Marlene Tran weighs in on D10 violence

From D10 Supervisor candidate Marlene Tran,

D10 Supervisor Candidate Marlene Tran

Since June 2014, our Bayview and Visitacion Valley residents have been  stunned by five homicides happening within just a few days! No community should tolerate this kind of violence and to live in fear of the devastating repercussions that may arise from these shootings! Most horrific of all is the shooting of Allen Calloway in the presence of his young son and a large group of youngsters who were playing in Herz Playground in Visitacion Valley! Even with counseling, it is hard to imagine the psychological effects on the affected youngsters and their families.  

What is even harder to accept is the lack of immediate, thoughtful, and effective response from City Hall and Supervisor Cohen!   

Given the historical high crime statistics and the predictable summer spike crime patterns in our district for years, why weren’t there any "peace plan" and other effective safety measures instituted before this election year? District 10 residents deserve to have a Supervisor who has the pulse of our residents and is proactive about fighting such on-going and pernicious safety problems.  

I started my grassroots activism over 25 years ago by fighting the rampant crime that happened in Visitacion Valley but was largely unreported. There was no real method for the sizable non-English speaking victims to make reports then. I responded to this need by mobilizing our residents to monthly meetings, translating materials, sharing feedbacks with SFPD from hundreds of surveys to target the problems and the high incident areas. To provide direct access for our diverse residents, I even offered to Captain Bruce of the Ingleside Station, my storefront property as a free kiosk. When more and more residents became “eyes & ears” of law enforcement, community safety improved.  

To continue my commitments to improve D10 community safety, I joined the API Police Forum, Ingleside Community Police Advisory Board and DA Gascon’s API group. I have recently helped a group of 30+ monolingual residents who are interested in monthly meetings to meet with Project SAFE and Captain O’Sullivan of the Bayview Police station.  

I really appreciate BRITE’s proactive members for taking immediate steps to invite Bayview Lieutenant Ng for a very productive meeting last Saturday. I got their petition translated into Chinese and I am actively helping to gather support for BRITE’s  signature gathering to adopt a zero shooting policy in San Francisco. Furthermore, I was on radio Sunday night  to invite listeners to support BRITE's petition and to attend the upcoming National Night Out on August 5th.     

As Supervisor in D10, I will be able to continue my decades of safety and community work with our police captains, DA Gascon, Community Ambassadors, Project Safe, City departments, youth groups, CBO's , businesses, community leaders and residents to break the cycle of crime and violence in our neighborhoods.