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Supervisors seek hearings and inquiries after New Year’s Eve killings, cite parole and system failures
Summary
Several supervisors requested hearings or letters of inquiry into public-safety procedures, parole and probation after two women were killed in a New Year’s Eve incident; they asked for information from police, probation, the district attorney and state corrections agencies.
Multiple members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors asked the board to hold hearings and issued a formal letter of inquiry to public-safety agencies on Jan. 5, 2021 after the Dec. 31 New Year’s Eve crash that killed two women in San Francisco.
Supervisor Katherine Stefani introduced a formal letter of inquiry and requested a hearing with the heads of San Francisco’s public-safety agencies — including the District Attorney, the Police Chief, the Sheriff, Chief of Juvenile Probation and Chief of Adult Probation — seeking data and policies about how individuals on parole or probation are supervised and how arrests and releases are handled. Stefani said the public deserved a clear explanation of whether system failures contributed to the deaths of Hanako Abe and Elizabeth Platt and called for accountability and transparency.
Supervisor Ahsha Safaí asked for a hearing to analyze the city’s crime rates and “possible loopholes and system failures” for individuals on parole, county probation, federal probation and pretrial diversion systems. Safaí cited multiple incidents — including repeat arrests and offenses in recent months — and said the hearings should inform potential legislation or administrative changes. Supervisor Mandelman cosponsored Stefani’s request and urged the board to pursue uncomfortable questions to determine whether the tragedy reflected broader policy and administrative failures.
Why it matters: Supervisors framed the requests as a fact-finding step to determine whether public-safety or corrections failures contributed to the deaths and to identify policy or operational changes to prevent similar incidents. They asked agencies to provide statistics on rearrests, policies for charging and releasing individuals on parole, and the frequency of repeat arrests for serious offenses.
What supervisors asked for (examples): - A hearing and a public accounting by police, probation, the sheriff and the district attorney describing current policies for supervising people on parole and probation and how those policies were applied in the New Year’s Eve case. - Statistics on how often people on parole are rearrested and how often they are charged with new crimes that result in release. - Information about coordination with other counties when suspects live out-of-county.
Next steps: Supervisors filed hearing requests and a letter of inquiry; some members said they would co-sponsor one another’s efforts. The transcript records no committee hearing results on Jan. 5; supervisors said they had contacted the District Attorney’s office and other agencies to request public briefings and data.
Speakers quoted in this article were identified in the meeting transcript as Supervisor Safaí; Supervisor Stefani; Supervisor Mandelman; Supervisor Walton.
