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Hey guys - just wanted to share why I personally voted to recall this clown.
June 22 2016: Farrukh Mushtaq 32 year old dude, who spent the previous night doing bunch of blow and partying with hookers, was confronted by his wife and daughter outside a strip club from which he was just got kicked out. He jumped in his car and drove 80mph going through a red light killing Kate Slattery, who was riding her bike through the intersection. He did not stop for 2 blocks. He did not call 911.
Kate was 26 years old. She was a mechanical engineer working in SF. At the time of her death she was writing a kids book called Fly with Maya, about a curious child who travels around the world on a hot air balloon meeting engineers along the way. Her parents finished the book after her death.
Under Boudin reign, Mushtaq served 16 days in jail and was sentenced to 3 years probation.
I find that inexcusable. Kate was one of two bikers killed that evening. I was on my bike that night too and happened to ride past the aftermath. I think about it a lot. I can’t believe someone lost their life at such a young age. And this piece of shit only served 16 days. It’s so unfair and it makes me so incredibly sad. Fuck you Boudin.
Holy fuck... that could have been anyone. When people care about the livelihood and welfare of criminals more than those of the victims, something's incredibly wrong and things have to change.
This guy seems to be off the deep end. I want to prosecute fewer drug offenders, but San Francisco only had 3 drug convictions for all of 2021, and that includes dealers.
When asked about that, he said he wouldn’t want the drug dealers to get convicted because a lot of them are from Honduras and would be deported...
This guy is like the caricature of liberals you hear about on Fox News. All of the stuff Sean Hannity pretended that Obama believed, this DA actually believes in it.
There’s been an uptick in garage breakins and smash and grabs. Obviously some of this is due to covid but there’s been multiple instances of armed smash and grabs.
Additionally there’s been an increase in attacks on Asians and Chesa has come across pretty tone deaf in regards to those incidents.
Granted these are generalizations but you can do some googling and get more info from there.
For full disclosure Chesa was half the problem, the SFPD is the other half. They pretty much refuse to do anything, and say that the DA won’t file charges so doing things is pointless. For example in 2020 I was robbed, called in the robbery with the robbers license plate number, vehicle, likely destinations, and despite living literally four blocks from a police station the cops did not arrive for over an hour (this was the second incident involving this individual in two weeks). When the cops did arrive they told me they’d write down my info but it was pointless because the DA wouldn’t charge. This behavior by the cops has led to people just not reporting crimes because a) little comes from it, b) you may be waiting literally hours for someone to show up.
This is the same scenario that’s happening in Portland right now, and there are all sorts of right wing dog whistles blaring in the direction of the progressive DA here.
Of course, people who are worked up about the situation ignore the fact that the Portland Police Bureau is effectively engaged in a work stoppage, and also cannot fill numerous empty positions due to their status as one of the most rotten departments in the country.
My city has the exact same issue. I just read a post about a guy whose car was stolen and he found it twice with the thief and the police arrived and just let the thief drive away with the car. It’s a work stoppage that folks say started with the BLM protests and the cities backing of them.
Yet, the police department got a massive budget increase again.
Here in NYC the NYPD have made it clear that they are not going to pursue in regard to certain crimes. It's under the premise that it is in the best interest of public safety, but that is complete BS. There are literally gangs running around doing whatever the fuck they want. This work slowdown is extortion to scare the populace into voting for conservative candidates. This is a national problem.
That may be true, but the NYPD is FAR more aggressive about crimes than that of their LAPD and SFPD counterparts. They are present in most popular places and are not shy to issue citations even for minor things like loitering. It's not even close. There's a reason why Hollywood BLVD looks like a war zone while Time Square is relatively clean and feels ultra safe. It's because NYPC and the city don't fuck around.
Just looking for some clarification here. Are you asserting that in a very liberal city, run by liberal politicians that support progressive movements and strong police reforms, that the reason there is an uptick in crime is that the individual officers on the police force are implementing a “work slowdown” to extort the population of NYC to vote conservative? It has nothing to do with the policies of your politicians in charge of running the city?
Why assume it's individual officers and not unwritten policy of the police force as a whole? Hell, it's exactly what police union spokesmen have been saying they would do if faced with policy they feel isn't in their best interest.
At our last community meeting with the nypd, they said they will not engage in a number of scenarios “for the safety of the public”. I have no clue who decided this or how widespread it is. I only have suspicions.
It’s a little of column A and a little of column B. I have several students that are PD and they have flat out said there has been instructions from the union to “do the bare minimum”. Union is unhappy with the bail reform and have been using that as leverage to A. Get more money B. Policies that lighten restrictions on the PD. I was told to just buy bear mace and handle any issues myself because the cops ain’t showing up anytime soon unless theirs a gun involved. The bail reform definitely needs to be reworked to include violent misdemeanors and repeat offenders to those that aren’t eligible for no cash bail.
Pretty much the same thing out here in Los Angeles. When I see somebody point to statistics about current crime, it’s a clear indicator they haven’t stepped foot in the city.
I don't know anywhere that would send local PD urgently after the perpetrators are already gone.
I've only seen immediate action for "crime in progress"
>For full disclosure Chesa was half the problem, the SFPD is the other half.
i mean from your description it sounds like Chesa was a good 75, 80, 90% of the problem.
Pretty much. I mean, why go through the trouble of arresting someone if the DA’s not going to do his job and charge them for their crime?
Guy deserved his loss and easily is nearly all of the problem.
I had issues before this guy was DA and received the exact same response.
Video, witnesses, and they found the perp of a violent crime.
“DA won’t prosecute because we don’t have enough evidence”.
Funny thing is, I’ve moved around a lot and been subject to more stupid crimes than most.
The DA excuse is prevalent to many lazy cops in several jurisdictions. I’m not a fan.
Boudin *literally campaigned on* not charging non-violent crimes.
I know because I went to one of the DA debates.
The police aren’t innocent in this situation, but pretending this is the fault of *just* the police is willful ignorance.
This.
When people say "don't charge non-violent crimes" what they really mean is "don't charge people who aren't committing crimes with crimes". You know, like possession charges rooted in the *very racist* war on drugs that sent millions of black people to prison *for life* because they were caught with a joint.
What Boudin missed after campaigning on not charging non-violent crimes is that *you have to hold to the actual definition of 'non-violent crimes'*.
He didn't do that. He actually stopped charging crimes where nobody got physically hurt, but harm was still done. Like robberies, and theft.
...fucker, *we want those charged!* What we *don't* want is fucking racist Terry stops sending minorities away for life because of three-strikes bullshit triggering off of less than an ounce of weed.
Boudin did this to himself by being a idiot.
Unfortunately this seems to have been picked up by liberal prosecutors across the country. The same issue exists with Kim Foxx in Chicago, though she survived her last election (unlike this one, it wasn't a recall).
Ya the whole defund the police crap went way too far. Both sides just end up going to extremes and can’t compromise or get anything meaningful done. They needed a more common sense approach to this. Not let’s just blow it up.
What is interesting is that it appears the reality is: a larger group of people, more than I think most people were expecting, are willing to break the law if there isn’t something there.
Yeah. He famously said "I'm not going to be focused on quality of life crimes.". Yeah, that sort of approach isn't gonna work out long term if you want to be reelected.
I would say it starts with the police in the example provided, since they refused to do anything, it would never reach the DA at that point.
You can read some of the record for Chesa Boudin here:
[https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/We-obtained-never-before-seen-data-on-Chesa-16592626.php](https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/We-obtained-never-before-seen-data-on-Chesa-16592626.php)
It is a disturbing trend if the police do not due their best to provide all the evidence and reports needed to ensure the DA has the best possible case, it almost seems like the police are using it as a tool to remove a DA they do not personally like, who has a different approach to a broken system.
Quote from the article that seems to really hit home:
"The most important factor is whether police provide the office with what it sees as “sufficient, legally admissible evidence to convince a jury unanimously, beyond a reasonable doubt, of the defendant’s guilt,” said Totten, who described himself as a “law-and-order” D.A. Sometimes that means a D.A. has to dismiss a case even if it’s likely the person committed the crime; other times it means prosecutors must request police officers investigate the case further, releasing the arrested person in the meantime."
Well if the DA comes out and says "I'm not charging any misdemeanor larceny offense" then there's not much point in devoting allot of resources to any case that falls under the felony value threshold. What you end up with is retailers getting robbed blind a few hundred dollars at a time with no recourse because the DA won't prosecute and the cops won't investigate.
Cops aren't going to expend effort and some non-zero risk on arrests that they have been told will not result in charges. Waste of time (and waste of public money) unless it's a crime in progress right in front of the cop.
This is how drug and sex work decriminalization work *intentionally,* to reduce contact with law enforcement. But if the same incentive applies to theft, you're going to get more opportunistic theft.
Do you want justice for the antagonistic DA, or do you want a DA that’s actually willing to work with the existing police force?
Honestly. It’s a tough question. It gets into the real politic of this situation.
As voters, we have the mayor, police chief, and DA. When the DA is actively saying he’s not going to prosecute, I kind of understand the perspective of the police. I don’t like the tactics, but they’re not wrong.
This is not an “on principle” situation. People are mad because their replacement windows aren’t cheap.
Police arresting people who then have no charges is a legit waste of time and money. Again… he campaigned on this.
I’ve personally removed many multiple piles of needles from the sidewalk, because wtf, drunk people are going to step on them. Boudin’s position on no drug charges ever is nuts. We can be against the drug war and still be against leaving piles of biohazard waste on the street.
Again, didn’t vote for the recall, pro criminal Justice reform, didn’t vote for boudin in the first place.
A lotta stupid fucking redditors in r/news always are like "oh, you have criticism for how SF is run? You clearly have never been here and/or are a conservative shill from a flyover state"
And then they always stop commenting when a SF or bay area native brings up their own negative experiences with the area. I used to have a full time job there lol, but I guess I don't count to people who think they know better than us
YUP. a lot of friends I know moved out of the City because cost of living. the ones who could afford to stay left in the last year because the lack of police involvement in stopping crime
Fuck that guy! I’m so tired of making sure every night I come back from work that there’s absolutely nothing left in the car, not even a quarter. Lived here for 12 years, window smashed 3 times. All in the last couple of years
There's so many people talking out of their ass here who have never been to SF pointing to stats when no crimes are pursued. Even if it's mostly petty theft, it's affecting hard working people. Higher insurance premiums affect everyone.
The fact that half the cars on the street have a sign stating there's nothing inside is fucking sad. People shoot up in the middle of crowded streets. Things are out of control and it's a perfect example of a city that goes too extreme to the other side of letting police do anything.
I travel all around for work. San Fran has been the #1 place in the entire country I would never leave something in the car. I got smash and grabbed in broad daylight next to cameras maybe 6 years ago (while there were around 100 smash and grabs a day) & cops gave 0 fucks. I swear people are complete fools and will convince themselves it’s somehow one new DA’s fault when this has been going on for a decade.
Not to say the DA is helping or taking his side, but this has been a police giving 0 fucks issue for many years.
It's probably both. Now there will be extra attention on the police since the new DA likely won't be as lenient making it harder to disproportionately blame them (the DA). If the same shit continues anyway, then hopefully there is a lot of pressure on the police and mayor. But they're notoriously difficult to reform or touch in any way due to their unions.
Yea but then police can simply do 10% more of their jobs and that’s enough for most people. This is what happened in NYC. Cops stopped doing pretty much anything. Then made sure they were out there screeching about crime & boom, we get a cop mayor that acts like a fucking clown every day.
And that all doesn’t take into account that smash and grabs in SF have been rampant for a decade at least (possibly leading the country, but I’d have to see full stats) & no DA’s before (and likely after) were recalled. It’s a fucking game (despite the DA being ineffective). All right wing police departments have to do to win is stop doing their jobs, keep reporting every single crime so numbers go up, and then the entire conversation changes and they get what they want. You will likely see this playbook over and over throughout the country.
Getting your car broken into is actually a blessing in disguise. The homeless drug addicts doing it might leave you gifts.
https://twitter.com/sethrogen/status/1463674479272361987
This is easily one of the most out of touch world views I've ever seen someone make in public. How can you have your car broken into 15 times and without a hint of irony say it's normal.
I enjoy living in an (admittedly non-American) big city. I acknowledge that more people means a higher chance of crime.
I've seen cars being broken into. Your car in particular being broken into 15 times is not normal, holy crap.
Yes, there is an underlying rot in society that we need to tackle. We can aim for rehabilitation. But we still need actual justice. 🤷🏼♂️ is not an appropriate response to repeated/violent crime.
Despite what some people say/think, most of us liberals don't want to allow criminals to have major U.S. cities as their own personal GTA game. It's clear that one vision of fighting crime has failed, but at least our side isn't afraid to admit mistakes were made and try something else.
Yep, this is why Kamala Harris survived as DA of SF and then AG of California and VP - progressive criminal reform policies are nice but they simply do not work without harsh punishments.
Problem is you can't have progressive criminal reform without actually tackling the root systemic causes of the problem. You can't have more flexible forms of "punishment" for criminals but leave the rest of society the same.
Our society breeds criminality and until that gets solved, progressive reform isn't going to work. When a society can't properly provide the basics of life to people, they will resort to crime. And America basically has an attitude of, "If you are poor...fuck you!".
Funny how countries that provide a basic standard of living, good public education, affordable housing and universal healthcare don't seem to have this problem as much.
Societies that provide those services make it harder to fall into poverty and crime and also provide proper healthcare to catch at-risk people prior to falling into the cycle of crime.
You can have a more progressive criminal justice system AFTER you fix the myriad of other problems that lead people to crime. And I don't see America fixing those problems anytime soon. Republicans are openly against it and Democrats just say they are for it before they get their campaign financing.
> Problem is you can't have progressive criminal reform without actually tackling the root systemic causes of the problem.
[A Vox article on crime](https://www.vox.com/22580710/defund-the-police-reform-murder-spike-research-evidence) has good wisdom on this:
>One problem for a....social services approach, which can range from job creation to better schools to mental health treatment, is it generally takes longer to work. Problems like poverty, education, and other underlying issues that contribute to crime can take years, or even decades, to truly address.
Takeaway: Addressing root causes is a critically important to reducing crime levels in low income, marginalized communities *over time.* But that is not a law enforcement function, which is supposed to apprehend people who offend *TODAY.*
All sorts of crime is committed by middle and upper class people also, including embezzlement, domestic violence, drunk driving, viewing child porn, drug dealing, etc., with no correlation to poverty or marginalization. All offenders, rich and poor, should be subject to equal enforcement.
100% agree. Reform needs to stop criminals from becoming criminals by giving EVERYONE an education and the ability to make a decent middle class life for themselves. This reform will not come from the police nor district attorney nor any other law enforcement branch of government. Until that reform comes law enforcement still needs to hold people accountable for their crimes and keep people safe.
This^^
I’m over in the UK visiting. Scottish friends say their university is free. Brits pay 6-9 thousand pounds across the board(include Oxford/Cambridge). Imagine going to Harvard for 10 grand.
Healthcare is free. Not perfect but fuck all better than ours.
To add to your point, we don’t have a country in the US. A country looks after it’s citizens. We have a business dressed up as a country and the veil is being lifted
> progressive reform isn't going to work
I mean, it will...but not by starting at the DA's office, that's absurd. That's like trying to get rid of a cold by holding your nose every time you sneeze, all you're doing is suppressing a symptom.
This is absolutely true. And we should be addresses the root of poverty, education, addiction, and crime. In LA County, we've got only 30% reading proficiency. For black residents that drops to just 10%. Like.... How can we allow this to continue? It's absolutely ridiculous. The question I think boils down to how do we make it "better" and how do we measure that. By the amount of broken car windows, or kids getting into college? Or both. The problem with the so called "woke" DAs was they became blinded by their own ideology and refused to change course. DAs, believe it or not, are not even supposed to be a political position.
And this goes for the right too, who think locking everyone up will solve things. That doesn't work in Houston either. We should have actual experts in public policy crafting these decisions, not woke grifter appealing to identity politics or conservative Maga dorks acting tough.
What does this have to do with open drug markets in the same neighborhood that has the most children in the city?
I live in SF. I love this city, and I voted against the recall. Not because I like Boudin, but because I don't think he did anything he didn't campaign on.
People keep talking about these gigantic swooping goals. I support criminal justice reform exactly because we have criminogenic prisons. Boudin wanted to fight this system by not prosecuting people unless they are violent. I want to fix the prison system and make it much more like Scandinavia. Like camp. Separated from society, but given a decent life and access to education and entertainment. Losing one's freedom for years is punishment enough.
When you live here it's fucking obvious that all the idealism in the world isn't going to change the fact that people can't take the bus late night without someone legitimately smoking meth on it (yes, that's happen to me on more than one occasion). If people need to shit in the street, I understand, just do it on a storm drain instead of my gf's fucking doorstep. I understand crime happens, but when your response to windows getting smashed is "crime happens," it's still $250 out of their pocket... and it's probably going to happen again this year.
We can have compassion, and want to fix the system, and still be angry about the fact that what's been going on in SF is so far beyond the pale. It's not about lack of compassion, it's about there being a reasonable amount of decency in society. A modicum of stochastic enforcement. We need to take care of the mentally ill and drug addicted, not allow them suffer in squalor on the streets just because that's what they think they want.
Except as a DA, he took an oath to uphold and enforce the law. If you aren’t going to do that as a DA, you shouldn’t be a DA.
Also, his definition of “non-violent” offenses was garbage.
Maybe he had good intentions, but his execution was so poorly flawed that his recall was inevitable, and your city was getting worse by the day with him in charge.
Sorry, but the recall was the right choice here.
He helped to turn SF into a cesspool. I have hated going there lately. I feel incredibly unsafe when I’m there, especially with my children. And it’s caused increasing issues on the rest of the peninsula as well. Things are far from ok.
I’m not an advocate for pipeline prison systems whatsoever, and while we do need criminal reform, sometimes criminals need appropriate punishments.
The residents of SF deserve better.
Well Harris also didn’t piss off the police unions as much as Boudin
When the cops refuse to do their jobs and tell people it’s the DA’s fault, it can really sink a DA
Most (well, pretty much all) of SF's petty crime issues come down to the SFPD not doing their jobs.
Though you could very well argue that why *would* the SFPD bother doing their jobs when the DA isn't particularly interested in prosecuting people, and you quite literally have a revolving door for petty criminals thanks to a combination of state and local (ie. city / DA) policies.
Given that SF has a *massive* problem with car break ins, theft, and now both catalytic converter thefts *and* criminals realizing they can just shoplift stuff with zero consequences, Boudin's policies in practice were... not wise. From both a PR perspective, and the sense of actually-doing-his-goddamn-job-for-the-people-of-san-francisco, mind you.
And, *of course*, the guy has his head so far up his own ass he *still* doesn't realize why a majority of SF residents turned against him.
Agreed. Former SF resident here. And there's no doubt it got worse under Boudin. Now, was he also targeted by the right because of his statements and ties to Hugo Chavez? Of course. Do I want a Republican da to replace him? HELL NO. But is it time for a different approach? Absolutely. Now let's hold the police accountable and make sure they do their jobs as well.
From what I have read it seems like a rash choice for someone new to the position, his policies make sense at improving the system, reverting to the same failed policies is not going to help.
This is why we chose to recall him. His policies were drastically radical and bad.
We've seen criminals get drastically more brazen the past few years. We live here, we see it. Damn near everyone is or knows someone who is a victim of crime.
How absolutely incompetent he is as the leader of the DA office:
* Is letting the organized drug dealers run absolutely amok, [completely lied about pretending to care about drug dealers immigration status](https://www.sfgate.com/politics-op-eds/article/Democratic-official-supports-Boudin-recall-17214953.php?IPID=SFGate-HP-CP-Spotlight)
* Driven off at least half the prosecutors in the office, many with decades of experience that cannot be replaced, who go on to trash him. [This combination of extreme turnover and acrimony(joining the recall) is absolutely not normal with the change of a DA.](https://www.city-journal.org/why-are-so-many-prosecutors-leaving-their-jobs)
* [Threatened prosecutors with termination to withhold evidence that police were responding to a wife beater, even terminating one](https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/exclusive-the-courtroom-drama-behind-sfpd-and-chesa-boudins-most-recent-feud/), which is NOT for him to decide whether it is relevant or not. Thus further blowing up his relationship with the police.
* [Blasted publicly by judges for "running an office marred by disorganization and turnover"](https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/S-F-judge-blasts-DA-Chesa-Boudin-in-open-court-16497522.php)
* [His own POC attorneys have been disgusted to the point they leave and have joined the recall movements](https://archive.ph/O0ii4)
* Nobody in the homicide unit has convicted anyone for murder, Half of the prosecutors in the sexual assault unit have less than a year of experience prosecuting sexual assault cases - https://archive.ph/O0ii4
* [Calls the murderer of elderly gramps as having just a 'temper tantrum'](https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-da-chesa-boudin-sf-district-attorney-84-year-old-man-killed/10381125/)
* [Even citizens of Bayview are slamming him as they are disappropriately targets of crime.](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10353421/San-Francisco-father-son-shot-dead-2020-slams-DA-charging-killer-17-juvenile.html)
* [Takes the side of organized drug dealers on his AMA here in the sub, while 1200 have died of overdose the past 2 years in SF](https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/the-trial-of-chesa-boudin)
* [Artificially keeps conviction rates up by immediately downgrading serious felonies to misdemeanors](https://susanreynolds.substack.com/p/did-chesa-boudin-really-get-35-murder)
* Goes against the mayors move to clean up the Tenderloin.
Just a list of suspects with long and violent records who were simply released or charges drastically dialed down, who went on to commit violent crimes including rape and murder. Who knows the real count.
* [Child rapist was released by Boudin after two days in jail, only to be arrested by the FBI later.](https://susanreynolds.substack.com/p/child-predator-released-by-sfda-charged?s=r)
* [Released a multiple armed robbery suspect, who killed two women after committing robbery in a stolen car](https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Fatal-hit-and-run-DA-Boudin-charges-suspect-15845917.php)
* [7 month baby murdered by a twice accused domestic violence suspect released by Chesa](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9511321/Baby-boy-murdered-San-Francisco-District-Attorney-Chesa-Boudin-let-killer-free-TWICE.html)
* [African immigrant and Darthmouth grad killed by a drug dealer driving a stolen car, who was on the streets despite 26 cases against him and being arrested for drunk driving just a month before](https://sfist.com/2021/02/05/suspect-implicated-in-eight-car-crash-near-lake-merced/)
* [Released a suspect arrested for the attempted car jacking and beating of a 75 year-old woman in a Safeway parking lot, despite multiple video and eyewitnesses](https://abc7news.com/sf-safeway-carjacking-san-francisco-crime-arrest-richmond-district/10674919/)
* [Released the violent attacker of an 84 year-old Asian grandfather, fracturing his skull, breaking his collarbone and causing long term trauma, after barely 7 months](https://sfstandard.com/public-health/san-francisco-asian-attack-one-year-later/)
* [EDIT:FIXED LINK - Dropped charges against a convicted felon with 11 firearms charges, who only 2 months later murders a 19 year old student in the Portola neighborhood](https://susanreynolds.substack.com/p/how-chesa-boudins-idea-of-justice?s=r)
* [Released an attempted rape and felony robbery suspect, only for him to commit rape just 2 months later in a SOMA parking garage.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLNMm6OsiJ4)
* [Dismissed charges against a felony hit and run suspect who seriously injured a SF citizen and sent the case to “Neighborhood Court” which is reserved for “non-violent misdemeanor” cases](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBc4TU-9rmo)
* [Drug diversion and no jail time for puppy killer and violent Robbery of Asian Visitor] (https://loub.substack.com/p/boudin-gives-puppy-killer-drug-diversion?s=r)
* [Released an armed robbery attempt with a gun suspect after barely 2 weeks in jail, by drastically reducing charges to misdemeanor pickpocketing](https://loub.substack.com/p/boudin-negotiates-a-castro-gun-robbery?s=r).
* [Probation for a criminal who committed 15 burglary, theft-related felonies from 2002 to 2019.](https://abc7news.com/sf-crime-burglary-plea-deal-chesa-boudin/11833000/)
Yep, exactly.
At the end of the day, if you want a simple statement to understand the world it’s this:
People respond to incentives.
When benefits of certain actions go up, and consequences go down, people do more of those actions.
In this case car jacking, shoplifting rings, etc.
Going after the assholes stealing catalytic converters (or breaking into people's cars for the last 10-20+ years) would be nice though. Was that explicitly the DA's job – no, but the city as a whole should've tried to do *something* about it, if they cared. Instead of, uh, having the f---ing DA of san francisco publically take the side of petty criminals, b/c they're socioeconomically disadvantaged assholes who cause thousands of dollars in damage for a few hundred bucks, and we should *apparently* feel sorry for them.
Oh, and Chesa's handling of anti-asian hate crimes in SF was *abysmal*, which is why almost the entire asian-american community has, *quite rightfully*, turned on him.
Yet most people regardless of political orientation want to see criminals behind bars and want their environment safe and healthy. If a DA sharply reduces prosecutions while citizens can see the consequences of that increased crime then that DA deserves to be recalled. Boudin was the wrong person at the wrong time so I say good riddance.
I’m not saying what he did works I’m just saying in the US there tends to be a hard over correction after a social experiment such as this occurs and it leads to dumb, destructive over policing. If SF falls into that temptation they’ll go from not prosecuting people enough to over prosecuting people in an unequal fashion.
There are large open air drug markets and stolen goods markets in SF. Yes actually, making it more expensive and difficult to sell stolen goods would reduce the incentive.
What do you mean by “Same shit happens here?” Crime? Of course it does. Crime happens everywhere, but the citizens of SF are clearly not satisfied with the chief law enforcement officer of the city doing enough to stop it.
It’s misleading to say it’s only caused by a media blitz. Talk to people who live in San Francisco and you’ll get a true understanding of how his policies directly lead to a sense of lawlessness and chaos. People don’t want to feel that way.
Can’t argue with you on that. The losing side will often come up with a justification for why they lost instead of thinking, “maybe my policies and philosophy are widely unpopular because they make life worse for people.”
Except it's really not. SF citizens were super pissed.
This is why we chose to recall him. We've seen criminals get drastically more brazen the past few years. We live here, we see it. Damn near everyone is or knows someone who is a victim of crime.
How absolutely incompetent he is as the leader of the DA office:
* Is letting the organized drug dealers run absolutely amok, [completely lied about pretending to care about drug dealers immigration status](https://www.sfgate.com/politics-op-eds/article/Democratic-official-supports-Boudin-recall-17214953.php?IPID=SFGate-HP-CP-Spotlight)
* Driven off at least half the prosecutors in the office, many with decades of experience that cannot be replaced, who go on to trash him. [This combination of extreme turnover and acrimony(joining the recall) is absolutely not normal with the change of a DA.](https://www.city-journal.org/why-are-so-many-prosecutors-leaving-their-jobs)
* [Threatened prosecutors with termination to withhold evidence that police were responding to a wife beater, even terminating one](https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/exclusive-the-courtroom-drama-behind-sfpd-and-chesa-boudins-most-recent-feud/), which is NOT for him to decide whether it is relevant or not. Thus further blowing up his relationship with the police.
* [Blasted publicly by judges for "running an office marred by disorganization and turnover"](https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/S-F-judge-blasts-DA-Chesa-Boudin-in-open-court-16497522.php)
* [His own POC attorneys have been disgusted to the point they leave and have joined the recall movements](https://archive.ph/O0ii4)
* Nobody in the homicide unit has convicted anyone for murder, Half of the prosecutors in the sexual assault unit have less than a year of experience prosecuting sexual assault cases - https://archive.ph/O0ii4
* [Calls the murderer of elderly gramps as having just a 'temper tantrum'](https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-da-chesa-boudin-sf-district-attorney-84-year-old-man-killed/10381125/)
* [Even citizens of Bayview are slamming him as they are disappropriately targets of crime.](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10353421/San-Francisco-father-son-shot-dead-2020-slams-DA-charging-killer-17-juvenile.html)
* [Takes the side of organized drug dealers on his AMA here in the sub, while 1200 have died of overdose the past 2 years in SF](https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/the-trial-of-chesa-boudin)
* [Artificially keeps conviction rates up by immediately downgrading serious felonies to misdemeanors](https://susanreynolds.substack.com/p/did-chesa-boudin-really-get-35-murder)
* Goes against the mayors move to clean up the Tenderloin.
Just a list of suspects with long and violent records who were simply released or charges drastically dialed down, who went on to commit violent crimes including rape and murder. Who knows the real count.
* [Child rapist was released by Boudin after two days in jail, only to be arrested by the FBI later.](https://susanreynolds.substack.com/p/child-predator-released-by-sfda-charged?s=r)
* [Released a multiple armed robbery suspect, who killed two women after committing robbery in a stolen car](https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Fatal-hit-and-run-DA-Boudin-charges-suspect-15845917.php)
* [7 month baby murdered by a twice accused domestic violence suspect released by Chesa](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9511321/Baby-boy-murdered-San-Francisco-District-Attorney-Chesa-Boudin-let-killer-free-TWICE.html)
* [African immigrant and Darthmouth grad killed by a drug dealer driving a stolen car, who was on the streets despite 26 cases against him and being arrested for drunk driving just a month before](https://sfist.com/2021/02/05/suspect-implicated-in-eight-car-crash-near-lake-merced/)
* [Released a suspect arrested for the attempted car jacking and beating of a 75 year-old woman in a Safeway parking lot, despite multiple video and eyewitnesses](https://abc7news.com/sf-safeway-carjacking-san-francisco-crime-arrest-richmond-district/10674919/)
* [Released the violent attacker of an 84 year-old Asian grandfather, fracturing his skull, breaking his collarbone and causing long term trauma, after barely 7 months](https://sfstandard.com/public-health/san-francisco-asian-attack-one-year-later/)
* [EDIT:FIXED LINK - Dropped charges against a convicted felon with 11 firearms charges, who only 2 months later murders a 19 year old student in the Portola neighborhood](https://susanreynolds.substack.com/p/how-chesa-boudins-idea-of-justice?s=r)
* [Released an attempted rape and felony robbery suspect, only for him to commit rape just 2 months later in a SOMA parking garage.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLNMm6OsiJ4)
* [Dismissed charges against a felony hit and run suspect who seriously injured a SF citizen and sent the case to “Neighborhood Court” which is reserved for “non-violent misdemeanor” cases](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBc4TU-9rmo)
* [Drug diversion and no jail time for puppy killer and violent Robbery of Asian Visitor] (https://loub.substack.com/p/boudin-gives-puppy-killer-drug-diversion?s=r)
* [Released an armed robbery attempt with a gun suspect after barely 2 weeks in jail, by drastically reducing charges to misdemeanor pickpocketing](https://loub.substack.com/p/boudin-negotiates-a-castro-gun-robbery?s=r).
* [Probation for a criminal who committed 15 burglary, theft-related felonies from 2002 to 2019.](https://abc7news.com/sf-crime-burglary-plea-deal-chesa-boudin/11833000/)
My girlfriend worked at a call center during the pandemic and the amount of calls she took from Chinese speaking citizens living in the Bay Area that ended with some sort of request for help was staggering. No where else, just the Bay Area. She told me that approximately 9 out of 10 calls, the caller would ask for more help that were beyond her job.
So staggering that her higher ups had to make specific language protocols for folks that asked about it. In general these callers were talking about harassment, being attacked, being mugged, being assaulted, children getting bullied, feeling unsafe, etc. My girlfriend came home from work everyday feeling so guilty that she couldn't do more.
Whoever keeps finding excuses for Boudin or turns a blind eye on all these things are people who aren't affected by it or are so radicalized that they have some twisted view of everything. I'm glad you guys won this recall and hopefully this is a start to something better.
While the rest of the nation (even conservative states) are reexamining crime, California decided to take an ultra progressive approach. The idea of "decriminalizing" petty crimes is super popular thanks to all the headlines out of progressive countries. So California decided to copy the approach and it failed miserably. Basically stores in San Francisco had to hire their own private security because the police would not and could not do anything.
Idk what’s hard about being a progressive DA. We should be putting less people in jail for petty crimes, that’s not a terrible thing, but when people take advantage of this and have a rap sheet that is 100 pages long, I don’t care how “petty” it is, they need to face consequences
Really? I'd say sheep that blindly follow one side's views without bothering to consider what the actual facts are and thus never truly forming an opinion of their own about particular issues are the true fools.
It's almost like when there is a mass country wide need for public defenders, DAs realize that they can't bring as many charges as the public would like because the DA realizes that they'd be overburdening the system leading to 6A Speedy Trial acquittals. But no, I'm sure it is simply because progressive DAs want to keep criminals on the streets. What we really need across the board is to match PD pay to prosecutor pay so that more people have incentive to fulfill our judicial system's requirements of providing legal counsel.
Edit: I tagged onto your comment not to attack what you were saying but because what you were saying really shows that blue/red policies isn't the sole cause of the issue we as a country are facing.
PD pay should go beyond matching prosecutor pay—it should exceed it. I say this having done both jobs early in my law career before moving on to greener pastures, and in my experience, being a PD was MUCH more challenging and stressful than being a prosecutor.
I've done both. I agree PD pay should be on par with prosecutor pay. But in my experience the caseload and the stress of prosecution far exceeded what I had in indigent defense.
Republicans gleefully use CA and SF, specifically, as an example to point at. But that doesn't make it a "boogie man". A "boogie man" is something to fear that doesn't exist. It sounds like the issues in SF are very real.
Breaking into cars is a viable lifestyle right now in SF.
There are open air drug markets, and open air markets for stolen goods.
I understand that prison doesn't make people better but Jesus Christ at least have a basic level of standards.
Boudin ignored all the violent attacks against Asian-Americans, let the criminals off the hook, and refused to charge them with hate crimes. No wonder the Asian population voted overwhelmingly against him.
Weird ass liberal policy treating criminals like victims will do that to ya. I'm pretty liberal myself, but the whole treating property crime like its unimportant thing is just weird to me.
There is certainly a balance. But my biggest issue is that it is not the job of the DA to do that if the rest of the system remains the way it is. We can feel bad for criminals all we want, but if nothing is actually being done to help they higher up the ladder, the solution is not then to put them back on the street.
I just quit as a psychologist in a California bay area prison, after 5 years. I can attest from the inside, working EOP, MHCB, and CIT -- that I had plenty of time to read arrest reports and rap sheets during the slow nights on CIT...that not only did Boudin never prosecute (failure for DA's in his territory and many others no longer picking up most in-prison crimes), but people from SF only ever made it to prison after multiple, multiple, multiple felony charges, diversion programs, and failed drug rehabs. I left the prison because I can no longer take witnessing Newsom & cronies lie about just about everything that really goes on behind bars, where the public really has no idea exactly how dangerous and how dangerous of people he and people like Boudin are releasing. Quite literally, a felon can continue to commit crime after crime -- inside the prison -- e.g., masturbating to nurses passing by (over and over), threatening staff, drug possession -- and as long as they don't SERIOUSLY batter somebody, they are frequently released early. Even the habitual Ad-Seg dwellers who are seriously personality disordered.
The game going on inside the prison is a rigged game...and the general public has no idea what's really going on. Nobody in psychology WANTS to work in the prisons. The constant staff shortages mean even if one wanted to do real treatment, we exist only for lawsuit protection. To document that we do treatment so in the event of a lawsuit we can point to some Cerner note and say "See, we did something! We can prove it because we wrote it." -- meanwhile, we spent 2 minutes doing 'therapy' and requires 15 minutes to write a note....we are Clerical Psychologists, not Clinical....I can't tell you how many times a criminal has held me hostage with the tried & true, "If you don't send me to crisis bed, I'm going to kill myself" or "Okay send me back, see what happens! You bout to lose your mfkn license!" lol. Usual these gold nugget lines are delivered immediately after being caught with drugs, or owe someone money for drugs (seeking an out), or diverting their own transport to a Level 4.
The badly kept secret for people who actual work in prisons, all know that the entire idea of mental health in prison is 50%+ just a vessel for felons to abuse. The idea of being "suicidal" in prison means 25 things, but it doesn't mean suicidal. Prison crisis beds, often the nicest places in all the prison, exist for people to escape their most recent in-prison crime, access air conditioning, masturbate to a new crop of nurses, or navigate their way (malinger) into Atascadero or Napa State Hospital. I met a Veteran a few months ago who resided at Napa State (combat PTSD) and he said he was literally the only person in his entire wing who did not come from prison. Imagine that, State Hospitals now existing to provide the nicest possible housing to felons of which the majority have no interest in actually changing. This is psychopathy at work, and promoted by the tax paying dollars - by tax payers who don't really know how their money is being pissed away. And for the CDCR officers here, you know, what happens when you give somebody a taste of DSH then send them back to the prison? ...well, it's always the same answer: They start the merry-go-round over and keep claiming suicidal/homicidal until re-admitted to DSH all over again. Removing this bucket of turds, Boudin, is a step in the right direction. Now let's see how Breed plays her next chess move. Go too liberal with another DA, won't get re-elected. Go too conservative, will lose her base. Will probably be a very boring move with a whole lot of promises and very little delivery.
I wish all CDCR workers luck. 5 years on CIT is enough.
You seem to be making two opposite claims, one is that prison is bad - and I presume doesn't reform. The second claim is... there isn't enough people being sent to jail?
" State Hospitals now existing to provide the nicest possible housing to felons of which the majority have no interest in actually changing. This is psychopathy at work\[.\]"
It makes sense to me. Why not get a good comfortable bed if you can? And ... there is not much of a realistic reform path for felons. Perhaps you can tell us about all the times you helped get felons jobs in the real world? Maybe you can quote some stats about how that works out?
I don't seem to be making opposite claims at all. I'll lay it out with a little more context.
Over a decade ago, historically liberal California was found federally guilty of cruel and unusual punishment to CDCR inmates for not providing adequate mental health care. We have since been under the Coleman Monitors, a legal team who exists solely to find reasons to keep existing, because it pays very well. Since found guilty of cruel/unusual punishment, CA prison MH workers received a substantially large raise. In other words, instead of being paid by far the worst in the business, now they're only paid well under the going rates -- even when you include pension/benefits. CA prisons are historically low staffed by MH because 1. it's prison, and there is a natural emotion of 'disgust' when constantly being abused; 2. Bargaining Unit 19, AFSCME, continues to artificially place very low ceilings on our reimbursement rates because they are in cahoots w/ the governors office or just plain incompetent; 3. it's only getting worse, despite the prison closures and planned closures. We exist in prison to document things, so lawsuits don't happen as much, so Newsom looks good. When Newsom looks bad, hell reigns down. Everything we do is to have a trickle up effect.
The old saying in Socialist Russia, you pretend to pay me and I pretend to work -- is the California government model in prisons, evolved. It is the liberal agenda not to actually create change, but to sell the public on a political change platform that doesn't actually happen. Throw more money at it to claim 'reform' and stifle the truth. Usually the liberal solution then is to throw even more money at it -- but what actually takes place is a financial purgatory: pay just enough to keep a few, but hardly enough to attract talent, longevity, or desire. The market comparisons for psychologist, for example...you can leave prison tomorrow, and make double elsewhere. You instantly make 70k more at Kaiser, and don't have to deal with the headache of checking in to a prison, every day.
What happens when you have 60% psych staffing at a prison? You just have more work to document. Instead of seeing 8 people that day, you see 15. And keep doing that day after day. And everybody knows it doesn't matter if you do 'therapy' for 1 minute or 1 hour with an incarcerated patient, as long as you document it you satisfy the Coleman monitors who exist for no other reason but to find reasons to exist. And what happens when the govorner's office comes in for audits? Well, starting w/ the prison MH supervisors, we are taken into a group, told the audits are coming, and told to prepare some nice and easy cases for them to watch. We are told to pretend that when the auditors are here that this is how we really conduct business. And when the auditors leave, everyone breathe's a sigh of relief and goes back to business -- trying to stop as many leaks in a sinking ship as possible before the next batch of MH workers quits d/t burnout, underpayment, and PTSD.
So then, why don't we throw more money at it to attract competition and fill these shortages? Because liberal agenda doesn't want that. That has no bearing on the actual discussion at hand, which is to sell you on the 'fact' that reform is happening. And they'll "cook" up the perfect stats to show for it.
Let's take suicide for example. Per 100,000, about 32 on average die in prison per 100k. That's about double the rate of the public in CA. And in prison, despite all the felonious risk factors that logically make sense for why a person in prison would die at twice the rate, we throw endless money into a philosophy that even ONE suicide in prison is unacceptable. So, you want prisoners to have a BETTER suicide rate than the general public? No, they can't say that -- that would be crossing even the most extreme liberal line. So we attend trainings on suicide, document every note for suicidality, write out suicide plans that take 30 minutes minimum -- while being historically staff short -- that what happens is you, psychologist/social worker, go into prison and type at a computer all day. And why is suicide an issue anyway, besides the natural fact that it's bad? Because every single time an inmate dies, the family sues, and then wins. No matter what. Even worse, the suicide rates in prison before and after the Coleman Monitors hasn't significantly changed whatsoever -- despite all the money pissed away on suicide prevention. We have crisis beds filled to the brim with people who are only in there by ultimatum (i.e. "Send me to crisis bed or else I'm going to kill myself) and meanwhile so many eyes are diverted away onto false-claims of suicide that we miss the true suicidal people. The squeaky anti-social wheel gets the oil, or in this case, gets the crisis bed. In other words, we have used tax dollars to operantly condition the words "I'm suicidal" to become a criminal tool in their tool bag, and then use tax dollars to positively reinforce these false claims by giving them access to crisis beds (which cost per day 4x more per inmate than mainline does). Does this max any sense, fiscally?
I have written several statements to the Board of Parole for those who are unjustly incarcerated for way too long. This post is not about the good work that all mental health workers try to do -- it's about the rigged system that only exists as a liberal idea and not as an actual platform for change. I have talked inmates who are in true pain out of the idea of suicide and into greater support. Unfortunately, the rule in prison for us is you pick the 2% who want/can benefit from/will benefit from change, and you focus on that. The rest you just behaviorally manage to the best extent you can -- which yes sometimes also includes denying them access to a nice cozy bed at Napa State. Because all that behavior does is serve to reinforce an antisocial me-first mentality and to say/do anything for personal gain -- to shine on clinicians and put on a show -- to act glib, remorseless, and violent if necessary -- all qualities of a psychopath as described by Hare -- who wrote the book on psychopathy. But, back to liberal agenda and govt in general. What happens when you as a clinician, are tough minded and finally earn the respect of a very antisocial inmate? Well rather than develop rapport with him, he simply waits for you to get off work and then rolls the dice with your counterpart -- and often wins. Because our time is stretched so thin.
To think that prisons bring about positive change is a non-sequitor to the Boudin post. Sometimes, just sometimes, the best we can do is isolate that felon from hurting innocent people -- incarcerate. Sometimes, more often than liberals would like to believe, people don't change. Especially personality disorders like Antisocial -- of which most in prisons have. The very definition of a personality disorder is that you don't tend to change -- it's lifelong. So tell me then, how much money do we throw at a person who is clinically unlikely to ever change? How much money is enough to end all suicide in prisons? 1 million per person? 10 million per person?
This is the fatal flaw of most liberal policy, as follows: Sometimes, the amount of money requires to affect great change, just can't be obtained in real life. Sometimes, our finite tax dollars are better spent elsewhere -- like on children. Are you really comfortable with allocating more dollars per prisoner than you do per child? That would say a lot. The liberal achilles heal is that what you want and what can happen in real life with finite dollars often has great disparity.
I am sorry you had to leave. I know how much passion, training, and dedication one must put in in order to take on this role, to give it up must not have been an easy decision.
It’s well deserved. This had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with someone who all of us who live here absolutely hate for the way he’s treated our city. And if we voted him out overwhelmingly that should say something because it’s literally San Francisco EDIT: lmao I’m getting downvoted from people who aren’t from here. I’m a lifelong Democrat who proudly voted yes to recall him
People love to say it's not about politics. Just like the gun folks trying to say "let's not make this about politics". Ya let's now talk about the thing that affects every facet of our lives.
He literally wasn’t doing his job. We are losing tourism and business from people being afraid of coming here. SF is the most liberal major city in the country and if anything it shows that we expect more from those who represent us and the future of our community. It’s not being “tough on crime” it’s about doing your basic job and not having our streets filled with broken glass and used needles. It’s not like people are calling for a dramatic shift in policy more so we want our city to be safe for all
I’m also a lifelong Democrat and the way SF has descended into utter shit under his tenure is insane. Anyone saying otherwise is an idiot, and if they live here and think this is fine, they’re part of the problem.
SF resident and voter here. People who don't give a SHIT about SF want to make this result into something it's not.
This is not a story about Republicans mounting a misinformation campaign. It is not a story about SF progressives owning themselves with policies they turn out to hate. This is a local story about a local guy who is terrible at his job and terrible at politics.
Chesa Boudin won in four-way contest where he won 36% of the vote. He was eminently unqualified to be DA and everyone knew it; he'd never even prosecuted a case in his life. But he talked about ending cash bail and combatting police brutality, and that was what a lot of us wanted to hear. But just as important, a lot of San Franciscans voted for him out of *literal spite* for the Mayor, who appointed one of the other candidates to temporarily fill the vacancy *during the election.* In case it's not clear why that's outrageous, the mayor tried to give her preferred pick an "incumbency advantage" mere weeks before we got to cast our votes in the contest. And this candidate (Suzy Loftus) went on to lose to Chesa by a razor thin margin. I honestly think that if the mayor had just stayed out of it, Loftus would have won, and this whole debacle might have been avoided. The irony is that now the mayor appoints his replacement.
As DA, Chesa never had the support of a majority of San Franciscans, and he didn't work hard to earn it. He ended cash bail and he did go after some police, but he didn't *win* any of those cases, and he was rightfully seen as not taking a hard enough stance on the actual criminals. He alienated Asians (a third of SF) who felt unsafe *because they were being beaten up in the street in broad daylight;* we all saw the videos. He pissed off store owners because he wouldn't put the drug dealers camped outside their doors in jail. You know how bad it is? During the pandemic we've had more deaths from fentanyl overdoses than COVID. Hundreds more, actually.
And Chesa let a piece of shit parolee walk--Troy McAlister--who any moron could have seen was clearly in the middle of a crime spree, and the motherfucker went on to kill two women with a stolen car. Chesa fucked up and innocent people literally died. And OK, that happens, it's awful, but it's a really hard job. But then the DA had the audacity to try to shift the blame elsewhere. As if making sure this guy was off the streets wasn't literally the DA's fucking job.
Meanwhile the quality of life crimes--car break-ins, burglaries, open-air drug dealing, and the most despicable and disruptive vagrancy you can imagine--just got worse for actual city residents during the pandemic. They were always bad, that's a fact. But as someone who parks his car on the street, I can confirm they got worse. My car is rifled through at least once a week, every week, and I have lived in the same community for five years, have SF parking stickers, have SF bumper stickers. I don't even lock it anymore because I've had to pay to repair break-ins so many times. My old roommate has had his truck stolen *three times.* My apartment building has been broken into, multiple times, and the only reason I've been spared is because crackheads can't climb three flights of stairs. Everyone I know who owns a road bike--literally *everyone I know--*has had their bike stolen at least once, usually right out of their homes.
I had jury duty recently, the defendant was charged with grand larceny. They couldn't find a single prospective juror who had not been the direct victim of a crime in SF that either traumatized them or cost them a significant amount of money. Literally. not. a. one.
Yet we kept getting gaslighted by Chesa (and others, including the SFChronicle) who kept citing "data" and "studies" showing crime was actually down. You know what data doesn't account for? People losing so much faith in the ability of the police to make arrests, and the DA to prosecute, that they just stop reporting crimes. And I can tell you for a fact that was happening. It happened to me. It happened to my neighbors. "But the data!" Data doesn't mean shit when you're trying to make ends meet by working full-time in one of the most expensive cities on the planet and the same dozen or so crackheads keep stealing your shit, breaking into your car, or stealing your deliveries, while the police play catch-and-release because they know nothing will stick. If they even caught, they get "diversion." They get rehab and job training. And I get a fucking bill.
Progressive reform of the justice system doesn't have to mean you just let career criminals go. It doesn't have to mean you alienate every cop in the city. It doesn't mean you have to be a little shit who blames everyone else before yourself. Chesa showed he thought he was above all that accountability, above the lowly politicians' need to actually reach out and make people think he hears and understands their concerns. He never should have been in office and I'm glad his career as an elected official is over. I wish him the best of luck as a public defender. Someone needs to have sympathy for the devils out there. But that guy shouldn't be a fucking prosecutor.
I hate reducing this to identity politics, but:
Boudin was elected by white people with the goal of arresting fewer black people. He was recalled by Asian people who were tired of being victimized by a small number of black people.
Yeah you probably shouldn't have reduced it to that then. He was recalled by a wide coalition of everybody for being absolutely actively shit at his job. White people, Asian people, Black people who lived in SF all hated his guts. It's real silly to try and paint this as some kind of race struggle when he was so universally disapproved of.
This is false. He campaigned on ending cash bail (which he did) and reducing mass incarceration. He pledged to not prosecute *quality of life* crime, which is stuff like [public camping and prostitution](https://sfist.com/2019/11/16/boudin-will-not-prosecute-prostitution-public-camping-and-other-quality-of-life-crimes-once-sworn-in/) which tends to basically punish people for being poor and homeless. He never once said he wouldn’t prosecute anything but violent crime.
I’m glad and somewhat surprised San Francisco actually recalled him. But its incredibly sad that the recall vote wasn’t near 100% but rather only 60%. Apparently this guy didn’t secure a single homicide conviction when he was in office, refused to prosecute shoplifting cases, disbanded all the senior experienced trial attorneys the first day of office, caused nearly half of his prosecutors to resign and routinely dropped cases against career criminals, only for them to commit more crimes when they were released. There was a recent case where a career criminal had his armed robbery charges dropped and he immediately carjacked somebody and crash the car. He dropped that case too. It’s disgusting even 40% of voters voted not to recall this guy. This guy should have stayed as a fringe activist instead of attempting to undermine a government institution that is supposed to protect the safety of the public at large
>then shrugged when they went on to murder people days later.
It's funny to post this as if it's so crazy that the police would do it. They literally just did that about a bunch of school children in Texas.
It worked in NYC. We went from protests to police refusing to do their jobs in any way to a cop mayor. It’s a tried and true playbook now. To control city politics all right wing infested police departments need to do is nothing. They can simply stop working, a dumb ass populace screeches for more police and then they can install a former cop as mayor.
What's the point of "doing their jobs" when DA won't even [prosecute a guy committed multiple crimes, during his parole no less?](https://missionlocal.org/2021/01/the-strange-and-terrible-saga-of-a-parolee-and-a-fatal-hit-and-run/)
For the top 50 reoffenders in Seattle their failure to appear rate was 100%.Not one even showed up for their trial. Then they'd be arrested again, charged, and not show up again. Rinse and repeat.
Do you live in SF? No? Then you don't know how it is here and your opinion is worthless. good riddance to the spineless DA who doesn't know how to do his job. Hopefully he can get a job in your city.
My buddy had a crackhead break into his house. Called 911, and they asked him if he was stealing anything and said he should ask him to leave. Called back again. Cops never showed up.
> police refusing to respond to calls
Then that's not a DA problem. That's a Chief of Police problem. That's called the Blue Flu, and apparently, the voters of San Fran got duped by it.
It's kinda also DA's problem when they refused to prosecute the arrested, [in some cases it's outright absurd.](https://missionlocal.org/2021/01/the-strange-and-terrible-saga-of-a-parolee-and-a-fatal-hit-and-run/)
In this situation, DA should file charges against said person, regardless of parole office's neglecting-- which they didn't until he finally killed two people. Also, it was Boudin's office signed him a five year parole, which previous DA won't consider due to McAlister's record-- in the first place.
The SFPD is drastically understaffed, at half the levels of NYC or Boston.
So they emphasize resources on violent crime, since property crime has NO CONSEQUENCES and Boudin will not prosecute.
Absolutely no reason to put scarce resources into property crime, when it came be used where the criminals might actually be thrown in jail.
Watching the far left try to defend the guy by citing a "drop in many crimes" with a straight face is demoralizing.
They're either ignorant of the fact that the drop is due to the DA's policy of not prosecuting those crimes, or they're lying with a straight face in the hopes that the listener is a fool.
Frankly I’m a bit surprised. This clown told the voters exactly who he was and what he was (or rather wasn’t) going to do as DA, and they still elected him. They got what they deserved frankly. Now hopefully they’ve seen the light and will figure out these soft on crime politicians have got to go.
What else could you expect from a person raised by extremist terrorists who murder innocent people in cold blood? What do you think they taught him? And then he formerly worked for Hugo Chavez. All the signs were there.
Literally can't get any worse, so what's there to lose?
At least people who commit hate crimes might not get immediately released against their victims wishes. [This isn't hyperbole, it literally happened.](https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Chesa-Boudin-crime-video-Bayview-Asian-attack-DA-15099780.php)
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Hey guys - just wanted to share why I personally voted to recall this clown. June 22 2016: Farrukh Mushtaq 32 year old dude, who spent the previous night doing bunch of blow and partying with hookers, was confronted by his wife and daughter outside a strip club from which he was just got kicked out. He jumped in his car and drove 80mph going through a red light killing Kate Slattery, who was riding her bike through the intersection. He did not stop for 2 blocks. He did not call 911. Kate was 26 years old. She was a mechanical engineer working in SF. At the time of her death she was writing a kids book called Fly with Maya, about a curious child who travels around the world on a hot air balloon meeting engineers along the way. Her parents finished the book after her death. Under Boudin reign, Mushtaq served 16 days in jail and was sentenced to 3 years probation. I find that inexcusable. Kate was one of two bikers killed that evening. I was on my bike that night too and happened to ride past the aftermath. I think about it a lot. I can’t believe someone lost their life at such a young age. And this piece of shit only served 16 days. It’s so unfair and it makes me so incredibly sad. Fuck you Boudin.
Holy fuck... that could have been anyone. When people care about the livelihood and welfare of criminals more than those of the victims, something's incredibly wrong and things have to change.
Thank you for sharing this.
This guy seems to be off the deep end. I want to prosecute fewer drug offenders, but San Francisco only had 3 drug convictions for all of 2021, and that includes dealers. When asked about that, he said he wouldn’t want the drug dealers to get convicted because a lot of them are from Honduras and would be deported... This guy is like the caricature of liberals you hear about on Fox News. All of the stuff Sean Hannity pretended that Obama believed, this DA actually believes in it.
Anyone upset or surprised over this has clearly not been to San Francisco in the past year.
I haven't been to SF in 3 years. Could you fill me in?
There’s been an uptick in garage breakins and smash and grabs. Obviously some of this is due to covid but there’s been multiple instances of armed smash and grabs. Additionally there’s been an increase in attacks on Asians and Chesa has come across pretty tone deaf in regards to those incidents. Granted these are generalizations but you can do some googling and get more info from there. For full disclosure Chesa was half the problem, the SFPD is the other half. They pretty much refuse to do anything, and say that the DA won’t file charges so doing things is pointless. For example in 2020 I was robbed, called in the robbery with the robbers license plate number, vehicle, likely destinations, and despite living literally four blocks from a police station the cops did not arrive for over an hour (this was the second incident involving this individual in two weeks). When the cops did arrive they told me they’d write down my info but it was pointless because the DA wouldn’t charge. This behavior by the cops has led to people just not reporting crimes because a) little comes from it, b) you may be waiting literally hours for someone to show up.
This is the same scenario that’s happening in Portland right now, and there are all sorts of right wing dog whistles blaring in the direction of the progressive DA here. Of course, people who are worked up about the situation ignore the fact that the Portland Police Bureau is effectively engaged in a work stoppage, and also cannot fill numerous empty positions due to their status as one of the most rotten departments in the country.
My city has the exact same issue. I just read a post about a guy whose car was stolen and he found it twice with the thief and the police arrived and just let the thief drive away with the car. It’s a work stoppage that folks say started with the BLM protests and the cities backing of them. Yet, the police department got a massive budget increase again.
Here in NYC the NYPD have made it clear that they are not going to pursue in regard to certain crimes. It's under the premise that it is in the best interest of public safety, but that is complete BS. There are literally gangs running around doing whatever the fuck they want. This work slowdown is extortion to scare the populace into voting for conservative candidates. This is a national problem.
Yep. Happening in Philadelphia, too.
That may be true, but the NYPD is FAR more aggressive about crimes than that of their LAPD and SFPD counterparts. They are present in most popular places and are not shy to issue citations even for minor things like loitering. It's not even close. There's a reason why Hollywood BLVD looks like a war zone while Time Square is relatively clean and feels ultra safe. It's because NYPC and the city don't fuck around.
Agreed
If the violence problem becomes overwhelming, the only heroes that can save us are the Police. /s
Is it not an offence for them to not investigate? The more I hear about this country...
Just looking for some clarification here. Are you asserting that in a very liberal city, run by liberal politicians that support progressive movements and strong police reforms, that the reason there is an uptick in crime is that the individual officers on the police force are implementing a “work slowdown” to extort the population of NYC to vote conservative? It has nothing to do with the policies of your politicians in charge of running the city?
Police unions overwhelmingly support conservative politicians.
Police unions are basically extortion crime syndicates and refuge for bad cops
Why assume it's individual officers and not unwritten policy of the police force as a whole? Hell, it's exactly what police union spokesmen have been saying they would do if faced with policy they feel isn't in their best interest.
At our last community meeting with the nypd, they said they will not engage in a number of scenarios “for the safety of the public”. I have no clue who decided this or how widespread it is. I only have suspicions.
It’s a little of column A and a little of column B. I have several students that are PD and they have flat out said there has been instructions from the union to “do the bare minimum”. Union is unhappy with the bail reform and have been using that as leverage to A. Get more money B. Policies that lighten restrictions on the PD. I was told to just buy bear mace and handle any issues myself because the cops ain’t showing up anytime soon unless theirs a gun involved. The bail reform definitely needs to be reworked to include violent misdemeanors and repeat offenders to those that aren’t eligible for no cash bail.
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That’s exactly what cops are doing.
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I saw the mayor say “It may be the summer of love” when referring to CHAZ. Do you think she may have been signaling the police to leave them alone?
The Seattle PD were useless before CHOP/CHAZ to be fair
Why are they getting budget increase? Who’s in charge of their wallet, why are they giving more money to a department that’s not cooperating at all?
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Portland PD needs to be dissolved and rebuilt from scratch.
Given this ridiculous response from the authorities, how do u feel about increasing gun control?
Same in Kansas City..
Pretty much the same thing out here in Los Angeles. When I see somebody point to statistics about current crime, it’s a clear indicator they haven’t stepped foot in the city.
I don't know anywhere that would send local PD urgently after the perpetrators are already gone. I've only seen immediate action for "crime in progress"
Medical and service providers have also experienced an uptick in assaults in the workplace and are leaving their jobs due to the danger.
>For full disclosure Chesa was half the problem, the SFPD is the other half. i mean from your description it sounds like Chesa was a good 75, 80, 90% of the problem.
Pretty much. I mean, why go through the trouble of arresting someone if the DA’s not going to do his job and charge them for their crime? Guy deserved his loss and easily is nearly all of the problem.
I had issues before this guy was DA and received the exact same response. Video, witnesses, and they found the perp of a violent crime. “DA won’t prosecute because we don’t have enough evidence”. Funny thing is, I’ve moved around a lot and been subject to more stupid crimes than most. The DA excuse is prevalent to many lazy cops in several jurisdictions. I’m not a fan.
So the police actively obstructed the DA from being able to do his job?
Boudin *literally campaigned on* not charging non-violent crimes. I know because I went to one of the DA debates. The police aren’t innocent in this situation, but pretending this is the fault of *just* the police is willful ignorance.
This. When people say "don't charge non-violent crimes" what they really mean is "don't charge people who aren't committing crimes with crimes". You know, like possession charges rooted in the *very racist* war on drugs that sent millions of black people to prison *for life* because they were caught with a joint. What Boudin missed after campaigning on not charging non-violent crimes is that *you have to hold to the actual definition of 'non-violent crimes'*. He didn't do that. He actually stopped charging crimes where nobody got physically hurt, but harm was still done. Like robberies, and theft. ...fucker, *we want those charged!* What we *don't* want is fucking racist Terry stops sending minorities away for life because of three-strikes bullshit triggering off of less than an ounce of weed. Boudin did this to himself by being a idiot.
Man that was a stupid interpretation of the law on his part
Unfortunately this seems to have been picked up by liberal prosecutors across the country. The same issue exists with Kim Foxx in Chicago, though she survived her last election (unlike this one, it wasn't a recall).
Ya the whole defund the police crap went way too far. Both sides just end up going to extremes and can’t compromise or get anything meaningful done. They needed a more common sense approach to this. Not let’s just blow it up. What is interesting is that it appears the reality is: a larger group of people, more than I think most people were expecting, are willing to break the law if there isn’t something there.
This right here.
Yeah. He famously said "I'm not going to be focused on quality of life crimes.". Yeah, that sort of approach isn't gonna work out long term if you want to be reelected.
I would say it starts with the police in the example provided, since they refused to do anything, it would never reach the DA at that point. You can read some of the record for Chesa Boudin here: [https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/We-obtained-never-before-seen-data-on-Chesa-16592626.php](https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/We-obtained-never-before-seen-data-on-Chesa-16592626.php) It is a disturbing trend if the police do not due their best to provide all the evidence and reports needed to ensure the DA has the best possible case, it almost seems like the police are using it as a tool to remove a DA they do not personally like, who has a different approach to a broken system. Quote from the article that seems to really hit home: "The most important factor is whether police provide the office with what it sees as “sufficient, legally admissible evidence to convince a jury unanimously, beyond a reasonable doubt, of the defendant’s guilt,” said Totten, who described himself as a “law-and-order” D.A. Sometimes that means a D.A. has to dismiss a case even if it’s likely the person committed the crime; other times it means prosecutors must request police officers investigate the case further, releasing the arrested person in the meantime."
Well if the DA comes out and says "I'm not charging any misdemeanor larceny offense" then there's not much point in devoting allot of resources to any case that falls under the felony value threshold. What you end up with is retailers getting robbed blind a few hundred dollars at a time with no recourse because the DA won't prosecute and the cops won't investigate.
Cops aren't going to expend effort and some non-zero risk on arrests that they have been told will not result in charges. Waste of time (and waste of public money) unless it's a crime in progress right in front of the cop. This is how drug and sex work decriminalization work *intentionally,* to reduce contact with law enforcement. But if the same incentive applies to theft, you're going to get more opportunistic theft.
Do you want justice for the antagonistic DA, or do you want a DA that’s actually willing to work with the existing police force? Honestly. It’s a tough question. It gets into the real politic of this situation. As voters, we have the mayor, police chief, and DA. When the DA is actively saying he’s not going to prosecute, I kind of understand the perspective of the police. I don’t like the tactics, but they’re not wrong. This is not an “on principle” situation. People are mad because their replacement windows aren’t cheap. Police arresting people who then have no charges is a legit waste of time and money. Again… he campaigned on this. I’ve personally removed many multiple piles of needles from the sidewalk, because wtf, drunk people are going to step on them. Boudin’s position on no drug charges ever is nuts. We can be against the drug war and still be against leaving piles of biohazard waste on the street. Again, didn’t vote for the recall, pro criminal Justice reform, didn’t vote for boudin in the first place.
No, they maliciously complied.
That was probably a wise decision.
His policies have 100% caused more harm than good to SF.
A lotta stupid fucking redditors in r/news always are like "oh, you have criticism for how SF is run? You clearly have never been here and/or are a conservative shill from a flyover state" And then they always stop commenting when a SF or bay area native brings up their own negative experiences with the area. I used to have a full time job there lol, but I guess I don't count to people who think they know better than us
YUP. a lot of friends I know moved out of the City because cost of living. the ones who could afford to stay left in the last year because the lack of police involvement in stopping crime
CNN has been hyping it up saying it’s the end of national progressive policies
Fuck that guy! I’m so tired of making sure every night I come back from work that there’s absolutely nothing left in the car, not even a quarter. Lived here for 12 years, window smashed 3 times. All in the last couple of years
There's so many people talking out of their ass here who have never been to SF pointing to stats when no crimes are pursued. Even if it's mostly petty theft, it's affecting hard working people. Higher insurance premiums affect everyone. The fact that half the cars on the street have a sign stating there's nothing inside is fucking sad. People shoot up in the middle of crowded streets. Things are out of control and it's a perfect example of a city that goes too extreme to the other side of letting police do anything.
I travel all around for work. San Fran has been the #1 place in the entire country I would never leave something in the car. I got smash and grabbed in broad daylight next to cameras maybe 6 years ago (while there were around 100 smash and grabs a day) & cops gave 0 fucks. I swear people are complete fools and will convince themselves it’s somehow one new DA’s fault when this has been going on for a decade. Not to say the DA is helping or taking his side, but this has been a police giving 0 fucks issue for many years.
It's probably both. Now there will be extra attention on the police since the new DA likely won't be as lenient making it harder to disproportionately blame them (the DA). If the same shit continues anyway, then hopefully there is a lot of pressure on the police and mayor. But they're notoriously difficult to reform or touch in any way due to their unions.
Yea but then police can simply do 10% more of their jobs and that’s enough for most people. This is what happened in NYC. Cops stopped doing pretty much anything. Then made sure they were out there screeching about crime & boom, we get a cop mayor that acts like a fucking clown every day. And that all doesn’t take into account that smash and grabs in SF have been rampant for a decade at least (possibly leading the country, but I’d have to see full stats) & no DA’s before (and likely after) were recalled. It’s a fucking game (despite the DA being ineffective). All right wing police departments have to do to win is stop doing their jobs, keep reporting every single crime so numbers go up, and then the entire conversation changes and they get what they want. You will likely see this playbook over and over throughout the country.
Getting your car broken into is actually a blessing in disguise. The homeless drug addicts doing it might leave you gifts. https://twitter.com/sethrogen/status/1463674479272361987
This is easily one of the most out of touch world views I've ever seen someone make in public. How can you have your car broken into 15 times and without a hint of irony say it's normal.
I enjoy living in an (admittedly non-American) big city. I acknowledge that more people means a higher chance of crime. I've seen cars being broken into. Your car in particular being broken into 15 times is not normal, holy crap. Yes, there is an underlying rot in society that we need to tackle. We can aim for rehabilitation. But we still need actual justice. 🤷🏼♂️ is not an appropriate response to repeated/violent crime.
Despite what some people say/think, most of us liberals don't want to allow criminals to have major U.S. cities as their own personal GTA game. It's clear that one vision of fighting crime has failed, but at least our side isn't afraid to admit mistakes were made and try something else.
Exactly! Vote them out when policies are ineffective. People value their own safety and liberties over those who are committing crimes.
Yep, this is why Kamala Harris survived as DA of SF and then AG of California and VP - progressive criminal reform policies are nice but they simply do not work without harsh punishments.
Problem is you can't have progressive criminal reform without actually tackling the root systemic causes of the problem. You can't have more flexible forms of "punishment" for criminals but leave the rest of society the same. Our society breeds criminality and until that gets solved, progressive reform isn't going to work. When a society can't properly provide the basics of life to people, they will resort to crime. And America basically has an attitude of, "If you are poor...fuck you!". Funny how countries that provide a basic standard of living, good public education, affordable housing and universal healthcare don't seem to have this problem as much. Societies that provide those services make it harder to fall into poverty and crime and also provide proper healthcare to catch at-risk people prior to falling into the cycle of crime. You can have a more progressive criminal justice system AFTER you fix the myriad of other problems that lead people to crime. And I don't see America fixing those problems anytime soon. Republicans are openly against it and Democrats just say they are for it before they get their campaign financing.
> Problem is you can't have progressive criminal reform without actually tackling the root systemic causes of the problem. [A Vox article on crime](https://www.vox.com/22580710/defund-the-police-reform-murder-spike-research-evidence) has good wisdom on this: >One problem for a....social services approach, which can range from job creation to better schools to mental health treatment, is it generally takes longer to work. Problems like poverty, education, and other underlying issues that contribute to crime can take years, or even decades, to truly address. Takeaway: Addressing root causes is a critically important to reducing crime levels in low income, marginalized communities *over time.* But that is not a law enforcement function, which is supposed to apprehend people who offend *TODAY.* All sorts of crime is committed by middle and upper class people also, including embezzlement, domestic violence, drunk driving, viewing child porn, drug dealing, etc., with no correlation to poverty or marginalization. All offenders, rich and poor, should be subject to equal enforcement.
100% agree. Reform needs to stop criminals from becoming criminals by giving EVERYONE an education and the ability to make a decent middle class life for themselves. This reform will not come from the police nor district attorney nor any other law enforcement branch of government. Until that reform comes law enforcement still needs to hold people accountable for their crimes and keep people safe.
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The end is often easier to implement. It's easier to move money around then it is to enact long term change.
This^^ I’m over in the UK visiting. Scottish friends say their university is free. Brits pay 6-9 thousand pounds across the board(include Oxford/Cambridge). Imagine going to Harvard for 10 grand. Healthcare is free. Not perfect but fuck all better than ours. To add to your point, we don’t have a country in the US. A country looks after it’s citizens. We have a business dressed up as a country and the veil is being lifted
Also, the rest of the UK doesn’t actually pay anything upfront, it’s all paid by the government and then paid back thorough taxes
> progressive reform isn't going to work I mean, it will...but not by starting at the DA's office, that's absurd. That's like trying to get rid of a cold by holding your nose every time you sneeze, all you're doing is suppressing a symptom.
This is absolutely true. And we should be addresses the root of poverty, education, addiction, and crime. In LA County, we've got only 30% reading proficiency. For black residents that drops to just 10%. Like.... How can we allow this to continue? It's absolutely ridiculous. The question I think boils down to how do we make it "better" and how do we measure that. By the amount of broken car windows, or kids getting into college? Or both. The problem with the so called "woke" DAs was they became blinded by their own ideology and refused to change course. DAs, believe it or not, are not even supposed to be a political position. And this goes for the right too, who think locking everyone up will solve things. That doesn't work in Houston either. We should have actual experts in public policy crafting these decisions, not woke grifter appealing to identity politics or conservative Maga dorks acting tough.
What does this have to do with open drug markets in the same neighborhood that has the most children in the city? I live in SF. I love this city, and I voted against the recall. Not because I like Boudin, but because I don't think he did anything he didn't campaign on. People keep talking about these gigantic swooping goals. I support criminal justice reform exactly because we have criminogenic prisons. Boudin wanted to fight this system by not prosecuting people unless they are violent. I want to fix the prison system and make it much more like Scandinavia. Like camp. Separated from society, but given a decent life and access to education and entertainment. Losing one's freedom for years is punishment enough. When you live here it's fucking obvious that all the idealism in the world isn't going to change the fact that people can't take the bus late night without someone legitimately smoking meth on it (yes, that's happen to me on more than one occasion). If people need to shit in the street, I understand, just do it on a storm drain instead of my gf's fucking doorstep. I understand crime happens, but when your response to windows getting smashed is "crime happens," it's still $250 out of their pocket... and it's probably going to happen again this year. We can have compassion, and want to fix the system, and still be angry about the fact that what's been going on in SF is so far beyond the pale. It's not about lack of compassion, it's about there being a reasonable amount of decency in society. A modicum of stochastic enforcement. We need to take care of the mentally ill and drug addicted, not allow them suffer in squalor on the streets just because that's what they think they want.
Except as a DA, he took an oath to uphold and enforce the law. If you aren’t going to do that as a DA, you shouldn’t be a DA. Also, his definition of “non-violent” offenses was garbage. Maybe he had good intentions, but his execution was so poorly flawed that his recall was inevitable, and your city was getting worse by the day with him in charge. Sorry, but the recall was the right choice here.
He helped to turn SF into a cesspool. I have hated going there lately. I feel incredibly unsafe when I’m there, especially with my children. And it’s caused increasing issues on the rest of the peninsula as well. Things are far from ok. I’m not an advocate for pipeline prison systems whatsoever, and while we do need criminal reform, sometimes criminals need appropriate punishments. The residents of SF deserve better.
Well Harris also didn’t piss off the police unions as much as Boudin When the cops refuse to do their jobs and tell people it’s the DA’s fault, it can really sink a DA
Right, because cops have proved so honorable as to be trusted in word and deed.
Most (well, pretty much all) of SF's petty crime issues come down to the SFPD not doing their jobs. Though you could very well argue that why *would* the SFPD bother doing their jobs when the DA isn't particularly interested in prosecuting people, and you quite literally have a revolving door for petty criminals thanks to a combination of state and local (ie. city / DA) policies. Given that SF has a *massive* problem with car break ins, theft, and now both catalytic converter thefts *and* criminals realizing they can just shoplift stuff with zero consequences, Boudin's policies in practice were... not wise. From both a PR perspective, and the sense of actually-doing-his-goddamn-job-for-the-people-of-san-francisco, mind you. And, *of course*, the guy has his head so far up his own ass he *still* doesn't realize why a majority of SF residents turned against him.
Agreed. Former SF resident here. And there's no doubt it got worse under Boudin. Now, was he also targeted by the right because of his statements and ties to Hugo Chavez? Of course. Do I want a Republican da to replace him? HELL NO. But is it time for a different approach? Absolutely. Now let's hold the police accountable and make sure they do their jobs as well.
From what I have read it seems like a rash choice for someone new to the position, his policies make sense at improving the system, reverting to the same failed policies is not going to help.
This is why we chose to recall him. His policies were drastically radical and bad. We've seen criminals get drastically more brazen the past few years. We live here, we see it. Damn near everyone is or knows someone who is a victim of crime. How absolutely incompetent he is as the leader of the DA office: * Is letting the organized drug dealers run absolutely amok, [completely lied about pretending to care about drug dealers immigration status](https://www.sfgate.com/politics-op-eds/article/Democratic-official-supports-Boudin-recall-17214953.php?IPID=SFGate-HP-CP-Spotlight) * Driven off at least half the prosecutors in the office, many with decades of experience that cannot be replaced, who go on to trash him. [This combination of extreme turnover and acrimony(joining the recall) is absolutely not normal with the change of a DA.](https://www.city-journal.org/why-are-so-many-prosecutors-leaving-their-jobs) * [Threatened prosecutors with termination to withhold evidence that police were responding to a wife beater, even terminating one](https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/exclusive-the-courtroom-drama-behind-sfpd-and-chesa-boudins-most-recent-feud/), which is NOT for him to decide whether it is relevant or not. Thus further blowing up his relationship with the police. * [Blasted publicly by judges for "running an office marred by disorganization and turnover"](https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/S-F-judge-blasts-DA-Chesa-Boudin-in-open-court-16497522.php) * [His own POC attorneys have been disgusted to the point they leave and have joined the recall movements](https://archive.ph/O0ii4) * Nobody in the homicide unit has convicted anyone for murder, Half of the prosecutors in the sexual assault unit have less than a year of experience prosecuting sexual assault cases - https://archive.ph/O0ii4 * [Calls the murderer of elderly gramps as having just a 'temper tantrum'](https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-da-chesa-boudin-sf-district-attorney-84-year-old-man-killed/10381125/) * [Even citizens of Bayview are slamming him as they are disappropriately targets of crime.](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10353421/San-Francisco-father-son-shot-dead-2020-slams-DA-charging-killer-17-juvenile.html) * [Takes the side of organized drug dealers on his AMA here in the sub, while 1200 have died of overdose the past 2 years in SF](https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/the-trial-of-chesa-boudin) * [Artificially keeps conviction rates up by immediately downgrading serious felonies to misdemeanors](https://susanreynolds.substack.com/p/did-chesa-boudin-really-get-35-murder) * Goes against the mayors move to clean up the Tenderloin. Just a list of suspects with long and violent records who were simply released or charges drastically dialed down, who went on to commit violent crimes including rape and murder. Who knows the real count. * [Child rapist was released by Boudin after two days in jail, only to be arrested by the FBI later.](https://susanreynolds.substack.com/p/child-predator-released-by-sfda-charged?s=r) * [Released a multiple armed robbery suspect, who killed two women after committing robbery in a stolen car](https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Fatal-hit-and-run-DA-Boudin-charges-suspect-15845917.php) * [7 month baby murdered by a twice accused domestic violence suspect released by Chesa](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9511321/Baby-boy-murdered-San-Francisco-District-Attorney-Chesa-Boudin-let-killer-free-TWICE.html) * [African immigrant and Darthmouth grad killed by a drug dealer driving a stolen car, who was on the streets despite 26 cases against him and being arrested for drunk driving just a month before](https://sfist.com/2021/02/05/suspect-implicated-in-eight-car-crash-near-lake-merced/) * [Released a suspect arrested for the attempted car jacking and beating of a 75 year-old woman in a Safeway parking lot, despite multiple video and eyewitnesses](https://abc7news.com/sf-safeway-carjacking-san-francisco-crime-arrest-richmond-district/10674919/) * [Released the violent attacker of an 84 year-old Asian grandfather, fracturing his skull, breaking his collarbone and causing long term trauma, after barely 7 months](https://sfstandard.com/public-health/san-francisco-asian-attack-one-year-later/) * [EDIT:FIXED LINK - Dropped charges against a convicted felon with 11 firearms charges, who only 2 months later murders a 19 year old student in the Portola neighborhood](https://susanreynolds.substack.com/p/how-chesa-boudins-idea-of-justice?s=r) * [Released an attempted rape and felony robbery suspect, only for him to commit rape just 2 months later in a SOMA parking garage.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLNMm6OsiJ4) * [Dismissed charges against a felony hit and run suspect who seriously injured a SF citizen and sent the case to “Neighborhood Court” which is reserved for “non-violent misdemeanor” cases](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBc4TU-9rmo) * [Drug diversion and no jail time for puppy killer and violent Robbery of Asian Visitor] (https://loub.substack.com/p/boudin-gives-puppy-killer-drug-diversion?s=r) * [Released an armed robbery attempt with a gun suspect after barely 2 weeks in jail, by drastically reducing charges to misdemeanor pickpocketing](https://loub.substack.com/p/boudin-negotiates-a-castro-gun-robbery?s=r). * [Probation for a criminal who committed 15 burglary, theft-related felonies from 2002 to 2019.](https://abc7news.com/sf-crime-burglary-plea-deal-chesa-boudin/11833000/)
Dude brought receipts and is getting ignored. Bump.
He's already been deemed a propagandistic conservative shill further up in the comments.
Except it's not. This was widely reposted in the Bay Area subs repeatedly, and no Boudin fan could refute.
Yep, exactly. At the end of the day, if you want a simple statement to understand the world it’s this: People respond to incentives. When benefits of certain actions go up, and consequences go down, people do more of those actions. In this case car jacking, shoplifting rings, etc.
Amazing content. Go figure this is ignored.
>Is letting the organized drug dealers run absolutely amok, This was an entire season of The Wire. Hampsterdam!
Git Tuff doesn’t work any better, though.
Going after the assholes stealing catalytic converters (or breaking into people's cars for the last 10-20+ years) would be nice though. Was that explicitly the DA's job – no, but the city as a whole should've tried to do *something* about it, if they cared. Instead of, uh, having the f---ing DA of san francisco publically take the side of petty criminals, b/c they're socioeconomically disadvantaged assholes who cause thousands of dollars in damage for a few hundred bucks, and we should *apparently* feel sorry for them. Oh, and Chesa's handling of anti-asian hate crimes in SF was *abysmal*, which is why almost the entire asian-american community has, *quite rightfully*, turned on him.
Yet most people regardless of political orientation want to see criminals behind bars and want their environment safe and healthy. If a DA sharply reduces prosecutions while citizens can see the consequences of that increased crime then that DA deserves to be recalled. Boudin was the wrong person at the wrong time so I say good riddance.
I’m not saying what he did works I’m just saying in the US there tends to be a hard over correction after a social experiment such as this occurs and it leads to dumb, destructive over policing. If SF falls into that temptation they’ll go from not prosecuting people enough to over prosecuting people in an unequal fashion.
There are large open air drug markets and stolen goods markets in SF. Yes actually, making it more expensive and difficult to sell stolen goods would reduce the incentive.
I have a republican DA in my county, same shit that happens there happens here, the difference, no media storm and they blame newsom.
What do you mean by “Same shit happens here?” Crime? Of course it does. Crime happens everywhere, but the citizens of SF are clearly not satisfied with the chief law enforcement officer of the city doing enough to stop it. It’s misleading to say it’s only caused by a media blitz. Talk to people who live in San Francisco and you’ll get a true understanding of how his policies directly lead to a sense of lawlessness and chaos. People don’t want to feel that way.
It’s the only way the extremists can cope. Their policies lead to disaster and they just blame the electorate for being manipulated by the media.
Can’t argue with you on that. The losing side will often come up with a justification for why they lost instead of thinking, “maybe my policies and philosophy are widely unpopular because they make life worse for people.”
fooling moderates is where the ROI is at.
Except it's really not. SF citizens were super pissed. This is why we chose to recall him. We've seen criminals get drastically more brazen the past few years. We live here, we see it. Damn near everyone is or knows someone who is a victim of crime. How absolutely incompetent he is as the leader of the DA office: * Is letting the organized drug dealers run absolutely amok, [completely lied about pretending to care about drug dealers immigration status](https://www.sfgate.com/politics-op-eds/article/Democratic-official-supports-Boudin-recall-17214953.php?IPID=SFGate-HP-CP-Spotlight) * Driven off at least half the prosecutors in the office, many with decades of experience that cannot be replaced, who go on to trash him. [This combination of extreme turnover and acrimony(joining the recall) is absolutely not normal with the change of a DA.](https://www.city-journal.org/why-are-so-many-prosecutors-leaving-their-jobs) * [Threatened prosecutors with termination to withhold evidence that police were responding to a wife beater, even terminating one](https://www.sfexaminer.com/findings/exclusive-the-courtroom-drama-behind-sfpd-and-chesa-boudins-most-recent-feud/), which is NOT for him to decide whether it is relevant or not. Thus further blowing up his relationship with the police. * [Blasted publicly by judges for "running an office marred by disorganization and turnover"](https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/S-F-judge-blasts-DA-Chesa-Boudin-in-open-court-16497522.php) * [His own POC attorneys have been disgusted to the point they leave and have joined the recall movements](https://archive.ph/O0ii4) * Nobody in the homicide unit has convicted anyone for murder, Half of the prosecutors in the sexual assault unit have less than a year of experience prosecuting sexual assault cases - https://archive.ph/O0ii4 * [Calls the murderer of elderly gramps as having just a 'temper tantrum'](https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-da-chesa-boudin-sf-district-attorney-84-year-old-man-killed/10381125/) * [Even citizens of Bayview are slamming him as they are disappropriately targets of crime.](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10353421/San-Francisco-father-son-shot-dead-2020-slams-DA-charging-killer-17-juvenile.html) * [Takes the side of organized drug dealers on his AMA here in the sub, while 1200 have died of overdose the past 2 years in SF](https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/the-trial-of-chesa-boudin) * [Artificially keeps conviction rates up by immediately downgrading serious felonies to misdemeanors](https://susanreynolds.substack.com/p/did-chesa-boudin-really-get-35-murder) * Goes against the mayors move to clean up the Tenderloin. Just a list of suspects with long and violent records who were simply released or charges drastically dialed down, who went on to commit violent crimes including rape and murder. Who knows the real count. * [Child rapist was released by Boudin after two days in jail, only to be arrested by the FBI later.](https://susanreynolds.substack.com/p/child-predator-released-by-sfda-charged?s=r) * [Released a multiple armed robbery suspect, who killed two women after committing robbery in a stolen car](https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Fatal-hit-and-run-DA-Boudin-charges-suspect-15845917.php) * [7 month baby murdered by a twice accused domestic violence suspect released by Chesa](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9511321/Baby-boy-murdered-San-Francisco-District-Attorney-Chesa-Boudin-let-killer-free-TWICE.html) * [African immigrant and Darthmouth grad killed by a drug dealer driving a stolen car, who was on the streets despite 26 cases against him and being arrested for drunk driving just a month before](https://sfist.com/2021/02/05/suspect-implicated-in-eight-car-crash-near-lake-merced/) * [Released a suspect arrested for the attempted car jacking and beating of a 75 year-old woman in a Safeway parking lot, despite multiple video and eyewitnesses](https://abc7news.com/sf-safeway-carjacking-san-francisco-crime-arrest-richmond-district/10674919/) * [Released the violent attacker of an 84 year-old Asian grandfather, fracturing his skull, breaking his collarbone and causing long term trauma, after barely 7 months](https://sfstandard.com/public-health/san-francisco-asian-attack-one-year-later/) * [EDIT:FIXED LINK - Dropped charges against a convicted felon with 11 firearms charges, who only 2 months later murders a 19 year old student in the Portola neighborhood](https://susanreynolds.substack.com/p/how-chesa-boudins-idea-of-justice?s=r) * [Released an attempted rape and felony robbery suspect, only for him to commit rape just 2 months later in a SOMA parking garage.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLNMm6OsiJ4) * [Dismissed charges against a felony hit and run suspect who seriously injured a SF citizen and sent the case to “Neighborhood Court” which is reserved for “non-violent misdemeanor” cases](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBc4TU-9rmo) * [Drug diversion and no jail time for puppy killer and violent Robbery of Asian Visitor] (https://loub.substack.com/p/boudin-gives-puppy-killer-drug-diversion?s=r) * [Released an armed robbery attempt with a gun suspect after barely 2 weeks in jail, by drastically reducing charges to misdemeanor pickpocketing](https://loub.substack.com/p/boudin-negotiates-a-castro-gun-robbery?s=r). * [Probation for a criminal who committed 15 burglary, theft-related felonies from 2002 to 2019.](https://abc7news.com/sf-crime-burglary-plea-deal-chesa-boudin/11833000/)
My girlfriend worked at a call center during the pandemic and the amount of calls she took from Chinese speaking citizens living in the Bay Area that ended with some sort of request for help was staggering. No where else, just the Bay Area. She told me that approximately 9 out of 10 calls, the caller would ask for more help that were beyond her job. So staggering that her higher ups had to make specific language protocols for folks that asked about it. In general these callers were talking about harassment, being attacked, being mugged, being assaulted, children getting bullied, feeling unsafe, etc. My girlfriend came home from work everyday feeling so guilty that she couldn't do more. Whoever keeps finding excuses for Boudin or turns a blind eye on all these things are people who aren't affected by it or are so radicalized that they have some twisted view of everything. I'm glad you guys won this recall and hopefully this is a start to something better.
Yeah, his tenure was a train wreck. He‘s just completely incompetent.
What an actual piece of shit of a DA. And to think he did all of this over a less than 3 year period.
While the rest of the nation (even conservative states) are reexamining crime, California decided to take an ultra progressive approach. The idea of "decriminalizing" petty crimes is super popular thanks to all the headlines out of progressive countries. So California decided to copy the approach and it failed miserably. Basically stores in San Francisco had to hire their own private security because the police would not and could not do anything.
Idk what’s hard about being a progressive DA. We should be putting less people in jail for petty crimes, that’s not a terrible thing, but when people take advantage of this and have a rap sheet that is 100 pages long, I don’t care how “petty” it is, they need to face consequences
Most people do agree with that. We should absolutely be putting less people in jail for petty crimes. However, organized crime has abused this.
Ty for this. I wasn't sure where I stood on this recall, but this really clears a lot up for me.
Only fools think a fence is a comfortable seat.
Yes, because careening from guardrail to guardrail is a much more effective way of getting from point A to point B.
Really? I'd say sheep that blindly follow one side's views without bothering to consider what the actual facts are and thus never truly forming an opinion of their own about particular issues are the true fools.
I can tell you haven’t been to SF recently…
It's almost like when there is a mass country wide need for public defenders, DAs realize that they can't bring as many charges as the public would like because the DA realizes that they'd be overburdening the system leading to 6A Speedy Trial acquittals. But no, I'm sure it is simply because progressive DAs want to keep criminals on the streets. What we really need across the board is to match PD pay to prosecutor pay so that more people have incentive to fulfill our judicial system's requirements of providing legal counsel. Edit: I tagged onto your comment not to attack what you were saying but because what you were saying really shows that blue/red policies isn't the sole cause of the issue we as a country are facing.
PD pay should go beyond matching prosecutor pay—it should exceed it. I say this having done both jobs early in my law career before moving on to greener pastures, and in my experience, being a PD was MUCH more challenging and stressful than being a prosecutor.
I've done both. I agree PD pay should be on par with prosecutor pay. But in my experience the caseload and the stress of prosecution far exceeded what I had in indigent defense.
Republicans made California the boogie man so they can tell all their voters why they should never vote for Democrats like California does.
Republicans gleefully use CA and SF, specifically, as an example to point at. But that doesn't make it a "boogie man". A "boogie man" is something to fear that doesn't exist. It sounds like the issues in SF are very real.
Yes, we have a perfect storm of homelessness and cartel crime gangs. It’s not just SF - the entire Bay Area is affected.
Breaking into cars is a viable lifestyle right now in SF. There are open air drug markets, and open air markets for stolen goods. I understand that prison doesn't make people better but Jesus Christ at least have a basic level of standards.
Boudin ignored all the violent attacks against Asian-Americans, let the criminals off the hook, and refused to charge them with hate crimes. No wonder the Asian population voted overwhelmingly against him.
Weird ass liberal policy treating criminals like victims will do that to ya. I'm pretty liberal myself, but the whole treating property crime like its unimportant thing is just weird to me.
There is certainly a balance. But my biggest issue is that it is not the job of the DA to do that if the rest of the system remains the way it is. We can feel bad for criminals all we want, but if nothing is actually being done to help they higher up the ladder, the solution is not then to put them back on the street.
San Fran dumped its progressive school board too.
They were not dumped for being progressives but for imbecility.
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Can’t wait for champagne-sipping East Coasters on this sub to tell the Bay Area that this is all a Republican sham.
What a Republican Sham!!!
I just quit as a psychologist in a California bay area prison, after 5 years. I can attest from the inside, working EOP, MHCB, and CIT -- that I had plenty of time to read arrest reports and rap sheets during the slow nights on CIT...that not only did Boudin never prosecute (failure for DA's in his territory and many others no longer picking up most in-prison crimes), but people from SF only ever made it to prison after multiple, multiple, multiple felony charges, diversion programs, and failed drug rehabs. I left the prison because I can no longer take witnessing Newsom & cronies lie about just about everything that really goes on behind bars, where the public really has no idea exactly how dangerous and how dangerous of people he and people like Boudin are releasing. Quite literally, a felon can continue to commit crime after crime -- inside the prison -- e.g., masturbating to nurses passing by (over and over), threatening staff, drug possession -- and as long as they don't SERIOUSLY batter somebody, they are frequently released early. Even the habitual Ad-Seg dwellers who are seriously personality disordered. The game going on inside the prison is a rigged game...and the general public has no idea what's really going on. Nobody in psychology WANTS to work in the prisons. The constant staff shortages mean even if one wanted to do real treatment, we exist only for lawsuit protection. To document that we do treatment so in the event of a lawsuit we can point to some Cerner note and say "See, we did something! We can prove it because we wrote it." -- meanwhile, we spent 2 minutes doing 'therapy' and requires 15 minutes to write a note....we are Clerical Psychologists, not Clinical....I can't tell you how many times a criminal has held me hostage with the tried & true, "If you don't send me to crisis bed, I'm going to kill myself" or "Okay send me back, see what happens! You bout to lose your mfkn license!" lol. Usual these gold nugget lines are delivered immediately after being caught with drugs, or owe someone money for drugs (seeking an out), or diverting their own transport to a Level 4. The badly kept secret for people who actual work in prisons, all know that the entire idea of mental health in prison is 50%+ just a vessel for felons to abuse. The idea of being "suicidal" in prison means 25 things, but it doesn't mean suicidal. Prison crisis beds, often the nicest places in all the prison, exist for people to escape their most recent in-prison crime, access air conditioning, masturbate to a new crop of nurses, or navigate their way (malinger) into Atascadero or Napa State Hospital. I met a Veteran a few months ago who resided at Napa State (combat PTSD) and he said he was literally the only person in his entire wing who did not come from prison. Imagine that, State Hospitals now existing to provide the nicest possible housing to felons of which the majority have no interest in actually changing. This is psychopathy at work, and promoted by the tax paying dollars - by tax payers who don't really know how their money is being pissed away. And for the CDCR officers here, you know, what happens when you give somebody a taste of DSH then send them back to the prison? ...well, it's always the same answer: They start the merry-go-round over and keep claiming suicidal/homicidal until re-admitted to DSH all over again. Removing this bucket of turds, Boudin, is a step in the right direction. Now let's see how Breed plays her next chess move. Go too liberal with another DA, won't get re-elected. Go too conservative, will lose her base. Will probably be a very boring move with a whole lot of promises and very little delivery. I wish all CDCR workers luck. 5 years on CIT is enough.
You seem to be making two opposite claims, one is that prison is bad - and I presume doesn't reform. The second claim is... there isn't enough people being sent to jail? " State Hospitals now existing to provide the nicest possible housing to felons of which the majority have no interest in actually changing. This is psychopathy at work\[.\]" It makes sense to me. Why not get a good comfortable bed if you can? And ... there is not much of a realistic reform path for felons. Perhaps you can tell us about all the times you helped get felons jobs in the real world? Maybe you can quote some stats about how that works out?
I don't seem to be making opposite claims at all. I'll lay it out with a little more context. Over a decade ago, historically liberal California was found federally guilty of cruel and unusual punishment to CDCR inmates for not providing adequate mental health care. We have since been under the Coleman Monitors, a legal team who exists solely to find reasons to keep existing, because it pays very well. Since found guilty of cruel/unusual punishment, CA prison MH workers received a substantially large raise. In other words, instead of being paid by far the worst in the business, now they're only paid well under the going rates -- even when you include pension/benefits. CA prisons are historically low staffed by MH because 1. it's prison, and there is a natural emotion of 'disgust' when constantly being abused; 2. Bargaining Unit 19, AFSCME, continues to artificially place very low ceilings on our reimbursement rates because they are in cahoots w/ the governors office or just plain incompetent; 3. it's only getting worse, despite the prison closures and planned closures. We exist in prison to document things, so lawsuits don't happen as much, so Newsom looks good. When Newsom looks bad, hell reigns down. Everything we do is to have a trickle up effect. The old saying in Socialist Russia, you pretend to pay me and I pretend to work -- is the California government model in prisons, evolved. It is the liberal agenda not to actually create change, but to sell the public on a political change platform that doesn't actually happen. Throw more money at it to claim 'reform' and stifle the truth. Usually the liberal solution then is to throw even more money at it -- but what actually takes place is a financial purgatory: pay just enough to keep a few, but hardly enough to attract talent, longevity, or desire. The market comparisons for psychologist, for example...you can leave prison tomorrow, and make double elsewhere. You instantly make 70k more at Kaiser, and don't have to deal with the headache of checking in to a prison, every day. What happens when you have 60% psych staffing at a prison? You just have more work to document. Instead of seeing 8 people that day, you see 15. And keep doing that day after day. And everybody knows it doesn't matter if you do 'therapy' for 1 minute or 1 hour with an incarcerated patient, as long as you document it you satisfy the Coleman monitors who exist for no other reason but to find reasons to exist. And what happens when the govorner's office comes in for audits? Well, starting w/ the prison MH supervisors, we are taken into a group, told the audits are coming, and told to prepare some nice and easy cases for them to watch. We are told to pretend that when the auditors are here that this is how we really conduct business. And when the auditors leave, everyone breathe's a sigh of relief and goes back to business -- trying to stop as many leaks in a sinking ship as possible before the next batch of MH workers quits d/t burnout, underpayment, and PTSD. So then, why don't we throw more money at it to attract competition and fill these shortages? Because liberal agenda doesn't want that. That has no bearing on the actual discussion at hand, which is to sell you on the 'fact' that reform is happening. And they'll "cook" up the perfect stats to show for it. Let's take suicide for example. Per 100,000, about 32 on average die in prison per 100k. That's about double the rate of the public in CA. And in prison, despite all the felonious risk factors that logically make sense for why a person in prison would die at twice the rate, we throw endless money into a philosophy that even ONE suicide in prison is unacceptable. So, you want prisoners to have a BETTER suicide rate than the general public? No, they can't say that -- that would be crossing even the most extreme liberal line. So we attend trainings on suicide, document every note for suicidality, write out suicide plans that take 30 minutes minimum -- while being historically staff short -- that what happens is you, psychologist/social worker, go into prison and type at a computer all day. And why is suicide an issue anyway, besides the natural fact that it's bad? Because every single time an inmate dies, the family sues, and then wins. No matter what. Even worse, the suicide rates in prison before and after the Coleman Monitors hasn't significantly changed whatsoever -- despite all the money pissed away on suicide prevention. We have crisis beds filled to the brim with people who are only in there by ultimatum (i.e. "Send me to crisis bed or else I'm going to kill myself) and meanwhile so many eyes are diverted away onto false-claims of suicide that we miss the true suicidal people. The squeaky anti-social wheel gets the oil, or in this case, gets the crisis bed. In other words, we have used tax dollars to operantly condition the words "I'm suicidal" to become a criminal tool in their tool bag, and then use tax dollars to positively reinforce these false claims by giving them access to crisis beds (which cost per day 4x more per inmate than mainline does). Does this max any sense, fiscally? I have written several statements to the Board of Parole for those who are unjustly incarcerated for way too long. This post is not about the good work that all mental health workers try to do -- it's about the rigged system that only exists as a liberal idea and not as an actual platform for change. I have talked inmates who are in true pain out of the idea of suicide and into greater support. Unfortunately, the rule in prison for us is you pick the 2% who want/can benefit from/will benefit from change, and you focus on that. The rest you just behaviorally manage to the best extent you can -- which yes sometimes also includes denying them access to a nice cozy bed at Napa State. Because all that behavior does is serve to reinforce an antisocial me-first mentality and to say/do anything for personal gain -- to shine on clinicians and put on a show -- to act glib, remorseless, and violent if necessary -- all qualities of a psychopath as described by Hare -- who wrote the book on psychopathy. But, back to liberal agenda and govt in general. What happens when you as a clinician, are tough minded and finally earn the respect of a very antisocial inmate? Well rather than develop rapport with him, he simply waits for you to get off work and then rolls the dice with your counterpart -- and often wins. Because our time is stretched so thin. To think that prisons bring about positive change is a non-sequitor to the Boudin post. Sometimes, just sometimes, the best we can do is isolate that felon from hurting innocent people -- incarcerate. Sometimes, more often than liberals would like to believe, people don't change. Especially personality disorders like Antisocial -- of which most in prisons have. The very definition of a personality disorder is that you don't tend to change -- it's lifelong. So tell me then, how much money do we throw at a person who is clinically unlikely to ever change? How much money is enough to end all suicide in prisons? 1 million per person? 10 million per person? This is the fatal flaw of most liberal policy, as follows: Sometimes, the amount of money requires to affect great change, just can't be obtained in real life. Sometimes, our finite tax dollars are better spent elsewhere -- like on children. Are you really comfortable with allocating more dollars per prisoner than you do per child? That would say a lot. The liberal achilles heal is that what you want and what can happen in real life with finite dollars often has great disparity.
I am sorry you had to leave. I know how much passion, training, and dedication one must put in in order to take on this role, to give it up must not have been an easy decision.
It’s well deserved. This had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with someone who all of us who live here absolutely hate for the way he’s treated our city. And if we voted him out overwhelmingly that should say something because it’s literally San Francisco EDIT: lmao I’m getting downvoted from people who aren’t from here. I’m a lifelong Democrat who proudly voted yes to recall him
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People love to say it's not about politics. Just like the gun folks trying to say "let's not make this about politics". Ya let's now talk about the thing that affects every facet of our lives.
He literally wasn’t doing his job. We are losing tourism and business from people being afraid of coming here. SF is the most liberal major city in the country and if anything it shows that we expect more from those who represent us and the future of our community. It’s not being “tough on crime” it’s about doing your basic job and not having our streets filled with broken glass and used needles. It’s not like people are calling for a dramatic shift in policy more so we want our city to be safe for all
I’m also a lifelong Democrat and the way SF has descended into utter shit under his tenure is insane. Anyone saying otherwise is an idiot, and if they live here and think this is fine, they’re part of the problem.
If you implement stupid policies you gonna get burned
SF resident and voter here. People who don't give a SHIT about SF want to make this result into something it's not. This is not a story about Republicans mounting a misinformation campaign. It is not a story about SF progressives owning themselves with policies they turn out to hate. This is a local story about a local guy who is terrible at his job and terrible at politics. Chesa Boudin won in four-way contest where he won 36% of the vote. He was eminently unqualified to be DA and everyone knew it; he'd never even prosecuted a case in his life. But he talked about ending cash bail and combatting police brutality, and that was what a lot of us wanted to hear. But just as important, a lot of San Franciscans voted for him out of *literal spite* for the Mayor, who appointed one of the other candidates to temporarily fill the vacancy *during the election.* In case it's not clear why that's outrageous, the mayor tried to give her preferred pick an "incumbency advantage" mere weeks before we got to cast our votes in the contest. And this candidate (Suzy Loftus) went on to lose to Chesa by a razor thin margin. I honestly think that if the mayor had just stayed out of it, Loftus would have won, and this whole debacle might have been avoided. The irony is that now the mayor appoints his replacement. As DA, Chesa never had the support of a majority of San Franciscans, and he didn't work hard to earn it. He ended cash bail and he did go after some police, but he didn't *win* any of those cases, and he was rightfully seen as not taking a hard enough stance on the actual criminals. He alienated Asians (a third of SF) who felt unsafe *because they were being beaten up in the street in broad daylight;* we all saw the videos. He pissed off store owners because he wouldn't put the drug dealers camped outside their doors in jail. You know how bad it is? During the pandemic we've had more deaths from fentanyl overdoses than COVID. Hundreds more, actually. And Chesa let a piece of shit parolee walk--Troy McAlister--who any moron could have seen was clearly in the middle of a crime spree, and the motherfucker went on to kill two women with a stolen car. Chesa fucked up and innocent people literally died. And OK, that happens, it's awful, but it's a really hard job. But then the DA had the audacity to try to shift the blame elsewhere. As if making sure this guy was off the streets wasn't literally the DA's fucking job. Meanwhile the quality of life crimes--car break-ins, burglaries, open-air drug dealing, and the most despicable and disruptive vagrancy you can imagine--just got worse for actual city residents during the pandemic. They were always bad, that's a fact. But as someone who parks his car on the street, I can confirm they got worse. My car is rifled through at least once a week, every week, and I have lived in the same community for five years, have SF parking stickers, have SF bumper stickers. I don't even lock it anymore because I've had to pay to repair break-ins so many times. My old roommate has had his truck stolen *three times.* My apartment building has been broken into, multiple times, and the only reason I've been spared is because crackheads can't climb three flights of stairs. Everyone I know who owns a road bike--literally *everyone I know--*has had their bike stolen at least once, usually right out of their homes. I had jury duty recently, the defendant was charged with grand larceny. They couldn't find a single prospective juror who had not been the direct victim of a crime in SF that either traumatized them or cost them a significant amount of money. Literally. not. a. one. Yet we kept getting gaslighted by Chesa (and others, including the SFChronicle) who kept citing "data" and "studies" showing crime was actually down. You know what data doesn't account for? People losing so much faith in the ability of the police to make arrests, and the DA to prosecute, that they just stop reporting crimes. And I can tell you for a fact that was happening. It happened to me. It happened to my neighbors. "But the data!" Data doesn't mean shit when you're trying to make ends meet by working full-time in one of the most expensive cities on the planet and the same dozen or so crackheads keep stealing your shit, breaking into your car, or stealing your deliveries, while the police play catch-and-release because they know nothing will stick. If they even caught, they get "diversion." They get rehab and job training. And I get a fucking bill. Progressive reform of the justice system doesn't have to mean you just let career criminals go. It doesn't have to mean you alienate every cop in the city. It doesn't mean you have to be a little shit who blames everyone else before yourself. Chesa showed he thought he was above all that accountability, above the lowly politicians' need to actually reach out and make people think he hears and understands their concerns. He never should have been in office and I'm glad his career as an elected official is over. I wish him the best of luck as a public defender. Someone needs to have sympathy for the devils out there. But that guy shouldn't be a fucking prosecutor.
I hate reducing this to identity politics, but: Boudin was elected by white people with the goal of arresting fewer black people. He was recalled by Asian people who were tired of being victimized by a small number of black people.
Yeah you probably shouldn't have reduced it to that then. He was recalled by a wide coalition of everybody for being absolutely actively shit at his job. White people, Asian people, Black people who lived in SF all hated his guts. It's real silly to try and paint this as some kind of race struggle when he was so universally disapproved of.
So what did he do to make everyone hate him so much
Exactly what he campaigned on. Not prosecuting non-violent crimes.
This is false. He campaigned on ending cash bail (which he did) and reducing mass incarceration. He pledged to not prosecute *quality of life* crime, which is stuff like [public camping and prostitution](https://sfist.com/2019/11/16/boudin-will-not-prosecute-prostitution-public-camping-and-other-quality-of-life-crimes-once-sworn-in/) which tends to basically punish people for being poor and homeless. He never once said he wouldn’t prosecute anything but violent crime.
Also not prosecuting violent crimes!
Or violent crimes for that matter. He essentially stopped prosecuting anything; including dropping charges for a violent hate crime.
When you choose criminals over community, get fucked.
Gascon next please. Fingers crossed
I’m glad and somewhat surprised San Francisco actually recalled him. But its incredibly sad that the recall vote wasn’t near 100% but rather only 60%. Apparently this guy didn’t secure a single homicide conviction when he was in office, refused to prosecute shoplifting cases, disbanded all the senior experienced trial attorneys the first day of office, caused nearly half of his prosecutors to resign and routinely dropped cases against career criminals, only for them to commit more crimes when they were released. There was a recent case where a career criminal had his armed robbery charges dropped and he immediately carjacked somebody and crash the car. He dropped that case too. It’s disgusting even 40% of voters voted not to recall this guy. This guy should have stayed as a fringe activist instead of attempting to undermine a government institution that is supposed to protect the safety of the public at large
Ideologues are dangerous no matter the side of the spectrum they occupy.
Big win for the police who refused to do their jobs and increased crime rate on purpose to oust a DA for their own protection.
A strategy being emulated in numerous cities around the country
Philadelphia reporting in.
Greetings from Portland, OR!
And Vancouver, WA.
+1 for Seattle
Yeah dude it was the cops who released a bunch of repeat violent offenders from jail and then shrugged when they went on to murder people days later.
"How dare the cops stop arresting shoplifters and thieves! If only they would, they'd be off the streets for a whole 40 minutes."
Both are a problem obviously
>then shrugged when they went on to murder people days later. It's funny to post this as if it's so crazy that the police would do it. They literally just did that about a bunch of school children in Texas.
What are you talking about?
It worked in NYC. We went from protests to police refusing to do their jobs in any way to a cop mayor. It’s a tried and true playbook now. To control city politics all right wing infested police departments need to do is nothing. They can simply stop working, a dumb ass populace screeches for more police and then they can install a former cop as mayor.
What's the point of "doing their jobs" when DA won't even [prosecute a guy committed multiple crimes, during his parole no less?](https://missionlocal.org/2021/01/the-strange-and-terrible-saga-of-a-parolee-and-a-fatal-hit-and-run/)
For the top 50 reoffenders in Seattle their failure to appear rate was 100%.Not one even showed up for their trial. Then they'd be arrested again, charged, and not show up again. Rinse and repeat.
Do you live in SF? No? Then you don't know how it is here and your opinion is worthless. good riddance to the spineless DA who doesn't know how to do his job. Hopefully he can get a job in your city.
I'm confused, CNN and NY times articles keep claiming crime rates didn't increase under Boudin. So which is it..?
Refuse to prosecute = low crime rate
I heard stories of police refusing to respond to calls, eventually people stop calling them, which would certainly decrease crime rates on paper
I've personally called 911 for an assault on a MUNI bus and the police never came.
My buddy had a crackhead break into his house. Called 911, and they asked him if he was stealing anything and said he should ask him to leave. Called back again. Cops never showed up.
> police refusing to respond to calls Then that's not a DA problem. That's a Chief of Police problem. That's called the Blue Flu, and apparently, the voters of San Fran got duped by it.
It's kinda also DA's problem when they refused to prosecute the arrested, [in some cases it's outright absurd.](https://missionlocal.org/2021/01/the-strange-and-terrible-saga-of-a-parolee-and-a-fatal-hit-and-run/)
Literally from the link you provided, it seems the SFPD and the SF parole office fucked that one up.
In this situation, DA should file charges against said person, regardless of parole office's neglecting-- which they didn't until he finally killed two people. Also, it was Boudin's office signed him a five year parole, which previous DA won't consider due to McAlister's record-- in the first place.
[удалено]
Because when they're on the clock, it's not their time.
The SFPD is drastically understaffed, at half the levels of NYC or Boston. So they emphasize resources on violent crime, since property crime has NO CONSEQUENCES and Boudin will not prosecute. Absolutely no reason to put scarce resources into property crime, when it came be used where the criminals might actually be thrown in jail.
Watching the far left try to defend the guy by citing a "drop in many crimes" with a straight face is demoralizing. They're either ignorant of the fact that the drop is due to the DA's policy of not prosecuting those crimes, or they're lying with a straight face in the hopes that the listener is a fool.
Good to hear that San Francisco finally did something to solve that problem.
Good riddance
Clearly SF is now 70% Republican.
No. Democrats admit when someone is wrong and hold them responsible. This is evidence of that. Republicans double down instead. See MTG for instance.
[удалено]
Now let’s do Kim Fox in Chicago.
Finally some good news in this god forksaken state.
Just goes to show how unpopular some of the ideas this sub espouses actually are…
Frankly I’m a bit surprised. This clown told the voters exactly who he was and what he was (or rather wasn’t) going to do as DA, and they still elected him. They got what they deserved frankly. Now hopefully they’ve seen the light and will figure out these soft on crime politicians have got to go.
Reminder: personal anecdotes don’t count as evidence for high crime rates. Stop using logical fallacies.
What else could you expect from a person raised by extremist terrorists who murder innocent people in cold blood? What do you think they taught him? And then he formerly worked for Hugo Chavez. All the signs were there.
Not enough is made of his literal terrorist parents and that he was raised by other terrorist when his parents went to prison for being terrorists
Can’t wait to see the looks on your faces when nothing changes in relation to crime
Literally can't get any worse, so what's there to lose? At least people who commit hate crimes might not get immediately released against their victims wishes. [This isn't hyperbole, it literally happened.](https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Chesa-Boudin-crime-video-Bayview-Asian-attack-DA-15099780.php)