A judge today imposed sanctions on the city after the San Francisco Police Department did not disclose three interviews with officers the day after the October 2019 beating of civilian Dacari Spiers — including an interview with Officer Terrance Stangel, who is currently being criminally charged for that beating.
U.S. District Court Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley today ruled that the city and the police withheld evidence in a manner “tantamount to bad faith.”
She ordered that the city must pay $2,300 in attorney fees to Spiers’s lawyers, Curtis Briggs and Jamir Davis, who discovered the withheld interviews months after Spiers filed a civil suit against the city.
“There is no dispute that Defendant did not disclose evidence … And the failure to disclose was not inadvertent; it was part of admitted SFPD policy,” reads today’s ruling.
This comes only weeks after Police Chief Bill Scott accused San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and his office of withholding evidence in the criminal trial of Officer Stangel. Despite the judge in the criminal case ruling that the evidence in question was duplicative and would not have affected the case, Scott leveraged the situation to unilaterally withdraw from a use-of-force agreement between the police and the District Attorney, citing distrust.
Spiers, who suffered two broken bones after Stangel struck him eight times with a metal baton in October 2019, sued the city of San Francisco. In August 2021, the city attorney reached a $700,000 settlement with Spiers, and the Board of Supervisors approved that settlement in February 2022.
But the undisclosed interviews with the police officers — each taken just a day after Spiers’s beating — weren’t discovered by Spiers’s attorneys until months after the settlement was finalized.
“The gist of it is, the matter was settled in August and in December we found out there was additional evidence that was never disclosed.”
Attorney Jamir davis
In December 2021, Spiers’s attorneys filed a second suit on behalf of Spiers’s former girlfriend, Breonna Richard, who was on-scene at the October 2019 beating. When the attorneys asked Lt. Brendan O’Connor to testify in Richard’s case, O’Connor mentioned three interviews with the responding officers — Stangel, Officer Cuauhtémoc Martínez, and Officer Joshua Cabillo — none of which had been disclosed during Spiers’s lawsuit.
“The gist of it is, the matter was settled in August and in December we found out there was additional evidence that was never disclosed,” attorney Jamir Davis told Mission Local.
The interviews were disclosed in a confidential San Francisco Police Department Investigative Services Detail. “As a matter of practice, SFPD does not disclose records contained in an open SFPD ISD investigations because disclosure of those records may negatively impact the pending criminal investigation or any pending related matters brought by SFDA IIB,” a police representative stated in the court documents.
While Judge Corley concurred that it is appropriate in certain cases to “modify a discovery request” to protect an ongoing criminal investigation, she added that there’s no excuse for not revealing that the “evidence exists at all.”
The judge added that Spiers’s attorneys had a right to make sure the City Attorney received and reviewed the evidence, “lest it change Plaintiff’s settlement position.”
The judge ruled that the City Attorney, which represented the city in Spiers’s lawsuit, was not aware of the evidence either because of the police department’s actions. Once the City Attorney learned of the evidence through Spiers’s lawyers, the office obtained and shared it immediately.
At present, the jury is deliberating the verdict in Stangel’s criminal trial. It is believed to be the first criminal trial of a police officer in San Francisco for on-the-job use-of-force.
It is sad that the mission local only posts comments that back up the writer of these slanted stories and do not post the ones against. Poor slanted Fox News style moderation.
I don’t know what you are referring to as many of the comments on our site argue with the facts in a story. We do not allow personal attacks. Best, Lydia
And Malia Cohen resigned from her position as president of the SF Police Commission to run for Stare Controller.
Have not seen this news anywhere
Boudin is eating Chief Scott lunch!
SFPD: DA is hiding stuff!
Judge: ….No…..they didn’t.
Judge: SFPD actually hiding stuff!
SFPD: Not like that!
Ah yes, “public trust” we should unrelentingly give to SFPD.
That sank down the toilet after the Crime Lab fiasco, and I hope it digs them into a deeper grave.
Joe,
Boudin will not only defeat the Recall efforts but has already won a huge victory for the victims of rogue cop thugs simply by charging one of them …
Hey, uniforms are important to me.
I wore one for 11 years of my life.
6 in the Navy where I was a Beach Jumper (pre-cursor to the Seals who tried to erase record of our existence just as the new NFL billionaire owner class refuses to recognize Green Bay’s titles) …
Then, 6 years as a firefighter where I was small like I am now and always got to get atop the aerial – aiming the thousand gallon a minute stream down and sometimes having the flames rush on either side to surround but not engulf if you can understand that.
Loved that shit.
So, I hate it when some otherwise really top grade cops disgrace the uniform by outright lying or sins of omission to cover for someone who is …
I make certain to wear an American flag pin on some part of my clothing every day I can remember cause tho I have a real distrust for nationalism, me and my multi-racial family have served in every national conflict since the Revolutionary War.
Most of the conflicts were simply land grabs by current elites but we shed some righteous blood too.
My great-great-grandfather died fighting slavery at 26 w/3 kids at home or I wouldn’t be writing this.
His great-great-great-great grandchildren from my branch are all black and brown.
So, whatever the wars were about they were always about free speech for my people cause we all have the ‘talking gene’ and can’t shut up for the life of some of us.
That’s why it is with sadness and disappointment that I must tell you that my thoughts on all matters are now only published by Mission Local.
Last other people who would publish me were the new San Francisco Standard which posted my comments on the ongoing Stangel trial and other things freely.
Suddenly, a few days ago, that all stopped.
Not only did they cease publishing my comments on the accused rogue cop trial, they stopped covering it themselves completely.
Folks, this is an example of what my boy, Noam Chomsky calls:
‘Manufacturing Consent’
If people only hear one side of an issue and only half of the overall facts on the issue, they are likely to side with the manipulators?
Nope, not in present day San Francisco.
They cannot keep my thoughts from San Francisco voters.
They can’t keep anyone’s thoughts from any set of an audience to which they wish to appeal.
You don’t have to cut down forests to be deemed a legitimate voice today, you just need a keyboard and a 35 buck a month Monkey Brains hook-up.
And, most importantly, as Chomsky notes, you have to craft your message in a manner that will make your readers laugh their asses off.
Worked for Mark Twain.
Another cousin of mine.
Mom’s mom’s Clemens branch.
The new San Francisco voter is smarter than the Print media.
Boudin is already big winner in this Stangel/Spiers trial.
He’s got himself a minor, ‘Case of First Impression’.
Win or lose on the decision, Chesa wins on the permanent effect on the behavior of bad cops.
Won’t matter one single bit to good cops except they’ll be less likely to cover up for thug peers if lying in court for the rogues could cost them their own badges.
Boudin crushes the Recall cause the New San Francisco Voter can tell the difference in the Fox News style reporting of the Chronicle and Examiner and the new Standard …
and, the new Real deal.
Go Giants if the billionaires will let you,
h.
Another day at SFPD
LO-freakin’-L @ “As a matter of practice”:
“The interviews were disclosed in a confidential San Francisco Police Department Investigative Services Detail. “As a matter of practice, SFPD does not disclose records contained in an open SFPD ISD investigations because disclosure of those records may negatively impact the pending criminal investigation or any pending related matters brought by SFDA IIB,” a police representative stated in the court documents.”
Translation: “COA*, yo.”
*Cover OUR asses
😀