Citizens of Bernalwood, several of your neighbors are working hard to identify who dumped a big load of construction debris on Bernal Hill Tuesday night. And they could use your help.

Some clues have emerged. For example, it appears the dumping didn’t actually happen on Tuesday night. If the security camera photos above show the actual suspect vehicle, it seems that the dumping occurred between 4:29 and 4:39 am on Wednesday morning.

In the first photo, we see the truck lumbering up Folsom at 4:29 am, with a full load in the back.  Ten minutes later, it came back down the hill, apparently empty. Here are zoomed and enhanced closeups of the vehicle. It is a white, late-model medium-duty truck in good condition, perhaps made by Navistar International.

Meanwhile, other clues have emerged.

Included among the debris was what appears to be a snare drum cover, with the name “Rene Maples” spray painted on the front:

Lastly, a forensic architect has joined the case, and after examining the debris, the architect made a few observations:

1) The project involves the renovation of a existing older house (Victorian/Edwardian) that had existing exterior and interior rot/water damage. The roof is flat or has flat parts. Center support beams and columns and some joists were replaced (stairs probably too). There was also likely plumbing completed (water bottle filled with urine and extra fittings) and a partial deck and/or footing replacement. Old and new siding patch.

2) The contemporary debris (laminated beam ends and composite joists) was slightly weathered, so its not from a project that started last month–but it could have been started a month or two earlier and been weathered from our recent rains.

Those are the clues your neighbors have collected so far.

If you have any additional information about the truck, the origin of the drum cover, or any neighborhood construction projects that might match the type and timing described above, please contact the Bernalwood tip line at bernalwood at gmail dot com. Let’s find the people who did this.

Valiant Neighbors Sarah and Edie, who cover the Bernalwood Crime Beat so assiduously for us, attended the SFPD’s Ingleside Station Chief’s Meeting last week (so you didn’t have to). Here’s Sarah’s summary of the latest Bernal Heights crime news.

Edie Williams and I attended the Ingleside Community Meeting on 4/17, as did several other Bernal neighbors.  Edie typed up great notes, which I am pasting below.

[Ingleside Community Meetings are held on 3rd Tuesday of the month from 7 to 8 pm in the Community Room of the Ingleside station, 1 Sgt. John V. Young Lane at San Jose Avenue.  All are welcome to attend and ask questions. This is a great opportunity to discuss crime and other issues affecting the district.]

Captain’s report 4. 17, 2012
by Captain Daniel J. Mahoney
daniel.j.mahoney@sfgov.org

CRIME STATISTICS

Note that month = the last 28 days. YTD = 1.1.2011 – 4.17.2011 as compared to 1.1.2012 to 4.17.2012

Aggravated Assault:
19 incidents, down 39% from last month, up 24% YTD. 14 arrests made.  Primarily domestic violence, plus two shootings in the Sunnydale (more on this below).

Robbery:
24 incidents, up 14%, but down 33% YTD. 5 arrests made. Most robberies continue to be cell-phone-related, with an uptick in those occurring on MUNI buses. Captain has asked every officer to ride MUNI twice a day, especially the 8X, 9, and 14 buses.  MUNI has great video surveillance; many arrests stem from video captured on MUNI.

Sexual Assault:
3 incidents this month, but two occurred years ago (three years and 26 years, respectively) and were only just reported. One arrest made.

Burglaries:
48 incidents, up 41%, up 31% YTD. 2 arrests made. Up around Randall and above, most are bike thefts from garages. Thieves are still burgling homes with Asian symbols outside. Thieves have explained they target these houses because they believe members of the Asian community don’t trust in banks and keep lots of money in their houses.

Auto theft:
56 incidents, down 32% this month, up 25% YTD. 4 arrests made.  CHP arrested a man living in Bernal, and suddenly the number of auto thefts around Precita and Cortland has decreased, but now there’s someone new in the Excelsior region. Bernal area went from highest to lowest.  Excelsior area around “European” streets (Vienna, Naples, Madrid, etc) is now highest area.  Tomorrow chief will start targeting parolees that are in the area but haven’t checked in with their parole officer to see if they’re committing either auto theft or burglaries.  Most stolen car is still Honda – 90% are Hondas from late 1990s.

Auto burglaries:
Pretty stagnant number, so when it goes down, it usually means people just aren’t reporting the crimes.

Quintuple homicide in Ingleside at 16 Howth St.
Perp was in custody within 36 hours. Police believe he targeted that home – not a random crime. Captain set up a town hall meeting at CCSF; no new information was reported, but meeting served to allay concerns and get information directly from the police in charge. Five days afterwards there was a  homicide in the Taraval, a few blocks away from this one.  The victim there was also targeted, police believe.

SIGNIFICANT ARRESTS

Burglary on 200 block of Delta, an Asian house. Perps were two men from Bayview who broke a metal gate but didn’t make it inside. An alert neighbor was watching and immediately called it in. Police caught one on the stairs, the other around the corner. Police got their tools and an admission of guilt.

Just afterwards, chief and a plainclothes officer were walking down the street, and two officers were chasing a man with a gun towards them. Perp tossed a 9mm gun onto a roof and they caught him. This activity was because the head Towerside gang member was killed, body found on the street under the Bay Bridge approach.  In response, the Sunnydale gang taunted Towerside at a vigil and began carrying more guns. Sunnydale and Towerside gangs fought – they don’t like each other anyway. At the funeral, Towerside wanted to parade the casket through their area, so they rented a motorcycle with a glass carriage trailing it, and they paraded it all around the area. They wanted to go into Sunnyside, but police wouldn’t let them.  The police met with community liaisons to convey their disgust with the theatrical display glorifying this gang member.

ADDITIONAL UPDATES

Bike registration campaign:
Bike thefts are serious, but many, many owners don’t even know their serial number to report the theft and reclaim their bike, even for a $2000 bike. Police will set up an online site to register bikes, and put in owner name and serial number. Once the bike owner registers, he/she gets an Ingleside sticker. If someone notices the bike with the sticker, they can stop the rider, check their name, and check the database to confirm ownership and return the bike. Can also stick GPS on the bike to track it.

Traffic enforcement:
If there are hot spots that you think the police should pay close attention to, you can tell them directly at the Ingleside Police Station website / Contact Us.     http://www.inglesidepolicestation.com

Pedestrian v. vehicle:
Big operation in the Sunnydale tomorrow – checking licensing and vehicular safety.

Ops are two parts: 1) pedestrian safety (incidents result in many pedestrians being hurt). 2) look for pedestrians coming out into the middle of the street without looking.  The captain wants to improve safety by looking for all violators – not just one type.

Bike v. vehicle:
Will also do an operation to stop drivers in bike lanes, etc. Then will do the same to stop cyclists from running red lights and stop signs. Bicyclists running stop lights or signs are subject to same tickets that autos get for doing that.

Mission and Russia:
Traffic problem, people cross to the Burger King there, which is legal, even in this case where there’s no marked crosswalk. At 5pm teens gather at bus stop and get into fights, and the Captain has put more officers on it.

Safe Haven:
A program where merchants put up a sign in their window. If a person walking down the street and feels intimidated, they can go into a business with a sign and ask for help.

URGENT REMINDER

Police department will lose around 400 officers by 2014 through retirement. Without budget increase, there will be no new Police Academy classes to train new officers. This means that police will be taken off all the proactive programs that prevent crime before it happens, such as beat patrols, in order to react to the crime that takes place. Oakland, Vallejo, and Sacramento have all had to gut their police forces and now lack key departments like narcotics and gang task forces.  Basically, all they can do is respond the most urgent emergency calls.

We don’t want that. Support Chief staffing plan for 5 classes next year by calling or sending an email to Supervisor Campos:(415) 554-5144,David.Campos@sfgov.org.

PHOTO: Telstar Logistics

Neighbor Sarah, who graciously covers the Bernalwood Crime Beat, attended the SFPD’s Ingleside Station Chief’s Meeting last week (so you didn’t have to). Here’s her summary of the latest Bernal Heights crime news. You are advised to read the whole thing, as there are some very important bits about police staffing that may warrant political action, and if you insist on using your cellphone while walking down the street, we suggest you make things even easier for local thugs by wearing a signboard that says, “Please Rob Me!” Read on for full details:

Edie Vargas Williams and I attended the captain’s monthly meeting on Tuesday, 3/20. Please be sure to read the section on staffing because the captain is asking us to contact Supervisor Campos if this issue is important to you. Edie took great notes that I am posting here.

Captain’s Report given by Captain Daniel Mahoney, 3/20/12, daniel.j.mahoney@sfgov.org

POLICE STAFFING DECREASES

Ingleside currently has 112 officers, down 10% from 2 years ago. In the next 3 months, two Ingleside officers with 64 years of experience between them will retire. Normally, retired officers are replaced by new recruits, but there has been no police academy class this year. In SF, 267 officers are committed to retire by June, 2014, with an additional 150 officers eligible for retirement, including Captain Mahoney.

The chief has an aggressive plan to recruit and train new officers (asking for 4-5 Academy classes next year), but there is no guarantee of funding by the Board of Supervisors. Even if he were able to start recruiting right now, it takes time to develop working officers: weeks of recruitment & testing, 27-weeks of academy classes, 17-weeks on-the-job training and probation.

What happens if we don’t get new officers? Many cities have had to change the way they operate due to loss of officers. For example, Oakland doesn’t respond to property crime or burglaries unless there’s someone in your house right this second. Sacramento had to drop its gang task force. San Francisco may have to eliminate foot patrols and other proactive crime-prevention programs just in order to have officers in cars to respond to the most serious crimes.

What can we do about this? WRITE THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS and ask them to approve the police chief’s request for funding. Bernal’s supervisor is David Campos: David.Campos@sfgov.org, 415-554-5144.

CRIME STATS

Aggravated Assaults: 24 incidents / 16 arrests / down 29% from last month / up 26% ytd. Notes: All were domestic-violence-related, and behind closed doors.

Robberies: 18 incidents / 8 arrests / up 6% from last month / down 31% ytd. Notes: 90% of victims are lone person walking on the street and using a cell phone. Stop using your cell phones in the street!

Sexual Assaults: None

Burglaries: Trending up. 28 incidents / 5 arrests. Up 22% from last month, down 5% y-t-d. Notes: Two trends…

1. “Hot prowl” burglaries, where burglars break into homes with people in them. Last 3 incidents – burglars were African American males (different people each time), victims had decoration in front of house that indicated Asian occupants. Suspects knocked, victims didn’t respond. Suspects thought no one was home, kicked in the door, hurt the resident. Captain suggested that if someone tries to break into your house when you’re there, you should yell out, “Is that the police?”

2. Business/home with surveillance equipment: multiple burglars seemed to have been aware of surveillance camera: they cut the line, then steal the camera or any backup CDs/hard drives that contain the surveillance video. This happened at Pizza Express last month.

Auto Theft: 39 incidents / no arrests. Notes: Up 5% from last month, down 44% ytd, but remains a really bad situation. (see additional info/commentary below)

Theft from Auto: Notes: People drive to parks and get out to walk their dogs – burglars watch and break into their cars when they see the owners leave. Captain tries to direct resources towards hot spots. One hot spot has been Mansell and Shelley in McLaren Park. The captain ran an operation where officers watched this area and made an arrest.

NOTEWORTHY INCIDENTS/TRENDS/ACTIVITIES

Burglary in a residence on 200 block of Nevada Street. 3 people broke in, but because of an alert and quick-acting neighbor, they were caught. The neighbor called 911 and was able to give detailed descriptions of the people, the car, and license. Police broadcast the info every four hours and officers in the Bayview stopped the car. Burglars still had stolen stuff in their car. If they hadn’t had the detailed information from the neighbor, they would not have closed this case.

Bicycle thefts are high. Where’s the most common place for bikes to be stolen? In a gated entrance way or inside a closed garage: Recently thefts — 4 lower Mission, 6 Noe Valley, 6 Bosworth at Mission, and Ocean.

Stolen cars. If you own a Honda, don’t park in the Outer Mission, or near the border area with Daly City, especially Florentine, Ellington, Cayuga, Whipple Streets. 90% of stolen cars are 1990s Hondas. Thieves take them for transportation – using shaved keys. The good news is there’s a 98% recovery rate in San Francisco, since they drop off the cars when they get where they’re going. Recoveries are often made on Mission, Cortland, and Precita in Bernal Heights. Ingleside will be partnering up with the captain of Mission station to put plain-clothes and uniformed officers out for a full-day, targeted task force to try to get it under control. Police will put out decoy/bait cars and check up on car thieves out of jail or on probation.

Working together. Shooting last week on MUNI bus at Towerside in the Sunnydale. MUNI video showed a youth had just gotten off the back of the bus, while another stood on the bus steps and shot him in the back. Plain-clothes and uniformed officers plus gang task force IDed the shooter. Gang and Violence task forces had the shooter, an 18-year-old, under arrest within 4 days. Youth didn’t die despite having his femoral artery shot because we have great hospitals and get crime victims there quickly. MUNI has excellent video surveillance and can retrieve video quickly. The incident had to do with gang activity between the Towerside and Sunnydale gangs.

Traffic enforcement and education activity. Officers will be going out to enforce pedestrian safety at Noe and Church @ 30th in Noe Valley/Glen Park and in Balboa Park near the park and BART station. They’ll also work on speed enforcement on Alemany and San Jose.

The Captain tries to add an education component to enforcement campaigns. Ingleside has brochures explaining the reasons for the laws, and officers hand these out when they stop cars for running red lights, pedestrian awareness, cell phone use, bike safety, etc. They will be doing an education-only (no citations) campaign for bicyclists as well, followed by enforcement after that if needed.

PHOTO: Telstar Logistics

Reader Sarah, who valiantly covers the Bernalwood Crime Beat, attended the SFPD’s Ingleside Station Chief’s Meeting this week (so you didn’t have to). Here’s her summary of the latest Bernal Heights crime and crime trend news:

Notes from Ingleside Community Meeting, 2/21/12

Captain Mahoney led the meeting. I chatted with him for a while before the meeting and mentioned the recent resurgence of succulent thefts and dumping incidents. Regarding the latter, the captain said this is a police issue if there’s anything they can act on (which requires witnesses) – so obviously report license plates, truck descriptions, etc. if you see anything suspicious. There do not seem to have been witnesses in the above incidents, so then it becomes a DPW issue.

His first topic was staffing. It’s now one of two times each year when staff can request new assignments — like moving shifts or beats — so you may see some new faces. Staffing in general is getting more challenging. When Captain Lazar was at the station, there were 123 officers. It’s now down to 112, and there will be bigger losses with impending retirements. There’s a Police Academy class of 35 starting in May. The Chief has asked the Supervisors for four classes in 2013, and three per year after that, in order to partially fill in the holes that will be left by the big wave of retirements.

Because emergency calls take priority, reduced staffing can mean hits to other initiatives – at Ingleside, that’s been to the investigative team, where some members have had to go onto patrols. He has not made any reductions to the gang task force, which some other stations have done.

He is down one lieutenant – one was reassigned to the administrative/legal unit, and another to Homeland Security. A new lieutenant, Mike Dudoroff, has arrived.

CRIME STATS & TRENDS:
For the period from January 22 to February 18:

Everything was down this month vs. last month; the biggest issue continues to be auto thefts.

Incident/Number of Incidents/% Change (Mo.)/% Change (YTD)/Number of Arrests
Aggravated Assault/28/-26%/24%/14
Robbery/16/-41%/-39%/9
Sexual Assault/0/0/0/0
Burglary/20/-5%/-24%/1
Auto Theft/39/-34%/19%/3
Theft from Auto/26/-35%/-52%/0

Regarding the stolen cars, he said that this is a major problem in our district. He estimates 90% of the stolen cars are Hondas from the late 1990s, and that it takes “three locks and a dog in the front seat” to prevent them from being stolen. [Editor’s note: we have a stick-shift 1999 Honda, and the manual transmission also appears to thwart today’s car thieves.] Interestingly, he said 98% of stolen cars in SF are recovered, suggesting that there’s a kind of high-risk, informal ZipCar system. The recovery location often points to where the thieves live. They made three car-theft arrests in the past week; also use bait cars, work with CHP, and visit people on parole for auto thefts.

There was an incident in Crocker Amazon Park where someone took out the pylon and backed a truck into the park, then began to steal the bleachers (presumably for metal). Someone scared them off mid-way through, but then that person failed to call in the incident for several hours, so the thieves were not caught.

All across SF, bicycle thefts are high. Lt. Dudoroff put together a sting in the district where someone set up a meeting to buy a stolen bike, and this led to the police finding 23 other stolen bikes and a stolen iPad. The captain and his CPAB are putting together a project to get people to voluntarily register their bikes in a database at the station. At the very least, you should keep your bike’s serial number somewhere handy. They often find bikes that they believe are stolen, but no one has reported them missing and given the serial number.

The captain mentioned a couple of notable arrests. Officer Jones singlehandedly arrested several people spraying graffiti on the 3100 block of Mission. Officer Phillips, also working solo, stopped a car driven by a parolee with a stolen gun, a pound of marijuana, and $1400 in cash.

The captain ran traffic enforcement/safety operations at Alemany/Niagara (where there had been two major accidents in four hours one day – one involving a pedestrian and one a motorcyclist) and somewhere off of Cesar Chavez, where they gave warnings to 29 people who were speeding and/or running red lights. He emphasized that they do these operations for safety, not revenue.

Upcoming events – March 17 (St Patrick’s Day) is always a busy day for police; March 20 is the next Ingleside community meeting.

Three marijuana dispensaries were approved by the Planning Commission; two are on the same block (addresses are 4218 Mission, 5258 Mission, and 5234 Mission). Neighborhood groups were upset. There are still some additional approvals that need to be granted before the dispensaries open.

Jon Shepherd from SFSAFE was there. He has started several neighborhood watches recently. If you’re interested in starting one on your block, call him at (415) 553-1983.

A representative of Recology was there as well. There will be a cleanup program on Saturday, 3/10, from 8am to 12pm in the playground parking lot at Crocker Amazon Park. You can bring bulky items, hazardous materials, etc. Info here.

Someone asked about reporting graffiti. The captain said you can report this through 311 or by filling out a report on the SFPD site. At Ingleside, the officer in charge of graffiti is Marty Ferreira, but his area of focus is gang-related graffiti, and he’ll refer other graffiti to DPW or the City Attorney, which enforces property owners’ removal of graffiti.
Speaking of the City Attorney, Jana Clark has been assigned to a new division within the office, and the new City Attorney rep for Ingleside will be Michael Karnes – michael.karnes at sfgov dot org.

PHOTO: Steve Rhodes

Neighbor Sarah, our saintly correspondent who attends the monthly meetings at the San Francisco Police Department’s Ingleside Station, has delivered the goods yet again. Here’s your crime report for January 2012. Over to you, Neighbor Sarah…

Notes from Ingleside Meeting, 1/17/12

This was a bit of an unusual meeting for a few reasons, so my notes are fairly brief.

Lt. Jennifer Dorantes was filling in for Capt. Mahoney, who was away for training. She didn’t hand out the crime statistics, but she directed me to the Ingleside website, which contains some of them in the captain’s message.

First, Jana Clark from the City Attorney’s office spoke. She works on the code enforcement team and is assigned to the Ingleside. The codes they enforce include fire, building, health, planning, police, and public works. They also deal with blight, which is written into one of the codes. They are focused on civil matters (vs. the DA, which focuses on criminal matters). They deal with code violations that rise to the level of being a public nuisance — affecting a block, neighborhood, etc. (not disputes between individuals, for example). They receive referrals from different city department and also get complaints from the general public. The police also alert them to issues where the threat of a lawsuit might help solve a particular situation.

She suggested that people call/email her with any problems, as well as to call 311 and get a tracking number. This has come up before — 311 is a great resource because (a) you get a tracking number and (b) 311 sends the problem to the relevant city departments. This all gets recorded and can be followed up on.

At this point, the meeting focused for some time on the problems that several members of the Ingleside community (not from Bernal) had been experiencing with drug houses on their block. I won’t go into details for confidentiality reasons, but a few interesting things came out of the discussion:

One, the city attorney’s office deals with exactly these sorts of things — in this case, there were some absentee landlords who were renting to drug dealers, and Ms. Clark thought that this was the sort of situation where the threat of a lawsuit often works the best. There is a law called the drug abatement act, which lays out penalties for anyone allowing their house to be used for drug dealing, including that the house must be left vacant for a full year following the clearing out of the drug dealers.

The second interesting point that came up on the discussion was that you CAN take videos on your property and its surroundings (one person thought you were not allowed to), and the police like getting these videos and will send them out to other stations. Videos have allowed them to solve several crimes. Someone in the community said she’d gotten a security video camera at Costco for $150.

Lt. Dorantes said that crime in aggregate was down 15% in 2011 vs 2010. There was a spike in assault/domestic violence in the Ingleside in November/December. There have also been many stolen vehicles, especially in Bernal Heights. They tend to be recovered in the Outer Mission or in Bernal Heights (this explains the cars recovered on Folsom).

Theft from vehicles continues to be a problem, and she mentioned that thieves are taking registration papers (possible identity theft, etc). She said you can black out your address on the registration (who knew?). Residential burglaries, especially bicycles stolen from open garages, continue to be a problem.

iPhones, especially the 4S, are still popular in robberies. They can be sold for $100 at 7th/Market, where these goods turn up. Get Find My iPhone — this continues to help the police locate stolen iPhones and solve crimes cross-district. Often, if they track down one stolen phone, they will find a trove of other stolen items.

The captain is running a Distracted Driving campaign, in which officers will ticket people for texting, etc. If you know of any areas where SFPD should run a pedestrian sting, email the captain.

PHOTO: Telstar Logistics