San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr has stepped down at the request of the city’s mayor after a fatal officer-involved shooting Thursday and a series of scandals that have rocked the department over the a year ago.
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San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr has resigned following a shooting by San Francisco police officers.
Several SPFD officers sent racist and homophobic text messages between 2014 and late 2015, according to San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon.
Suhr could not be reached for comment Thursday evening.
Suhr said the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating Thursday’s shooting.
Mr Suhr renewed his call for reform on April 8 after an officer shot dead a Latino homeless man who police said refused orders to drop a large knife.
The news comes after a San Francisco police officer earlier Thursday shot dead an unarmed, 27-year-old black woman sitting behind the wheel of a stolen auto. Suhr said the woman was driving a stolen auto and refused officers’ commands to stop the vehicle.
The officers attempted to make a traffic stop, but the driver attempted to drive away.
The officers jumped out of the patrol vehicle and raced to the wreckage, where the woman was revving the vehicle in an effort to disengage the auto from the truck.
One incident that has drawn widespread attention – and criticism – is the fatal police shooting of Mario Woods in December.
The mayor and the chief had announced a series of reform aimed at reducing police shootings.
Previously, Lee had been staunch in his support of Suhr, saying as recently as last week that he would not ask Suhr to step down, but instead try to focus on efforts to reform the department.
Work on reforms to the department following the shootings “were not fast enough, not for me and not for Greg”, Lee said. “Not for me, and not for Greg”.
“Though the facts are still emerging, we know that this morning, a young woman of color was killed in an officer-involved shooting in the Bayview District”, he added.
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Four members of the city’s 11-member board of supervisors called for Suhr’s resignation on 11 May 2015, and he was the subject of frequent protest, including a 17-day hunger strike by a group of five local activists.
