A judge scheduled a preliminary hearing for the homicide case against San Francisco police officer Kenneth Cha on Thursday, paving the way for the long-stalled case to move forward. It is the only remaining case against an on-duty officer for a police shooting.
Cha shot Sean Moore, an unarmed Black man, in 2017 while Moore was on his own front steps, asking police officers to leave. Moore died in 2020 in San Quentin State Prison from injuries caused by the gunshot wounds.
“I feel relieved, because, you know, this case has been going on so long — and it kind of took a toll on my mother,” said an emotional Ken Blackmon, Moore’s brother, who has regularly attended court hearings over the past year and a half.
He said the process has been “a lot of disappointment,” and is hopeful that things seem to be moving forward. Blackmon and Moore’s mother, Cleo Moore, have also attended earlier hearings, but Cleo is struggling with health issues and could not attend today.
“It’s a bittersweet moment, because my mother couldn’t be here, but she’s here in spirit,” Blackmon said.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Jeffrey S. Ross set the preliminary hearing date for Sept. 6, when the evidence in the case will be heard in court and the judge will decide whether to hold a trial.
Moore’s homicide is the only police shooting case still in the courts: District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who inherited three homicide and shooting cases first filed by her predecessor, Chesa Boudin, has slowly dismissed the other cases one by one. The three were the first police shooting cases filed by a district attorney in modern San Francisco history.
The homicide case against Christopher Samayoa, a former rookie officer who shot unarmed Keita O’Neil in the neck from a squad car, was dismissed earlier this year. Another shooting case, against officer Christopher Flores for shooting Jamaica Hampton, was dismissed last month; Hampton survived, but lost a leg.
But Moore’s killing was different from the others, said Rebecca Young, an attorney representing Moore’s family and a former prosecutor with the DA’s office on the same case.
“This is the type of case that the district attorney would put themselves in a very bad position publicly to dismiss,” based on the facts of the case, Young said. “A man standing on his own property, unarmed, who had committed no crime, was shot by the police in the middle of the night, after he had asked them multiple times to leave.”
Just months after shooting Moore, Cha shot and killed a knife-wielding man in a Subway restaurant.
Prosecutors are seeking new evidence in the case: Darby Williams, the assistant district attorney on the case, filed two motions this morning: One requesting testimony from an investigative grand jury, and another withdrawing a previously filed protective order, which could refer to an order protecting a witness to or a victim of, a crime. Williams would not comment on the nature of the protective order.
Judge Ross granted both requests today.
Giorgi, who was the presiding judge on the case until now, is retiring this month; a new judge will hear future court proceedings in the case.
Giorgi had appeared frustrated with the ongoing delays, but still granted continuances that frustrated Moore’s family and members of the public waiting for the case to proceed — even after she had promised no further delays.
“She wasn’t keeping up with what she was saying,” Blackmon, Moore’s brother, said in court this morning. On the one hand, he said, Giorgi would say the case was taking too long, “and in the same breath, she was giving another continuance.”
Young, for her part, said she was hopeful after today’s decision, and was looking forward to all the facts of the case being presented at the next hearing, including testimony from the witnesses who spoke to the grand jury.
“That’s what we’ve been asking for for over a year,” Young said.
