SFPD Hunts for Paperwork in Wake of Accusation Against Officers
Jaxon Van Derbeken, The San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco police missed a self-imposed deadline Tuesday for giving prosecutors the investigative report into an alleged beating by three off-duty officers -- as police inspectors sought internal documents to determine whether there had been a coverup.
Sources familiar with the probe into why police didn’t seize key evidence at the scene of the incident said investigators were seeking officer disciplinary records, lists of officers who were on duty when the alleged beating happened early last Wednesday and cell phone records of officers and their supervisors.
Police investigators had told District Attorney Terence Hallinan last week that they would give him their report on the incident by Tuesday.
But as that deadline came and went, prosecutors and police said the report wouldn’t be forwarded to Hallinan until next week at the earliest.
Prosecutors said they were willing to wait, but only for so long.
“This is not an open-ended arrangement,” said Mark MacNamara, spokesman for Hallinan, adding that at this point, prosecutors are satisfied that the case is going forward.
The investigation concerns how police handled the initial probe into whether the three off-duty officers -- who include Officer Alex Fagan Jr., son of the department’s second-in-command, Assistant Chief Alex Fagan Sr. -- assaulted two men outside the Blue Light bar on Union Street just before 2:30 a.m. last Wednesday.
VICTIM SAYS NOSE WAS BROKEN
One of the men, 25-year-old Jade Santoro, has said he suffered a broken nose and head wound. The other, 23-year-old Adam Snyder, a bartender at the Blue Light, said the three men attacked him and Santoro after Snyder refused to surrender a bag of steak fajitas.
After meeting with police Friday, Hallinan said the investigators acknowledged that they could not explain why evidence, including clothes and shoes that might have been stained with blood, was not seized at the scene from the younger Fagan and Officers David Lee, 23, and Matthew Tonsing, 27.
Police also couldn’t explain why the three officers were allowed to leave without the victims having an opportunity to identify them.
Sources in the department said the police investigative report, which prosecutors would rely on in determining whether charges should be filed, would be incomplete without the internal records sought by the department’s general work detail.
The records would point to who made key decisions about the handling of the case.
“This case is not going to be an overnight investigation,” said Lt. Joe Dutto, who oversees the general work detail. “We are not making any quick assumptions -- it’s not going to be done tomorrow.”
Police aren’t the only ones who want to know who was on scene that night and at the department’s Northern Station several hours later, when the three officers showed up and, according to witnesses, were pumped full of water to cleanse their systems of alcohol.
The officers are required to account for themselves to the department as a condition of keeping their jobs, but they refused to give statements to criminal investigators.
The city’s civilian police watchdog agency, the Office of Citizen Complaints, has asked the department for a list of officers present during the early investigation. As of Tuesday, the agency had received no reply.
COMPLAINT RECEIVED
The agency said Monday that it had received a complaint regarding the incident. Its investigation could lead to recommendations that individual officers be disciplined.
Donna Medley, the agency’s acting director, said Police Chief Earl Sanders had earlier promised that police would move quickly on any document requests.
“Right now, we are trying to negotiate a more open, fluid policy,” she said. “This will kind of be the proof of the pudding, if they respond to this in a timely way.”
With the investigation proceeding slowly, an attorney for Santoro said he wanted a probe into whether someone in the Police Department had leaked details of his client’s minor criminal history to the press.
Court records show that Santoro has a reckless driving conviction on his record, paid a $100 fine for a misdemeanor marijuana offense and was arrested as a minor figure in a pot bust in October.
Santoro was taken into custody at a home on 31st Avenue in the Sunset where he had been staying.
Authorities said he threw 20 pounds of marijuana out a window when police arrived, but prosecutors dropped a charge of destroying evidence. Santoro now faces a lone count of possessing marijuana for sale.
Affidavits filed in support of a related raid by San Francisco police, FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said the narcotics unit was targeting alleged marijuana dealer Hui Leung, nicknamed “Trouble.”
Altogether, they seized more than $450,000 cash and handguns in addition to the 20 pounds of marijuana.
Andrew Schwartz, civil attorney for Santoro, said his client had been subjected to a smear campaign.
“Who’s going to lead the internal affairs investigation into who leaked my client’s rap sheet?” Schwartz said. “My client’s only criminal record is a reckless driving and a simple misdemeanor conviction for possession of marijuana.”
He said it appears police are spending more time “throwing dirt on this crime victim than they are trying to investigate the crime itself.”
Schwartz said he hopes to meet with the district attorney’s office soon to discuss how the case will be handled.