“We walk around everywhere with these signs, ‘Build more schools less jails’ … I agree with that conceptually, but you have not addressed the reason I have three padlocks on my front door. Part of the discussion of criminal justice policy has to be an acknowledgment that crime does occur and especially when it’s violent crime, and serious crime, there should be a broad consensus that there should be serious, and severe, and swift consequence to crime.”
- Kamala Harris, then Calif. Attorney General, at Chicago Ideas Week, Feb. 12, 2013
Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price denied claims made by Gov. Gavin Newsom in a press conference about the ability of her office to prosecute crime in the county. Newsom announced July 10 that his office would rescind its offer to send state prosecutors to the county to assist with Price’s caseload because Price’s office was uncooperative. In a letter sent the day before, Newsom’s office said Price did not make use of state resources and did not take initial steps toward finalizing the memorandum of understanding.
Price can deny her lack of effort in prosecuting crime, but, as my mom used to say, the proof is in the pudding, or in Price’s case, the streets of Alameda County. Her staunch adherence to campaign promises may appease her base, but it has also led to a recall initiative for Price on this November’s ballot. The very day Newsom made his announcement, Shane Killian was taken into custody, accused of killing his family at their Kitty Hawk Road home in Alameda’s South Shore. The victims were his wife, Brenda Natali Morales; her parents, Miguel Carcamo and Marta Elena Morales; his 6-year-old son, William; and his infant son, Wesley. In a poignant interview with KTVU reporter Henry Lee, Alameda Police Chief Nishant Joshi said he and his officers are haunted by the crime. “A 1-year-old baby suffered for several days, went through numerous surgeries and fought and fought and fought, and couldn’t fight anymore,” Joshi said. When Lee asked what he saw on his officers’ body-camera footage, Joshi said, “I saw pain. I saw fear. I heard sounds that told me there was pain, fear, and concern.”
Killian has been charged with five counts of murder, but Joshi is troubled that Price did not add the multiple murder special circumstance, which would eliminate the possibility of parole for Killian if found guilty. “I don’t understand that,” Joshi said. “What are we doing? What qualifies if not this case?”
Speaking of Price, a source in Oakland law enforcement says criminals “have no fear of consequences” in Alameda County and even call her “Aunt Pam.” Our Video of the Week certainly seems to back the “no fear” part up — it’s a harrowing scene straight out of A Clockwork Orange depicting multiple shooters firing at each other along 10th Street in West Oakland, the muzzles of their guns lighting up the night sky. …
Our X of the Week comes from Alan Burradell, who added captions to a San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee endorsement interview with incumbent District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar in which she stuck to her Chesa Boudin-era guns on sanctuary city laws applying to everyone, including fentanyl dealers.
According to a poll released this past May by EMC Research, a survey of 500 likely San Francisco voters discovered that 70 percent support revoking sanctuary city protections for undocumented immigrants who are found guilty of dealing fentanyl. District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, a recovering drug addict himself, is the only member of the Board of Supervisors to call for the deportation of fentanyl dealers. His proposed legislation, announced this past February, would “create a new exception to San Francisco’s sanctuary city policies for adults who have been convicted of a fentanyl-dealing felony in the prior seven years, and then held to answer for another fentanyl-dealing felony, a violent felony, or a serious felony subsequently.” Still, his colleagues, including Melgar and termed out District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen, defend the dealers. “These people are victims of labor trafficking. They are told there are construction jobs in the U.S., then they are trapped and told if they don’t sell drugs the gangs will hurt their family members. …” Ronen said in opposition to Dorsey’s legislation. Melgar noted the sanctuary city law “also protects workers, for example day laborers, who may work for two weeks for a boss who then says they aren’t going to get paid — and if they complain, the boss threatens to call the cops and allege that they are drug dealers.” All of this led me to do a public records request with the San Francisco district attorney’s office to find out just how many human-trafficking cases had been charged in San Francisco since 2020 and, as I stated in a June 2023 column for the Marina Times, the answer is one, against a couple who brought their nanny from the Philippines to the United States where she was “forced to work seven days a week caring for a couple’s disabled child in addition to other forced labor in and outside of the home.”
All the recent chatter about overtime to fill City Hall staffing gaps got me looking into San Francisco overtime pay across the board. It turns out 2,539 city employees made more than $50,000 in overtime in 2023, meaning the city paid out $457 million. Who’s making the big bucks? Likely not who you think: 46 transit car cleaners made over $10,000 a year each in overtime — is this the cost of not enforcing fares or is there really that much graffiti? Many jobs with “inspector” in their titles made a lot of overtime, too. If there was a building boom, maybe, but why are electrical inspectors making big overtime bucks? And my favorite is the 27 gardeners, each making more than $10,000 annually, with one taking home $34,000 on top of an $88,000 base salary. Since when do we need off-hours gardening? I remember seeing a city gardening truck pulled into a secluded area of Golden Gate Park one morning and the gardener inside was asleep. Well, at least I thought he was asleep, but I decided to make sure he was all right by walking up to the open window. Before I had a chance to check, my pit bull, Jazzy, jumped up on the door, started barking, and scared the guy half to death. …
X user Robert Fruchtman posted a fascinating thread about a San Francisco Planning Department preapplication meeting for a 24-story mixed-use building proposed for 955 Sansome Street in Telegraph Hill and attended by around 70 people on July 23 at 10 a.m. Who, you might ask, is available to attend a meeting at 10 a.m. on a weekday? Why, the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, of course! A while back, I wrote about the neighborhood group’s long history of fighting development in the area by organizing the troops to show up and oppose any potential development, usually saying it doesn’t adhere to historic preservation.
In fact, founding members Aaron Peskin and his wife Nancy Shanahan set themselves up to become the multimillionaire landlords they are today by using their roles as “Planning and Zoning” cochairs for the Dwellers. A fall 1998 newsletter describes the couple’s role: “Monitors and reviews proposed development projects for consistency with applicable City ordinances. Works with Planning Department staff and represents THD before the Landmarks Board, Planning Commission, Zoning Administrator and other regulating bodies to protect historic resources and maintain neighborhood character. …” According to architects and developers I spoke with (off the record because they still have projects in the area and fear the wrath of current Board of Supervisors President Peskin), the Dwellers wield “historic preservation” as a weapon but don’t follow the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards Guidelines: “They would just do their own interpretation of history,” one said. “Like, if you wanted to make your deck railing higher so your kids wouldn’t fall over it, THD would say ‘No, that doesn’t follow historic preservation,’ when there weren’t even decks or railings in that era … they just wanted to preserve views for their members and their friends.”
Well, clearly nothing has changed in Telegraph Hill.
In one particularly funny post, Fruchtman says, “The sponsor asks the audience how many people oppose the project. Almost all people raise their hands. Someone asks for a picture to be taken. I was happy to oblige. Sorry for the blurry photo.” And there they are, in all their arrogant glory, opposing more housing in a neighborhood where, according to S.F. Planning Department records, just two six-story buildings have been constructed since 2005. The views from Telegraph Hill, which sits between 100 to 285 feet of elevation, are protected by 40-, 65-, and 84-foot height restrictions in the neighborhoods below. And who wrote and enacted those height limits? Peskin, starting with his first term as District 3 supervisor in 2000, when he quietly passed legislation designating the Colombo Building as a landmark, and in 2005, when he was the sole sponsor to repeal previous zoning, thereby decreasing building heights from 200 feet to 65 feet in the Jackson Square neighborhood. …
Lenient Judge of the Week: One of my favorite websites is San Francisco Public Safety News (you can follow them on X here) which diligently covers court cases — something I have done, and trust me, this is a true service to the public. A recent post covered “one of the Bay Area’s most prolific felons,” Zaire Dunlap, who was on probation in three counties, had five active warrants, and boasted a rap sheet of “firearms offenses, murderous threats, theft, burglary, and leading police on high-speed pursuits.” Dunlap was tracked down at a restaurant in January 2023 by San Francisco Police Department investigators who knew he was a fugitive and suspected him of committing a burglary at San Francisco’s Stonestown Mall on Christmas 2022. When arrested, he was driving a Lexus, wearing a stolen Cartier watch, and carrying a loaded .45 caliber Glock 30 semiautomatic pistol. After Dunlap pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, federal authorities moved to prosecute him. A member of the “Westmobb/Mobstarrz” gang, Dunlap’s criminal history is so complex that, according to Public Safety News, prosecutors created a chart in an effort to explain it to U.S. District Judge William Orrick. “You did have a loaded firearm,” Orrick said to Dunlap. “It’s a serious charge and when I look at the history and characteristics … all of the criminal offenses you have had in your life is a lot … just a ton.” Orrick then imposed a meager 20-month sentence. With credits and good behavior, who knows? Dunlap might be out in time to hit Stonestown Mall on Christmas 2026.
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Updated: 12:41 p.m. PST to reflect VOSF style and editorial guidelines.
