Why can't SFPD shut down SF's drug markets?
In the wake of SFPD’s show of force against the “Mission Hill Bomb,” an illegal skateboarding event, many are asking why the police can’t do the same against the open air drug markets in and around the Tenderloin. Here I explain why.
What is an “open air drug market”?
Let’s first define the problem. SF’s Honduran dealers operate two ways. One is in packs of 3-4 on street corners, usually with a lookout down the block (often a female). These corners can vary (they move when the cops show up), but are somewhat reliable - Eddy and Larkin, Hyde and McAllister, etc. Here’s the one at 7th and Mission:
The dealers stand out with their black balaclavas, black dress, backpacks and Honduran accented Spanish.
Their second MO is lone wolf operators roaming the streets. Same dress, but they stay on the move, providing home delivery to their tent- and SRO-dwelling customer base.
And now a few points
With that out of the way, let’s address some misconceptions about SFPD’s attempts to shut down these markets.
First, the police are absolutely arresting the dealers. For example, the SF Standard reported that DA Brooke Jenkins had filed 240 more drug cases than her predecessor. Since not all arrests are prosecuted, it’s clear SFPD has made hundreds of drug busts over the past year. This one just popped on my Twitter feed:
As that tweet alludes to, however, you can’t just arrest people at random. It’s easy for me to cruise the Tenderloin taking photos of dealer-ish looking people. But dealer-ish won’t hold up in a court of law. You need evidence of a crime, and that involves resources - from surveillance to finding witnesses to documenting the case to testifying in court.
Where will these resources come from? SFPD is greatly understaffed, approaching 700 officers short as of mid 2023. But - the twitterverse argues - didn’t you see how many cops showed up to stop the “Mission Skate Bomb”? We clearly have more than enough!
But think about it. That event occurs in a single place, at a single time, once per year. To replicate that show of force in the Tenderloin alone, you’d need SFPD officers arm and arm on 200+ individual blocks, on both sides of the street, 24 hours per day. The cost would be phenomenal - not that you could ever staff that high, as few people want to work for SFPD in its current state (see below).
Even if you did have the budget, SFPD can’t operate like a normal department because our radical police commission limits what it can do. They can’t use tasers, for example, if a dealer resists, and they’re not allowed to chase a perp who drives away. They’ve been restricted from all sorts of stops other police departments can make because, somehow, these are “racist”.
Remember that Mission Hill Bomb? Here’s police commissioner Kevin Benedicto blaming SFPD for being - I kid you not - “in proximity” to the law breakers:
We live in a city where the folks governing the cops believe they shouldn’t even be allowed to go near criminal activity.
Combine skeleton crew staffing with the commission’s heavy handed policies, and all you get is more crime. SFPD officer Adam Plantinga was asked on twitter why the cops can’t stop more vehicle thefts using bait cars. He explained:
Cops making drug busts face similar frustrations.
Ok, but what happens when a dedicated officer manages to overcome these obstacles and successfully arrest the dealers?
That would be a guy like Sgt. Daniel Solorzano. Solorzano is a heroic SFPD officer, going undercover to gather the evidence needed to arrest the Honduran cartel soldiers at the root of our street crisis.
As a result, Solorzano - who is hispanic, whose first language is Spanish, and who is of Nicaraguan and Mexican descent, was accused by the San Francisco Public Defenders office of racism for arresting only hispanic dealers.
According to the New York Post:
If the court agrees with the allegation of “racial bias and animus toward Hispanic or Latinx persons,” suspects arrested by Solorzano could be freed or have their charges reduced, and Solorzano could face disciplinary action, possibly including termination.
And that’s the reward you get in SF for trying to fix our city.
It gets worse
Making it hard to arrest the dealers is one thing. But San Francisco’s progressive leaders and voters have accomplished something far more insidious - they’ve created and encouraged the conditions that allow drug markets to flourish. They cause a root problem so enormous no police department can fix it.
Consider: San Mateo county is directly south of SF, with a population similar to ours. Yet it had only 50 fentanyl overdose deaths last year, versus 458 for SF. Common sense tells you that that’s not because San Mateo cops happen to be better at shutting down corner drug markets. There are no corner drug markets there. And it’s certainly not due differences in the cost of living, state laws, unemployment rate, police funding, etc. which are the same in both two counties. So what is the difference?
There can be only one answer - local governance. Here are just a few examples of how San Francisco’s stupid city policies all but guarantee a drug crisis on our streets:
“Sanctuary city” status. The SF Chronicle recently interviewed 25 Honduran dealers, asking them why they chose to deal in SF. It reported:
San Francisco’s status as a sanctuary city makes it more attractive to the Honduran dealers, some of them said, because it means a lower risk of lengthy jail time and deportation if convicted. Under the central tenet of the sanctuary law, the city jail does not allow ICE to place holds on local prisoners so they can be picked up upon release and deported. The only way most dealers face deportation is if they are arrested on federal charges or in another city.
The most important tool we have to stop the cartels - deportation - isn’t allowed here. And if they are arrested, they’ll likely be quickly back on the streets, no matter how effectively our DA (who’s doing her best) prosecutes them. And the dealers know it.
A monthly drug allowance. San Francisco - I kid you not - gives any addict that drifts into town $687/month in cash, which is generally used for drugs. Won’t see that in San Mateo county! Voters demanded our city stop making these payments when they voted for the “Care Not Cash” ballot measure in 2002, but the city ignored them. If there’s a better way to finance corner drug markets, I don’t know it.
Cash, of course, is just the beginning. Addicts in SF get unlimited health care, tent delivered meals from non-profits, CalFresh food assistance, free tents, the list goes on.
Drug saturated public housing. SF warehouses many of our addicts in single room occupancy hotels, or SROs. Common sense tells you such public housing should have strict rules against drug use - as every federal public housing project does. But SF has no such law. As a result, 77% of drug overdoses happen not on the street, but at a fixed address, usually an SRO.
RVs and tent cities can be moved. But once you imbed your drug problem behind security doors and private rooms, you make it permanent. You make the dealers outside permanent, you make the street addicts that need the dealers permanent, and you ensure the destruction of your neighborhood.
City sponsored enablement. It’s one thing to provide clean needles. But SF funded non-profits have taken this idea to radical extremes, handing out free meth pipes, for example, and creating advertisements glamorizing drug use. They also created the infamous, now shuttered “safe consumption site”, which provided less than 1% of visitors with any sort of drug treatment.
The problem is that such actions, however well meaning, only serve to lower the addiction barrier for new users, and enable existing ones. And when you turn your city into a mecca for drug consumption, word gets around. New drug tourists roll into the into town on Greyhound buses and dying cars everyday, from all over the country, ready to party.
Is “The War On Drugs” Unwinnable in SF?
Let’s be clear: there is no such thing as a “war on drugs” any more than there’s a “war on bank robberies”. There’s nothing to “win”. The goal is deterrence - to make the cost of these activities so great that they don’t happen often.
The right question is: How do we minimize drug sales, activity, overdoses, etc. here? Hopefully the answer is obvious: city policies need to change, and our radical police commission needs members who are supportive of SFPD, not cop hating defense attorneys.
Still not convinced? Do you still think, in the back of your mind, that this our street crisis is due to SFPD incompetence? That there is still some magic lamp they could rub to turn SF into Mayberry within our current policy and resource framework? Simplicity feels as good as a hit of fentanyl. But knee jerk reductivism won’t solve our street problems.
Look, with world class leadership at SFPD, we might be able to arrest 15% or 20% more dealers per week with current staffing. Who knows? But the fix we all want - a holistic solution to our drug crisis - can happen only with equally holistic policy, budgetary and leadership changes. And change here depends on voters not only complaining on social media, but also devoting time and money to candidates and propositions that will fix our city.