Sue Fisher King runs one of San Francisco's most popular home design stores.

By CYNTHIA TRAINA

After more than four decades on Sacramento Street, luxury home goods retailer Sue Fisher King is moving her business to 1913 Fillmore Street. She will take over the store space south of Florio restaurant, recently vacated by wellness brand Saje.

Instead of retiring, she is looking forward to a new chapter.

“Fillmore is a wonderful street with interesting shops,” says King. “It's a busy place and it was the only viable location for us.” She adds with a smile, “And our employees are excited about all the new dining options.”

King looked at several locations on the street before settling on the corner of Fillmore and Wilmot. She particularly liked the block's Victorian architecture and mix of interesting shops.

She is planning the move as she prepares to celebrate her 45th anniversary in business. “The most important thing is not to think about it. I'm just not a bored person, and I still want to contribute. I need something concrete to do every day – and besides, everyone here is so nice to me.”

In fact, many of her core staff were hired directly from San Francisco State University, and some are still with her after 25 years. “I've been fortunate to hire great people who are smart and high achievers,” she says.

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Sue Fisher King's crew is gearing up for an early to mid-May opening. Remodeling is underway. Saje's iconic green plant wall is gone, but the herringbone floors remain. The interior arches of the space are being modified to divide the store into three sections.

Shelves have already been set up for her bestselling handmade ceramics from Astier de Villatte. This milky white ceramic was a brand she discovered in Paris in 1996 and introduced to the US market. Since then, the brand has spread worldwide.

The store will also experiment with new inventory and continue to collaborate with new artists. Sue Fisher King's staples include handmade and traditional items, including hand-painted porcelain by Richard Ginori and Marie Daage, Fortuny light fixtures, Porthault linens, and glassware from Murano, Italy.

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When she was 16, King's parents insisted that she find a job in her hometown of Portland. She began working in retail and, to her surprise, fell in love with the diversity of people she met on the job. After graduating from UC Berkeley, she entered Joseph Magnin's leadership training program, where she specialized in selling high-end home goods. Determined to share finds from her personal travels and visits to creative designers' studios, she opened Sue Fisher King at 3067 Sacramento Street in 1978. The store quickly built a following for its sophisticated and high-quality home goods, including a line of luxurious tabletop items, decorative accents, fine European bed and bath linens, handcrafted jewelry, furniture and unique gift items.

In addition to the retail store, Sue Fisher King operates a thriving online business and a warehouse near Polk Street. The company is currently hiring sales associates for the new location.

Cynthia Traina is a lifelong resident of the neighborhood and a real estate consultant with Vantage Realty.

Filed under: Retail Report

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Four months into an ordeal where their building was flooded (twice!), replacement hotel accommodations were abruptly canceled, and contractors apparently pilfered a number of their possessions, more than 50 tenants of the beleaguered SoMa high-rise 33 Tehama are suing the property manager Hines.

It was on June 3 of this year when 38-story South of Market luxury apartment complex 33 Tehama had a top-floor water main break that caused about 20,000 gallons of water to flood the building, forcing the evacuation of all 383 occupied units. The building’s property manager Hines looked the good guy by offering tenants hotel rooms for the duration of repairs, but it took all of a few days for that offer to look more short-term, as tenants told SFist their hotel reservations were being rescinded by the hotels because there was a conference in town.

Other deals with tenants may have been struck since then, but it’s clear that many remain disgruntled.

The timeline for the tenants’ return has been extended again and again, and now they can’t get back into their apartments until “early 2023,” according to the management company. Add to this the frustration that hotel assistance has now been cut off entirely, the place flooded again in August, and residents complained that contractors were seen on video stealing items from their vacated homes.  

Now this is all ending up where you might have guessed it would have, in court. The San Francisco Superior Court, that is, as the SF Business Times reported Sunday, and the Chronicle quickly confirmed, more than 50 residents of 33 Tehama are suing property manager Hines over the whole runaround.

HAPPENING NOW: Residents of 33 Tehama in #SF have filed a lawsuit against the building’s owner after burst pipes in June forced tenants out of their homes for months. They’re claiming chronic mismanagement. Story at 5 & 6 @abc7newsbayarea pic.twitter.com/2KONwCZ76k

— Tim Johns (@tim_johns_) October 10, 2022

“The tenants were promised this magnificent building and instead they found themselves in a total nightmare,” the plaintiffs’ attorney Nazy Fahimi said in an interview with the Chronicle. “It truly took a toll on these individuals.”

The lawsuit alleges that Hines knew of the plumbing problems long before the June 3 flooding, and has failed to come through on promises of reimbursement for hotel expenses. Financial damages are not specified in the suit, but that’s clearly what the plaintiffs are after here.  

While we do describe the building as “luxury apartments,” nearly 140 of the residents were below-market-rate tenants.

Hines spokesperson Marisa Monte told the Chronicle, “We deny the allegations pled in this complaint, and we believe that during the course of pretrial discovery the court and the public will understand the true extent of our efforts to help those that had to leave their homes during these unfortunate and unforeseen events.”

The district’s supervisor Matt Dorsey chimed in with a statement that “The flooding incident at 33 Tehama in June was only the start of a cascading fiasco that continues to cause hardships and uncertainty for residents. I think civil litigation is the appropriate next step to right the wrongs that emerged from this debacle, and I’m confident the San Francisco Superior Court will ensure that justice is done.”  

The 33 Tehama website still has a “Lease Now” button, as if everything were fine at this location, though there is a message at the top of the site saying there’s a “24/7 hotline” to get “the latest updates.”

While Hines is the property manager, the building was designed by Miami-based Arquitectonica. That same firm is designing a proposed tower with the floating cube top that was all over the news last week, so the current structural mess at 33 Tehama could potentially impact the approval process for that structure.

Related: Flooded SoMa High-Rise Cutting Off Tenants’ Hotel Reimbursement, as They Learn They Can’t Return for Months [SFist]

Image: SFist, Courtesy 33 Tehama tenants

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Unpaid Contractors Sue as Partly Renovated San Francisco Office Building is Sold | Engineering News-Record

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A high-profile group of Marina residents have filed claims against the City of San Francisco after winter storms flooded their properties and nearby streets with sewage, wastewater and rainwater. The boldface names behind the claims include 49ers legend Joe Montana and real estate mogul Victor Makras. 

The flooding came after atmospheric rivers battered San Francisco with unusually high rainfall through the end of 2022 and early 2023. At least 58 residents, all living on Marina Boulevard between Webster and Baker streets, have signed on to the claims. That stretch of roadway, along the bay waterfront by Marina Green, was closed around New Year’s due to flooding. 

Residents on Marina Boulevard say the storm and subsequent flooding were unlike anything they had seen before. It was the second major flood to hit the boulevard in recent years: An October 2021 storm resulted in 4.5 million gallons of untreated wastewater flooding, while the storm on Dec. 31 caused 18.6 million gallons of water to flood the area, according to a letter to the city from the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Millions of more gallons flowed straight into the bay “without authorization” on both occasions, according to the water quality board. 

The flooding on Marina Blvd is getting better, but still avoid the area please. pic.twitter.com/L0tccgUDLL

— SAN FRANCISCO FIRE DEPARTMENT MEDIA (@SFFDPIO) October 25, 2021

“The water wasn’t clean—it wasn’t just rainwater,” said Seth Gersch, who has lived with his wife on Marina Boulevard for six years. Gersch said the couple was forced to rip up the carpet on their first floor because of the water. 

Joni Settlemier, a 40-year resident of the Marina, said because her driveway slopes downward, it is particularly vulnerable to flooding. 

“We really got a lot of water in it, up to our knees,” Settlemier said. “Supposedly there was sewer water, so we just felt that for safety, you just have to get rid of everything. I had some things I was keeping—furniture for my family—that got destroyed.” 

When Joe Montana was approached for comment, he told a reporter that he was on a conference call and unable to talk.

Joe Montana makes an appearance in New York on April 10, 2018. | Source: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

The claims allege the flooding was not only the result of a freak weather incident; claimants say San Francisco’s sewage infrastructure was insufficient and the city is to blame for damage to their properties. 

“For many years, the city has had actual and constructive knowledge that the sewage and storm drainage system in and around the [Marina Boulevard area] cannot sufficiently handle anticipated conditions and rain events,” said the claim, which was filed in June.

The residents are represented by prominent San Francisco attorneys, including Khaldoun Baghdadi, former head of the city’s Human Rights Commission. Baghdadi said residents filed the claims—which are often a precursor to a lawsuit—to put themselves “back where they were” financially before the flooding. 

“We don’t only trust the city to maintain the sewage infrastructure, but we pay it for doing so,” Baghdadi said. “When the city makes the decisions that cause raw sewage to flood homes, it is responsible for compensating residents.” 

Dozens of residents on Marina Boulevard are suing the city for flooding caused by severe winter storms. | Source: Liz Lindqwister/The Standard

The city said its infrastructure was not to blame.

“The intensity and duration of the storm that hit the city on December 31, 2022, was almost unprecedented. It was the strongest storm to hit San Francisco in more than 170 years,” Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for the City Attorney’s Office, said in an email. “The storm, and not the city’s infrastructure, was responsible for widespread flooding throughout the city.” 

Kwart said the city is reviewing the claims raised by the residents and recently sent letters to claimants seeking more information about the alleged damages and their cause. 

Both the Department of Public Works and the Public Utilities Commission declined to comment on the claims directly, noting their agencies cannot speak about ongoing legal matters. 

Extreme Rainfall, Smelly Water

Over a 10-day period around New Year’s Eve, San Francisco was slammed with about 50% of its average annual rainfall. The storms flooded several parts of the city, but hit northern neighborhoods especially hard.

Though some San Franciscans took to street-surfing and paddling around waterlogged roadways, public health officials warned the floodwater could contain raw sewage, animal waste and harmful bacteria. 

A Marina Boulevard resident documented the grime left behind by knee-high flooding that damaged her home on Dec. 31, 2022. | Source: Courtesy Joni Settlemier

“By design, our sewer system avoids discharging raw, untreated sewage and stormwater into the bay or ocean in small and medium-sized storms,” Joseph Sweiss, a Public Utilities Commission spokesperson, told The Standard in January. “It’s only during large storms, like those we’ve experienced back-to-back these past two weeks, that the city’s system discharges untreated stormwater and small amounts of wastewater.”

One of the claimants’ concerns surrounds the city’s unique “combined” sewer system, which treats wastewater and stormwater in the same network of pipes. Sweiss said in a combined system, the water flows through much larger pipes, meaning the system is not prone to clogging and flooding, contrary to claimants’ arguments. 

Yet residents along Marina Boulevard allege the floodwater caused toxic contamination and structural damage to their properties—many of which are posh homes dotted along the shoreline. 

Gersch told The Standard the elevator in his home filled with water twice, first during the 2021 flooding incident and then on New Year’s Eve. It damaged the wiring on the elevator, while mold remediation efforts in the waterlogged basement cost the couple more than $5,000. 

Other residents along Marina Boulevard took to placing sandbags around their properties. Though summertime is in full swing and few rainstorms have hit San Francisco recently, a number of homes on the street still have sandbags propped up against their garages. 

Some residents on Marina Boulevard have left sandbags by their garage doors to prevent future flooding. | Source: Liz Lindqwister/The Standard

Is the Sewage System To Blame?

The claimants allege the city’s aging infrastructure caused the flooding and, by extension, their property damage. They contend the city has failed to properly maintain and upgrade its sewer and storm diversion systems as climate change brings increasingly severe weather. 

“During this time, the city permitted additional development, including construction of impervious driveways, additional rain gutters and collection pipes that all increased rain, contaminated water and sewage discharge into the system,” the claims further alleged. 

The utilities commission has defended the city’s infrastructure and shot back at claims that the combined sewer system model caused excess flooding or had failed to operate as it was designed. 

“No sewer system can reasonably manage the intensity and duration of an extreme storm like we saw on New Year’s Eve, which nearly set a record for the amount of rain,” Sweiss said in January. “Flooding isn’t caused simply by our combined sewer system. Rather, it’s the amount of rain, its intensity and its duration that can cause floods.” 

The claims also focus on the closure of the Pierce Street Outfall, a combined sewer discharge outfall that allows overflow from the Marina to flow directly into the bay. It was closed in May 2021, though two other outfalls remain close to the Marina’s shoreline.

A public utilities employee exits the Pierce Outfall Tunnel. | Source: Sabrina Wong/SFPUC

“San Francisco decommissioned the Pierce Street outfall because it was in poor condition and had one of the lowest weir elevations,” said the regional water board in a letter to the city, in reference to a low-lying barrier that reduces water flow. “San Francisco chose to decommission the outfall, rather than rehabilitate it, based on the extent of structural work needed for rehabilitation and the complexity of installing necessary backflow prevention.” 

City engineers indicated that the outfall’s closure could increase flooding between 2 and 4 inches during heavy rainfall, though their research did not estimate the extent of where the flooding would hit. 

In light of the Pierce outfall closure and the two bouts of heavy flooding, the water board issued a notice in July asking the city to address flooding and infrastructure issues along Marina Boulevard. It laid down no fewer than 11 requirements for the city to fulfill by October 2023 and February 2024, including retesting rainfall simulations along the north shore and evaluating how climate change affects flooding and discharge incidents. 

An Ongoing, Citywide Infrastructure Issue

The Marina isn’t the only San Francisco neighborhood affected by flooding and infrastructure issues. 

During the worst of the winter storms, knee-high water flooded portions of the Mission. Mission Terrace, in particular, has long struggled with destructive floods that residents attribute to aging infrastructure. A 2008 lawsuit also found the city liable for a flooding incident along Cayuga Avenue that damaged properties. 

“The city knows there are problems that it’s tried to address, but they have preferred up to a point to pay damages than to pay for fixes,” said David Hooper, an organizer with Solutions Not Sandbags. 

Members of the Department of Public Works unpack sandbags to distribute to the public at 2323 Cesar Chavez in San Francisco on January 4, 2023. | Source: Paul Kuroda/The Standard

Nearly six months after the New Year’s Eve flood, the city announced plans to pump millions of dollars into water infrastructure improvements, in a joint effort by Mayor London Breed, the Environmental Protection Agency and the city’s utilities commission. A $369 million loan will go to SF Public Utilities Commission to improve “wastewater resiliency” at a dozen locations across the city, particularly in the face of increasingly unpredictable weather.

None of the initial improvement plans are slated for the Marina, however, and a utilities spokesperson said the infrastructure loan is not related to the claims or flooding in the Marina. The nearest infrastructure improvement plan is for a treatment plant located near Fisherman’s Wharf. 

Correction: A previous version of this story stated that Marina residents had filed a lawsuit. The residents have filed claims with the city, which can be a precursor to a lawsuit.

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By JackQueen

(Reuters) – Liability waivers signed by passengers on a submersible lost at sea during a dive to the Titanic wreck may not protect the ship’s owner from potential lawsuits from victims’ families, legal experts say.

The Titan submersible disappeared Sunday after about two hours of diving and was found in parts on the seabed after a “catastrophic implosion” of its hyperbaric chamber occurred on Thursday, according to the US Coast Guard.

The passengers, who paid up to $250,000 each to travel 12,500 feet (3,810 meters) below the surface, are believed to have signed a liability waiver. A CBS reporter who made the trip with OceanGate Expeditions in July 2022 reported that the waiver he signed mentioned the possibility of death three times on the first page alone.

Reuters has not been able to independently confirm the terms of OceanGate’s waivers.

OceanGate did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Waivers are not always valid, and it is not uncommon for judges to reject them where there is evidence of gross negligence or danger that has not been fully disclosed.

“If there were aspects of the design or construction of this vessel that were withheld from passengers, or the vessel was knowingly operated despite being told that it was unsuitable for this dive, that would absolutely defeat the validity of the exemption,” he said Persons Damage Attorney and Maritime Law Expert Matthew D. Shaffer, who is based in Texas.

OceanGate was able to argue that there was no gross negligence and that the exemptions apply because they detail the dangers of exploring the deepest oceans in a minivan-sized submersible.

The extent of possible negligence and how this might affect the applicability of the exemptions depends on the causes of the disaster, which are still under investigation.

“There are so many different examples of what families might still be entitled to despite the waivers, but until we know the cause, we can’t determine if the waivers apply,” said California personal injury attorney Joseph Low.

The families could not be reached on Thursday. It is possible that none of them will sue.

OceanGate is a small company based in Everett, Wash., and it’s unclear if it has the resources to pay significant damages if awarded, but families could benefit from the company’s insurance policy, if one is available has.

Families could also seek damages from outside parties who designed, helped build, or manufactured components for the Titan if they are found to have acted negligently and caused the implosion.

“DEATH AT SEA”

OceanGate could try to protect itself from damages by filing a so-called limitation of liability suit under maritime law, which allows owners of ships involved in an accident to seek federal court to limit any damages to the ship’s present value. Since the Titan was destroyed, that would be zero.

However, OceanGate would have to prove that it was unaware of any possible defects in the submersible and would bear the burden of proof, which legal experts say is difficult to fulfil.

Should OceanGate fail in such a case, the families are free to file claims of negligence or first-degree manslaughter.

Another law of the sea, the Death on the High Seas Act, allows persons who were financially dependent on a person who died in a shipwreck to claim only that portion of that person’s future income that they would otherwise have received. In these cases, the plaintiffs cannot claim compensation for pain and suffering.

What OceanGate knew about the ship’s safety and what was communicated to passengers about it were the key questions during discovery, a process where parties share information about a case.

The plaintiffs may be able to cite allegations of security flaws at OceanGate made by a former employee in a 2018 lawsuit against the company in federal court in Washington. Staff member David Lochridge said he raised “serious safety concerns” but was ignored. That case was settled on undisclosed terms, court filings show.

A group of industry leaders also wrote to OceanGate in 2018, raising serious concerns about the safety of the ship and the company’s decision not to have Titan certified by third parties such as the American Bureau of Shipping, a leading classifier for submersibles.

(Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Amy Stevens and Daniel Wallis)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Eleven former Twitter cleaners at the New York offices sued the company on Tuesday, saying they are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in back payments and damages after their sudden dismissal in December.

The lawsuit in Manhattan federal court alleged that the company violated New York City rules that protect unionized workers from being replaced by workers from another cleaning company for at least three months. This company was also sued.

The layoffs came just days after four dozen janitors at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters lost their jobs in early December. California workers protested outside their former workplace after being fired. They claimed that state and local laws required new contractors to keep workers for at least 60 days.

Twitter returned an email request for comment on Tuesday with an automatic reply and no comment.

In their lawsuit, the former Twitter cleaners in New York sought an immediate court order reinstating them for at least 90 days, along with back wages and damages.

The lawsuit says the workers were laid off on December 19, leaving them “unemployed on the eve of the Christmas holidays.”

“As a result of Twitter’s actions, the plaintiffs were unemployed as of Christmas Eve, forcing several of them to cancel or severely curtail their holiday celebrations,” the lawsuit reads.

Eight of the 11 full-time employees, who earned up to $31 an hour, worked there as of 2015. Their jobs included sweeping and mopping floors, cleaning and disinfecting kitchens and common areas, and emptying and removing trash and recycling other cleaning duties .

The workers were affiliated with Chapter 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, which represents more than 20,000 cleaners in around 800 buildings in New York City.

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The suit argues the city is “punishing residents who have nowhere to go” in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The argument draws on the Ninth Circuit’s 2019 decision in the Martin v. Boise case, which found that people who are homeless can’t be penalized for sleeping on public property, if there is no alternative offered.

The suit also alleges violations of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and the 14th Amendment’s due process requirement.

“They would come out at, like, four in the morning, five in the morning. Usually when you’re in the dead of sleep and it’s very, very cold,” said Toro Castaño, 51, one of the plaintiffs in the suit. He was living on the streets of the Castro for two years, until the fall of 2021. “It was very traumatic because it’s very cold outside and a lot of things they’re taking are warm clothes, warm jackets, blankets, things that you need just to survive.”

Castaño had his belongings taken from him by the city four times during the pandemic, according to the complaint, and settled a claim against the city for $9,000 after his property was destroyed. He now lives in a co-op in the city.

While Castaño was unhoused, he said he was asked to move nearly every day. “It makes you very sleep-deprived, makes it difficult to make decisions, to make appointments, to try to look for work or try to look for jobs — basically to function,” he said.

Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said the goal of the lawsuit is to stop sweeps, which she said only perpetuate homelessness. “When the city takes folks’ IDs, their cellphones, the things that they need in order to really navigate a very complicated route off the streets, that ends up extending their homelessness,” she said, explaining that people can lose contact with social service providers and miss out on housing opportunities. “What we hear from folks again and again is they feel like they’re starting from scratch.”

She argues the city’s enforcement resources would be better spent on housing and treatment programs. “It’s in everyone’s interest to really, truly invest in the permanent solutions we need to solve homelessness,” she said.

The suit names the city and county of San Francisco; Major London Breed; Director of the Healthy Streets Operation Center Sam Dodge; and several city departments as defendants.

Jen Kwart, director of communications for the city attorney’s office, said in a statement, “The City is acutely focused on expanding our temporary shelter and permanent housing options to alleviate our homelessness crisis. Once we are served with the lawsuit, we will review the complain and respond in court.”

The city’s latest point-in-time count found a total of about 7,700 people living on the streets or in shelters, a 3.5% decrease since 2019. But, Latinx homelessness spiked 55% and Black people continue to be overrepresented among the unhoused, at 38% of the total homeless population compared to 6% of the general population.

Based on the new count, officials now estimate that as many as 20,000 people experience homelessness in a full year.

From 2015 to 2022, the city built just 2,067 units of very-low-income housing, just a third of its goal, while far exceeding its goal for market rate housing, according to the city’s 2020 housing inventory.

Emily Cohen, deputy director of communications for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, points out that since 2017, the city has nearly doubled the number of housing units dedicated to people leaving homelessness.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs have filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, asking the court to ban the city from conducting sweeps or otherwise enforcing ordinances that punish sleeping on public property while the suit proceeds.

Castaño said he hopes the suit leads to more affordable housing and better conditions for people experiencing homelessness. “I’m hoping that people on the street will be protected a little more, that the things won’t be taken that they used to survive and to stay warm,” he said. “And there’s a little more compassion.”

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The woman at the center of a San Francisco police scandal after investigators used evidence from her sexual assault exam to link her to an unrelated property crime is planning to sue the Police Department, saying the incident made her feel like she was “reliving” her trauma all over again.

The woman in an interview with The Chronicle said she was first contacted by the police a few months ago, after neighbors called the police to her home for a loud fight she was having with her boyfriend. The police soon left but then came back with a warrant for her arrest.

She didn’t realize at the time that she had been tied to a recent property crime from a rape exam that she had given in 2016. She was kept in custody until last month, when her attorney told her that her charges were being dropped because of how police linked her to the crime.

The woman said she should have been happy to be released but stayed at home depressed for days.

“When you feel like you have nobody to talk to about it, it’s a lonely feeling,” she said. “I’m still adjusting how I feel.”

The woman felt that police failed to protect her privacy, and didn’t treat her like “a citizen.”

“I kind of absorb pain,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “It was just kind of like, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ And just making me feel really bad.”

The Chronicle granted the woman anonymity for this story and does not typically identify victims of sexual assault.

While the woman said she used to feel comfortable at least confiding in police, she has long felt they were unable to protect her.

Her belief stems from trauma in the woman’s childhood, when her mother was killed by her boyfriend.

The woman said she and her sister were being sexually abused by their mother’s boyfriend and that someone from her school reported it to the police. The girl and her siblings were taken out of the home, which prompted the boyfriend to confront her mother about the allegations.

“And he murdered her,” the woman said.

The officer who investigated the sex abuse came to the funeral, she said, and apologized for not protecting the girl and her mother, “which is what I asked for,” she said. “I asked to be protected and for my family to be protected.”

Even at a young age, she said, she learned that sometimes going to the police wasn’t in her best interest.

After the recent incident with her rape-kit DNA, the woman said, “Basically I’m reliving stuff all over again.”

Adante Pointer, an Oakland civil rights attorney representing the woman, called the practice “Orwellian” and has filed a notice of a claim, a precursor to a lawsuit.

“We hope that the practice of weaponizing victims’ DNA against them is ended,” Pointer said. “We also want to ensure that this practice doesn’t ensnare anyone else.”

The woman’s interview comes nearly a month after District Attorney Chesa Boudin revealed that the Police Department’s crime lab stored DNA from rape victims infinitely in a database. The database, Boudin said, was regularly searched to identify suspects in crimes.

At the time, Boudin said his office was aware of one person who was arrested as a result of this practice but did not disclose other details about the woman, other than to say she was arrested for a property crime. Boudin dropped the case against her, saying that her constitutional rights were likely violated.

The revelation prompted a national outcry, particularly from sexual assault victims advocates, who said the practice would have a chilling effect on reporting the crimes to law enforcement.

The San Francisco Police Department is conducting an audit to determine how many other victims could have been identified or arrested through this practice. Police Chief Bill Scott said he supports legislation that would end the practice in San Francisco and elsewhere and that the department has already implemented an interim policy change.

“We must never create a disincentive for sexual assault survivors — or any crime victim — to cooperate with police,” Scott said in a recent statement.

However, some say that the current policy change doesn’t go far enough and would still allow victim profiles to remain in a database that’s searched by crime lab employees.

Policy documents reviewed by The Chronicle detailed how the crime lab operates what’s known as “quality assurance” database, which held DNA profiles from several categories of individuals — including rape victims — and was routinely tested against suspect DNA found at later crime scenes.

The quality assurance database has two components. One includes “every single source and … evidence profile analyzed since tracking began in 2015,” which could include DNA profiles from rape suspects, sexual assault victims, child victims, consensual sex partners of rape victims or other people unrelated to a crime whose DNA may be found at a crime scene.

DNA evidence from victims or other non-suspects is collected and stored in order to separate it from that of the suspected offender.

The second component is an elimination database that holds DNA samples from lab staff members, visitors and police officers, to test for DNA contamination.

According to internal emails reviewed by The Chronicle, the Police Department’s new policy does not remove victims’ DNA profiles from the searchable database. Instead, it states that if DNA from a victim’s rape kit matched DNA found at another crime scene, analysts would not be allowed to share this information with anyone outside the crime lab.

State Sen. Scott Wiener and San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen are both seeking legislation to ban the practice.

Ronen’s measure would require police to dispose of the DNA samples within 60 days and prohibit police searches against the database within the 60 days. It would also require police to purge all victim DNA profiles by June 1.

In an interview, Ronen said she had considered scrapping the proposal after hearing that the Police Department had already ended the practice. However, she said, self-policing doesn’t go far enough.

“Clearly, we can’t trust the judgment of the very people who engaged in this practice for years as far as we know,” Ronen said. “The fact that the (new) policy … still allows the crime lab to store victim data and potentially search against it is just unacceptable.”

Megan Cassidy (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com, Twitter: @meganrcassidy

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