How Chronicle’s Neilson Provided Misrepresentative Stats and SF Standard Carried DPA's Water to Influence Recent Election
Is the Baltimore Sun going to challenge the echo chamber?
The Wire was a critically claimed HBO dramatic series that captured the narcotics-centric violence, police engagement, and political corruption on the streets of Baltimore. The episodes were fast-moving and extremely realistic. An SFPD chief told me, “We left a meeting with the mayor in Room 200, and a person that had been in the room said, ‘Those Wire writers not only knew exactly what was happening on the streets, but they also knew what was going on in mayors’ offices.’”
The fifth and final season of The Wire was slower paced, yet in retrospect, it was the most prescient. The series depicted a fictionalized version of the Baltimore Sun. Like the Chronicle, the newspaper had to severely reduce staff to deal with the loss of advertising revenue to the internet and classified ads to Craigslist. In the fifth season, a reporter, Scott,[1] was depicted falsifying and embellishing stories as a steppingstone to a position with a larger newspaper. Concurrently, to get more funds allocated to investigate homicides, a Baltimore detective anonymously fed Scott fictional stories about a person serial killing (already deceased) homeless. Scott, like the Chronicle and Standard writers, just ran with the story without ever questioning his source’s credibility or motivation.
Proposition E
Voters recently passed Prop E in the March 5, 2024 election by approximately a 16.5 percentage point margin.
Prop E had three components:
1) Establish goals of reining in the excessive paperwork the San Francisco Police Commission increasingly burdens SFPD officers with,
2) It gives SFPD the ability to use drones and license plate readers to assist in reducing and solving crimes, and
3) It closes the loophole to allow SFPD officers to pursue violent misdemeanors— primarily car break-in crews (a property crime), driving around in stolen cars (a property crime), but with a 99.9% probability the crew had guns in the car (a violent crime) to deter interceding do-gooders.
A week before the election, the Chronicle and SF Standard coordinated two published articles within a 24-hour period based on statistics and research that was either assembled by other media sites or was spoon-fed to them by adversaries of the proposition.
The writers focused solely on the pursuit aspect (#3) of Prop E, without factoring in the radical change drones (#2) will bring to eliminating the need for vehicle pursuits. Though SFPD has possibly the most restrictive vehicle pursuit policies in the country, the writers painted a false picture that Prop E would allow SFPD to engage in pursuits after a driver littered. And to push their narrative, it appears the writers never questioned the validity of the information they gleaned off the internet or their sources’ hand-delivered analysis intended to propagandize their agenda. After the Chronicle’s material was published, it was fed into the echo chamber. The Chronicle’s Susie Neilson appeared on CNN’s The Lead With Jack Tapper to perpetuate her narrative that the people killed as the direct result of police actions, has been understated.
Susie Nielson, diving for data that supports her narrative
On February 27, 2024, the Chronicle’s Susie Neilson, Jennifer Gollan, and Janie Haseman collaborated on a statistical presentation attacking only the pursuits portion of Proposition E.[2]
Neilson’s recent articles shed light on her tendency to zoom in on the statistical trees, while getting lost in the preposterousness of the forest she is promoting. She previously wrote an article articulating she believed that only six shoplifting thefts occur every day in San Francisco. While CVS has constructed plastic walls, security guards watch exits, major retailers are fleeing SF, and SF shoplifting videos proliferate on YouTube; yet in Neilson’s world, our city experiences only six thefts per day.
Neilson magnified her absurdness in a subsequent article claiming that during SFPD’s traffic stops, officers recorded the words “odor of marijuana” more frequently than the words “license, registration, and insurance.” Neilson’s sources for her data became more curious when public records requests to SFPD evidenced that neither Neilson nor the SF Chronicle had ever requested the voluminous data she referenced. Gratuitous Twitter postings and analysis by Police Commissioner Max Carter-Oberstone made it appear that he was the source of the data and had merely used Neilson as a conduit.
Neilson titled her February 27, 2024 article First-of-its-kind database: Majority of people killed in police chase aren’t the fleeing drivers. Neilson’s article is not a “first-of-a-kind” as she claims as it is obvious 90% of Nielson’s data was piggybacked off the database accumulated on the website Fatal Encounters by D. Brian Burghart.[3] On his website, Burghart claims that his spreadsheet is composed of people that “died when police are (merely) present.” He places the blame on law enforcement in every circumstance even if a person committed suicide.
Yet, Neilson’s spreadsheet is almost an exact replica of Burghart’s spreadsheet-- except she added 2022 incidents after he retired.
Look at how Neilson’s data (top row) replicated Burghart’s data (bottom row) down to the latitude, longitude, and media links. It is impossible that Neilson’s could have started from scratch and found all of the links to media stories on thousands of incidents without cutting-and-pasting from biased Burghart’s spreadsheet.
If you are following the connected dots, Bughart’s extremely biased stats, neither verified nor created by Neilson, were uploaded to a major city newspaper-- the Chronicle—and then became the trusted source that Jack Tapper and CNN relied on. And that should concern you.
Examples of Neilson’s biased perspective
You see the circular tire tracks in the intersection, or you hear the screeching of tires late at night. A sideshow. Lawlessness. You ask, “where is SFPD? So, SFPD arrives to the periphery of the crowd. Suddenly, a person falls out of a reckless car and is killed. Is that SFPD’s fault? The sideshow started before SFPD arrived and the injury was not the result of SFPD’s presence. Yet, if Neilson is involved with the narrative, she will name the officers as culpable, and this discourages officers from making the city safe. Don’t believe me?
In the early hours of June 7, 2022, Georgia deputies spotted 31-year-old Akeem Lukie driving north at 125 miles per hour heading for the South Carolina border. Like the sideshow example, what is a deputy expected to do? Ignore the speeding vehicle, or take action? Deputies attempted to pull over Lukie, but he sped ahead before striking a guardrail on a bridge that separates the two states. Lukie exited the Charger, willingly jumped off the bridge and drowned. In Neilson’s database, she counted Lukie’s dive into the water the same way as if the deputies ran over or shot him—to Susie, it’s always the cops’ fault.[4]
Below is a screenshot of Neilson’s work that appeared in the Chronicle and attracted CNN’s interest:
Note how Neilson repeatedly blames law enforcement despite her not having any factual evidence: “his role in the pursuit or why it started are unknown or unclear.” Were the police chasing a mass murderer? A terrorist? Did the police terminate the pursuit long before the criminal crashed? Neilson, just like Burghart, only knows it must be the cop’s fault.
Neilson does detail Linda Jozefiak’s death (above), which she defines as a “non-violent crime.” On December 20, 2021, Vertese Woods used the stolen truck he was driving to ram a police vehicle in his attempt to escape arrest. In his flight, he ran into Linda Jozefiak’s vehicle, killing her, and then stole a child’s bike to flee the fatal accident scene. But per Neilson’s database, running into a police car is considered a “nonviolent crime.” Susie, I beg to differ.
Nielson’s current project to demonize SFPD
For Neilson’s upcoming article, she is currently soliciting witnesses to come forward about a Southern Indiana police chase that started over what she minimizes as “a license plate violation”—an infraction. Actually, the suspect, Fredrick MacFarland, was believed to be driving with stolen plates or a stolen car—a felony. But who cares about facts? Tragically, two children and one adult in the incident were killed and MacFarland was sentenced to 15 years.
SFPD is strictly disallowed from chasing stolen cars. And in a March 11, 2024 email, SFPD Chief Scott stated he will not implement Prop E until it “goes through the proper process”—presumably the Police Commission. Nevertheless, Neilson intends to project the rural Indiana tragedy onto SFPD—making SFPD guilty by association—and providing the Police Commission Four[5] with ammunition to block the will of SF voters.
For Susie Neilson, like Burghart and the Police Commission Four, police pursuits are not the real issue. The goal is to eliminate police interactions. No engagement, no one goes to jail.
Michael Moritz, are you happy with your purchase of the SF Standard?
Mike Barba and Noah Baustin’s data investigations are generally suspect.
On September 23, 2023, Barba and Baustin published an article disclosing information on the confidential investigation of an SFPD officer. The investigation had been assigned to, you guessed it, Commissioner Max Carter Oberstone. Under pressure that he was going to be discovered as the leaker, and found guilty of criminally violating the Brown Act, Carter-Oberstone posted on Twitter that SFPD had accidently exposed the confidential information. Then the SF Standard published an authorless article that parroted Carter-Oberstone’s fiction about the accidental file exposure. Obviously, no one at the Standard wanted their name associated with this Brown Act crime. I issued a public records request to the Police Commission, which documented both Carter-Oberstone and Barba lied about the method they obtained the confidential information. So, we should view anything written by Barba and Baustin with skepticism.
In a January 10, 2024 article on pursuits, Barba wrote that it was Janelle Caywood of the Department of Police Accountability that had obtained information on SFPD’s pursuits: “According to the most recent figures that Caywood collected from the California Highway Patrol.”
Contrastingly, on February 24, 2024, Mike Barba and Noah Baustin, wrote an article stating that: “according to new analysis of data The Standard obtained from the California Highway Patrol.”
Mike and Noah, this information is not available on the CHP website. Help us out? Caywood shared the CHP information with you on January 10th, and then you issued a public records request to get the data she already gave you? Or are you trying to hide that besides acting as a conduit for Carter-Oberstone, you are now acting as Caywood’s mouthpiece too? And did you even verify that Caywood was not cherry-picking stats?
In my public records request to CHP,[6] they responded that no one at the SF Standard had requested the data you cite.
Michael Moritz, as a former journalist for Time, does this meet your vision of integrity?
Update on the Baltimore Sun
And what happened to the fictionalized version of the Wire’s Baltimore Sun?
David Smith, a wealthy media mogul and a Baltimore native opined in New York Magazine:
“I must tell that in all the 45 plus years I have been in the media business I have never seen a single article about us that is reflective of reality especially in today’s world with the shameful political environment and generally complete lack of integrity. Facts and truth have been lost for a long time and likely never to return.”
A month ago, Smith purchased the Baltimore Sun. I neither agree nor disagree with Smith’s political views, but the echo chamber is alarmed! Perhaps a challenge to their insular business will increase the possibility that some of these writers like The Wire’s fictional Scott, will tighten up their work and demonstrate greater integrity.
[1] Scott is believed to be based on former Baltimore Sun reporter, Jim Haner, who was accused of fabricating quotes.
[2] Unsurprisingly, none of the three Chronicle contributors have a statistical background or education: Susie Neilson, Jennifer Gollan, and Janie Haseman. Neilson claims she is a “data reporter.” The other two specialize in video.
[3] Burghart writes for the alternative newspaper Reno News & Review, which is like our old SF Weekly. Like Neilson, Burghart has no educational or professional experience in statistics, but possesses a shared belief that law enforcement should not engage with the public.
[4] This incident appears on Row 1383 on Neilson’s spreadsheet.
[5] Cindy Elias, Max Carter-Oberstone, Jesus Yanez, and Kevin Benedicto.
[6] CPRA Request of March 1, 2024, Reference #R001521-030142. The pursuit data does not naturally appear on CHP’s websites.
This non-factual, non-objective reporting will continue because it is allowed to go on with impunity.
Excellent, well-researched article. Facts just destroy the progressives' argument. But, it doesn't matter to the writers that they are twisting the stats and the facts. Unfortunately, there are waaaaay to many people that still believe newspaper articles are factual. Good job!