by Randy Shaw on January 16, 2023 (BeyondChron.org)
40+ Dealers at GGate & Hyde, 7pm, 1/11/23
Police Pressure is Proven Success
“We have had a long history where we tried that approach and it’s not working.” — Police Commissioner Cynthia Elias telling Supervisor Mandelman why she did not support using police to break up street level drug dealers, December 19, 2022
Contrary to claims by Elias and others, there is no “long history” of Tenderloin drug arrests failing to reduce dealing. There is not even a “short” history.
Elias and others are promoting a false Tenderloin history. A false history based on a big lie.
The Non-Police Strategy Has Failed
We don’t have to speculate what happens when police do not interfere with Tenderloin dealing: Open air drug markets emerge, thrive and expand.
City Hall has followed the non-arrest strategy for years. It has completely failed to reduce drug dealing in the Tenderloin.
Elias, reappointed last week to the Police Commission, echoes D5 Supervisor Dean Preston in claiming that “new strategies” are needed. But neither have offered any effective non-police strategies for stopping dealers.
Preston holds a lot of hearings. He has never held one outlining his plans for closing open air drug markets in the Tenderloin, a neighborhood he represents.
I’ve heard none of the “drug arrests don’t work” crowd offer any specific strategies for protecting working class families, seniors, and Tenderloin businesses from sidewalk drug dealers. They want the city to focus on opening safe injection sites, which at the Linkage Center increased drug dealing.
It’s disappointing to see the city’s left calling for police inaction in response to open air drug markets. It tells City Hall there’s no point allocating more police to the Tenderloin because it makes no difference. This big lie about police in the Tenderloin hurts residents, small businesses and other in the neighborhood.
I’ve worked in the Tenderloin since 1980. During all this time there have been only two police crackdowns on drug dealers.
Only two crackdowns in over forty years!
The Tenderloin’s actual history shows decades of police tolerating drug dealers. In the 1970’s the city transformed the Tenderloin into a drug dealer containment zone. City Hall allowed dealers to operate in the Tenderloin so they wouldn’t sell in more affluent neighborhoods.
The Tenderloin had two police crackdowns in the past forty plus years. Both were incredibly successful at reducing drug dealing.
Gascon’s 2009 Crackdown
After being appointed Police Chief by Mayor Newsom, George Gascon was shocked to see so many drug dealers in the Tenderloin. He launched a crackdown that swept dealers off the streets like never before. Tenderloin business owners and residents couldn’t believe the neighborhood’s positive transformation. The first words in the ABC-TV story on the crackdown:”He seems to be winning the battle.”
But Gascon’s victory over drug dealers didn’t last. Not because dealers quickly returned to the streets. The crackdown ended because Tenderloin arrests had so overwhelmed the jails that the sheriff and public defender demanded Gascon stop making arrests.
As a new Chief with no political base in the city, Gascon had little choice but to give in to these demands. The Tenderloin returned to being a drug containment zone because the police crackdown was forced to prematurely end. I’ve heard the current Public Defender repeat Elias’ quote about police not making a difference. Yet in 2009 the Public Defender’s office in 2009 saw the police closing down the Tenderloin drug trade and pressured the SFPD to end arrests.
Mayor Lee’s 2014 Crackdown
For many years the first block of Turk (between Mason and Taylor) was the leading drug dealer area. Check out this photo, which doesn’t show even more dealers on the other side of the street.
My March 25, 2014 story stated, “18 shots were fired and seven people were wounded in the latest Turk and Taylor shooting incident. The first block of Turk is the most violent block of the Tenderloin, and perhaps in the entire city. Yet even after over 1500 residents signed petitions to get Chief Suhr to see the problems on lower Turk firsthand, he refused to increase police in the area.”
Suhr routinely refused community calls for more police. But he soon did increase police in the area. That happened because in response to the above shootings Mayor Ed Lee ordered Chief Suhr to do so.
Lee ordered Suhr to have two officers posted in the area 24/7. Suhr strongly disagreed with the mayor. He said he walked a beat in the Tenderloin in the 1980’s and that was how the neighborhood was. Lee famously replied, “Well its not going to be that way anymore.”
Did drug dealers in lower Turk return to the area after the crackdown ended? No. The south side of the first block of Turk was permanently vacated of dealers. Years later a handful of dealers would occasionally appear on the north side but nothing like what the photo shows existed before the crackdown.
Nor did most Turk Street dealers simply move to other parts of the Tenderloin. Of the 50-75 dealers on lower Turk a handful likely moved to existing drug operations on Turk and Leavenworth. But for anyone visiting the Tenderloin Turk Street was a different world while Leavenworth looked the same.
Chief Suhr Reduces Tenderloin Officers in 2015
In 2015 the SFPD sharply reduced beat officers in the Tenderloin. They did this by vastly expanding the Tenderloin police district boundaries and reducing beat officers in the neighborhood itself.
We begged, pleaded and pushed Chief Suhr not to reduce Tenderloin police staffing. We turned out hundreds to a hearing. But Suhr would not be deterred.
As we predicted, the shift of officers away from the Tenderloin neighborhood increased drug dealing. Over time it enabled the drug cartel to get a firm foothold and to operate multiple open air drug markets in the neighborhood.
The Tenderloin is a poster child for what happens when police don’t interfere with drug dealers. Many progressives have the story completely wrong.
Arresting Drug Dealers Works: Hot-Spot Policing
New York City eliminated open air drug markets through a hot-spot policing strategy that San Francisco refuses to implement in the Tenderloin.
I urged San Francisco to adopt hot-spot policing over two years ago (“San Francisco can quickly end Tenderloin drug dealing,” December 6, 2021, SF Examiner). Many books and articles have been written about a strategy that floods drug dealer hot spots with officers and keeps the police there until the hot spot is permanently cleared. The officers then move on to other drug hot spots.
Gascon’s 2009 strategy essentially was hot-spot policing. It worked great. I think the politics of the city would no longer allow a sheriff or public defender to force the return of dealers to Tenderloin streets.
Soon after his appointment I met with Chief Scott. I asked him to implement hot-spot policing in what was then a far less significant problem in the Tenderloin. He said the resources weren’t available.
Police staffing has almost never been available for the Tenderloin. Chief Scott did not flood the Tenderloin with police even after the mayor’s December 2021 Emergency Declaration.
But the SFPD regularly uses hot spot policing in Union Square.
Unlike Union Square, the Tenderloin has no blocks with visible fixed police posts. These fixed posts force dealers to leave entire blocks. But when I walk people through the neighborhood I am routinely asked, “Where are the police?”
Police visibility in the Tenderloin is sparse. Mayor Breed can change this by ordering Chief Scott to provide fixed posts on the 600 block of Eddy, 300 block of Hyde and other hot spot drug markets.
Hot-spot policing can deter dealers without arrests.Dealers won’t sell on blocks with officers on fixed posts, particularly because San Francisco’s District Attorney will prosecute these dealers for felonies.
Where do dealers go? Many sell inside buildings, from cars, or in nearby cities. Nobody claims police can end drug use in cities—-the goal is getting open air drug markets off residential sidewalks.
It’s time to stop lying about arrests not reducing drug dealing. These lies overwhelming hurt the working-class and low-income San Franciscans progressives claim to care most about. Progressives should be on the front line with moderates in demanding a police crackdown in the Tenderloin.
A crackdown that does not end until open air drug markets are closed.
To get involved with the citywide campaign to close open air drug markets, join TogetherSF Action and others at this February 1 meeting
Randy Shaw
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
