Mayor Daniel Lurie has appointed Derrick Lew as chief of the San Francisco Police Department. Lew, 52, a 20-year department veteran, helped bust a gun-running ring alongside federal agents and led the city’s effort to crack down on illegal drug markets.
Lurie selected Lew from a shortlist of three finalists provided by the Police Commission, out of 34 candidates.
Lew will take the reins from interim Chief Paul Yep, who has led the department since Bill Scott stepped down in May.
“Derrick Lew has been shaped by this city, earning his stripes on the street and earning trust in communities across the city. He knows this city, he knows this department, and he knows the communities we serve,” Lurie said in a statement. “From my first day in office, I’ve said that public safety is my top priority, and it will always be my top priority.”
The appointment process received extra scrutiny after the embarrassingly short-lived term of Supervisor Isabella “Beya” Alcaraz, also selected by the mayor. But unlike that choice, the candidates for police chief were vetted via a search firm hired by the city and through numerous interviews with the commission.
“As chief, I will continue acting with urgency to get more officers into the department, to attack the drug crisis, to improve street conditions, and to ensure San Francisco remains one of the safest cities in the country,” Lew said in a statement.
Lew, who has extensive investigative and drug enforcement experience, will take over a department increasingly focused on reining in drug dealing and tackling quality-of-life issues, while contending with longstanding staffing shortfalls.
In many ways, Lew has been handed a department in good standing. It has a large, $840 million budget and new technological resources, and answers to a weakened civilian commission. He also has the support of a mayor and the moderate block of supervisors mostly aligned on a tough-on-crime approach to drug dealing and use.
Derrick Lew with his colleagues to salute for their promotion in the Scottish Rite Masonic Center on July 24, 2024. | Source: Tâm Vũ/The Standard
Lew rose to deputy chief in May as Yep replaced many senior officers, and is popular among many rank-and-file officers.
Lew, who lives in Oakland with his wife, is descended from Cantonese-speaking grandparents who immigrated to San Francisco from China, according to a Wind Newspaper interview in 2022 (opens in new tab). He has two college-age children.
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He grew up in the Richmond and graduated in 1991 from Saint Ignatius College Preparatory, a Catholic high school known for churning out members of the city elite, followed by Boston University.
After returning to San Francisco, he worked in finance, the newspaper noted.
He joined the force in 2003, despite having no cops in his family and a mother who was apprehensive about the idea.
“I joined SFPD in 2003, two years after the 9/11 attacks. I believe the attack more or less made a difference behind me to be a police officer to serve the community,” said Lew in the interview. “I was born in San Francisco. I really wanted to serve my community. I only applied to the San Francisco Police Department.”
His career started at Ingleside Station. As a patrol officer, he worked in the Bayview and Central stations.
Interim Chief Paul Yep alongside Derrick Lew at the memorial for Officer James Guelff on Nov. 13, 2025. | Source: Courtesy SFPD
In the Bayview, he and his partner came under fire in 2006. The pair were responding to a report of gunfire and came upon one man pushing another in a wheelchair. When told to stop, the man pushing the wheelchair turned toward the officers. Lew told investigators after the incident that he was thinking, “I know he’s going to shoot me. I know he’s got a gun.”
The man pulled a firearm from his waistband and pointed it at Lew, who stood about two feet away, according to files from the investigation. As Lew twisted to avoid being shot, he heard one shot followed by a “flurry of fire.” Lew ducked behind the patrol car’s console. Meanwhile, his partner, Fabian Fowler, shot and killed the suspect.
That suspect, according to the Chronicle (opens in new tab), was Mayor London Breed’s cousin, Charles Breed (opens in new tab), an alleged Western Addition gang member who had killed two people that day, according to the SFPD.
During the incident, Lew believed he’d been shot. In reality, a round had ripped through his jacket. That jacket, along with Fowler’s, hangs framed on the wall of Bayview Station beside a plaque marking the encounter.
Both officers later received medal of honor for their role.
In 2008, Lew and four other officers, as well as Heather Fong, the chief at the time, were sued for roughing up an alleged drug dealer and calling him racist names. A judge in 2011 dismissed the suit with prejudice, meaning no further claim is possible.
From 2014 to 2017, Lew was assigned to the SFPD’s narcotics division. After being promoted to lieutenant in 2017, he worked in and then headed the Crime Gun Investigations Center (opens in new tab), leading weekly meetings whose aim was to find individuals at the root of most gun violence.
He also worked closely with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ gun task force, taking part in Operation Cold Day, a multiagency collaboration (opens in new tab) targeting auto theft, auto burglaries, drugs, and illegal firearms. It led to 42 people being charged federally and a total of 75 arrests across the Bay Area.
‘It doesn’t matter what our politics are, but we kind of have to draw the line so that people don’t get hurt.’
Derrick Lew
When he was made captain in 2021, he was assigned to lead Ingleside Station (opens in new tab) and later ran the Drug Market Agency Coordination Center. As head of the city’s anti-drug-dealing operations, he admitted that the effort was in some ways pushing the problem around instead of solving it. “People will move to where the pressure is not,” he said, according to Mission Local. (opens in new tab)
In 2023 Lew graduated from the FBI Academy, a 10-week program for senior law enforcement officers.
More recently, as a deputy chief, he spoke candidly about the fine line the SFPD walks while handling public confrontations with federal immigration authorities. After clashes this year between protesters and federal immigration agents, Lew said publicly that he viewed the job of police as “peacekeepers” between both groups. (opens in new tab)
“It doesn’t matter what our politics are, but we kind of have to draw the line so that people don’t get hurt,” he said.