The passing of former POA President Jerry Crowley at the age of 81 is a major milestone for the police labor movement in the State of California and, of course, for the City and County of San Francisco. Since the 1970s, little has been written about the sheer determination, leadership, and amazing accomplishments of this stalwart police union figure. I will in the succeeding paragraphs give more than a glimpse into the tremendous effects this man, this police officer, this police union giant had on the rights and benefits of not just San Francisco police officers today, but also for police officers throughout the State of California. No one has had as big an impact on the lives and careers of California law enforcement professionals.
Jerry was born in 1933. He entered the San Francisco Police Department in 1958, was POA President from 1972 to 1979, retired in 1993 as a lieutenant, and passed away in October of 2014.
He grew up in Bernal Heights, was a graduate of San Francisco State University, was an accomplished boxer, and was a tough cop on the streets of San Francisco. He leaves three children; a daughter Maire, and two sons, Peter and Joe.
His tenure as a leader of the San Francisco Police officers’ Association and of the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs was a tumultuous time in San Francisco and within the San Francisco Police Department.
Jerry Crowley was a courageous man who had many friends and many detractors. He believed fervently in the union movement, and evoked passionate oratory when discussing the due process rights of police officers, the lack of fairness in working conditions and the need to articulate in any forum why management must be held accountable to right the wrongs that police officers often suffered.
When Jerry Crowley spoke, he always started with two words---The Association. Those were the two words he used to describe the Police Officers’ Association. The Association was his life, as much as was his family and friends.
The Blue Coats
Jerry started his journey to the Presidency of the POA in a collaborative way with Jim Crowley, Mario Tovani, Joe Patterson, Jerry D’Arcy, Lou Calabro, Don Derenale, Walt Garry, Lloyd Hill, Joe Pierce and John Kranci. Many others joined the movement including Gale Wright, Tom O’Donnell, Bill Hemby, Mike Hebel, Tom Carey, Tony Ribera, Ken Foss and others. The Bluecoats wanted to transform the POA into a more representative union with a decentralized system of stewards to fight for the rank and file. They wanted to accentuate the uniformed members of the Police Department rather than a union hierarchy that at the time was more representative of the Bureau of Inspectors, police officers assigned to the Hall of Justice, and to management. Jerry D’Arcy and Jerry Crowley were the leaders of this fledgling movement. After a few struggles, they captured the top offices at the POA in 1970 with D’Arcy becoming the President and Jerry Crowley being elected to the second position as Secretary. The battles then began.
Fairness Issues One and Two
D’Arcy, Crowley and Calabro seized upon a political patronage system in the Police Department that kept “like/work like pay” assignments from being handed out fairly. They hammered the police administration on this issue time and time again, embarrassing the Department and urging a seniority-based plan to address these temporary vacancies. Eventually they prevailed, and basic seniority would become the salient factor in these assignments. Secondly, they had a strong aversion to a transfer system that was unfair, particularly to specialized units such as the Solo motorcycles, the Mounted Unit, and the Tactical Unit. Crowley made the transfer fight his battle cry in demands for fairness. Mike Hebel, Jerry D’Arcy, and Crowley authored the first contract between the POA and the City in 1971, called the “Memorandum of Understanding.” It included language on their two “fairness” issues, but Crowley did not sit back and rest on these laurels. He had more fish to fry.
The 1971 Fight at the Ballot Box
Jerry Crowley’s passion for fairness for San Francisco police officers was directed in 1971 to attempt the most significant change in the history of the San Francisco Police Department’s promotional system. He and his colleagues believed that the process for selecting personnel to become police inspectors was flawed, as there was no examination for the rank. Police officers were simply chosen by management to become investigators and that position was highly prestigious. In addition, there was no provision in the City Charter that precluded someone from a lower civil service position to supervise someone of a higher civil service position. Crowley railed against this political patronage and vowed to change it.
Crowley and his colleagues enlisted the assistance of then Supervisor Dianne Feinstein. She and her colleagues placed a proposed Charter Amendment on the November 1971 ballot entitled Proposition E. The Proposition would mandate a fair civil service examination for Inspector, and would change the rules for civil service hierarchy. Crowley and his colleagues learned that political action could accomplish their goal of fairness in the Police Department.
The existing Inspectors in the Police Department and the management of the Department fought tooth and nail to defeat Proposition E. But the POA and Crowley made this effort their signature plan for uprooting political patronage in the Department. The voters passed Proposition E narrowly. Crowley, the Secretary of the POA and close ally to President Jerry D’Arcy, had achieved a major victory.
The 1972 Transition
In 1972, President Jerry D'Arcy was transferred to a specialized unit and resigned the Presidency of the POA. Second in command Secretary Jerry Crowley became President, and quickly began his next agenda for fairness within the San Francisco Police Department.
The Police Commission decided to close Park and Potrero police stations to save money and to consolidate police operations. The officers from those stations were reassigned to other districts. Chief Donald Scott and members of the Commission did not realize what would come next. Newly ascended President Crowley contacted friends on the Board of Supervisors and, more importantly, a wide swath of community organizations and plotted to overturn the closures. His effective work resulted in a charter amendment in 1973 that forced the reopening of the stations, and which decreed that no future closures could go in effect unless the Board of Supervisors approved the plans. With the advent of district elections to the Board of Supervisors, it appeared that no police stations would ever again be closed. Crowley's leadership cemented relationships between liberal community groups and the police. Despite their differences, these groups and the POA wanted police stations to remain open to locally serve the public.
The 1974 Pension Victories
Crowley was not done with reshaping city policy for the benefit of his members. Though he had major opposition on the POA Board of Directors to his aggressive style with police management, the Crowley allies and his opponents within the Association joined forces to pass two historic charter amendments on the city ballot in November 1974. One was Proposition H, which brought up pension benefits for police and fire who had retired years earlier with extremely low pension benefits. The other, Proposition M, dramatically raised the pension benefits for future retirees. On election night 1974, Proposition H won handily, and the costly measure Proposition M, passed with approximately 3,000 votes to spare. Crowley opponents within the ranks and POA Board members Leo Osuna, John Ruggiero, Carl Vogelsang, Bill Terlau, Dave Christiansen, Sol Weiner, Tom Dempsey, and others joined with the Bluecoats to pass both charter amendments. The POA celebrated into the wee hours of the morning at the historic victories.
The Strike
Crowley's most controversial stand was the August 1975 strike where the vast majority of San Francisco police officers -- and eventually the firefighters -- went on a 3-day strike over equitable wages.
A pay formula that surveyed various cities in California to mandate fair salaries for San Francisco police officers had been in existence since 1952. Many years there were no raises, and other years only modest ones. The formula determined the percentage. Officers were overjoyed to learn that the formula mandated a 13% raise in 1975, as the two previous years yielded virtually nothing. But the Board of Supervisors decided to not give the mandated raise. They refused to bargain with the POA, so Crowley sprung into action stirring up the troops. When the Supervisors would not let Crowley speak at a public meeting, the officers stormed out of City Hall and shut down most of the Police Department. Over three days, Crowley and his Bluecoat Committee negotiated with Mayor Joseph Alioto, who settled the strike with his emergency powers. He negotiated an immediate 6.5% raise, and granted amnesty to the strikers.
The fallout from the strike resulted in regressive charter amendments changing the pension system and a loss of public confidence in the POA for several years. However, in the late 1970s, the POA reclaimed a strong cooperative relationship with San Francisco politicians and scores of activist community groups. The strike had cemented the POA into a strong and politically active union. Today, many still disparage the strike, but many believe the union was made much stronger in the long run.
1976 and History is Made
1976 was the most successful year for due process rights for California police officers in the history of the State. Jerry Crowley was in the forefront of that success. As President of the POA, and eventually President of the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs, he and other union leaders throughout California demanded that a Police Officers Bill of Rights be passed. With Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. recently elected, and his promise to sign such legislation fresh in their minds, Crowley and his allies in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Ana and other police union cities as well as the Peace Officers' Research Association of California (PORAC) had Assemblyman Jim Keysor author the bill, AB 301.
The fight was tough, with virtually every Police Chief and City Manager in the State opposed to the bill giving police officers basic due process rights in administrative investigations. Every Republican in the legislature was opposed, except POA friend Senator Milton Marks of San Francisco. Even Governor Brown's law enforcement appointees, Director of Corrections Jerry Enomoto, and CHP Commander Glen Craig were opposed.
But Crowley was not deterred. He made many trips to Sacramento with his Bluecoat entourage to cajole and persuade the legislators to vote for the landmark bill. Crowley fanned the flames with factual accounts of management abuse, particularly within the notorious Los Angeles Police Department's Internal Affairs Unit.
In August of 1976, the bill passed. But Governor Brown had second thoughts about signing the bill as he was being lobbied far and wide by politically appointed Police Chiefs and City Manager hacks.
Crowley poured the pressure on the gubernatorial administration and the Governor signed the bill effective January 1, 1977. This was the first comprehensive Police Bill of Rights in the United States.
Today the provisions of the Public Safety Officers' Procedural Bill of Rights Act are implemented and discussed every day in hundreds of law enforcement agencies in California. It has been amended over the years to include more rights and has been interpreted by the Courts far and wide.
Jerry Crowley of the San Francisco POA was a catalyst for this great achievement.
Consent Decree Battle
During almost all of the time Jerry Crowley was President of the San Francisco Police Officers' Association, he battled the city and the federal government over a proposed federal consent decree dealing with hiring and promotion practices within the San Francisco Police Department.
Shortly after becoming President in 1973, the Officers for Justice along with a large group of minority and women's groups sued the city to ensure more diversity in the Police Department, and to compensate incumbent minority officers for discrimination. This led to a protracted legal fight in the federal courts that lasted until 1979 when a federal consent decree was signed by the plaintiffs, the defendant City and County of San Francisco, as well as the POA. The consent decree that resulted had problems, but the Department and the POA worked through the issues over the ensuing years.
The story that is rarely told is the role of the POA -- and particularly Jerry Crowley -- in derailing the first consent decree in 1978. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter's Justice Department and Mayor George Moscone fashioned a proposed consent decree on hiring and promotions that would have wrecked the SFPD. The provisions were laden with quotas and other onerous language.
Crowley the leader again sprung into action by hiring new lawyers, fashioning a federal litigation committee of POA members, and engaging in political action to stop the original decree. Hundreds of hours of work highlighted the POA involvement along with financial assessments of the membership to fight in court. Ultimately, a vote was taken at the Board of Supervisors to approve the consent decree, but after intense lobbying by the POA the measure was defeated by one vote 6-5. The groundwork was then in place for a more palatable decree that passed in March of 1979.
Crowley Legacy
Jerry Crowley took the reins of the POA in 1972. He faced two tough election and re-election efforts in 1973 and 1975 against Dan Nilan and then Dan Lynch. He was unopposed in 1977. In 1979, he lost re-election to Bob Barry, who served from 1979-1983, and 1985-1989. Crowley stayed in the Department until 1993, working in patrol, Central Warrants, and the Auto Detail where he retired as a lieutenant.
His accomplishments, his tenacity, and his ability to transform both the POA and the Police Department are legendary.
May you rest in peace, union brother.
