Charles Gain (November 1, 1923 – August 21, 2018) was an American police official, who served first as police chief for

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, then as chief in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

in the 1970s. He was born in

Hanford, California Hanford is a city and county seat of Kings County, California, located in the San Joaquin Valley region of the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley. The population was 53,967 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. History ...

. In 1975, Gain was appointed to run the San Francisco Police Department by Mayor

George Moscone George Richard Moscone (; November 24, 1929 – November 27, 1978) was an American attorney and Democratic politician. He was the 37th mayor of San Francisco, California from January 1976 until his assassination in November 1978. He was known ...

and served until 1980. After Gain began implementing reforms, such as switching police cars from their traditional black and white paint scheme to baby blue, the Police Officers Association held a no-confidence vote on him. After Moscone was assassinated in 1978, the union was influential in engineering Gain's replacement after the resulting

White Night riots The White Night riots were a series of violent events sparked by an announcement of a lenient sentencing of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco, and of Harvey Milk, a member of the city's Board of Supe ...

. He died from respiratory failure in August 2018 at the age of 94.Charles Gain, controversial S.F. police chief during turbulent ‘70s, dies
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References

1923 births 2018 deaths San Francisco Police Department chiefs People from Hanford, California Deaths from respiratory failure {{SanFrancisco-stub