Thread by @ShellenbergerMD

Last year, San Francisco became one of the first cities to defund the police. Yesterday, the city's mayor dramatically reversed herself, calling for a significant increase in police funding, and an end to the city's deadly open drug scenes. Why?

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/victory-san-…

After Black Lives Matter protesters last year demanded cities “Defund the Police,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed held a press conference to announce that her city would be one of the first to do exactly that. Breed announced $120 million in cuts to police & sheriff departments

A spokesperson for the police officers’ union warned the cuts "could impact our ability to respond to emergencies,” but the police chief assured the public that the cuts “will not diminish our ability to provide essential services."

Yesterday, Breed reversed herself in dramatic fashion, announcing that she was making an emergency request to the city’s Board of Supervisors for more money for the police to support a crackdown on crime, including open air drug dealing, car break-ins, and retail theft.

The plan contains much of what the California Peace Coalition, which Environmental Progress and I cofounded last spring, has been demanding, including in a series of protests by parents of homeless addicts, parents of children killed by fentanyl, and recovering addicts.

San Francisco Mayor Breed and other San Francisco politicians have for years promised to crack down on drug dealing and crime, and things have only grown worse over, so skepticism is merited.

Already, progressives in San Francisco have denounced Mayor Breed’s plan, which she announced with the support of just two members of the city’s 11 Board of Supervisors, and without the apparent support of the city’s District Attorney.

But there’s good reason for hope. Breed's plan lays out big goals and makes very specific promises, including more funding for police. There will be a recall election next June of San Francisco’s District Attorney Chesa Boudin which many political experts believe will succeed.

And the progressive Supervisor who represents the Tenderloin, the neighborhood with most of city’s open drug scene, is running for state assembly, creating a leadership vacuum and opportunity for Breed.

More importantly, Breed’s speech has the potential to change the conversation about crime. Breed explicitly embraced “tough love,” which is a very different philosophy from Woke victimology, which divides the world into victims and oppressors.

Woke victimology demands that victims, a category that includes street addicts and criminals, only be given things, from cash and clean needles to their own apartment with butler service, and not be held accountable for their actions.

"I'm proud this city believes in giving people second chances,” said Breed. “Nevertheless, we also need there to be accountability when someone does break the law... I was raised by my grandmother to believe in 'tough love,' and we need that now more than ever."

Breed punctuated her emotional speech with an explicative. “It is time for the reign of criminals to end,” she said. “And it comes to an end when are more aggressive with law enforcement and less tolerant of all the bulls**t that has destroyed our city.”

Why is that? What explains Breed’s 180 degree reversal in less than 18 months? And what will determine whether she keeps her promise?

The main reason for Breed’s turnabout is skyrocketing crime. A report released yesterday by San Francisco’s Public Policy Institute of California concluded that homicides increased in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, and San Francisco by 17% in 2021.

Property crimes in those four cities rose 7% between 2020 and 2021, reaching 25,000 total in October. Two-thirds of increase is due to larcenies, mainly car break-ins (by 21%) and vehicle thefts (by 10%).

PPIC stresses that property and violent crimes are lower than historic levels, but business leaders and residents have told me for two years that they often do not report many crimes. And the rate of arrest has declined significantly for many crimes.

In 2019, 40% of all shoplifting reports resulted in arrest; in 2021, only 19% did. San Francisco’s progressive D.A. charged just 46% of theft arrests, a 16 point decline since he took office in 2020, and charged just 35% of petty theft arrests, a 23 point decline from 2 years ago

In November, San Francisco was the first of several progressive cities hit by smash-and-grab mobs of thieves, sometimes as many as 80 in a group. Video from the San Francisco looting of Louis Vuitton shows criminals walking casually out of the store, goods in hand.

In response, many of San Francisco’s luxury stores in its Union Square shopping district boarded up their windows, making the area resemble a blighted neighborhood in Detroit, and embarrassing city leaders.

Meanwhile, San Francisco’s open drug scene contributed to three times more deaths from illicit drugs than covid last year, and has degraded the low-income historically black Tenderloin neighborhood.

San Francisco could shut the open drug scene down like European cities did but has instead refused to mandate proven medical treatment to drug addicts. San Francisco’s progressive leaders have effectively been overseeing a radical social experiment.

San Francisco's progressive drug experiment contributed to the deaths of more African Americans last year alone than the entire Tuskegee syphilis experiment killed over 40 years.

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/more-black-a…

Breed has been personally impacted by addiction and crime. Both Breed’s sister and brother struggled with addiction while growing up in public housing in San Francisco. Her sister died of a drug overdose and her brother is in prison for armed robbery.

“I am not for playing games with my life when it comes to politics,” she told an interviewer. “I’ve been working in the trenches, dealing with the public safety issues, dealing with those things because my people are the ones getting left behind at the end of the day.”

But Breed also had to be pushed. In May, I helped Jacqui Berlinn, a mother of a homeless fentanyl addict, organize the first-ever protest of open drug dealing in the Tenderloin, which generated national and local headlines and local TV coverage.

Berlinn & I co-founded, with parents of children killed by fentanyl & recovering addicts, the California Peace Coalition, to demand enforcement of laws against open dealing, mandatory treatment for addicts who break the law, and a state takeover of psychiatric and addiction care.

Then, in early November, over 200 mostly poor and working class people in the Tenderloin protested a 161% increase in violence in the neighborhood between 2020 and 2021, and open drug dealing, in a march on City Hall.

Part of their motivation was a brutal attack on an 11-year-old girl while walking to school. The day before, a 61-year-old man was shot while sitting in a donut shop. Two weeks later, a half a dozen gunmen fired 30 and 40 rounds at each other, sending bystanders running in chaos.

Breed put their voices at the heart of her announcement. “Last week, I met with a group of families from the TL [Tenderloin]. I was told about drug dealers threatening grandmothers. About mid-day shootings near a park where a single mother brings her toddler after school.”

“I can’t express how happy this makes me," said Berlinn. Tom Wolff, who is on the Drug Dealing Task Force, said, "I'm really happy to hear the mayor take a tougher approach on this. We can't arrest our way out of everything, but there needs to be some target specific enforcement"

Michelle Tandler, a San Francisco native whose photos of boarded up Union Square stores went viral, said, “I've been observing Mayor Breed for many years now and have to say, I think this was her greatest speech to-date. Mayor Breed took a stand for what is right."

Breed’s speech puts pressure on progressive San Francisco supervisors and the District Attorney to shut down the open drug scene in the Tenderloin.

When he ran for office in 2018, District Attorney called “open-air drug use and drug sales... technically victimless crimes.” When Boudin announced that he was not going to prosecute street-level drug dealers he said it was bc they are “themselves [are] victims of trafficking"

But, after the looting of Louis Vuitton, Boudin struck a more tough-on-crime tone. “I'm outraged by the looting in Union Square last night” Boudin tweeted. “We are seeing similar crimes across the country. I have a simple message: don't bring that noise to our City.”

But that's different from shutting down open drug scenes. “Boudin made a very strong statement after the theft of Louis Vuitton,” said Stanford addiction specialist @KeithHumphreys. “I want a DA who is the most worried about the poorest residents and less about Louis Vuitton.”

Other politicians are responding to the crime wave. California Attorney General Rob Bonta promised “more resources” for investigating retail theft. And the Mayor of Oakland, which will have record homicides this year, has demanded more funding for the police.

In the end, shutting down the city’s open drug scenes is crucial to ending drug deaths and the chaos that plagues the city. “It is an entirely fixable problem as many cities have shown. There will still be drug use and addiction in San Francisco," stressed Humphreys.

But harm reduction requires closing down open air drug scenes. Every city in America has drug problems. They do not all have a drug scene like San Francisco."

Breed announcement may help change how Americans think about drugs. While it may not be possible to halt drugs from coming into the U.S., it is possible to shut down open drug scenes, and mandate treatment for those who need it.

“The public is wanting some action here and she's going to try to deliver it," said Humphreys. "I think her announcement will resonate in other cities, too, and give courage. I admire the mayor for taking a political risk on behalf of the least powerful people in the city.”

/END

Correction: Oakland will have its highest number of homicides in nine years.

Nancy Pelosi backs San Francisco Mayor @LondonBreed in her proposed crackdown on drug dealing & crime

“It’s outrageous," said Pelosi, "I agree with the mayor, it has to be stopped. We cannot have that lawlessness become the norm.”

sfchronicle.com/politics/artic…

Pelosi does what California @GavinNewsom and other Democrats do which is to try to claim that drugs & crime aren't unique to San Francisco & California. "There is an attitude of lawlessness in our country that springs from I don’t know where," she said.

But tolerance of open drug scenes (i.e., public camping + public drug use) is far greater in California cities than other cities, including warm ones like Miami, as evidenced by increase in "homelessness."

And we don't build enough shelter & don't require its use.