Sheriff’s Department and SFPD unveil new partnership to protect Chinatown
Less than a month of assuming office, the first Asian American Sheriff of San Francisco is lending his hands to help protect Chinatown.
In a joint announcement with San Francisco Police Department(SFPD), Paul Miyamoto, the newly sworn-in Sheriff, pledged to deploy four to six foot-beat patrol officers to Chinatown per day for the remaining Lunar New Year time period.
“We are looking forward to working with the Police Department in order to make sure everybody is safe here in the community”, Miyamoto told a group of Chinese reporters in front of the Central Police Station located in Chinatown. “This is a new plan for us”.
Bilingual service is also promised by Miyamoto, who is half Chinese and half Japanese but not fluent in Asian languages. “The staffs that are already been designated by us are able to speak Cantonese and Mandarin, so that they will be able to communicate more easily with the residents and the community members”.
Six foot-beat officers, overseen by SFPD, are on-duty in Chinatown on regular days. With the additional staffing from the Sheriff’s Department, the total patrolling officers will be up to 12. They will be differently-uniformed.
This partnership will last about ten days and end on Feb. 10, right after the Chinese New Year Parade.
Fear of being criminally targeted has been swirling around San Francisco’s Chinese community, after a series of violent attacks and robbery incidents in 2019. However, Captain Robert Yick of Central Police Station denied there’s a rising risk of crimes in Chinatown now.
“It’s really just my thought of we re-deploy our officers for the holidays”, said Yick, who requested the assistance from Sheriff’s Department. “The thinking was now that we have more events, more people down in Chinatown.”
Yick also revealed that the patrolling officers will work in extended hours in Chinatown to “ensure the public feel safer”, especially the merchants and the residents.
Both of the law enforcement agencies were expressing the interest of making this pair-up patrolling effort more permanent if budgets allow. “We will make sure that we are going to provide the resources while at the same time, not incurring too much cost to the city”, said Miyamoto.
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This story was originally published in Chinese language by the World Journal on Feb. 1, 2020.
