Sarah Brady's gun gift

Josey1

Sarah Brady's gun gift




http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Sarah Brady, wife of former Reagan press secretary, Jim Brady, and founder of Handgun Control, Inc., disclosed in her new autobiography that she purchased a gun for her son for Christmas 2000, a .30-06 bolt-action rifle, complete with scope. She allows that she felt funny driving home packing heat.


The gun she gave to her son is one she and her antigun cronies demonized as a "sniper rifle." How ironic that some of the legislation she and HCI have proposed would have made it a crime for her to put the gun under the tree without transfer papers and prior approval from the Feds, Mrs. Claus, and Rudolph (a PETA effort).


Two things keep conservatives going through the barrage of disdain they endure as they defend the right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment and the myriad of other nerdy causes they espouse which emit snootiness. Conservatives can peel away the "Give peace a chance" layers of pseudo-intellectualism and see two things: data and human nature. Guns are inextricably intertwined with both.


Data show that when you don't have guns, you have trouble. Europe is the current proving ground. Over the past year there have been 3 shootings on the cosmopolitan continent that surpassed our Columbine. Sixteen people were gunned down at a German high school in April, 14 lawmakers were shot in Switzerland in September 2001, and 8 city council members were killed near Paris in March 2002.


Euros, who usually cannot click their tongues sufficiently to express disgust at us and our guns, whether they are hunting Osama in Afghanistan or ducks in Connecticut, and who have Utopia in terms of gun control legislation, have a problem. Britain banned handguns on 1996, and its gun crimes rose 40% in that same time frame. Austria banned the use of guns, even in self-defense, and its armed robberies are up 51%. Edelweiss!


Europe is a percolating mess. European nations fell for the sixties social policies hook, line and sinker. They went with free love, in fact, free everything. Without conservatives nipping at their heels and yelping about rule of law and morality, Europe became nonjudgmental central. Europeans cannot bring themselves to condemn the 9-11 attacks on the U.S. They are fit to be tied over Israel's retaliation against the suicide bombers. They grant absolute rights without moral absolutes.


The result is a lawless culture that criminalizes speech, bans guns and wonders why urban crime is out of control. Holland prohibits hate speech in its constitution, has disarmed its citizens and now, having disarmed tongue and self, stands defenseless as an increasing population of radical Islamic immigrants runs rampant through urban areas. Crime-loving immigrants have taken over inner cities and produced a crime rate that has Dutch citizens looking for gun-toting, candid-speaking "extreme right" candidates.


The French nearly sputtered up their foie gras truffe when they realized that "extreme right" Jean-Marie Le Pen took 25% of the vote in the recent national election. The socialist and Communist elite feel the outrage and backlash from unemployed blue-collar workers who live unarmed among the crime and criminals. "People feel unsafe in the streets," was the platform of one "extreme right" candidate for the National Assembly, (label courtesy the New York Times, an international conservative basher).


One Berlin paper, startled at the movement wrote, " Whether Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Portugal, France, Belgium or now Holland, everywhere the right-wing populists are on the march." Oh, how people speak when they regret lost rights.


Gun control is not such a hot idea when you're living in an urban area overrun by crime, particularly by young hostile males as dangerous as elk in search of a hook-up. The savvy Euros are weaponless, both in arms and tongue. Having taken politically correct speech to the point of making discouraging and disparaging words a crime, few dare mention the immigrant crime problem. Guns fire one way - at the silenced law-abiding citizens. Criminalize guns and, as the bumper sticker goes, only the criminals have guns. The conservative vision embodies prevention via strength. Weapons worked to bring down the Iron Curtain. Gun strength among the citizenry deters crime.


Mark these European events well. Watch these mighty foreshadowings of things that could across the Atlantic. Euros have sophisticated themselves into a defenseless corner. They now do what Sarah Brady and others of the enlightenment always do when human nature kicks in - they return to conservative views and policies. Embarrassing though it may be, conservative opposition to disarming citizens keeps the peace.


Our Euro brethren and sisters have always been ahead of the curve, as they are now. Their lack of weapons finds them defenseless and angry with gun-toting criminals. Take note and prepare to thank a conservative - human nature will soon arrive from the continent. http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/jennings.html



"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878

Josey1

SFPD dead last in solving violent crime

David Parrish, Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writers Sunday, May 19, 2002

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chart attached

Violent criminals who prey on San Francisco's residents and visitors have a better chance of getting away with their crimes than predators in any other large American city.

The San Francisco Police Department solved, on average, just 28 percent of the city's murders, rapes, robberies, shootings, stabbings and other serious assaults between 1996 and 2000, a Chronicle computer analysis shows.

That was the lowest violent crime "clearance rate," or solution rate, among the nation's 20 largest cities. The large-city average was 42 percent. San Jose, the only other Bay Area city in the top 20, cleared 49 percent.

A seven-month Chronicle investigation revealed a department with serious problems in its once vaunted Bureau of Inspectors, which doesn't even investigate nearly 70 percent of the robberies and serious assaults reported in San Francisco.

Despite having more resources and less crime than many other big cities, the department solved just half of the murders and less than a third of the rapes reported in the city during the five years studied.

Assistant Police Chief Earl Sanders defended the 2,265-officer department's performance, saying the SFPD has chosen to emphasize crime suppression over crime solution - with a strong presence of uniformed officers on the street.

The Chronicle found a police department that doesn't pick inspectors on the basis of ability and performance, where few are held accountable for inferior work or effort, where solving crimes is not the highest goal, and where inspectors often investigate crimes from their desks rather than going out to interview victims and find evidence and witnesses.

Thousands of "whodunit" violent crimes go uninvestigated by the department's inspectors.

A person who is shot, treated at a hospital and then released is not guaranteed an investigation, said SFPD Lt. Henry Hunter, the supervisor who oversees investigations of serious assaults.

"Unless we have a named suspect, we're not going to assign the case," said Hunter. "The solvability is too low."

Like most other aggravated assault victims, that person must come down to the Hall of Justice for a follow-up interview by an inspector, he said.

"If a person is just shot and they don't come in, that won't be assigned necessarily," Hunter said. "Even if a person comes in, it doesn't mean it's going to be assigned."

Every year, about 4,000 reports of robbery and 3,000 reports of aggravated assault pour into the Hall of Justice. After being reviewed, most are stamped "inactive" and packed away in boxes.

In those cases, SFPD inspectors don't call the victims. They don't actively seek evidence or witnesses. Instead, they send victims a form letter.


STOPPING CRIME, NOT SOLVING IT
Police Chief Fred Lau, when presented with The Chronicle's findings, said he was unaware his inspectors routinely failed to investigate so many crimes.

"That's not the proper attitude, that's not the proper procedure," Lau said.

"If the victim or a witness takes the time to report the crime, and we encourage people to report crimes, then the Police Department should do everything it can to assist that person."

Lau noted that the city's crime rate has dropped in each of the 6 1/2 years he has been chief and that a city survey shows San Francisco residents "feel safer" and satisfied with their police.

However, San Francisco's 34 percent decrease in violent crime from 1996- 2000 was matched, on average, by America's 20 largest cities - a decline criminal justice experts generally attribute to a strong economy, tougher sentencing laws and a decrease in the number of young men most likely to commit crimes.

Sanders, who in February called SFPD's record for solving violent crime "damn embarrassing," said the Inspectors Bureau should be reorganized.

"We realize it's not functioning as it should," Sanders said then. "We realize changes need to be made. This is front burner, top fire."

In a follow-up interview this month, Sanders said SFPD puts its resources into crime suppression, rather than trying to solve or even investigate every reported violent crime.

With Sanders during this interview, and speaking for the department, was Lt.

Paul Chignell, former president of the police union and now the narcotics detail supervisor.

"The most important thing from our perspective is crime suppression," said Chignell. "What we have done in the department over the last two years . . . is engage in a broad series of innovative approaches to attacking violent crime. It is not just about clearing cases and assigning cases to an investigator."

Police officials said they are using patrol officers, special task forces and other resources - including federal law enforcement agencies - to attack the roots of violent crime.

Gang members have gotten special attention. Some have been arrested on drug and weapons charges that carry stiff prison terms. Others are being hauled into meetings and warned en masse that a similar life behind bars awaits them unless they clean up their act. If they need assistance turning their lives around, the gang members are told, city services will be made available, Chignell said.


DISABLED VICTIM WENT UNAIDED
Victims of violent crimes in San Francisco soon learn that the department's inspectors will investigate only the most egregious or easiest to solve crimes.

Clark Dunning, 63, disabled and living in a seniors' board and care home, learned that firsthand. He was forced to move after being repeatedly threatened and robbed by a neighborhood crack addict.

The amounts taken during the November and December 2000 robberies were small - a few dollars each time - but the threats of physical harm were constant.

"The first thing he did was hit me in the face. Then he said, ''Give me your money - I'm a killer,' " Dunning said. "He would rob weak people."

After three muggings by the same man, Dunning called the police. Patrol officers dutifully wrote down what he told them.

The Chronicle found that the report was sent to the robbery detail where it was filed with other inactive cases. No investigator was ever assigned to look into what was happening to Dunning.

"They did nothing for me," Dunning said, and the robberies continued.

"That's why I moved," Dunning said. "I was afraid."


LOW PRIORITY, LESS FUNDING
The Chronicle reviewed thousands of pages of police and court documents, analyzed every reported violent crime during the July-December 2000 period and interviewed hundreds of people, including prosecutors, attorneys, crime victims, police officers and criminal justice experts.

Among the chief reasons the newspaper found for SFPD's solution record on violent crimes:

-- The department has not made solving violent crime a priority. Records show that SFPD paid more overtime to inspectors for protecting Mayor Willie Brown in the two years ending last September - 13,085 hours - than it paid for overtime to investigate all nonfatal aggravated assaults, rapes and robberies combined - 11,714 hours.

-- Staff cuts or reorganizations during the past decade have reduced the number of inspectors assigned to investigate violent crimes - in some cases, by half.

-- Most investigations are done by phone, with inspectors infrequently leaving the office.

-- Budget constraints have forced violent crime inspectors to go without such basic investigative tools as portable radios, cell phones and even cars.

-- Under a formal agreement with the Police Officers Association, key investigative positions are filled on the basis of time that applicants spend on a signup list, not demonstrated ability.

-- No formal performance standards exist in the Inspectors Bureau. Other than providing a monthly account of their activities, inspectors are not evaluated on performance. Botched investigations are tolerated, and outstanding work goes unrewarded.

Not once in the past decade have San Francisco police solved, or cleared, more than 30 percent of the city's violent crimes in one year - a worse record than any of the other 19 largest cities.

Under FBI standards regarding clearance rates, police just have to make an arrest to claim a crime as solved or cleared. It doesn't matter what happens in court.

Police also can list a crime as solved for "exceptional" reasons - for example, the suspect is dead or in jail elsewhere, extradition is denied or the victim won't cooperate against a named suspect.

During the five-year period studied, San Francisco police solved 20 percent of the city's robberies, nearly 38 percent of its serious assaults, 32 percent of the reported rapes and about 50 percent of the murders.

The SFPD suffers by comparison with just about any size policing agency - not just those from the 20 largest cities.

Among the top 50 cities, SFPD's low clearance rate was rivaled only by police in Washington, D.C. - a city with 75 percent more violent crime per capita than San Francisco. D.C. police solved about 1 percent fewer violent crimes from 1996 to 2000.

SFPD has the lowest clearance rate for violent crime among California cities with populations of 200,000 or greater. In 2000, while SFPD solved 26 percent of its violent crimes, police in Oakland solved 46 percent and those in San Jose solved 61 percent.


PROSECUTORS, POLICE AT ODDS
District Attorney Terence Hallinan said the findings should result in a city task force to study the department's performance.

"It sends a message that people are running a risk coming to San Francisco, " said Hallinan, whose office is criticized by police for a reluctance to prosecute cases.

Few have had a longer look at the SFPD than Jeff Brown, for 22 years San Francisco's elected public defender and a police critic.

"My sense of the San Francisco Police Department as a whole is there really is a lack of professionalism," said Brown, now a member of the state Public Utilities Commission. "It's a pretty sloppy department."

Brown says Lau, whom Mayor Willie Brown appointed chief in 1996 after 25 years on the force, hasn't been effective.

"I've never seen leadership within the department," he said.

"We're doing the best we can with the resources we have," said Lau, a candidate for a federal airport security job.

Lau also noted the policies of San Francisco's prosecutors and judges affect the SFPD's clearance rate.

For years, Lau said, he has pushed for night courts so those arrested by patrol officers can be quickly charged. If patrol officers could get a suspect charged in night court, while they are still on duty, that would leave inspectors more time to investigate. Often they now are tied up with arrest cases from the night before.

"We have asked for on-call D.A.'s, we have been asking for on-call judges, we have been asking for night court, we have been asking for weekend court," Lau said. "We need the whole criminal justice system to work together."

Sgt. Reno Rapagnani, department legal officer, complained that the district attorney will not prosecute when it is just the victim's word against the suspect's.


POOR RECORD WITH RAPE
Many rape cases come down to just that. Of reported rape cases, 68 percent are unsolved. The Chronicle found that in about a quarter of those, inspectors identified a suspect but couldn't convince the district attorney there was enough evidence to prosecute. Police filed those cases as "inactive."

That's what happened in the case of Evelyn Salon.

In December 2000, Salon, 37, reported to police that a recent former boyfriend knocked her to the floor, dragged her to the bedroom and raped her.

"He twisted my arms, he twisted my legs," said Salon, who gave The Chronicle permission to use her name. "I found bruises on my legs and knees because I was fighting him."

The man, questioned five days later, said the sex was consensual.

There was no arrest. The case was discussed with the district attorney's office, which didn't think a conviction was possible, said Lt. Jere Williams, supervisor of the sexual assault detail.

Police told Salon there wasn't enough corroborating evidence.

Williams said such "one-on-one" cases rarely get prosecuted. As for the bruises, there was no evidence tying them to the alleged attack, he said.

"This is one of those tough cases to prove," Williams said.

Capt. Roy Sullivan, a supervisor in the Bureau of Inspectors, said SFPD's clearance rate would look better if police arrested suspects they knew the district attorney would not prosecute.


FEW COPS, LOT'S OF ROBBERS
Criminal justice experts were surprised to hear that SFPD investigates only about 30 percent of its robberies.

"This sounds like something is wrong," said John Eck, associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati.

Lau said he would address problems The Chronicle found.

"If it's policies and procedures we have to fix, we'll fix them. If it's staffing and resources, which I believe is probably a factor, we'll fix that," Lau said.

Despite the fact that the crime-fighting force in San Francisco grew by nearly 300 officers in the 1990s, those responsible for investigating violent crime say they must get by with fewer inspectors.

"In 1995, there were 19 robbery inspectors here," said Lt. Bruce Marovich, supervisor of the 10-inspector robbery detail. "The chief cut them in half. He thinks patrol needs the help."

With so few inspectors available, tough decisions have to be made every morning on which of the newly reported robberies will be investigated, said Marovich.

Priority is given to robberies in which patrol officers have already made an arrest, requiring inspectors to quickly assemble the evidence for a court hearing, he said.

Unsolved robberies in which someone was seriously hurt or those with solid leads to follow are next in line to be assigned for investigation, he said. Store robberies with a gun, bank holdups and home invasion robberies with elderly victims are also generally assigned an investigator. Most street robberies are not assigned.

"Even if the victim said he can ID him, we don't assign it," Marovich said.

"There's nothing to go on."


NO INVESTIGATION OF ROBBERY
Dawn Hillis and Ray Frederickson learned that after two men with a gun robbed them of purse and wallet as they walked to their North Beach home from a late-night party in July 2000.

The patrol officers who responded were polite, took their statements and drove them home.

The victims heard nothing more from police - despite the fact that Frederickson told officers he could identify the gunman if he saw him.

A robbery inspector didn't re-interview the couple to see if they could recall more details. No police artist worked with them to create a composite drawing.

Instead, police sent them a form letter sent to all robbery victims, saying whom to contact if they have additional information.

"There wasn't any kind of follow-up or anything," said Hillis.

Marovich says his 10 robbery inspectors don't have time to investigate such crimes until a series of three robberies seem connected. The department only has one overworked artist, he said.

Marovich said he keeps his inspectors fresh by not assigning them cases he thinks are unlikely to be solved.

"I don't want to mismanage the inspectors, because you are going to burn them out," he said.

Sanders said he was sure the robbery would have been investigated, if the victims had called the robbery detail.


INSPECTORS STUCK IN OFFICE
Sullivan, the Inspectors Bureau supervisor, said not all of SFPD's 313 inspectors are investigating crimes.

Only about 240 work as inspectors in the bureau, he said, with the remainder working in other assignments.

Hunter, who oversees assault investigations, said a shortage of inspectors means he has to be highly selective on which cases he assigns an investigator.

The more serious the crime, Hunter said, the more likely it will be assigned, but it's all relative.

"If you are driving down the freeway and a bullet comes through your windshield from the projects, that's not going to be assigned," Hunter said.

With the exception of homicide inspectors, who go to each crime scene, many SFPD inspectors do their investigating without going into the field.

"Inspectors used to be investigators - exciting work. Now they are tied to their desks," said Rapagnani, an inspector and attorney assigned to the department's legal division. "If we did a film about our inspectors, they would be on the phones."

Williams, supervisor of the sex crimes detail, says "we can't be too proactive," because there are only eight inspectors in his unit and they investigate all reported sex crimes.

Robbery lieutenant Marovich said on "day-to-day things" his inspectors don't go out, often requiring crime victims to come to the Hall of Justice for a follow-up interview.

The requirement that violent crime victims come to the Hall of Justice to talk with an inspector before an investigation will be launched may have cost Claire Tempongko her life.

Tempongko, 28, called police to her house twice in September 2000 to report her ex-boyfriend had threatened and attacked her - once leaving her "crying uncontrollably with blood spilling from her mouth," a patrol officer reported.

After the threats and attack, Tempongko never went to the Hall of Justice for a follow-up interview with a domestic violence inspector, and consequently her case wasn't investigated. Her ex-boyfriend - previously convicted on a domestic violence charge - was never questioned about those incidents. Instead of investigating, police said they sent the case to the Probation Department because the suspect was on probation.

On Oct. 22, 2000, Tempongko was stabbed to death in her basement apartment. Her ex-boyfriend, Tari N. Ramirez, who was seen by neighbors running away with a bloody knife, remains at large.

Police officials promised to change their investigation policy after Tempongko's slaying, but those who help domestic violence victims said it hasn't happened.

"It has been the policy for a long time - unless the woman comes forward, and really pushes for it, they won't investigate," said Beverly Upton, coordinator of the Domestic Violence Consortium.

"Most women think ''We made the report,' " and that's enough, said Beckie Masaki, executive director of the Asian Women's Shelter.

Domestic Violence Inspector Leroy Lindo said his unit could not comment on the Tempongko case because of a pending lawsuit.

"It's easy to sit in an ivory tower and judge what we do," said Lindo of those who have criticized the domestic violence unit.

He said that if victims don't call, inspectors call them. When victims can't be reached, he said, usually those cases are not investigated.

"We need their cooperation," Lindo said.


LACK OF CARS, CELL PHONES
Even when inspectors have time to investigate a case, and can break free of their desks, sometimes there isn't a car available.

"Have there been days when my people couldn't go out because they didn't have a car? Yes," said homicide Lt. Judie Pursell.

Unlike the San Diego Police Department, for example, where each detective has a car, SFPD inspectors check theirs out of a motor pool. Each detail gets a specific number of cars.

The homicide detail, for example, has six. Two of the cars are given to the two on-call inspectors, those on deck to respond to the next murder. That leaves four cars for the other 12.

Cars are not the only thing in short supply. San Francisco sorely lacks up- to-date tools for effectively investigating crimes.

"It's a can on a string," said Lt. Tom Buckley, who worked night investigations before becoming the department's property control supervisor. "I'm amazed at the quality of work they do, given the lack of resources."

In recent months, the Inspectors Bureau has been asked to turn over nearly 50 of its handheld police radios. A budget squeeze has stripped many inspectors of their department-issued cell phones.

"Each team used to have a cell phone, but we had to give them up," said Pursell.

Many inspectors view a handheld radio as a piece of safety equipment they can use to summon help, but the radios were taken away because they were needed by patrol officers, inspectors said.

"The department believes in patrol," said Williams, the sex crimes lieutenant. "Investigations is a clear second to patrol."

Deputy Chief Mindy Pengel, in charge of the Bureau of Inspectors, said it is a question of need. A department usage study showed patrol officers used the radios more often, she said, and an equipment shortage and budget constraints forced the decision.

"Every unit within the bureau has a certain number of radios," Pengel said. "If they should need a radio, we will find them a radio."

It's the same with cars - one will be found if an inspector needs it, she said.

Chief Lau said the poor economy requires difficult decisions in his department, as elsewhere.

"They are asking us to reduce our budget by 10 percent this year," Lau said.


TIME SERVED OR TALENT
The Police Department staffs several key investigative details using a waiting list system negotiated 24 years ago with the Police Officers Association after officers complained about favoritism in picks for prestigious details.

Most key investigative positions now go to the next person on the list without regard for ability, although the department has carved out exceptions for the special investigations/gang detail and the vice and narcotics unit. Investigators for those units are picked by supervisors. Also, the chief has the power to override the list and make special appointments, as Lau has done on rare occasions.

Inspectors can wait as long as 15 years to get into the homicide detail. The wait-list system also governs who goes to robbery, general work and sex crimes.

Among policing agencies serving the 20 largest cities, only one other - the Columbus, Ohio, police department - also uses a non-merit-based system for assigning detectives to investigative units.

Carl Bonner, a San Francisco narcotics inspector, said the system stymies aggressive and productive officers, who know that only time, not job performance, will dictate who gets coveted assignments.

"The present system now doesn't work," Bonner said.

Experts agreed.

"I would think you would want to select people on their investigative skills," said Charles Wellford, a University of Maryland criminologist who reviewed nearly 800 murders for a recent study on which police procedures lead to solved cases.

"Some don't think it's any different than investigating fraud or pickpockets, but that's not the norm," Wellford said.

Jan Chaiken, former head of the U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics and co-author of a study on how to pick police investigators, said San Francisco's system runs counter to research findings.

It "sounds like a system (that's been) in place a number of years and hasn't been reassessed. If you look at how individual departments organized themselves 30 years ago, you would see similar systems," Chaiken said.

Investigators are best picked by peer review and supervisory evaluations from among candidates with clean disciplinary records and rapport with communities hardest hit by crime, he said.

SFPD studied a plan requiring homicide inspectors to have previously worked in assignments such as sex crimes and assaults. It was scuttled as "too cumbersome," said Capt. Kevin Dillon, a former supervisor in the Inspectors Bureau.


'A GOOD BACKGROUND'
Before Curtis Cashen joined the homicide detail, most of his time as an inspector was in the photo lab - 10 years. He also collected evidence as a crime scene investigator and worked in fraud. Cashen said his main experience on violent crime cases came during three years in the general work detail.

Cashen's name finally reached the top of the wait list, and in November 1996, he became a homicide inspector.

"I think I had a good background," said Cashen, now on leave awaiting retirement. "The only area that I lacked in was dealing with the witnesses in homicide. The interviewing of witnesses - that I had to get up to speed on."

Cashen is remembered for an investigative technique he once employed.

When a San Francisco sheriff's deputy was found dead of an apparent suicide,

Cashen got his supervisor to write the widow, Yvette Antaran, a letter that expressed "heartfelt condolences," then Cashen delivered it with a written list of 17 questions. Among them:

"Did you kill Benjamin A. Antaran Jr.?"

"Did you take part in the killing of Benjamin A. Antaran Jr.?"

"Did you plan to kill Benjamin A. Antaran Jr.?"

Sullivan, supervisor in the Bureau of Inspectors, called Cashen's letter a "different type of investigative technique."

The widow was less charitable.

"I would need a thesaurus to accurately describe how I feel about it," she said. "People do things that are wrong - that was wrong."

What's wrong with trying to get at the truth? Cashen asked.

Cashen said he got the idea for the questionnaire at a training class he attended with other SFPD inspectors. Other homicide inspectors haven't used the technique, he said.

"Most of them pooh-pooh it," Cashen said.


CHANGES BEING CONSIDERED
Before the seniority system was instituted in the late 1970s, only those with "juice" with the chief or City Hall got the plum assignments, said Chignell, who helped draft the rule while a leader in the Police Officers Association, the union. "It was who you knew. Seniority or merit had nothing to do with it."

While there were abuses in the old system, the benefits of picking the best person for the job far outweighed the problems, police officials said.

"The old way - 90 percent came out of ability and 10 percent out of juice," said Marovich, the robbery detail supervisor. "It was better than now."

Lau said he is frustrated with the rule governing assignments and has been trying to renegotiate it with the police union for three or four years. Lau wants to combine the ranks of sergeant and inspector to create a large pool of candidates for key positions.

The wait-list system, coupled with the SFPD's lack of job performance evaluations, makes it difficult for supervisors.

"Our appraisals and evaluations don't rate performance," said Williams, from the sex crimes detail. "If you're not doing the job, it's ''So what, what are you going to do to me?' The current system has no bite."

In lieu of written performance evaluations, inspectors fill out a monthly account of productivity and success that is reviewed by their supervisor. Written evaluations were abandoned at least two years ago as "too subjective," said Sullivan, from the Inspectors Bureau.

Lau agreed that the SFPD lacks a workable performance review process for inspectors and said one is being developed.

"From all indications, the system needs to be revised," he said, adding that as long as he remains chief, he will push for changes in the department.

"I've been here six years," Lau said. "There are some things we haven't been able to do yet."

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NEGLECTED DUTY
During 1996-2000, San Francisco police:

solved half the city's murders

solved fewer than a third of the city's rapes

did not investigate nearly 70 percent of the city's robberies and assaults

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ABOUT THE THREE-DAY SERIES
-- Today: San Francisco police rank last among the nation's biggest city police forces when it comes to solving violent crimes.

-- Monday: Getting away with murder is easier in San Francisco than just about anywhere else.

-- Tuesday: Why San Diego is so much better than San Francisco at solving violent crimes.



San Francisco among the 20 largest cities in the country
-- Has a smaller population ...
.
New York 8,000,000
Los Angeles 3,694,000
Chicago 2,896,000
Houston 1,954,000
Philadelphia 1,517,000
Phoenix 1,321,000
San Diego 1,223,000
Dallas 1,118,000
San Antonio 1,144,000
Detroit 951,000
San Jose 894,000
Indianapolis 781,000
San Francisco 777,000
Jacksonville 735,000
Columbus 711,000
Austin 656,000
Baltimore 651,000
Memphis 650,000
Milwaukee 596,000
Boston 589,000
.
.
. . . with fewer crimes . . .
Violent crimes committed per 1,000 residents

Baltimore 27
Detroit 24
Chicago 20
Memphis 16
Los Angeles 14
Philadelphia 14
Boston 13
Dallas 13
Jacksonville 12
New York 11
Houston 10
Milwaukee 10
San Francisco 10
Indianapolis 10
Columbus 8
Phoenix 8
San Diego 7
San Jose 6
Austin 5
San Antonio 4
.
.
. . . but more police officers . . .
Sworn officers per 1,000 population

New York 5.0
Baltimore 4.8
Philadelphia 4.7
Chicago 4.7
Detroit 4.4
Boston 3.7
Milwaukee 3.4
San Francisco 2.9
Memphis 2.9
Houston 2.8
Los Angeles 2.5
Columbus 2.5
Dallas 2.4
Jacksonville 2.1
Phoenix 2.0
Indianapolis 2.0
Austin 1.7
San Diego 1.7
San Antonio 1.7
San Jose 1.5
.
.
. . . and the lowest rate of violent crimes solved
Average percent of violent crimes solved 1996-2000

San Diego 64%
Jacksonville 54
Indianapolis 52
San Jose 49
Los Angeles 49
Austin 46
New York 46
Dallas 44
Columbus 43
Boston 49
Memphis 41
Milwaukee 41
Philadelphia 39
Houston 39
Chicago 38
San Antonio 37
Baltimore 32
Phoenix 31
Detroit 29
San Francisco 28
.

---

CHART (2):


VIOLENT CRIMES SOLVED IN CALIFORNIA CITIES
Average percent of violent crime solved in 2000 among California cities with
populations of 200,000 or more:
.
Anaheim 75%
San Diego 63%
San Jose 61%
Fremont 59%
Bakersfield 50%
Long Beach 47%
Fresno 46%
Oakland 46%
Los Angeles 46%
Sacramento 44%
Riverside 43%
Santa Ana 37%
Stockton 32%
San Francisco 26%
Average 47%
.
Chronicle Graphic
Source: Chronicle research and California Dept. of Justice
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/05/19/MN20982.DTL




"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878