For the first time ever, two governing bodies will sit across from representatives of the San Francisco Police Department on Thursday and ask a question the city has avoided for years: Why do the police so rarely solve rape cases?
The joint special meeting of the two bodies — the Board of Supervisors’ Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee and the Commission on the Status of Women — was called in response to a report published in The Standard in July, finding that the SFPD often treats sexual assault as a crime it cannot, or will not, solve.
The SFPD cleared just 14% of rape cases last year — half the national rate, and the lowest of any large California county in the past five years, The Standard found. Perceiving investigators as slow, uncaring, or unresponsive, sexual assault victims described running their own investigations — tracking down evidence and chasing overworked or uninterested detectives who would not call back…