The San Francisco Police Officers Association (SFPOA) is the largest

police union A police union is a trade union for Police officer, police officers. Police unions formed later than most other occupations, reflecting both a conservative tendency and relatively superior working conditions. The first police unions Police union#Un ...

representing the

San Francisco Police Department The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) is the Municipal police, municipal law enforcement agency of the San Francisco, City and County of San Francisco, as well as San Francisco International Airport in San Mateo County, California, San Ma ...

, with around 2,200 members as of 2016. It was founded in 1946 and by the late 1980s had around 1,750 members, amounting to the majority of San Francisco

police officer A police officer (also called policeman or policewoman, cop, officer or constable) is a Warrant (law), warranted law employee of a police, police force. In most countries, ''police officer'' is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. ...

s. As of 2022, its acting president is Tracy McCray.

Advocacy history

On February 12, 2006, the head of the San Francisco Police Officers Association said that

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...

Gavin Newsom Gavin Christopher Newsom ( ; born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman serving since 2019 as the 40th governor of California. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served from 2011 to 201 ...

showed "a complete and total lack of respect for the rank and file" in his response to a

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...

series examining San Francisco officers' use of force. In October 2006, the vice president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, Kevin Martin, was issued a

restraining order A restraining order or protective order is an order used by a court to protect a person in a situation often involving alleged domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, assault, harassment, stalking, or sexual assault. Restraining and perso ...

from Susan Leff, an attorney for San Francisco's police watchdog agency. Both assemblywoman

Fiona Ma Fiona Ma (born March 4, 1966) is an American politician and accountant. She has been serving as the California state treasurer since January 7, 2019. She previously was a member of the California Board of Equalization (2015–2019), the Californ ...

and Mayor Gavin Newsom have been endorsed by the San Francisco Police Officers Association in part due to their opposition to legislation that would increase Californians' access to police disciplinary records by rolling back a 2006

California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sac ...

ruling. In 2016, the SFPOA hired political communications expert Nathan Ballard for what was described as a "counterattack" against police reform attempts following the controversial killing of Mario Woods by officers and concerns about racism in the city's police department.San Francisco Examiner
/ref> The union's campaign against reform proponent

George Gascón George Gascón (born March 12, 1954) is an American attorney and former police officer who served as the District Attorney of Los Angeles County from December 7, 2020 to December 3, 2024. A member of the Democratic Party and a former member of ...

was criticized for using exaggerated crime figures, and Ballard acknowledged having misread the rates. In the 2015/2016 debate about the introduction of body cameras for officers, the union achieved what acting SFPD chief Toney Chaplin described as a "huge concession", allowing an officer involved in a shooting to view the footage before giving a full report. While civil rights activists opposed this policy as detrimental to the cameras' purpose of increasing accountability, SFPOA president Martin Halloran justified it on the grounds that officers' memory could be affected by stress in such situations and that not allowing them to check their recollection with the video recording would expose them to "gotcha" moments.

References

External links

San Francisco Police Officers Association Official Website
San Francisco Police Department Law enforcement in California Police unions in the United States {{US-law-enforcement-agency-stub Trade unions in California

Advocacy history

See also

References

External links