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Nearly 30 years after joining the San Francisco Police Department, Greg Suhr became the city’s top cop Wednesday when he was sworn in by San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee.
Suhr joined the department in June 1981 and has worked in a variety of positions, from captain of the Mission Station and deputy chief in charge of field operations to overseeing homeland security at the city’s Public Utilities Commission and, most recently, captain at the Bayview
Station.
Suhr, a fourth-generation San Franciscan, said following his swearing-in ceremony at City Hall Wednesday morning that it’s “a dream come true” and “the biggest honor” to head the Police Department of the city in which he grew up.
The selection of a permanent police chief caps off a period of upheaval in San Francisco that began in November when Mayor Gavin Newsom and District Attorney Kamala Harris were elected the state’s lieutenant governor and attorney general, respectively.
Before he left the mayor’s office in January, Newsom selected then-police Chief George Gascon to take over as district attorney.
Gascon’s second-in-command, Jeff Godown, served as interim chief in the meantime, while the Police Commission nominated three finalists for new Mayor Ed Lee to choose from.
After weeks of deliberation over the three choices — which included Suhr, another internal candidate and someone from outside the department — Lee decided on Suhr, who he said will be “a reformer from the inside out.”
Suhr has had his share of drama during his 30 years in the department. While serving as deputy chief, he was indicted in 2003 as part of an incident involving off-duty police officers that was dubbed “Fajita-gate,” but was cleared of the charge the next year.
In 2005, he was reassigned to the homeland security position with the SFPUC after an incident in which a police officer was seriously injured at an anarchist protest. Heather Fong, who was police chief at the time, said the reassignment was not related to that incident.
Lee said Wednesday that those “issues were vetted very, very thoroughly” before he was selected.
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Here’s a round-up of other Thursday news reports from around the Bay provided by the Bay City News bureau.
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A 25-year-old woman was murdered at her home in Newark late
Wednesday morning, and police have arrested a suspect in the killing, police
Cmdr. Robert Douglas said Wednesday afternoon.
Police received a report of someone “beating somebody up” at a
home at 36674 Cherry St. at 11:31 a.m., police said.
Officers arrived and found 33-year-old Jason Otis Monroe, of
Newark, outside the home with blood on his hands and clothes, Douglas said.
They looked inside the home and found the victim dead of possible
stab wounds.
Monroe was arrested on suspicion of murder and booked into jail.
Police have not released information about the relationship
between Monroe and the victim or the suspected motive for the killing. They
did say that the crime was not random and that the Monroe and the victim knew
each other.
They are withholding the victim’s name until her family has been
notified, Douglas said.
Police are holding a news conference about the killing Wednesday
afternoon.
Anyone with information on the case is asked to call Detective
Sgt. Michael Carroll at (510) 578-4247. Callers can also leave anonymous
messages at the “silent witness” hot line at (510) 578-4000 ext. 500.
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Jurors in the trial of Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey
IV heard a recording of his former girlfriend telling police that Bey gloated
about the shooting death of Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey in 2007.
In an taped interview with two Oakland police officers less than
48 hours after Bailey, 57, was gunned down the morning of Aug. 2, 2007, as he
walked to his job as editor of the Oakland Post, Sheavon Williams, 26, said
Bey asked her to watch a television report about Bailey’s death and said,
“That will teach them to (expletive) with us.”
Prosecutor Melissa Krum told jurors in her opening statement in
the triple-murder trial of Bey and bakery associate Antoine Mackey, both 25,
last month that she believes that Bey ordered that Bailey be killed because
he wanted to stop Bailey from publishing an article about the bakery’s
financial problems.
In late 2007, the bakery, which had been founded in 1968, went
bankrupt and closed its doors.
In her interview with police, Williams said that before Bailey was
killed she overheard Bey telling someone at the bakery that a reporter was
planning to write an article about the bakery’s bankruptcy proceedings.
“He wasn’t too happy about it,” Williams said.
Williams also said she overheard Bey speaking to someone on the
telephone about staking out a building and she overheard Bey talking to
Mackey at the bakery only hours before Bailey was killed.
Krum played Williams’ statement in court Wednesday because when
Williams testified last week she claimed that she didn’t remember Bey
bragging about Bailey’s death.
Oakland police Sgt. James Rullamas said Williams “was very
forthcoming” and “very pleasant” when she talked to him and an associate,
Sgt. Todd Crutchfield.
Rullamas, who has been with the Oakland Police Department for 19
years and has been investigating homicide cases for nearly 13 years, said
that compared to the interviews he has done in other cases, “this was really
a cordial interview.”
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A dispute over a video of last year’s trial on the
constitutionality of Proposition 8 was sent by a federal appeals court in San
Francisco Wednesday to the new trial judge assigned to the case.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered U.S. District Judge
James Ware to consider competing bids by Proposition 8 sponsors to keep the
video under wraps and by the measure’s opponents to unseal it.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court said the trial judge “has
the power to grant the parties all the relief they seek, should relief be
warranted” on either side.
Ware was assigned to the case after the original trial judge, U.S.
District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco, retired in February and
returned to private practice.
Walker held a non-jury trial in January on a civil rights lawsuit
in which two couples challenged Proposition 8, the state’s voter-approved ban
on same-sex marriage.
In August, he struck down the measure, saying that it violated the
U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of equal treatment and due process.
The sponsors of the 2008 initiative and their committee, Protect
Marriage, have appealed that ruling to the 9th Circuit.
Separately, the sponsors earlier this month asked the appeals
court to order the videotape of the trial sealed and to require Walker and
all parties in the case to return their copies to the court.
Lawyers for the plaintiff couples, the city of San Francisco and a
coalition responded by asking to have the tape made public.
In Wednesday’s order, a three-judge appeals panel said that while
Walker’s ruling on Proposition 8 is now before the circuit court, the trial
court still has jurisdiction over ancillary matters, or side issues, such as
the videotape dispute.
The video was originally intended for a pilot project in which the
trial was to be broadcast on closed-circuit television in five other
courthouses in four states and then released on a government channel on
YouTube.
But the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, blocked the plan,
saying that there had not been adequate time for public comment on a pilot
project.
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British expatriates and anglophiles in the Bay area are planning
to celebrate Friday’s highly anticipated royal wedding between Prince William
of Wales and Kate Middleton in style.
Cameron Palmer, owner of Cameron’s Restaurant, Pub and Inn, is
pulling out all the stops to ensure Half Moon Bay residents get the full
royal treatment.
He plans to open his pub in the early morning hours on Friday so
the public can watch the wedding at Westminster Abbey in London live but
Friday night is when the real party begins.
“People have royal wedding fever, there’s no doubt about it,”
Palmer said.
The festivities will feature a local British invasion band, a
guest book for partiers to sign, which Palmer intends to mail to the royal
couple, and a royal wedding cake.
There will be a ceremonial slicing of the imitation wedding cake
by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, impersonated by Palmer’s own
parents.
Palmer’s father is from Newcastle in England — which is why
patrons will always find Newcastle beer on tap — and said there are many
other British expatriates in the area who frequent his pub.
He attributes the area’s British occupation to similarities in
weather and coastline. “It reminds them of back home,” he said.
As a nod to the newlywed royal family, revelers with the first
name William will be treated to a pint of Guinness while those sharing
Elizabeth and Kate names will get a free glass of champagne, Palmer said.
Palmer said he would be liberal with the rules – even middle names
count. “But if a female walks in and says her name is William, I’m going to
be suspect,” he joked.
Palmer has even set aside a room in his inn, just in case the
royal couple wanted to “honeymoon in Half Moon,” he said.
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An insurance agent from Clayton has been sentenced in Alameda
County Superior Court in Hayward to three years and eight months in prison
for a scheme in which he defrauded six investors of $800,000.
Victor Weber, 55, was given the prison term by Judge Stuart Hing
on Friday and was also ordered to pay the victims $800,000 in restitution.
Weber pleaded guilty in December to three felony crimes: grand
theft by embezzlement, unlawful selling of a security and theft of fiduciary
funds.
Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said the fraud was
a sophisticated Ponzi scheme in which Weber solicited investments in a
specialized type of life insurance.
The insurance was known as STOLI, or Stranger Owned Life
Insurance. In these investments, a third party purchases a life insurance
policy from a policyholder who no longer needs to have the insurance benefits
available to his heirs.
An example is the situation in which a parent outlives his
children, O’Malley said. The investor takes over the payments and eventually
receives the insurance benefits when the policyholder dies. The procedure is
legal in the absence of fraud.
O’Malley said Weber took the money from investors between 2006 and
2009 and told them he would use it for STOLI investments, but never bought
any life insurance policies and instead used the funds for personal and
business expenses.
In some cases, he employed the classic Ponzi scheme technique of
using money from new investors to pay returns to previous investors, O’Malley
said.
O’Malley’s office and the California departments of insurance and
corporations jointly carried out the investigation.
State Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said, “This former agent
used his license and position of trust to steal large sums of money from his
victims apparently for his own personal gain.
“This sentence should stand as a warning to those who think that
they can steal from consumers,” Jones said.
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If you pass by a PG&E building near San Francisco’s Main and
Mission streets this morning, do not be alarmed if you hear birds shrieking
above you.
That sound is just Dapper Dan and Diamond Lil, the parents of
three baby peregrine falcons that nest on the ledge of the 33rd floor of the
building at 77 Beale St. Loud noises are their way of trying to ward off
University of California, Santa Cruz biologist Glenn Stewart as he attaches
bands to the baby birds’ legs.
“I’m trying to learn three things,” Stewart said. “How long they
live, nest site tenacity, and — probably the most interesting thing —
dispersal, or how far they go from their nest.”
Dapper Dan and Diamond Lil have been residing at the Beale Street
building for four years, while other peregrine falcons have been nesting
there since 2004, and biologists are still not sure why, Stewart said.
What they do know is that this particular nesting couple and their
three babies, or eyases, who are 21 to 23 days old, are extremely popular
with the public.
“They’re cute, white, little fluffballs right now,” PG&E spokesman
Joe Molica said.
Stewart estimates that about half a million viewers tune in each
week to watch the birds via a live camera on the university’s website, making
it the school’s most regularly watched site.
Peregrine falcons are predatory birds that eat other birds caught
in midair. They can dive at speeds of up to 200 mph, Stewart said.
The number of falcons in California had dwindled to only two
nesting pairs in 1970. Now, thanks in large part to programs in which
biologists bred the birds in captivity and released them, researchers
estimate that there are about 250 nesting pairs in the state.
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An Oakland high school teacher has been chosen to train with the
nation’s best and brightest in aerospace research as part of NASA’s Explorer
Schools program.
Christopher Freeze is a full-time flight instructor and part-time
teacher at Oakland Aviation High School. He teaches two classes to about 50
students who are mostly freshmen.
Freeze learned about NASA’s new educational program —
classroom-based curriculums intended to make science, technology, engineering
and mathematics, or STEM, courses engaging to students — and decided to try
it out in his own classes.
“I’ve always been on the periphery on NASA and always looking for
new ways to integrate materials and get the material to the kids,” Freeze
said.
NASA’s program provided a syllabus, worksheets and online
professional development, he said. Freeze incorporated the lab-like lessons
into his classes, Aerospace Meteorology and Line Up with Math.
“It made things more interesting, not just lectures and videos,”
Freeze said.
Freeze was one of over 1,000 teachers to take advantage of NASA’s
fledgling program and was successful in integrating the program into his
classes, according to the school.
Freeze was selected to take part in an all-expenses-paid, one-week
trip to NASA’s Glenn Research Center near Cleveland, Ohio as a result of his
success.
He will participate in a microgravity research project and develop
ways to recreate the project with his students, Freeze said.
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The Bay Area got mixed results in the American Lung Association’s
2011 State of the Air report released Wednesday.
The report contains data between 2007 and 2009.
All Bay Area counties stayed constant or showed improvement in
ozone pollution compared to 2010 data, except for Napa County which showed a
slight increase in unhealthy days, the report states.
All counties showed improvement in particulate pollution compared
to last year, except for Alameda and Solano counties, according to the
report.
Ozone pollution is from smog, created when heat and sun combine
with organic compounds and nitrogen oxides present in tailpipe emissions.
Ozone pollution improved in Alameda and Santa Clara counties between 2007 and
2009, according to the report.
Particulate pollution comes from diesel burning trucks, buses,
trains that transport goods, and from the Port of Oakland, the American Lung
Association’s regional air quality director Jenny Bard said.
Contra Costa, Solano and Santa Clara counties got an “F” grade for
ozone and particulate pollution, Bard said.
“Air pollution doesn’t know boundaries. “Their geography,
population and the prevailing winds are conducive to pollution there,” Bard
said.
Winds blowing in from the Pacific Ocean lift the Bay Area’s
coastal counties’ pollution into the valleys of those counties, and the
Sacramento and the San Joaquin valleys. Coastal counties have less ozone
pollution.
In winter, the particulate pollution in the cooler coastal
counties comes from wood burning stoves.
“A lot has to do with us being on the coast and having smaller
populations. We are still driving though and burning wood and out pollution
goes to other areas. We need to do more to reduce air pollution,” said Bard,
who is based in Santa Rosa.
Over the past decade, however, the Bay Area, reduced ozone
pollution 70 percent and particulate pollution by 60 percent, the American
Lung Association said.
Marin, Sonoma and San Francisco counties made the list of the
country’s cleanest counties regarding ozone pollution and Sonoma, Monterey
and Santa Cruz counties were among the cleanest counties in the country
regarding particulate pollution over a 24-hour period, Bard said.
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San Jose police have released the name of the man who was
allegedly strangled by his roommate at a residential care facility Tuesday
night following a confrontation earlier that day, police said.
Officers found 24-year-old Jeffrey Wong unconscious at around 7:30
p.m. at the converted home where he lived in the 1800 block of St. Andrews
Place.
Wong was later pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.
An employee of the facility informed officers of a confrontation
that had allegedly occurred earlier that day between Wong and his roommate,
28-year-old Alex Nakayama, police said.
Nakayama was booked into Santa Clara County Jail. The motive
remains under investigation.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call
police at (408) 277-5283 or the anonymous tip line at (408) 947-7867.
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Two Fairfield men were arrested early Wednesday morning on
suspicion of stealing copper wire from Benicia Middle School, a police
lieutenant said.
Police responded to an alarm at the school at 1100 Southampton
Road around 1:30 a.m., Lt. Mike Daley said.
Cpl. Jeff Harris discovered damage to electrical boxes, including
a missing lid and cut wires near the school’s softball fields, Daley said.
Officer Jake Heinemeyer and K-9 “Jazz” found James Forrest Bell,
38, and Michael Lloyd Edwards, 26, hiding in some bushes nearby, Daley said.
A school employee determined that copper wire had been stolen, but
police didn’t find the wire, Daley said.
Bell and Edwards admitted to damaging the electrical boxes and
cutting some of the wire in an attempt to steal it but they said that had not
actually taken any wiring, Daley said.
Both men were booked into Solano County Jail on charges of felony
grand theft, vandalism, conspiracy to commit a crime and a misdemeanor charge
of possession of burglary tools.
Edwards initially provided a false name and was also booked on
that felony charge and for violating his probation, Daley said.
He was wanted on Solano County warrants for another felony
probation violation and for misdemeanor reckless driving, according to Daley.
Police did not find any wires in a Nissan the two men had parked
at a nearby apartment complex, Daley said.
Daley said copper thefts are on the rise and that thieves from
other cities are targeting sites in Benicia.
Middle school officials estimated the incident caused $1,200 in
damage to the wires and $400 in damage to the electrical boxes, Daley said.
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A surfer was found unconscious in the waters off of San
Francisco’s Ocean Beach Wednesday afternoon, a fire department spokeswoman
said.
The male surfer was spotted floating in the water at about 1 p.m.
by someone who brought him into shore, called 911 and started doing CPR, San
Francisco fire Lt. Mindy Talmadge said.
Paramedics responded and took the surfer to the University of
California, San Francisco Medical Center, Talmadge said. She did not know his
condition.
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The San Francisco Bay Area is expected to be mostly cloudy this
morning, but become sunny by the afternoon hours. Highs in the 60s and west
winds from 10 to 20 mph are also anticipated.
Wind speeds are forecast to increase to 20 to 30 mph later in the
day.
The Bay Area is expected to be mostly clear and breezy tonight.
Lows in the mid 40s and west winds of 20 to 30 mph are also anticipated.
Skies are expected to be sunny on Friday, accompanied by highs in
the mid to upper 60s and northwest winds from 10 to 20 mph.
Patricia Decker, Bay City News
Patricia Decker, Bay City News
