The pre-dawn raid last week by San Francisco police and sheriff’s deputies that led to the arrest of about 40 people at Market and Van Ness, part of a new “drug market crackdown,” led to zero criminal charges filed. That’s according to Ana Gonzalez, the district attorney’s chief assistant and lead managing attorney.
“We charged none of those people,” Gonzalez said before a community meeting at the Tenderloin police station today. “We had five people who, maybe it was close, but we had to go back and go to the police and be like, ‘can you say more about these?’”
She told community members that the DA’s office and the police would be meeting to discuss “how to do it smarter.”
After the Thursday raid, the police department and Mayor Daniel Lurie posted video of officers swarming the area and arresting various people from the street. “This activity will not be tolerated, [and] and we will continue these operations for as long as it takes,” SFPD’s post read.
Lurie gave a similar statement: “Every day, I see families waiting for Muni here, amidst open drug use and dealing. This will not be tolerated, and we will be relentless in dismantling drug markets.”
Gonzalez, the DA’s chief assistant, chalked up the botched raid to growing pains.
“They’re trying, but they’re trying too fast,” she said, lamenting limitations of the law. “We do not have the tools that would make this easier … [and police] are doing something that they have never done.”
Residents generally did not seem perturbed by the revelation. “At least they’re not comfortable … and not so brazen,” said one community member among some 20 attendees. Several others murmured in agreement.
Acting Captain Kevin Knoble of Tenderloin Station said that last week’s operation was led by the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center, a multi-agency task force involving police and other city departments, but that he did not know where the directive to raid the intersection came from.
“You have no idea how many resources that took, how much that money that costs, how many hours went into doing those,” Knoble told community members.
But even without any formal charges, he told community members that the raids make a difference.
“This mayor is really listening and wanting to move things forward, and he is the real deal,” Knoble said. “He’s taking action. He’s looking for things to happen. And when you start to do anything new, what do you do? ‘Okay, that’s not quite working, so let’s adjust.’”
Another recent raid at Jefferson Square Park in February, which netted nearly 90 arrests or citations, led to a “fair number of felonies” charged, Gonzalez said. (After that raid, the DA’s office told the San Francisco Standard that it was only prosecuting one person for intent to sell drugs.)
Jefferson Square Park closed at 10 p.m., so all of those present during the operation could, at the very least, be charged with violating the curfew, though the city’s own website listed the closing hour as midnight.
There was no curfew violation underpinning the mass enforcement at Van Ness and Market. Gonzalez said this location was “much more problematic.” It appears there was not sufficient cause to charge anyone for being on a public street, or anything else.
“For every single one of those people, I need to be able to articulate to the judge what crime that person committed,” Gonzalez said. “We’ve got 100 people; you don’t have 100 cops. Who are you marking to be able to articulate that they committed a crime?”
The answer was: Nobody.
Gonzalez expressed concern about the process: “If you arrest enough people, or cite enough people, without being able to establish probable cause, the next thing you know, there’ll be complaints … and then cops will get in trouble, and then there’ll be a chilling effect.”
“I got my answer: Nothing happened. It’s all right,” said the audience member who asked about the raids.
“There was a disruption!” Gonzalez replied. “And there will be more attempts.”
Not only did that action not yield any arrest, it just moved the problem 2 blocks away on to my street. Not as visible as Market and Van Ness. So tired of this city always trying to look they are doing something, instead of actually trying to solve the problem. Instead of giving cops more money, put that money into real harm reduction. Create more housing and treatment. Also, why is anybody talking about this as though this is some new tactic. This is the same old same old, that we know doesn’t work.
I walk or ride my bike past that intersection every morning or night on my way to or from work – and yes, it’s often a hellacious mass of drug dealers and users. You can tell when the dealers have just come through, because all the addicts are slumped over in their impossible positions (we call it “Fentanyl Yoga” – or, as the papers have taken to saying, “The Fentanyl Fold”). The timing of the raid was likely the problem – the dealers seem to come by sometime around 3 – 5 am, since the folks have had a chance to smoke up and pass out by the time I ride or walk by around 6:30 am. Keep trying, and at least you might dissuade folks from coming here to buy and sell drugs!
Cue the corrupt DA blaming the burden of criminal law.
Great job Daniel Lurie…..
This is why so many were calling for defunding. You don’t continue throwing money at people and organizations who are incompetent at their jobs. You replace them with something better. Cut the police force to a minimal size and staff it with heavily armed and highly trained individuals. Use the money saved to employ a small army of community ambassadors, peace keepers, and unarmed law enforcement.
Im glad to hear that law enforcement is at least doing something even if it is not effective as hoped for. And hopefully they will grt some convictions next time. The drug dealers have killed enough people already and need to be put in prison or deported.
The problem with “we tried a carceral strategy and bungled it” isn’t the bungling, it’s the strategy! Fifty years of the War On Drugs and we’re still trying to police our way out of the crisis? How dumb are we exactly?
The issue is not that people are doing drugs, but that public drug sales and public drug use and public behavior while lit.
This is not about poverty, it is not about drugs, it is about unacceptable public conduct.
“Gonzalez, the DA’s chief assistant, chalked up the botched raid to growing pains.
“They’re trying, but they’re trying too fast,” she said, lamenting limitations of the law. “We do not have the tools that would make this easier … [and police] are doing something that they have never done”.REALLY? NEVER DONE? meaning they have never done their job? they should join the nobel prize team which conducted the Yemen raid on Signal.They will be hired right away.
I had a similar thought.
Are the dealers undocumented? Or does the community think it’s a slippery slope to hand the undocumented dealers over to ICE?
First sentence: are they undocumented? Second sentence: hand them over to ICE.
This is a very dangerous line of thinking. You are suggesting suspending due process, a cornerstone of our judicial system and the foundation of our society, because you are mildly inconvenienced. You owe it to everyone around you to educate yourself as quickly as possible.
This is fine. We have to make it less comfortable for people to move here, live on the street, use fentanyl (or meth) and support themselves by shoplifting.
If you read stories where people actually talk to the junkies, they tell you that’s why they’re here.
Occasional arrests will help break the comfort zone. We need to stop being a national magnet for addicts.
Charges would be better but unrelenting disruption to these markets needs to continue. SF is closed for this type of business.
This is beyond wild. This means the police are simply rounding people up en masse without sufficient justification and violating many peoples rights. I guess people aren’t up in arms because they think people who are dirty and smell bad or are out in a “bad” neighborhood “late at night” don’t deserve to have their civil rights respected. That’s bullshit, and this kind of “policing” can’t last very long. Nobody should have to worry about being stopped and handcuffed by the police just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Mission Local I hope you will do more to hold the SFPD accountable . . . you really ought to request the BWC footage from these events and take a deeper look into what’s actually happening here.
Sure. They were at “the wrong place at the wrong time” by accident or coincidence.
Lurie’s incompetent at leading cops, right?
“Hey guys, let’s do something!“ Larry slaps Moe, Moe slaps himself, Curly honks horn.
Lurie is going to have a rude awakening once he figures out that the bureaucracy is playing him for a fool to preserve their sinecures, prerogatives and impunity.
Why would Chesa do this to us?
Total BS, 40 arrests and no criminal charges.Waste of money. A drop of water in an ocean of misery.No charges? work harder, find some! It almost sounds like this was designed to make it to the news desk..and it did but in the neighborhood it is business as usual..Same thing with the current administration in Washington, lot of noise about tariffs but as expected zero results in sight.
The show must go on. Lurie got his video. The cops got their overtime. Why don’t they put another police van on that corner. And no the cops probably never did anything like this before because during the War on Drugs (circa Kamala Harris) the cops were imprisoning minority youth for possession of pot in and around Dolores Park.
This is a page from the Guliani playbook. It’s not about convictions it’s about disruption. I am rooting for the cops.
Are you aware of what became of Giuliani, and the general opinion of these tactics? Serious question.
Mission Accomplished
https://youtube.com/shorts/vhTnBDaYZ24?feature=shared