Dacari Spiers, the man who was at the center of San Francisco’s historic 2022 police use-of-force criminal case, has been confirmed by the San Francisco Medical Examiner as the victim who was killed in Saturday morning’s shooting in the Mission.
Spiers was 36 when he was gunned down near 15th Street and Wiese Alley early Saturday.
In October 2019, San Francisco police Officer Terrance Stangel beat an unarmed Spiers with a baton in the street, after police were called on Spiers and his girlfriend near Fisherman’s Wharf. While a 911 caller alleged that a domestic violence incident was taking place, Spiers and then-girlfriend Breonna Richard were not in contact when police arrived and no domestic violence incident has ever been validated.
Officer Cuauhtémoc Martinez very quickly went “hands-on” with Spiers, according to body-worn camera footage; Spiers physically resisted. Stangel then proceeded to strike Spiers eight times with a telescoping metal baton; Spiers sustained a broken wrist and leg, and ultimately won a $700,000 settlement from the city, the largest excessive-force settlement in San Francisco since at least 2010.
Spiers’ plight drew widespread attention as District Attorney Chesa Boudin filed the city’s first criminal charges against a San Francisco police officer for on-duty brutality in 2022; Spiers’ case was the first and only one of those cases to go to trial. A jury did not find that Stangel’s acts rose to the level of a crime. It acquitted Stangel on three counts, and hung on a fourth charge.
A witness to Saturday’s shooting said they heard arguing in the alley between 15th and 16th streets around 4 a.m. before two gunshots were fired. It is unclear what caused the shooting, and the shooter has not been arrested.
Rebecca Young, a prosecutor on the criminal case, said that the beating “was not something [Spiers] could just shrug off … he was broken by it.”
“It’s sad and it’s tragic, because Dacari is the classic child of trauma, and trauma that was undiagnosed and untreated and unmedicated,” said Young. “And this is the result. Children who come from traumatic childhoods that’s left undiagnosed and untreated will always travel through life adrift.”
Spiers was a rapper under the name Mr. FYB, and his online music profile says he was the father of two sons. On Sunday, the woman he is in a relationship with on Facebook posted an image of the couple with a heartbroken emoji.
“Being a plaintiff in a high-profile civil-rights lawsuit against the police was hard for Dacari, because he found himself the center of a divisive narrative, and he felt a lot of pressure,” said attorney Curtis Briggs, who represented Spiers in his civil lawsuit against the city. “Many lies were told about him. He just wanted the best for everyone, including the police. More than anything, he wanted change in his own life, and he wanted to do something positive for his family and the community. He had a good heart.”
The SFPD’s homicide unit is investigating this shooting. Anyone with information is asked to call the SFPD Tip Line at 1-415-575-4444 or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the text message with SFPD.
RIP Dacari bless your heart ❤️ we will miss you but we will never forget you, we will keep you in our hearts and God will keep you in his arms,
I am so messed up in the head about dacari, me and his father are like brother and sister and I used to babysit him and his sister a lot when they were young he is like my Son for real , I’m going to miss my baby very much, to me he was a kind and loving person it’s a very big loss ,he had so much more life to live
He was a bright kind who want it change of life for himself bhe always greets me with open arms
I’m soooooo sad tomorrow ain’t gone be no better
BONNIE
FreeSomethin2B$omethin
I’m gone miss you to death then past death.. my condolences to his bloodline but shit blood couldn’t make us no thicker “freeyab
Bonnie love