Tag Archives: San Francisco

San Francisco police search blacks, Hispanics more than whites: panel

Police standing on Lombard Street

By Curtis Skinner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Three former judges examining accusations of racial bias by police in San Francisco said in a report released on Monday that black and Hispanic people were more likely to be searched without their consent by officers than whites and Asians.

The panel released its report as the United States reeled over the slayings of five police officers in Dallas who were on duty at a protest over the slayings of black men in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis.

“The panel found indications of institutionalized bias and institutional weaknesses in the department,” Anand Subramanian, executive director of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Transparency, Accountability, and Fairness in Law Enforcement, said at a news conference.

The panel, consisting of retired state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, retired Superior Court Judge LaDoris Cordell and retired federal Judge Dickran M. Tevrizian, was convened by San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón in March 2015 after racist text messages sent and received by San Francisco officers were made public.

San Francisco Police said in a statement after the report was released that they appreciated the panel’s efforts and would review the findings before turning over their analysis to Justice Department.

The panel said in a 240-page report that blacks and Hispanics were more likely to be searched after traffic stops than whites or Asians yet less likely to be carrying contraband.

According to the report, of all non-consensual searches after traffic stops, 42 percent in 2015 involved black motorists. The U.S. Census showed that in 2015, blacks made up less than 6 percent of the city’s population of 865,000.

Hispanics, who made up about 15 percent of San Franciscans in 2015, accounted for 19 percent of non-consensual searches, while whites accounted for half the population, but 21 percent of non-consensual searches, the report said.

Asians made up more than a third of the population, but were searched without their consent fewer than 10 percent of the time, according to the report.

The report recommended that San Francisco’s police department should improve its training on implicit bias, procedural justice and racial profiling, and called for stronger oversight.

The San Francisco Police Officer’s Association called the report misleading and divisive.

“We’re sitting on a tinderbox and Gascón is lighting a match,” association president Martin Halloran said in a statement.

San Francisco’s police department has been roiled by protests since December after the videotaped fatal police shooting of a black man.

The death of Mario Woods, 26, prompted a U.S. Department of Justice review of the police department.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Sharon Bernstein)

Minor Quake Strikes Oakland Area

Some residents of the Easy Bay area didn’t need their alarm clocks to start the week as a magnitude 4.0 earthquake struck the area early Monday morning.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported the quake struck at 6:49 a.m., three miles away from Oakland, California.  The quake was felt throughout the Oakland/San Francisco area.

Oakland police Lt. Chris Bolton reported on the department’s official Twitter feed that they had no reports of injuries or damage from the quake.

The quake struck along the Hayward fault, a major fault that remains a concern for geologists in the area.  The scientists believe that the fault could produce a potentially catastrophic quake that could kill tens of thousands.  The Hayward fault is part of the San Andreas fault system.

The fault runs for more than 60 miles through the region from Fremont to Hayward.  The fault runs under hospitals, freeways and reservoirs.  It even runs from end zone to end zone at the football stadium for the University of California Berkeley.

The quake was followed by six aftershocks.

Earthquakes Shake Oklahoma; San Francisco

The last 24 hours have shown active seismic activity in the Midwest and on the West Coast.

A significant magnitude 4.4 earthquake struck Oklahoma Monday afternoon near the town of Cherokee, OK.  The shaking of the quake was reported outside the Sooner State in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Texas.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) also reported a second quake striking near Pawnee, OK about half an hour later with a magnitude of 3.2.  Then a few minutes after the Pawnee quake, a second quake struck in the area of the Cherokee quake that measured 3.7 on the Richter scale.

The USGS said all the quakes were around three miles deep.

Local officials said there were no injuries or significant damage from the quakes.

In San Francisco, a magnitude 4.0 quake struck the San Francisco area on Tuesday.

The USGS says the quake struck around 2:30 a.m. near Fremont, or 35 southeast of San Francisco.  The quake struck at a depth of 5 miles.

No injuries or significant property damage was reported in the Fremont quake.

Lightning Sparks More Wildfires In California

A freak lightning storm across northeast California has resulted in nine more wildfires for an overworked California firefighting team.

The new blazes are in Lassen, Modoc and Shasta counties and are in rural areas that are not threatening any homes or outbuildings.  A spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said crews are trying to contain them quickly so they can “concentrate on the large ones we still have.”

The main fire is a wildfire sparked by lightning on July 30th that has burned 13 ½ square miles of land in Mendocino County.  Six communities north of San Francisco are dealing with various evacuation orders as at least 60 homes are considered in severe danger from the flames.

More than 2,000 firefighters are working in what spokeswoman Lynne Tolmachoff said are “steep, rugged terrain.”  Only 35% of the Mendocino County fire has been contained by the fire crews.

On Friday, 8 firefighters were reported injured in an incident connected to that fire.  The fire has injured through burns or injuries eleven firefighters since the start.

“While we’ve been making some progress, this is a very stubborn fire,” Tolmachoff told Fox News. “And we’re not even close to our peak fire season.”

Al Qaeda Magazine Photo Causing Security Concerns

The FBI is trying to downplay fears after a photo of San Francisco’s International Airport was found inside an al-Qaeda produced magazine.

The spring issue of “Inspire” has a picture of the AirTrain at San Francisco Airport.  The AirTrain connects all the airport terminals with the Bay Area Regional Transit.

A caption with the photo written in Arabic says to “stand up, pack your tools of destruction.  Assemble your bomb, ready for detonation.”

“The San Francisco area is depicted in this al-Qaida publication,” Congressman Eric Swalwell said in a Homeland Security committee hearing.  “What we believe from what senior law enforcement officials have told us is that this is AirTrain from San Francisco’s airport, and that the translation from the Arabic message encourages al-Qaida members to detonate explosive devices.”

Former FBI agent Rick Smith told CBS San Francisco that there should be some concern but he wouldn’t change travel plans.  However, he said the magazine is appealing to wanna-be terrorists who could be much more dangerous than actual al-Qaeda operatives.

Navy Testing San Francisco Area Homes For Radiation

The land was declared safe for residential housing.  No threats to the public.

Now, the U.S. Navy is conducting house-to-house testing for radiation after an empty home on a former Naval base was found to contain radium.

The homes are located on a man-made island called “Treasure Island.”  The area once served as a U.S. Navy base and has been redevelopments under an agreement from the Department of Defense with San Francisco’s Treasure Island Development Authority.

The Navy cleaned up the base after closure in 1997.  The DoD then leased the homes to civilians that were once military housing.

The Navy had declared the residential area was free of any radiological contamination because the item containing radium was found in the empty home.  Now, residents are concerned not only for radiation beneath their homes but also in the groundwater supply.

“In the event a radiological survey of a housing unit reveals a health concern, the Navy will take immediate action to protect the residents,” the Navy said in a statement.

San Francisco Groups To Hand Out Free Crack Pipes

A group of San Francisco activists say they are planning to distribute free clean crack pipes to any addict that wants one.

The group claims that by providing the clean pipes, they are essentially providing the same service that the city is providing to drug addicts that inject via needles.

The city of San Francisco gives out approximately 2.7 million clean needles each year to addicts in an effort to lower the rates of blood transferred diseases like HIV and Hepatitis-C.

Laura Thomas of the HIV Prevention and Planning Council has made a formal recommendation to the city’s health department to have the city implement the plan.   She said that the program would allow addicts to feel respected and likely make more of them come in for treatment for their diseases.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said that he is not supportive of the proposal because he believes there are many other ways to control HIV without giving out free drug paraphernalia.

Some advocates say they will give out crack pipes even without the government approval, in violation of state and federal laws.

Wildfire Threatens San Francisco Water Supply

Officials in the San Francisco area are trying to fill all area reservoirs quickly before ash from the ongoing Rim Fire near Yosemite National Park taints their water supply.

The massive fire is now roughly the size of the city of Chicago. Despite firefighters getting the blaze at least 15% contained, the flames are within a mile of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir which feeds San Francisco. Continue reading →