Amidst the city’s continuing drug overdose epidemic, San Francisco lawmakers are considering a policy statement urging the police and 911 operators to prioritize reports of illegal drug use near parks, playgrounds, and schools.
The legislation, sponsored by District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill and District 3 Supervisor Danny Sauter would “urge the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and the Department of Emergency Management (DEM) to designate all 911 calls reporting drug use or suspected drug activity within 1,500 feet of parks, playgrounds, and schools as “Priority A” calls requiring swift and immediate response.”
The bill comes in the wake of continued concerns from city residents over collateral dangers from illegal drug use near neighborhood schools and other areas where children congregate, such as city parks. The issue gained local and national attention in 2023 when a 10-month-old child of a Marina District resident was poisoned by fentanyl picked up from the ground in a neighborhood park and accidentally ingested. The child was revived after a responding paramedic administered Narcan. Since then, reporting by the San Francisco Standard revealed that “at least a dozen” bodies of drug overdose victims had been found in city parks between 2020 and 2024.
“This is a direct response to constituent concerns about those instances,” Sherrill told The Voice in a phone call. “We’ve seen what can happen when we stand up and we say what our priorities are, like in Jefferson Square Park,” he said, referencing high-profile police actions taken in March of this year to quell illegal drug activity there. “We decided we wanted to prioritize having a clean and safe park with a law enforcement operation, and boom, it happened. And that park is pretty darn clean today.”
“Do we think that drug use next to playgrounds is okay, yes or no? And if the answer is no, what are we doing about it?”
— District 2 Supervisor Stephen Sherrill
City policy dictates that calls to 911 are ranked by level of urgency and given a priority level, which dictates the level and speed of response. Accordingly, Priority A calls are those where there is “present or imminent danger to life,” significant property damage, missing or at-risk persons, or the need to protect evidence at a major crime scene. According to DEM, the median response time to a Priority A call last month was 8.52 minutes, compared with 27.8 minutes and just under 84 minutes, respectively, for Priority B and Priority C calls.
Currently, according to a DEM spokesperson who spoke with The Voice, “Proximity to a school or playground (though not necessarily a park, unless the caller describes specific park uses that are being impacted) often gets a higher response. A drug user by school or playground would generally be coded as a 917 suspicious person and get a B-priority response instead of a C — potentially an A priority, depending on the specifics.” Representatives of the department met with the bill sponsors earlier this week, according to the spokesperson.
“This resolution is specifically about making sure that 911 calls, about drug abuse around playgrounds and schools are considered life safety issues, but more than that, I think there’s a question that we as a city need to ask and answer openly — do we think that drug use next to playgrounds is O.K., yes or no?” Sherrill added. “And if the answer is no, what are we doing about it?”
Introduced last month, the bill will be continued at Thursday’s meeting of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee of the Board of Supervisors, where it’s expected to be considered after the board’s summer recess.