THEN & NOW: May 19th news from 5, 10, and 20 years ago

“San Francisco Police Chief Resigns After Fatal Police Shooting“

San Francisco police Chief Greg Suhr has resigned following today’s fatal officer-involved shooting in the city’s Bayview District, Mayor Ed Lee said today. Lee said in a news conference at City Hall late this afternoon that he asked for Suhr’s resignation after a 27-year-old woman in a stolen vehicle was shot and killed by a police sergeant this morning, the third fatal officer-involved shooting in San Francisco since December. The mayor, who publicly supported Suhr following the previous two shootings, said “Today I have arrived at a different conclusion about how best to move forward.”

Lee has appointed Tony Chaplin, former head of the department’s homicide detail, as interim chief and said he will work with the city’s Police Commission on a search for a new permanent chief. He said the recent fatal police shootings, including that of Mario Woods in the Bayview in December and Luis Gongora in the Mission District in April, “have forced our city to open its eyes” about how officers use lethal force. “This has never been about personality or politics, it’s been about performance,” Lee said. Work on reforms to the department following the shootings “were not fast enough, not for me and not for Greg,” Lee said.

The mayor said Suhr, who took over as chief in 2011 and has been with the Police Department for 33 years, is “a true public servant and he’ll always have respect from me.” He said Chaplin, the new interim chief, has served in the department for 26 years and has an “established record of commitment to the city’s diverse communities.” Chaplin before today was serving as deputy chief in charge of the department’s Professional Standards and Principled Policing Bureau.

Today’s shooting of an apparently unarmed woman occurred after officers spotted a stolen vehicle around 9:45 a.m. on Elmira Street in the Bayview District. The officers attempted to make a traffic stop, but the driver attempted to drive away. She made it only a short distance away on before she crashed, striking a truck, according to police. The officers got out of their vehicle and attempted to detain the woman. A witness told police that as the officers were trying to detain her, she was trying to drive the vehicle forward and backward. One of the officers, a sergeant whose name has not yet been released, fired a single shot that struck the woman, who was taken to San Francisco General Hospital and died there. The names of the woman and the sergeant who shot her have not yet been released.

“Oakland Coliseum Board Considers Extending A’s Lease“

The board that oversees the Oakland Coliseum complex voted unanimously today to begin discussions with the Oakland Athletics about extending the baseball team’s lease at the coliseum. Alameda County Supervisor Gail Steele, who chairs the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority, said the vote is just a formality because city and county leaders already have been “in constant touch” with the A’s about extending their lease. But Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, the board’s vice chair, said extending the A’s lease has taken on a new urgency because the team is seriously looking at moving to Fremont when its lease expires. The board appointed Steele and De La Fuente to talk with the A’s. The first formal talks are scheduled for May 31.

The A’s lease at the coliseum expires at the end of the 2007 season with three one-year options that could keep the team there through the 2010 season. Coliseum Authority Executive Director Ann Haley said the A’s would like to have an additional three option years. Under that scenario, the A’s would be locked into staying at the coliseum through 2010 with the option of staying there through 2013. The A’s didn’t send anyone to today’s meeting. Reached by phone in his office a few hundred yards from the meeting site, A’s spokesman Jim Young said of the possible lease extension, “It’s in our mutual interest to make sure it happens.” Young said extending the lease at the coliseum would give the A’s more time to look at building a baseball-only stadium somewhere and is “a comfort matter more than anything.”

The coliseum is used both by the A’s and the Oakland Raiders football team. Young confirmed that the A’s are still in discussions with Fremont officials about moving the team there at some point down the road, stating, “That’s where our focus is now.” Oakland City Councilman Larry Reid, a coliseum authority board member, said, “We need to plan for the eventuality of the A’s leaving” in terms of making sure the coliseum has enough tenants to remain financially stable. “If we have another three years or another five years, we need to plan now,” Reid said. He said, “We need to be real.” But De La Fuente said he thinks there’s a good chance the A’s will stay in Oakland because “there are a lot of hurdles in Fremont” before a new stadium can be built there, such as transportation and environmental concerns.