Even if a tip doesn't lead to the conviction of a murder suspect, the Richmond Police Department just started offering $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of homicide suspects. While cash-for-information leading to a conviction can take up to several years, or in some cases a decade or more, to receive, now witnesses will be able to claim their reward "even if it doesn't lead to a conviction," according to Richmond Police......

After their American Idol hour was unforgivably interrupted by the San Francisco Police Department making an announcement last night, a reader writes to SFist asking: At about 8:55pm tonight, my viewing of American Idol was disrupted by the SFPD making an announcement in the middle of our street that there will be several rounds of LIVE AMMUNITION fired in the next few minutes as they test a new gun fire detection system. I live......

Over at the five-star Clift Hotel, home to the (in)famous Redwood Room, hotel employee Christian Rojas was arrested after he allegedly raped a hotel guest in her room. According to officials, the 30-year-old man used his keycard to enter the victim's hotel room, attack her, and then leave. According to the Clift's director of sales and marketing: The safety and privacy of our guests is our top priority. We are cooperating fully with the San......

SF Late Night Coalition chairperson Terrance Alan (far left), Police Chief Heather Fong, and Newsom at yesterday's announcement With nightclubs like Jelly's, Whisper, and 715 Harrison playing host to fatal mischief over the past few months, yesterday Mayor Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong went on the offense against SF nightlife. Four bits of legislation, co-sponsored by Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, will be put before the board of supes: - The first ordinance would require......

What a care- and crime-free life SF is living right now,right? And we don't believe any of it. According to local media outlets, SF is safe and sound. But according to a few SFist tipsters: - "Okay, that sure sounded like three gunshots at Alamo Square park, at the northwest corner, around 9:21pm. Anyone concur?" - "Heard four more gunshot-like explosions at 10:49 in the same area. Saw four cops heading east on Fulton......

Huh. The San Francisco Police Department has put the kibosh on tomorrow's Dolores Park free cash giveaway care of Cash Tomato. Check it: This Saturday 23rd February at 10am, we had planned to hide hundreds of tomatoes with cash attached in Dolores park, a tomato/cash treasure hunt if you will. Yesterday, 21st February we received an email from SFPD telling us that we are unable to do this, that by giving away money within......

This is most exciting news, folks. The theater scene here sucks so hard now that even the San Francisco Police Department is working on the problem. Check it: Subject: Broadway Community Meeting with SFPD's Captain Dudley Thursday, February 21, 6PM, Tel-Hi Neighborhood Center, 660 Lombard Street. Captain Dudley from Central Station will hold a meeting to update neighbors on the current situation on the Broadway corridor. Topics to include:......

47-year-old Antonia Vargas was found lying dead on her porch in Richmond today. Her body was found on the "2400 block of Andrade Avenue by a colleague who normally drives her to work," and she was attacked with an "edged weapon." There were no reports of suspicious activity in the area that night and the fuzz hasn't a clue yet as to what occurred. If you know of anything, sleuthy readers, snitch to the......

Choppy footage: San Francisco Police Department via the Chron And speaking of cameras... While Chicago has seen crime rates plummet to their lowest numbers in over four decades due to the windy city's Big Brother program, San Francisco's attempt at panopticon-ish camera security is failing. Ever since the 68 city-funded cameras started rolling, our city's surveillance program has resulted in a single arrest. That was over 19 months ago. Why the lag, you ask?......

This is rich. The San Francisco Police Department are now having to investigate their own brethren. It appears that last Saturday morning, SFPD missed finding a firearm on a female suspect being booked into the Tenderloin station. A police spokersperson would only confirm that "officers heard a shot come from the holding area just after 11:00 Saturday morning. When they went in officers found a woman detainee and a small handgun on the floor.......

The body of the TGI Friday's manager--whose was found earlier this week by an employee inside the restaurant, making this San Mateo's first homicide since 2006--was identified as Douglas Castello, 36, "a mild-mannered guy with an infectious laugh." Reports claim that he was bludgeoned to death by a "blunt force type object." He was reportedly heading down the road toward marriage just before his death, "shopping for a promise ring in two weeks and......

Oh my God, you guys, no way. Get this: the New York Post was wrong. What's next: Intelligent Design? Celebrity weddings? Our meth-induced epiphanies that the CIA, in cahoots with the Norteños, are reading our emails and listening in on our phone calls? See, it seems that "[n]o slingshots have been found" and that the NY Post was wrong. And we refuse to believe anything Rupert Murdoch-related is less than perfect. Thankfully, according to......

A few hours later after a car hit a man at the same intersection in Portola, a Muni bus stuck and killed a pedestrian on Thursday night at around 8:30 p.m. The 9X killed a woman in her 30s at San Bruno Avenue and Bacon Street. According to CBS 5 (via Bay City News), "details of the incident were unclear. Muni spokesman Alan Siegel confirmed the accident occurred but said he wouldn't comment on......

Pittsburg police -- you know, that place at the end-of-the-line BART station that also happens to be a city -- released a composite sketch of the man suspected of abducting and sexually assaulting two people in Pittsburg last Saturday morning. The man reportedly attacked a 19-year-old disabled woman and an 11-year-old girl. CBS 5 reports that "no new attacks have been reported since Saturday and the case doesn't seem to match any other sexual......

Well, have you? (And just what's on his hoodie?) The owner of this visage is wanted for questioning related to the shooting death of Jose Rivas, 20, of Antioch. His bullet-riddled body was found at an Arco gas station at 2610 Contra Loma Blvd. south of Highway 4 at about 10:45 p.m. yesterday afternoon, near a red Mustang. The Chron reports that "[i]nvestigators were searching for a white Dodge or Plymouth that was caught......

We're not one to laugh at church vandalism. Ever. But the following story in today's Mercury News is goddamn hilarious. And hilariously bad. Los Gatos police believe the suspects who scrawled swastikas and anti-gay messages on two churches and a pharmacy last weekend probably live in town, and investigators are hoping someone will turn them in. In some ways ... the vandal - or vandals - who hit St. Mary's Catholic Church, United Methodist......

Perhaps in an effort to appease the masses for screwing them over on insane parking ticket allocations, the San Francisco Police Department, the Mayor's Office, and city prosecutors are working together to stop the city's most "overlooked crime": smash-and-grab auto burglaries. (Also known as "Boosts." Oh, that's fun name!) With an average of 41 smash-and-grabs per day in SF, the Mayor's office created a special task force that arrests one boost-happy hoodlum per week,......

According to CBS 5 (interrupting us right in the middle of The People's Court, no less!) "East Contra Costa County residents are being evacuated from an area near the unincorporated town of Knightsen because of a possible explosive device found inside of a residential motor home." Motor homes and explosive devices? Who could've imagined!? Anyway, that's all the info posted so far. We'll update as soon as more info becomes available. Update: Taken (again!)......

This morning at around 1:15 a.m., an unidentified woman walking on Grand Avenue in Oakland was struck and killed by a passing car. She died at the scene. According to Bay City News, the vehicle then hightailed it northbound on Grand Avenue. Jerk. So far there is no description of the car or person that killed the woman. Of course, if any of you were up at that hour, kicking it in Oakland and......

A Palo Alto high school girl survived a kidnapping and sexual assault yesterday afternoon, an ordeal that went on for 90 minutes. At 3 p.m. yesterday, a teen was on the "500 block of Arastradero Road near El Camino Real...near her home, when a man accosted her from behind, hit her in the face several times and dragged her into his car," according to Palo Alto police officer Dan Ryan. The city of Palo......

Like a pesky gnat, the U.S. Supreme Court swatted away an appeal by former San Francisco Police Department Chief Earl Sanders yesterday. He claimed to have been nailed to the wall unfairly over his part in a little known thing called fajitagate....

More to the point, can you see these cars? Yeah, hard for us, too. (Go here to see the shocking! riveting! scandalous! footage that borders on tepid here.) But these two American-made automobiles -- an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and Chevrolet Malibu Wagon, respectively (chortle) -- are believed to be involved one of the 101 shootings that took place on September 30. If you have any info on these fine cars, you're urged to call......

Behold! "VideoGate" Officer Andrew Cohen's addictive blog that goes deep -- deep! -- inside the San Francisco Police Department and its many machinations. What's it called? Why, Inside the SFPD, of course. Today's feature: a delightful Santos/'Twas the Night Before X-Mas parody. But the entire site seems to be coming along swimmingly, and we invite you to read and comment at your leisure. Note to chicken-shit trolls: you can comment anonymously. (God help you,......

-- Have you seen this man? (Also, we think that we have that same shirt in our closet. Yipes!) [Chron] -- Meet Jose Alfredo and Olga Contreras, parents teetering on the brink of homelessness while trying to make a life in SF. [Examiner] -- More on Lights Out. [The Snitch] -- "Animal Rites" for your perusal. [SFBG] -- At last....mansion Deco Duel! (We want the one on the right.) [Curbed SF] -- Google all......

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market......

It must be oddly freeing to have an ongoing, very public work-related crisis, because Officer Andrew Cohen seems to have a lot to say these days. And why the heck not? It's an interesting opportunity to take a look into the mind of what a veteran police officer -- one that no longer has to play politics -- really thinks. We got his opinion on the recent 'use of force' at AT&T Park. ...

Ha ha ha ha ha!! Isn't this LOLJEW picture excellent? We got it from reader Cior. Send us your LOLJEW pictures too! (Here's commenter KWillets's two pictures too.) So what's on tap(ioca) in Ed Jew news this afternoon? Here goes! --Ed will not resign. --Ed's taken today off work, which would explain why the Chron can't find him either at City Hall or at the flower shop (where all the shower magic happens.) --Ed's......

Here's todays news...

-It's light out in SoMa as there's a black out going on. -And there was a fire in Nob Hill this morning. One person was critically injured and the cable cars near where the fire was were shut down. -There was an earthquake this morning off the coast near Eureka. -Oakland Police Department and Oakland might be at a contract impasse. -Part of the land the 49ers want to build on in Santa Clara is......

Friend of SFist Peggy saw our story on bad people parking in bad ways and sent an e-mail telling us of her tales of parking woes. She also sent to us the e-mail exchange she had with the Taraval Station Police Department about what to do about her problems. ...