Real Life Superheroes: The Undercover Cops Who Fight Crime in the Sunset
When vehicle and commercial burglaries began exploding along the Sunset’s merchant corridors, the Taraval police station’s undercover unit swung into action.
The undercover team relies on surveillance as its crime-fighting approach.
“We literally want to see a crime going on with our own eyes,” says Sgt. Pavel (Paul) Khmarskiy, the team’s leader. “We conduct undercover surveillance in any areas where we think we will have a high probability of locating suspects.”
Before getting to the stakeout stage, the undercover unit reviews the records of all the serious crimes in the area — the times, dates, and methods.
“Doing data analysis first increases the chances we will succeed,” Khmarskiy says. “It takes a tremendous amount of time because you have to figure out the criminal pattern.”
With the data in hand, the officers map out the best places to set up surveillance.
“We try to target crimes that give the most law enforcement benefit, like auto burglaries, store burglaries, and getting guns off the street,” said undercover team member Officer Dustin Colclough.
Late night laundry caper
The criminals targeting Sunset stores were working late at night and the early morning, so the team switched to working nights.
“Getting up at 1 a.m. for a week is a strain,” Khmarskiy says. “Sitting in an unmarked car for hours and hours and hours is really tough.”
But the long hours paid off when they viewed a break-in at an Irving Street laundromat. They called in backup, surrounded two burglars, and made arrests.
“One guy gave up, the other ran. He got, like, five feet,” says Officer Andy Kavanagh.
The officers also confiscated the burglary tools.
The laundromat case was considered a serious crime because there had been a burglary in the neighborhood almost every night, and the community was concerned, Khmarskiy says.
He credits cooperation with the station’s burglary unit and other plainclothes teams in the city for the operation’s success.
“After the arrests, burglaries in the urban corridor declined,” he says.
What happens after an arrest
After an arrest, team members search for evidence needed by District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’ office to build a case. They collect DNA, canvass the neighborhood for useful video, search and photograph the crime scene, and comb through the suspects’ car for evidence. They also check to see if the suspects had outstanding warrants.
“It’s a time-consuming process.This is where the wheels of justice go a little slower,” says Kavanagh.
The time after an arrest is “superconcentrated,” says Officer Amir Mahmoud. “When we are on scene after a good arrest, we have to go through the whole evidence checklist, A to Z, to get everything we need to make a case. We have one shot to get it right.”
At the same time, team members may also be busy trying to close other cases that may have taken weeks of investigative work.
In their search for evidence in the laundromat case, the team found a stolen car containing a stolen firearm that was linked to one of the suspects through DNA.
Importance of video
Videos taken in the neighborhood around a crime scene can provide invaluable evidence to help make a case.
“Video is often the deciding factor in a case,” Khmarskiy says.
But finding the video cameras is often time-consuming. It also can take days to contact the owner of the camera, and by that time the video may have been erased. That’s why Khmarskiy urges business owners to invest in or update their video cameras — and put their phone on file with the police station.
Contacting shop owners to determine what items were stolen poses another chore for police, since many owners do not post an after hours number on their shop window or website. Officers don’t know who to call in the middle of the night.
After police collect evidence, they turn it over to the station’s investigative unit, which creates a “pre-booking packet” containing everything relevant to the case and sends it to the District Attorney’s office for a decision on what charges — if any — to file.
The value of what is stolen determines whether a felony or misdemeanor charge is filed. To charge a crime as a felony, the value of the goods stolen must exceed $950.
Organized crime
Criminals are constantly finding ways to commit crimes, often by using the latest technology.
Among the latest criminal tricks:
Breaking into the car lock boxes used by surfers at Ocean Beach to keep their keys
Starting Hyundais using USB ports
Programing keys for Lexus and Infiniti
Breaking into cars through the moonroof
Using stolen Audi valet keys.
“Many area criminals specialize in specific crimes,” says Khmarskiy. “Some go after coin machines, safes, i-pads, phones.”
The fencing operations behind every crime are very organized.
Kavanagh explained how a young person on scooter downton can steal a cellphone from somebody at Leavenworth and Hyde streets and within two minutes sell it to a fencing operation.
“They know right where to go. It's an actual business,” Kavanagh says. “They have hundreds of cell phones, laptops, and tablets waiting to be shipped off. Walgreens theft? Somebody has a house full of Dove soap and Kellogg’s corn flakes waiting to get sold. Auto burglars also have fences.”
How Sunset residents can help police
Sunset residents can play a meaningful role in helping police by filing detailed reports with police whenever they see anything suspicious.
“Our team has done hundreds of investigations based on citizen calls,” Khmarskiy says. “We look into every call. We just had a complaint against a liquor store on Ocean Avenue that resulted in the confiscation of an illegal gun and the store owner being charged with selling narcotics.”
Tips from Sunset residents about abandoned homes also can be productive, since criminals often hide out in them.
A tip about an abandoned house recently led the undercover team to a loaded gun.
Using technology
Police rely on high-tech tools of their own, says. Electronic license plate readers, for example, enable police to locate stolen cars that have been abandoned or are actively being used to commit crimes. “We may not be able to make an arrest when we find a stolen car, but we take away one of their tools,” Officer Colclough says. One car the team recovered contained four stolen license plates.
But looking for stolen cars takes time. Team members using plate readers divide Sunset neighborhoods into grids that enable them to systematically cruise around, a process that “takes hours and hours,” says Khmarskiy. “There are teams like this all around the city. When we make an arrest, we have to pivot to take these people into custody,” he says. “That takes time too, as does taking calls from citizens.
Doing more with less
Because SFPD is short-staffed by several hundred officers, the undercover unit is stretched thin along with Taraval station’s burglary, robbery, and patrol units. Many officers work hundreds of overtime hours.
“The patrol division is the backbone of the department, and they are barely above water, because they spend so much time trying to respond to people calling the station,” Khmarskiy says.
Khmarskiy says he has learned to deal with the challenges and frustrations of doing police work in an understaffed department by working smarter with the resources he has.
“I focus on what we need to do to improve our cases for the district attorney. Did we do our job as well as we could?” says Khmarskiy. “Now there’s more communication between us and the DA. We can see she is trying, and we are trying to learn what she needs to make good cases.”
The bottom line, says Khmarskiy, is that the Taraval station’s police officers are making a difference.
“Our unit, and other street crime units across San Francisco, send criminals packing,” Khmarskiy says. “Criminals know we are out there, driving around or waiting somewhere undercover, and we will find them and they will be arrested.”
But the real payoff for the undercover team is helping crime victims recover their property.
“We take crime personally,” says Khmarskiy. “There’s nothing better than looking someone in the eye and telling them, ‘We found your stuff.’ “
Reported and written by volunteer community journalist Tom Colin. We encourage residents with journalism experience, retired journalists, and student journalists in high school and college to volunteer as writers for Supervisor Engardio’s newsletter. Interested? Apply here. Do you know a story you would like to see featured in the newsletter? Tell us about it here.