Earl Sanders was born in Texas. When he was 14 his mother died and Sanders moved to San Francisco to live with his uncle. They lived in Laurel Heights and Sanders graduated from George Washington High School in 1956. He attended the US Army Officers Candidate School in Fort Benning where he graduated first in his class. He married in 1960 and had two children. After being honorably discharged from the Army in 1964, Sanders joined the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD). At the time of his hiring, he was one of a handful of African American officers in the department. He was first assigned to the Robbery Squad and in 1971 was transferred to the Homicide Division. His most famous case was the Zebra Murders investigation^[1].

While with the SFPD, Sanders earned an undergraduate degree in public administration from City College of San Francisco, and a masters in the same field from Golden Gate University. During the 1980s he served as a Criminal Justice Professor at San Jose State.

Sanders joined the Officers for Justice Association (OFJ), formed by fellow police officer Richard Hongisto^[2]. In 1973, the OFJ filed a class action discrimination suit against the SFPD and the City, leading to the 1979 decree by the SFPD modifying their hiring and promotional practices to include more minority officers. Sanders was one of the key witnesses in this lawsuit.

Sanders’ work with the OFJ introduced him to lawyer Willie Brown^[3]. When Brown was elected City mayor in 1996, he appointed Sanders as Assistant Police Chief. Brown promoted him to Police Chief in July 2002, making Sanders the first African American police chief in City history. After less than in a year in office, however, Sanders and other senior police officers were indicted for obstruction of justice. The incident in question, known as “FajitaGate”, involved three off-duty officers exiting a bar on Union Street and demanding that two passerbys give them a bag of fajitas that one was holding. A fight ensued, and the three officers were detained but never arrested because one of the officers was the son of the assistant police chief. Sanders was almost immediately dropped from the lawsuit and ultimately declared factually innocent of any involvement. Brown, however, called for Sanders to resign. Sanders suffered a minor stroke and took a leave of absence. He was then accused of misconduct when, as a police officer, he was said to have colluded with prosecutors in suppressing evidence that led to the conviction of two men. The convictions were reversed, sealing Sanders’ fate. He officially retired, citing stress.

In 2006 Sanders, along with his lawyer Bennett Cohen, wrote the book The Zebra Murders. Sanders died in January 2021 at age 83. 

^[1] Zebra Murders: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=2934

^[2] Richard Hongisto: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4053  

^[3] Willie Brown: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4114