Police Chief Heather Fong, Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White, Police Commissioner Theresa Sparks, Police Commissioner Tim Mazzucco, Assistant Police Chief Jim Lynch, and Deputy Police Chief David Shinn all took turns explaining to jotting journalists and TV news crews that the cuts would go too deep, and that lives were at stake.
"The Board of Supervisors need to consider, what is the value of human life?" said Mazzucco, who pointed to the number of homicides so far this year (20), in comparison to last year (45), as evidence that the SFPD has been doing something right. Cutting the SFPD budget by a proposed $42 million would set the department back five years, the brass agreed. Fong warned that the cuts could cost 325 officers their jobs, and others chimed in that foot patrol programs, 911 response time, the cold case unit, and the nighttime homicide and robbery units might be adversely affected.
| Sgt. John V. Young |
Expect plenty of blowback on this one from the San Francisco Police Officers Association, whose president, Gary Delagnes, has already proclaimed that supervisors backing the so-called San Francisco Eight are "spitting in the face of every cop in San Francisco." The men are charged in the 1971 shotgun killing of Sgt. John V. Young during an attack on the Ingleside Police station.
