[chrsjxn]

I feel like that just makes it worse (though I didn't know about the DA's office messing up the paperwork).

Let's assume that understaffing and additional work required to close cases are the main causes for the low clearance rates. Monitoring a legal protest in case crimes are committed seems profoundly wasteful, compared to working to resolve crimes that actually happened.

I don't envy SFPD. Trying to reduce crime in SF seems like a huge challenge that they are poorly equipped to solve, for many reasons. But the original comment in this thread is trying to justify surveillance here as preventing possible property crimes, and that just makes no sense to me.