Against Racism in San Francisco? Don't Recall Chesa Boudin, District Attorney

Yesterday, Californians overwhelmingly voted against recalling Governor Gavin Newsom. Today, Representative Karen Bass shared with Joy Reid that Californians are working on over 60 recalls of elected officials at various levels .

In the last year, two efforts have been mounted to recall San Francisco?District Attorney Chesa Boudin , elected two years ago in a competitive race. Chesa was inaugurated in January 2020, two months before the pandemic began. In March 2021,?Recall Chesa Boudin ?started collecting signatures. They failed, evidence that San Franciscans by and large don’t want to recall Chesa. Yet a second effort to recall Chesa, the?San Franciscans for Public Safety Coalition , formed in April 2021, raised more money and will collect signatures through October 2021.

These are not grassroots efforts, they are?astroturf , raising?funds from wealthy people to hire poor Black men from Detroit and pay them $8 a signature ?to recall a District Attorney whose views they support.

I stand firmly beside Chesa Boudin and encourage every San Franciscan to do so, too.

I voted for Chesa because he promised to address racism in San?Francisco’s justice system. A?2015 report ?found that Black adults are 7.1 times as likely as white adults to be arrested, 11 times as likely to be booked into County Jail, and 10.3 times as likely to be convicted of a crime in San Francisco. Black people make up 6% of San Francisco’s population, yet as of July 2019, African Americans represent?46% of the people incarcerated in the county Jail? system, 38% of the adults on probation and 55% of juveniles on probation in San Francisco were African American.

In San Francisco, America's most "progressive" city, racism is rampant. In 2018, Alison Ettel , a white woman entrepreneur selling cannabis products for cats and dogs, called the San Francisco Police Department on an 8 year old girl for selling water without a permit.

San Francisco Police Department’s racism is pervasive and lethal. In 2014, after newcomers to San Francisco racially profiled him as a gang member for wearing a red 49ers jacket and called the police, San Francisco Police Department officers rolled up on 28-year-old?Alex Nieto , a native San Franciscan enjoying a burrito before work, and shot him 59 times. Not only did our former District Attorney, George Gascón,?not indict the SFPD officers , a?jury with no Black or Latino members ?found 59 bullets was not excessive force.

Portrait of Alex Nieto by Oree Originol

Unabated by the outcry against Nieto’s murder, San Francisco Police Department killed six people in 2015, making San Francisco?rank eighth nationally ?among US cities in police murder per capita. Witnessed by hundreds of people, including a busload of children on their way home from school, a half dozen SFPD officers surrounded 26 year old Black man?Mario Woods , who had his back against a wall, and executed him by firing squad in a hail of 21 bullets in December 2015.

Community members had enough. We united with family members of victims and?demanded Mayor Ed Lee fire Chief Greg Suhr , federal oversight of SFPD , and that our previous District Attorney,?George Gascón , indict San Francisco Police Department officers with murder.

Gascón ignored our pleas .

Chesa Boudin listened to us. He shared that his experience as?a child of incarcerated parents ?and his service as a public defender made him empathetic to all people impacted by crime.?Chesa Boudin promised ?he would address racism, hold police officers to account, reduce reliance on incarceration, and end cash bail. He pledged to address property crime at its roots: poverty and addiction.

The people of San Francisco responded and chose him.

I met Chesa when he was a public defender, supported his campaign, and have witnessed that he is a conscientious public servant committed to justice for all people.

Earlier this year, my elderly mother was the victim of a crime. A man threw a rock at her through a glass door because he wanted a drink of water on a warm day. The San Francisco DA’s office was super responsive and kind to my mother. They made her feel seen, heard, and respected and offered her to choose what would make her feel best, pursuing criminal charges against her assailant or restorative justice. The man needs access to water, a safe place to live, and mental health care. Putting him in jail would do nothing to resolve his problems, heal his illness, or prevent him from attacking someone else. We feel fortunate to live in a city where the DA is so innovative, committed to racial justice, and attuned to survivors’ needs.

In a short period of time during the difficult circumstances of the pandemic, Chesa has made good on his promises, although he has not reopened the cases against Nieto’s and Woods’ SFPD murderers. Chesa is the first DA in the country to implement sweeping policies?to address racism ,?end cash bail , and the first San Francisco DA in modern history to?charge a police officer with homicide ?and?charge SFPD officers with excessive use of force . Mayor London Breed, the District Attorney and other city officials worked together to close?County Jail #4 . In August 2021, in a first nationally, Chesa has?charged sellers of ghost guns .

As to claims crime is surging, according to SFPD records analyzed by the?SF Chronicle , “most types of violent crime actually plummeted — and all violent crime rates remain near their lowest levels since 1975. Further examination of crime trends across the U.S. suggests that the pandemic has had a much larger impact on crime in San Francisco than the election of Boudin.”

I am as sad, angry, and frustrated as many San Franciscans about homelessness and crime. But let’s be clear: Chesa is not responsible for people experiencing homelessness, mentally ill people living in our streets, and?organized theft rings .

We all are.

And we will?never?solve these problems by incarceration and policing.

The Bay Area is?near the worst in wealth and racial inequality ?nationwide. Turning this around requires policy change at all levels of government and behavior change among all of us. We need leaders like Chesa who take an innovative systems approach, and to expect immediate results is unrealistic.

And we can’t just point fingers at leaders, we as citizens need to come together and sacrifice for the greater good, including unlearning our racism, paying more taxes, developing alternatives to police, and building supportive housing.

Voters have many ways to provide input to officials on how they are doing, and to hold them to account short of recalling them, an enormous?waste of time, energy, and money .

Voters speak their minds in elections and want their views respected. Officials need time to make the changes we elected them to do. Officials need to govern, not continuously campaign.

If you have thoughts on what you would like our District Attorney to do,?share them with him .

When the paid petition gatherers outside the grocery store ask you to sign a recall petition, I encourage you to say “no, ending racism in San Francisco is important to me.” And look yourself in the mirror and ask, what can I do to end racism in San Francisco?” We all have a role to play.

Karen Fleshman Esq. she/her is a single soccer mom, mentor, activist, entrepreneur, attorney, author, educator, and proud San Franciscan. She is the founder of?Racy Conversations , a workplace workshop facilitation company, with a mission to inspire the antiracist generation. She is seeking a publisher for her first book?My Name is Karen and I am an Antricast.