Why I Stand By San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin

I stand by San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who San Franciscans elected two years ago in a competitive race, and encourage every San Franciscan to do so, too.

I voted for Chesa because he promised to address rampant racism in San Francisco’s justice system. A 2015 report found that Black adults are 7.1 times as likely as white adults to be arrested, 11 times as likely to be booked into County Jail, and 10.3 times as likely to be convicted of a crime in San Francisco. Black people make up 6% of San Francisco’s population, yet as of July 2019, African Americans represent 46% of the people incarcerated in the county Jail system, 38% of the adults on probation and 55% of juveniles on probation in San Francisco were African American.

San Francisco Police Department’s rampant racism is the core of the problem. In two separate instances, SFPD officers were caught sending racist text messages. In 2014, after newcomers to San Francisco racially profiled him as a gang member for wearing a red 49ers jacket and called the police, San Francisco Police Department officers rolled up on 28-year-old Alex Nieto, a native San Franciscan enjoying a burrito before work, and shot him 59 times. Not only did our former District Attorney, George Gascón, not indict the SFPD officers, a jury with no Black or Latino members found 59…