San Francisco businesses are allowed to hire uniformed SFPD officers to work as private security at an overtime pay rate. As the department claims that it’s short-staffed, here are the companies pulling the cops to work as private security the most.
The SF Board of Supervisors just approved tens of millions of dollars of extra SFPD overtime this week, well beyond what the department had originally budgeted for. And not for the first time either, with the department saying this is necessary because they are short-staffed.
But there is also a separate gravy train for police to pull those sweet time-and-a-half overtime dollars, working armed and in full uniform as private security, under a program known in police lexicon as 10B.
This program has been in place since 1978, but has come under fire after a recent blistering audit found that many officers were calling in sick from their SFPD jobs, and then working as private security the same day.
SFPD says its officers working as security guards are ‘out in the community.’ But mostly, they’re downtown.
— Mission Local (@MLNow) May 2, 2025
Here's a map of where SFPD officers worked private security gigs over a five-year period:
via @jrivanob & @kellywaldro https://t.co/PD0v3ENn7V
So where are these officers working as private security, sometimes on days when they’ve called in sick for their regular job? We have analyses from Mission Local and the Chronicle this week on which companies are hiring these officers privately, based on data from the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office.
In terms of retailers, not surprisingly, it’s the stores that get shoplifted from the most. Walgreens has been the No. 1 employer of SFPD officers as private security, and other thieves'-favorite retailers like Lululemon, Target, and Safeway were also on the list.
New data obtained by the Chronicle shows that popular retailers have hired police officers to work tens of thousands of hours as private security at a time of heightened concern over shoplifting. https://t.co/nvqPLSXMbJ
— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) May 9, 2025
The San Francisco Giants were No. 2 on the list, for their beefing-up police presence at games. Salesforce also scored big overtime SFPD hire hours, likely because of Dreamforce and their other promotional events and concerts.
The police say this all necessary and useful.
“What people don’t understand is that 10B is done on an officer’s day off or before or after their shift,” San Francisco Police Officers’ Association president Tracy McCray told the Chronicle. “We don’t control who asks for it, but it has put more officers on the streets at the retail businesses and stores to help with theft.”
That may be, but the Chronicle notes that “officers worked more than 50,000 hours between 2020 and 2023 under the program despite not being eligible to do so due to high use of sick time.” That is, the officers had called in sick too many times to be eligible to work privately in a particular pay period or time period.
That rule, apparently, is simply not enforced, which some say exacerbates crime in areas that are not Union Square or the Giants’ ballpark.
“Most violent crime happens in the Southeast Sector and in the Mission District,” Supervisor Shamann Walton told the Chronicle. “Officers choosing 10B programs and abandoning posts in core neighborhoods is unacceptable.”
Here’s which companies have hired SFPD for the most hours between the years of 2018 and 2023, and how many hours those officers worked as private security for those companies:
- Walgreens (54,500 hours)
- SF Giants (49,800 hours)
- Lululemon (36,700 hours)
- Salesforce (30,900 hours)
- Union Square Alliance (30,200 hours)
- Security Industry Specialist (26,800 hours)
- Target (26,100 hours)
- Safeway (24,500 hours)
- Bank of America (19,900 hours)
- Golden State Warriors (19,000 hours)
Image: San Francisco, USA - September 10, 2011: San Francisco Police at Ghirardelli Square chocolate festival
