Captain Carla Hurley, who currently presides over the Southern Station overseeing SoMa and Mission Bay, will leave her position on Saturday, she wrote Tuesday in an email obtained by Mission Local.
It is the fourth change in police leadership there since last June.
“It has been a privilege to serve as the Captain of this great station and district,” wrote Hurley to city leaders and community members. She announced that she will leave her position on Nov. 7 and be replaced by Captain Chris Canning.
Hurley’s replacement, Canning, is a second-generation San Francisco police officer who has served in the SFPD since 2007. He was previously the commanding officer at the Richmond Station and at the Tenderloin Station at a time when police were expanding their presence in the Tenderloin.
Southern Station covers SoMa, the Embarcadero, Market Street, China Basin, Mission Bay, Yerba Buena Island and Treasure Island. Community members who worked closely with Hurley said her departure comes without warning or stated reason.
Leah Edwards, a board member of the SoMa West Neighborhood Association, said she had been on a community call with Hurley just last Thursday and there was no indication she was leaving.
The SoMa West Neighborhood Association’s board president, Reese Isbell, said he was shocked to learn of Hurley’s departure. “Wait, are you serious?” he remembered thinking. “Why do we keep having captains who don’t stay?”
Hurley has been the captain of Southern Station since May. Before that, Robert Imbellino was acting captain for just a few months. Before that, Amy Hurwitz, who is now a Commander, held the role from July 2025 to February 2026, after having taken over from now-Deputy Chief Luke Martin. Martin held the role since November 2023.
Frequent changes in police station leadership are not all that irregular, though it’s more common for a captain to last a year or two. Between 2021 and 2024, for example, Mission Station had five captains.
There was no immediately available data for how long captains stay at any one station and the San Francisco Police Department has argued that rotating captains helps them develop by providing new opportunities.
It’s not yet clear why Hurley is being transferred or where she will go. Both Martin and Hurwitz were transferred out for promotions, while Imbellino’s role at Southern Station was always transitional.
Abruptly replacing captains is often unpopular with neighborhood groups, whose members complain about building a relationship with one captain, only to have to start over with a new one.
“The Police District with the highest crime rate continues to churn through leadership, unfortunately, and lacks stability,” wrote Shaun Aukland, a SoMa resident and member of SoMa West Neighborhood Association member, in a text message to Mission Local.
“Stability of a station caption at Southern for at least a year or longer would be very much welcomed,” wrote Bettina Cohen, co-founder of the Mission Bay Neighborhood Association.
Earlier this year, residents in the areas covered by Southern Station pressed SFPD brass on disproportionately slow response times in their neighborhoods to all but the most urgent calls. Officers sometimes took hours to respond to a call for help even though SoMa has the highest crime rates in the city.
The SFPD has responded to that pressure by promising a new drone program, an increased number of police officers and a decrease in response times. District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey had called the departing Hurley a “phenomenal ally” in addressing public safety concerns.
In Hurley’s Nov. 3 email to constituents, she referenced the station’s struggles with response times and staffing, which both long predate her tenure as captain. “We have reduced response times to non-emergency calls for service by approximately 50%,” she wrote, while acknowledging there is still “more work to do.”
Isbell of the SoMa West Neighborhood Association said he thought the frequent turnover could be attributed to the challenges faced by Southern Station. Following a recent police redistricting process, which took effect on Oct. 1, the station is responsible for 23% more calls for services than before.
“I’m sure it’s overwhelming to be the captain of Southern,” he said. “That’s why we’ve had a revolving door.”
Canning, the new captain, was named as a defendant in an 2026 lawsuit by the parents of 30-year-old Jon-Marques Psalms, who died in 2025 as a result of police training exercises. Canning was captain of the SFPD’s training academy at the time of Psalms’ death. The lawsuit was dismissed in August.
SFPD did not respond to requests for comment.
