After six and a half months of sitting there and trying to look intimidating, the SFPD’s giant, RV-style “mobile command unit” has been removed from the corner of 16th and Mission streets as the SFPD shifts gears on cleaning up that corner.
It has been since March 12, some two months into the Daniel Lurie administration, that Lurie and the SFPD decided to place a gigantic RV-looking police vehicle called the “mobile command unit” at 16th and Mission streets. It was meant as some sort of visual deterrent to the illegal vending, drug use, and myriad forms of blight that had come to characterize the corner, though many argued that the Sixth Street crackdown had moved much of that blight there. And plenty of residents in the area argue the visible police presence just moved the illegal activity a block or two away.
WATCH: SFPD's Mobile Command Unit No. 2 drove onto the 16th and Mission BART plaza this afternoon, as officers in the rain moved people away to make room for the bus-sized vehicle.
— Mission Local (@MLNow) March 12, 2025
It will stay at the BART plaza 24/7, the Mission captain said, as a deterrent. pic.twitter.com/3xtrUnWnz6
But as of last Friday, the mobile command unit has been removed from 16th and Mission, as Mission Local reports.
The SFPD gave some differing rationales for the huge vehicle’s removal, according to Mission Local’s reporting. SFPD Mission Station captain Sean Perdomo said in an email to Mission Local that the vehicle was removed because of “budget constraints.” But Mission Local also got a separate statement from SFPD saying that “the SFPD determined we could be more efficient with additional officers in the alleyways and in front of schools in the area.”
Technically, both of those rationales could be true. The use of the vehicle could have been a budget restraint, and other methods of blight- and crime-fighting might be considered more efficient.
Indeed, Mission Local adds that staffing the mobile command unit was paid for almost entirely with police overtime funds, a cost that is wildly out of control as San Francisco struggles with a giant budget deficit. The vehicle was staffed 24/7, and six of the seven days a week — and its on-duty officers were being paid at a time-and-a-half overtime rate.
But SFPD says they’ll still maintain heavy foot patrols at the long-beleaguered 16th and Mission street corner. And according to the SFPD’s statement on removing the vehicle, the department says they’re embarking on a “new strategy [that] involves deploying a Youth Engagement Officer, who will address quality-of-life issues around schools.”
Related: New 16th Street Police Presence Just Moving Blight to Nearby Alleys, Residents Say [SFist]
Image: Joe Kukura, SFist
