50 times stronger than heroin<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI\u2019m proud of the CHP and CalGuard\u2019s lifesaving efforts to shut down the Tenderloin\u2019s poison pipeline and hold drug traffickers accountable,\u201d Newsom said a month after shifting some CHP resources from the state\u2019s freeways to the city\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Tenderloin is considered ground zero for San Francisco\u2019s open air drug market, which only expanded after Covid-19, forcing Breed to declare a state of emergency in 2021. It\u2019s commonplace to see people using and selling drugs. Human waste, used needles and bullet casings litter the sidewalks. All the squalor is a short walk from the city\u2019s popular Union Square \u2013 the central shopping district that attracts tourists to its upscale hotels and stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the major crackdown, residents and business owners told CNN they don\u2019t see the results in their everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one CNN spoke with wanted to go on camera for fear of retaliation and harassment, except for Martha Hughes. She\u2019s lived in the Tenderloin for 24 years. \u201cI\u2019m not scared of them; I\u2019m not scared of anything,\u201d she said. She\u2019s seen the deterioration of the area firsthand. \u201cMore drug addicts, more drug dealers,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s just bad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She supports the police crackdown but doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s working. Her plan is to leave when she can find a more affordable living situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m moving in a couple of years. I had to have surgery this year so I don\u2019t have the money, but I\u2019m out of here as soon as I can afford it. I blame this all on the politicians and they don\u2019t really seem to care. They have a lot of big talk but there\u2019s not enough action really,\u201d Hughes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of those politicians is San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. She was elected in 2022 after voters, fed up with crime, recalled previous district attorney, Chesa Boudin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe appear to be failing as city leaders,\u201d she told CNN. \u201cI want them to know that I am working every day to ensure that the situation changes. But I\u2019m only one part of this system. I have had to be very vocal about the fact that there is another part of the system right now that is failing them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jenkins says her office has filed almost 1,000 drug dealing cases, and she\u2019s tried to detain the most serious offenders pending trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUnfortunately, they\u2019re cycling back out onto the street almost immediately after the arrest in our case is filed to date,\u201d she said, pointing a finger at Superior Court judges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CNN was unable to independently confirm Jenkins\u2019 claims. The San Francisco Superior Court had no comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the last year, Jenkins said her office filed motions to keep 200 of the most egregious drug dealers behind bars while they await trial. Of the 200 motions to detain that were filed, only 17 were granted, according to Jenkins. Judges allowed the rest out on their recognizance. In these cases, the defendant agrees to appear in court when required and to comply with any imposed restrictions or conditions. In some cases, Jenkins said, the suspects did not return for hearing dates or broke the law while released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to take the blame when my prosecutors are going in and arguing that these people have to remain in custody. The judges are not doing their part and that has to be revealed,\u201d Jenkins said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
cnn<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The California Highway Patrol may best be known for freeway chases and the Hollywood glamour of its motorcycle cops in television shows like \u201cChiPs.\u201d But now the storied agency is patrolling the streets of San Francisco\u2019s Tenderloin as part of a multiagency effort to crack down on rampant drug dealing that\u2019s decimating the 50-square-block area. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2861,3065,22153,6741,22152],"class_list":["post-17462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-drugs","tag-san-francisco","tag-sold-out","tag-struggle","tag-tenderloin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17464,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17462\/revisions\/17464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}