Julie Johnson

Originally published on North Gate News Online

SAN FRANCISCO — One hundred and thirty-four police officers are out of their squad cars and walking their beats throughout San Francisco – roughly double the number since the Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance last year mandating that more police walk the streets in 2007.

The increase, a yearlong pilot program that began in January, is at its halfway mark, and next month an outside firm will release an interim evaluation of its impact so far. The findings may influence whether the Board of Supervisors renews this controversial measure next year.

“Our priority is to try to keep our beat officers,” said Vallie Brown at a community meeting at the Northern District station. Brown is a member of the Lower Haight Neighborhood Association and sits on a community policing task force with the Mayor’s office.

Police officers in the Lower Haight hand out toys at toy drives, play football with neighborhood children and even fix bikes, according to Brown. They also help the neighborhood watch out for an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s who sneaks out of her house to head for a closed Kentucky Fried Chicken in the Mission district, she said.

That’s exactly the kind of community policing that Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi had in mind when he introduced the ordinance last year.

“Members of our community wanted to see more police officers out of their cars, walking the streets, going to community meetings,” said Boris Delepine, legislative aide for Mirkarimi (cq).

His plan called for more foot patrols in his district, which includes the Haight, Western Addition and a portion of Hayes Valley and the Inner Sunset neighborhoods. The Board of Supervisors broadened his plan to include all 10 police districts.

But the police department opposed the pilot program because it interferes with captains’ decisions on assigning officers.

“We feel we’re the ones who should decide how many foot beats should be out there and how they should be implemented,” said Dewayne Tully, public affairs assistant for the department.

Mayor Gavin Newsom also opposed the measure, but the supervisors overrode his veto, a first during Newsom’s tenure as mayor.

Boston-based Public Safety Strategies Group will evaluate the new program. Its team is walking the beats with police officers in all districts to see if current assignments are effective, said Richard Bailey, the firm’s law enforcement/policing senior program manager.

They’re also measuring public opinion through a survey sent out by email and distributed at community meetings. The survey asks questions such as how often people see police on foot or in a car, what their interactions with police are like and whether they know which police district serves their neighborhood.

With 84 victims of homicide already this year — likely to outpace the 2006 total of 85 homicides — many feel an urgency to address the surge in violent crime.

But judging exactly how beat cops impact crime is difficult.

“We have our own programs — how much is due to our own programs or how much to extra foot beat cops?” Tully said.

Some still feel community-policing strategies, such as foot patrols, are more successful at preventing crime than a cop in a squad car.

“Foot patrols allow police to become problem solvers and not just reactors,” said Dan Macallair, executive director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice who supported the measure. “When you’re only responding to calls, it promotes a cynical attitude because you’re only seeing the bad.”

Fill out a public survey for this review at www.sfpolicereview.org