Police Bias the Focus at LGBT Club Meeting

On May 11, San Francisco police Sergeant Yulanda Williams was pulled over.

Williams lives on the north slope of Potrero Hill. It's the majority white half of a sharply divided neighborhood, and Williams is black. That seemed to be the only reason she was pulled over while driving her Mercedes near her home. Williams said she waited for the cop to get out of his car and begin to approach her before taking out her badge and holding it up to the window. She says the officer didn't give any reason for the stop. He just said, "Sorry, Sarge. I didn't know that was your car."

"Young man, I don't think you know all the cars I do have," was her reply.

Even if Williams had been spared that act of racial profiling that day, she still would have had plenty to say when she spoke later that night at a panel on race and law enforcement at a meeting of the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club. As president of the local organization Officers for Justice-Peace Officers Association, a group representing African American officers, Williams has focused on diversifying the police department for decades. And she herself was attacked as part of a series of racist text messages sent by San Francisco police officers that were revealed in March. The texts made several references to Ku Klux Klan-style violence and disparaged women and LGBT people. Williams was insulted by name in the texts.

"The things that are going on in the police department right now are systemic. It's a culture that has tolerated racism, sexism, and every other -ism for the last 150 to 200 years," Williams said at the panel.

But after scandals like "Textgate" and the power of the Black Lives Matter movement, she said, "there's a realization that we have to be held far more accountable."

"It's a conglomeration of everything," Williams said. SFPD "realized that they can't talk their way out of this one and that it's not going to go away."

Panelist Susan B. Christian, a lesbian who is an assistant district attorney and chair of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, also commented on law enforcement's issues as an institution.

"It's difficult sometimes to be a part of a system that has so many problems," she said. "Systemic problems, hidden problems."

Christian is currently working against these systemic problems with a program addressing individual bias. She led the effort to begin an implicit bias training program for city employees. The first training took place April 1, and about 50 department heads attended, including police Chief Greg Suhr. Another session, specifically for high-ranking police, was held May 5.

Christian said the training addresses not just racial bias, but a long list of different types of biases, including homophobia and transphobia.

"It's about bias. It's not limited to race, gender, sexual orientation," Christian said.

Two more training dates are scheduled as part of the pilot, which will be over in July.

After that, Christian said, "My goal is for it to be mandatory training for all city employees in an ongoing way," - but she expects a fight, Christian said. "I don't want it watered down."

Meanwhile, Williams has faced a fight in recent work with the Officers for Justice.

"We have attempted to collaborate with each police employee group. The San Francisco Police Officers Association, the Pride Alliance, the Asian Police Officers Association, the Latino Police Officers Association, etc.," Williams said.

"In doing so, our attempts have been fragmented," she said. "I clearly see that it's been by design."

She also talked about Not on My Watch, a program to encourage police who see corruption and racism to come forward.

It's one of many current efforts to exorcise policing in San Francisco. The district attorney's office is currently reviewing 3,000 cases that involved the 14 officers involved in the text messages to investigate whether bias influenced those cases - it says it will also "evaluate whether there is a deeper culture of bias at the SFPD, and what the impact of such bias may be on prosecutions made by the district attorney's office."

And on April 30, Mayor Ed Lee announced a budget plan for several reforms, including $21.3 million to hire 250 more cops and $6.6 million to fund police body cameras.

This increased spending on the police department is at odds with some demands associated with Black Lives Matter, including the "repurposing of law enforcement funds to support community-based alternatives to incarceration."

The implicit bias training could help, said Thea Matthews, president of the City College of San Francisco Black Student Union and a student activist who has been involved in Black Lives Matter.

"I think it's definitely a step in the right direction, in terms of accountability in the police force," Matthews said. But the program's success will be in the details.

"Will there be any ramifications if people fail to uphold what is supposed to be achieved by going through this program?" Matthews said.

Shaun Haines, a member of the Alice club and a Democratic Party delegate who has been involved in the local Black Lives Matter movement, also spoke on the panel. He said that he wants to see policy changes that address racial disparities in housing and jobs.

The panel gave Haines and other Alice club members a glimpse into how the city's criminal justice system is reacting to scandals and grassroots movements that lay bare systemic racism in the police department. Haines said events like these are useful, and mentioned a panel that featured local Black Lives Matter organizers, held by the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club in January.

"I haven't noticed any other Democratic clubs getting out there, speaking about Black Lives Matter. It would be nice to see more," Haines said.