A bar owner called the police at 1 p.m. and officers responded 14 hours later at 3 a.m. This is common today in San Francisco, according to a report earlier this year in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Such is happening, in part, due to a record low number of sworn San Francisco Police officers causing them to put aside calls that are not as urgent and dangerous, according to former department officer Joel Aylworth.
“In some sense, officers ... just shrug our shoulders and say, ‘What can we do?’” Aylworth said in a recent interview on EpochTV’s “California Insider.”
According to city data, staffing for the police department has declined 20 percent since 2018.
Aylworth said that this trend is due to the gap between the extremely low number of recruits joining the department versus the number of officers who retire each year.
“[Number one,] nobody wants to do police work, and number two, nobody wants to do police work in San Francisco,” he said.
The police shortage is not only impacting everyday life but also affecting businesses’ willingness to operate in the city, Aylworth said.
A number of large retailers have decided to call it quits in the city over the last couple of years, including Nordstrom, Saks Off 5th, Anthropologie, Office Depot, H&M, and over a dozen others.
And in April, Whole Foods Market closed its 8th and Market Street location due to safety concerns only a year after its opening.
The reasons for the closure include high street crime rates, rampant drug use inside and outside the store, and unsafe conditions for customers and staff, according to media reports. Additionally, thieves reportedly stole an entire fleet of 250 shopping carts over the year.
“They had SFPD working overtime, standing a post in the supermarket because it was getting so out of hand,” Aylworth said. “The theft, drug addicts, and mental health people walking through ... causing all this nonsense and calamity.”
Besides being short-staffed, Aylworth said officers also face extensive regulations from various parties—including federal and citizen organizations, and local governments—that oversee their work and implement policies.
However, people making these decisions often have no experience in police work, he said.
“There’s a huge disconnect,” he said. “We have a ton of people that are influencing and implementing their ideas of what they think 21st Century policing is … [but] they’re just so out of touch.”
Additionally, local leaders’ soft-on-crime policies and anti-police attitude made policing more and more difficult, Aylworth said.
He added that such policies together with the passing of laws like Proposition 47—which makes theft of property less than $950 a misdemeanor—have made property crime a lot more unmanageable for law enforcement.
“No one’s getting the stick ... no one’s getting slapped on the wrist for any of their bad deeds,” he said.
As the situation has worsened, it is frustrating to see police officers become apathetic in their job, he said.
“You just kind of shrug your shoulders and go ‘Well, that’s just the way it is,’” he said. “This is probably one of the worst points you can get into an officer’s career.”
As for the future of San Francisco, Aylworth said that turning the city around will be difficult, but with people working together there is light in the end.
“This problem didn’t get here just overnight. It came from radical policies that slowly fomented,” he said. “We need an entirely new leadership team, from all the ranks in the city and maybe even the governor.”
He said that he remains hopeful for the future because people are seeking change.
“When people galvanize and they get together, magic happens,” he said. “The citizens are fed up.”
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