WHERE SYSTEM FAILED, STREET JUSTICE ENDED A CAREER IN PETTY CRIME

Allen Broussard was killed on a Bayview street in August.

It took someone with a gun to put an end to Allen Broussard's auto
burglary spree - something San Francisco prosecutors, probation
officers and judges had been incapable of doing.

Broussard, 37, a high school dropout who grew up in San Francisco's
housing projects, was arrested at least eight times over the last year
and a half, mostly for breaking into cars to get cash to feed a drug
habit.

Each time, Broussard would be released - within days, weeks or a few
months - to resume stealing and breaking into cars parked in
Bayview-Hunters Point.

Until police found him dead Aug. 17 - still clutching a just-stolen
car stereo - Broussard's life exemplified how San Francisco's
pervasive problem of smash-and-grab thieving is fed by its own
criminal justice system, which frequently fails to reform or punish
offenders.

"We see the same individuals out returning to the community and
committing the same kind of crime over and over again," said Capt. Al
Pardini of the Bayview police station, referring to the use of
probation releases in cases of repeat offenders.

"Probation should be an opportunity for someone who has made a mistake
and wants to get back on the right path - we can't let it become a way
of life," Pardini said.

But a way of life is what it had become for Broussard until he was
slain shortly after committing a last auto burglary, just blocks from
the Hunters Point projects where he was raised.

"We can't force the court to send somebody to state prison," said Jeff
Ross, a top prosecutor in District Attorney Kamala Harris' office,
suggesting that prosecutors are as frustrated as police. "We can ask
for it, which we did in Broussard's case, but there is nothing we can
do to force the court to give them state prison."

On Friday, police arrested a suspect in Broussard's killing, Jamal
Butler, 34, who also possesses a lengthy criminal record, including
attempted murder, drug dealing, possession of body armor, auto theft
and felony evading arrest.

Though Ross suggests judicial leniency is to blame for Broussard's
repeated journeys through the revolving door of justice in San
Francisco, prosecutors and probation officers played a significant
role, too.

Records show Broussard had a lengthy rap sheet even before his last
string of offenses. Prior to 2006, he had been convicted five times
for burglary, theft and drug-related crimes. He had served two state
prison terms and violated his parole repeatedly until it ended in
November 2005.

In January 2006, Broussard was arrested twice by San Francisco police
- once for auto theft and then for drug possession. But both cases
were dropped by the district attorney. The theft case wasn't
prosecuted and was sent back to police for further investigation, Ross
said. The substance for which Broussard was arrested on drug
possession turned out not to be illegal for him to possess, he said.

On Feb. 1, he was arrested again for auto theft, but that case was
dropped, too, due to insufficient evidence, Ross said.

A week later, he was arrested for breaking into a car in the Bayview
neighborhood - one of dozens of auto burglaries reported to San
Francisco police each day. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four
months in County Jail by Judge Lucy McCabe.

Freed on probation in June, he was arrested twice that same month,
again for auto burglaries. But prosecutors didn't seek new
convictions, instead asking a judge to find Broussard in violation of
his county probation. It is a shortcut that spares prosecutors and the
courts the expense of a new trial on a new offense - and one
prosecutors defend, saying the sentences meted out by judges wind up
being the same.

But it also is true that electing to prosecute a case as a probation
violation instead of as a new crime spares the defendant a new
conviction and the prospect of the more severe sentences state law
allows for repeat offenders.

Prosecutors sought to have Broussard sentenced to a year in jail for
the June probation violation. But, on the recommendation of probation
officials, Judge James McBride sentenced him instead to a year in drug
rehabilitation. McBride told the defendant he would be jailed if he
didn't enroll in the program. Broussard didn't enroll and ended up in
jail. Records show he was released on probation in September.

Twelve days later, he was back in custody on yet another auto
burglary. According to court records, a woman told police that she
watched as he smashed the window of her car and another vehicle.

This time, prosecutors sought a state prison sentence and were backed
up by a new evaluation by probation officials. Their report said
Broussard "has been given numerous opportunities to follow the path of
an upstanding citizen and that he has fallen short of that goal."

Probation officials wrote that Broussard "has shown his disregard for
the criminal justice system and to probation by his noncompliance and
his continued criminal behavior regardless of judicial sanctions."
They added: "Probation can do nothing for the defendant based on his
conduct."

But, in the end, prosecutors struck a plea agreement under which Judge
Susan Breall sent Broussard back to County Jail for a year with credit
for two months already served. He was released on probation in May of
this year under a system that gives inmates credit for two days for
every one day served if they remain on good behavior.

The prosecutor settled the case on terms more lenient than first
intended in part because of the reluctance of the witness to testify
against Broussard at a trial.

In July, Broussard was caught in a stolen car but claimed to be
watching it for a friend. He wasn't charged with a crime. And even
though he was on probation, prosecutors didn't seek to have him
returned to jail for violating the terms of his release.

District attorney's office spokeswoman Bilen Mesfin said prosecutors
had no evidence to prove Broussard actually intended to drive the
stolen car, as there were no keys found.

A month later, Broussard was dead, shot on Nichols Way at 7 a.m. on
Aug. 17, blocks from the federal housing project where he grew up.
Authorities won't say whether the defendant in the shooting, Butler,
was the owner of the vehicle from which Broussard had just stolen the
car radio.

Broussard, of course, was just one of many car burglars working the
city's streets. In San Francisco, an average of about 32 vehicle
break-ins a day are reported to police. The actual number presumably
runs higher.

Earlier last month, state Attorney General Jerry Brown's Lincoln Town
Car was hit. As the vehicle sat outside the State Building in San
Francisco's Civic Center, a thief made off with its global position
navigation system.

Victims of such crimes understand that the thieves frequently are
motivated by addiction, but they're frustrated by the intrusion,
inconvenience and economic loss.

"It's hard," said Robert Leggalet, one of Broussard's victims. "People
are sympathetic to it, but at the same time, they get mad.

"They (victims) say, 'This isn't right, I'm a good person, this stuff
shouldn't happen.' Why does it happen? Why does it have to happen? It
would be nice to think that the system could be able to rehabilitate
people," said Leggalet, a property manager in Bayview-Hunters Point.

Broussard broke into Leggalet's car in February 2006. He smashed the
window and stole a cell phone and other valuables. When a bystander
identified Broussard to police and Leggalet as the perpetrator,
Leggalet's cell phone was attached to Broussard's belt. Broussard
still denied involvement, though. The officer placed a call to
Leggalet's telephone number. When the phone on Broussard's belt rang,
Broussard was arrested.

"This guy had a substance abuse problem - it was clear as day,"
Leggalet said. "He was high, he didn't take care of himself, he was
physically dilapidated, his clothing was ratty. I felt bad for the
guy."

Leggalet said he felt at the time that Broussard was doomed to death
on the street from drug abuse or after someone caught him in the act
of breaking into another car.

"He was going to go one way or the other. Either way, it wasn't going
to be pretty," Leggalet said.

Broussard's mother, Ida Townsend, said her son grew up in the projects
and suffered from a learning disability and had trouble reading. He
dropped out of Balboa High School in the 11th grade, she said.

She said her contact with him was limited in his final years. She
would do his laundry when he stopped by. He visited her the day before
his death, she said, and she fixed him a meal.

"When you live in ... the projects, it's not good to raise no kids
up," she said. "I did all I could do. ... You can tell them the best
road. If you tell them the best road, that is all you can do."

She said her son's extended life of crime might have been prevented
had he gotten some help earlier on.

"It is so sad. What can you say? Jail ain't going to rehabilitate you.
They should have had years ago, like they have those boot camps in
Arizona, like they are in the service," she said.

"If they did that, a lot of people would change. ... I did everything
I could to raise my child."