Recently, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie posted to his X account that the city was “stepping up with supercharged operations that have resulted in 350 arrests and 12 pounds of narcotics seized,” so we decided to visit the 911SF dashboard and break down the mayor’s statement. We updated the page for the past 14 days from the pulldown menu. This lists all drug charges during that time period, categorized and grouped for count. Here are the results:
Out of 350 arrests, 201 of those are for “Narcotics Paraphernalia, Possession of,” which is the most charged offense in San Francisco. If you select 365 days and check the arrest count for that charge, it shows 2,743. Not only is it the most charged offense, it is also the first thing judges throw out (it’s a well-known fact that San Francisco judges are willing to let prolific and dangerous drug dealers go free. A judge also freed violent repeat felon Patrick Thompson for possessing drug paraphernalia and an axe, which he used to threaten a female police officer.
While his constituents were rightfully happy to hear about the arrests, what Lurie leaves out is that 60 percent of those 350 drug arrests in two weeks are for possessing the same pipes handed out by harm reduction nonprofits. Effectively, the city hands out taxpayer-funded paraphernalia, cites users for it, and then judges drop the charge.
When Lurie says “arrest,” the public thinks handcuffs and jail, but more often, if you examine arrest records, you will see that more often than not, they are cited and released.
The second most charged offense is warrants. Usually, police cite and release for this offense. When Lurie says “arrest,” the public thinks handcuffs and jail, but more often, it gives officers a reason to obtain the drug user’s name, run them for warrants, and if they have an out-of-county warrant, law enforcement can send the offender back to that county. However, if you examine arrest records, you will see that more often than not, they are cited and released.
Regarding drug sales, according to arrest records, dealers were charged six times for selling opiates, which would be the charge for fentanyl, and twice for selling methamphetamine, for a total of eight narcotics sales arrests. As for seizing 12 pounds of narcotics, there is a “possession for sale” charge, which is when dealers are busted for selling meth or opiates. The arrest page features the full menu of drug offense category charges, which can be found under DataSF Police Department Incident Reports. The incident reports categorize offenses along with the corresponding charges.
One arrest usually generates multiple charges; for example, there could be one arrest for a dealer who is then charged with both meth and fentanyl possession for sale — in other words, incident count does not equal charge count.
At some point, Lurie and his future police chief need to answer when the city will go after the big fish bringing kilos of narcotics into San Francisco via BART and the Bay Bridge. As Stanley Roberts reported in “The Backpack Brigade,” that is where most of the drugs come from, and if one of the dealers is arrested, the cartel has someone on his street corner before he’s released from jail (which is usually just hours).