Capt. Sandra Tong: Police Beat

On March 16, the Richmond District Community/Police Forum, Friends of Sutro Park, Coalition to Save Ocean Beach, Senior Action Network, WALK San Francisco, Planning Association for the Richmond and the North Park Neighbors hosted a community meeting to discuss "Traffic Calming on Fulton Avenue."

With the assistance of all the community groups, this meeting was well attended. Nick Carr, from the SF Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT), outlined ideas for a traffic-calming program. Supervisors McGoldrick and Ma participated in this meeting, as well as the city health and transportation departments.

There were many concerns raised by local residents regarding short and long-term goals that need to be explored. There was a general consensus that traffic enforcement by the police needs to be increased. I have made every attempt to increase police visibility and traffic enforcement along this corridor by requesting assistance from the Traffic Company, as well as assigning a traffic car for each watch.

However, this is only part of the solution. The group discussion also focused on a need for community education. It will be a vital component to educate motorists and pedestrians that live and commute through the Richmond District that we all need to obey the speed limit, respect pedestrian right-of-ways and all other traffic laws.

Unfortunately, there was not enough time to address all concerns, but I am encouraged that everyone who attended the meeting agreed that our community needs to collaborate on addressing the issue of traffic calming on Fulton Street, as well as throughout our district.

We need to reduce the number of cars on our streets by promoting public transportation. We need to explore options to finance the goals we want to achieve. We need to assess short-term solutions that DPT could assist us with. We need to take the passion and enthusiasm that was expressed at the meeting and set the wheels in motion to organize our efforts.

A follow up meeting was scheduled for Tuesday, March 30. There will be a summary of this meeting in next month's column. However in the near future, we will be turning to each and every one of you to get involved and join a working committee.

Rash of Residential Burglaries
There was a rash of residential burglaries in March in the Lake Street neighborhood. Latent fingerprints were obtained from several homes and the SFPD's Burglary Detail is working with the district attorney's office to resolve the cases as expeditiously as possible.

Some of the burglaries showed no signs of forced entry. Let me take this opportunity to remind everyone to make sure you secure your residences before leaving. If you have alarms, turn them on, as an alarm doesn't do anyone any good if it's not activated. Lastly, if you see or hear anything that seems suspicious, don't hesitate to call the police and we'll investigate your report.

Officer Lorie Brophy was patrolling the Richmond District when she saw what she thought was a scuffle outside of the M&K Market at Eighth Avenue and Anza Street. The proprietor, however, was attempting to detain a shoplifting suspect.

As it turned out, Brophy stumbled onto a team of four suspects who have been hitting stores throughout San Francisco neighborhoods. The suspects enter a business and create a disturbance to distract the storeowner or clerk so other suspects can steal money from the cash register. Two of the suspects were apprehended at the scene and two were apprehended later that day elsewhere in the City.

The next Richmond District Community/Police Forum will be held Tuesday, April 20, at 1 p.m. at Richmond Station. The guest speaker will be from the SF Department of Health.

Capt. Sandra Tong is the commanding officer at the Richmond Police Station.