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One area where Fong has kept her own counsel is in her dealings with the news media, which she studiously avoids whenever possible, something subordinates say has hurt the SFPD's already battered image. Staffers, friends, police commissioners, and even the mayor have taken turns goading Fong to assume a more front-and-center media role, to no avail, department sources say.
Meanwhile, some in the department bristle at Fong's willingness to surrender control of SFPD media matters to the mayor's office. For a time, Newsom even assigned a former aide — David Chai, now chief of staff to Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums — to coordinate the SFPD's press strategy with the mayor's office, department insiders say. (As part of that move, those insiders say, efforts to rehabilitate Fong as a more media-friendly figure met with little success.)
"It appears to be just not in her to deal with the press, and I think transparency and accountability has suffered as a result," says Sherman Ackerson, now retired, who handled public affairs for years under Chief Fred Lau.
Those who know Fong say that besides her natural proclivity to avoid the spotlight, she is distrustful of the media. Early in her tenure, she let it be known that she thought the department had become too chummy with the press, department sources say.
Insiders say Fong tried to change an SFPD general order to officially ban field commanders and others from speaking to the media without her consent. That fizzled, however, after it was pointed out that such a move would require a vote of the Police Commission, and might kick up a storm.
Attempts to interview the chief for this article were fruitless, despite numerous requests. A department spokesman held out the possibility of an interview for more than a month. "She's leaning toward doing it" and "She's still checking things out" were repeated refrains. In the end, Fong took a pass without explanation. "It's just who she is," the aide said.
The same aloofness that has made Fong something of a mystery to the public despite her years as chief has also complicated her relationship with rank-and-file cops. "She's a good person, and I think she puts tremendous effort toward the job, but she's lost this department," says Gary Delagnes, who heads the powerful Police Officers Association. "She's not the kind of leader anyone wants to follow up a hill."
Delagnes and others describe the chief as "absent," even while acknowledging that she is almost always on the job. "She buries herself in bureaucratic stuff, but as far as being the face and voice of the department, as far as inspiring anyone or speaking up for cops, she's not even on the radar screen," he says.
Former Chief Earl Sanders, under whom Fong served in a variety of administrative roles, including deputy chief, calls his former protégé "extremely intelligent" and "someone who can break down every line of a [Police Department] budget — but as far as being an ass-kicking, take-charge–type leader, that's not Heather."
For many in the rank and file, Fong stumbled badly from the start. On the eve of her appointment in 2004, popular young officer Isaac Espinoza was gunned down in the street while working a gang intervention detail in the Bayview. His killing shocked the city and devastated the department, prompting the mayor to postpone the announcement of Fong's appointment for a day.
Three days after the murder, District Attorney Kamala Harris, a death penalty opponent, announced she would not seek the death penalty for Espinoza's accused killer. Cops were livid, and turned to their new chief expecting to hear strong pushback. But Fong's voice was nowhere to be heard. Instead, she took a quieter approach — signing a letter disagreeing with Harris's decision.
Although the chief's understated response drew praise from Newsom, who also opposes capital punishment, it gained Fong instant animosity in the ranks, helping to brand her, legitimately or not, as weak and ineffectual.
Another incident may have helped to cement that reputation among fellow officers. It involved an impromptu ceremony of sorts at the Police Commission after a police officer shot and killed kidnapping suspect Cammerin Boyd following a high-speed chase that ended in the Western Addition. The killing remains controversial, with eyewitnesses insisting Boyd had his hands in the air when he was shot after being ordered out of his car.
At a meeting of the police panel, one then-commissioner asked the audience to stand for a moment of silence in recognition of Boyd and others who had died at the hands of the SFPD. Cops, including those watching the proceedings on closed-circuit TV from station houses, were aghast when their chief sprang to her feet. "I think that's actually when a lot of people [on the force] gave up on her," one longtime cop says. "People in blue were dumbfounded."
Fong's stock among cops arguably hit a new low as the result of her handling of the so-called Videogate scandal — stemming from a spoof offered as self-parody by cops at the Bayview station for a 2005 Christmas party. With police as the cast and intended for private viewing, the video (portions of which soon turned up on YouTube) poked politically incorrect fun at women, Asians, blacks, homosexuals, and others.
Fong's response after it leaked was to throw the book at seven police officers, including the video's creator, Andrew Cohen. She banished them to "nonpublic contact" jobs and meted out less severe discipline to a couple of dozen others. (The seven are still waiting to answer misconduct charges before the Police Commission.)
But many cops, including some who agree the video was in poor taste, say Fong was manipulated by the mayor into overreacting. "This is a dark day, an extremely dark day in the history of the San Francisco Police Department," the chief intoned at a news conference called by the mayor to denounce the video.
