San Francisco police chief resigns after deadly officer-involved shooting

Former San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr.

(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

last updated 20 May 2016

San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr resigned on Thursday, hours after the city's third deadly officer-involved shooting in six months.

Mayor Ed Lee asked Suhr, a 30-year veteran of the force, to step down, and said during a news conference he wanted to "heal the city." The police department has recently come under fire for police shootings and the exchange of racist and homophobic text messages among officers, and four members of the Board of Supervisors called for Suhr to be replaced, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Lee said that while Suhr "agrees with and understands the need for reform," he has now "arrived at a different conclusion to the question of how best to move forward." Lee named Toney Chaplin, a 26-year department veteran, as acting police chief.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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