Written by Vincent Cain
San Francisco Police Chief William Scott has announced that his department will no longer be working with District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s office on use-of-force and police-involved shooting cases. Scott sent a letter to the DA’s office saying that the DA had broken their mutual agreement after a court testimony by an investigator with the DA’s office who expressed feeling pressured to sign an affidavit against an officer.
The letter stated, “Very serious concerns have been brought to my attention regarding recent testimony in the Superior Court of the County of San Francisco from a member of the D.A.’s Office who was assigned as an investigator to your Independent Investigations Bureau at the time of the incident in question,” Scott’s letter continued saying,“Other evidence that was brought forward to the court corroborated the D.A. Investigator’s testimony as it related to violations of the (Memo Of Understanding) agreement. It appears that the “D.A.’s Office has an ongoing practice of investigations against SFPD officers that includes withholding and concealing information and evidence the SFPD is entitled to have to further ancillary criminal investigations in accordance with the MOU,”. The mutual agreement was established in 2019, which gave the DA’s office the lead in criminal investigations of police. The agreement was renewed last year for an additional two years.
The issues with the agreement come from the case of Officer Terrance Stangel, accused of beating a man with a baton. He is facing criminal battery and assault charges. Stangel’s attorney argued that the judge should dismiss the case because of the “misconduct” from the DA’s office after the DA investigator with the Independent Investigations Bureau Magen Hayashi testified that she felt coerced into signing an affidavit against Stangel or lose her job. Hayashi stated they instructed her not to share details with the police. Additionally, she was told to remove parts in the affidavit stating that the domestic violence case man was abusing his girlfriend.
Scott has spoken out against the biased prosecutors who have not pursued criminals, commenting that there should be a “balance” among police reforms. “When crimes are committed against police officers, whether it’s a minor assault — in my opinion, there’s no such thing as a minor assault against a police officer,” Scott said last week to CNN. “When an officer’s out there doing the job that the public is asking them to do and they’re doing it lawfully and doing it within the policies, and they’re attacked, that’s not a minor thing.
Photo Cred: Kevin N. Hume / S.F. Examiner
