San Francisco DA readies 3 trials of officers, seeks more help

San Francisco County District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who pledged when he took office in January to crack down on police misconduct, is now gearing up for three criminal trials against Bay Area police officers.

And that number may soon grow to four, according to a spokesperson for Boudin, who said Tuesday that he plans to refile an excessive force case against two Alameda County sheriff's deputies that his prosecutors dismissed earlier this year.

Boudin, who has branded himself as a progressive district attorney focused on finding alternatives to incarceration, recently wrote a letter to San Francisco Mayor London Breed pleading for additional funding to fill positions in his felony and homicide units, saying caseloads "have reached a tipping point."

David Campos, Boudin's chief of staff, said in an interview that Boudin's request for more high-level prosecutors is consistent with his vision of reducing incarceration levels.

"The fact that we're asking for more attorneys doesn't mean that this is about putting more people in jail," Campos said. "To the contrary, we need to have enough attorneys so that the workload is reasonable so that they can decide what is the appropriate action in these cases."

Campos said the mayor has since granted funding to allow Boudin to hire at least three attorneys.

"We want our attorneys to have a reasonable caseload so that they can put in the time needed to take the right action with respect to each case," Campos said. "That may be seeking incarceration, and then that also may be seeking alternatives to incarceration."

On Monday, Boudin filed felony battery and assault charges against San Francisco Police Officer Terrance Stangel, whom Boudin said unlawfully beat an unarmed Black man in 2019, breaking his leg and wrist and requiring surgery, after responding to a 911 call of a man strangling a woman at a popular tourist spot.

A week earlier, a grand jury indicted rookie San Francisco Police Officer Christopher Flores and Jamaica Hampton, the man Flores shot in 2019 after allegedly being attacked with a glass bottle in the city's Mission District. Earlier this year Boudin dropped assault charges against Hampton, whose leg had to be amputated after the shooting, without prejudice in what he said was an effort to avoid conflicts while he investigated the officer involved in the shooting.

And in late November, Boudin charged another former rookie officer, Christopher Samoya, with manslaughter after he fatally shot a man through the windshield of a moving police car in 2017.

"Officers responding to a call have a duty to promote public safety, not to turn to violence as a show of authority," Boudin said in a statement after charges were announced against Stangel this week.

Stangel's attorney, Nicole Pifari of Rains Lucia Stern St. Phalle & Silver PC, said she has evidence "that will clear Officer Stangel of these false and malicious accusations from the DA."

"Officer Terrance Stangel and his partner were doing exactly what society asks them to do -- putting themselves at risk by attempting to protect an individual reportedly being strangled," Pifari said in a statement.

According to prosecutors, Stangel and his partner were responding to a 911 call reporting a man assaulting a woman at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco when they were directed to Dacari Spiers and his girlfriend. Prosecutors said officers "did not observe any physical violence or unlawful conduct by either of them," but continued to order them to turn around while ignoring questions from Spiers about what he had done.

Body camera footage captured much of the incident, prosecutors said. Stangel is alleged to have approached Spiers from behind, striking him with a baton, before continuing to strike him when he was on the ground.

In a federal civil lawsuit filed in February against the city, Spiers' attorney, Michael R. Seville of Seville Brigg, LLP, said Spiers and his girlfriend "were engaging each other in a loving embrace when San Francisco police officers suddenly attacked Mr. Spiers."

"Mr. Spiers was repeatedly struck with wood or metal batons in a manner which could have resulted in death," Spiers' attorneys wrote. They said he was struck 10 to 15 times and had lost consciousness during the attack.

City Attorney Dennis J. Herrera denied virtually every one of Spiers' claims and asked for a jury trial to settle the matter. Dacari Spiers v. City and County of San Francisco et al., 3:20-cv-01357 (N.D. Cal. Filed Feb. 24, 2020).

Prosecutors said Monday that Spiers was never arrested and that he suffered injuries that required him to be in a wheelchair after the attack.

"This case is an example of an officer unnecessarily escalating a situation and then violently beating a Black man whom he had no legal basis to even arrest," Boudin said in a statement. "Officers who not only fail to promote safety but actively harm others must, and in my administration will, be held accountable."

Pifari called Boudin's accusations repulsive.

"Everyone in San Francisco should be concerned the DA can't get his facts straight and is attempting to frame an innocent officer who was doing what society asks of him: Protect the public," she said.

Rachel Marshall, a DA spokesperson, responded in an email saying, "Officer Stangel's attorney is attempting to distract from Officer Stangel's alleged abusive and unlawful conduct, which is the sole basis of the charges in the complaint."

In March, Boudin dismissed felony assault and battery charges against two Alameda County sheriff's deputies in a similar case. Deputies Paul Wieber and Luis Santamaria were fired in 2016 after the county settled a civil rights lawsuit with the man they were caught on video beating in a Mission District alley after chasing him across the Bay Bridge.

Boudin dismissed the charges against the deputies, which were filed by his predecessor, George Gascón, who left for a successful bid to become DA in Los Angeles County. The motion to continue had been denied and the prosecution's key witness, a police practice expert in Virginia, could not attend hearings within their statutory time frame due to a medical procedure that prevented him from traveling for more than an hour at a time, according to the DA's motion to dismiss. People v. Luis Santamaria; Paul Wieber, 228870 (S.F. Sup. Ct. Filed March 12, 2020).

"It was a procedural, what's often called a first dismissal, and the DA has made very clear repeatedly that he is committed to that prosecution and will refile the case," said Marshall.

Boudin said the case against Stangel is being prosecuted by his office's Independent Investigation Bureau, which investigates and prosecutes cases involving officers accused of breaking the law. He said prosecutors are not requesting that Stangel be held in custody pretrial.