One of the things that shocked me when I moved to California was to see Asian American police officers. I don’t think I ever saw one before living on the East Coast. Living in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 9 years now, this is no longer a surprise. Still, rarely do you see the the police chief of a major U.S. city be a woman, let alone an Asian American woman, and that is the case in San Francisco since 2004 when Heather Fong became the first Asian American woman to become the chief of police of a major metropolitan city in the United States. On the news tonight, ABC7 News reports that: “SF police chief skips fire arm training”
“In order to carry a gun, even San Francisco’s chief of police must go through firearm re-qualification every six months. San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong has missed several years of re-training. “I don’t know how many years, but I know that the responsibilities and the duties of the chief are not only demanding but very time consuming and I acknowledge that I have not scheduled that time for re-qualification and that will be handled,” said Fong. Fong said she has notified the San Francisco Police Commission. Its members will meet Wednesday night. They could take disciplinary action against her.”
Every six months sounds quite a bit often to have to re-qualify, but I guess in reality, how often does a police officer actually have to fire a fire arm? There’s no danger of Fong having to give up her position, but she may have to give up her fire arm. I wonder though, how often does a police chief actually have to go out in the field. I would imagine that being police chief is more of an administrative position. I also wonder what kind of stereotypes Fong has had to deal with as well – like if anyone has ever asked her if she knows kung fu? In any case, it is always nice to see an Asian American as a community leader, police chief or not!
