SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- The idea of an all-out blitz to rid the Tenderloin of drug dealers and prostitution is a familiar message to some who traverse the neighborhood’s alleys and spend much of their time on its corners.
Just an hour after authorities announced 300 arrests in a three-week sweep of the area, KCBS reporter Doug Sovern still saw dealers peddling drugs again barely a block from the police station.
The new police chief ,George Gascon, insisted that during his administration criminals would not wind up back on the street. “We’re going to work very aggressively with the prosecution and the courts to make sure they are put away for a long time,” he said on Wednesday.
The district attorney and the US attorney for Northern California promised their offices would devote resources to Gascon’s campaign for a cleaner Tenderloin.
But Earl Rogers, a chaplain at the San Francisco Rescue Mission, was skeptical the courts and jails had the resources to make a dent in the area’s problems. “I would not be surprised if we were holding this conversation 20 years from now,” he said. “That’s reality.”
KCBS' Doug Sovern reports
Image courtesy of CBS-5.
(jro)
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