Statement: Why We Need To Support Police in San Francisco

Statement by Supervisor Joel Engardio
San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting
March 15, 2023

Why We Need To Support Police in San Francisco

I’m here to advocate on behalf of the residents of the Sunset who want and need more police officers. The police station serving the Sunset has lost half of its officers since 2020. On any given night, only seven officers are patrolling an area that has a population of 130,000. Those seven officers cover a huge geographic area from Twin Peaks to the ocean and Golden Gate Park to Daly City.

Seven is not enough. Especially when you consider that the Sunset station is #2 in priority B calls. And we’re up there with the Tenderloin in priority A calls. That’s not a quiet and sleepy Sunset.

Seven officers is not enough when I see that the Sunset station is #3 in overtime backfill.

When officers are sick or injured, others have to work even more overtime. We can’t go a night without officers. So overtime funding is essential — until we can hire enough permanent officers. 

We’re short more than 500 officers for a city our size. Hundreds more officers are eligible to retire in June and many will. The last police academy graduated 12 new officers. The current academy only has eight cadets.

That’s not going to cut it when we’re short 500. This tells me more money isn’t the only solution. Yes, we need this overtime funding. But we have to talk about the real reason we have a police staffing crisis — because too few people want to be a police officer anymore. 

That’s why we must change the narrative about police in San Francisco. When talking about numbers we have to remember we’re talking about people. Our officers are people. They live in our communities. They have families. Many grew up in San Francisco.

Our officers are diverse and committed to accountability and serving at the highest standard. Our police department is a model of reform and has been praised by the California Department of Justice for already implementing more than 90 percent of needed reforms. We need to let people know that It is honorable to be a police officer in San Francisco. That we value and support our police officers.

That’s how we can make people want to be police officers in San Francisco. And that’s how we can avoid this overtime problem in the next budget cycle.