Megan Cassidy

Schoolchildren sickened last week by chemical agents released during a nearby law-enforcement training exercise may have suffered far more severe reactions than those initially known, with reports of vomiting, shortness of breath and rashes arising in the days after the incident. Parents of students who attend Portola Elementary School in San Bruno told the Chronicle there were also probably more people affected by the chemical plume than the 20 children and one adult that San Bruno officials in…

The law enforcement training exercise that unintentionally exposed San Bruno elementary school children to powerful riot-control agents last week may have included chemical weapons that expired decades ago. A person familiar with the incident said that before the training at the San Francisco County Jail on Moreland Drive in San Bruno, officers from UC Berkeley and UCSF were invited to bring any chemical agents in the campus police forces’ inventory so they could be disposed of during the exerci…

San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey on Tuesday proposed a Charter amendment aimed at retaining staff and expediting hiring for the city’s police force, his second attempt to fill vacancies in a department that some argue is short by more than 500 officers. The proposal, co-authored by Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and Supervisor Catherine Stefani, would establish a new minimum staffing level for the police force and create incentives for officers to delay retirement. The voluntar…

A former investigator at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office was awarded an $835,000 settlement by the city after claiming he was fired in retaliation for calling out misconduct he said he witnessed in a fatal police-shooting case. The payout agreement, which was approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and Mayor London Breed, comes three years after Jeffrey Pailet filed a lawsuit alleging wrongful termination by then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin and Boudin’s chief of staff…

Five months before San Francisco jails were forced into lockdown this weekend after a rash of alleged attacks on staff by incarcerated people, nearly 100 deputies attempted to warn Sheriff Paul Miyamoto of increasingly dangerous conditions caused by what they described as “critical” levels of staffing shortages. Deputies at County Jail No. 3 were “mentally and physically exhausted,” said the Nov. 29 letter to Miyamoto, which was signed by 92 deputies. Jail officials, they continued, “have create…

San Francisco police say they are nearly finished adopting the 272 reforms recommended by the federal and state departments of justice, closing a major chapter in a more than seven-year effort to mend the public’s trust following a string of high-profile police shootings. Police officials said the department submitted evidence that it completed the final 27 recommendations to the California Department of Justice this month, but it is still awaiting approval and a final report from state officia…

The sidewalks at Seventh and Mission streets are mostly quiet these days. The few passersby on their way to work or to one of the area’s newly renovated hotels stop only long enough to wait for the walk signal to cross the street, with no restaurants, corner stores or other reasons to linger. It’s a remarkable transformation from just six months ago, when at least a dozen drug dealers could be found at all hours of the day at the San Francisco intersection, their customers folded over at the wa…

Federal law enforcement officials have revealed some of the contours of their ongoing, concerted crackdown on the open-air drug markets that have flourished in San Francisco’s Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods. In recent weeks, San Francisco and California police have partnered with the FBI; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and other federal agencies to arrest and swiftly prosecute people accused of selling drugs in the ci…

Five months after local and national law enforcement officials launched crackdowns on San Francisco’s open-air drug markets, one longtime dealer said he won’t risk venturing into the Tenderloin much anymore. “I’m scared,” he said in a recent interview, noting that he’s lately preferred to work construction shifts. The source, who has dealt drugs in San Francisco on and off for nearly two decades, said what was once a full-time job has been pared down to about an hour a week, and most of the oth…

For the better part of the last decade, nearly every waking hour of San Francisco Deputy Sheriff Barry Bloom’s life was spent on the clock. Bloom, a public safety monitor at San Francisco City Hall, was on duty an average of 95 hours a week since 2016, and more than 100 hours a week over the last two fiscal years, according to city data. His workload of late leaves roughly 10 hours a day remaining for sleeping, eating and just about anything else not tied to his job as a sheriff’s deputy. The 29…

San Francisco prosecutors have begun dismissing drug dealing cases involving a veteran...

As a crime reporter in San Francisco, I should have known better than to park my car under an overpass near the Hall of Justice, a nice stroller visible in the back seat. And it couldn’t have hurt to check that I didn’t drop my keys onto the ground next to the vehicle as I scrambled to pay the meter and run to a court hearing. Alas, the predictable outcome: As I sat in court taking notes, my phone vibrated with a text from my partner, Miguel, from our Oakland home. His phone was in communication…

Opening statements began Monday in the trial of Officer Terrance Stangel, accused of...

Gun violence in San Francisco rose significantly over the past year, in a disturbing...

At a candlelight vigil Tuesday evening that drew hundreds of people, Jace’s father,...

Outrage over a fatal police shooting of an African American man inside a San Leandro Walmart continued to grow Monday, as an attorney for the slain man’s family said there is “sufficient evidence” to arrest the officers involved. S. Lee Merritt, a Philadelphia-based civil-rights attorney, disputed statements by San Leandro police, and he suggested that officers appeared to shoot 33-year-old Steven Taylor with a stun gun Saturday after he no longer posed a threat by dropping a baseball bat. “Afte…