San Francisco Leaders Differ On How To Tackle Car Break-In Epidemic
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) -- San Francisco firefighters union president took his frustration to Twitter after this work vehicle was broken into. He specifically called out Interim Mayor Mark Farrell.
Thomas O'Connor, President of San Francisco firefighters union Local 798 said, "We were right in the middle of contract negotiations yesterday, ironically, and I came out to find my car had been broken into right in the middle of the day, right in front of City Hall."
O'Connor showed us the busted out window of his work car Tuesday.
It's the third time this car has been broken into in San Francisco in two years. Each time it was in broad daylight, he says.
He was so frustrated that he posted a tweet with a photo of the damage along with a message that reads "#citys fine" "#noproblemshere" and tagged Acting Mayor Mark Farrell.
"Quite frankly, I share the frustration of that tweet. It's exactly why I've been working with our police chief over the past few weeks to get a staffing plan together," Farrell said.
Farrell says he sees this as a police resources issue. He promised to add money in the budget specifically for SFPD to help them tackle this problem.
"This cannot be the status quo on our streets. We need to do better as a city," Farrell said.
Last week, District Attorney George Gascon held a press conference where he asked the city for $1 million to build up a task force to better understand break-ins.
Farrell said it's a 'no' for him.
"We don't need a task force to study the situation where we know what the problem is already," Farrell said.
Farrell said, instead the district attorney's office and police need to partner up.
"They always need to work closely together. And you know, they've had different kinds of relationships over time. We need our police to be strong, we need our DA's office to be strong, and we need our courts to be strong," Farrell said.
O'Connor said he didn't not want to attack the mayor and only wanted to get his attention, which he did. He said he would like to see police get more resources to tackle this issue.
"It's shocking how big a problem this is. That the thieves are emboldened to do this in the middle of the day on a busy sidewalk, that they can do it and get away with it," O'Connor said.
