San Francisco Mayor Who Once Demanded Defunding Now Wants More Police to Combat Crime Surge

San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who in the summer of 2020 praised a reduction in police and sheriff's department funding, has now launched an emergency police intervention in San Francisco’s crime-ridden Tenderloin neighborhood, targeting a pipeline of illegal drugs that has been fueling a surge in gun violence and deadly fentanyl overdoses.

Breed’s anger and frustration over the crime surge in the city were on full display at her noon news conference, CBS reports.

“It’s time the reign of criminals who are destroying our city, it is time for it to come to an end,” she said. “And it comes to an end when we take the steps to more aggressive with law enforcement. More aggressive with the changes in our policies and less tolerate of all the bullshit that has destroyed our city.”

The Tenderloin crackdown was just one of four crime fighting initiatives Breed announced at a news conference that afternoon.

The other three were:

• Securing emergency police funding for needed resources

• Amending our surveillance ordinance so law enforcement can interrupt crime in real time

• Disrupting the illegal street sales of stolen goods.

Crime data shows there were 3,375 reports of larceny theft citywide in November — the overwhelming majority of those were car break-ins.

In July of 2020 , the mayor said $120 million over the next two years would be redirected from city and county law enforcement agencies to instead be spent on addressing disparities in the Black community.

At the time of the cuts the Police Officer's Association warned that response times would be affected.