Who is SFFD Chief Dean Crispen?
Just do the right thing!
Author’s note: There are two target audiences for this piece. My usual readers and the handball community. For the handball readers, I took some shots at LAFD and a particular handball-playing fireman (friend). The pokes are meant to be light-hearted to feed the rivalry. I am not tone deaf to what So. California firemen are up against. I pray for their success and their health while they are fighting this catastrophe. Be safe, all of you!
The collision of two incidents illustrates Crispen’s passion for the City
On a late summer Sunday evening, I was having a beer with a former, but still active, SFPD partner. Rick shared a story about a juvenile Sureño gangster running around the Excelsior with a gun for days, while eluding SFPD. Two days before, Rick was dispatched to the call of an 8-year-old girl that had just been shot at the house where the Sureño lived. As Rick arrived at the scene, he found the young girl, lying on the sidewalk, critically injured. But she was a block away from the Sureño’s house and the alleged shooting. How did she get there? Where did the gun go? Why did the girl’s father say she was shot through their open window while waiting for a delivery? The story just didn’t add up, with suspicions circling about the victim’s family’s involvement in foul play. This August 30th shooting of the 8-year-old didn’t get much press because the 49ers’ Rickie Pearsall was shot the next day.
During Rick’s storytelling, we were interrupted by a phone call from another ex-partner of ours, Scrappy. He told us of a totally different incident that occurred that morning, September 1st. A maniac driver drove around the city, mowing down numerous pedestrians. He rammed two police cars, an SFFD battalion chief’s SUV, and stabbed a person before he climbed a tree at 19th and Douglas Streets, fell out of the tree, and was critically injured.
Immediately after our call with Scrappy ended, I called my friend, Dean Crispen, an SFFD Battalion Chief, to ensure that he wasn’t the victim of the maniac’s rampage. He wasn’t, but my phone call with Dean wandered to the painful Excelsior shooting of an 8-year-old. Within a couple days, Dean produced a heart wrenching photo, from a neighborhood Nest camera, depicting the Sureño carrying his limp sister down the sidewalk. Obviously, the Sureño was trying to change the location of the crime and hide his involvement in the shooting. For a certain segment of our population, escaping consequences is more important than one’s sister’s life.
I believe it took some convincing from Dean to persuade the owner of the Nest to cooperate. Dean’s production of the photo had the effect of redirecting “an accidental shooting” to a prosecutable “intentional kidnapping.” (forcibly moving a person against their will). Why is this story significant? This was outside of Dean’s scope as a fireman. There was no glory in it for Dean. Instead, he took conscientious ownership for this problem and deployed the extra step to ensure SFPD got what it needed. And a neighborhood was made safer by his actions.
This should paint a nostalgic image of three public safety officers, all native to San Francisco, discussing and watching over the safety of our neighborhoods. It’s reminiscent of how parents in the Sixties and Seventies, when the Sunset was full of families, assumed responsibility for their neighbors’ kids. Always monitoring from the front windows or an open garage door.
Within SFPD, talent is measured by how frequently one is seen in court because of how many arrests one made; Rick and Scrappy probably spent a third of their career in court - they are cops’ cops. Not surprisingly, this week Crispen was described in the Mission Local as a fireman’s fireman. Anything can be improved when public safety officers have passion for making enhancements to their communities.
Who is our newly appointed SF Fire Chief, Dean Crispen?
Dean was born in San Francisco just after the baby boom. He lived in the Sunset during an era when kids still outnumbered cars. His late father, Richard, was a San Francisco fireman and avid handball player. Dean attended Holy Name and played football at St. Ignatius. During his time enrolled at San Francisco State, Dean followed in his father’s footsteps by both joining the San Francisco Fire Department and raising his commitment to handball. While Dean was working as an SF firefighter, he graduated from SF State with a major in accounting.
Dean on the front lines
Dean intentionally worked at a busy house, Station 3 (Post and Polk Streets)—a firehouse that didn’t afford sleeping through the night. Per SFFD, Dean was decorated three times for bravery and acted as the Commander on 50 critical incidents. I didn’t know about any of those awards because guys like Dean don’t take actions to receive accolades, nor do they surround themselves with people that do. It’s all about doing the right thing. Be humble; don’t boast.
When 9/11 hit, even before commercial air travel resumed, Dean was on a flight to New York volunteering to help the city. Dean raced to serve NY Fire Departments, not thinking twice about inhaling all that toxic air. Why? Because it was the right thing to do.
The upper positions in SFFD and SFPD seem to be filling up more and more with good test takers rather than productive, experienced workers. On the SFPD side, some officers have ascended to the command staff without ever being seen in court, because they never made hands-on arrests. Similarly, I know that Dean’s coworkers haven’t forgotten his frontline presence and his experience fighting fires shoulder-to-shoulder with them. That’s what makes a respected leader, and that is why there will be troop loyalty wherever Dean goes.
Dean the athlete
When I went through the SFPD Academy, we were lectured, “You guys think you are all great athletes, and that you won’t crack under pressure. Real life and the streets are different.” There is some truth to that, but I generally disagree.
In 2000, I was in Minneapolis watching Dean win the open handball national championship. His opponent, Ryan Grossenbacher, did everything possible to ruffle Dean. “Ref, make Dean wear a headband. It’s in the rules.” Which only made Dean’s pulse surge from 45 beats per minute to 47.
In 2004, Dean played in the 35-year-old division of the national championships in Portland. In the tiebreaker of the finals match, Dean was down 10 to 7 points, with his opponent only needing a single point for the title. The pressure on Dean was conspicuous as his pulse skyrocketed to 46 and he reeled off 4 straight points to take his second national title.
In 2019, Los Angeles, Dean ended up in the 50-year-old national finals against LAFD’s John Libby—a handsome man, by his own admission. With a large crowd watching, Dean launched one of his signature comebacks, out-crafting and depleting Libby’s gas tank. With Libby gasping for air, Libby complained that Dean had an open cut that was bleeding, and the LA fireman voiced fear that he was afraid of catching a disease. Libby used the delay to regain his wind and then barely denied Dean a third national title.
I know I only named three national championships that Dean played in, spanning a 20-year period. The thing is, with Dean’s schedule over that period, I only recall him showing up to those three national events.
So yes, while responding to potentially life-or-death situations is stressful and different from playing sports, there is, however, the common thread: good athletes, like good firemen, are able to block out the world and focus on the task immediately in front of them. An athlete can’t be thinking, “If I miss this shot, I might lose,” anymore than a public safety officer can worry, “How will my supervisor judge me?” It’s his ability to stay in the moment and revert to training that Dean’s coworkers recognize and respect, and is the asset he brings to the chief’s position.
Going forward
Mayor Lurie, good choice on Dean. You did the right thing and the City will thank you.
Dino, I know Richard’s absence for your swearing in will weigh on you, but trust me, he knew. He calculated your trajectory and extrapolated where you are today. Congratulations on your promotion.
There is hope yet for a return to sanity in SF. Proud to be a Sunset raised kid like Chief Crispen albeit a few years earlier. Let's all hope Mayor Lurie keeps his foot on the gas. Great article!
Thank you Lou for your time , well written and its a blessing to have you as a friend the same goes for Chief Crispen