OPINION: The San Francisco Police Officers Association has its roots in a much whiter and more conservative San Francisco, which began to change when a group of Black cops, called Officers for Justice, sued the POA to integrate the force in 1973 and won.
The San Francisco Police Officers Association has its roots in a much whiter and more conservative San Francisco, which began to change when a group of Black cops, called Officers for Justice, sued the POA to integrate the force in 1973 and won.
Police unions like the POA, in San Francisco and elsewhere, have long played two roles: collective bargaining and negotiating contracts for police officers; and espousing reactionary pro-police positions aimed at undermining any effort to have meaningful civilian oversight of the police. The strike coincided with a very heated campaign for mayor and may have helped the candidacy of conservative law-and-order candidate Barbagelata — who surged past the more centrist, and more heavily favored, Dianne Feinstein — to land a spot in the runoff. Barbagelata then lost the runoff to George Moscone who campaigned on, among other things, a commitment to hold police accountable for mistreatment of San Franciscans, particularly those who were racial minorities or gay.
In the days and weeks before White left the Board of Supervisors in early November, the board was preparing to vote on a federal consent decree that would have forced the San Francisco Police Department to integrate. The Officers for Justice had won their case and the federal government was pushing the force to substantially accelerate its hiring of non-white police officers.
Nonetheless, in the 1990s, the POA still stuck to its reactionary views around policing. For example, in a lengthy 1995 apologia for the Los Angeles police officers who beat Rodney King that appeared in the POA Journal, Greg Meyer suggested the problem was that King was not subdued quickly enough.
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