It's a stressful time to be a cop. Especially in liberal San Francisco this is true. Everytime you fire up the news on your smartphone (or open one of those dead tree machines they call a newspaper), you read about nothing but bad news (scandals, shootings, racism) for the cops.
The SFPD saw the city's 14th homicide at the end of March, recent racist text messages from current officers bragged of burning crosses, uncovered DNA lab "irregularities" may result in hundreds of cases thrown out, and a case involving the SFPD headed to the U.S. Supreme Court might curtail rights for people with disabilities.
If you were an SFPD officer right now, you may think: "Gee, wouldn't it be nice to squelch that bad news?"
Indeed it would, and indeed they have.
Even in this digital age, the best way to get a scoop is to be there when the scene unfolds. That's why the press office in the Hall of Justice, the SFPD's Southern Station (at 850 Bryant St.), has for as long as we know dedicated a press office for reporters to do their job on the third floor.
It's there that beat reporters from The Examiner, The San Francisco Chronicle, Bay City News, KQED, and KTVU troll for news. But now reporters might lose easy access to the scuttlebutt.
The SFPD just relocated its Southern Station to a shiny new "Public Safety Building," designed with energy and cost savings aplenty: solar heating of water, reuse of grey water, rainwater collection for irrigation, controlled day lighting, active chilled beams for heating and cooling of the building.
Another plus: The new building can run off the grid for up to 96 hours after an earthquake or other major disaster.
As a part of the fancy upgrades, SFPD conveniently left out a press office. Instead, as Chief Greg Suhr told reporters on a recent tour of the facility, reporters have a new conference room where they can only gather to get police pronouncements. In other words, it's not a satellite office for journalists trying to track down real information.
And instead of the Hall of Justice's open-door policy, which allowed any member of the public walk-in access to various departments to get questions answered, every elevator stop in the new Public Safety Building is met with locks, closed doors, and inaccessible areas.
SFPD spokesperson Officer Albie Esparza begged to differ, writing to SF Weekly that "this is NOT a replacement for the Hall of Justice. This is a police headquarters and secured. There's no public access beyond the lobby."
But the truth is in what he said: This is police headquarters, now, with no public access. This benefits our new age of bloggers who rehash what the police say in press releases without proper time to vet what's being said, and not the dwindling ranks of reporters doing investigative digging.
Instead of a space to mingle amid the city's rank-and-file and learn the truth, reporters have a controlled space where they get controlled messages from the cops.
Good news for the police is bad news for the public.
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