(NewsNation) — Following the recall of progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin ON Tuesday, a SF police board member made a promise that change is coming to the Bay area.
“I think what you saw was us getting on the right track about our reputation. Whoever comes in next, let it be known that we will prosecute you,” said Lt. Tracy McCray during Wednesday evening’s edition of “On Balance with Leland Vittert.”
McCray is vice president on the board of directors for the San Francisco Police Officers. In recent months, she has witnessed more people die in her city from fentanyl overdoses than COVID-19. She has seen burglaries jump by more than 45 percent, and an increase in homicide, while the DA focused more on treatment than imprisonment.
In a video posted to Twitter last year, Boudin said his office pursued diversion programs or agreed to lesser charges in many cases, such as “accessory after the fact,” because drug-dealing convictions disproportionality affected immigrants.
“A significant percentage of people selling drugs in San Francisco, perhaps as many as half, are here from Honduras,” Boudin said in a now-deleted tweet.
His policies and the way he ran the city are not only why the DA was recalled, but, according to McCray, will be the opposite of what they’re all looking for in his replacement.
“There are no backroom deals for criminals so they can continue doing what they were doing,” McCray said.
San Francisco Mayor, London Breed, who will appoint his successor, gave a statement after his recall, saying: “This does not mean that criminal justice reform is going anywhere. This does not mean that there will be all of a sudden a significant setback.”
But while that does not sound on par with what the Bay area law enforcement is looing for going forward, McCray insists justice reform and a tough-on-crime approach are not mutually exclusive.
“You can have someone held accountable and you can have criminal justice reform. They can coexist. People think you trade in one in for the other and you don’t,” McCray said Wednesday.
“People who commit violent crimes aren’t going to be sent to diversion programs for nonviolent people. That does not work. Those shenanigans will stop,” McCray said.
Ultimately McCray says Boudin’s recall is a fresh start but that laws like Prop 47— which reclassified certain theft and drug possession offenses from felonies to misdemeanors — should be next on voters’ list of changes to make in the city.
“It’s going to have to go to the voters to change that. Prop 47 is going to have to be reworked because we know it doesn’t work. It allows people to commit these crimes where businesses are still being targeted so people of the state are going to have to make tough choices. Do you want to hold people accountable or do you want them to rob, loot and steal unabated?” McCray said.
