By Rachel Gordon
The San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong, who rose through the ranks to become the city’s first female chief nearly five years ago, announced her retirement Saturday on a radio program hosted by Mayor Gavin Newsom.
She plans to step down in April, once she reaches her fifth anniversary as San Francisco’s top cop and after she helps with the search for her successor, she said.
The announcement ends speculation about her long-rumored departure and comes as the city approaches its 100th homicide of the year.
Fong told The Chronicle that she is not being pushed out by the mayor, who has publicly supported her, or by her critics, including members of the rank and file, middle managers in the San Francisco Police Department and the police officers union.
“None of us can be chief forever,” said Fong, 52. “I felt I’ve accomplished a lot.”
Still, she acknowledged in the interview, “It has not been an easy four or five years. There are people who thought they should have been chief.”
The critics, she said, can apply for her job. “Now they’ll have the opportunity.”
Newsom praised Fong’s tenure, saying in his radio address that the chief made remarkable progress at reforming the department and that he is personally proud of her accomplishments.
“Chief Heather Fong is a model public servant who is deeply dedicated to this city,” Newsom said in a statement to The Chronicle. “She is a reformer of extraordinary honor and integrity, and San Francisco is a better place because of her three decades of service to our Police Department.”
City leaders, including law enforcement officials, said Saturday that they were more surprised by the timing and style of the announcement than the news that Fong is stepping down. Even her critics praised Fong’s commitment, hard work and integrity, and said it was a good time to step down.
Fong also said the timing to begin her exit is appropriate, given that about a half-dozen reports on how to improve the department have recently been completed or will be soon. The studies cover such topics as foot patrols, station boundaries, technology, racial profiling and how the staff is organized and managed.
“I would like to set the course, begin implementation of the recommendations and then turn the department over to others,” Fong said.
She said that she hopes the next chief will be promoted from within the department, but the decision on who gets the job will be up to the mayor and the Police Commission.
Fong’s retirement plans have been a favorite guessing game at the Hall of Justice and City Hall, fueled by the drumbeat of discontent by members of her own force and the powerful Police Officers Association. Critics faulted her low-key management style and her administration’s handling of police discipline. Even some neighborhood leaders have complained that she is slow to personally and publicly respond in areas besieged by crime waves.
“There was a clash of philosophies between her and the members,” Gary Delagnes, head of the Police Officers Association, said Saturday. “Those members wanted more assertive leadership ... but I consider her a friend, and I hope she considers me a friend.”
She also has had her admirers, who have praised Fong - the nation’s first Asian American woman to lead a major city’s police department - for a willingness to shake up the entrenched powers in the department.
“She’s a no-nonsense chief, and totally professional, and she’ll be sorely missed,” Rose Pak, Fong’s longtime friend and a leader in San Francisco’s Chinese Chamber of Commerce, said Saturday.
Reaction to officers’ videos
Late in 2005, Fong and the mayor revealed that about 20 police officers would be suspended because of their alleged involvement in the creation of what they described as racist and sexist videos.
“This is a dark day - an extremely dark day - in the history of the San Francisco Police Department for me to have to stand here and share with you such egregious, shameful and despicable acts by members of the San Francisco Police Department,” she said at the time.
The disciplinary action against the officers has resulted in lawsuits, and because of that, Fong declined to comment on whether she responded appropriately. Many police officers are still angry at what they consider an overreaction by Fong and Newsom.
Fong also has come under fire from some members of the Board of Supervisors, including Newsom allies, who tangled with her over community policing initiatives such as mandatory foot patrols.
Some say she’s too cautious
Among the most consistent criticisms aimed at Fong is that she is overly cautious in a job that demands clear and decisive leadership.
Yet it is her quiet management style that helped land her the job in the first place.
She took over a Police Department destabilized by what became known as the Fajitagate scandal. Top police officials were accused and eventually cleared of covering up a street brawl over a takeout order of fajitas that involved the rookie officer son of then-Chief Alex Fagan and two other off-duty police officers.
Louise Renne, the former San Francisco supervisor and city attorney who served as Police Commission president during a time when Fong was chief, said in a 2006 interview that Fong “is not a swaggering, blustering police chief - this is a chief who does things in a different way.” She said Fong was intent on reforming the department, and “a lot of times people don’t like that.”
Fong has strong support in San Francisco’s politically important Chinese American community. She was born and raised in the city, and graduated from the police academy in 1977. Before that, she served as a volunteer police cadet.
A month after joining the department, she was tapped for the task force formed to investigate the massacre in Chinatown’s Golden Dragon restaurant and helped break the case by using her Chinese-language skills. During her 32 years in the department, she walked a beat, served as an instructor at the police academy, investigated child abuse cases, worked in police planning, headed a district station, and from there was promoted through the upper-management ranks.
“There are people who have goals. Becoming the chief was never my goal,” Fong said. “But the opportunity presented itself - with a lot of encouragement, not only in the department but in the community.”
Copyright 2008 San Francisco Chronicle