> Plenty of SFPD folks would love to do arrests, but when called made it clear that was no point because the DA would refuse to prosecute. At least that’s what they said on scene.

Assuming that there are legitimate grounds for arrest, this is what it means for police not to do their jobs. AFAIK, there is no "aw, what's the use, anyway?" exception.

The cops are often caught between multiple conflicting and individually impossible goals, many political.

‘Keep the streets safe!’ ‘Stop scaring people away by standing around all the time when there is no trouble!’ ‘Enforce the law!’ ‘Don’t arrest grandma because she was driving drunk, you’re scaring the old people’

They pragmatically have to pick and choose what to do based on what actually works. If the DA won’t prosecute something, arresting someone for it is just a bunch of paperwork, time, and effort that doesn’t accomplish anything most of the time, so will get deprioritized.

Don't get me wrong: I empathize with not wanting to do parts of a job that feel pointless, but it's still not doing the job.

The city council, chief of police, and associated other folks elected to oversee and appoint them disagree, as does the electorate apparently, based on the recall election results.

If the police were refusing to do their jobs, ultimately it would be the city council held to account, and you’d see rather different types of political pressure being applied.

It seems instead that folks want a different DA.

How we got there and whatever finger pointing was happening and if it was justified is of course part of the debate we’re having.

There totally is such an ‘aww what’s the use’ exception by the way.

It’s called discretion. It’s also used to not arrest someone who may technically have committed a crime, but for when it would be a injustice/unfair/politically untenable to arrest them for it.

It’s not supposed to be abused of course, but people are people. It would be impossible and undesirable for them to no have it however, in real life. You’d end up with the worst of Barney fife type behavior at the best.

I don't want to defend the cops, but when the DA expressly states they aren't going to enforce certain laws, then its really not their job to arrest people for that anymore. At that point the DA has made is clear that its not a legitimate grounds for arrests even if the law is on the books.

> then its really not their job to arrest people for that anymore.

Did they quit? If they are still recieving a paycheck then it is quite literally still their job.

Instead of doing their job, the police decided to try to do the DA’s job, which is deciding which cases should be prosecuted.

If the cops aren't enforcing any law at all, then I'd agree they aren't doing their jobs.

But if they are doing the rest of their job, but not arresting people for crimes the DA won't charge, that is doing their full job.

I don't know how SF's chain of command is structured, but it would be unusual for the DA to be in there between the city council and SFPD leadership.

> the DA would refuse to prosecute

Yet the stats tell a different story as prosecution rates don't back that up.

So what actually happened is that the cops aggressively campaigned against this DA and then threw a hissy fit when the DA won and decided to stop doing their jobs and blame the DA for it.

Nope. A lot of high profile incidents with explicit statements from the DA disagree.

A friend of mine recently (lives in SF) had a mentally ill, homeless man try to set his dog on fire. Literally took out a lighter and tried to light him on fire while they were standing at a bus stop.

When called, the police did the right procedural things, but noted that since the animal had not been killed, it was unlikely any charges would likely be persued by the DA. They offered to call animal control however if he wanted, which they did.

The animal control officer related a recent situation where a mentally ill homeless man had picked up a small dog being walked by it’s owner, and had smashed it into a wall repeatedly. The dog needed to be euthanized. The DAs office declined to prosecute.

Theft and property damage has skyrocketed in SF recently as well. So that prosecutions stay flat doesn’t tell the proper story.

The DA in SF has always in recent memory been this way - it isn’t JUST Chesea, but boy does he seem to be a good example.

I'm not trying to defend the prosecution policies. I don't know what evidence the DA was presented with in those cases or how winnable they might be. I do think it is reasonable to place some of the responsibility for rising property crime rates on the DA.

That said, don't give the police a pass here. They have been actively hostile to the DA and spent a lot of money opposing this election. Their attempts to pass the buck to the DA for their failure to make arrests is a talking point that is part of their opposition to the DA. While the DA shares some blame for the rising property crime rates, the police share some blame for the lowered prosecution and conviction rates since the DA is dependent on the police to bring them strong, winnable cases.

In reality, I think that both the DA and the police should be held to account for letting politics interfere with their ability to work together to solve issues that are their joint responsibility and require cooperation. Unfortunately, it is harder to hold the police accountable than the DA.

> When called, the police did the right procedural things, but noted that since the animal had not been killed, it was unlikely any charges would likely be persued by the DA.

Did they arrest the attacker, gather sufficient evidence and refer the case to a prosecutor? Or did they assume the case wouldn't be prosecuted because that assumption made their job easier?

They didn’t bother wasting their time because the DA had made it clear in prior worse cases (with witnesses, including security camera footage) that they wouldn’t prosecute that class of crime.

> They didn’t bother wasting their time because the DA had made it clear in prior worse cases (with witnesses, including security camera footage) that they wouldn’t prosecute that class of crime.

So instead of doing their job, they tried to do the DA's job instead. If they had still made the effort, but warned you it was likely to go nowhere, that would be entirely reasonable. They had justification to arrest the individual and try to get them connected with mental health services even if the DA declined to prosecute.

Instead, the police showed up and blamed someone else for why they wouldn't do their jobs.

None of this is to defend the choices the DA made about prosecution, but those choices don't absolve the police of the responsibility to do their jobs.

Meh, this is a bad plan because they could be booking people, building stats, and busting out Willie Horton redux ads to get the politicians they want.

But they don’t do that, because maybe they really are lazy assholes.

That is the definition of refusing to do their job.