Everything you need to know about the San Francisco DA race
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins is facing a sole challenger in her bid for reelection, and it's coming from a prosecutor she fired when she first became DA.
Prosecutor Ryan Khojasteh was working under the Chesa Boudin administration when Boudin was recalled, and Jenkins was appointed as the new boss. Jenkins fired Khojasteh as part of an effort to clean house and implement a different vision for the office.
Now, Khojasteh is running against Jenkins, arguing he can do a better job in helping address some of the city's biggest issues.
KNOW BEFORE YOU VOTE: California deadlines for voter registration
With the rise of break-ins, burglaries and public drug usage during the pandemic, the role of San Francisco's DA has been under a magnifying glass for voters concerned about public safety.
Khojasteh is critical of his former boss, saying Jenkins has not done enough to improve safety on the streets of San Francisco.
Jenkins is touting improving crime rates since she took office. A July report from the San Francisco Police Department shows crime overall is down 32% from 2023 to 2024.
Her opponent suggests, it's because fewer people are reporting crime.
"It's just a political stunt. You ask everybody here in the city and nobody actually believes in the credibility of those statistics. People don't report crime," Khojasteh said.
"That is always going to be an issue as far as whether or not every single person reports everything that's happening," Jenkins said in response. "We are seeing progress because of the work that we are doing. I'm committed to both accountability, but also making sure that we make the necessary reforms that we need to the criminal justice system."
About the candidates: Incumbent Brooke Jenkins
Born and raised in the Bay Area, Jenkins says she has had family members on both sides of the courtroom, which has influenced her views of equity in the criminal justice system.
Ultimately though, Jenkins said it was the death of her first-born son, named Justice, that prompted her to pursue a career in law enforcement.
"I really felt that being a voice for other people who were in pain would be something that I felt could give me that purpose every day coming into work," she said.
Jenkins began her career in 2014 as a prosecutor in the San Francisco DA's office, working as an assistant DA up until she resigned in 2021 due to her "dissatisfaction" with predecessor Boudin's leadership. During her time as assistant DA, she worked on several units - specializing in hate crimes, misdemeanors and felonies, and sexual assault.
Once she replaced Boudin, Jenkins said she had to overhaul the office and inherited "a mess."
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Jenkins has been touting the decreasing crime rate in San Francisco since she was appointed as DA in 2022, saying voters should reelect her to keep steering the city in the right direction.
"It's about us staying committed to making sure that we set the right tone in San Francisco, that people understand it's not the place where we tolerate lawlessness anymore," she said. "It's about strategic deployment, again, of our police officers and about making sure that we are dealing with the most prolific offenders of crime in our city."
About the candidates: Challenger Ryan Khojasteh
Khojasteh is a prosecutor who has worked in both the San Francisco DA'S office, as well as the Alameda County District Attorney's office.
Native to the Bay Area, he said the career was greatly influenced by the murder of his uncle when he was four years old. Khojasteh's widowed aunt later remarried a prosecutor, which helped influence his decision to pursue his career in law enforcement.
"I remember talking to him as a kid in high school and growing up about wanting to make a difference when it came to reducing crime and saving lives. Because I never want what happened to my uncle to happen to anybody else," Khojasteh said.
After losing his job at the San Francisco DA's office, he went on to work as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County. There, Khojasteh has worked on several units, including collaborative courts, victim restitution and parole and probation revocation.
If elected, Khojasteh said he will take down the "top-heavy" management structure in the DA's office in order to put more prosecutors in the courtroom.
"As a prosecutor, I used to have 150 open felony cases. That's too many to handle. It's overwhelming and actually harms our ability to competently and thoroughly prosecute cases," he said.
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A shared history, and differing visions for San Francisco
Both Jenkins and Khojasteh initially worked for then-DA Boudin.
After voters ousted Boudin, Jenkins came into office promising to "restore accountability and consequences" in San Francisco's criminal justice system. However, Jenkins still vowed to explore alternatives to incarceration for first-offenders and nonviolent crimes.
"We are a city of second chances, but the truth is: we have to draw a line with people who choose hate, violence and a life of crime," she said after getting appointed in 2022.
Khojasteh generally agrees with that philosophy, but thinks prosecutors need to look at the big picture of how people get involved in crime and become repeat offenders.
"So striking the right balance is focusing our limited resources and our courtroom space on serious violent and repeat offenders to secure incarceration," he said. "For everyone else, before they can become a serious repeat or violent offender, we can get them treatment to get them back on the right track to stabilize them and get them on a better path to success."
The standard deadline to register to vote is 15 days before the election, which this year would be Oct. 21, 2024 according to the California Secretary of State's Office.
The form to register online is available here.
Early voting is already underway in San Francisco, with Election Day - Nov. 5 - being the last day for voters to cast their vote.
