San Francisco's police oversight body is accusing the District Attorney's Office of impeding investigations of police shootings by refusing to share evidence with the watchdog, according to correspondence obtained by The Standard.
Since January, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has refused to hand over police reports and body camera footage, among other materials, from four police shootings, arguing that such evidence is part of open investigations that are confidential, according to a letter from the Department of Police Accountability.
The nearly yearlong feud over access to evidence raises new worries that the DA’s actions could undermine police reform efforts and undermine the agency’s commitment to fully investigate potential criminal acts committed by police officers.
Now, the matter is set to come before the Police Commission, which is the civilian oversight body for the police department. The Department of Police Accountability (DPA), which is tasked with heading up police misconduct investigations, as well as police shooting misconduct investigations since 2016, has asked the commission to step in and force the police to hand over the material the DA refuses to share. The commission is expecting a response from the DA in late December and will decide on the next steps in the matter in early 2024.
While the commission has yet to take action on the matter, Police Commissioner Kevin Benedicto said the issue is threatening to kneecap reforms that came out of the U.S. Department of Justice review of SFPD in 2016.
“San Francisco voters have given DPA charter authority to conduct [police shooting] independent investigations, and DPA should receive all relevant documents for those investigations. It would be very disappointing to see this progress reversed and for DPA to not have access to the materials it is entitled to receive to complete a thorough investigation,” he said.
The DPA says exchanges of such material were routine before Jenkins’ office stopped sharing them earlier this year.
“DPA requested that SFPD provide basic documents such as the police report and body-worn camera footage, and SFPD has refused … on behalf of the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office,” the DPA’s letter said. “DPA has investigated numerous SFPD [police shootings] with the prompt and full cooperation of the SFPD—up until this year.”
From April 2019 to December 2022, San Francisco had seven police shootings, and all but one were investigated jointly by the SFPD, the DA’s Independent Investigations Bureau (IIB) and the police accountability department, according to the agency.
But the Department of Police Accountability has only had limited access to case evidence in this year’s four fatal police shooting incidents: Sergio Barrios, 40, was killed May 19 in Bernal Heights; on June 22, Marc Child was killed by an officer at his parents’ Richmond District home; on July 26, police shot and killed Ryant Bluford, 41, in the Bayview; Zhanyuan Yang, 31, was shot and killed by police Oct. 9 after ramming his car into the Chinese consulate.
“What is most puzzling about this request is DPA has participated in viewing the crime scenes of all of the incidents, viewed [body camera] footage, and virtually sat in on interviews of officers and witnesses conducted by IIB in relation to the incidents,” continued the letter.
In response, the police department told the Police Commission that it cannot share the documents and other material because it is not responsible for the criminal investigation of police shootings—the DA is.
“To protect the integrity of these investigations, the District Attorney maintains that all evidence, generated either by the District Attorney or the Police Department, belongs to the District Attorney and may not be disclosed to third parties until the close of the criminal investigation,” said the department’s Oct. 13 letter.
The SFPD letter also argues that the Police Commission does not have the authority to force the DA’s Office to do anything, as it is an independent elected office.
Jenkins denied the allegation that her office has obstructed police accountability department investigations and claimed that the oversight agency, like other administrative investigators, should wait for the criminal investigation to end before receiving confidential evidence so that it does not interfere with the investigation.
“Any insinuation by DPA or anyone that the District Attorney’s Office is obstructing DPA’s investigation is patently false,” she said.
She did not say why certain information is being withheld while other evidence is not or how the office decides what the Department of Police Accountability should have access to.
This is not the first time the issue of sharing information related to police shootings has been the source of conflict.
The issue of police and the DA sharing documents goes back to February 2022 when Police Chief Bill Scott walked away from an agreement with then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin. That agreement, which has yet to be renewed, governed what evidence would be shared in police shooting cases investigated by the DA.
Scott accused the DA of violating the terms of the agreement by withholding evidence in a case against an officer accused of using excessive force. Since Brooke Jenkins took office last year, the SFPD and her office have worked under a temporary agreement on the matter.
Boudin had upset rank-and-file police officers and their union by filing unprecedented criminal charges against three officers who had shot and injured or killed people while on duty.
Since taking office in July 2022, Jenkins has dismissed every police shooting case that Boudin filed and, former DA staffers say, worked to declaw the unit that investigates such cases.