I will admit, as a middle-aged white dude, I have no idea if the SFPD profiles. I have heard stories before, but just rumors. One of my Lakota friends used to tell me whenever he gets pulled over by the police it is for DWI. I said, “What?” He replied, “Driving While Indian.”
This past Sunday though I saw something that makes me suspect that the profiling is shared between who is reporting it, and how the officer reacts. Shortly I will tell you about an incident I saw on Sunday afternoon, but a short introduction first.
If you have ever been downtown you will notice a bike and pedestrian crosswalk on 6th street between Phillips Avenue and Raven. The sidewalk/bike trail continues South right in front of Raven’s front door, than goes past an open amphitheater and across a pedestrian bridge bought and paid for by taxpayers. The sidewalk in front of Raven’s, IMO, is quasi-public.
This Sunday after enjoying some brunch at my new favorite restaurant, The Blarney Stone, I rode my bike to Falls Park. It was packed, if I had to guess there was about 200 people down there. The water was high due to the snow melt and many adults and children were walking very close to the rushing water. As I have mentioned in the past, you can’t legislate ignorance, but what surprised me the most was there wasn’t one single person from the Parks Department, Fire Department or Police Department monitoring the visitors and reminding them to stay away from the water. There wasn’t even any temporary fencing.
But hey, I get it. The SFPD is short staffed and they have better things to do, or so I thought.
I proceeded to 6th street on the bike trail and crossed the bridge going towards Raven. As I was crossing the bridge I saw a cop car speed past and pull into Raven’s parking lot. As I started to ride past the entrance I saw a police officer talking to what appeared to me as a wedding party taking photos in front of the building. Mind you, it was obvious they were there to take pictures, the entire family, about a dozen of them and two photographers were dressed in their wedding best with the wedding party in tuxes. They also didn’t appear to be touching anything on the building, just standing in front using the quartzite walls as a backdrop. They were having an engaged conversation with the officer, who stood there and monitored the situation. Now most would wonder why a PO would have to monitor this. It occurred to me that someone at Raven must have saw them on a security camera and called it in. I know, probably still scratching your head why anyone would think a wedding party not disturbing the property taking photos would cause such an alarm. Than I wondered if it had anything to do with these very nicely dressed people (I don’t even have a wardrobe that nice) being African refugees (I could overhear them speaking in their native language).
First off, if makes you wonder if the person who called this in was profiling, but what disturbed me even more as I sat and watched this was the officer stayed there while they continued to snap photos. You could tell by the quite loud conversation that the wedding party seemed either confused or upset that an officer would respond to this situation.
So when I hear our officers are understaffed, all I have to point to is an officer monitoring an obvious photo session while hundreds of people are standing dangerously close to the falls and wonder if they really are understaffed or if they are profiling?
Not sure. But it didn’t look good.