San Francisco police chief faces growing calls to step down
The police chief in San Francisco, California, is facing growing calls to step down following a racist texting scandal disclosed last week as well as recent police shootings in the city.
Protesters joined five people on a hunger strike in front of the San Francisco Police Department on Saturday, demanding justice for victims of police brutality.
The hunger strikers are heading into their eleventh day without food on Sunday.
Police critics, including many among the city’s dwindling black population, have previously held protests and called for the resignation of the police chief, Gregory Suhr.
Since becoming chief in 2011, Suhr’s mismanagement has led to dozens of brutality and corruption lawsuits, many of which are kept away from the media in order to deflect public criticism.
The San Francisco Police Department is under federal investigation after complaints that some officers routinely behave in a racially biased manner.
Along with dozens of other police departments around the nation, the San Francisco police — who work in one of the nation’s most culturally diverse cities — have come under scrutiny during the past year.
Officers have been accused of using unnecessary deadly force and brutality, and of focusing enforcement efforts on black neighborhoods while ignoring similar infractions elsewhere.
On Thursday, George Gascón, the city’s district attorney, said San Francisco police officers sent dozens of racist text messages in the past several months.
Especially concerning, Gascón said, was that the officers involved in the new case were sending offensive texts even as the city investigated 14 of their colleagues last year for sending and receiving similar messages.
“This indicates some significant and deeper problems within the department,” said Mr. Gascón, who is a former San Francisco police chief. “This conduct is clearly a danger to the administration of justice and makes the work of San Francisco police more difficult.”
In January, the US Justice Department announced that it would review the San Francisco Police Department after the December 2 shooting death of a African American man, Mario Woods, 26, on a city street.
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