San Francisco Police Department

SF Police Captain Greg Suhr

Greg Suhr was sworn Wednesday morning as San Francisco's new police chief.

Suhr, the captain of the Police Department's Bayview Station, was selected by Mayor Ed Lee after a months-long search that started in January when former Chief George Gascon took over as district attorney.

Gascon's second-in-command, Jeff Godown, has served as interim chief in the meantime.

Suhr, a 30-year veteran of the department, was one of three finalists nominated by the Police Commission and was sworn in at a ceremony at City Hall today by Lee, who said Suhr will "a reformer from the inside out."

The chief serves at the pleasure of the mayor, but Lee, who is interim mayor until the November election, said he thinks Suhr will be around long-term.

"While I'm an interim mayor, I don't make interim decisions," he said.

Suhr said called his selection "the biggest honor" and joked that as a fourth-generation San Franciscan, he is clearly a "local hire," a reference to a new hiring law recently enacted in the city.

Suhr took over as captain of the Bayview Station in 2009 and "has done wonders for that community," Lee said.

Police Commission President Thomas Mazzucco said Suhr also has the support of the rank-and-file in the Police Department.

Suhr has had his share of drama within the department, however.

While serving as deputy chief in charge of field operations, he was briefly indicted in 2003 as part of an incident involving off-duty police officers that was dubbed "Fajita-gate," but was cleared of the charge the next year.

In 2005, he was reassigned to a job overseeing homeland security at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission shortly after an incident in which a police officer was seriously injured at an anarchist protest. Heather

Fong, who was police chief at the time, said the reassignment was not related to that incident.

Lee said those "issues were vetted very, very thoroughly" before the pick was made.

Gascon picked Suhr to head the Bayview Station in 2009. Gascon said today that Suhr "exceeded all my expectations" in that role.

Suhr said he knows it is critical to maintain the public's trust as chief.

He will take over a department that has been beset with scandals recently, including videos released by Public Defender Jeff Adachi last month that appear to show misconduct by officers at residential hotels around the city.