OPINION: The POA has always resisted efforts to reform the police, strengthen civilian oversight and reconfigure the public safety architecture. So the POA’s deep-seated disdain for Chesa Boudin is about as surprising as a foggy night in the Sunset.
The POA has its roots in a much whiter and more conservative San Francisco. Although the association was founded in 1946, to understand the POA, a good place to start is the late 1960s. During those years of political and racial contestation, the POA was deeply committed to preventing the integration of the police force.
In San Francisco, this means that the POA has long been one of the most visible conservative institutions in The City. But the POA’s bargaining responsibilities put it in a complex position.
The strike coincided with a very heated campaign for mayor and may have helped the candidacy of conservative law-and-order candidate John Barbagelata — who surged past the more centrist, and more heavily favored, Dianne Feinstein to land a spot in the runoff. Barbagelata then lost the runoff to George Moscone who campaigned on, among other things, a commitment to hold police accountable for mistreatment of San Franciscans, particularly those who were racial minorities or gay.
Most San Franciscans who were there or who have read a bit about the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk know that the rank and file of the SFPD were not exactly devastated by the actions of Dan White, the former supervisor and police officer who killed Moscone and Milk. White received much better treatment than the average prisoner after his confession, while many police all but celebrated what he had done.
Just as it is irresponsible to overlook the POA members’ position around those terrible events, it is also not fair to judge them by what was probably their worst moment.The high crime rates that to such a great extent defined San Francisco in the 1970s continued into the 1990s, but by the late 1990s something was beginning to change. In cities across the country, including San Francisco, crime began to decline.
Today, the POA is no longer the bastion of white, straight male political power that it was through the 1970s and 1980s., is a Black lesbian. Her immediate predecessor, Tony Montoya, is a gay Latino man. All of their predecessors were straight white men. The San Francisco police force is also considerably more diverse than it was a generation or two ago.
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