San Francisco DA Brooke Jenkins FIRES at least 15 of Boudin's staff

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San Francisco’s new District Attorney has fired at least 15 members of ousted DA Chesa Boudin’s staff as she works to restore safety in the city.

Brooke Jenkins, 40, was appointed by Mayor Breed to take over prosecutions in the Bay Area following the ouster of District Attorney Chesa Boudin. 

She was sworn in on July 8, after previously working for him and leading the campaign to recall Boudin over his soft sentences for violent criminals and drug offenders.

But as she took office, Jenkins had to confront many of Boudin’s progressive allies who remained in top staff positions at the office.

She originally said she did not plan to fire any of the staff, and was instead planning a potential ‘reshuffling’ of the office, but on Friday, Jenkins announced there would be a major staffing overhaul at the office.

‘I promised the public that I would restore accountability and consequences to the criminal justice system while advancing smart reform responsibly,’ she said in a statement. 

‘Today, I made difficult, but important changes to my management team, and staff that will help advance my vision to restore a sense of safety in San Francisco by holding serious and repeat offenders accountable, and implementing smart criminal justice reforms.’

She let go most of the 25 staffers who worked with Boudin, joker gaming including Managing Attorney Arcelia Hurtado, who acted as the office’s representative on the city’s Innocence Commission, and Kate Chatfield, who served as Boudin’s chief of staff, according to the

To replace them, she brought in four people who have been tougher on crime and were critical of Boudin in the past.

Jenkins had originally vowed to staff members their positions were safe.

After being sworn in earlier this month, the  reports, Jenkins went down to the office saying no one would be fired.

She said she instead planned to meet with people in the near future for a potential ‘reshuffling’ of the office, according to the Gate.

And in a recording of the meeting obtained by the  Jenkins told the staff she wanted to ‘calm the waters’ and ‘extend a hand’ to those who were hired by Boudin and his predecessor George Gascon. 

She said in the recording she did not want the office ‘to be negative or to stay divided.

‘I just don’t think we can continue to function in a state that is pre-Chesa, post-Chesa,’ Jenkins is said to have told the staffers. ‘I want you all to know that I’m committed to figuring out how we bridge that gap.’

Still, she said she wanted to review every case in which a plea offer had been made, but was not yet accepted by a suspect — and when someone told her that would mean reviewing thousands of cases, she said she wanted to prioritize drug cases. 

Those who left the 20-minute meeting that day told the Gate the meeting was ‘horrible,’ ‘icy, ‘uncomfortable’ and even insane.’

And following the Examiner’s report, Jenkins condemned the secret recording and its release to the press, saying: ‘The public expects and deserves that our office will operate with the utmost integrity at all times.

‘The fact that someone, albeit an attorney or senior staff member would choose to secretly record the contents of a senior staff meeting, knowing the risk such actions pose to our ability to serve the community and our victims, is very disturbing.’

In California, it is illegal to record a private conversation without all of the parties giving consent.  

It remains unclear what caused Jenkins to go back on her promise that senior staff members’ positions were secure only to be replaced by new prosecutors.

After being fired on Friday, Hurtado told the Chronicle that Jenkins didn’t even meet with managers to individually assess whom she could keep on and who would be let go.

‘I was hopeful that she would be true to her word… and this seems to be a complete political massacre at this point,’ Hurtado said. 

‘She lined us up, essentially, one by one today, 15-minute phone calls and fired u all without cause, and would not state any reason for why we were fired.’

But soon after Jenkins announced that she was hiring four new lieutenants — Ana Gonzalez, Nancy Tung, Tiffany Sutton and Rani Singh.

They have each spent several years as prosecutors in the Bay Area, with some publicly sparring with former DA Boudin in the past.

Gonzalez, for example, is a former San Francisco assistant district attorney who Boudin fired in his own purge when he gook office in January 2020. She will now serve as Jenkins’ chief assistant, meaning she will be the office’s lead attorney.

Tung, meanwhile, will be the chief of special prosecutions, taking on and overseeing sensitive cases, and will also serve as lead liaison for the office’s community partnerships.

Sutton, who was previously director of crime strategies division at the San Francisco Police Department, will lead the DA’s juvenile division and alternative programs and initiatives, which focuses on collaborative courts and reforms.

And leading the transition team will be Singh.

In a statement, Jenkins said the new team ‘will includ e the addition of three women of color, with decades of prosecutorial experience at the highest levels [who] will help our office deliver on that promise.

‘I have full faith and confidence that these women will promote and protect public safety while delivering justice in all of its various forms.’

The shakeup comes over one month since more than 70,730 people out of roughly 118,000 citizens voted to oust woke District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

He was originally elected on a platform of criminal justice reform, but his notoriously progressive laws have been widely blamed for rising crime and homelessness in the Bay Area since the start of the pandemic.

During his time in office, ‘smash-and-grab’ robberies have become commonplace, with thieves brazenly raiding store shelves in broad daylight — only to avoid charges thanks to Boudin’s lax policies.

Such robberies have forced stores across the city to close down to avoid being victimized in the premeditated — and often coordinated — strikes.

Finally local business groups funded the recall campaign against Boudin, accusing him of not doing enough to keep citizens safe and introducing policies that allow repeat offenders to commit crimes without fear of incarceration.

But Boudin and his supporters claimed that the recall was a Republican effort designed to undermine his progressive-led reforms, which have caused a 5.7 percent increase in crime this year with assaults up 11.2 percent and thefts up nearly 15 percent.

‘They created an electoral dynamic where we were literally shadowboxing,’ Boudin said following the vote.  

‘This is a Republican- and police union-led playbook to undermine and attack progressive prosecutors who have been winning elections across the country,’ he told The Guardian.

‘The playbook involves delegitimizing and fear-mongering and recalling. It’s a tactic being used by folks who are increasingly unable to prevail in elections when they put forward their views about public safety and justice.’

He did, however, concede that voters were understandably frustrated by the pandemic but thrust the blame on city officials that he said has failed to deliver on safety, housing, and equity, as murders and assaults continue to rise from last year — one of the worst years crime-wise the city had seen in decades.

He said: ‘We have two cities. We have two systems of justice. ‘

‘We have one for the wealthy and the well connected and a different one for everybody else.’ 

‘And that’s exactly what we are fighting to change.’ 

He added: ‘This was never about one vote count. It was never about one election night party. This is a movement, not a moment in history.’ 

Meanwhile, Boudin’s predecessor in San Francisco, George Gascon is facing his own recall election in Los Angeles.

Critics of his are seeking to recall him over his progressive polices — namely his prohibition of minors being charged as adults and elimination of enhancements that could add time to a convict’s sentence. 

The progressive prosecutor — who was elected in 2020 — has been vocal about the need to reform the criminal justice system to focus more on intervention and rehabilitation, blasting ‘tough-on-crime’ policies as racist and a failure.  

But earlier this month, the  ‘Recall District Attorney George Gascon’ campaign collected more than 717,000 signatures — well over the 566,857 needed under rules set by the Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters.

‘, you have made your voices heard,’ campaign activist wrote on . ‘Together, we’re going to force George Gascon to face the voters.’ 

Recall activists hope to put the option to recall Gascon on the November ballot. 

In order to do so, the signatures from 10 percent of registered voters in Los Angeles County will have to be verified, so the organizers submitted more than needed, in case some are deemed unacceptable. 

The deadline for supporters of the recall to turn in their ballots was July 6.