Bill Scott, who just announced his departure as San Francisco’s police chief, led the department through a turbulent era: a global pandemic, reform mandates, and ongoing debates about the role of policing in civic life. His tenure was marked by a decline in homicides, significant reform, and a quiet, steady professionalism.
With this vacancy, Mayor Daniel Lurie faces his most consequential appointment yet. Pressure will come from labor, community groups, and reform advocates. Each will have a list of candidates — and each list will contradict the others.
Lurie cannot fully satisfy any one constituency. He must instead choose a gifted leader who shares his ambitious goals and can inspire an understaffed department to achieve them. The ultimate goal is not just reducing crime on a graph; it’s restoring a shared sense of safety and order frayed by the pandemic and its aftermath.
The instinct to look outside the department for a new chief is understandable. It signals reform, sidesteps internal rivalries, and satisfies skeptics who believe fresh thinking arrives only by plane. Outsiders may not carry the SFPD’s baggage, but they often bring their own. More critically, they don’t know which levers move the machine, who can be counted on to execute, or when a union president is serious — or just venting.
For this reason, the best choice is likely an internal candidate — someone who starts farther up the learning curve and is better positioned to act swiftly, build trust, and conserve political capital. That’s not a guarantee of success, but it’s a shorter runway. And in a department facing a nearly 25% staffing shortfall, every second matters.
Whatever direction Lurie turns, it’s hard to understate the gravity of this decision. Although experts agree that crime trends are shaped by forces — economic distress, social fragmentation, demographic flux — beyond any mayor’s reach, public safety is always the first task on any big-city mayor’s job description. The roots of violence may be complex, but a mayor’s duty is simple: to keep the city safe.
In the late 2000s, as an aide to Mayor Gavin Newsom, I saw how the weight of this duty falls on the one in charge. As homicides surged amid a deepening recession, grieving parents came to City Hall with photographs of their fallen sons and unanswerable questions. For Newsom, their pain was not abstract. It stared directly into his eyes from across his desk. These searing encounters sharpened his sense of duty — to fill police academy classes, invest in officer retention, and strategically deploy personnel to the city’s most impacted neighborhoods.
At its peak during the Newsom years, the SFPD had 2,372 sworn officers. Today, it has roughly 1,460 — more than 600 short of the city’s stated need. Some barriers are structural: a constant crush of retirements, a tighter labor market, public skepticism of policing, and a recruiting regimen that cuts seven of every 10 applicants.
But these barriers can be overcome. People follow leaders. If Lurie appoints a chief who earns the confidence of the rank and file, word will spread, and academy classes will fill. If he does not, they won’t.
To his credit, Lurie has not been idle. During his campaign last year, he pledged to recruit 425 officers within three years and to equip the SFPD with tools for the job. Since taking office, he has made some progress, creating a safety task force for hospitality zones, seeking emergency hiring authority, and green-lighting an overtime boost despite budget constraints.
Lurie’s orientation is pragmatic. He resists caricature as a law-and-order absolutist yet understands the urgency of restoring a lost sense of safety. His temperament and words reflect a sincere commitment to policing that is modern, humane, and anchored in constitutional values. The new chief must share Lurie’s moderate instincts and possess the leadership skills to earn respect and trust from command staff, labor leaders, and the public.
The best police chiefs in recent memory — Bill Bratton in New York, Cathy Lanier in the District of Columbia, and Eddie Garcia in Dallas — were not merely tacticians. They were fundamentally aligned with their mayors’ goals, advancing reforms, restoring trust, and translating vision into practice. None succeeded alone. They were backed by mayors who offered political cover, budgetary support, and clear direction. This is the model Lurie must adopt.
A mayor speaks through budgets but acts through people. The chief Lurie chooses will not simply carry out policy. His pick must fulfill the central promise Lurie made to voters: safer streets. When the tides shift — and they will — it is the strength of this appointment that will shape Lurie’s legacy.
Nathan Ballard is an attorney and political strategist who was communications director for Gavin Newsom when he was mayor. He has served as an adviser to public safety unions, including the San Francisco Police Officers Association.