The Castro neighborhood will soon be without a San Francisco Patrol Special Police officer for the first time in over four decades.
Cody Clements, a 29-year-old straight ally, announced that his last day will be December 31, as the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, because he has been hired by another law enforcement agency "up north." The Patrol Special Police were formed in 1847, prior to the San Francisco Police Department, when it was included in the city charter.
Each beat is a privately-owned and -funded business (new officers do have to be hired through the SFPD and the police commission, however).
Yet the Patrol Special Police have fallen on hard times in recent years — Clements was the only new officer in the past decade.