Boudin Provides Chronicle Contextless Statistics
Last week, Chronicle writer Susie Neilson authored the article: We obtained never-before-seen data on how Chesa Boudin is prosecuting cases. Neilson focused almost exclusively on whether District Attorney Chesa Boudin accepted, for prosecution, or rejected the SFPD arrests presented to his office. Neilson’s article failed to provided context on the more important issue: how or if Boudin accomplished any felony convictions based on SFPD’s felony arrests.
Also last week, the San Francisco Giants’ Buster Posey provided fans with a poignant retirement letter. If Buster employed Neilson’s approach, he may have said something like: “I faced over 19,000 pitches in my career” but that statement doesn’t tell us anything about his legacy. Wouldn’t knowing Buster reached base on over 30% of his career at-bats document a successful career? Likewise, wouldn’t the amount of felony convictions Boudin achieved evidence his success as a DA?
This leads us to a handful of questions for Boudin and Neilson:
One: Why does Boudin hide his statistics on felony convictions and why didn’t Neilson challenge him?
I could go into further detail on Boudin’s alchemy of creating misdemeanors from felony homicides captured on video, but this subject was covered extremely well by NBC’s Bigad Shaban (Please watch here.)
Two: Why aren’t these statistics already being published and why aren’t voters questioning the lack of transparency?
Three: Why did Boudin provide these statistics exclusively to Susie Neilson? Is it because she and the Chronicle won’t question him?
Four: Susie Neilson’s article was published on November 4th. After her statistical conclusions were attacked on Twitter the following day, Boudin’s office suddenly decided to update their public dashboards. Why didn’t Boudin make this public information public earlier?
Five: Why, per NBC’s Bigad Shaban, has Boudin refused to accept their request for an interview? Like Shaban, the Westside Observer invited Boudin to an interview, but he has not responded. Does Boudin only feel comfortable in an environment where people won’t challenge him, like the Chronicle?
Does Boudin expose SFPD’s horrible arrest rate or are his graphs misleading?
If you look at the number of criminal incidents filed by citizens (green bar) compared to arrests (red bar) it appears that SFPD makes arrests on a very small percentage of incidents. But no criminal commits a single crime. Think about the 10 cars that were broken into on your block last night. 10 break-ins, 10 incident reports filed, but only one Ring video documenting the crime and one arrest. A reasonable citizen can infer it was a single perpetrator hitting 10 cars, not 10 perpetrators but Boudin’s statistics don’t communicate that. Did Boudin and his predecessors choose these graphs because they’re most flattering to them while projecting ineptness on SFPD?
Another question: after SFPD arrests a person and Boudin “files charges,” is the arrested removed from the streets, or does Boudin allow them back into the community where they’re adding to incident reports?
Example: Sammy
In July 2020, Sammy was arrested as a felon with a gun. Boudin dismissed the case “in the interest of justice.” The next month, Sammy was again caught with a gun, and Boudin let him out this time, “pending further investigation.”
In October 2021, Sammy was caught with stolen property from 10+ auto boosting’s. Each of the victims filed “incident reports,” but SFPD arrested Sammy for the case where there was strong evidence.
On a bar graph, this is how Boudin would portray Sammy’s single SFPD arrest versus the ten incident reports he triggered.
Diagram #1: Incidents vs. Arrests
Because Boudin does not hold the Sammy’s of San Francisco in custody they routinely add to incidents and have a multiplying effect on incident totals. However, if Sammy remained in custody, even temporarily, SFPD would have effectively stopped Sammy from further auto boosting’s and additional incident reports. SFPD would have constructively solved the ten previous cases and future potential cases.
A more accurate diagram comparing the incident reports triggered by Sammy, to the amount of crimes Sammy is responsible for appears below. Again, a reasonable citizen can extrapolate this to the entire population of SFPD arrestees.
Diagram #2: Incidents versus the causers of the Incidents
As usual, Boudin let Sammy back onto the streets and on November 4th, he and his crew were out looking for cars to break into. They thought they found an easy target and attempted a robbery at gunpoint. Unfortunately, a broad daylight shootout occurred at Masonic and Haight Streets. Sammy was shot in a failed robbery attempt.
Tragically, that exact day when Neilson published praise for Boudin, life was draining out of Sammy's 21-year-old body onto a Haight Street sidewalk--the “exclusive” statistics in practice. Had Boudin imposed consequences on Sammy for earlier felonies might he have learned a small lesson and be alive today? And, does Boudin’s version of justice render him culpable for Sammy’s death?
(Author’s update: On November 9th, after this article was published, the robbery victim also died from gunshot received in the shootout.)
The impact of taking a felon off the streets:
Xavier is a prolific car burglar. During the summer, he made the mistake of dropping his wallet and cellphone in a car he had just broken into. That set off a serious investigation, which lead to his arrest on August 4th.
The SFPD investigative techniques were revealed to Xavier and his attorney through incident reports; this sent a chill through the car boosting industry. Sources say car break-ins collapsed during Xavier’s two-week residency at County Jail. The statistics in SFPD’s Compstat confirm this. In August, auto break-ins declined 23% citywide and 38% in the Central District (North Beach). With Xavier released by Boudin back to the streets in September, break-ins increased 17% citywide and 35% in the Central District! Obviously, custody reduced crime.
Don’t fault Xavier. Blame Boudin for creating the welcoming opportunity to increase crime.
Buster integrity versus Boudin’s slipperiness
Buster Posey’s retirement ends the link to a San Francisco era that seems to have been reduced to a warm memory. Buster came from Georgia and gave us a sense of pride in the way he presented himself and represented our city. Contrastingly, Boudin came to SF, became DA, and lawlessness and chaos prevailed.
Author’s photo after Buster’s first career homer (June 9, 2010)