Benioff concluded by calling for San Francisco to adopt a community policing model, which would be more labor-intensive, requiring more police officers, but is determined to be highly effective by federal research and is endorsed by the California Democratic Party.
(The Center Square) – Salesforce CEO and founder Marc Benioff, whose company has a $240 billion market value, demanded San Francisco “refund the police” after the consolidated city-county’s police commission ordered the end of “pretext stops.”
“San Francisco must refund the police not continue to defund the police,” said Benioff on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Our police need to be empowered now — not this new terrible decision to end pretext stops.”
Pretext stops are when an officer legally pulls someone over for a minor infraction with suspicion there is involvement in other crime. Opponents have called pretext stops racist, noting people of color are more likely to be pulled over for a pretext stop.
“This policy will help prevent police from needlessly stopping people under the guise of traffic enforcement,” said Yoel Haile, director of the Criminal Justice Program at the ACLU of Northern California, in a statement. “This is not only a discriminatory tactic that has disproportionately targeted People of Color, it’s dangerous.”