On the kinder, gentler city front, the number of complaints against San Francisco police officers fell by 16 percent last year, dropping to the lowest number since 2006.
A year end report presented to the Police Commission Wednesday night found that the city's Office of Citizen Complaints, the investigative watchdog for police misconduct, opened 854 cases against police officers in 2010, down from 1,018 in 2009 and 1,023 in 2008.
"It may be that there's greater satisfaction with police-public interactions," said Joyce Hicks, executive director of the OCC.
While the number of complaints may have dropped, the percentage of cases where some type of misconduct was discovered rose to 8.9 percent last year, up from 5.1 percent in 2009 and 3.8 percent in 2008. But the 2010 figure is only a tick above the 8.8 percent average for sustained complaints since 1993, the OCC report found.
While there were 234 complaints that police officers have used excessive force, only two of those allegations were sustained, numbers that have shown little change over the years, Hicks said.
More than one-third of the complaints filed cited unwarranted action by police officers, such as improper searches or citations. But two-thirds of the complaints that were sustained were for neglect of duty, which included such things as failure to fill out the required department paperwork for traffic stops and handcuffed suspects.
Commissioners also expressed concern over statistics showing that in 2010 26 percent of citizen complaints came from African Americans, who make up only about 7 percent of San Francisco's population.
But the overall report was seen as good news and an indication that something is going right with the way police work with the public.
"Maybe people just don't call me anymore," said Commissioner Joe Marshall, "but I'm not hearing (the complaints) I have heard before."
