Chinese community faces challenges of underrepresentation of future leaders in San Francisco Police Department

(SAN FRANCISCO) With new promotions and transfers announced in July, the Chinese community faces the challenges of lacking representation of the Chinese and Asian police officers, in particular the mid-level managers, for future leaders in the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD).

Police Chief William Scott, who came from the Los Angeles Police Department, has been on the job since January 2017. During the past six and half years, fewer Chinese and Asian police officers have been promoted to management positions.

The Chinese community is very concerned about the underrepresentation of future Chinese and Asian American leaders in the SFPD, while the population of the Chinese and Asian Americans is growing and the anti-Asian hate and violent incidents are still happening at an alarming level in the City.

Scott announced on July 7 internally a promotion list to the command staff and the transfers of mid-level management in the department. Denise Flaherty was promoted from Deputy Chief to Assistant Chief and Peter Walsh was promoted from Commander to Deputy Chief. Both promotions were effective on July 1. Flaherty and Walsh are white.

Julian Ng was promoted from Commander to Deputy Chief. Northern Station Captain Derrick Johnson and Ingleside Station Captain Derrick Lew were promoted to Commanders. Ng and Lew are Chinese Americans and Johnson is African American.

The Deputy Chief and Commander promotions for Ng, Lew and Johnson were effective on July 8. Ng becomes the highest ranking Chinese American police officer in SFPD and the first Chinese American Deputy Chief in two years since former Deputy Chief Greg Yee retired.

In the meantime, the number of Chinese American Captains has reduced to two and there have been only four Chinese American Lieutenants. Sergio Chin of Tenderloin Station is currently the only Chinese American Captain among all 10 stations in SFPD and Brien Hoo is a Night Captain.

Among four Chinese American Lieutenants, Kirk Yin, Kevin Lee, Conroy Tam and Alex Kwan, only Kwan is assigned to Tenderloin Station. Yin and Tam are assigned to the San Francisco Airport Bureau and Lee is assigned to the Records Unit. Yin and Lee are Mandarin and Cantonese speaking bilingual officers respectively.

The data showed that the number of Asian officers' promotions have been very low under Scott's administration. In November 2018, Scott announced one of his largest promotions within SFPD since he took the office. Only 3 Asian officers were promoted out of 66 promotions on three levels of rankings including Sergeants, Lieutenants and Captains. The Asian promotion rate was 4.5%, while the City’s Asian population was over 30% and the Asian officers at SFPD were 16.2%.

Sergio Chin was the only Chinese American officer to be promoted to the rank of Captain in 2018. Three Chinese American Lieutenants, Henry Yee, Christopher Woon and Alvin Yee, were skipped for promotions to Captains although they were on the list in 2018. No Chinese and Asian officers were promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. Two Asian officers, Chinese American Nathan Lee and Korean American Henry Ha, were promoted to the rank of Sergeants.

Currently only Tenderloin Station is managed by Chinese American Captain Sergio Chin and Lieutenant Alex Kwan among 10 police stations in the City.

The latest data released by SFPD indicated that fewer Asian officers have served at the department as of June 15, 2023. Compared to the data in December 2021, the number of white officers has reduced from 989 to 868 in June this year, Hispanic officers from 393 to 362, Asian officers from 361 to 329, African American officers from 195 to 163, Filipino officers from 131 to 119. The total number of sworn officers was down from 2108 in 2021 to 1878 in June 2023.

Scott and his office have not responded to Wind Newspaper's request for comment on the promotions and assignments for the Asian officers.

Ng said that he was honored to be promoted and would try his best in his new role as Deputy Chief to assign more Asian officers to the stations where serve the Asian neighborhoods.

Sergeant Culbert Chu, President of Asian Peace Officer Association (APOA), applauded the recent promotions of Ng and Lew on the command staff.

"Having worked with them since both were patrolmen, I know that Derrick and Julian are not only excellent choices to serve the community as members of the command staff, but they both also grew up in San Francisco and have the connection and understanding of the Asian communities throughout the City that only city kids have," said Chu who believed both of them would inspire future generations of young Asian men to seek careers in law enforcement.

Chu agreed that there has been a lack of representation of Asian officers in SFPD. "But it is no fault of the department. I believe Asian candidates have historically applied for this job at lower rates than the Asian demographics of the City. The department has been pushing for more Asian candidates to apply for the job for years now," Chu said he along with many other members of APOA have signed up to become part time recruiters to reach out and connect with more Asians to join SFPD.

Marlene Tran, Visitacion Valley leader and advocate of victims' rights, demanded more Asian officers assigned to the stations which serve a large population of Asian residents. "Language and culture barriers are the key factors and obstacles for many Chinese immigrants in the City seeking help when they are victimized," Tran said. "SFPD has a responsibility to deploy the Asian officers to the stations to meet the needs of the community."

Tran was concerned about the promotions for the Asian officers. "When the young generations see no career paths for them, there would be no incentives. They might not be interested in applying for the jobs in SFPD. It could explain why fewer Asians have served at SFPD all these years. In the long run we will have fewer Chinese and Asian leaders in SFPD to make decisions for our community."

In August 2022, Justin Zhu, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Stand with Asian Americans, spoke loudly in a town hall meeting which was hosted by the Asian groups on anti-Asian hate and violence to demand SFPD to promote more Asian officers to the top positions. Zhu also suggested the City to recruit more talented Asian law enforcement leaders nationwide to join SFPD.

"Congrats to Julian Ng on his well deserved promotion to Deputy Chief. More Asian Americans in SFPD leadership are needed to address the ongoing epidemic of anti-Asian violence — a 63 year-old Chinese woman was violently shoved from behind and killed just this week," said Zhu.

"SFPD continues to face a major staffing shortage — despite increased recruiting efforts, there are 157 fewer police officers today than a year ago,” Zhu added. “As Asian Americans are the largest group at nearly 40% — we are also the largest recruiting pool. We must redouble the investment in Asian American police officers, from new recruits to Chief level, in order to restore the safety that we deserve in San Francisco."