Protesters cut short questioning of San Francisco mayor over drug crisis

SAN FRANCISCO — Protesters cut short a unprecedented outside assembly of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Tuesday the place the board president had deliberate to query Mayor London Breed on her management’s reaction to the crisis of brazen open-air drug dealing.

Board President Aaron Peskin moved the primary section of the board’s weekly assembly to a plaza within the Tenderloin group close to City Hall, the place rampant dealing and drug use happen. He requested the mayor if she would decide to putting in an emergency operations heart and coordinate departments to close down “public drug dealing” in open websites similar to within the plaza inside 90 days.

But heckling and chants of “no more cops” from the huge crowd had been so loud that Peskin moved the assembly again to City Hall sooner than the mayor may just resolution. Breed didn’t resolution Peskin’s query without delay after the assembly reconvened indoors.

The fentanyl crisis has hit all of California, together with San Francisco. In April, Gov. Gavin Newsom despatched within the California Highway Patrol and California National Guard to lend a hand crack down on drug traffickers within the town as overdose deaths have soared.

Breed has clashed with individuals of the board who say extra police and arrests don’t seem to be find out how to remedy town’s drug crisis. She declared a three-month emergency over the drug crisis within the Tenderloin in 2021, and just about a yr later vowed any other crackdown on medicine within the low-income group, however little has modified.

Breed has stated that the usage of medicine in public isn’t appropriate and that repeat offenders want to take the lend a hand presented or face penalties.

“We can’t keep speaking out of both sides of our mouth. On the one hand, we want change and we want to hold people accountable,” Breed stated sooner than the assembly was once moved. “And on the other hand, we’re willing to let people get away with murder.”

Peskin stated it was once no longer a question of sources, however coordination. He agreed with the mayor that the issue isn’t a brand new one, “but it is one that has become so visible that many San Franciscans do not feel safe.”

San Francisco’s downtown core, of which the U.N. Plaza is a component of, has no longer bounced again from the pandemic as different towns have. Tech staff have opted to paintings remotely, decreasing foot visitors that supported downtown retail outlets.

After supervisors left U.N. Plaza, a girl threw a brick at a bunch of highschool scholars sporting flags for the assembly and struck a lady. A 26-year-old San Francisco lady was once booked on accusations of kid endangerment and attack with a dangerous weapon, stated San Francisco officer Robert Rueca. The minor was once no longer critically harm.

The mayor seems at board conferences as soon as a month to reply to questions from supervisors.