Officer Louis Wong will become president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association on Wednesday, following a landslide election in which he beat out his opponent 689 to 398.
He will be the union’s first Asian American president.
Wong’s campaign was focused: He wants San Francisco officers to be paid more money, even though the San Francisco Police Department’s salaries are among the highest in the country.
In a campaign video, Wong said he hoped to make San Francisco “one of the most paid police departments” in the nation. He wrote on his website that he would advocate for a “substantial wage increase.”
SPFD police officers start at $119,262 a year. After seven years, they can expect to earn up to $164,164. If they become a sergeant, they can earn $176,462; a lieutenant, $201,474; or a captain, $254,592. The department had 872 people who earned more than $300,000 in the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
Wong was one of them. Between July 2022 and June 2023, he was the No. 5 earner in SFPD, taking home a total pay of $481,910, not including benefits. Wong made over $100,000 more than the chief of police at the time.
Most of Wong’s salary has come from overtime pay. In 2024, overtime accounted for two-thirds of this $558,282 total pay.
Officers in California and the Bay Area consistently have higher salaries than police in other states. Amid Mayor Daniel Lurie’s budget cuts to nearly every city department, which included the elimination of positions in the department responsible for police oversight, $27 million was added to the SPFD budget for 2025 to 2026.
The department has faced intense scrutiny for its overtime practices lately. A 2024 city audit found that the SFPD had more than doubled its overtime spending in the five years prior as the result of potential abuse and a lack of internal controls.
Both progressive and moderate supervisors blasted police brass at a city hearing earlier this year, saying the department needs to “fix” its abuse of overtime.
Nonetheless, in May the Board of Supervisors approved a police request for $61 million in additional overtime funding.
Wong is taking the top union post after former president Tracy McCray stepped down in June when acting chief Paul Yep promoted her from lieutenant to commander. She endorsed Wong, according to his website.
Union vice president Kevin Worrell ran against Wong, but was handily beaten.
Wong is currently the union’s treasurer, and is stationed at Southern Station. He’s been a San Francisco police officer for 30 years, and has been a member of the Police Officers Association since 1995. He previously served on the SFPD’s Tenderloin task force.
He did not respond to requests for an interview.
Wong was accused of misconduct twice, and was the subject of one lawsuit against the department.
In 2002, the Office of Citizen Complaints sustained complaints from two women who said that Wong had berated them, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The agency found that Wong had neglected his duty and used sexual slurs. The cases were sent to the police department for disciplinary action, which was not taken within the required one-year period.
In 2000, the city attorney settled a lawsuit against Wong, Officer Marcus Bronfeld, and the city of San Francisco for $175,000. The case involved police brutality committed against three siblings and their friend, but it is unclear what role Wong played.
Wong, in his campaign video, noted “a lot of issues with the Department of Police Accountability” and called for the curtailment of anonymous complaints against officers.
On his website, he added that he would also seek more healthcare options for officers, enhance recruitment efforts and lower the retirement age for police from 58 to 55. The latter would require voters to pass a ballot measure like the one that failed just this past November.
Prior to the POA election, Wong spoke out on several local policies. In 2024, he spoke with the Chronicle editorial board about Proposition E, which allows police more freedom to engage in car chases. While he said he supported the measure overall, he noted that the city was often “too crowded” to chase certain cars.
In 2023, he sent a form letter to the police commission opposing the curtailment of pretext stops, which occur when an officer stops a vehicle for a minor traffic infraction, and have been found to be racially biased.
A Richmond District resident, Wong has longstanding ties to San Francisco. His family has owned a liquor store in Potrero Hill since the ‘60s, and Wong said in an SFPD recruitment video that seeing crime outside the store growing up inspired him to work in public safety.
He described watching people “fighting for food stamps with razor blades.”
In addition to a bevy of endorsements from police department figures, Wong was tweet-endorsed by venture capitalist Garry Tan. In a video posted to social media in May, Lurie read from an email commending Wong for getting out of his cruiser to repair a man’s wheelchair.
OMG, how do you see people literally fighting to eat and think “wow, I wanna be a police officer when I grow up so I can arrest these people” instead of “wow, we should really fix the pressure of poverty in our society so people don’t have to fight over food.”
Marxism was supposed to “fix the pressure of poverty” in Cuba. But now they have more poverty than ever. It’s easy to point fingers and make delusional unsustainable promises…
Half a million dollars a year? For a relatively low-level police officer, that’s far too much. The department has got to get its overtime spending under control.
I’ll also add that being endorsed by Garry Tan ought to raise eyebrows. I dislike everything I’ve heard about the guy, and I loathe the tactics YC uses in doing business.
The president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association is usually the most fascist member of the SFPD.
I support increased pay for police officers in San Francisco. They are unsung heroes.
I’d say he’s a greedy little pig, but there’s nothing little about him.
Mr. Wong is a stand up guy who works hard and never complains. He has put in countless hours of helping others. He’s smart and will not only serve the officers well, he will serve the City and County of San Francisco well.
Wow, you’re a greedy pig, aren’t you?
If the SFPD came up with a plan to protect citizens from ICE, instead of just standing by while they watch these goons fling an innocent civilian off their hood and almost run her over, and do nothing, I might not feel like they’re completely useless.
Louis, nobody else seems to wanna do anything about this. Maybe you can. But first, you have to start prioritizing public safety instead the mad cash grab you seem to be interested in.
I’ve seen him around, most likely on OT. That’s ok, at least he’s in the field, not like many who hide.