San Francisco Police Probed

One of Many Law-Enforcement Corruption Cases Opened By Justice Department

SAN FRANCISCO—A videotape found more than a year ago by a defense lawyer in a routine drug case has helped spark this city's biggest police-misconduct probe in years—one of numerous investigations into law-enforcement practices being conducted nationwide by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The tape, attorney Scott Sugarman says, showed his client dressed in a black jacket as police arrested him. But officers wrote in statements that the defendant was wearing a white jacket that contained drugs. The drug-possession case was dismissed by prosecutors.

Dozens of other instances have since surfaced where officers' written statements allegedly conflicted with surveillance videos or other evidence. San Francisco's district attorney dismissed dozens of such cases, and asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate.

Now federal prosecutors are moving forward with a probe that examines, in part, whether San Francisco police made arrests under false pretenses while conducting investigations, many of them concerning the poor people who live in the Henry and other residential hotels, say people briefed on the investigation.

The prosecutors have already brought at least three city police officers in front of a grand jury, say officials with the city's police union, and have issued subpoenas to witnesses of alleged misconduct, says a person familiar with the matter.

Prosecutors questioned the officers on a series of cases in which evidence, including videotapes, appears to show officers entering the hotels without warrants, taking items from residents, and filing false paperwork, say three people familiar with the probe. The police who have testified before the grand jury are likely witnesses, rather than targets, say people briefed on the matter. It's not clear how many officers are being investigated, these people say, though it could be more than a dozen.

A police department spokesman declined to comment. A police union official says members believe local politics has played a role in the investigation.

The San Francisco investigation comes as the Justice Department is scrutinizing potential civil-rights violations in at least 20 police departments across the U.S., Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roy Austin said in a speech last month. A Justice Department spokeswoman says the department's police-abuse probes are the most in its history, and that curbing civil-rights violations is a priority for the department now.

As a result of one of these investigations, the Justice department said it found that Seattle police used too much force when arresting mentally ill people for minor offenses. The department is also investigating whether police in Portland, Ore., and Miami, Fla., engaged in civil-rights abuses in a series of shootings in recent years.

A Miami police spokesman said the police are cooperating with the Justice Department. A Portland police spokesman said the department was notified about the probe last year. A Seattle police spokesman said the department is discussing the findings with Justice.

The criminal investigation in San Francisco is different from those civil probes because officers could go to prison.

San Francisco U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag declined to comment on the investigation.

A year ago, Ms. Haag created a special division in her office to probe priority areas including law-enforcement corruption. Now they're handled by a small group of senior prosecutors.

In recent months they have charged the head of a state drug task force east of San Francisco with stealing drug evidence and shaking down prostitutes, and indicted a San Francisco crime lab worker on charges connected to allegedly snorting evidence.

A lawyer for the crime lab worker said his client is fighting the charges. The former drug task force chief has pleaded not guilty, though his lawyer says he admits to some wrongdoing.

The circumstances leading to the grand jury probe developed last year, as San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who is elected, began searching for instances where officers' documentation from arrests conflicted with other evidence.

In July Mr. Adachi hired a former American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who specializes in police-misconduct cases to see whether there were more examples. The attorney, Jay Rorty, says his office identified dozens of questionable cases and he worked to get some dismissed.

In response to the allegations, the police department has placed "a number" of officers on administrative leave, a police spokesman said, while San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon had prosecutors in his office review cases for possible misconduct, including some of those identified by Mr. Adachi.

As a result of the review, Mr. Gascon's office has dismissed 137 cases over the past year, a spokeswoman said.

Normally, said Omid Talai, a felony prosecutor in the DA's office, "it's very rare" to dismiss a case because an officer is under criminal investigation. Many of these were dismissed, he says, because police who made the arrests were suspended from active duty due to the probe and weren't available to testify. In a hearing last fall in a dismissed drug cases, lawyers for two officers said that if called to testify, their clients would invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination.

Kevin Martin, the vice president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, says his union members are worried that Mr. Adachi—who ran unsuccessfully for mayor last year—has pushed the cases out of a desire to advance politically. Mr. Adachi "got a lot of mileage out of going after cops," Mr. Martin says.

But Mr. Adachi says: "This is not about politics, it's about preserving and protecting the public trust."

Write to Justin Scheck at justin.scheck@wsj.com

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