Earlier this month, old-fashioned Xeroxed copies of a newspaper article appeared across the Mid-Market neighborhood in Downtown San Francisco. The article, from the San Francisco Chronicle, featured the headline:“S.F. D.A. Brooke Jenkins says she’ll consider murder charges for fentanyl dealers.” The article was taped to walls on neighborhood corners regularly frequented by drug dealers. At least one of those Xerox copies had the headline translated into Spanish — all the better for the dealers in question, most of whom are Honduran nationals, to get the message.
The photocopies were distributed by Matt Dorsey, Supervisor for the district that includes the Mid-Market area, which is adjacent to the Tenderloin (in San Francisco, which is both a county and a city, Supervisors are the equivalent of City Council members in other cities). Dorsey’s office had organized a neighborhood clean-up and the Supervisor had handed the article for volunteers to promote. Dorsey is himself a recovering addict and prior to becoming Supervisor, he was the Communications Director for the San Francisco Police Department. Ridding the neighborhood of drug dealers is his number one priority — a goal he shares with new District Attorney Jenkins.