Hennessy Easily Wins Sheriff's Race

Vicki Hennessy trounced San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi in Tuesday's election, ending a bumpy tenure for the incumbent.

Hennessy, a former interim sheriff and retired deputy captain, received 61.1 percent of the vote as of Wednesday morning, easily defeating Mirkarimi, who had 32.9 percent, according to unofficial returns. The race was called by 10 p.m. Tuesday, although there are still some ballots to be counted. John C. Robinson, a retired sheriff's deputy, trailed far behind, at 5.9 percent.

At her election party at the South of Market restaurant Don Ramon's Tuesday night, after her victory had become clear, Hennessy, the city's first female sheriff, said she planned to take a vacation, "then hopefully work on a transition plan."

The sheriff's department is primarily responsible for overseeing the jails, but also performs other duties, such as security in courtrooms and San Francisco General Hospital.

Hennessy said another priority would be to check the status of various initiatives, including the changes for transgender inmates in the city's jail that Mirkarimi has been working on.

He recently announced plans to expand educational and other programming for trans inmates and house them based on their gender identity rather than the sex they were assigned at birth, meaning transgender women would no longer be housed with men in jail.

Hennessy supports the changes, but has said Mirkarimi should have done more to get buy-in from staff.

"It's hard to say" when the policy update would be completely in place without knowing exactly how far along the process is, Hennessy said Tuesday.

Implementing changes in the policy "definitely will be on the front burner," she added.

At his party at the Mission district eatery Puerto Alegre Number 2, Mirkarimi expressed gratitude for his "awesome supporters" and said there was "a really heartfelt congregation of people here tonight."

There's been some question as to whether his plan for housing transgender inmates has been finalized.

"It is on my end," Mirkarimi said, although meetings with union representatives are ongoing.

He expects the process will be finished by the time Hennessy takes office in January, and he said he and his supporters would "continue to advocate" for it "during my administration and beyond."

Mirkarimi, who was a supervisor for eight years before he was sheriff, didn't say what he's going to do next.

His defeat this week wasn't a surprise.

He had been embroiled in controversy since just after he was elected to the sheriff's post in November 2011.

Mirkarimi, who pleaded guilty in 2012 to a false imprisonment charge stemming from a fight with his wife, Eliana Lopez, escaped being officially removed from office when four Board of Supervisors members voted in October 2012 not to sustain Mayor Ed Lee's official misconduct charges against him. He won a judge's order this spring to expunge his conviction from his record. Lee, who according to preliminary results easily won his re-election bid this week, had appointed Hennessy to serve as interim sheriff while his case against Mirkarimi was pending.

Even after city supervisors allowed him to keep his job, Mirkarimi's troubles continued.

Making international headlines was the killing in July of a woman on a city pier, allegedly by a man in the country illegally who had been released from custody by the sheriff's department after a long ago drug possession charge against him was dismissed. Due to the city's sanctuary city policy, the sheriff's department released the individual without alerting federal immigration authorities, a decision that came under blistering criticism from Lee and other officials.

There were also personal lapses, including Mirkarimi not passing a firearms test so that he can carry a gun, and his driver's license being suspended after a minor accident in a city vehicle.

At Hennessy's party Tuesday, supporter Mauri Schwartz expressed relief at Mirkarimi's defeat.

Now, "there's an adult in the room," said Schwartz, who's straight and didn't want her age published.

Matthew Rivette, 56, who worked in the sheriff's department for 26 years before retiring, said, "I'm so happy for our city to have a good sheriff," and he predicted there would be "no scandals" with Hennessy in charge.

Referring to the transgender policy, Rivette, who's gay, said, "The housing issue is going to be very tricky." He expressed concern that female-to-male trans inmates who choose to be placed with male prisoners "could end up being raped." (The jail population generally sees few male transgender inmates).

Despite his concerns, Rivette was confident that Hennessy would "come up with something."

Gay resident Tom Taylor, 51, said he was "disappointed" at Mirkarimi's defeat but it had been "a community-driven campaign with loyal supporters that came and worked for us every day. ... I'm sure there will be a silver lining and other opportunities for the sheriff."