Coronavirus Update: San Francisco Police Toughening Stay-At-Home Enforcement
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- San Francisco police officers issued 17 citations to both individuals and businesses and issued warnings to 78 others for violating health orders related to the coronavirus pandemic over the weekend, toughening their enforcement of the stay at home restrictions.
San Francisco police Chief Bill Scott broke it down on Monday -- of the 17 citations, eight were to businesses and nine were to individuals.
With an increased number of people stepping out of their house this past weekend because of the nice weather, Scott said his department did receive some complaints of public health order violations, but "there were no significant issues."
"Surprisingly we received very few complaints regarding the lack of face coverings," he added, referring to the face covering health order, which police began enforcing last Wednesday.
Scott said extra officers and volunteers were out this weekend, handing out face coverings to people that didn't have them.
"Enforcement has been a last resort and we've mainly gotten compliance," he said. "We will continue to use aggressive compliance pathways
that start with education, asking for voluntary compliance, warnings, and citations when necessary."
Scott said that while most crime last week continued to hit dramatic lows, burglaries are up slightly.
In overall violent crime, the department saw a 19 percent decrease between April 20 and April 26, compared to the week before. The department also saw a 24 percent decrease in property crimes last week and a 23 percent decrease in serious crimes.
"One area that we have seen a slight increase are burglaries, particularly commercial burglaries. And we continue to investigate them and
we've made significant progress on many of those investigations that have resulted in arrests and prosecutions from the district attorney's office," he said.
