SAN FRANCISCO
Lee Heidhues 1.10.2024
San Francisco has been swept by law and order paranoia.
Mayor London Breed’s leadership in the political lynching of progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin in June 2022 is the most blatant event to date in her push to accommodate the cops and feed the citizen’s paranoia.
Now comes something worse. Proposition E on the March 2024 ballot. It would hamstring the one oversight body keeping the cops in check. The Police Commission. It would also loosen the reins on how the cops perform their work. It would reduce police accountability.
The American Civil Liberties Union has just published a statement which cuts to the chase on the true impact of Proposition E on the citizens of San Francisco.
It must be defeated.
American Civil Liberties Union 1.10.2024
The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California opposes Proposition E, a measure on the March 2024 San Francisco ballot.
Proposition E is a dangerous and misleading proposal that knocks down three pillars of police reform: oversight, accountability, and transparency. The policies it targets are hard-won, community-supported initiatives that directly address SFPD’s ongoing pattern of violence, misconduct, and discrimination against communities of color.
Proposition E would let the San Francisco Police Department hide officer violence by reducing the information police collect when reporting use-of-force incidents. A review of SFPD data found that in the last quarter of 2022, the department was 25 times more likely to use force on Black people than on white people.
Proposition E also dramatically increases secret surveillance by allowing the police to track and monitor San Francisco residents without safety policies, public input, or oversight to protect our rights. It eliminates guardrails and lets police use highly invasive surveillance technology – even face-scanning drones, according to the City Attorney.
And Proposition E takes power away from the independent police commission and hands it to the mayor’s appointed police chief — an obvious power grab by Mayor London Breed that puts her short-term political interests over good governance and public safety.
San Franciscans deserve better than this cynical proposition. To improve community safety, we urge San Francisco’s leaders to commit to and follow through on evidence-based solutions such as affordable housing, mental health care, and substance use treatment. Proposition E will only create more problems for a city that desperately needs serious answers.
https://www.aclunc.org/news/san-francisco-vote-no-proposition-e
Following is a link to Proposition E which will appear on the March 5, 2024 ballot in San Francisco.
https://www.sf.gov/information/proposition-e-police-department-policies-and-procedures?
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