SFPOA

Going, going, . . . Gone!!
The San Francisco Police Department could, quite possibly, face a day of reckoning as far as personnel shortages are concerned.
It’s common knowledge that the Department should be staffed with more than 2100 officers, but they have been slowly dropping from 2100 to 1723.
And, if that isn’t enough bad news, another 300 members will be eligible to walk with their retirement diplomas in December of this year dropping the total loss of bodies to around 1650!!

“To Protect and Serve” was the motto so proudly displayed on the vehicles the police officers in San Francisco used to drive. But it’s no longer relevant ever since the motto became more of a question rather than a goal. And that question, “To protect and serve who?” still lingers.
The felons, until recently, had a District Attorney who, in our judgment, acted like a Public Defender. So they were safe from being prosecuted.
That left the citizens and the cops with no back-up...

It seems there’s an abundance of weapons out there available for the novice criminals to obtain. It doesn’t make the job as a police officer any easier not knowing what an armed felon might do once they have one. And that’s why it’s important to honor the officers out there 24/7 who are putting their lives on the line in this column.
Their jobs are unpredictable while their bravery is nothing short of admirable.

People wonder why it’s so hard to hire police officers. There’s a number of reasons but it pretty much boils down to the candidate being able to making a commitment to the profession and all it demands. And the commitment to excellence is no better outlined than in the following incidents presented.

Take for example: …the 9-1-1 call in the Taraval from a wife asking for help for her husband who suffers from bipolar disorder, had taken a psychedelic mushroom, and was now suffering from a “psychotic episode”.

It’s barely daylight in the Richmond when gunshots rang out on the 1600 block of Balboa. One of the rounds fired was lodged in a bed frame in an apartment next door to the adjoining unit where the shooting was believed to have been initiated.

It was a little after midnight when Officer Giovanni Leyva, Officer Mariano Flores, and Officer Michael Scherer were on patrol in the Bayview and noticed a car stopped in the middle of the street with 1 on board. A quick computer check revealed the vehicle was reported stolen.

The officers conduct a high-risk traffic stop and the suspect/driver decides to simply ignore the directions of the officers and casually walk away.

A special report was filed on CNN recently regarding personnel shortages in police recruitments throughout the country and what they found was — No one wants the job.

One veteran officer pretty much summed up what a lot of others are thinking when he answered the question of why good candidates are shying away from this particular profession:
His take, “It’s because you’re one bullet away from death, and only one mistake away from an indictment.”