San Francisco Police Department Makes 'Aggressive' Hiring Push in Front of Calif. Station

"What are you waiting for? Are you next," read the panels on a digital billboard truck in front of the Fremont Police Department that touted the wages and benefits of the San Francisco Police Department.

By Megan Cassidy

Source San Francisco Chronicle

Oct. 17, 2025

4 min read

What to know

The San Francisco Police deployed a billboard truck outside the Fremont Police Department to recruit lateral hires, promoting higher pay and benefits amid SFPD’s 500-officer shortage.
Fremont’s police union called the stunt humorous but said it underscored the city’s pay and contract issues, which have driven several officers to San Francisco.
SFPD defended the campaign as part of an aggressive regional recruitment push, while Fremont officials criticized it as unprofessional.

A digital billboard truck in front of the Fremont, CA, Police Department touted the San Francisco Police Department's wages and benefits for lateral hires in an aggressive recruiting move that has upset some officials.

As police departments across the Bay Area struggle to staff up, the San Francisco force is rolling out a bold new strategy that's hit a raw nerve: poaching at the competition's doorstep.

On Tuesday, a digital billboard truck touting SFPD's high wages and benefits for lateral hires planted itself in front of the Fremont Police Department, an agency that has lost five officers to San Francisco in recent months — and whose remaining officers are working without a contract amid a bitter dispute with the city over pay.

"What are you waiting for?" the truck's side panel challenged while promoting a San Francisco Police Department recruitment site designed specifically for laterals. "Are you next?" the back panel read.

The combination hiring blitz and stunt, which SFPD recruiters featured in a since-deleted Instagram post to OutKast's swaggering hit " So Fresh So Clean," was viewed by many of Fremont's rank-and-file officers as a clever and well-deserved troll of a city that undervalues its women and men in blue.

"I thought it was funny," said Alex Gregory, the president of the officers' union. "But it did lead me to an hourlong meeting with the chief and deputy chief (Lance Brede), and I can't say they shared the same level of humor."

Interim Chief Sean Washington felt the move was unprofessional and crossed a line, Gregory said. At one point during the conversation, Gregory said, Washington stepped out to take a phone call with San Francisco's interim police chief, Paul Yep, and air his frustration.

Washington and officials with the Fremont city manager's office declined to comment.

San Francisco police spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky said Yep was aware of and supportive of the digital billboard, but declined to comment on what he described as a private conversation between two chiefs.

"The SFPD is currently short 500 officers, and we have an aggressive strategy to recruit new officers as well as lateral hires from around the region," Sernoffsky said.

"We have some of the most competitive pay and benefits in the country," Sernoffsky plugged. "The message is clear: Come join the big leagues."

On Wednesday, SFPD was back at it, parking the billboard truck outside the San Bruno Police Department, and on Thursday the poach coach was on its way to Denver for a police recruitment conference.

To some, though, the visit to Fremont felt especially personal, coming on the heels of the lateral losses to San Francisco.

The migration trend is among the many data points Fremont's police union have trumpeted on social media to highlight the pay and raise discrepancies between its department and some nearby cities where politicians have signed off on big law enforcement raises in recent years.

In response to SFPD's Instagram post about parking its truck in Fremont, the smaller city's union commented: "Thanks for being willing to give our members a pay raise."

In his meeting with Chief Washington, Gregory said, he stressed that the city needs a defense strategy to retain its staff.

"Get them paid more," Gregory said. "But first, get them a contract that's going to get them to stay here and not go over to San Francisco."

Gregory said Washington didn't disagree, but also felt they needed to send a strongly worded letter to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors.

One supervisor, Matt Dorsey, a former SFPD spokesperson and vocal proponent of police hiring, said he hadn't been aware of the new headhunting gambit but was fully supportive.

"I love that they're doing it," Dorsey said, laughing.

"On this kind of thing, I'm from the Al Davis 'Just win baby' school of thought," he said. "Just hire, baby."

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