At hearing, police promise to reform sex-crime investigation procedures

The San Francisco Police Department committed today to improving its process for investigating sex crimes at a hearing before the Board of Supervisors. 

The department said it plans to create an “investigative checklist” of steps that should be taken for every case before the cases are closed or marked as inactive. 

The police also plan to improve training — both for officers who investigate sexual assaults, and for the force as a whole, since patrol officers are often the first to interact with sexual-misconduct survivors. Also, the department pledged to maintain active and consistent contact with survivors whose cases are under investigation.

Today’s hearing and the department’s promised changes follow reporting from the San Francisco Standard, which found that the police department regularly shelves sexual assault cases, even when results from a rape kit test identify a suspect. 

The SFPD’s clearance rate for rape cases sits at 14 percent, half the national average.

“This is, first and foremost, about justice,” said Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who called for today’s hearing. “Here we are, collectively, to be held accountable to survivors.”

The jury’s job

But would these changes be enough, attendees and elected officials wondered? 

Supervisor Bilal Mahmood asked about the high number of sexual-assault cases that the police have marked as open but not under active investigation. That’s 72 percent of all 2025 sexual assault cases, according to the department. 

In about 70 percent of those open cases, a suspect had been identified, Mahmood noted; so why wasn’t the case sent to the District Attorney’s office so they could decide whether or not to prosecute? 

“Are you saying, then, that a survivor’s account is not probable cause?” Mahmood asked police representatives. Probable cause means there is a reasonable belief that someone committed a crime. It is the standard police must meet to send a case to the District Attorney. 

“In and of itself? We have to review to make sure that that information is correct,” William Toomey, the captain of the special victims unit responded. 

But under California law, Mahmood continued, can’t someone be convicted for sexual assault based on a survivor’s testimony alone? So shouldn’t the survivor’s testimony establish probable cause? 

Ivy Lee, director of San Francisco’s Office of Victim and Witness Rights, said that police ought to be sending these cases to the District Attorney’s office.

Police, she said, are holding victims to a higher evidence standard than they should. Deciding whether or not someone is guilty “is the jury’s job,” she said. 

Her office recommended many of the changes that the police department today agreed to attempt. But it’s unclear how some of them will be implemented, particularly one considered a linchpin for reform: an annual independent audit of how the police handle sex crimes. 

Police officials committed today to allowing outside auditors review their files — but only if the city determines that it does not violate privacy laws.   

Sexual assault in the headlines

The hearing was held at a time when allegations of sexual assault have captured headlines in San Francisco and across the nation. 

An alleged gang rape at a Cornell fraternity has sparked conversations about consent and sexual assault nationally, while locally, the District 8 supervisor campaign of Emanuel “Manny” Yekutiel imploded last week after two subsequent sexual assault allegations were published following a June accusation. 

Yekutiel’s alleged assaults hovered over the hearing, with many public commenters discussing the allegations. 

Brad Chapin, who accused Yekutiel in June of sexual assault, addressed Supervisors Matt Dorsey, Alan Wong, Danny Sauter and Bilal Mahmood directly during public comment. All four only pulled their endorsements of Yekutiel after this month’s allegations came out, but not after Chapin’s. 

“I’m pretty sure you all spoke to the man who violently and sexually assaulted me,” Chapin said. “What about me?”

Police representatives today said that the promised changes are “just the beginning.” 

“We have laid out specific changes and timelines. Now we need to implement them, measure whether they are working, how our progress and continue to improve,” said Toomey of the special victims unit. “Trust is not built in one hearing. It is built by what we do after it.”