, proactively. That, or give cash grants to residents whose suggestions get adopted.
Hope he bought a few rounds with mommy’s $$$$$$$
It seems like a whole year has gone by, but Lurie appeared in our midst earlier this year.
Not to make a horrific analogy, but I’ve had to set up rat traps and they’ll work pretty well for a day or two, but then the rats get wise and ignore them. Having an empty RV and a few cops zoned out standing next to it didn’t push “crime” farther than about 50 feet. It certainly didn’t stop anything, since you can literally walk across the street to the bus stop and all the same people are sitting there. Where are they supposed to go? Maybe that’s what we need to figure out?
What happened to the mayors promise to cleaning this plaza up? Both 16 & 24/Mission are disasters: crime ridden and crowded daily. Granted Sup Jackie Fielder has no interest in her real, legal, tax paying residents but just transient grifters who destroy our neighborhood.
So sick of this BS. What can one do????
So frustrating that ML covered this for 100 days/so and nothing has changed, now it’s going to get worse.
MASS ARRESTS NOW, round up all these thieves and prosecute them.
> So sick of this BS. What can one do????
Grab a trash bag and start picking. You’re part of a community, so start acting like it instead of pissing and moaning from behind your keyboard.
So, did Chief Yep order the Van moved ?
Did you know that the time and place of tomorrow’s 5pm monthly Community Meeting of Mission’s SFPD and Mission Residents is not available to Open AI’s multi-billion dollar Search Engine ?
Yeah, I asked Chat Gpt and it was amazed at the fact since the Open AI labs where it was created by Ilya Sutskever are located in the Mission District.
Uh huh, you have to phone SFPD to get the location as the new station commander (Captain Sean Perdomo) appears to be taking names and making lists (in a friendly way I’m sure like for Xmas cards) just as his predecessor (Thomas Hardy) collected the vitals of the hundred plus Teen Hill Bombers by illegally attacking and arresting and detaining them a couple of years ago and lost the gig but came back to us this July 4th for a Command Staff Curtain Call to give the new station honcho at the time (Kevin Healy) deniability when the boys in Riot Gear went out in force to head bang some brown and black people who speak Spanish in Donald Trump’s America.
Cause, you see, Kevin couldn’t take a chance leading his own troops because he did something so bad that he’s not considered a reliable enough witness to put on the stand in a court so they let him guard Lurie instead.
For my complete conversation with Chat today go to my blog …
SFBulldogblog.com
At least I think that’s the link.
Hmmmm
So, Who’s on First ?
h.
The San Francisco Police Department and the DPW are doing a great job of making 16th & Mission a normal place to walk through.
Would be nice to see any response to the same issues and crime on Lower Polk /Larkin and Van ness Area
Picking and choosing neighborhoods while ignoring others is bad government.
Police and dpw are needed on foot 24/7 .
Dph which has the largest budget is mia. They never have any presence on the streets here or elsewhere .
Sending former food inspectors to intervene with drug addicts is a fools errand .