SF police get an earful from city supervisors about leaked Adachi report (original) (raw)

San Francisco Police Cmdr. Greg McEachern waits to appear before the Government Audit and Oversight committee to face questions on information leaked to the media on the investigation in the death of public defender Jeff Adachi at City Hall in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, April 18, 2019.Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

San Francisco supervisors castigated the city’s Police Department Thursday over a pair of recent stumbles in which sensitive private information — including an incident report related to the death of former Public Defender Jeff Adachi, a vocal police critic — was improperly released to the public.

Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer first called for the hearing following the improper release of a confidential police report documenting Adachi’s death that was obtained by multiple news outlets, including The Chronicle, in the days after he was pronounced dead. Adachi’s widow, Mutsuko Adachi, attended the hearing and called the police department’s actions “despicable.”

Police Commander Greg McEachern said the Adachi family deserved an apology, “and I’m offering that today.” Adachi died Feb. 22.

Article continues below this ad

Remarks from a deputy public defender at the Government Audit and Oversight Committee meeting also suggested that a copy of the leaked report had been shopped to media outlets for $2,500. Investigations into the improper release of the report are ongoing.

More For You

The hearing also addressed an incident last year during which Gary Delagnes, former president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, used a confidential criminal rap sheet as a political prop during a public safety forum. State law prohibited Delagnes from having access to that information. An investigation into the incident appears to have gone nowhere, since Delagnes was not a police officer at the time and it couldn’t be determined whose rap sheet it was.

The failure to control the flow of sensitive information, supervisors argued, eroded public trust in the police department. The unauthorized release of the Adachi report — a major breach of investigatory protocol — was seen by some people as an attempt to denigrate his legacy. Adachi was a reliable adversary and critic of the police department during his 17 years as San Francisco’s public defender.

“When there are these politically motivated attacks on individuals, whether it’s the public defender or a member of our community, it absolutely erodes the public trust in the police department, in your ability to be objective — to serve the community in a way that we can all rely on and depend on,” Supervisor Hillary Ronen said, addressing McEachern and Acting Capt. William Braconi.

Article continues below this ad

Supervisor Hillary Ronen joins the Government Audit and Oversight committee to ask police officials questions about information leaked to the media on the investigation in the death of public defender Jeff Adachi at City Hall in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, April 18, 2019.Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

Ronen’s husband, Francisco Ugarte, manages the Immigration Defense Unit within the Public Defender’s Office.

The Chronicle obtained a police report containing photographs and details taken from the Telegraph Hill apartment where Adachi lost consciousness. He was using the apartment with the permission of a friend and real estate agent, and spent the day with a female companion who called 911 after he became unresponsive. Paramedics were called to the apartment at 5:45 p.m. Adachi was pronounced dead just over an hour later.

Police officials launched an internal investigation into the report’s premature release. Braconi said Thursday two separate investigations into the incident are ongoing — one of possible criminal misconduct, the other an internal administrative probe.

Braconi said he hoped the investigations would wrap up “in weeks, not months. That’s what I’m shooting for.” Braconi called the release of the report “totally inappropriate.”

Article continues below this ad

Ten of the 11 supervisors called for the hearing. The exception was District Two Supervisor Catherine Stefani. She was endorsed by the SFPOA, the SFPD’s union, prior to her election to the District Two seat last November.

Adachi died Feb. 22 at age 59 at California Pacific Medical Center’s Pacific Campus. In an autopsy report released last month, the San Francisco medical examiner attributed the cause of death to a mixture of cocaine and alcohol, which put an immense strain on his already damaged heart. Mayor London Breed named Manohar Raju as Adachi’s successor on March 11.

Because the police department’s internal investigations are ongoing, details about them remain scant. But one wrinkle emerged Thursday after Deputy Public Defender Hadi Razzaq told the supervisors that his office might have provided investigators with a lead.

Razzaq said another deputy public defender, Jackson Holland, made contact with an unnamed reporter from KRON-TV who indicated that “a stringer” — normally, a freelance reporter not on staff — was offering to sell copies of the report to news outlets for $2,500 apiece.

According to a memo Holland wrote describing the encounter, the KRON reporter did not purchase the report, but that there were other news outlets that could. The reporter, “seemed frustrated” that the other news groups “could afford the report and hers could not.”

Article continues below this ad

KRON did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident. Holland’s memo was sent to investigators.

The Chronicle did not pay for the police report.

“The information our office obtained suggests very strongly that the police report in Jeff’s case was sold to the media,” said Matt Gonzalez, chief attorney in the public defender’s office. “If true, it represents a significant lapse in ethics and it betrays the public trust. That this happened in a matter involving an elected official who sometimes battled the police only further troubles us.”

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa

April 18, 2019|Updated April 18, 2019 6:25 p.m.

Dominic Fracassa is an assistant metro editor overseeing breaking news and criminal justice in San Francisco. He previously covered San Francisco City Hall as a staff writer.