San Francisco's police chief resigns amid racism row

A culmination of racially charged incidents involving police in San Francisco has resulted in the resignation of the city’s top officer.

For months, the city's mayor, Ed Lee, had supported police chief Greg Suhr as the city reeled from the shooting of a young black man who was carrying a knife, and the release of racist text messages from officers.

But the mayor's support for his police chief became untenable after the fatal shooting this week of a young black woman who was driving a stolen vehicle and driving to elude officers. When the vehicle crashed, officers approached the vehicle, tried to grab her and one of them fired a shot that killed the 27-year-old.

On Thursday, Mr Lee asked for Mr Suhr’s resignation. “The progress we've made has been meaningful, but it hasn’t been fast enough,” Mr Lee said in a brief statement. “Not for me, not for Greg.”

The Associated Press said that pressure had been mounting for the resignation of Mr Suhr since December, when five officers fatally shot a young black man who had been carrying a knife. Since then, there had been protests, moves to reform the police department and a federal review of its protocol.

Last April, it was disclosed that three officers had exchanged racist text messages. Mr Suhr was criticised for moving too slowly to fire the offending officers, all of whom have retained their jobs because of the chief's failure to start disciplinary action when he first found out about the inappropriate messages.

Protesters demanding Mr Suhr's resignation drowned out the mayor’s second inaugural speech in January, and demonstrators forced the mayor to abandon a planned speech on Martin Luther King Jr Day later that month.

The incident involving the shooting of a young black woman took place on Thursday in an industrial neighbourhood where police officers were searching for stolen vehicles. The officers came across a 27-year-old black woman sitting behind the wheel of a parked car and, when the officers turned on the patrol car’s lights and sounded its siren, the woman sped off in the stolen car. A few second later and about 100 feet away, the stolen car slammed into a parked truck, the news agency said. Officers then approached the car, where the woman was shot.

“This is exactly the kind of thing with all the reforms we are trying to prevent,” Mr Suhr said on Thursday, less than two hours after the shooting and before he resigned. He has not yet commented since offering his resignation.

Neither the police nor the San Francisco Medical Examiner has released the identity of the dead woman. She was shot in the same neighbourhood where the five officers shot and killed Mario Woods, the 26-year-old black man carrying a knife.

Video of the shooting circulated widely online and led to protests and calls for Mr Suhr's resignation.