Frustration With San Francisco Police

Other critics detect in the muddled homicide investigations more evidence of a shortfall in the department's professionalism. In 2005, two dozen officers were suspended for making satirical videos mocking minorities. Ten years earlier, a former chief lost a mayoral election after showering nude on the air with a pair of Los Angeles disc jockeys.

"This is sort of what we've come to expect from the SFPD: It's always been kind of the Keystone Kops," said Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency and a Bay Area resident for three decades. "It's definitely not Michael Douglas and Karl Malden," who portrayed determined homicide detectives in the '70s TV series "The Streets of San Francisco."

Krisberg uses the department's reputation to rebut assertions that new strategies in policing, rather than demographic factors, account for the nation's declining crime rates. "It couldn't be brilliant, cutting-edge policing if even one of the most inept police departments presided over the same decline," he said.

Quintin Mecke, a community activist who works closely with the police, said the problems have survived repeated attempts at reform. The latest followed "Fajitagate," a scandal that involved a bag of takeout Mexican food, grabbed by an off-duty officer. The officer was released at the scene by colleagues who recognized him as the son of their chief. Voters responded by bringing the citizen complaint board under the Board of Supervisors.

Advocates for de la Plaza were so frustrated by that system, though, that they urged his family to involve the French government.

"I'm really glad to hear the French police are getting involved," said Gitanjali Bhushan, 38, who said she was awakened by violent thumps the night her neighbor was killed. "In talking to our police, I felt like they were planning to write it off as a suicide."

Williams, the police spokesman, acknowledged delays in processing that crime scene. "You watch 'CSI,' and they solve a case in 45 minutes," he said.

And in the cadaver van case, hindsight makes obvious the consequence of the eight-day delay. But, Williams noted, "We identified the suspects, and the suspects are in custody."

For that, Leonard Hoskins's family thanks Spring, who by chance chose to mark his 40th birthday by finding someone missing in an area he knows very well. When he Googled "Baja" and "missing," up came a newspaper article about a tourist who had chatted with the fugitives. With them were the two daughters they had found time to pick up from relatives after fleeing San Francisco.

"I actually went for the girls," Spring said.

He found them all in little El Rosario, where locals said Pinkerton was offering dance lessons for a dollar an hour. "They didn't know they were wanted. They thought they were just gringos, living the simple life," he said.

When the San Francisco police failed to call him back, and the U.S. Marshals Service asked him to wait a day, Spring walked across the courtyard to the local police comandante. Soon, five carloads of federal agents "with black overjackets and big mustaches and rifles" arrived and made the arrest without incident.

"Even if the SFPD had done what I'd told them to do the night before, make the phone call to the local people, they still would have found them before me," Spring said. "They didn't even do that. It's just ludicrous."