Retired San Francisco Police Department Commander Paul Yep endorses Daniel Lurie for mayor

（SAN FRANCISCO) Retired San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Commander Paul Yep, a well-respected leader in law enforcement, publicly endorsed Daniel Lurie for mayor in the November 2024 election. Yep said San Francisco needed fresh and new leadership to make community members safe and feel safe.

After serving at SFPD for 28 years, Yep followed a significant number of former police officers to take early retirement in August 2023. Since he retired from the SFPD, Yep has served as Vice President of Academy of Art University in San Francisco overseeing lab resources and campus safety.

Yep was born in San Francisco Chinatown, grew up at Ping Yuen public housing and raised by a single parent. He has been one of the most respected and well-liked police officers in the Chinese community. He served as the station captain in three police stations including Central, Richmond and Northern Stations.

During his tenure as the Central Station Captain, Yep created a Sergeant position to oversee Chinatown and assigned most Chinese American beat officers to patrol the Chinatown neighborhood.

As of February 25, 42 candidates filed declarations with the Department of Elections to show their intentions to run for the Mayor of San Francisco in November 2024. Among the several dozen mayoral candidates, Supervisor Ahsha Safai, former Mayor and Supervisor Mark Farrell, and philanthropist Daniel Lurie are considered as major candidates to challenge incumbent candidate London Breed.

The latest poll conducted by the San Francisco Chronicle during February 14-18 this year of 812 residents indicated that Farrell and Lurie both received most support of 17% among Asian voters, Farrell had 20% support from all voters and Lurie had 16% from all voters.

While Mayor Breed received 10% support by Asian voters and 18% support by all voters, Supervisor Safai had 5% support from Asian voters and 8% from all voters. The poll results also showed that Breed has been relatively unpopular within the Asian community.

Yep made his endorsement for Lurie publicly on February 25 at a press conference held at St. Mary Square in Chinatown and supported Lurie's plan to combat the city's drug and mental health crisis.

"I had the pleasant privilege serving and protecting community members for over two decades. San Francisco needs fresh and new leadership to strive us to be safe and feel safe," Yep said Lurie has been his choice to be the next mayor.

“At a time when our seniors and small businesses are concerned about their safety, I've personally seen how committed Daniel is to supporting this community. Daniel has a proven track record of getting big things done for our City and his strong, consistent and accountable leadership style is exactly what our police and other city departments need right now," Yep said.

"Of the candidates, Daniel has the clearest vision on public safety, where we need to go and the specifics on how to get there,” Yep shared that he frequently met Lurie at community events. They sat down and had conversations about city issues. He also liked to see Lurie valued the inputs from the AAPI community.

“As a lifelong San Franciscan, Paul has fearlessly dedicated his life and career to keeping our communities safe. He has also been a leading voice for the AAPI Community and against rising hate crimes. Together, we share a commitment to restoring safety, supporting small businesses, and increasing AAPI representation throughout city government,” Lurie said and thanked for Yep's service at SFPD and endorsement.

In the press event in Chinatown, Lurie released his plan to address the city's drug and mental health crisis. It was intended to address the demand side of the crisis by getting individuals with addiction and/or mental illness off the streets and into immediate treatment.

“The crisis of leadership at city hall is visible on street corners across San Francisco,” said Lurie. “The agencies responsible for community safety, public health, and our unhoused population are not coordinating, and that dysfunction has enabled the tragedy on our streets. People need to be held accountable, but systems must be held accountable too."

"Under my administration we will enforce the laws on the books and people will not be allowed to live on the street. To keep that promise and ensure meaningful, sustainable results, we must finally hold the systems managing this population accountable," Lurie said.

There have been alleged corruption and misconduct incidents among the city-funded non-profit organizations lately. "From out of control spending on non-profits that have failed to deliver results to an unwillingness to fire staff that are unable to get the job done, City Hall’s system has fundamentally failed San Francisco. It is time for a new era of accountable leadership that we know will never come from City Hall insiders,” Lurie stated.