Bayview's Captain Surh becomes SFPD Chief

From SFGate,

(04-26) 21:42 PDT San Francisco -- Capt. Greg Suhr, a 30-year veteran of the San Francisco Police Department whose roller-coaster career has included command of two of the city's toughest station houses and an indictment for allegedly conspiring to obstruct justice, is Mayor Ed Lee's pick to be police chief.

Suhr, 52, is expected to be sworn in this morning. He replaces Jeff Godown, who has been acting chief since early January when George Gascón moved over to become district attorney in the final hours of former Mayor Gavin Newsom's administration.

Suhr's most recent command was in the high-crime Bayview district, where homicides have dropped nearly 50 percent since he took over as station-house commander in October 2009.


"I feel very good about this. It's the best choice. We definitely have a leader," said Lee, who repeatedly interviewed each of the three finalists sent to him by the Police Commission before making the call over the weekend.

Rose through ranks
"Greg Suhr started out as a beat patrol cop," Lee said. "He's someone who has risen up from the ranks to station captain to head of field operations. He recognizes the need to continue with the reforms that will bring the department into the 21st century."

Suhr had a number of influential backers, including the Police Officers Association, Chinatown powerhouse Rose Pak and state Attorney General Kamala Harris, Gascón's predecessor as district attorney.

He was also the most popular pick at town hall meetings that Lee has held since taking office in January, the mayor said.

"I'd have to say that 3 out of 4 said they wanted Greg," Lee said.

The other finalists for chief were Cmdr. Daniel Mahoney, who had no experience running station houses, and an outsider whose name has not been revealed.

Of the three, Suhr had the deepest history with the department. He's been a captain at the Mission District station as well as at Bayview, and has been a deputy chief for operations. He's been a patrol commander and worked in the narcotics division and as a patrol cop.

He is a graduate of St. Ignatius High School and the University of San Francisco, two breeding grounds for the town's old boy network.

Plenty of baggage
What kept Suhr from being a no-brainer pick for Lee is that he also comes with the most baggage of the three finalists.

Most notably, when he was deputy chief, Suhr was one of the command staff members indicted in 2003 for allegedly conspiring to obstruct the investigation into the infamous Fajitagate affair, in which three off-duty cops allegedly beat up two men for their Mexican takeout.

A judge ultimately dropped the Fajitagate indictments as baseless, but the story was front-page news for months.

Suhr also was reprimanded by then-Chief Heather Fong in 2009 for not following department timelines in reporting a domestic-violence incident involving a female friend who called him to say she had been attacked by her boyfriend.

The woman said Suhr had actually saved her life and gotten her to go to police. Nonetheless, Fong concluded that Suhr should have filed a report on the incident personally and in a timely manner, and she demoted him from deputy chief.

Plucked from Siberia
Four years earlier, Fong had shipped Suhr from the head of the patrol division to the department's equivalent of outer Siberia when she put him in charge of overseeing security for the city's water supply.

It took Gascón, who arrived from Mesa, Ariz., in July 2009, to revive Suhr's career by sending him to the Bayview.

Ironically, it was during Suhr's banishment to the water police that he got to know Lee, who as the city's chief administrative officer worked closely with the utility that runs the Hetch Hetchy system.

"I saw his work up close. I was impressed," Lee said. "We were alike in many ways, having both worked so many jobs over the years."

As for the baggage?

"It's all been vetted," Lee said. "Greg Suhr's history is an open book. Like all of us, he's made some decisions that he would have made differently in hindsight, but he's recovered from them and done really well."

And what does the new mayor expect from his new chief?

"Continue the reforms initiated by the former chief. Trim the department's top-heavy administration and come up with a plan for the 10 percent budget cuts that every other department is being asked to make," Lee said.

Many problems
It won't be easy. The department is still reeling from the recent videos of police conducting improper drug searches. Budget cuts could mean laying off cops, and the police union appears to be in no mood to make further wage concessions.

On the other hand, had Lee either gone outside the department or picked Mahoney, he would probably have hit a brick wall with the union. That made Suhr's selection all but a precondition for any deal.

Much was made of the fact that it took Lee a month to mull over the finalists. The mayor says he had a good reason.

"In case you haven't noticed, I have had a lot of other things going on," Lee said. "The America's Cup, pension reform, the budget and that little thing called Twitter."

Read more at SFGate

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