Vicious and Dangerous Dog hearings are set to return to San Francisco after a likely year-long hiatus. The city will use a dedicated hearing officer to oversee cases. The pause followed a rise in dog-bite incidents and a backlog of reports, including many bites occurring in the Tenderloin. Dog court was functionally discontinued in July 2025 when the Department of Police Accountability lacked a hearing officer, leaving 66 pending cases before the court and 15 additional cases under SFPD review. Victims have faced difficulties seeking accountability, especially in neighborhoods with large homeless populations where bites may go unreported. The program had been funded since 2018, and the court will now be supported using the original funding bucket.
"The Department of Police Accountability, which has held the hearings since 2018, discontinued the program last year, citing budget cuts. The court will now be underwritten out of the same funding bucket established for the program years ago. The Department of Police Accountability had received $100,000 in city funds in 2018 to operate the program."
#san-francisco #dog-bite-incidents #public-safety-hearings #department-of-police-accountability #homelessness-and-reporting
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