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by Lina Abascal

By Lina Abascal

From the looks of it, San Francisco City Hall’s community safety meeting on Wednesday evening could have easily been confused with a high school assembly.

Dozens of San Francisco teens and preteens lined the seats among adults, police and committee members, waiting to share their feelings about community policing and safety.

Lead by District Five Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, members of the community safety committee discussed on Wednesday (March 9) the San Francisco Police Department’s progress toward looking for a new police chief, without divulging any possible candidates.

“We don’t want a cop’s cop,” said Thomas Mazzucco, president of the Police Commission. “It’s so tough to pick who to interview, we have such a talented policed department, I compare our workers to federal agents all of the time, everyone is so capable.”

Not everyone agreed.  Dozens of people voiced their complaints about the police force and the changes they hope to see in a new chief.

Buck Bagot, of the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, offered attendees a makeshift poster to hold during the event, each saying “we need a community policing police chief.” Bagot, along with other volunteers at the center, chaperoned nearly a dozen youth members to allow them to voice their opinions about the upcoming choice for a new police chief.

“These are my kids, this is my community. Bernal Heights, San Francisco in general. The next guy they put out there in charge needs to have the same priorities as us,” said Bagot, a strong advocate for community policing.

Alongside the Bernal Heights Community Center was center for troubled girls, Mission Girls/ Young Queens. Ana Maria Corral, the director of Mission Girls, urged police and the future chief to keep girls out of juvenile hall, and instead send them to programs such as Mission Girls or Young Queens so they can learn from their behavior rather than become a part of the repetitive judicial cycle.

“We need the police, but the police also need us,” said Aylia, of the Bernal Heights Community Center’s after school program for children.

Aylia listed several qualities she was looking for her in ideal police chief including a proactive approach emphasis on serving rather than fighting, and specific training in neighborhood problem solving with a focus on various races and demographics.

“It is essential that any elected official is to provide some level of expectation and accountability of community policing… it is important that we find a way for citizens to know what community policing is,” said Mirkarimi. The 50 plus attendees of the meeting all seemed to be aware of what the term meant and had developed their own examples of it, showing Mirkarimi and other officials that community policing is more of a household name than they might think.

A few San Franciscans were so passionate about explaining their definition and needs for community policing that they were actually forced to stop talking and had the microphone turned off during their speech to make time for other speakers. Leah White, a volunteer from Lowell High struck a chord, resulting in audience applause when she mentioned the stigma around police officers.

“There is a stigma around police officers imposing fear, to break that stigma we need more interaction between the officers and civilians, especially kids. The stigma begins to set in children’s brains, where they see the police as being against them,” said White.

As more and more audience members volunteered their input at the podium, Mazzucco invited the youth participants to sign up for a program specifically geared at students to help them become more involved and acquainted with the police. No comments were made by the committee after each volunteer made a speech, with the exception of a few thank yous.

The search for San Francisco’s new police chief continues with a promised emphasis on a passion for community policing, something both officials and citizens agree on.

SF News Hub