SAN FRANCISCO—After former Police Chief Greg Suhr resigned last week, Toney Chaplin was named the new acting Police Chief for the San Francisco Police Department.. On Monday, May 23, Chaplin called a community meeting in the Bayview District of San Francisco. The meeting came just four days after a woman was shot and killed by police in the same district.
On May 19, a sergeant shot and killed 29-year-old Jessica Williams. Police say that Williams was driving a stolen car when she was shot. This was the second deadly police shooting in the past three months.
The investigation is still ongoing to determine exactly what transpired leading to the fatal shooting. Chaplin’s message to the public was to make it clear that the San Francisco Police Department is moving forward with new policies to prevent these deadly police officer-involved shootings.
As reported by ABC7, Chaplin said: “One of the things we’re going to roll out faster is our procedural justice training and our implicit bias training and explicit bias training, so that we let officers know what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable.”
Most reactions to the new police chief were positive, but one activist questioned why the meeting was an invite only event.
“Not just invitation only, privatized conversation that we’re having right now,” the activist questioned according to ABC7.
Chaplin responded, “I’m trying to get a message out to talk to people and get it out without all the noise in the background.”
