SFDA Boudin Reassures Community Safety, Notes Accomplishments In Virtual Town Hall

By Alana Bleimann 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin hosted his monthly virtual town hall here, answering 13 community member’s questions surrounding Asian American hate crimes, the processes of arrest and parole, ways to deter crime, and the DA’s own accomplishments thus far.

Moderated by the Chief of Staff David Campos, the town hall opened with discussion about the different roles that law enforcement agencies hold in the city.

Boudin made it clear that laws are written by the state legislature and/or the board of supervisors, but things do get more complicated after a crime gets processed.

“When someone commits a burglary we don’t know about it until someone reports it,” Boudin said, noting that when people report a crime, the police investigate, not the DA’s office.

Only after an arrest is done that the case is presented to the DA’s office and then they are able to get involved, he explained, adding that in the cases that are presented to the office, there is a team of lawyers that consider if there is enough evidence to file a criminal charge in a short window of time, usually 48 hours.

“It is a steeper burden to prove that a crime is true,” Boudin stated, adding that in most cases that police bring to the office, “we file new criminal charges…sometimes we ask the police to go back and do more investigation” such as DNA and witness statements.

Additionally, judges dismiss cases and charges, and “Judges are ultimately the ones who make the decision if someone is in jail or not,” Boudin said, explaining, if it’s a nonviolent or low-level offense, the arrest will be referred to a parole or supervisor agency, who “have a wide range of tools…that we don’t have.”

Many community members brought concerns about the Asian American community to the forefront of the conversation.

“This is an issue that we are seeing in San Francisco and across the country,” Boudin said, as he acknowledged that there is a rise in hate speech and racism, but one cannot be prosecuted on these actions alone.

But there is also misinformation about what constitutes a hate crime as not all hateful speech constitutes a hate crime, Boudin said, noting that to have a hate crime you need a crime and evidence that the police bring that the motivation for the crime was based solely on the identity of the victim.

“If we can prove beyond any reasonable doubt….for why the victim was attacked or robbed….then we can charge a hate crime,” Boudin said, adding that if it can’t be proven what motivated the crime or there is more than one motivation, then the underlying illegal act is charged.

In the “tragic and heinous” killing of a San Francisco Thai man, Vicha Ratanapakdee, for example, “we charged that case of murder” because there was no evidence of the motivation of the act, Boudin stated.

Boudin said the video of the murder of Ratanapakdee spreading through the media “is so devastating…my heart breaks every time I think about the suffering and pain his family is going through.”

Currently, he said, the defendant is being held in jail pending trial and “steps to do whatever we can to keep the AAPI community safe” will be taken.

When asked about the incident from the New York Times, Boudin allegedly called the incident a “temper tantrum.” The DA used this opportunity to state that these words were not spoken in relation to the Ratanapakdee murder, but rather an incident that happened a few days prior.

“I was describing something prior to the attack where the defendant hit a car,” Boudin explained, “whatever words I used….been twisted by other media outlets…I want to be very clear about our actions that speak louder than words….we take this case very seriously…immediately charged as murder…those are our actions.”

Regardless, “the DAs’ office does not undermine the severe gravity of this crime.”

One community member then asked about deterrence, specifically how to deter crime in the city on a local and personal level.

Boudin acknowledged that these challenges are not unique to the city of San Francisco, but are achievable.

He urged the audience to make use of social media, as through apps such as Twitter, many crimes are seen more often than they were five or 10 years ago, noting data available is more now and it “is important to remember” as “crime is actually down in robbery and assault….by double digits” since Boudin’s first day in office.

The media tends to play a large role in the perception of crime, even though the data does not represent this, he said.

Some crimes are up like commercial and residential burglaries, but this is true across the whole country, Boudin explained. “Because we see lots of examples of high profile crimes in the news, we believe that crime is going up,” he stated.

Boudin hopes that “as we re-open and go back….that people will begin to feel safer and the perception will catch up with the data.”

Then, he addressed tough on crime rhetoric that he is allegedly not participating in.

“Since I took office, we have actually increased the rate of filing of new criminal cases against people who are arrested repeatedly…there is a lot of misinformation out there suggesting we don’t consider someone’s prior history or that most crime in San Francisco is being driven by repeat arrestees,” Boudin said.

The outliers, in fact, have caught people’s attention and have “been turned into high profiles.”

“I know that we need to do more to provide the kind of monitoring…to ensure that when people are arrested and released pending trial…that they don’t go on to re-offend,” he said.

The DA then reassured listeners that those who commit any act of robbery will be prosecuted and charges will be set. Corner stores such CVS and Walgreens “are anchors in our society,” Boudin stated.

A community member then raised concern for the newly funded fentanyl task force and how it will operate.

With the new task force, the tough policies put in place by the War on Drugs will be stripped,” the DA said, explaining the new force “takes a different approach with leading not with lock up and throw key away mentality…but with a public health approach.”

The force will include lawyers who can help work on policy change and social workers who can focus on alternative sentencing planning.

“If our requests…are funded…it will bring us back to the staffing levels we had before I took office….allow us to hire staff that have training skills in language skills and public policy,” Boudin claimed.

The DA wrapped up the town hall by providing listeners a grocery list of things that have been accomplished during his time in office.

“It’s been a tough first year or so,” he started, “we faced challenges that I never could have anticipated.”

To begin, the DA promised to end money bail and replace it with risk based assessment tools – this was implemented within his first month in office.

Additionally, the office has taken police accountability seriously by filing three criminal charges against SF police officers who used force against unarmed Black men.

“That [police accountability] is hard work, it is slow work…that has enraged the SF police department,” Boudin stated, “they [police] have a desire to defend the indefensible.”

Boudin has also worked to increase victims’ resources, has closed County Jail #4, and is expanding toxicology testing for sexual assault cases.

His top priority this year is getting SF courts open again, he said, adding, “I want to be able to move forward in clearing a massive backlog of cases.”

Alana Bleimann is a junior at the University of San Francisco majoring in Sociology with a minor in Criminal Justice Studies. She is from Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the team leader on the Chesa Boudin Recall – Changing the Narrative Project.

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