In her first two years as District Attorney, Brooke cleaned up the mess she inherited from her predecessor and put prosecutors back to work fighting crime.
San Francisco is now seeing its lowest crime rates in a decade, while conviction rates have risen for the first time in 8 years. Brooke is running for re-election to continue her progress making San Francisco safer.
Crime rates have plummeted in nearly every SF neighborhood during Brooke’s tenure. Property crime rates are down 32% citywide, violent crime is down 14%, and gun violence is down 37%. Brooke’s office has worked with SFPD to crack down on organized retail theft and drug dealing, sending the message that crime in SF will not be tolerated. So far, her approach appears to be working.
In addition to holding criminals accountable, Brooke’s office launched a new mentorship and anti-violence program for youth, with the goal of providing educational and career opportunities to young people affected by crime. Brooke has also expanded the victims’ services unit in the DA’s office, and she supports diversion programs to keep young people and first-time offenders out of the criminal justice system.
As a Black Latina born and raised in the Bay Area, Brooke grew up witnessing inequality in the criminal justice system, from being the target of racial profiling to watching how the system worked differently depending on one’s race and socioeconomic status.
Brooke has had family members on both sides of the courtroom, and from those experiences she learned to lead through a lens of justice and empathy for both victims and perpetrators. Brooke believes the criminal justice system can always be reformed for the better and she strives to ensure justice is fairly executed for every person in San Francisco regardless of their background or social status.
In 2014, Brooke began her career as a prosecutor in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. She served as an Assistant DA for seven years, initially serving in the Misdemeanor and General Felonies Units before later working as the office’s designated Hate Crimes Prosecutor. She was later promoted to the Sexual Assault Unit and eventually the Homicide Unit. Brooke resigned from the San Francisco DA’s Office in October 2021 over her dissatisfaction with the direction of the office under the leadership of the previous DA. At the time of her departure, Brooke had prosecuted over 25 criminal jury trials and completed more than 100 preliminary hearings.
Brooke earned her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and a B.A. from UC Berkeley, where she was a student athlete on the Track and Field team. A mom of two, Brooke lives with her family in the Mission Bay neighborhood.