“I’d rather be hit by a Taser than a bullet,” says anti-gun advocate On Wednesday, the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, civil rights attorney John Burris, along with the organization Brothers Against Guns, announced their support for arming San Francisco police with Tasers. But only if the weapons’ use policy is subject to strict civilian oversight. “On...
The slogan of the day was, “No justice, no deal.” That’s what activists chanted outside the main chamber of City Hall on Wednesday in preparation for a Board of Supervisors hearing aimed at ongoing contract negotiations between the city and the San Francisco Police Officers Association, or POA. Much of the hearing revolved around the minutiae of the contract —...
The San Francisco Police Department has released the names of the ten officers who fatally shot at an armed robbery suspect who shot at them from the trunk of a car on 20th and Capp streets last Wednesday night. They fired 99 times and hit the 19-year-old man, identified as Jesus Delgado-Duarte, 25 times. Their names are: Stephen Cassinelli, Corbyn...
What was, by all appearances, shaping up to be a circus of a Police Commission meeting quickly became a snoozy policy discussion that concluded with a 6-1 vote by the commission to adopt SFPD’s Taser policy. “I had a nice speech, but this went on so long, you don’t even need Tasers no more,” said Darnell Boyd, a community member,...
Distrust and anger prevail as Police Chief Bill Scott and others sit and listen After police attempted to get armed-robbery suspect Adolfo Jesus Delgado-Duarte to show his hands, the 19-year-old fired one shot from the trunk of a Honda Civic last week on Capp Street. Ten of the police officers surrounding the black Honda Civic responded with 99 shots, hitting...
San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott on Friday fired the rookie cop who, four days into his police career, shot dead an alleged carjacker. In return, the police union fired back a fusillade of its own, accusing Scott of cowardice and political expediency. Other officers — who would not speak on the record for fear of retribution from the police...
At some point on Wednesday, the meeting’s going to careen off the rails. “Shit-show breaks out” isn’t a Police Commission agenda item, but it might as well be. Various members of the public will recriminate one other and members of the government; members of the government will recriminate various members of the public and one other. Demonstrations will break out....
Nearly three years have passed since Dora Mejia filed a lawsuit against the City of San Francisco that exposed the barriers many monolingual sexual assault victims experience when interacting with the SFPD, but advocates say the problems still remain. Mejia was arrested after her ex-partner sexually assaulted her in a Mission District apartment in 2014. He left the apartment, called...
Friends say his undocumented status could have been the reason he hid in the trunk of a car where police shot him On Tuesday night at 8:40 p.m., 19-year-old Jesus Adolfo Delgado Duarte and his co-worker closed up shop at the Metro PCS store at 2380 Mission St., near 20th Street. “My Uber came and so I left,” said the...
SFPD officers shot and killed a robbery suspect Tuesday night who appeared to be hiding in the trunk of a car on Capp Street. Police later found a handgun in the trunk of the vehicle, according to police. “We heard a bunch of gunshots,” said Seung Lee, 44, on Wednesday morning. “It was a lot at once and sounded like...
Gary Delagnes was loud and angry and decrying his hometown as a feckless and stupid place with no denizen as feckless nor stupid as its chief of police. In other words, it was a Wednesday. “We have given this chief of police every opportunity to succeed. And he has been an abject failure,” thundered Delagnes, the former president and now...
District Attorney George Gascón will make a decision in six to eight weeks on whether to charge the officers who fatally shot a homeless man in the Mission in April 2016, said Adriana Camarena, an advocate for the man’s family who met with Gascón on Wednesday. Camarena said that during the meeting, Gascón gave her and the family of Luis...
Roberto Manuel Fortes, once the temporary director of the Department of Police Accountability, who had to step down after allegations of sexual harassment, is resigning from the department’s legal team, Mission Local has learned. Paul Henderson, the current interim director of the department, confirmed that Fortes submitted his resignation. “He told me that he wanted to pursue other interests, although...
First-year Police Chief, Bill Scott, wasn’t the first thing San Francisco stole from Los Angeles. In 2009, the department opened their station doors to a community advisory board model followed by the Los Angeles Police Department. In theory, the city’s 10 district captains appoint a representative group of neighborhood stakeholders to meet, discuss community issues and take action to address...
Use of force by SFPD officers continues on a sharp downward trend, according to recently released use-of-force data. Citywide, SFPD continues to disproportionately use force on people of color, specifically African Americans, the numbers show. And, despite the overall downturn in use-of-force incidents, there were four deaths at the hands or under the watch of San Francisco officers in...
