For nearly an hour, Captain Sean Perdomo took questions from several dozen Mission residents, merchants, and other attendees of SFPD Mission station’s monthly community meeting. Their concerns were familiar ones: Public drug use, dirty sidewalks, and what the San Francisco Police Department can actually do about it.
“We’re all going to disagree in the room about how to deal with some of this stuff,” said Perdomo. “Because you have the top 1 percent [of incomes], you have the bottom 1 percent, you have everything in-between in this district.”
Several of those in attendance made it clear they were repeat attendees of the meeting. They described the same scene along sections of Albion, San Carlos and Woodward streets — people at all hours of the day using illicit substances. One resident said that some drug users in the area appeared to be quite young, and pressed the captain for the department’s plan to respond.
Perdomo calmly said he had seen the same thing over the past few months on those streets. While he didn’t know what was causing it, he said, he’d instruct officers to patrol those areas more regularly.
At this, some of those in attendance said that officers that they saw in the area seemed to drive past or move people along without stepping out of their cars.
Officers are expected to take action if they see a violation with sufficient evidence, Perdomo responded, “and not just shoo them away.” But he added, officers are limited in what they can do. Police must witness an offense to cite them.
As for people sleeping on sidewalks, Perdomo said city law allows it between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., unless those people are sleeping in a tent. Outside of that timeframe, people are subject to a citation.
Residents interjected comments for another half hour, until one resident from the 500 block of South Van Ness Avenue was called on. She said people along that section of the street were continually defecating, illegally dumping trash and creating an environment that, to her, was “preposterously revolting to walk by to go home.”
Another speaker who said he was a resident representing several businesses along the same corridor, agreed. He asked Perdomo whether owners should keep calling the police regularly for something to be done. Businesses were frustrated, he added, because police responses could take two or three hours. After a while, the man said, “It feels like they can’t talk to you anymore.”
Perdomo agreed that the block looked terrible. He urged people to continue calling, and said he was trying to get a Public Works cleaning truck dedicated to the neighborhood.
“I think they have one in the Tenderloin right now,” said Perdomo, who said he wanted to follow a similar model in the Mission. When a particular street looked bad, he added, “the police would accompany the truck to wash an area and pick up trash.” The audience murmured its support.
Another person asked what Perdomo thought about media reports describing the Mission as the new Tenderloin. The neighborhood has changed since he started working in it 20 years ago, he said. But he answered: “I don’t think so. Certain little pockets, sure.”
For all the talk about public drug consumption and dirty streets, reported crime in the Mission is down this year, according to SFPD data. Property crime fell about 13 percent, from 2,379 incidents to 2,067, and violent crimes — including homicide, rape, robbery and assault — fell about 10 percent, from 492 incidents to 441, compared with the same period last year.
