By John Shanley<\/p>\n
Editors Note – John Shanley is a native San Franciscan.\u00a0 He is a former spokesperson for District Attorney Terence Hallinan and recently served as a deputy city attorney assigned to the San Francisco Police Department.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n My phone started ringing on Friday afternoon as word began to spread that newly appointed San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon had assigned sidelined veteran officers Gregory Corrales and Greg Suhr to head up Mission and Bayview stations respectively.<\/p>\n Both of these officers had their careers put on hold because in recent years discipline within the SFPD is akin to being sent to Siberia.\u00a0 For years the department, in blatant violation of the peace officer bill of rights, tried officers personal matters in public.\u00a0 While this may sound like a good idea to people who know nothing about policing, it was not only illegal, it was bad public policy.\u00a0 And it did NOTHING to further police-community relationships.<\/p>\n I know because I assisted Bill Fazio in defending Captain Corrales who had charges relating to the Fahitagate scandal hang over his head for eight years.\u00a0 He was charged with talking to the media (which officers are encouraged to do under their general orders).\u00a0 The comments he made also turned out to be accurate, much to the chagrin of those who like to kick cops.<\/p>\n Why does it take eight years to resolve police personnel issues? Great question. Let me suggest it is because we have had cowardly political leadership and an absolute mouse running the department for eight years.\u00a0 Now I have nothing against mice.\u00a0 My niece thinks they are cute.\u00a0 Perhaps they are, but they should not run police departments.<\/p>\n A police chief is the appropriate person to make the vast majority of calls when it comes to police discipline. Pushing every case to a commission full of people seeking political office\u00a0 is, well, cowardly. And cowardice is a poor quality in a political leader or in a police chief.<\/p>\n So three cheers to our current chief who has decided to earn his hefty paychecks by making a few decisions.\u00a0 Welcome to SF, Chief Gaston.\u00a0 The natives are pleased.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By John Shanley Editors Note – John Shanley is a native San Franciscan.\u00a0 He is a former spokesperson for District Attorney Terence Hallinan and recently served as a deputy city attorney assigned to the San Francisco Police Department. My phone started ringing on Friday afternoon as word began to spread that newly appointed San Francisco […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}