A few years ago, a friend and I were driving through Manteca, an old agricultural town in the Central Valley, when we spotted something out of the ordinary. We’d just left his mechanic’s and turned a corner when we pulled up to an unassuming brown building with slate roof tiles. In the driveway sat a massive RV — not the suburban adventurer type, but something more militant. It was black and white, clearly marked as a police vehicle.
I didn’t know it then, but this was what law enforcement obliquely refers to as a “mobile command unit.” If you’ve been to San Francisco’s 16th Street BART station in the past two months, you’ve likely seen a similar RV parked on the sidewalk — and wondered what it’s doing there.
In March, San Francisco moved Mobile Command Unit 2 from UN Plaza to 16th and Mission, ostensibly to curb street crime. But what this hulking vehicle actually does is more diffuse — and more insidious — than most realize.
A brief history of mobile command units
The tactical concept of a mobile operations center dates back to military conquest, but the version we see on city sidewalks today — outfitted with satellite dishes and tinted windows — exploded in popularity after 9/11.
The Ground Zero mobile command post operated by then–Mayor Rudy Giuliani got plenty of media attention. Soon, police departments across the country decided they needed their own. In the paranoid post-9/11 years, suburban and rural cities scrambled to procure these militarized RVs.
Tracy, California, spent $500,000 on its unit in 2004. Fremont spent $1.3 million in 2014. A Wisconsin-based company, LDV, has manufactured mobile command units for departments across the state — from Pleasanton to Milpitas, Merced to Fresno. On its website, LDV even provides a “How to Buy” tab, complete with state contract information and leasing options. That should tell you what kind of industry this is.
These units are typically framed as emergency preparedness tools. But their on-the-ground use suggests something else entirely.
Futility by design
SFPD has deployed its mobile command RV before. In 2018 and again in 2023, the unit was stationed at UN Plaza to combat drug dealing. Each time, it merely pushed the activity elsewhere — including, now, to 16th Street.
Even police have acknowledged the futility of this approach. A source recently told Mission Local the RV is “for looks.” Police Chief Bill Scott, speaking alongside Mayor Daniel Lurie, said, “The long-term strategy is that they go to other neighborhoods, then we have to go there as well.”
This is, quite literally, a game of whack-a-mole. A highly visible, deeply expensive, militarized one.
The RV doesn’t reduce crime. It doesn’t solve systemic problems. What it does is reinforce a perception of danger, justify expanding police budgets, and signal that something is being done — all while bypassing any meaningful solutions.
Policing perception, not reality
Here’s the thing: crime in San Francisco is down. Car break-ins, thefts, and violent crimes have all declined, according to data from multiple sources. But that hasn’t stopped local media, politicians, and neighborhood forums from painting the city as a dystopian wasteland.
And perception, it turns out, matters just as much as — if not more than — reality.
If you see a black-and-white police RV parked at your train station, your brain doesn’t ask for statistics. It tells you something is wrong. That sense of fear fuels more public pressure, more political posturing, and more militarization. The RV becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy — proof of a crisis manufactured by presence alone.
In that way, the mobile command unit acts as a psychological weapon — not just against residents, but within law enforcement itself. It affirms a worldview where crime is everywhere, and the only answer is more force, more gear, more funding.
A class narrative disguised as safety
There’s another layer to this — one that reveals how deeply classed our criminal legal system is.
In March, the same month the police RV rolled up to 16th and Mission, San Francisco saw 119 arrests for illegal camping — the highest monthly total in at least seven years. That same month, violent crime was down. Car burglaries were down. So what kind of crime is rising?
The kind associated with poverty.
Public drug use and tent encampments are met with police units and arrests. But white-collar crimes — wage theft, securities fraud, tax evasion — rarely trigger the same urgency or visibility.
This paper recently helped expose $1.7 million in wage theft across several Subway locations. That kind of theft affects working families more deeply than any open-air drug market. But only one of those offenses brings out the armored vehicles.
This is how class determines who gets criminalized — and who gets a pass.
A war on the poor — dressed as public safety
Ultimately, the presence of the mobile command unit at 16th Street isn’t about reducing crime. It’s about reaffirming the illusion of control. It’s about disciplining poverty under the guise of public safety.
Instead of funding affordable housing, expanding mental health services, or prosecuting corporate exploitation, the city is doubling down on theatrical policing. And we, the public, are footing the bill — financially and psychologically.
The most dangerous outcome isn’t just wasted money. It’s the normalization of fear. If we grow accustomed to militarized RVs parked on our sidewalks, we risk forgetting that safety isn’t created through force. It’s built through dignity, stability and care. That doesn’t roll up with sirens and chrome siding. But it might actually work.
