With crime in San Francisco skyrocketing in 2020, bike thievery has become particularly common. In response, the San Francisco Bike Coalition wrote on their website that those who have had their bike stolen should give a second thought to calling the police on black and brown thieves, as these people could be harmed by police during the interaction.
“San Francisco Bicycle Coalition @sfbike acknowledges that ‘Black and Brown people’ (sic) are way overrepresented as bike thieves, but says not to report them, because filing theft reports leads to them being ‘impacted’ by police. You can’t even make this up,” said one Twitter user.
“Bike Theft and Policing: Black and brown people are often deeply harmed or even killed by interactions with the police, and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition decided in 2020 to end any formal relationship with SFPD. Because policing is interwoven into nearly all current solutions to bike theft, some of our recommendations do involve minimal contact with the police, but we identify those and try to propose alternatives. We encourage everyone to consider the potential impact to human life of involving the police in any situation,” the considerations read on the bicycle coalition site.
The group appears to be all-in on woke ideology. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition wrote an anti-racism message in 2020, saying: “Our streets will not be safe until black people can use them without fear. We stand in solidarity with those protesting the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and Breonna Taylor and the continued police violence against black lives. We are committed to being an antiracist organization, and as a majority-white organization, we know we have more learning and growth to do.”
The bike coalition has also advocated for less policing of traffic, again due to racism against blacks and browns.
“More importantly, it would cut down on police traffic enforcement, which often does little to create safer streets, and instead over-polices and disproportionately harms Black and brown communities,” they write.
