San Francisco police announce new initiative to curb property crimes

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- San Francisco's police chief announced Monday a new initiative to curb an epidemic of car burglaries and other property crimes.

This comes as the city wrestles with a whopping 24 percent jump in property crimes from 2016 to 2017.

The sight of broken glass is becoming all too common in San Francisco. That's why the police department is creating dedicated teams at each district station, to focus exclusively on fighting property crimes.

Police Chief William Scott joined supervisors in making the announcement Monday.

These teams will identify and monitor serial offenders, work with the General Crimes Unit created last November, as well as with community groups, to develop prevention strategies.

The first dedicated teams will roll out at the Taraval and Mission District stations, two areas hardest hit.

"We know that a lot of the individuals that we're talking about that are making a living breaking into cars, they're not working alone. They're working in crews. And we've been pretty effective at identifying those crews but we feel we can do better even there," Scott said.

Last year, the city recorded 30,000 car break-ins, while arrest rates dropped below 2 percent.

In the fall, supervisors Hillary Ronen and Norman Yee announced legislation requiring each station to devote a special unit to property crimes.

They tabled it after Scott asked that he be given the time to roll out the program. And this is it.

The special teams will be up and running at all stations before the end of the year.

The chief promises they will be more visible, more available and hopefully more able to reverse the trend.

Kristen Sze will have the full story starting at 4 p.m. on ABC7 News.