The SF Police Commission creates new policies for SFPD and conducts disciplinary hearings on charges of police misconduct. The commission’s implementation of constantly changing bureaucratic procedures and recordkeeping for SFPD has an outsized influence on officers’ morale and effectiveness.
Three commissioners are appointed by the SF Board of Supervisors, while the mayor nominates four commissioners that must still be approved by the Board of Supervisors. In theory, Mayor Breed controls the police commission through her ability to nominate a majority. It is also important to contrast that Mayor Breed was elected at-large, whereas the supervisors are elected through fractionalized districts. Thus, when Breed nominates a police commissioner, she selects that person on how they will represent the interests of the entire city, whereas supervisors are focused on the issues of their smaller districts.
While San Francisco voters were focused on the recall of members on the school board and DA Chesa Boudin, on November 19, 2021, Breed appointed Max Carter Oberstone (hereafter: MCO) to the police commission. This was to be her fourth and her swing appointee.
To Breed, MCO looked great on paper, a city kid with an assumed trek from the streets of SF to Stanford Law School to a prestigious national law firm. However, MCO’s journey was neither far, nor was he apparently truthful when he entered Breed’s office as a political Trojan Horse. And, sadly, neither SFPD officers, nor voters are following how MCO’s duplicity is taking away SFPD’s enforcement tools.
Who is MCO? Surely, not a man of the people.
Researching MCO through his more-famous sister, Sami; we can ascertain that he was raised by his father as a single parent. MCO’s father graduated with a master’s degree and PHD from expensive U.S.C. and has offices in London and San Francisco where he provides analytics and statistics for European soccer leagues. His father is also a professor at the University of San Francisco business school. MCO’s mother is a dentist.
MCO is of French, Russian, Cuban, and African American descent, and is proficient in French. San Franciscans have a reputation for being overly curious about, “What high school did ya go to?” Yet, as products of the city, both MCO and his sister have been unusually secretive as to what San Francisco schools they attended. Only through sources, was I able to ascertain that Sami attended Drew School at $59,000 per year. MCO remains a mystery. There is not even an internet trail of him participating in sports. Max, not even lacrosse? Or polo? It adds up to, either MCO was a ghost throughout his San Francisco childhood, or he attended a boarding school.
After MCO’s future wife, Nathalie Watson, graduated from boarding school, she attended Georgetown with MCO. Then the two were off to Wall Street with MCO working for Credit Suisse First Boston and Nathalie working for JP Morgan. The couple then returned to California to attend Stanford, with MCO earning a law degree and Nathalie an MBA.
Per MCO’s LinkedIn, after he graduated from Stanford Law School in the spring of 2014, he was not admitted to the California Bar until August 24, 2015, a mysterious 15-month gap for the Stanford grad with a mysterious SF education. MCO now works for the law firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe.
Nathalie worked for Google and Airbnb before working for a startup that was purchased by Babylist.
MCO and Nathalie were married on September 10, 2016, at the Fairmont Sonoma Golf Club. Their wedding was covered in the Style section of the New York Times– not the typical media coverage for an average city kid.
MCO’s deceptions and conflicts of interest
As a condition of being appointed to the San Francisco Police Commission, Mayor Breed allegedly had MCO sign an undated resignation letter, which on the surface seems wrong. However, MCO signed the resignation letter without reservation.
On MCO’s Form 700 filed with San Francisco, it shows that he earns a five-digit salary from the NYU Policing Project, a nonprofit that weighs in on racial profiling, facial recognition, use of force, advocating for the box-checking 30% female law enforcement composition, and “reimagining public safety”-- i.e., Urban Alchemy. MCO’s salaried position and predisposition to the advocacy group’s issues, conflicts with the objectivity he should have brought to the police commission. As well as compromising the time he commits to his day job at Orrick.
MCO has made pretext traffic stops on people of color his primary focus. On May 11, 2022, he penned a Time opinion piece in support of ending pretext traffic stops taking credit, “I introduced a new regulation to just that in our city,” which essentially would piggyback on Prop 47’s decriminalization failures to allow drivers to:
1) Drive without license plates,
2) Drive without brake lights,
3) Throw any quantity of garbage or objects out of a moving car, or
4) Bicycle on the sidewalks.
Per publicly disclosed texts, Mayor Breed was caught off guard when she had to answer questions on her appointee’s Time article that he had kept her in the dark about. When questioned by Breed’s staff on the evening of publication, MCO made excuses: “Time informed me yesterday late afternoon that they would accept my piece and it was published today so (I) didn’t have a heads up myself.” Come on, MCO? Your article was written, submitted, and published within 24 hours?
Over the past decade, violence against Asians has become a concerning topic in San Francisco that requires the objective sensitivity by SF’s police commissioners. Yet, that didn’t stop Commissioner MCCO from submitting an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in August 2022, advocating for the prioritization for people of color being admitted to Harvard University over Asian applicants. Consider, this is the same commissioner that believes that SFPD is automatically guilty of racial profiling if they make traffic stops that demographically parallel the demographics of San Francisco’s violent crime rates. But it is not racial profiling if students raised in affluent households such as he was, are selected over poorer Asian student with higher test scores.
In the same month as his amicus brief, MCO rescinded his undated letter of resignation to Mayor Breed. MCO wasn’t principled enough to refuse signing the letter when he initially sold his policing perspectives to Breed, only after he had gained the alliance of the police commission progressives and had betrayed Breed numerous times, did he find his courage. And he made a big deal about being “the victim” in the media. Supervisor Hillary Ronen chimed, “If she (Breed) is really calling the shots, then genuine, independent oversight is not happening.” Really Hillary? Do you think MCO’s position on a nonprofit police reform advocacy group’s payroll is a sign of his independence?
In September 2022, Breed wanted her nominee, Larry Yee, to be voted in as president of the police commission.
Hyper-identity conscious, MCO double-crossed Breed again by nominating himself for vice president and pushing for Chesa Boudin’s buddy, Cindy Elias, as president. Of course, Elias’ husband Lateef Gray was a DA employee, hired by Boudin, when the Board of Supervisors awarded his “former '' law firm’s client $3.35 million. But Lateef and Elias received no compensation for the work he performed for that client? Yeah right.
It comes down to issues with MCO’s integrity
The City Charter gives the mayor the ability to nominate police commissioners. And there is always going to be differing opinions on how to best address crime and policing. The progressives can cheer MCO’s progressive unveiling, but there is an issue of integrity here. Chesa Boudin never separated himself from his Weather Underground pedigree. You knew he was coming from the hard left. But MCO? A lot more slippery and less principled.
Would you trust MCO to represent you in a legal matter? His track record indicates he’d sell you out in a second to the other side. And, by extension, he is a poor reflection on the quality of attorneys Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe hires. Clearly, MCO is equally untrustworthy representing the safety of our residents.
Mayor Breed, next time you need a background check, find what high school the applicant graduated from, and via Google, I’ll give the applicant’s first childhood teddy bear’s name. I certainly would have disqualified MCO just for retweeting a Boudin June 15, 2020, post.
Surprise surprise! Further down into the swamp the city goes. Great piece Lou.
Urban High School of San Francisco. Class of 2003. Look at Urban FB page