San Francisco police officers did not issue dispersal orders immediately before arresting 18 people at the “Stud Alley” party over Pride weekend, according to internal police documents and body camera footage.
In fact, the records show, a lieutenant told police investigators he “did not give a dispersal order prior to the skirmish line moving,” and investigators wrote he feared doing so would prevent officers from seizing the party’s sound equipment.
On June 27, at an annual, unofficial Pride party in SoMa, 20 people were arrested at two different locations.
Two people were arrested shortly before 10:30 p.m. on the 100 block of Kissling Street, where an initial late-night party took place in an alleyway. Then on Washburn Street, police officers arrested 18 more people at around 11:50 p.m., after revelers had regrouped at a second location.
The two people arrested on Kissling Street were released without charges. But the 18 arrested on Washburn Street were each charged with three misdemeanors: disobeying a dispersal order, unlawful assembly and resisting arrest. They are all being prosecuted by the district attorney’s office.
There is no dispute that police issued dispersal orders on Kissling Street, and police records confirm that.
But a dispatch log, over a dozen police body-worn camera videos and the findings of an internal police investigation reviewed by Mission Local indicate that dispersal orders were not given on Washburn Street until after arrests took place.
These documents contradict the San Francisco Police Department’s initial report, which said two officers issued dispersal orders on Washburn Street ahead of the arrests. Defense attorneys say the documents could play a significant role in arguing that partygoers did not have sufficient warning they would be arrested, and that their misdemeanor charges should be dismissed.
“These charges are just completely nonsensical,” said Rachel Lederman, an attorney at the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund who is representing two Stud Alley arrestees. Lederman obtained the records and shared them with Mission Local. “This is really just an act of harassment against the trans and queer community.”
The San Francisco Police Department, for its part, noted that dispersal orders were issued at the first location on Kissling Street and stood by their original messaging.
The Pride weekend arrests have become a source of protest. Earlier that Pride weekend, there were six reported arrests during the Trans March, the day before the Stud Alley party, and at least four of those arrested were charged by the district attorney.
LGBTQ+ organizers subsequently protested the arrests at the Hall of Justice and in the Castro, and earlier this summer met with Mayor Daniel Lurie to discuss the matter. Supervisor Jackie Fielder sent the police department a letter of inquiry in July demanding more information about the operation.
SFPD responded to Fielder, on July 14, reaffirming its previous statements.
“Whenever it became clear to [SPFD] that there had been no dispersal order, they could have followed up on my letter of inquiry with the truth,” Fielder said. “It’s upsetting. It erodes trust between the LGBTQ community and the police.”
Lederman and several of the other attorneys representing those arrested at Stud Alley filed motions in court last week, arguing that the charges should not stand in the face of this new evidence.
Stud Alley is an unofficial late-night party that has taken place for the last six years in different SoMa alleyways during Pride weekend. It has been met with criticism in past years for graffiti, vandalism and loud music.
But this year was the first time police cracked down on the party: Dozens of officers wearing riot gear marched down SoMa streets, according to social media videos and police reports, and made arrests.
Mission Local reviewed over a dozen body camera videos from the night, showing multiple angles of the advancing police line and arrests made. The subsequent account is based on the footage, a police dispatch log, and an internal police investigation.
Police enforcement began around 9 p.m., according to the initial police report, when officers reported to Kissling Street in SoMa and said over 100 Pride partiers had blocked off part of an alley.
When police broke up that gathering around 10 p.m. and arrested two people after giving several dispersal orders, the group moved to an alley on Washburn Street, bringing speakers and DJ equipment on a U-Haul truck.
According to a computer-aided dispatch log generated by SFPD, several 911 calls at the time complained of “loud music” at both Kissling and Washburn streets.
The dispatch log records an order of dispersal on Kissling Street at 9:51 p.m., the SFPD officers advancing shortly after at 10:07 p.m., and a note of dispersal being fully completed at 10:32 p.m.
The log then shows a separate incident beginning on Washburn around the same time the Kissling party ended. The log shows that 18 people were arrested on Washburn Street between 11:52-11:54 p.m. Two dispersal orders were read afterwards, at 12 a.m. and 12:04 a.m., the log shows.
The body camera footage shows officers at this time advancing while chanting “Police, get back,” but no order of dispersal until after the arrests. That’s when police bring an SFPD cruiser to the intersection of Washburn and Howard and use its loudspeaker system, in line with the dispatch log entries.
The initial June 28 police report also stated that two officers read dispersal orders prior to those arrests: a Sergeant Williams and Lieutenant Adrian Payne. But those orders are not recorded in the dispatch log.
In fact, in a “Chronological of Investigation” completed on July 22 by an SFPD officer who independently reviewed the case’s details and interviewed officers, Payne told investigators that he did not give an order of dispersal. Instead, Payne said that another officer, Lieutenant Conroy Tam — the acting captain at the incident — made the dispersal announcements from a car loudspeaker.
The announcement is not audible in any of the body camera footage Mission Local reviewed.
Later in the report, Tam, too, told police investigators that he “did not give a dispersal order prior to the skirmish line moving” and the arrests occurring. Instead, he only issued a dispersal order after the arrest of the 18 individuals, Tam said in the report. That second order is audible in multiple body camera videos.
Investigators note that Tam did not issue a dispersal order because he wanted to seize the sound equipment and “was concerned that a dispersal order would alert the DJ to move the equipment before they could seize it.”
“Capt Tam knew that dispersal orders had been given on Kissling St, and this was the same group from that gathering,” investigators wrote. The body camera footage shows officers saying, “Get the DJ, get the DJ,” and “You guys get that fucking equipment, alright,” while the skirmish line moves forward.
There is no indication in the report that Williams, the other officer initially named as having given a dispersal order, did so. And the body camera footage also gives no indication that he ever gave a order.
The San Francisco district attorney’s office, for its part, wrote in a statement that it relied on a body of evidence to file charges, and that it only does so “where we believe we can meet our burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury.”
“Any challenges to the filing will be litigated in court,” it wrote.
It is possible a dispersal order on Washburn Street was given that was not recorded on the body-worn camera footage, the dispatch log, or the police investigation.
But barring that, the arrests and subsequent charges would have to have been based on dispersal orders made on Kissling Street an hour and a half prior to those on Washburn Street, said Lederman, the defense attorney.
That opens the prosecution up to a problem, she said: SFPD cannot be sure the arrested individuals were present to hear that first order.
“They issued an order to disperse from Kissling Street,” Lederman said. “The idea that then people were supposed to know that they were disobeying that order by being blocks away, two hours later, is just absurd.”
The SFPD’s own recommendations note that an “order to disperse should be given repeatedly over a period of time and, if necessary, from a variety of locations,” while ensuring all participants hear it and have sufficient time to disperse.
“I’m cautiously optimistic the DA will do the right thing and dismiss the charges on at least some people,” said Jess McPeake, an attorney representing another person arrested that night. Their client, they claim, arrived at the Stud Alley party at 11:39 p.m. and never heard the SFPD order to disperse on Kissling Street.
The 18 defendants will next appear in court on Thursday, Sept. 3 for their arraignment.
